Rochester ghost hunter teaches her paranormal craft to others seeking out spirits
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On a chilly recent October night, 15 adult students gathered in a community recreation center classroom in Northwest Rochester for a three-hour class of the supernatural kind, led by local paranormal investigator Hawk Horvath.
The course: Ghost Hunting.
Some of the students said they signed up for the class just for fun, because they want to hear Horvath’s haunting stories, or because they’re trying to connect with loved ones who have passed away. Others, like Christina Jorgensen, said they want to learn more about things they’ve experienced.
Jorgensen, who lives in Rochester, said she had just gone to bed one night when she was woken up by the sound of footsteps running past her bedroom. She checked on her young son, but he was asleep.
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“The hair stands up, and you're like, ‘Oh my God, I know I just heard that. That is so creepy,’” Jorgensen recalled. ”Things like that make you want to take this class, because you're like, ‘What is that? What did I experience?’”
Horvath, 70, has been a ghost hunter for nearly two decades and is the owner of Horvath Spiritual Consulting and After Hours Paranormal Investigations in Rochester. She’s led investigations across the country and as far away as Ireland.
While she dedicated her career to ghost hunting later in life, she said she’s had paranormal experiences since she was little. In an interview with MPR, she said one of her earliest ghostly memories was seeing her grandfather at his funeral when she was 10 years old.
“I saw his translucent self turn his head and look at me and wink, which was something he used to do after he played a joke on me,” she said. “And then the translucent self sat up in the coffin and got out — solid body still there — and did a little Irish jig and said, ‘See, honey, I'm just fine,’ and lifted up right through the ceiling of that funeral home. And I kept looking at my family, thinking, ‘Grandpa's alive!’ Nobody saw him but me.”
Horvath has been leading community ed ghost hunting classes since 2008. Her introductory course, Ghost Hunting 101, had more than 30 attendees the week before. In this class, Ghost Hunting 201, she’s helping her students learn how to prepare to investigate a site for paranormal activity.
To start, Horvath reviews some of the equipment they’ll need during investigations, including voice recorders, infrared cameras, talcum powder or flour and motion detectors — all items that will help capture evidence of paranormal activity.
One of the most important things that Horvath tells her aspiring ghost hunters they will need to bring are “trigger objects” — things that a ghost might be drawn to. If a child died at a site, for example, Horvath said she might bring a toy slinky or a teddy bear. If the location they’re headed to has a Catholic influence, rosary beads, a prayer book or a Bible could attract spirits who once practiced Catholicism.
“Trigger objects are really important, folks,” Horvath said, explaining to the class her strategy at the haunted Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, Mo. “Knowing William Lemp Senior loved to smoke cigars, I bought a $10 cigar. Thought I'd lost my mind, but I did it. I took a pack of Marlboro cigarettes for Lillian Lemp because Marlboro used to be a woman's cigarette, and she was a smoker.”
A core component of ghost hunting is this kind of research. Student Angie Langford said the focus on history is what stood out to her during Horvath’s lesson.
“It's not just like going out and trying to find a ghost; it's more learning about the history and the culture and what brought that ghost to stay in that area or, you know, engage with the people that come,” said Langford, who lives in Rochester.
Halfway through class, Horvath split the class into smaller groups to work on an assignment. They were given a description of a haunted site, including the history of it and relevant cultural influences. She asked the groups to brainstorm what sort of further research they’d want to do to prepare for an investigation and what trigger objects they’d bring along.
Horvath said in an interview with MPR that her divinity training informed this approach to ghost hunting. She was an ordained minister for more than 20 years and was trained to research the history, culture, and theology of a place in the course of her pastoral work. Understanding the context of a location is similarly helpful in ghost hunting.
Students that complete Ghost Hunting 201 are eligible for the more advanced 301 course, where they get to tag along with Horvath on a real investigation.
Horvath said her team spends hours, sometimes all night, recording audio and video footage and tracking motion and temperature — anything that could signify suspicious activity. Afterwards, they analyze the evidence they collected, making sure to exclude things they heard or saw that were merely human. Was that the sound of paranormal movement or a team member’s cough?
Horvath ends by reminding the class to rely on their guts during a ghost hunt.
“That's your intuition,” Horvath said. “Listen to goosebumps. Hair standing up on the back of your neck and arms. Nausea. A sudden cold spot or a sudden hot spot. A feeling you just can't explain. That sense that there's someone around us. That's creepy stuff.”
