SHERIDAN -- It started for Kevin Bennage when he was 5 years old.

Now 29, Bennage remembers it all clearly: In the stillness of the early morning hours, he awoke from a deep sleep. He slowly opened his eyes and peered down the hallway. To his amazement, an apparition floated by. He thought he might be dreaming, but he felt he had just seen a ghost.

A few days later, his family took him to see the movie, "Ghostbusters," and his future was sealed.

"I knew it was fake," Bennage said of the movie, "but I thought to myself, 'I wouldn't mind doing that when I grow up.'"

Today, Bennage is a paranormal investigator, certified by the International Ghost Hunters Society. He says he's the only certified paranormal investigator in Wyoming. He runs a not-for-profit organization called Ghost Researchers of Wyoming out of his Sheridan home.

"I've always been into ghosts and ghost stories," Bennage said.

When he was in high school, Bennage said, he had a strong curiosity about death, which many of his peers characterized as morbid. After high school, he worked at a funeral home. There, he says, he gained a better understand of the grieving process.

Then one day he was surfing the Internet and came across a Web site for the International Ghost Hunters Society. He sent away for the certification materials (essentially a home-study course), and his childhood dream of following in the footsteps of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd's characters became a reality.

According to Bennage, a typical field investigation begins with an extensive questionnaire. Questions range from "Have your pets been acting strangely?"' to "Have you noticed any unusual odors?" to "Have you had an exorcism performed?"

After completing the questionnaire, the client leads Bennage through the house, room by room, explaining in detail what strange activities have been happening -- such as footsteps, whispering, doors opening and closing. Then Bennage goes through the home again with his equipment, taking pictures, measuring each room, and shooting video.

The tools that Bennage employs do not resemble the high-tech, sci-fi gadgetry often seen in Hollywood movies. In fact, armed with his video camera and tripod, 35mm and digital cameras, and voice recorders, Bennage looks more like an overzealous tourist than a "ghostbuster."

He does, however, bring along two devices that the average tourist doesn't. The first is an electrical magnetic field detector, which detects fluctuations in the magnetic field: A higher reading could indicate the presence of a ghost, he said. The second is a thermal scanner, which helps identify isolated drops in temperature, often referred to as cold spots. These too might suggest paranormal activity, he said.

In addition to conducting investigations, Bennage has given presentations at the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library. During his presentations, Bennage dispels what he describes as common misconceptions of ghosts.

"Most ghosts are not malevolent," he said, though some are pranksters. "They might hide your keys on you," he said.

Kyan Rios, the library's programming coordinator, said, "Kevin's presentations are always very popular. He balances them well with his video clips, digital images and sound recordings."

The material Bennage uses during his presentations has been taken from some of his investigations. A particularly memorable investigation was at Sheridan Municipal Cemetery -- not surprisingly, Bennage loves cemeteries -- where he was looking into the legend of the "screaming tree."

According to local legend, there is a tree at the cemetery which, every so often, lets out a piercing scream. While Bennage does not claim to have heard the scream when he was at the cemetery, he believes he recorded it.

"When I played the tape back later, there it was -- a scream," he said.

Paranormal investigators call this an EVP, or electric voice phenomena. Bennage said it is not uncommon for a ghost to make sounds that the human ear can't hear, but which can be recorded.

He remembers the first EVP he ever recorded. After conducting an investigation at a client's home, he was reviewing the pictures and voice recordings. From out of nowhere, Bennage said, a voice boomed, "Get out!"

"That was chilling," he said.

According to Bennage, the image that most people have of ghosts, nearly transparent milky-white human forms, is over-emphasized. More often, he said, ghosts manifest themselves as floating translucent orbs, which can vary in size from a tennis ball to a basketball. He also said that spirits can sometimes be seen in the form of mist, which is called "ectoplasm."

Bennage's interest in the world of ghosts and spirits has inspired other Sheridan residents. April Blommel, like Bennage, has always been interested in the paranormal.

"I've always had things flying off the shelves at me," she said. With encouragement from Bennage, she is now studying to be a ghost researcher.

"They send you an immense amount of material," she said, referring to the study course provided by the International Ghost Hunters Society. "One thing I have learned so far is about the different classifications of ghosts."

For Bennage, he still wonders if it was a ghost he saw that night so many years ago. But whether it was or not, he is grateful to be living a childhood dream.