'Purr-anormal' doings in Colonie?

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'Purr-anormal' doings in Colonie?
September 13, 2009
Carol DeMare
timesunion.com

COLONIE -- The paranormal investigator with a long history of peering into unexplained phenomena felt the historic Shaker site was a perfect place to search for entities -- er, ghosts.


Equipped with a camera and recorder, Ann Marie DeMarco set off from her Amsterdam home for the 770-acre site near Albany International Airport to wander through the fields, the lawns and buildings where the religious community lived and worked in the 19th century.

She hasn't been disappointed. She says she has found not only apparitions of humans but also of animals -- mostly cats.

America's first Shaker settlement was founded by Ann Lee in 1776 and her followers who left Manchester, England, seeking religious freedom. Mother Ann Lee is buried in the cemetery there.

In September 2007, DeMarco stopped at the grave site and then ventured toward the buildings.

"I spent an afternoon doing photos with an infrared camera and I captured a ghost cat looking out the window," she said. "The cat was looking right at me, watching what I was doing."

She saw the apparition when she later examined what she had captured on her digital camera. The cat entity sparked her curiosity. "I wanted to see what, if any, other ghosts were there."

DeMarco, 48, approached Shaker Heritage Society executive director Starlyn D'Angelo to ask if she could gain entry into the buildings.

"I was skeptical about this," D'Angelo said. "But there are definitely things that happen here'' -- among them, she cites scissors that constantly go missing. And there are occurrences that are stranger still. "I have been standing in the hallway making photocopies and feeling someone literally breathing down my neck, and no one is there.

"I wasn't afraid," she said.

DeMarco is not surprised. "There is no need to fear," she said. "The Shakers were a loving, peaceful people. If anyone feels anything, it's more of a protective type of thing. The thing about ghosts -- you are in death as you are in life."

DeMarco wanted to document the Shaker site, and D'Angelo gave her permission to do so because of the Shakers' own beliefs and practices.

"I allowed her to do it because the Shakers believed they could communicate with the spirit world, and in the late 19th century, they held séances," D'Angelo said.

It was a Christian communal society "with a twist, because they believed that God was both male and female," D'Angelo said. They farmed and lived a monastic lifestyle "but were very progressive in that men and women shared leadership power equally," she said. But the males and females lived separately and were celibate.

For the past year, the society has worked with DeMarco and seen the entities she has captured digitally. Starting Saturday, it will host a three-part workshop at which DeMarco, who been a paranormal investigator for 31 years, will explain forensic photography and paranormal research. Subsequent workshops will take place Sept. 26 and Oct. 3.
"We were curious about whether there would be a presence of ghosts in buildings where we knew there were traumatic events," D'Angelo said. "We knew a child was killed (during the 19th century) by getting caught up in the machinery in the laundry building, known as the wash house."

"Wouldn't it be interesting if we did find a spirit in the space?" she said. "We didn't get definitive answers to that, but ... Ann Marie found a great deal of activity in the buildings. In the wash house, a face appeared, and Ann Marie got a photo. Clearly, there is a presence in that building."

In the Ministry Building, DeMarco, using an infrared camera, captured an image of a man looking out a window, she said. When she uploaded the photos on her computer, she not only saw the man but also the cat.

In her prints of images, a silhouette of a cat is visible, especially the animal's face, faded into the background. The human image is a faded outline of a face, with eyes, nose and mouth visible.

"I'm always looking for innovative ways to interpret this historic site, and this was an interesting opportunity to document a site that isn't typically done," said D'Angelo, who's been executive director for six years of the non-profit historic preservation group. "Normally, when researching a historic site, you go to written records or look at historic artifacts. I just thought this would be an interesting twist."

In 2006, DeMarco was seriously injured in a car accident, had to quit her state job, and turned to paranormal research full time. She has taken more than 3,500 photos at the Shaker site and says she's captured about a dozen images or partial apparitions, including that of a dog and an image in a rocking chair.

DeMarco explained that voices of spirits are captured through electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP. "That's when you actually capture a ghost talking to you, but I did not get that," she said. "The Shakers were shy and withdrawn, so you wouldn't necessarily get them talking. If you go into a house haunted by a politician, they like to talk and you're more likely to get an EVP."

She left the recorder in the empty meetinghouse's main hall and picked up a tapping sound, she said. In the Ministry Building, the recorder picked up a knocking into the microphone, a "hmmm" and footsteps.

Tenants of an apartment building on the site where the Shakers once housed new members and children have told her they often hear children playing.

During one trip, DeMarco claims a ghost cat followed her from building to building. She didn't see or sense it, however, using her sound amplifier, she heard a meow. "Each building that I investigated, I was able to capture a clear photo of the cat."

Cats lived among the Shakers, mostly barn cats. Today, the society has William, an orange cat, living in the meetinghouse and greeting visitors.

The site gets about 19,000 visitors a year, placing it in the top third among the region's tourist attractions, "and that's without really trying," D'Angelo said.

"Most people don't realize the Shakers had those kinds of mystical dimensions in their belief system," D'Angelo said. "They literally believed the spirits walked among them."

Of DeMarco and her paranormal investigations at the Shaker site, she said, "This is a good fit.

	unknown says:	2009-11-07 18:43:35
	did she only investigate the shaker site and does she always charge? Most investigators don''t charge.

	sandy says:	2010-12-04 11:43:17
	If you talk to the Shakers Socciety there was not charge for this investigation and Ann Demarco has many done investigations over the years. sounds like Mr Unknown is jealous?