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Chris Gardner believes in ghosts.
“There is a life after death,” the founder of Bangor’s Paranormal Investigation Inc. said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing anxiously at his eyes. “There has to be. Our energy can’t be destroyed, there’s so much of it. It just goes into another form.”
Gardner, an Old Town native and junior anthropology major at the University of Maine, has been fascinated with the idea of the paranormal since he was a young child.
“I always read a lot about ghosts and other dimensions and heard a lot of stories from friends and family… My sister had some experiences, she used to be very in tune to that kind of thing. I have had some experiences that could have been paranormal, but I was never really sure.”
This year, Gardner finally decided to find out. Teaming up with a former co-worker, Brian Lund, Cathy Stewart; a psychic from the Belfast area and a host of electronic gadgets, Gardner formed Paranormal Investigation Inc., to study cases of ghostly activity all over Maine.
“We take everything,” Gardner says, digging his business card out of his briefcase, “Ghosts, hauntings, possessions, crypto zoology, abductions, monsterology, you name it.
“We use camcorders, audio recorders, thermometers and electronic sensors to try to capture everything. There is a lot of stuff that you can capture with these devices that the ordinary individual would not perceive.”
Gardner, who hopes to graduate next year from UMaine with a specialty degree in Native American folklore, casually runs through the three major types of hauntings his team has dealt with recently.
“First there’s the echo type,” he says. “It’s like a video being played back. Under certain conditions you can see a person walking, but they never interact with you…The second and third types usually cause a little more concern. There’s the poltergeist, where things disappear, things show up at random times.”
Most dangerous, Gardner notes, are demons, the third and most infrequent form of paranormal activity.
“A demon is an entity that was never in human form, it’s harder to get rid of and can cause a lot of harm,” he said.
The investigator said countless studies and volumes of work have proved the existence of paranormal activity but not everyone is so easily convinced.
“Some stuff like the Blair Witch is a hoax, folklore,” he said. “But “The Exorcist,” for example, is based on a true story. I think nearly everyone has had some kind of paranormal experience. And that’s what we work off of.”
So far Paranormal Investigation Inc. has been fairly successful.
“We’ve had about a dozen cases,” Gardner said, “For now, more or less, we work on a donation basis, with allowances for film, cameras, tapes, unless it’s something major. Then we ask our clients for a nominal fee.”
Gardner offers a few tips for thrill seeking college students. Lay off those Ouija boards and never, ever, commit to any form of s�ance.
“That’s one thing we really don’t want people to do. You may end up bringing something out, a demon or harmful spirit.” And those, Gardner said, are harder to get back to the other dimension.
“Any form of channeling has the potential to bring something out that we won’t be able to get back in.”
So does he ever get scared?
The investigator laughs, and leans forward, fingering a small metal peace sign that rests above his Adam’s apple.
“I’ve had some times I’ve gotten pretty nervous. I bring a blessed cross on every investigation I take. You’ve got to have a healthy fear towards these things, stuff can come back to haunt you.”
Chris Gardner can be reached in his downtown Bangor office on Harlow Street or by calling 207-471-9437.
Bangor Daily News