BILLINGS – For the Montana Paranormal Research Society, Halloween comes more than once a year.
On many weekends, the small but committed group chases ghosts in houses, old museums, jails, Elks lodges and wherever else something spooky is happening.
But they aren’t amateurs, and they take their task very seriously.
When they show up on a “case,” the group brings a dozen cameras, computers, microphones and gadgets and enough cable to wrap around a football field, probably twice.
Their setup resembles a bank security operation, with eight security cameras feeding into a powerful computer that records every second. Group members set up other cameras in rooms and carry instruments that monitor electromagnetic charges.
After a typical night spent inside a house or other haunted spot, the group will have 100 hours of video footage to review because most of the evidence they capture isn’t immediately obvious and reveals itself later on film or in audio clips.
A few weeks later, the group might post a few minutes of audio evidence or a video on its website — a five-minute summary of 100 hours of work.
“When we started it, our goal was to be scientific and evidence-based,” said Dustin Benner, one of the group’s founders.
On Oct. 2, a group of about 15 people crowded into the break room on the eighth floor of the Yellowstone County Courthouse.
Most of those present were society team members, along with local author Karen Stevens, who writes about haunted places in Montana. The team was back at the courthouse for its second investigation this year.
Besides the break room, the eighth floor is abandoned. It served as the county jail for decades, ending in 1987 after a judge ruled that it was unsuitable and overcrowded.
The jail cells are still in place, but most of them are used for storage now. A gallows was built in a stairwell leading to the roof, but it was never used. There is still a padded cell in the solitary wing.
Many people consider the old jail haunted, and plenty of county employees claim to have heard strange voices or seen things on the eighth floor.
To get to the eighth floor, county workers can take a special elevator mostly used for prisoner transport. The public can’t access the eighth floor.
Greg Erpenbach, facilities manager for the county, has his office on the eighth floor.
He was with the ghost hunters when they first visited in May and again Oct. 2.
Erpenbach is usually pretty quiet, but he seemed enthused about the group sleuthing around the old jail. He even dug out details about a sheriff’s deputy who died years ago while climbing a flight of stairs in the courthouse.
Benner sent a camera crew to the stairwell once they figured out its exact location.
The group arrived at about 5:30 p.m. and spent the next few hours setting up.
Security cameras were installed in hallways and a fifth-floor courtroom. Long cables snaked back to the break room, where Benner and society member Lora Mattox had set up a command post with a computer.
All of the cables fed into a special device that plugged into the computer. The computer screen was broken into a grid, with the feed from a different security camera in each box.
After setting up, the group went to Perkins for dinner. They like to let things settle down for at least an hour, Mattox said.
Having some quiet time on camera also lets them see what the place is like when it’s totally empty.
When they come back, the group splits into teams. With the size of the jail, several teams could head in different directions and not bother each other.
Mattox took one team into a cell that had a wonderful nighttime view of downtown. The city lights cast an orange glow over the darkened cells.
Benner and two others started the group about five years ago. Mattox and her husband, Curtis, joined later.
The team travels to sites on many weekends. Sometimes they’re invited; other times, they ask for permission. This particular weekend, they’re going to the state prison in Deer Lodge.
“We volunteer all our time to do this,” Mattox said. “It sometimes can be an expensive hobby.”
Team members chip in to buy equipment and gas for road trips.
Homeowners who think they have a ghost problem will often contact the team and ask them to come investigate.
Most people are genuinely bothered by weird happenings in their house, but others have tried to trick the team, Benner said. He thinks it’s because they want to profit off of claims that they live in a haunted house.
“People try to deceive us,” Benner said. “We’ve had people who’ve hidden in the attic and made noises.”
Mattox and the rest of her team walked into the spacious cell with the view.
All around the team, weird noises came and went. Some were easily explained: the building’s creaky heating system, a toilet flushing near the break room, windows cracking as the night air cooled outside.
But other noises couldn’t be explained.
There was an infrequent tapping, like someone’s ring banging on a cell bar, an odd whoosh and what sounded like shuffling papers.
Last time, the team caught on video what sounded like a girl saying, “Here comes Mr. Becker.”
Mattox said some later research revealed that a deputy named Becker had worked for the sheriff’s department in years past.
Later, Curtis Mattox grabbed a parabolic microphone and went around the jail. The microphone looks a bit like a satellite dish mounted on a pistol, and team members say it can pick up things not easily heard otherwise.
The team stayed in the jail until almost dawn.
Members talk to one another in normal voices and talk to potential ghosts as if they were playing hide-and-seek.
It will take about a month before the group can comb through the 100 hours of footage from the jail to see if anything unusual happened.
On the group’s website, they list audio and video clips of strange occurrences from various cases, such as some homes in Laurel, the Moss Mansion and the old jail.
They also encourage people to contact them if they have unexplained things happening in their homes.
Most times, they don’t find anything exciting, and the group promises discretion if the homeowner doesn’t want attention.
Benner said the group exists to help people, and it has gained more understanding in the public, especially with the help of a few television shows with similar themes.
“It’s not just a bunch of weird people — well, we’re still weird — but we’re not running around in the dark trying to raise the dead,” Benner said. “It’s research.”