Spooky Greenough plays host to paranormal hunters

Geraldton’s local haunting grounds are getting a good work-out from a new team of ghost hunters, armed with the latest equipment to catch a spook in the act.

Mathew Wilson and Wayne Giles have been running ghost tours around Greenough Village for the past three months, and also perform private investigations in local homes.

Both have long-held fascinations with the paranormal, with Mr Giles being a member of investigation groups in Perth and Mr Wilson giving ghost tours at his previous job at Beechworth Asylum in Victoria.

Mr Giles estimated he had more than $1000 of equipment dedicated to paranormal investigating, from electromagnetic frequency readers, to laser tripwires, to night vision cameras.

“It’s a very scientific process,” he said.

“We go around the room with a commercial EMF reader and that helps us to find any other sources of electromagnetic energy; power sockets or electronics of any kind.

“You can get a reader that will go off at anything and get people excited, that’s easy, but I want to know for sure that there is something there when the device goes off, it should only go off if the spirit is right in front of the thing.”

Mr Giles said he certainly wasn’t doing the tours for the money, with half of prices going back into the heritage sites they used, and private investigations coming free of charge.

“It’s about helping people,” he said.

“You don’t want to charge someone for the misfortune of having a mean spirit following them, that’s just not what we do.”

Mr Wilson explained a time when they had a woman who was worried the room her baby was in was haunted.

“She had two mirrors facing each other, and that creates an infinite portal,” he said.

“There were huge EMF readings there, and this was right next to her head where she was sleeping, so all we had to do was move some things around and the energy just completely went away. She said she felt a lot better after that.”

Despite their efforts, the pair said they very rarely saw actual ghosts.

“One time in the Greenough Nunnery I saw a spirit’s leg manifest fully, I could see it, but that’s about as close as I’ve ever come, never a spirit fully manifest,” Mr Giles said.

“But you’ve got to remember they aren’t here just for our entertainment.”

Greenough caretaker Kevin Freeman said the group was very respectful of the settlement, and the money they raised from their tours helped with maintenance of the grounds.

“They’re pretty good — I don’t have to do a lot for them,” he said.

“We still show respect to the churches, they don’t use the churches because they’re self- governed, but everywhere else is fine. I hope they just keep coming and people keep supporting them, they’re doing a great job.”