As the weather turns colder and the leaves begin to fall, one might give more thought to a shadow in a doorway, or an odd noise late at night. It is spooky season, after all.
Though paranormal activity is top of mind during October, ghostly occurrences happen all year round, and Bellingham is no exception.
After Chuck Crooks moved to Bellingham in 2009, he took an interest in its history and potential for ghost encounters and got his start as a ghost hunter with local group Bellingham Observers of the Odd and Obscure (BOOO).
Today, Crooks runs Bellingham Ghost Tours, founded in May 2023.
Offering both ghost tours and hunts, Crooks invites participants to experience paranormal exploration firsthand, with the help of specialized tools.
“It was kind of a hobby that I never thought would go anywhere, but now I’m very grateful for what it's become,” Crooks said.
The idea to start Bellingham Ghost Tours came about after beloved Bellingham tour guides, the Good Time Girls, began getting a large volume of ghost questions that they didn’t feel qualified to answer.
“I'm a historian, and we do our own tours that are kind of about spooky history and creepy stories,” said Good Time Girls owner Kolby LaBree. “We're not looking for ghosts or trying to communicate with them or anything like that.”
LaBree hypothesized that the increase in ghost questions stemmed from renewed interest during the pandemic, and Crooks was inclined to agree.
“There's always been spirituality booms, and I think COVID was kind of one of those for a lot of people, whether that was being stuck on the socials and looking up new things or things that they wouldn't necessarily look into,” Crooks said.
Christian Martinez, a mortician student and frequent visitor of Crooks’s tours, feels that while spiritual tools aren’t necessary to have paranormal experiences, they can affirm any existing sensations.
“When you're feeling it happen around you, and then the tool is saying yes, then it's like, okay, cool, I'm not having anxiety,” Martinez said. “Yeah, that's actually a spirit in my presence right now.”
The use of tools to translate energetic frequencies into sound or writing often leads to moments that are hard to explain and even harder to pass off as coincidences.
One such moment occurred at the Northern State Hospital site during a collaboration tour with the Good Time Girls led by both Crooks and LaBree.
After learning the history behind a murder trial from 1891 that took place in the old town of Sehome, the group realized that one of Crooks’s devices, the Ovilus, had begun spitting out names relevant to the case.
“Three of the four names that we got that evening were the main people of the story that they told. To me, that was mind-blowing, to have that kind of accuracy on a device. And the second time we went back, we got two of those same names twice in one night,” Crooks said. “The chances of that are really, really wild.”
The Ovilus, an expensive ghost device that translates energetic readings from the environment into words and phrases, is a popular choice among ghost hunters. However, Crooks clarifies that you don’t need to break the bank to start gathering evidence.
“You can go with very basic tools and equipment,” said Crooks. “My favorite piece of equipment is just a little digital voice recorder.”
To record your own ghost evidence, Crooks advises turning down the HDMI settings to enable the device to capture the full range of noise, which may include mysterious electric voice phenomena (EVPs) that can only be heard during playback.
While attending Western’s Woodring College, Crooks’s recordings caught the eye of his instructor, Western professor and director of Bellingham Youth Media Project, Lauren McClanahan.
“I remember him coming to class one day, and he had a recorder with him, and he was telling some people that he had just done an investigation in Bayview Cemetery, and he caught some really interesting sounds,” said McClanahan. “He played it for me, and I was like, wow! You captured that at Bayview? And that kind of rekindled my interest in everything ghosty.”
McClanahan and Crooks have kept in touch over the years, and she is a frequent visitor to his ghost tours.
“I'm proud of Chuck for the work he's done and his dedication to this interest of his,” McClanahan said. “I think he's doing the world a great service by educating people about the paranormal and that it's not something to be afraid of, but it's something to be interested in.”
In Crooks’ opinion, the best part about leading tours is connecting with guests over their personal ghost stories from a place of acceptance.
“No matter how many times I hear different experiences, I love hearing them because I feel like it not only reaffirms what I've gone through,” said Crooks. “I just think that there's something so validating of people finding that they're not the only ones that go through this.”
Crooks offers ghost tours in Bellingham and Fairhaven and ghost hunts at locations such as Fairhaven, Whidbey Island, and Port Townsend.
Sophia Jellinghaus (she/he/they) is a reporter on The Front's city life beat. A third-year visual journalism major and Spanish minor, this is their first quarter with The Front. When not tracking down sources or coming up with pitches, they like to relax with a video essay and a tall glass of root beer. You can reach them at sophiajellinghaus.thefront@gmail.com.
