When employees had the strange sensation of being watched while working at the Elks Lodge 209 in Anderson, lodge secretary Dick Dunn knew he had to figure out what was going on.

The employees had complained of being watched while they were alone in the bar and kitchen and had reported having strange feelings in the lodge’s banquet hall and business office — especially around the office’s closet. Strange lights occasionally bounced off the kitchen’s shiny surfaces, leaving employees mystified.

When one secretary at the lodge refused to be in the building by herself, Dunn called the only people he thought could help: the Midwestern Researchers and Investigators of Paranormal Activity.

“We had several complaints about employees saying there was spooks in here, so we had them come in here and prove them wrong,” Dunn said.

Dunn’s skepticism was fine by MRIPA founder and lead investigator Jason Baker. His goal is to find whatever subtle oddities make people feel strange, whether they are paranormal or not.

“We make sense out of the senseless,” Baker said. “A lot of the groups that are out there now, they only go looking for a thrill and trying to prove ghosts. I’m only looking for the truth, and that’s what I pass on to people with questions.”

In the Elks Lodge case, Baker, his fiancee and MRIPA case manager Rachel Weinrich and five other investigators joined Dunn in the lodge overnight on Oct. 18. They took photos, videos and audio recordings of the lodge to determine whether the employees’ feelings were caused by something supernatural.

“We usually overkill everything,” Baker said. “We put way more cameras than we really need; audio recorders, we leave running for the entire night. A lot of times the stuff we pick up is either when we left the house or there’s no one around.”

After hours in the lodge, Baker and his crew took the footage they collected back to their headquarters in Indianapolis and analyzed it. About a month later, Dunn got his answer: The lodge was not haunted.

Reflections and strange sounds

“That was a good example of a typical investigation,” Baker said of the Elks Lodge. “Many people had claimed to have strange experiences, felt uncomfortable, nausea, nervous and anxious. People actually quit because they were positive that the place was haunted.

“As usual, it turns out to be explainable problems: bad wiring, light fixtures about to go out, electromagnetic fields. They were very happy we found nothing.”

In MRIPA’s report from the night at the lodge, Baker says some of the strange sensations felt by employees were the result of cars driving by at night whose lights could be recreated with flashlights.

“All claims of uncomfortability and strange sensations were caused by very high amounts of electrical magnetic waves given off by unshielded wiring, ceiling lights and power boxes in the areas that people have reported feeling strange sensations and feeling the sense as if being watched,” the report says.

Dunn said the employees felt more comfortable in the lodge after MRIPA’s investigation turned up nothing paranormal.