Living with the Dead (Part Three)

Constructed in 1902, Youngstown's Calvin Center has become
a hotbed of paranormal tourism.

The Calvin Center’s ghostly legacy began to surface only a few years ago when the owner was approached by a medium group that wanted to use the building. One of the mediums told the owner that she encountered a very hostile spirit during her visit and opted not to use the building.

Even in broad daylight, the Calvin Center in Youngstown, Ohio is a spooky and imposing structure looming over the neighborhood. On a typical Thursday night, a basketball game is going on in the first floor gymnasium and a yoga class is in progress in a small room on the second floor. In spite of the activity, the Calvin Center can seem like a dark maze of halls and stairwells, making it a favorite haunt of Daniel Hooven and Adam Kimmell of Resident Undead.

Kimmell typically does not use psychics or mediums on his show but said that he is open to the opportunity.

“I think there’s some potential there, but I understand the skepticism about it,” Kimmell said. “I look at the amount of the human brain that we actually use. What if there’s a different part of the brain that isn’t turned on for you and I but these mediums and psychics have that turned on?”

Kimmell said that in all of his investigations, the Calvin Center’s basement was the only place that frightened him so badly that he almost ran out of it. During the episode, Kimmell was placed alone in the basement with a night vision camera and his paranormal detection equipment, a segment that Resident Undead calls “the quarantine.”

“I swear I saw a shadow watching me from behind my camera,” Kimmell said. “It was about two minutes until my quarantine was over. If it had been much longer, I would have bolted out of there.”

Adam recalls the Calvin Center's basement as the most frightening
location for him personally.

It is not uncommon for subjective experiences, such as feeling frightened or experiencing goose bumps, to be presented as evidence on some paranormal shows. Kimmell believes that these experiences do not qualify as evidence but may lead investigators in the right direction.

“If you go into a room where you get the goose bumps, that could tell you that maybe it’s a good time to pull out the equipment and see,” Kimmell said. “We actually have those kinds of experiences all the time, but we cut them out of our videos, because you can’t rely on that.”

Stories of the Calvin Center's hauntings have made it a hot-spot for paranormal investigation groups, a phenomenon that Daniel Hooven calls "para-tourism."

Living with the Dead (Part Two)

Snyder Cemetery is a small, lonely place, located near a dirt road in the woods of Brady, Pennsylvania. Though several generations of the Snyder family are buried here, only a few graves remain standing. Given the cemetery's long history and isolated location, it should come as no surprise that ghostly legends surround the place.

The oldest plot in Snyder Cemetery belongs to Conrad Snyder,
the family patriarch, and his wife Nancy.

These local legends sparked the curiosity of Adam Kimmell, who used Snyder Cemetery as the site of his first paranormal investigation. His curiosity about the legends of the place led to what would become the pilot episode of Kimmell's show, Resident Undead Paranormal.

While revisiting Snyder Cemetery, Adam appeared both sad and angry about the vandalism that has occurred here over the years.

"The one thing I hate is vandals," Kimmell said. "I don't understand why someone would go to a cemetery and desecrate someone's burial. Where's the honor? Where's the respect in that?"

Kimmell emphasized further that anyone with an interest in the paranormal should obey the law and respect the rules and regulations of the area they are investigating.

Due to its isolated location, Snyder Cemetery has been the
frequent target of vandalism over the years.

Kimmell said that he has learned a lot since his first investigation and that some of the techniques he used then, he would not use now. One of the techniques that he no longer employs is the use of the Ouija board. Though trademarked by Hasbro as a board game, the concept of the "spirit board" has existed for centuries.

"I still to this day do not believe that anyone should pull out a Ouija board without realizing the consequences that can come with it," Kimmell said. "A lot of people will tell that it opens up doorways to the other side that allow them to come through. I don't know personally, but I guess from what happened, I'd have to believe that."

Kimmell reflected on the criticism that comes from the skeptics of the field of paranormal investigation, but he said that turning a skeptic into a believer is his biggest reward.

"When I first started doing this, I did get a lot of criticism," Kimmell said. "My good friend, Daniel [Hooven], was probably the biggest critic I had."

Daniel Hooven, who used to tease Kimmell about his investigations, calling him "just a boy in night vision" is now the head story writer and media director for Resident Undead.

"It was just awesome seeing him convert from skeptic to believer. Your biggest critics could end up being the ones who support you down the road, so don't let the critics get at you."

Part Three will be posted on Friday, May 11th. In the third and final installment, Adam takes us to the Calvin Center in Youngstown, Ohio, a place that Adam says will turn any skeptic into a believer.

Visit my YouTube channel for additional footage.

Living with the Dead (Part One)

The mystery of what happens after death has haunted humankind for centuries. Perhaps this is the reason for the current reality-television trend of paranormal investigation shows. Rising stars of the genre, Resident Undead Paranormal, are looking to raise the bar of paranormal investigations with straightforward presentation of evidence and innovative techniques for stirring the spirits. One of their trademark techniques is "A Ripple In Time," which involves using historical reenactment to draw out the ghosts.  

Resident Undead is YouTube’s most popular paranormal show and winner of the premier episode of the Travel Channel's "Paranormal Challenge." The current line-up of the Resident Undead team consists of Daniel Hooven, Jordan Murphy and founding member Adam Kimmell. Although Kimmell accepts his role as the group’s founder, he has said that he doesn’t like being referred to as the leader.
“Yes, I am the founder, but without Dan and Jordan, I’m nothing,” Kimmell said.

The full spectrum vortex modifies a regular camera to take
pictures in the full spectrum of light, only part of which
is visible to the human eye. Kimmell says that most of his
results show that spirits tend to be visible in the ultraviolet
spectrum.

              Kimmell said that he has always been interested in the paranormal and was dissatisfied with what he saw on popular ghost hunting shows. One night, he decided to take a camera and a voice recorder to Nazareth Cemetery in Mercer, PA. That night, he captured a ghostly apparition on his camera and a voice saying “help” on his recorder. This, he says, was the defining moment in his decision to pursue paranormal investigation.

            “I’m one of those people that once something’s there that I can’t figure out, I will pursue it further to figure it out,” Kimmell said.           

            Kimmell considers the most concrete evidence available to be electronic voice phenomena (EVP). EVP occurs when voice activated recorders capture anomalous voices where no human voices are present. One of the things that sets his team apart from others, he says, is the guarantee of capturing paranormal activity.

            “We’ve got it down to an art that we can capture EVP on the spot,” Kimmell said. “We believe that ghosts are everywhere.”

           

            Kimmell said that the most common question he gets is why investigations are almost always done at night.

            “Honestly, there’s no reason,” he said. “You can get paranormal activity during the day. We prefer the night time. It’s just more thrilling for us personally and I do feel that the activity is higher at night. With night vision, you have more of a distance to see stuff. It’s much easier to make out those shadows. With light, you’re going to have a more limited view.”

                  

Kimmell says that ghosts are everywhere, not just in
"haunted" locations. This EVP session was conducted
in a typical Slippery Rock, PA residence

            

           
             Kimmell believes that some ghosts are bound to certain locations while others are free roaming.

            “There are two kinds of people in this world when it comes to ghost hunting: those that do talk to spirits and those that don’t,” Kimmell said. “If spirits know that I’m trying to openly communicate with them, most likely they’re going to follow me because they know I’m trying to talk, compared to a person who rules it out. Why would a ghost waste their time on that person?”

            A graduate of Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania with a degree in political science, Kimmell turned down an internship in Washington D.C. to pursue paranormal investigation.

            “The way I look at it is, in life, you’d better pursue what’s fascinating to you, because life’s too short,” Kimmell said. “You can do this routine that may make you money or pursue something where you can actually have fun in life and actually die with a smile on your face. And to this day I have no regrets about the decision I made.”

Coming next week in Part Two, Adam will take us on a trip to Snyder Cemetery, the location that started it all. 

Portrait of an American Dancer




Kelley McCaa, 19, a junior at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania started her college career as a dance major but decided that dancing suited her better as a hobby than as a career.

“I actually transferred out to Oklahoma on a $14,000 scholarship and couldn’t do the dieting anymore,” McCaa said.

Kelley teaches at Jen’s Academy of Rhythm and Moves in Butler, PA. The studio hosts dance classes for all ages, which can get rather noisy as the sounds of dance and hip-hop music clash with the sounds of children’s music.

“I’ve been teaching dance for about five years, and at my current studio for two,” Kelley said.




Kelley began taking dance classes at an early age. Though she maintains a passion for her art, she chose not to pursue it as a career when the pressure to maintain body weight took a dangerous turn.

“I’ve had a lot of problems with eating disorders since I was about 12 years old,” she said. “I was addicted to diet pills for quite awhile.”

Kelley said that she began taking diet pills in excess to meet the demands of the program in Oklahoma.

“You’re not supposed to exceed four a day, and I was on 8 to 12 everyday,” she said. “I started taking them because they were telling me I had to lose weight to stay in the program, and when I got there I had to lose even more weight, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t sleep at night because I was so wired from the pills. When my body would wear off them, I would just crash. I would fall asleep for like an hour and then I’d force myself awake and take more pills to go to dance class.”


After a short time in Oklahoma, Kelley elected to return to Slippery Rock for the sake of her physical and mental health. With help from friends, she overcame the addiction to the diet pills.

“When I came back to Slippery Rock, I just forced myself to stop taking them and I had friends to support me in that,” she said. “It’s a terrible thing, especially in the environment I was in. There would be girls throwing up in the bathroom before weigh-ins, and I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be a hundred pounds for the rest of my life, so I decided dancing for fun was better than dancing for a career. Dance teaching … that’s fun.”

Alpha Sigma Phi's Lance Armstrong Foundation Fundraiser

Alpha Sigma Phi's fundraiser for the Lance Armstrong Foundation kicked off on Monday Apr. 9 in front of Bailer Library where Alpha Sigma Phi's Delta Delta chapter sold Livestrong bracelets. For every $100 raised, a randomly selected brother will shave his head.

Daniel Estes, a 20-year-old sophomore psychology major, said that the Lance Armstrong Foundation is Alpha Sigma Phi’s national cause. The Lance Armstrong Foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of cancer survivors.



As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, the group had raised $22.00, according to Nathaniel Herr, 19, a freshman sports management major and philanthropy chair of Alpha Sigma Phi’s Delta Delta chapter.  The fundraiser will last until the end of the week with the brothers hitting various locations around campus.  

A Decade of War

Young Americans for Liberty held a "Decade of War" protest at Slippery Rock University, beginning on March 19th, 2012 and lasting for the duration of the week. Each flag placed in the quad represents two American soldiers who lost their lives in the War on Terror. The group also constructed a wall, on which people were encouraged to write their views on the war. 

Environmental Initiatives of Slippery Rock

View Environmental Projects of Slippery Rock, PA in a larger map