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KPBS Evening Edition

The Association Of Paranormal Study

Tracking A Ghost At Tenth Avenue Theatre

The Association Of Paranormal Study

When I went to record my Midday Movies segment about the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival at Tenth Avenue Theatre earlier this month, I met up with a group of ghost hunters on the trail of a spirit roaming the theater.

The supernatural is all the rage with "Paranormal Activity 4" topping last weekend's box office and realty TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures" continuing their popularity.

Here in San Diego, Alex Matsuo and her Association of Paranormal Study were at 10th Avenue Theater investigating ghosts.

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ALEX MATSUO: We are on the 4th floor of the Tenth Avenue Theatre. This particular location is where a young girl had fallen down the stairs and died and the legend is that her spirit hangs out still in the stairwell. And 2 of our team members have heard a voice of a young child out mommy. Basically what we are doing is we're revisiting some of the old places where we went to where we got activity and just kind of push a little further to see what kind of response we get... This is a K2 meter and actually what this does is it measures EMFs, electro-magnetic fields, ghosts carry some electrical energy with them so you know if a spirit were to come close this would go off. Often times when people report paranormal experiences what they report is all of a sudden the room temperature changes so basically when we get that then we shoot the temperature gun and then it tells us the temperature. We're also going to use something called a spirit box which is kind of like a broken radio and we're going to ask the spirit box questions and basically we're gonna see what words pop up because the spirit box goes through a database of words and depending on what presence is there you know certain words will pop up and we'll see if they are consistent with our investigation. We want to be more a beacon of hope to those who have had paranormal experiences and let them know that they are not alone there are people out there to help them.

After spending a night at 10th Avenue, Matsuo and her team reported hearing footsteps and their spirit box suggested as many as 8 ghosts roaming the building.

Ghost hunting is by no means a science but there are more than a half dozen paranormal societies here in San Diego who believe we should keep an open mind to the possibilities -- especially around Halloween.