A visit from the Ghost Professor
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
JAKE DOWLING
STAFF WRITER
Do ghosts exist, and if they do, what do they look like?
That question was answered Tuesday night when the Auglaize County Public Library hosted its first event during WapaWeen with the presentation from John Kachuba, the “Ghost Professor.”
Kachuba, a paranormal author, travels to haunted places around the state. Many people contact him and tell him to come out to their place to see if it is indeed haunted.
With an audience of 45 to 50 people in attendance for the event, Kachuba shared a few places that he has been to personally.
“All these places that are considered haunted are all open to the public,” Kachuba said. “If you want to take your kids to these places, feel free to do that, the people operating these places will be more than happy to tell you their story.”
“I have personally gone through these places,” he said. “Some of what I wrote in my books is from my own experiences and from the experiences from people that work there on a regular basis such as security guards. It’s all pretty interesting.”
Kachuba asked the crowd, rhetorically, what is a ghost? “I think we all have in our mind what a ghost looks like,” he said. “We think of the typical stereotypical ghost with a sheet over them or chains rattling as they moan and groan, but I challenge you to think what a ghost really is.”
He narrowed what we believe a ghost is into three categories.
“For one, ghosts can be in our mind,” said Kachuba. “I have heard so many stories where grandpa passes away and everyone is mourning his loss and one day grandma walks into the bedroom and grandma sees grandpa sitting on the edge of the bed. I hear this story over and over again, so I ask, did they really see a ghost or was all the grieving so strong that they were able to visualize it?”
“A second possibility is an element from another dimension,” he continued. “It’s some crazy, crazy stuff that I can’t explain, but if it’s true, is it possible that a reality bumps up to another one? The last one, it’s the remains of a living person such as a spirit or soul. It’s an eternal essence that remains after death, and for some reason, it remains on this level so it is stuck or trapped here.”
During the presentation, Kachuba showed the audience slideshows of locations that are allegedly haunted and explained his experiences as well as other’s experiences and what makes that place haunted.
Some of the places are the Music Hall and Observatory in Cincinnati, Collington Arts Center and Oliver House in Toledo, Fort Meigs in Perrysburg, Thomas Edison’s boyhood home in Milan, the Thurber House in Columbus, the Ridges in Athens and the Punderson State Park in Newbury.
At the Music Hall in Cincinnati, the hall is built on a potter’s field, a place for the burial of unknown or indigent, those who lacked money or fame, people. For Fort Meigs, veterans from either the Civil War or the Spanish-American War are seen walking around.
“There is a cemetery right next to the fort of hundreds of soldiers who died, Americans and soldiers of other countries, many unaccounted for,” Kachuba said. “There is a neighborhood that comes right up to the fort and people that live right next to the fort are also guides. They have heard gunfire, iron wheels, and have seen soldiers’ figures too.”
Kachuba also told the audience they could listen to some sights and sounds of haunted places in Ohio at the Ohio Exploration Society website.
The presentation lasted for 45 minutes, followed by a few questions from the audience and a book signing afterward.
“Aside from my books, I also have Kindle books if you have a Kindle reader,” Kachuba said. “They are all fiction because they are all paranormal fiction so enjoy them and Happy Halloween.”
Copyright © 2014, Wapakoneta Daily News
Thanks to John Kachuba for referring his audience to the OES website and to Jake Dowling for including it in his article.