Brad Duplechien, like the song says, “ain’t afraid of no ghosts.” Along with Brandon Thomas and Jennifer Broussard, his partners in La Spirits – a paranormal investigations company – he actually searches them out. That is the only thing they share with the movie ghost-hunting team – Duplechein and his team are coming to Nicholls this summer to investigate some of the creepy, crawly rumors that have been floating around.
They will be teaching Ghost Hunting 101, a non-credit course open to all community members that will provide hands-on investigation experience to people who are interested in ghosts, a number Duplechien says is growing.
“Lately it’s a big thing on TV,” Duplechien says. “The class is full … about 30 people.”
Students will not just be sitting down and listening to Duplechien talk about ghosts; they will actually get hands-on experience ghost hunting. There will be no proton packs or PKE meters, however. Instead, students will use thermal cameras, DVRs and EMF meters, which measure electromagnetic radiation.
Usually Duplechien has to take his classes to different locations to put their skills learned in class to use. However, here at Nicholls they will not have to leave campus – the University has its own ghosts to investigate.
“We’re gonna break into groups of four or five and turn off the lights” Duplechien says.
The Lady in White, the Colonel – from Death Swamp to Beauregard Hall – there have always been rumors of spirits on and around campus, and now the University will finally get a chance to get some concrete evidence.
Cally Chauvin, assessment coordinator for the College of Education, said she would like some answers. On May 28, while with two custodians in the Lafourche Suite above the Bollinger Memorial Student Union, Chauvin had a close encounter of her own. While they were on the other side of the room, Chauvin says she saw the door slam shut by itself. When they got to it, it was locked, though it had not been before.
“There were only three people there, me and the janitors,” Chauvin says.
Chauvin is not the only person at Nicholls who has had experiences that cannot be explained. Many custodians acknowledge there are ghosts on campus. The custodians in Peltier Hall blame the mishaps of the elevator on the interference of one of the resident ghosts.
“Sometimes the elevator waits when it’s not supposed to,” a custodian, who asked not to be identified, says. “I’ll catch a wisp of white as I turn the corner but not know what it is.”
Thaddeus Holmes, a night custodian in the Union for 11 years, is more certain about what he has seen. He lays the blame for the slamming doors and flickering lights on stormy nights firmly at the feet of “the little girl.”
Who she is no one knows, but Holmes claims although he hasn’t seen her, he has seen evidence of her presence.
“I was just finishing waxing the Greek hall floor, and I heard the door slam,” Holmes says. “Then I looked and saw 10 or 12 little footprints in the wax.”
Duplechien and his team will be investigating some of these phenomena and will first try to come up with a commonsense reason for them.
“Ninety percent of the time, we find a logical explanation for things,” Duplechien says. “When you rule out all logical explanations, what else is there?”
Duplechien says he has run into what he concluded were ghosts.
“It sends chills up your back – when you know you’re in a room alone and you hear another voice,” Duplechien says. “That’s what I call the pucker effect.
