By Doug La Rocque
Please don’t label them “ghostbusters,” said Gary Robusto of the Tri-City New York Paranormal Society. “We are investigators.” That is what he and his teams have been [private]doing for 22 years, investigating reports of spirits and ghostly sounds in many places around the Capital Region. One of those places is the famed Cambridge Hotel, where Robusto said they have spent many a night. He showed those gathered at the Grafton Historical Society meeting on Wednesday, July 20 pictures he said his photographic experts cannot debunk, and played recordings of voices and trains he has captured with his sophisticated recording equipment.
Other places from which he showed both video and audio recordings included the Dr. Best House and Medical Museum in Middleburgh and the famed Shaker Homestead in Colonie. Robusto will be one of the first to tell you, the research is not scientific, because it cannot be re-created. He will also tell you that their experiences include not only sight and sound, but feelings of heat and cold, touch and occasionally being violently shoved across a room. He said spirits and energy can affect us in both a positive and negative way, and that shapes and forms these spirits take may not necessarily be what they looked like at the time of their death. The Society uses as its motto, “the cause, the focus, the truth.” Robusto also warns that investigating the paranormal can be dangerous, and said those not trained to do so, would be well-advised to leave it alone or call them.[/private]