CREEPING INTO DOWNTOWN'S GHOSTLY LAIR.Byline: Jenifer Hanrahan Daily News Staff Writer The elevator door dragged itself open with a whine, sending roaches scuttling Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull. This can be achieved in several ways - valves or hatches can be opened to the sea, or holes may be ripped into the hull with brute force or with explosives. across a mottled mottled /mot·tled/ (mot´ld) marked by spots or blotches of different colors or shades. carpet. Fitful fit·ful adj. Occurring in or characterized by intermittent bursts, as of activity; irregular. See Synonyms at periodic. fit shadows darted across yellowed walls as parapsychologist par·a·psy·chol·o·gy n. The study of the evidence for psychological phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, that are inexplicable by science. Larry Montz prepared for a night's work. Up on the 11th floor of the once-grand Alexandria Hotel, where the reaches of the hallways disappear in darkness Adv. 1. in darkness - without light; "the river was sliding darkly under the mist" darkly , a team of paranormal paranormal, adj 1. outside the realm of normal experience or scientific explanation. n 2. collective term for anomalous phenomena. researchers went hunting for ghosts. Built in 1906 and bankrupted in 1932, the downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or landmark was formerly the haunt of American presidents and Hollywood legends. Nowadays the 12-story building on Fifth and Spring streets is home to drug dealers and families who rent rooms by the week or month. But Montz and his researchers see beyond the surface of the old hotel. Montz is head of the 12-member International Society for Paranormal Research. For $5 a head, they'll give you an after-dark tour of Hollywood's Vogue Theatre, an 800-seat movie house that closed a few years ago. They say it's haunted by a group of mischievous children who died in a schoolhouse fire on the site some hundred years ago. Seats left up are inexplicably found pushed down. Someone, or something, has been spotted peeking out from the projection room projection room n (CINE) → cabina de proyección projection room n (Cine) → cabine f de projection projection room window. The group also offers nightly tours to haunted sites in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . For $60 a person, you can go on a ``Ghost Expedition'' and participate in a paranormal investigation. In the 1970s and '80s, several major universities in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. had paranormal research departments, but by the '90s most researchers lost their funding or were either embarrassed or frustrated into other fields. Montz bills himself as the only full-time field parapsychologist left. His mission: explaining unexplained phenomenon - from extra-sensory perception Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) is defined as ability to acquire information by paranormal means independent of any known physical senses or deduction from previous experience. The term was coined by Duke University researcher J. B. to moving objects through mind power. At the Alexandria Hotel, Montz says, there's more than meets the eye More Than Meets the Eye was the three-part series premiere for the 1984 cartoon The Transformers. The three-part pilot was originally known simply as The Transformers . It's also laden with spirits from beyond the grave, a dwelling place of otherwordly spirits. If, that is, you believe in ghosts. Picking up vibrations We reach the 11th floor at the witching hour - Montz, two clairvoyants, several research assistants, a couple of tourists and a gaggle of reporters. Montz distributes equipment - thermometers, compasses, a video camera, a magnetometer (to detect changes in electrical fields that indicate a ghost is hanging around) and dowsing dowsing Occult practice used for finding water, minerals, or other hidden substances. A dowser generally uses a Y-shaped piece of hazel, rowan, or willow wood (also called a dowser or a divining rod). rods (Y-shaped devices that have been used in the occult since the Middle Ages). The person holding the rod is believed to be receiving transmissions from the entity, causing muscle spasms that point the rod toward the hidden energy. The ghost gripped Daena Smoller's throat even before he could finish handing out clipboards. ``My heart is racing,'' Smoller says, moving her fingers lightly across her neck. ``It feels very oppressive on my chest ... it hurts.'' Smoller and Maria Saganis are not only the group's general manager and human resources manager, respectively. They can also channel spirits. Smoller, a former country-music disc jockey, met Montz during a trip to New Orleans, where he offered tours of haunted sites before moving to Los Angeles a few months ago. Saganis discovered her abilities as a child. Her worried parents tried psychiatrists and even an exorcism exorcism (ĕk`sôrsĭz'əm), ritual act of driving out evil demons or spirits from places, persons, or things in which they are thought to dwell. It occurs both in primitive societies and in the religions of sophisticated cultures. to get her to stop. Because ghosts can cause scientific gadgetry gadg·et·ry n. 1. Gadgets considered as a group. 2. The design or construction of gadgets. Noun 1. gadgetry - appliances collectively; "laborsaving gadgetry" to malfunction, clairvoyants are often the most important links to the netherworld, Montz says. As we make our way down the hallway, Saganis tells Smoller the ghost is following her. ``Sometimes I see a shadow. Sometimes I can see a full form. I could actually see him engulf en·gulf tr.v. en·gulfed, en·gulf·ing, en·gulfs To swallow up or overwhelm by or as if by overflowing and enclosing: The spring tide engulfed the beach houses. her,'' Saganis says. Not much is known about apparitions, Montz admits. But 25 years of research has made him certain of a few things. When a person dies, their body gets dropped, he said. What remains is a consciousness, an energy. Most people ``pass over to the other side.'' Those who remain earthbound earth·bound also earth-bound adj. 1. Fastened in or to the soil: earthbound roots. 2. a. become ghosts. Also, ghosts typically don't hang around cemeteries. Why would they want to remain with their rotting bodies when they can roam? They typically appear in a house or somewhere they have a strong emotional tie to, either because of a pleasant or traumatic experience. Behind the red door of Room 1126, a light bulb dangles from a wire. Water-stained, signed photos of Charlie Chaplin, who used to sleep here, hang on walls covered in pea-green, felt wallpaper. ``I want you to try to feel the room,'' Montz says. ``I keep feeling like there's a thumb on my windpipe windpipe: see trachea. ,'' Smoller says. She swallows hard. It's contagious. ``Me too,'' says a newspaper photographer, putting his hand up to his throat. ``I feel it, too. It's almost like it's changing my voice.'' ``I feel something on my solar plexus solar plexus, dense cluster of nerve cells and supporting tissue, located behind the stomach in the region of the celiac artery just below the diaphragm. It is also known as the celiac plexus. ,'' says another reporter. The door leading from the parlor to the hallway slams shut. ``Who closed the door?'' ``WHO CLOSED THE DOOR?'' Smoller falls back. Her eyes glaze; her upper lip is moist. She rubs her throat. ``Daena, are you OK?'' says Montz. ``She's got something. She's picking up something.'' Smoller doesn't respond. ``Talk to me. Can you look this way? Can you blink your eyes for me?'' Montz says. ``There's too many people,'' she croaks. ``Daena, is that what they said?'' Montz asks her. She nods weakly. ``I've got a name.'' The group spins around to face Saganis. ``Timothy.'' J.P. Steele, director of marketing, starts crying. ``Oh, it's cold here. I'm so cold. I. Just. Feel. So. Alone,'' Steele says, falling against the chair in the corner. We rush around him, but before long he sits up. ``What ... what happened?'' he asks. Montz explains that the entity took over Steele's body to communicate. There's no sign of Chaplin and no time to contemplate. Saganis starts breathing heavily, sucking in air in short gasps. She falls to her knees, then stumbles out of the room and squats with her back to the wall. ``Are you there, Maria?'' Montz says. He reaches out to wipe the hair away from her eyes but she twists away. ``Maria. Are you there?'' he says. She begins to shake. Her fingers slowly, deliberately, clench into a white-knuckle fist. ``Maria!'' Montz says. She jerks her head up and hisses, her face so altered in anger that her jaw looked squared and veins in her temples bulge. ``Maria come back to the front!'' ``Get him out of there!'' ``Bring her back, doctor!'' ``Maria, Maria, Maria!'' Saganis collapses. Montz lifts her limp body to a sitting position. ``It's Hans,'' Saganis says. Hans is a malevolent entity, a nasty man from the 16th century they first encountered on an earlier expedition. Since then, he tags along, taking over Maria's body at the most inopportune in·op·por·tune adj. Inappropriate or ill-timed; not opportune. in·op  por·tune moments. ``He even knocked her out once,'' Montz says. `No evidence of ghosts' Not surprisingly, skeptics abound. Joe Nickell, investigative columnist for the Skeptical Inquirer, a publication that debunks claims of paranormal occurrences, dismisses the group as either fantasy-prone or charlatans preying on the gullible. ``There is no scientific evidence of ghosts,'' Nickell said. Steel pipes can change electromagnetic fields. (Who's to say ghosts are magnetic, anyway?) Body heat or a breeze through an open window can cause thermometer readings to change. But Montz has an explanation: Ghosts are often detected ``psychically.'' In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , a ghost might cause you to feel a chill but a thermometer won't register a temperature drop. Criticism of the International Society for Paranormal Research comes from within the ranks of believers as well. ``Real parapsychologists are not giving ghost tours on Hollywood Boulevard,'' said Richard Senate, who considers himself an amateur psychic researcher. ``Real parapsychologists are affiliated with real research institutions.'' Still, doubters don't spook Montz and his group. ``Our goal is not to convert people,'' Smoller said. They know what they are feeling when an icy chill brushes their arm. They know what they are seeing when, for a fleeting moment, a shadow passes across the top of the stairs. Those bumps in the night, funny feelings and chills up the spine may very well mean you're not alone. If, that is, you believe in ghosts. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos Photo: (1--Color) Equipped with dowsing rods and thermometers, a group in search of the paranormal turns its attention to a bed in the Alexandria Hotel. (2--Color) Maria Saganis of the International Society for Paranormal Research falls under the influence of a ghost during the tour. Tom Mendoza/Daily News |
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