CODY -- While most folks avoid things that go bump in the night, a couple of ghost enthusiasts are gaining a following by chasing after the spooky happenings that some report when the lights go out.

"Call me weird, but even as a little kid, when most people are scared of ghosts, I was more intrigued or interested than scared," said Clay Johnson, co-founder of the Wyoming Area Paranormal Society, a group that investigates purported hauntings.

"When I was a child, my grandparents' house was haunted, and I say that very adamantly," said Jez Krubeck, who started WAPS with Johnson about a year ago, inspired by "Ghost Hunters," a TV show that follows investigators as they check out reports of odd phenomena in old buildings.

Interest in their services picked up after Johnson and Krubeck were featured on the show's Web site as finalists in a nationwide contest searching for new ghost hunters. They didn't win, but their time in the spotlight has made for a busy Halloween schedule.

Krubeck, an elementary school teacher, and Johnson, a Realtor, have spent their nights checking out spots around the Big Horn Basin, including the Hot Springs County Public Library in Thermopolis and Cassie's Supper Club in Cody.

WAPS, which now has six members, generally doesn't charge for investigations, a hobby that involves an array of expensive technical gear like thermal imaging cameras, sensitive microphones and electromagnetic field detectors.

The ghost hunters pick their sites based partly on popular local ghost stories and accounts of historical events.

"Cassie's seems to be especially steeped in Western history, so we did that for our first investigation," said Krubeck, who recalled ghost stories from when he had worked there years ago.

The popular restaurant and night spot opened at its West Strip location in 1933, when madam Cassie Waters moved her brothel outside the city limits.

Unconfirmed stories

"People say they have seen a lady in a white dress walking down a hallway. ... We could never confirm any story that there had been a soiled dove who was killed," Krubeck said, referring to a prostitute in the popular historical vernacular.

Long after closing time on a Sunday night, the group recorded strange noises, including what sounds like a woman singing.

WAPS is planning an investigation later this month at Old Trail Town, and they will lead a workshop on paranormal investigations next month at the Irma Hotel, a spot they have studied many times.

Much of the interest in the Irma focuses on Room 35, one of the hotel's original suites, built more than a century ago. In studying the room, the crew has had batteries suddenly die in cameras and wristwatches, only to re-energize after leaving the room.

Digital sound recorders have picked up what sounds like spectral voices and whispers when no one was talking, Krubeck said.

An Ohio-based travel writer who stayed in the room this summer reported the water faucet turning on in the middle of the night, and said he felt a ghostly "hand" stroking his arm while he slept.

He awoke to find items in the room rearranged during the night, and said in an e-mail he sent to the Park County Travel Council after his return home that he had been "a little freaked out."

"In Room 35, we have had guests leave in the middle of the night, saying they hear people in the room above. But there is no room above. There's nothing there," said Kim Richard, head of marketing and public relations for the Irma.

One night clerk reported hearing voices and music in the room, and would open the door only to have the sounds stop, Richard said, adding that the strange stories have made it the hotel's most requested room.

No evidence

While ghost stories may be fun folklore, particularly around Halloween, they aren't evidence of supernatural spirits, said John Campbell, a plant ecologist who teaches a course on biological research at Northwest College in Powell.

"I don't mind the entertainment side of it all, but it shouldn't be presented as hardcore science," Campbell said, adding that "we've never had any of these ghost hunters or spiritualists ever stand up to rigorous scientific evaluation."

The gadgets used by ghost hunters don't prove the presence of spirits, said Campbell, who was not familiar with the work of WAPS, but has followed the activities of other paranormal investigators.

"It's not the equipment that makes science. It's the people that use the equipment, and these are uncontrolled, anecdotal episodes," he said, adding that he had concerns about public acceptance of what he called pseudoscience.

Krubeck said the group works first to debunk any reports of the supernatural, with most investigations ending up disproving suspicions, including their finding that one local woman's "haunting" turned out to be clanking heater pipes.

"For those people who are skeptics, the only thing I can say is that, until you actually experience it, you're never going to know. Until you've heard or seen those things, most people aren't going to believe," Johnson said.