WHEN YOU’RE RETIRED, it’s nice to have a hobby that gets you out of the house.
And if the hobby incorporates one of your passions, challenges you to learn new things and benefits the community, so much the better.
That is what former Port Ludlow resident Vaughn Hubbard has — in spades.
A retired Lockheed engineer, Hubbard is the founder, case manager and historian of Paranormal Investigations of Historic America.
The goal of the nonprofit organization, which does all work pro bono: to stimulate interest in Washington state history and increase visits to historic sites by riding the popularity of ghost-hunter-type shows on television.
“Our investigations encourage families to get out on a Saturday or Sunday and visit these historic locations,” Hubbard said.
“They learn about our fascinating history and may even hope to see a ghost.
“It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
Hubbard, who now lives in Monroe, plans to be in Port Townsend next month to conduct paranormal investigations of the Palace Hotel, a former brothel on Water Street.
He will arrive in the PIHA command vehicle — a black, commercially converted 2002 Ford Econoline van limousine, which Hubbard rewired to run his computer system.
He also is bringing an array of video and audio equipment, including a parabolic listening device that enhances sound, especially in the lower register.
“With headphones, we can listen to everything real time,” he said. “We can pick up voices and try to communicate back to them.”
A registered, nonprofit organization, PIHA spends approximately $800 for an investigation by Hubbard and a team of four volunteers, who put in between 60 to 80 hours of work.
The end product, besides publicity, is a DVD with paranormal evidence — photos, video clips, digital recordings — and a written report presented to the client, all free of charge.
As a result, PIHA only accepts two investigations a month out of the many requests Hubbard receives.
Last weekend, he and the team were at the McMenamins Olympic Club Hotel, a historic Centralia landmark turned into hotel, with a restaurant, bar and theater.
“There’s quite a lot of activity down there,” Hubbard said. “There’s quite a lot of activity in the rooms, too.”
Hubbard doesn’t advertise the exact date PIHA will be in Port Townsend — when he got first started doing paranormal investigations, the group he belonged to scheduled one in Pioneer Square that attracted hundreds of people, aborting the effort.
That group also took 20 people along on each trip, Hubbard said.
He started PIHA because he wanted to work with a small team of people who are primarily interested in the historical aspects of the work.
“I love history, and I really just wanted to go to the museums and historic sites,” he said.
“I also felt this was a good opportunity to exploit interest in the paranormal. There are more ghost-hunter programs on television about some old prison site in Pennsylvania than all of our historic sites in Washington combined.”
Although they don’t want spectators, the PIHA team welcomes owners and/or staff at the site — to participate in the investigation and use the equipment.
PIHA also invites local media to join the team, so that a visit generates publicity for the site and the community.
Most clients make copies of the DVD and sell them to their visitors for additional revenue.
“Our ultimate goal is to create documentaries on our historic sites for the History Channel or public TV,” Hubbard said.
The scariest site he has ever visited is the old train tunnel at Wellington, near Stevens Pass, where in 1919, two trains, stopped by a snowstorm for four days, were swept down the mountainside by an avalanche in the middle of the night, killing 97 people.
No tracks run there anymore, but a train tunnel built after the fact is accessible by car.
“If you go up there at night, it’s like a horror movie,” Hubbard said.
“We didn’t have an infrared camera, but a little boy showed up on the video.
“Practically every time we go up there we pick something up.”
Hubbard’s ghost-hunting hobby combines his interest in history — he is descended from the first Hubbard to set foot in the New World, and his grandfather helped build the Denny Regrade in Seattle — with an interest in electronics.
He also looks at paranormal activity from a scientific viewpoint.
“As an engineer, I know that there is energy all around us,” he said.
“Everyone has an aura. Once a physical body passes away, where does that energy go?
“Even if it dissipates over time, what frame of time are we looking at? Why does one place have more left-over energy than others?
“It’s an exploration.”
For more information, go to www.pihausa.com.
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688, or e-mail jjackson@olypen.com.
