A slender scythe of a Halloween moon broke between bare tree branches as my friend Boots and I walked quickly across the prematurely dark campus to the Moon Room, where the center pews were filled with pirates, bloody nurses and assorted fairies. What better time for a ghosthunting tour than the night we celebrate all things creepy? Experienced ghosthunter Darren Thompson, the leader of the tour, began with a discussion of his work with Washington State Paranormal Investigations and Research (WSPIR). The group investigates reports of haunted houses, prisons and hospitals. Their main focus is helping people, both living and dead.

“There are very few high-profile places we’ll do because that’s more entertainment, not helping anybody,” said Thompson.

The group tries to help people living in haunted homes to understand the ghosts and, if at all possible, bring peace to the restless spirits.

But first, they have to establish that a site is genuinely haunted. WSPIR uses a variety of tools to detect paranormal activity, including audio and video recorders, digital cameras, electromagnetic field meters, surface and air thermometers, and thermal imaging cameras. They also use psychics to gather non-quantifiable data about the sites.

Thompson walked us through slides of some of the more spectacularly haunted places WSPIR has investigated, including the home of one of the first American serial killers, Linda Hazard. Hazard was a homeopathic “doctor” who believed people could be cured through starvation. She killed over 30 people. We then listened to a recording taken at Hazard’s house, aptly named Starvation Heights. While two technicians make small talk in the background, a woman’s voice is heard.

“Help me,” she says breathlessly. It wasn’t hard to imagine the gaunt specter pleading futilely for someone to save her.

After this introduction, the next step was to do some ghost hunting of our own. We quickly decided that Dana Auditorium would be our best bet, since several people have reported strange phenomena there, such as lights going on and off and things being moved. Not much is known about the two spirits that these acts have been attributed to, except that they are believed to be a young boy and girl.

Now I have to admit, I’m not much of a skeptic; I get freaked out easily and I won’t go in Mary Hobbs alone, day or night. I was one of those kids who believed wholeheartedly in the supernatural, a belief that was only bolstered when I once glimpsed by best friend’s long-dead grandfather standing in her living room window. But I also know that what sounds like a ghostly whisper is probably just the wind in the trees.

We settled down near the stage in the dark and cavernous auditorium. Empty and quiet, the space was far creepier than I had expected. Thompson explained that he was going to use a voice recorder to ask the spirits some questions.

“What’s your name?” he asked. Silence.

“Do you want to come play with us?” Nothing. “Can you make a noise on the stage?”

Something in the back right corner creaked. Boots and I looked at each other, hardly daring to breathe. It creaked again, sounding just like someone had sat down on one of the old theater seats. But the stage remained silent.

After a while with no response, Thompson replayed the tape. After each question, a faint whispering was audible, but it was too faint to make out what was being said, or if the voice was just background noise.

And it may very well have been merely background noise: the eerily creaking seat turned out to be hot air rattling through an old vent. And while the lack of response to Thompson’s queries doesn’t necessarily mean that Dana is ghost-free, I remain unconvinced that the auditorium’s creepiness stems from anything more than age and a passing resemblance to Ford’s Theater, the site of Lincoln’s assassination. Perhaps the result would have been much different if we had toured the undoubtedly haunted Mary Hobbs instead.