Chasing Spirits: The Building of the Ghost Adventures Crew

by Groff, Nick

  CHASING

  SPIRITS

  NICK GROFF

  with Jeff Belanger

  CHASING

  SPIRITS

  THE BUILDING OF THE

  GHOST ADVENTURES CREW

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  New American Library

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, October 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Nick Groff, 2012

  Lyrics from Life, THE OTHER SIDE Copyright © 2011 Groff Entertainment/Bozfonk Moosick All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING–IN–PUBLICATION DATA:

  Groff, Nick.

  Chasing spirits: the building of the Ghost Adventures crew/Nick Groff with Jeff Belanger.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60880-7

  1. Ghost adventures (Television program) 2. Parapsychology—Investigation—United States. I. Belanger, Jeff. II. Title.

  PN1992.77.G47745G76 2012

  791.4572—dc23

  Set in Sabon

  Designed by Pauline Neuwirth

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1: Near Death

  CHAPTER 2: Making Television

  CHAPTER 3: Finding Virginia City

  CHAPTER 4: The Ghost Adventures Crew Comes Together

  CHAPTER 5: Investigating Virginia City

  CHAPTER 6: Investigating the Goldfield Hotel

  CHAPTER 7: Editing and Then Selling the Documentary

  CHAPTER 8: Selling the Series

  CHAPTER 9: The TV Adventure Begins

  CHAPTER 10: What’s a Ghost and How Do We Find One?

  CHAPTER 11: Possession in Savannah

  CHAPTER 12: Favorite Cases

  CHAPTER 13: Linda Vista Hospital: The Game Changer

  CHAPTER 14: My Paranormal Life

  CHAPTER 15: The Spiritual Journey

  Paranormal Investigation Equipment

  Appendix: Paranormal Resources

  To my wife Veronique, our LOVE is an ADVENTURE!

  —Nick Groff

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  NICK GROFF

  I would like to thank Maureen and David Groff; without them I wouldn’t be here today. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for always giving me enthusiasm and courage throughout my life.

  Thank you, Veronique, for always sticking by my side and guiding us throughout our journey together. I love you more than anything this world can ever offer. We are blessed to have a perfect, amazing little girl, Annabelle. I can’t wait to see what the rest of our lives will hold for us.

  Thank you, Grandmas Groff and Narragon. You both are amazing ladies. You have always been there for me and opened up my mind to a world that is so complex.

  Thank you to my sister, Dianna, who has always had my back through good times and bad. I will never forget you buying my first tape, Compton’s Most Wanted, and giving it to me on my twelfth birthday.

  This dream wouldn’t be a reality without the amazing people at the Travel Channel. Thank you for all of your support!

  Thank you to my literary agent, Jill Marr, for believing in me and the book. Thank you to my editor, Danielle Perez, for believing in this book and for your editorial guidance. Thank you to Andy Rigrod for always having my back throughout a world of fun. It has been a blast working together! It’s hard to find good people in this industry and you are truly a genuine person.

  Thank you to all my friends. I raise my beer up high and drink together as one to the future. Mike Anderson, Erik Avilla, Morgan Groff, Hector Pérez Jr., Marco Bonenfant, Justin Narragon, Aaron Goodwin, Vartan and Lisa, Zak Bagans, Pete and Jim Owns, Jeff Belanger, and Danny Bedrosian.

  Thank you to all my Groff and Narragon families.

  THANK YOU to my amazing fans who have always been there and know who I really am. You all ROCK! Into the future we grow together.

  JEFF BELANGER

  Thank you, Nick, for asking me to be a part of this book. It’s been a pleasure working with you on each episode of Ghost Adventures, and the various other opportunities that have come up along the way. I respect your honesty and work ethic and value our friendship.

  Thank you to my Ghost Adventures family: Zak Bagans, Aaron Goodwin, Kathy DaSilva, Joe Townley, Hugh Hansen, Erik Kesten, Anthony DiDonato, Eric Paulen, and the other amazing people I’ve had the privilege to work with on this great show.

  A big thanks to everyone at the Travel Channel who believed in Ghost Adventures and us!

  Thank you to my wife, Megan, and daughter, Sophie, for putting up with my crazy life and for being a cheerleader when I need it. Thank you also to Tim Weisberg, Connie Mianecki, and Edna Van Baulen.

  Thank you to Jill Marr and to Danielle Perez for your help in taking this idea and turning it into a real book.

  Finally, a big thanks to Ghost Adventures fans everywhere! Your support, ghost stories, and great attitude mean the world to me. You make all of the hard work worth it.

  INTRODUCTION

  Two seconds. Big, life-changing experiences don’t take months or years to happen. The game changers occur in a flash of time. My life changed forever when I locked eyes with a spirit at Linda Vista Hospital in East Los Angeles during a Ghost Adventures lockdown. That moment—what she was wearing, the color of her eyes, her clothing, and the expression on her face—are all cut into my permanent memory like the deep scar that circles my left biceps. If I close my eyes right now, I can relive the experience just as it happened in that dark surgical suite, where the only light came from
the LCD screen of my video camera.

  Amid the now empty glass cabinets, the old tile walls, and the no longer used surgery lighting equipment, a woman now stood. She shouldn’t have been there…and another second later, she was gone.

  Since childhood my life has been full of paranormal experiences—yet I’ve always had questions. But those two seconds at Linda Vista changed me in every way. The way I deal with other people, how I think about the universe around me, and what I know about the spirit world all became clear in that moment of raw fear and shock.

  My name is Nick Groff, and this is my story—how this paranormal investigator was made from the cradle to the TV screen. These are my own ghost adventures.

  I’m writing this book because we can’t cover all of the story in a television show. There are things the camera misses, and things the camera was never meant to see. You’re about to get all of it—the successes, the fights, the challenges, and the paranormal encounters that have played a big role in making me who I am today. I want to tell you about some of my favorite cases and give you more history on the haunts that have left a mark on me.

  Over the years, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about the paranormal, about being on a television show, and about my life. I’m going to try to answer everything I can about how I got to this point right here. I’m at a good place right now, but it can be frightening too.

  I was born on April 19, 1980, in San Jose, California. Though I was born on the West Coast, I feel like more of a New England guy because my family moved to a small town in southern New Hampshire when I was one.

  I grew up surrounded by woods. It was awesome. I was a hyperactive kid, and I got into a lot of trouble. Running around the woods and exploring helped me burn off some of that energy, but not all of it. There were plenty of times my adventures ended in blood.

  One of my earliest memories involves my older sister, Dianna. We were jumping on the couches in the living room of our Nashua, New Hampshire, house, when all of a sudden Dianna missed and slammed her chin against the coffee table. Her chin split open and blood was everywhere. She was rushed to the hospital, where she got stitches…but I’ll never forget the blood. The scene slowed down for me, almost the way a movie might show a tragic event in slow motion. I can still see her blood on the floor, on her hands, running down her chin and neck. I felt like a video camera capturing this scene: my sister crying, my parents frantic to comfort her and stop the bleeding. Some scenes never leave your head.

  My parents, Maureen and David, tried to encourage me to be very athletic because I was always running around anyway. I was on the swim team by age four and got used to swim practice before and after school. I was a great swimmer and traveled all over the place for tournaments and meets. Looking back, I’m sure that’s where I got the urge to see the world and travel to different places. When you spend a lot of time on the road, you get a sense of adventure early on. Locations have an identity and personality of their own. Some towns are depressed, others are quiet, and still others burst with energy. The people who live in such places create that energy and feed off of it at the same time.

  QUESTIONS FANS ASK

  What was your most frightening experience on an investigation?

  At Linda Vista Hospital in Los Angeles, I came face-to-face with the spirit of a former patient. She and I locked eyes. I felt like I had a deep psychic connection with her in that moment. I will never be able to shake that one off.

  After Nashua, my family moved to Salem, New Hampshire. That was an amazing place to live. My dad built a house on a cul-de-sac in an area surrounded by forest. Trees and streams and hills were everywhere around me. I was six years old and spent hours exploring the woods and building forts. Sometimes I’d be out there with my friends, but I also spent plenty of time exploring on my own. I loved the woods, loved the mystery of it, the sounds you’d hear in the distance, the strange shadows cast by the trees. An underlying sense of fear got into my blood. Every shadow was a place for something to hide or for me to explore. Like any town, the woods have a life and personality too. Looking back, I can see this was a time when the paranormal was oozing into my bloodstream.

  New England is full of ghost stories and paranormal traditions. With so much history, with tales of Old World witchcraft in nearby Salem, Massachusetts, and with a population that speaks pretty openly about its haunts, how could I not become who I am today?

  Sports and friends were the two biggest parts of my life as a kid. I was an adrenaline junkie even back then. I was such a strong swimmer that I broke a national record for the fifty-yard freestyle when I was ten years old. I also played soccer and basketball. I was a rowdy athlete, and that sometimes got me into trouble in school and in town. I was ultracompetitive and always wanted to win, but I loved to have a good time too.

  I loved making people laugh, because that made me the center of attention…and it usually meant my teachers would be pissed off at me for the disruption. My parents got a lot of phone calls and had plenty of meetings with the school. My dad was a lawyer, so he had to deal with people’s shit all day long, and then he’d have to come home and deal with me. Sometimes I don’t know how he and my mom did it.

  Don’t get me wrong—I was a good student when I wanted to be. I got C’s and B’s. I could be smart when I was interested in something. I was lucky to have a few teachers who helped me find my way and get focused.

  When I was at St. Patrick School in Pelham, New Hampshire, I had one teacher who really got through to me. Mrs. Moran saw that I was always daydreaming and making up stories. I didn’t want to listen in class; I wanted to do my own thing. She helped me to develop my storytelling.

  I had just seen Cujo, the movie about the rabid dog based on Stephen King’s book. In my head I was imagining a story about a three-legged dog that followed me and my friends home. Instead of dismissing me for having crazy ideas, Mrs. Moran sat with me and helped me put them down on paper. She helped me find something I really like to do: tell stories. I think I still have that story of the three-legged dog sitting around somewhere…and no, you can’t see it! (Just kidding…I will try to find it and post it on my Web site someday.) I’ve been a storyteller since a very young age. I still am. I always will be.

  Movies were a huge influence on me too. I remember watching E.T. as a kid. Both the movie and the subject left a huge impact. I was blown away by the idea that UFOs could visit us, and by the incredible characters and the experiences everyone went through. Paranormal themes spoke to me even as a wide-eyed kid munching popcorn in a dark theater while watching a Steven Spielberg masterpiece.

  In fact, I can’t think about my childhood without also thinking about movies. I was in love with every part of the moviegoing experience. When I sat down to watch a movie, I escaped everything. Everyday activities, anything that was frustrating about home or school was gone when the movie rolled. I would put myself in the movie—I was right there with the characters having an adventure. And when I left the theater, those adventures would continue, in the woods and in my head.

  QUESTIONS FANS ASK

  Has your wife ever investigated with you?

  When we were in college, Veronique went with me to Virginia City and Tonopah to investigate. Now it’s more just my thing. Once in a while she’ll come out to a location and do a daytime walk-through with me, but she mainly leaves the ghost hunting to me now.

  Growing up, we had only one TV with big rabbit-ear antennae, so we didn’t get many channels, but of course we could rent movies. I was about six years old when I walked in on my sister watching Alien. I joined her, and it scared the crap out of me.

  Every time I’d watch a horror movie, it would give me nightmares. I’ll never forget Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and the character Freddy Krueger. Cat’s Eye, Pet Sematary, Children of the Corn, It, Twilight Zone—all these movies scared the shit out of me. I was a huge Stephen King fan back then. I loved the adrenaline rush that only fear can bring—although sometimes that m
ade it tough for a kid to sleep. My parents would sometimes wake up in the morning and find me sleeping on the floor in their bedroom near the foot of their bed. I didn’t care. I still wanted to see more horror movies. Fear made me feel alive.

  I’d do anything to get my hands on more scary movies. One time I was at the video rental store trying to rent Dr. Giggles. It was rated R and I was just a kid. The video clerk told me that I couldn’t rent it without a parent’s permission. I pointed to a woman across the store and convinced the clerk that she was my mother. When I got home, my real mother was pissed that I had rented the slasher film.

  Maybe it was the horror movies combined with my overactive imagination, but even my room frightened me. I was scared of what might be under the bed. Some nights there was nothing and I slept fine, but on other nights I had this sense that I wasn’t alone in there. It could have been just in my head, but danger lurks in funny places. By looking for ghosts and monsters, I would learn to face fear, to control it within myself.

  I know children are more sensitive to the supernatural. Over time we learn to forget what we feel because adults tell us it can’t be real. But what if you don’t believe that? I know we say ghosts aren’t real because we want to protect our children, because we want them to feel safe. Knowing what I know now, I can see I was sensitive as a kid. I’ve lost most of that sensitivity over the years, but not all. I don’t feel I’m psychic, which can be a good thing when you’re looking for ghosts. I know that if I see something it’s not some psychic sense. It’s real and right there. And if I can see it, my camera can see it too. I can tell the difference between my own psychic impression and what’s physically in the room with me, but that skill took dozens of investigations to develop. An impression is almost like a memory, even though the event is happening in the present moment. If the spirit is manifesting in the room right now, then I’m using my regular senses to experience the entity.