On Saturday night a group of 4 of us went on a ghost tour (http://realghosttours.com/) in Minneapolis. These tours happen every weekend, all year long. Fridays and Saturdays tours are from 9-1030 pm and 11-1230 am. The cost is $25. Once a month they do a 4 hour tour later in the night for $65. According to the guides the ghosts aren't mean or demonic. One of the friendlier ghosts is Amelia - she was a "working girl" who worked in the bar that use to be Pracna.
The tour takes place along the Mississippi River near historic St. Anthony Main. The buildings in this area are among the oldest in the city. These buildings are now restaurants (Pracna, Vic's, and the Aster Cafe) and a theater. During the 90 minute tour you are taken to a few areas in the buildings along with the basement of the building where the tour starts. You are given ghost hunting equipment to use along your tour. We had dowsing rods - these are pretty cool. They've been around about 8000 years. I won't go into the long winded history behind them or how they work right now but feel free to google them if you want. We were asking the ghosts to do things with the rods and they complied! Here is a picture of Lucas using his:
We also used EMF detectors - you've seen these on ghost shows - they light up when paranormal activity is around. The tour guides were doing EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) work and also taking video. I downloaded an app on my iPhone called Ghost Radar. This not only picks up EVP but it also shows paranormal activity in the room - the paranormal just look like little blobs of color on the radar ranging from yellow to red being the most intense.
Onto the experiences - of course nothing happened to me. Sigh. However, something did happen to my skeptical friend Julie - actually a few things happened to her. First her dowsing rods were pretty much doing exactly what she told them to do. Secondly we (me, her, Lucas and Lynda) were standing in a room alone chatting. I was watching my Ghost Radar and I said "Julie there is a red dot right behind you." Right after I said that Julie got this look on her face that I can't even explain - then she started freaking out. After she calmed down she said that something brushed her across her back. I promise there was nothing human standing behind her. And finally Julie and I were standing in another room filled with junk and knick knacks. Once again I told her something red was standing right by her. Then my Ghost Radar kicked out the word "Richard" - Richard is Julie's dad who passed a couple years ago. After I told her that she said "Dad is that you?" and my phone kicked out the word "correct" and then Julie felt something on her hand. Moral of the story - if you want to have a ghost experience hang out near Julie. I took a bunch of pictures and didn't come up with anything. Julie took 9 million photos - if she catches something I'll be sure to let you know
Pros: I liked that they let us do alot of our own investigating. They let us spend about 15-20 minutes in each area doing our own thing. I liked that we were able to explore dark buildings that don't normally see much human activity. It was also nice having a 90 minute tour. And I liked that they didn't use any fake haunted house scare tactics. It was just straight up ghost hunting. I liked that they supplied us with ghost hunting equipment.
Cons: Ghosts only come out when they want to haha.
I would definitely go again - maybe next summer (when it's warmer) I'll look into doing the 4 hour overnight tour.
