Society investigates things that go bump in the night

Bobbie Ball, co-owner of Poogan's Porch, was getting ready to lock up the restaurant one December evening when a bar stool toppled and the heavy, antique wooden kitchen door flew open with a loud crack.

Ball happened to be on the telephone with the restaurant's alarm company. "I think I'm being robbed. Get ready to call the police," she told the operator.

"I thought maybe someone had stooped down in the bar and was hiding. I knew the kitchen was totally locked," Ball said.

But the restaurant was secure and empty except for Ball and a female employee who was upstairs checking doors. After years of hearing customers, employees and relatives talk of ghostly experiences in the restaurant, Ball said she had her first encounter with the supernatural.

"I said, 'Oh, my gosh, I've had my first real experience that I can't explain,'" Ball said.

There is a reason the Travel Channel voted the restaurant at 72 Queen St. "Third Most Haunted Place in America" in 2003. It's the same reason the Charleston Paranormal Society spent most of a recent Sunday night inside Poogan's Porch. It's been at the top of locations society members have wanted to visit since Dave Chellis of West Ashley and Brandie Bruns of North Charleston formed the organization about a year ago.

Paranormal groups have had lunch at Poogan's Porch, and a couple have shown Ball some kind of meter they said indicates supernatural activity on the premises. The Charleston Paranormal Society is the first to attempt a true investigation.

The team has six regular members, whose day jobs include management or supervisory positions at local businesses. Tech manager Jared Shapiro has his own podcast production company. Like Chellis, who believes a photograph he took as a child captured the ghost of his sixth great-grandfather, they all have an interest in the supernatural and an open mind. "There's no manual on this," Chellis said.

There is no charge for an investigation, but there are requirements (listed on the society's Web site). There are no mediums or psychics on the team, and they don't engage in seances.

"We're curious about the unexplained, but more than anything else, we want to give people answers," Chellis said.

They use a variety of high-definition audio and video equipment and a lot of common sense to accomplish that goal. If someone reports a door opening on its own, they'll check the hinges and look for drafts that might cause movement. A faucet that seems to turn on by itself could be due to a water pressure problem. They'll try to replicate footsteps or have someone speak upstairs and see if they can be heard downstairs.

"We call it debunking," Chellis said.

The team draws some inspiration from the Sci Fi channel show "Ghost Hunters," whose group goes into an investigation trying to disprove a haunting, Chellis said.

That's not to say the team hasn't encountered some strange goings-on in Charleston.

Last month, the owners of Bulldog Tours agreed to lock society members in the Old City Jail at Franklin and Magazine streets for about four hours overnight. They didn't capture any apparitions, but came away with some interesting audio.

"You hear footsteps or some sort of noise. It's almost like something is coming into the room," Chellis said.

Audio captured what sounds like someone whispering "hi" or "mine."

"We actually had that recorder and camcorder set up in a room and we were on the other side of the jail," Chellis said.

They got another interesting audio clip when Chellis and another member stopped by Washington Square Park at Meeting and Broad streets the night of Jan. 19.

They left an audio recorder in the middle of the park near the Confederate war memorial.

"What we think that audio says is, 'Could you help me please?' " Chellis said.

Shapiro said that one kept him up most of the night.

"It was a little weird," he said.

The team doesn't clean up audio because they don't want anyone to think they've doctored it, Chellis said.

"If someone is a skeptic, almost nothing we do is going to convince them anyway," Chellis said.

Two days before society members were due to spend the night at Poogan's Porch, Ball said it didn't matter if they uncovered any evidence of the paranormal.

She vividly recalls a December night in the 1990s when she witnessed one stool fly into another at an empty bar and the kitchen door open as if someone had just given it a hard kick.

"I had no explanation for this. I was just befuddled. The hair on the back of my neck stood up," she said.