by Rachael Wilson

Created on: July 04, 2007

I am a former ghost hunter, living and working in Denver, Colorado. One morning, I was having coffee with my parents, telling them about an upcoming investigation at a plane crash site.

"Why are you doing this? Don't you think you're delving into something better left alone?" they asked.

The answer is that I'm doing this because I really do want to understand what happens when we die. I want to help someone who is lost, and really if they were alive, trapped somewhere, are they better left alone then?

It would be unconscionable to leave someone in trouble. Alive or Dead.

My mom is very concerned about my ghostly interests, always has been and was really hoping I'd outgrow it.

"This goes against everything we believe, that when we die, we go to heaven." she argued.

There are two problems with this. First, I believe death can be a trauma to the soul. In this incident, the plane crash, it was death in a millisecond, and the victims had no idea they'd been killed. Time is a human concept, these souls are reliving that moment, and react to that moment. They don't move forward because they cannot conceive of TIME beyond that moment.

The second problem is free will. Even Christians believe we function as humans with free will. We ACCEPT Christ's love, choose to be forgiven and saved, it isn't automatic. Are these souls just bad people? Of course not, that idea is patently ridiculous. I think that we can only move forward with our own acceptance. I believe whatever it is that impacts our subconscious as the promise of what happens when we die (choir of angels, old relatives, etc.) will be what we see when we pass over. However, If we cannot recognize that we've passed over, we won't see those things.

I'm not dead. I have no more idea of what happens when we die than anyone else, only theories. When we are working on sites we believe are "haunted", the first question we have is "why?" My job is to research the site, get some history. More often than not, I have very little to go on. When I do have some good information, there can still be that question.

I arrive at my beliefs based upon the investigation, and my experiences. When we get EVP, electronic voice phenomena, or clairvoyant messages, they can be crystal clear. Many times, the spirits react to us like they are as human as we are. This is a pretty good indicator that they don't know they're on the other side. Its a thin veil, and sometimes our intent can be misinterpreted. So many hauntings seem to be a "get out of my house" issue. The new owners are "invading" the house, while the spirits feel that they still "live" there.

Our neighbors house is haunted. The spirit, they believe, is the former owner, good friends of my parents, and someone we knew well in life. When the new neighbor came over and asked what the former owner looked like, I knew something was up. She then started our conversation with "Please don't think I'm crazy..." The haunting began the first week they moved in. She has seen him, full bodied apparition. They've felt cold spots, seen mist, taken photos of orbs. They're scared, and all I can feel is empathy for our poor old friend. Clearly, he thinks they are invading his space. He wanders around, looking at the new people, trying to find his wife (we know where she is, but how do you explain that to her? her husband is still in the house?)

We will continue to examine why spirits hang on, and bridge the gap between the planes of existence. What happens when we die?

What do you think?

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