Autumn has brought early doses of biting wind and dark skies, and with it the preliminary Halloween displays of goblins, ghouls, and ghostly delights. It’s the season of the Witching Hour, but for the Bozeman Paranormal Group, ghosts and spirits are not confined to one season alone.

“We have most of our events in the spring and summer, leading into fall,” Elies Adams, team leader and founder of the group, clarified at a talk given at Townshend’s TeaHouse [in September]. “But our events are year-round.”


Adams founded the Bozeman Paranormal Group, a local non-profit organization, four years ago. The idea, she claims, came to her in a dream. Passionate about what lurks invisibly about us since she was a child, Adams defines the ‘paranormal’ as anything that resists explanation.

“I grew up in an old historic army post in Fort Benton, Georgia,” Adams explained. “My father is a historian to this day, and so I was always fascinated by history as a little girl. Once, when my friend and I were at her house, I saw a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall. Her eyes changed colors and dilated, which terrified us. I always asked my parents to take me to the spooky and haunted places.”

The Bozeman Paranormal Group provides spiritual cleansings for local businesses and private homes and invites its members to a variety of events, or ‘ghost hunts:’ day or overnight visits to areas with a reputation for being haunted. Ghost towns Virginia City and Bannack are frequent destinations, as well as notoriously eerie Bear Canyon. While the BPG performs a handful of cleansings annually, it sponsors up to fifty ghost hunts each year.

Adams describes herself not as a psychic or clairvoyant—terms she considers dubious—but as an empath, an individual who is particularly in tune with the emotions and energies of those nearby and thus potentially more susceptible to engaging with spirits. Adams and most of the Bozeman Paranormal Group’s members, however, have not necessarily had near-death experiences or encountered death firsthand, qualities that other paranormal groups often espouse. Adams does, however, work in home care, assisting elderly individuals close to death, so she is accustomed to the end of life and the emotions that surround it.

Yet despite her skeleton shoes, Manchester Mystery House sweatshirt, and the mysterious black carry-on at her feet labeled ‘Big Black Bag,’ Adams presented herself as a defiant skeptic. In her talk, Adams stated that, contrary to cultural beliefs, the paranormal is not necessarily that which spooks, haunts, or disrupts (even though ‘poltergeists’ are defined by their ability to move physical objects). In fact, she was careful to redefine most concepts listeners might be too hasty in grasping, based off what the media delivers. “[The paranormal] shouldn’t be scary,” she said. “And simply because a place is historical does not mean it’s haunted. Creaky sounds do not mean creepy footsteps.” Adams negatively referenced ghost-hunting groups one sees on television, which “fake it” and drag in large camera crews, an eerie soundtrack, and wide-eyed protagonists for the sake of a storyline. “A lot of places we visit expect us to have a filming crew,” she said. “But we definitely don’t.”

Adams admitted that the group’s goal is to debunk the prevalent theory of ghosts. The group always enters a space with an open mind, conscious of the fact that “ninety-nine percent of the time, you’ll end up talking to a wall.” Laughing, Adams added, “We’re the best paint-watchers in Bozeman!”

During cleansings, BPG members hold burning stalks of sage, a gesture of respect and purity allegedly inspired by Native American custom. Members use feathers to spread the smoke from the burning sage and recite a positive mantra. “When we go in to cleanse a space, we are simply intent on making it positive. It’s all about creating a positive space,” she said. “We begin at the front door and check everything, including fridges and microwaves, drawers and closets. We end at the front door.” BPG members aren’t solely cleansing a space of its spirits. Most of us do not realize how even present emotion, not just residual memory itself, can impact a space, Adams explained. Such emotional ‘imprints’ can linger in a building for decades.

Ghost hunts involve more technical equipment than sage. Members bring thermal imaging cameras, voice recorders, and electromagnetic field (EMF) readers to events, as spirits are generally assumed to be colder than other bodies or objects, to consist of EMFs, and to speak on a plane the human ear cannot register. Adams spoke excitedly of an incident that occurred during a ghost hunt in Bannack, when a voice recording registered a response of “We’re here” after members asked who was present in a room.

Nonetheless, in Adams’ terms, the Bozeman Paranormal Group has an extremely small chance of encountering something on their hunts, and that sometimes what appears to be a colored orb is merely dust, a shadow merely a shadow.


Adams was prepped for her talk with a vocabulary sheet of common paranormal terms, including the variety of spirits one may encounter on a ghost hunt. Poltergeists and doppelgangers, residual and intelligent haunts—these terms compose a language taken seriously by its speakers, who identify themselves as paranormal investigators. The vocabulary figured in the brief trivia at the end of Adams’ talk, and winners carted home stuffed ghosts and voice recorders.

After the talk, members of the group exchanged stories, referencing trips to Bear Canyon and Virginia City. In answer to the question about the ‘most haunted’ place in Bozeman, members named the Rialto Theatre, presently undergoing construction. The shudders and eager smiles, the communion of goosebumps, affirmed what sustains the Bozeman Paranormal Group: a very human, shared interest in that which we cannot explain.

Adams invites prospective members or businesses interested in holding events to investigate the Bozeman Paranormal Group’s Facebook page or website (www.bozemanparanormal.org). Members pay an annual fee of $25 and are encouraged to attend monthly meetings and events as availability permits. The group will participate in Magic City Monster Con, a regional event that runs from October 7th to 9th. On October 22nd, the BPG will be sponsoring a ghost hunt at the Sunset Hills Cemetery.