The paranormal beckons the Bedford Ghost Investigation Group to Randolph College.

LYNCHBURG -- She kicks her black, heeled sandals onto the hallway carpet and stands with her back against the wall.

"Is there anybody who wants to communicate with us tonight?" Cindy Holt asks in a raspy smoker's voice.

She gazes toward the ceiling of this empty, muggy hall on this Saturday, just before midnight.

Silence.

"Tell us your name," she continues. "Why you're here."

She's talking, of course, to the ghost.

A secretary by day, Holt is a 46-year-old from Evington who swigs Diet Dr Pepper and has a tattoo circling one ankle. Tonight, she wears a digital tape recorder around her neck and asks spirits to step forward as the Bedford Ghost Investigation Group searches for the supernatural at Lynchburg's Randolph College.

Moments earlier, Holt was sitting in the red velvet seats of the campus auditorium.

She listened as fellow ghost hunter John James told how he stepped inside an empty dorm room on the top floor of Webb Hall.

That's when 20-year-old student Kate Descoteaux felt it. Hot, angry energy swishing past her as she waited in the hall. It was like something -- or someone -- was startled, then bolted from the dorm.

Only no one was there.

James followed the energy into a room down the hall.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Prompted by the story, Holt wants to see the room herself -- hoping whatever was there will come back again.

"Please talk to us," she calls. "Are you mad about something?"

The tension is as thick as the July humidity. She waits a minute, then makes a decision.

"I'm going in."

Close encounters

They work for town governments, make medicine in labs, are employed by insurance adjustment firms.

What they have in common is ghosts.

As a teenager in Florida, 44-year-old Alan May -- who founded the ghost group last September -- saw a shadowy figure in his house. It happened twice, both times in the middle of the day. It watched him, even though it had no facial features. May waited years before telling anyone. He never figured out what it was.

Group member Terry Howell, 45, had what he calls a "UFO incident." Decades ago, he stepped out of a barn behind his Hurt house. He looked up and saw a cigar-shaped glowing object. It made no sound as it passed behind a tree and vanished.

Meanwhile, Holt has stories about her parents' home in Poplar Forest. The scariest was the fall night, years ago, when she was alone in the basement.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by sounds.

"All around, bam! Crash! Bam! Boom! Bam!"

She shot up the steps and out the door. She has refused to be alone in the house ever since.

Holt's mother, who owns the house, thinks her daughter is crazy for joining a ghost group. But each member's experiences with the unexplained sparked an interest in the paranormal, a curiosity so strong it propels them not only to believe in spirits but to seek them out where they are rumored to dwell.

"It fascinates me," Holt explains. "At the same time, I want to know."

The young group investigated a Bedford County trailer whose resident heard voices, a tunnel in Lexington where children are rumored to echo "Come on," and Avenel House, a Bedford mansion built in 1838 that is reportedly haunted by a lady in white.

They are skeptics, looking for logical explanations when examining pictures from investigations and video shot with night-vision cameras.

Still, strange things happen. At the Bedford County trailer, a tape recorder picked up a voice -- a sound that seemed to respond to a question Holt asked. But whether the voice belonged to a ghost hunter or a spirit is debatable. Video from that winter night also shows a white light floating down the hallway.

Then there was the evening they investigated Avenel -- two nights before Halloween.

May sat on a blue velvet sofa in an upstairs bedroom, a room once used by Gen. Robert E. Lee, staring at the bed that supposedly unmakes itself.

His video camera -- and a tape recorder perched on the fireplace mantel -- kept shutting off.

Downstairs, ghost hunter George Wills led group members through the parlor, identifying faces of long-dead people in black-and-white photos hanging on deep-red walls.

"Feel that," he said, lifting a hand to meet cold air trickling from the ceiling. "They're here."

That night, May walked downstairs, asking Wills if it's normal for a street lamp outside the Lee bedroom to blink.

Ghosts, the theories say, must draw energy to appear.

Everyone marched upstairs and looked out the window.

Outside, in the chilly darkness, the lamp switched on. Then off.

On. Then off.

Randolph's spirits

The young woman was murdered at Randolph College -- called Randolph Macon Women's College at the time. The sound of her running and screaming, it's said, can still be heard on campus.

There's steps called "the curlies." Two students supposedly hanged themselves here during World War II. Rumor is, people will be pushed down the steps if they wander there after midnight.

And there's the theater. Haunted, supposedly, by a young man who died in a car crash while traveling to a play at the college.

These are the stories that brought the ghost group to the 114-year-old campus.

The tales, said Mekhala Chaubal, a student guiding the group, are passed down each year at orientation. On this night, more than a dozen curious students gathered to meet the ghost hunters.

"It's not every day we get ghostbusters on campus," Chaubal explains.

Holt and Howell's first stop is the dating parlor, where women at the formerly all-female campus spent time with boyfriends.

Inside, Howell said the word "ghost." He heard a door slam.

The battery on Holt's voice recorder drained. She stood where an old woman's reflection is said to have been spotted in a mirror above the fireplace.

But this is a group whose members don't scare. A ghost is not feared, but rather, welcomed. The darker and emptier the room, the better.

Later, Holt stands outside the dorm room where something was felt swooshing out. She steps inside with fellow ghost hunter Howell, asking any spirits to make themselves known.

Nothing.

"That doesn't mean it wasn't there before," Howell said.

Already, there has been enough activity for the group to decide it's worth a second campus visit.

One of the night's final stops is the Lipscomb Library. Chaubal says she will take them to the archives -- in the basement.

It's a place less scary than it sounds, with shelves stretching to the ceiling, an occasional red "EXIT" sign illuminating the rows.

The room smells musty, like old books. Group leader May, Howell and Holt stand in an aisle of the dim basement, comparing notes from the investigation.

It's 12:40 a.m.

At the back of the basement, there is a fence-like gate. Behind the gate is a door. Behind the door is an office where a library employee worked for decades.

May was told she died just weeks ago.

This is where he sets up his low-light camera, just in case.

After a few minutes, the group walks upstairs. The only thing left behind is May's camera, tape rolling, lens pointed straight at the door.

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on Roanoke.com