Ghostbuster? No thanks. For the researchers of the Roman association Ghost Hunters, the voices of the afterlife also need science

Science and Paranormal Phenomena
The attempt to steal tales of wandering spirits, spiced with the noise of chains and cruel screams, failed immediately before the rigorous sovereignty of the President of the Capitoline Ghostbusters: “This film about ghostcatchers is our cross – says Daniele Cipriani – folks, he expects that Thing there and instead we are something else”. What the association he leads is written in almost large letters on the homepage of his website: “The Ghost Hunters Rome Scientific Research Association has been conducting free data collection analyzes in the field of the paranormal since 2006; he is concerned with the study and classification of: mediumship, near-death experiences, telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and many other phenomena pertaining to the branch of humanities known as “Psychic Research”.

The method is therefore analytical. Without concessions to horror or at least fantasy atmospheres. Cipriani continues: “Our approach is scientific. As in other disciplines, we believe that collecting and comparing data is the only way not to be mistaken for charlatans or pranksters. Let’s apply the rigor of experimentation – emphasizes the president of Roman Ghost Hunters – in a field that has unfortunately been deprived of all scientific credibility by an entire filmography much rawer and more terrifying than Ghostbusters.
Let’s at least try to fish in the murky industry: “Okay – let’s say – but at the end of your experiments the fee is triggered…”.

No fee in case of intervention
“Absolutely not. We conduct free field research in homes, businesses, hotels. Yes, even in castles, but more often in apartments. They call us because they may have heard suspicious noises several times. Or someone is convinced they have heard rumours Or they show us the classic photos that seem to have taken on strange apparitions. Look – says Cipriani – that in 90% of the cases there is really no paranormal phenomenon behind the reports we receive. Especially the photos: these seemingly unexpected presences are actually the result of the dust that likes to draw figures, perhaps kicked up by a current of air or the use of lightning.
Even for free, their readiness checks don’t take a few minutes. They also last all night. They don’t have the Ghostbusters’ bombastic equipment, nor the orange suits, but thermal imaging cameras, special cameras, “machines – specifies Daniele Cipriani – that go beyond the senses of men”.

Roman style ghosts

Much can be said about the scientific or other nature of the paranormal, but when you dive into the casuistry, you inevitably get chills down your spine. At the Palazzo Senatorio in Campidoglio, as documented on the association’s website, a thermal image showed the appearance of a monk. In the former insane asylum Santa Maria della Pietà, a humanoid figure at the end of a corridor is disturbing. And at the former geriatric facility in Marcigliana, a photo taken by Ghost Hunters operators captured what they call an “anomaly.”
Those who only look for rational explanations run into trouble in these and other cases: “It can happen that you find yourself in a room where a bloody event happened in the past, maybe a suicide – says Cipriani – it happens then something like in an echo of the memory of what happened, the environment itself reproduces sounds or even shadows stemming from that fact of the blood.
Let’s try to dig deeper into this type of case. Let’s sketch the reference to an area of ​​northern Rome that would seem obvious to us for these things, like the Coppedé neighborhood in the Salario of Trieste. These buildings with monstrous faces in the entrance, these mansions around the fountain of the frogs seem ideal for phenomena, if not suitable for Ghostbusters, at least for Ghost Hunters: “No, we have never been to Coppedè – says Daniele Cipriani – To I stay in Rome North, on the other hand I well remember an investigation that we made in Prati.

In Prati, the shadows of older spouses
We don’t go any further: No way or a restricted area. Confidentiality is one of the elements that characterize the association. However, a profile is sketched: a married couple, also of middle culture, with a beautiful house in one of the classic Prati residences: “They mostly called us out of curiosity – says Cipriani – not because they were afraid. On some nights they could hear noises or even shadows passing through the living room. Things they couldn’t explain. We spent a whole night with them and at the end we said that nothing appeared to us”.
However, there is another episode, this time in the south of Rome, that is much more poignant: “The motivation that leads us to contact each other – says Cipriani – is often due to the death of a family member. If the grief is not processed, it can even inspire hope of hearing voices or seeing a missing loved one. In these cases, when we deny the facts presented to us, we see the regret of those who have approached us. In one case, however, which took place in a house in southern Rome, we documented – Cipriani admits – an inexplicable and moving phenomenon. A mother who had lost her eight-year-old daughter to a terminal illness came to us. He said he heard his voice.

The dead girl’s voice greeting her mother
“We only went to her because she asked us multiple times and we are aware we are facing a history of human despair. But when we activated our metaphony instrumentation, a kind of very high-sensitivity recorder, we clearly heard the voice of a little girl saying “Hello Mom.”

Daniele Cipriani still feels a strong emotion as he narrates it: “The woman who called us burst into tears and told us that with her little girl they were used to seeing a cartoon where the protagonist said this phrase many times used”.
We marvel at the Roman tales of the ghost hunters, whose president wants to clean up every spectacle. In fact, next Study conference on May 7th in Pomezia excluded the media: “Maximum respect, but these characters are characterized by an emotionality that we want to avoid”. Conference theme: “Between Spirituality and Frontier Sciences: Communication of Life”. Proceeds from the inscriptions will be donated to Save The Children. The speakers treat the hereafter as a frontier that is not so impassable. Without telling about ghosts, but by documenting the experiments around inexplicable phenomena that happen anyway. when they happen.