Besides Gettysburg in the premiere, go to California for the USS Hornet, a World War II battleship. Some forts in Arkansas, Armagosa Hotel in Death Valley--we captured some really good stuff there with a thermal camera. Another place that was really good was the return to Bobby Mackey’s Music World in Kentucky, which was a satanic worshiping place and a slaughterhouse at one time. Mafiosos used to hang out there and run a casino. It has a lot of crazy history. I never thought we’d go back there ever again. The first time we went was creepy. Zak got scratched on his back. I went into the bathroom and the whole place started shaking consistently and we captured growls and a figure. We went back for a ghost hunt that we hosted and brought people in and some of them captured some amazing evidence. Wait till you see what happens to us this time.
Any new devices you’ll be using in your investigations this season?
We have a ton of new scientific equipment. I’ve been working with a man named Bill Chappell, who’s developed some really cool equipment for us. We’re taking it to the next level. We’re catching some really good evidence in our episodes coming up. There’s one we call a PX that uses energy to manipulate some of these words that are coming through from spirits. We use real-time digital recorders with real-time EVPs where we can actually hear the spirit a half-second after we’ve asked the question rather than having to take it to our computers or listen back to it on our recorders. We have headphones and can listen to it right away. It’s really cool to hear a spirit talk back to you, and kind of creepy too sometimes. We’re also using thermal cameras, we’re using UV again for different spectrums of light—we’re noticing we can capture better evidence in pitch darkness, energy forms and stuff like that.
Did the EM pumps you used last season help to increase the paranormal activity--such as at the Remington Arms facility where the gunshot was heard?
Yeah, it sets off an electromagnetic field, like a bubble in the area where we’re setting up our cameras. Spirits need a lot of energy to try to manifest or talk or make things move so when we put energy in the atmosphere for them to use it’s actually helping. Sometimes it’s hit and sometimes it’s miss but I think it increases the potential of capturing evidence.
Do you have any favorite investigative tools?
I love the digital recorder. It’s my favorite tool. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Washoe Club episode where they call my name and I captured it on the digital recorder. I get that a lot, I don’t know why, but voices tend to come through a lot to me and the digital recorder is such a good device to use.
What’s the creepiest EVP you ever recorded?
We’ve done a lot of them. This season coming up, we’ve been getting sentences captured on our recorders. We go to a Cuban refugee prison in Arkansas and we get an inmate saying some really bad things, really frightening. But the EVPs that really get to me are the ones that say my name. It’s like we’re really connecting through audio. When I was at the Washoe Club, hearing my full name, Nick Groff, really clear, was really weird. Usually I’ll just get my first name.
Why do you think ghosts seem to have a particular fascination with you, calling out your name like that?I think everybody has that extra sense, where you can feel the energy of the spirits around you, and you can connect by asking intelligent questions and getting responses. It’s a matter of opening up your mind to it. I think from doing this for so long and going to these locations my mind has just opened more and more and I can feel when a presence is around me. I can feel energy around my body and I can feel if it’s bad or good, and I think they know it too. Spirits aren’t stupid. They were once living, just like us. So they feed on that and know what’s going on. Sometimes I’ll see shadows or figures or a total solid figure like I saw at Linda Vista Hospital last year. That totally freaked me out. I could see every detail on her body, her brown eyes, the pattern on her hospital gown, how short her hair was. That was the first time I saw a solid figure standing two feet in front of my face. It was creepy because our eyes connected for a split second. It was surreal. That experience is embedded in my head forever.
What other incidents stand out as unforgettable, and maybe keep you up at night?
Two locations that really got to me were Savannah Georgia, the Moon River Brewery Company. I’ll never forget that one. An energy can really take you over and you can lose track of yourself, and for a period of time and that’s what happened to me in the basement of that place. The energy took me over and I blacked out. I hear one thing in my head: “Kill him, kill him.’ When you watch it you see this black energy coming off me that disappears into thin air and we captured an EVP at that moment too. Energies can take you over and can dramatically change your mood, your vision, they can black you out, do different things do you and that’s the scary part. You’ve got to be very careful and have a buddy to back you up. You don’t want to go by yourself. It takes lot to scare me. But there are times when I’m suddenly frightened and scared. In the New Jersey Mental Hospital I was locked inside the morgue for an hour. That was really scary because I couldn’t get out. Zak and Aaron were lost and couldn’t find me to get me out. I was actually hearing hands pushing against the metal doors and seeing someone walk around and capturing EVP on my recorder. But I try not to let it get to me. You’ve got to stay strong mentally and physically.
How do you prepare for entering some of these dark, scary old places and confronting what may be angry spirits?
Everyone has their own way of preparing emotionally, spiritually to open their minds. I try not to overhype myself before I go into a location. I kind of go in nonchalantly. I don’t want to be overtaken by some bad energy. I’m a spiritual person to begin with so it comes a little more easily to me. But it does get scary. There are risks in what we do for your health, your family attachments. When you leave locations you’ve got to keep all that in mind. When I leave a location I close the door behind me and forget about it, totally wipe it from my mind. Obviously there will be experiences I just can’t forget but I just try to block it out and move on. I don’t feed into it or it will just intensify or worsen. Talking from experience, that’s the number one thing you don’t want to do.
What do you make of EVPs that come through as children’s voices? Are demons masquerading as children to draw people in and make them let their guard down? Are they child ghosts or something more sinister?
That’s the scary part about what we do. We go to a lot of dark, dark locations. Sometimes we’ll get children’s voices coming through but we won’t always know who we’re talking with—that’s the scary part. We always tell people that it could be something manipulating, trying to feed you this energy to try to get to you. You’re going to see that in our new season when we go back to Mackey’s.
What’s your take on orbs? Are they insects, light anomalies, or really spirits?
98 percent of them can totally be debunked as bugs, dust or water vapor. Bugs, you can actually see the wings on them. We actually show you that in the episodes coming up. We show you what dust looks like and the difference between the two. Over the years we’ve captured what we call balls of energy that appear out of thin air on the frame of the camera and either enter a body or go by our equipment or move rapidly toward our faces. We’re noticing that all or a sudden our batteries will totally die and our equipment will malfunction. And something will react on our body that we didn’t notice while we were filming but will come up later when we see the footage. It’s like a static charge of energy hits you—that’s what you feel when these balls of energy enter your body. When we did the New Jersey Mental Hospital episode and I was in the morgue for an hour, afterward we were walking and I felt this ball of energy on the side of my face, and Aaron noticed a handprint there. I think these balls of energy are pre-manifestations of spirits that are traveling and they come in contact with you.
In the year since WEIRLD interviewed Zak, there are so many more paranormal shows on TV. What do you make of that? Do you watch them?
I haven’t watched lately but I know they’re booming. I tend not to watch them too much, to be honest. I’m real busy on the road and don’t have much time to watch TV. There’s nothing really that catches my eye, so I don’t really have an opinion.
Does the competition bother you?
Not at all. At the end of the day we’re all trying to do the same thing, trying to figure out what else is out there beyond death. That’s the biggest question no matter what your religious beliefs are. I think everyone is intrigued in some way and trying to learn more. Zak, Aaron and myself, we go out and do our thing and show you what we get. We research it and talk to other paranormal investigators, we reach out to people all over the world who have had similar experiences and try to solve some of the questions that we have. I think it’s interesting that all of a sudden there’s a huge boom in the paranormal where more than the average person is interested in looking into it. You have so many more people who didn’t believe in ghosts at all before and now they’re coming out and investigating, they want to hear something or see something and get that experience and go to some of these locations. They’ve never had that chance before and now with everything going on they have the opportunity to do that.
How did you first get interested in the paranormal?
I was always interested, since I was a little kid. I grew up in New Hampshire right outside Boston and I was really close with my grandmother, my dad’s mom. We’d talk all the time about UFOs and ghosts. As a kid you don’t really understand it but it sticks with you as you get older and get more intrigued. When I was eight, ten years old I was waiting for my mom to come home from work. We lived in Salem, New Hampshire on the end of a cul-de-sac. I remember being in the kitchen and looking out the sliding glass window onto the porch on the second floor and I remember seeing a dark, solid figure and it scared me so bad that I ran out of my house and into my neighbor’s yard till my mom got home. That kind of stuck with me throughout the years. I kind of forgot about it but it came back to me as I got more intrigued by haunted locations and researching places. What I did with my buddies was, ‘Hey there’s a haunted house, let’s check it out.’ That’s what I would do. I was doing this stuff long before I hooked up with Aaron in Las Vegas and then when I met Zak we said, ‘Let’s grab some cameras and try to capture some stuff we’ve always been intrigued by.’
Do you have any interest in investigating other aspects of the paranormal like UFOs or aliens or monsters? Would you do an episode searching for Bigfoot?
I think our focus is the paranormal as far as spirits go, but I am interested 100% in UFOs, that there’s something out there in our universe. I’m totally intrigued by all that stuff and try to watch every single documentary about UFOs because you get into life forms and what else is out there. Right now we’re happy with the direction we’re going. But we were in Arkansas for an episode coming up and there were a lot of Sasquatch sightings at this old fort so we were looking for that too, keeping our eyes out for Sasquatch while we were investigating the paranormal.
With all the recognition for and attention to your efforts, is there pressure to find something each time?
I don’t think so. There are so many locations throughout the world including ones we’ve done in the new season that people haven’t gone to. We’ve found new locations and dug up history that people don’t know about but also the big locations that people can go to like Eastern State Penitentiary and take ghost tours. It’s fun investigating those places, too.
Where haven’t you been that’s on the top of your to-do list to investigate?
There are a lot of locations overseas. There’s one in Mexico that I would love to go to. There’s actually one in the United States that I’ve been dying to get into, the Buffalo, New York Psychiatric Center. It’s a huge facility and has amazing history. It’s government owned right now and we’ve been trying to get in for the last couple of years.
Has fame and the notoriety from the show impacted your work and your life?
No, not really, I’m a pretty laid back guy so that stuff doesn’t really bother me at all. We’ll be walking through the airport and I’ll hear, ‘Hey Nick, Ghost Adventures! Can I get a picture?’ Yeah, why not? I love talking to people and I respect and really appreciate all the fans that watch Ghost Adventures and the support that we get. I love it and I try to give that love back. Even if I’m at the most tired part of my day and was up all night at a lockdown I still take the time to talk to people at the airport.
You’re also pretty active online and with social media. Is that important to you?
I think it’s very important. It’s all about being personal with people. I have my own Facebook pages that I run, Nick Groff Facebook and Nick Groff the Facebook fan site. I have a MySpace page too. I reply to everybody. I think that’s the appropriate thing to do. I like connecting with people. There’s no point in having a site with your name on it if you’re not gonna write people back. It took me a long time to get on Twitter but Aaron and Zak talked me into it. But I’m on Facebook more than anything else. I’m on Twitter when I’m on the road or whenever there’s something interesting to talk about. I’ll throw up some pictures from locations.
What’s your advice for new ghost hunters just getting started?
Definitely do it. Find a location, but make sure you get permission before you go. Never break in. Get full consent. Make sure you go with two of your friends. Grab a digital recorder and bring it with you. Maybe tag along with another paranormal group if you’re just starting out and don’t know what you’re doing. Try to find a paranormal group in your community and see if you can go with them. Research places, ask questions and then see if you can capture anything. Experience is the best way to learn. Talking to other paranormal investigators on the Internet and getting to know people in the community of paranormal investigation is the best way to learn.
What’s the biggest mistake that amateur ghost hunters make?
Talking too much. A lot of people are like, “Is anyone there? What’s your name? Who are you with?’ they ask so many questions back to back and don’t give time for an answer. Give them enough space to answer your question.
You did a big Halloween live lockdown stunt last year. Anything planned this year?
We’re not doing a live special this year. But we have two hour-long specials coming up. One is our Best Evidence So Far where we recap some of the stuff we’ve captured. The other is Scariest Moments. That airs September 10.
Do you like Halloween?
I love Halloween. You get to dress up and be something you’re not. I do something different every year. Last year I had a weird Scream facemask—I love horror movies, Halloween is my favorite time of the year.
What are your favorite ghost movies?
I love The Sixth Sense. Stir of Echoes with Kevin Bacon is a really good one too. That old one, Effigies, was really good.
What goals do you set now? Do you have any big-screen plans?
I really want to focus on finding good evidence to show people that there is something else out there. That’s the goal with what we’re doing, to bring awareness and open up your mind to do a little research yourself or come on one of the ghost hunts that we host. I don’t want to go the Hollywood route, with audio people and camera crews. Our Ghost Adventures documentary was the catalyst that got us started and got us the series. That documentary was our baby. It was really cool to hit the road with my friends and capture some good stuff. And that’s what we’re still doing, keeping it raw and keeping it real. We’ve always wanted to keep it raw, just us three, no BS. We go into these locations and what you see is what you get and that’s what we’re showing the viewers at home. We want you to feel like you’re right there with us, going on an adventure.
