John B. Kachuba

John's new book, Ghosthunting: On the Trail of Mediums, Dowsers, Spirit Seekers and Other Investigators of America's Paranormal World, will be published in Spring 2007 by New Page Books. He is also the author of Ghosthunting Illinois and Ghosthunting Ohio, How to Write Funny, and Why is this Job Killing Me? (Co-authored with his wife, Mary A. Newman, PhD).

John’s short fiction and nonfiction have been widely published in such publications as: Tin House, Hawai’i  Pacific Review, Connecticut Review, Dogwood, Savannah Literary Review, Antioch Review, Poets & Writers, America’s Civil War, Cincinnati Magazine, American Profile, and many others. He has received several awards for his fiction, including the 2004 Dogwood Fiction Prize.

He holds advanced degrees in Creative Writing from Antioch University (Yellow Springs, OH) and Ohio University. He has taught writing at both the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University. He is also on the faculty of the Gotham Writers Workshop.

John is a noted conference speaker and presenter and has appeared at Wildacres Writing Workshop, Florida Suncoast Writers Conference, Columbus Writers Conference, Erma Bombeck Humor Writing Workshop, Blooming Grove Writers Conference, West Virginia Ghost Hunters and Spirituality Conference, and Haunted America Conference. He has also spoken on many radio and television programs throughout the country and internationally.





How long have you been involved in the paranormal?
Not long at all, my training is as a writer but I have always had an interested in the paranormal. I just started doing investigations about 3 years ago, and I have done in about 80 different places with different groups and solo as well. I grew up in New England and was always interested in history. Its hard to not be interested in History when you live somewhere that you can walk 20 yards without passing some cemetery with headstones from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. And I have always had an interest in the spiritual/metaphysical aspects of it as well. What really got me there was when an editor at Emmis books asked me if I was interested in writing a series of books about the Midwest and its ghosts. From they’re the interest got more and more. Now I have three books out and I am working on a third.

So you have gone out with different groups as well as doing investigations on your own?
Yes I have, in fact some of the first people that I worked with was Ed and Lorraine Warren. I lived in the same town as them. They helped me out with an investigation that turned out to be more historic than anything. It was in Dudleytown, I had gone up there with a friend and taken some pictures and went to the Warrens and shared my findings, and they had a lot of interesting things to say as well.
In my new book I work with people like Joshua Warren and his LEMUR team. I also work with David Considine. David’s card says that he is a “lay religious demonologist” and his group is called Phantasm. I did some work with them in Connecticut. In Florida I worked with Diane Frasier who is an empathic medium, and minister in a spiritualist church. So I have been working with various groups.

With all of the different groups that you have worked with, how do you like to approach research? Do you like to take the Scientific or the Metaphysical approach?
As you are aware, there is a wide spectrum of the way that people are investigating. At one end you have groups like the TAPS guys that have all of the equipment and are very technical about how they conduct their investigations. At the opposite end of the scale are groups with sensitives or psychics that go into a place without any equipment and they will make contact or sense things, and there is a whole range of groups that fall in between. As far as my approach, I am a writer first and a ghost hunter second. My answer is that I would like to make people more aware of this than try to prove or disprove what is happening, so I am less technical and in conjunction with my own interest in the metaphysical I probably tend to lean to that direction. When I am by myself I carry a camera and obviously a pen and pad, and I have used Dowsing rods just to get a general idea if there is any kind of energy. I’m not saying that it’s a ghost but I have had luck with that. I have also taken E.M.F. meters with me as well. So in working with these various groups I have worked the full gamut. Some of the groups Like Josh Warrens it took over an hour just to set up the equipment and we would stay there all night monitoring things. In Florida when I worked with Dianne it was just she and I and we relied on her instincts on what we came up with.

You mentioned TAPS and groups like that, what impact do you think that the increase in media attention has had on the general public?
I am part of that too, by writing these books. I think that it is good and it is creating an awareness of the paranormal so more and more people are becoming interested in it. That is not to say that all of the stuff out is authentic or real or even truthful or honest, so people need to sort out in their own minds what they believe and what they are comfortable with, but it is creating that awareness. That is what I try to do with my books.

With all of the different experiences that you have had on investigations, what would you consider to be the most conclusive or interesting that you have come across?
It’s had to say, in many places we have gotten little pieces of evidence. I guess that I should put “evidence” in quotes, because I’m still not sure its evidence of what. At the Moundsville State Penitentiary in West Virginia we were in a cellblock that was reported to have activity and I had a small recorder in my pocket. When I played back the recording I could hear the voices of all 3 people that had been there, and I heard another voice but it wasn’t any of those three. I have gotten recordings with other groups, and unlike a lot of the EVP recordings that you usually hear, I was able to actually distinguish that there was talking and say that I don’t know who is talking. I have had some photographic evidence, when I was working with David’s group. We were on an over night investigation and we had cameras, recorders and motion sensors set up and it wasn’t until we were packing up, one of the guys that was just using a little hand held video cam came running up and he had what looked like a little ball of light that bounced around erratically for a few seconds. We could rule out the obvious there were no bugs but what was it? There has never been a researcher that has put together a conclusive picture, obviously we would know what was out there and it would be over.

What do you think of the theory of the “orb” and the following that it has started?
It’s interesting because everybody has orb pictures, and I mean everybody. Even people that aren’t interested in the paranormal have orb pictures. I think that everybody has orbs and that at least 95% or more can be ruled out by dust reflections and it can even be pixilation caused by a digital camera. On the other hand I know people that have taken images to professional photographers and they have not been able to explain them. I thin that most can be rule out. I picked up a book on spiritualist photography and the history of ghost photography. If you go back to the 19th century, people were getting ghost images. But the images were of human forms and things like that. There are a lot that are obvious hoaxes but there are some that defy explanation but there not orbs. That got me wondering what is it that happened that we are now getting orbs. If they’re authentic, does that mean that ghosts have changed what they look like over they past 50 years? Our photographic methods are so much more advanced now, shouldn’t we be getting really great images of these apparitions?

In your new book you talk about the E-bay ghost phenomenon that has happened. The subject mentioned is the “bag of poltergeists” can you give us some details on that?
I recorded word for word what this woman had put on to the auction (including misspelling because it is hilarious) on E-bay. What she was offering was two poltergeists and she said that she would ship it in a “gaily decorated shopping bag”. I called her and talked to her and she said that the only bid that she got, so it was the winning bid was for 1¢. I asked her if she had sent it after the winning bid and she said that it wasn’t really the issue of the money, but she cancelled the deal and did not send it. She said that she had talked to the winner and was not convinced that he knew how to take care of poltergeists, so she decided to just keep them. But then she told me she suggested to the man that he take the penny and throw it into a body of water and pray for the poltergeists to find a better home.

What equipment have you used?
I don’t have any equipment of my own, but I have used everything from EMF meters, thermometers, recorders, and many others. In David’s group they have a piece of equipment that they call “Big Ear” that is a sensitive recording device. I have also used a thermal imaging camera that could do an instant picture, and it was a fun piece of equipment.


What would you suggest for people that are looking for help with a paranormal issue?
I would suggest going to the larger groups on the Internet and looking to see if they have any local affiliates. Some people I have talked to have contacted their local minister or somebody like that, but it seems to have mixed results. Some church people seem to take it seriously but others will not deal with it.

Have you had to deal with any of the “Skeptics” that are pushing against the field now? I mean Skeptics that are more cynical and not using Skeptic to its true definition.
I haven’t run into any place that has been a hoax, but the idea of skepticism is good but there are a lot of people that are out to prove that anyone involved in the paranormal is an idiot, fool or a fraud. A lot of people don’t want to accept the fact that there are many people in that paranormal community that are sincerely trying to find the answers. But if you are in this field you need to be a skeptic yourself, you can go in with a preconceived idea that it is ghosts because then you are just roving a hypothesis that you have preconceived in your mind. At the same time I have heard groups that say we are skeptical, and then the first thing that happens they jump to the conclusion that it is a ghost.

You said that you have a new book that you are working on, can you let us in on what it is about?
It is a book about international ghost and ghost hunters. I am interested in discussing what are the cultural differences in ghosts. How are ghosts in Thailand viewed different than ones in Malta or Canada? Are there different types of ghost in the areas?