TV's "Ghost Hunters" come to Bookends to sign their kids book

/Home/Paranormal Media/Paranormal Books and Magazines

TV's "Ghost Hunters" come to Bookends to sign their kids book
September 6, 2010
BY TERECILLE BASA-ONG
NorthJersey.com

WHO: Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson.
Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, of Syfy's 'Ghost Hunters.'
Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, of Syfy's 'Ghost Hunters.'

WHAT: Signing their book, "Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown."

WHEN: 7 p.m. Wednesday.

WHERE: Bookends; 211 E. Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood; 201-445-0762 or book-ends.com.

HOW MUCH: $16.99.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: ghosthuntbooks.com.

Grant Wilson didn't grow up dreaming of becoming a ghost hunter. Even after 20 years of ghost hunting, he still doesn't consider it his day job.

"Technically I'm a plumber, and this is a hobby," says Wilson by phone last week while on an investigation in upstate New York.

It all began around the age of 15, when he had a "crazy brush with paranormal [activity] that lasted two years, where I saw things I couldn't explain," he says.

"I started researching and found that books weren't really barking up the right tree. In a quest for answers, I started meeting people," including fellow ghost hunter Jason Hawes. "We shared our frustrations with the [state] of investigations, so we really buckled down with TAPS [The Atlantic Paranormal Society] and started investigations and research."

Fourteen years later, Syfy debuted the show "Ghost Hunters" featuring Hawes and Wilson. The plumbers were hunting only part-time, but with the success of the show came a full-time commitment – even though Wilson doesn't love his celebrity status.

"I don't really dig the limelight," he admits, "but we're teaching people to try to figure out what [things] could be [if they're] not paranormal. We realize that people who are bothered by paranormal don't understand it or are terrified by it; it's not that scary when you understand it."

That lesson apparently has transcended age. Even though "they're the next generation of [ghost hunting]," Wilson says the number of children who show up to their events still surprises both of them. "You let your 4-year-old watch this? I think it's a little much for a 4-year-old to grasp," he says, before adding, "The children are so passionate about paranormal, so interested. It's the last frontier. No more Wild West, we've been to the Moon – this is the last unknown.

"All these kids want to be part of the team, and legally we can't [allow them], so [instead we give] advice on what to go into in school so they can put a roof over their head and investigate: Go into forensic science, be an electrician or historian."

Both ghost hunters are fathers (Wilson's three sons are ages 7, 11 and 12), so it's no surprise that they've taken their decades of experience, including six seasons of the show and two adult bestsellers, and co-authored their first book for children, "Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown." The tween-age book (for ages 9 to 16) features eight stories based on their investigations, as well as "The Ghost Hunt Guide."

As Wilson explains, the 70-page guide is a "thorough how-to guide to get into it, but we can't teach them the etiquette or critical thinking [that goes with it], so we walk them through it with the stories – actual cases augmented enough so we can keep them confidential still. … We really want to reach out to the kids and give them the ability to 'join the team,' since we feel a sense of responsibility to fill the kids in on what we're teaching on the show."

They tried to keep the book exciting, but not scary. "We're showing them how it's kind of terrifying what you may run into on the case until you start to sift through it," says Wilson. "There are times when you are confronted with something that has the potential to be scary as heck, but it's not that way – there's something very normal and rational behind it, and each time that happens, you become immune to it."

And parents, if, as you read through "Ghost Hunt," you're reminded of "Goosebumps," the children's horror fiction books from the '90s, it's not quite a coincidence. The series (a second book is already in the works) was launched with the help of "Goosebumps" author R.L. Stine's wife, Jane.

"We had dinner with Jane and R.L., they're big fans," says Wilson. "The difference with those books and ours is the kind of chill you get; ours is a little different because they actually happened."

As for Wilson's sons, they do understand what keeps their dad busy – and they also get him to do a little bit of his "work" with them at their Rhode Island home. "We do little investigations. They think the small barn outside our house is haunted, so we investigated it. We got meters there and I tried to make something happen, but nothing happened, of course. My middle son says, 'What if they're deaf?' " says Wilson with a laugh. "It was brilliant! I never would have thought of that."