It is the only business of it’s kind in Hawaii. The Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society has been looking into reported hauntings and instructing people in ghost hunting methods for many years now. Some may call them crazy or thrill seekers.
But for Preston Galera and Blaise Atabay, it is more curiosity than fear that keeps them in the dark looking for the unseen.
“Fortunately, we haven’t faced anything that was very negative where it would actually harm you or hurt you,” said Preston Galera.
They’re used to the reaction from people when they tell them what they do.”The first they ask is, ‘You not scared?’ Obviously not, if we’re doing it,” said Atabay.
Galera and Atabay founded the nonprofit Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society three years ago.
They said they’re never at a loss for work, considering how spiritual the Hawaiians have always been.
“They believe everything, the rocks, the trees, everything has spirit,” said Galera. “All of that mana, all that power, that belief is still saturated here.”
While the reaction from most people when it comes to the paranormal is fear, this team of ghosts hunters said there’s not much to be scared of — spirits just want some respect.
“Really they’re just like you and I, it’s just we can’t see them,” said Atabay.
Respect is the main lesson they teach in their class at Kapiolani Community College on how to become paranormal investigators.
“For us, everything is respect,” said Galera. “Whether we’re dealing with live people, our clients, or people who come to us for advice, or the non-living people.”
Patience is another lesson they teach would-be ghost hunters.
“You gotta put in a lot of time doing research. A lot of people think you can watch the TV show and buy equipment and start going to people’s houses. It takes a lot more than that,” said Galera.
Galera and Atabay said not to call them “ghost busters” because they don’t claim to get rid of the ghosts.
“A lot of people are gonna doubt what we do and that’s fine,” said Atabay. “We try to gather as much evidence as we can to prove it.”
The founders of the Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society said they don’t have any kind of “sixth sense” when it comes to their investigations, just a healthy dose of curiosity.
While many people may doubt their findings, they said they’re out to help those who hire them for their services determine if they have some unseen guests or not. Atabay and Galera said in their investigations, they’ve never felt they were in danger, but there have been some spirits who may not have wanted their company.
Like the time they were investigating a warehouse in Halawa.
“Something actually got thrown,” said Galera. “We don’t know what it was. We tried to find every answer, there wasn’t any animals or anything.”
Ghost hunting is not a cheap business. Galera and Atabay estimate they’ve spent thousands of dollars on equipment to help collect evidence of hauntings.
Things like Infrared cameras and electromagnetic field readers. Geophones, for example, are meant to record seismic activity, but in ghost hunting it documents footsteps. “It’s not like how you see on TV where there’s always something going on. We go through investigations where we’re just sitting around in the dark for four hours and nothing goes on until later when we listen to our recording devices and we hear voices,” said Galera.
In one case, the team believes it recorded a ghost calling Blaise’s name.
The founders of the Hawaiian Island Paranormal Research Society said they would never go on simply “feelings,” but would make an effort to provide some kind of documentation of a ghost.
