RACINE - As Carol Breckenfeld was touring the Masonic Center as a possible venue for her daughter's wedding, she asked her guide an odd question.

"I asked, 'Do you have any ghosts?' "

Before long, Breckenfeld was back at 1012 Main St., doing a paranormal investigation. That's the Lake Geneva resident's hobby as founder and lead investigator of GSI, or Ghost Scene Investigators. Based on the Masonic Center's size and age, she said, "I figured there was probably a presence here."

The investigation she and others did there April 10 convinced her she was right. In this case, several Masons helped Breckenfeld and her GSI colleague Amy Tornow.

The team went off into various areas of the center carrying electromagnetic field detectors, digital sound recorders and flash cameras.

Any time they detected an electromagnetic field that was not obviously another person or electrical device, they would stop, turn on their recorder and ask a question such as, "Is somebody here?" Then they would be silent for 30 to 45 seconds.

Later, Breckenfeld put the results on her computer to look for vocal responses, called "electronic voice phenomena," or EVPs.

"There are ghost hunters who have never gotten an EVP," she said. But she thinks she got some that night at the Masonic Center.

Inhuman voices?

Breckenfeld and Turnow recently brought their findings on a laptop computer to share with the others in the ghost-hunting party. They included center events coordinator Wendy Spencer.

"Now I'm going to amplify this," Breckenfeld said, to show them an apparent EVP obtained in a small hallway. Bob Messer had asked, "Are you a master?" a Masonic rank.

After a pause there is a low, short sound that GSI interprets as "Yes, Bob."

"Maybe it was my dad," Spencer said.

In another case, Bob's wife, Amy Messer, used the word "freaky," and GSI believes it caught a ghost repeating it like,

" 'Freaky?' What does that mean?"

As an investigation tool, GSI also takes flash pictures in unlit rooms, then examines the photos for anything unusual. "We figure out where to put the cameras by interviewing the people," Breckenfeld said.

That night they got at least two photos that she thinks are clearly evidence of spirit energy. One is a bright orb of light near a table leg, which Breckenfeld calls an "energy orb."

She showed her Masonic clients another photo, saying, "We got a really weird picture that I just cannot explain." It shows an amorphous haziness or smoke on one side of a doorway.

"That's like the smoke I saw in the doorway!" Amy Messer said when she saw the photo. Both she and Joy McClelland, a friend, say they've seen the haze there that makes no sense to them.

Don't sit there

Two people that night, Breckenfeld and the others said, felt a sharp poke in the back of the arm when they sat on certain chairs - as though something was not happy about it.

"There's interactive spirits here," Breckenfeld said.

She said about her investigations: "I use methods I learned in both of my degrees. From my years being a nurse, I use the 'rule out' method. That means if for example, there is a voice in a recording, I will try first to rule out if it is one of the 'living' humans on the investigation.

"Same thing for pictures. So many pictures that people think have something paranormal in them are seeing camera straps, hair or dust. I use techniques I learned in my criminal justice/police science degree in interviewing the clients.

"When reviewing evidence in this way, I am left with only the things that I can't explain."

That night there were no clear, loud EVPs, or responses recorded. But there was enough to convince Breckenfeld that they had recordings of ghosts.

She said some debunkers attribute certain recorded sounds to radio frequencies being caught. But Breckenfeld said in the Masonic Center investigation, "They're answering direct questions appropriately. … It puts it beyond disbelief for me."

Ghost Scene Investigators may be contacted about possible paranormal investigations by e-mail at

GSI@usa.com

GSI does not charge for its services.