Thursday, October 28, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Las Vegas group sets out to prove there's something beyond the grave

Members of Las Vegas Supernatural Society wander through the Goodsprings cemetery at dusk. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Drive past a cemetery in Sandy Valley or Goodsprings late at night and you might see a group of people walking between the graves, or maybe standing near a particular one. They'll probably be using equipment -- high-tech audio or video recorders, or decidedly low-tech copper divining rods.

They're members of the nonprofit Las Vegas Society of Supernatural Investigations, seeking some form of communication with those who have left this mortal realm.

And, despite what you're no doubt thinking right now, they're not crazy.

"The first response is we're nuts," said Ginia Riggs, a member of the group and self-described skeptic. "And they're not wrong. We're in a graveyard at midnight. We do check on certain people" -- and that would be those who are dead and buried.

"Yeah, people think we're a little nuts. I think we're a little nuts sometimes."

Actually, a visit to any cemetery provides confirmation that, as a society, we tend to reach out to our dead. Graves are topped with flowers, flags, stuffed animals or other toys -- even cans of beer or bottles of liquor, in the case of the apparently fun-loving departed.

The society just goes a step -- OK, maybe a few steps -- farther. They go in search of souls who seem to have something to say.

"I just want to find logical explanations" for things -- the bumps in the night, the shadows seen only from the corner of the eye -- that appear unexplainable, Riggs said.

Riggs' stepdaughter, Aimee, 18, made her first cemetery visit with the society last weekend. In large part, she said, it was pretty anti-climactic.

"I was partly expecting goblins to run around," Riggs said with a smile. "Nobody jumped out at me. The first time, you expect it to be like the movies. It wasn't."

Society members -- there currently are 12 -- aren't really waiting for the deceased to rise from the grave for a sit-down. Their methods of communication are generally more subtle, as in the case of the divining rods. The L-shaped rods have casinglike sleeves, so that the person holding them isn't actually touching the rod itself. They believe that as they stand at a grave in the dark and ask a question, the pair of rods will cross for an affirmative answer or separate for a negative one. And the movement of the rods is one of those unexplainable things.

"What did I say?" Aimee Riggs asked her father and stepmother, an hour or so after she used the rods for the first time. Oh, yeah: "Holy crap."

She had asked the late Belva -- a favorite of the group for her apparent willingness to communicate -- if she would "talk" to her, and, very slowly, the rods crossed. Then she asked if anyone had been to visit Belva lately, and the rods flew apart.

"I really believe I had a conversation with Belva," Ginia Riggs said of another occasion. "It was a reaffirming life experience. I also told her this was weirding me out and it was time to pass the rods to someone else."

Maybe it's gravity, maybe some sort of atmospheric effect. But when a stranger held the rods at Belva's grave and asked a question, there was no movement. Then Gary Riggs -- Aimee's father and Ginia's husband, and by group acclamation a favorite of Belva -- asked her to respond. The question was repeated and the rods started to move.

Power of suggestion? Maybe. Maybe not.

Steve Carlson is even more of a skeptic, and will remain so, he said, "unless I see a full-body apparition."

His doubts, he said, extend to "the little nuances of the rods. Unless I can physically control what the medium is, I'm very skeptical about what causes stuff."

He's particularly skeptical about the use of electro-magnetic field detectors, maintaining that the pervasive presence of electrical devices renders them nearly moot.

At the Sandy Valley Cemetery, Aimee Riggs held a gun-shaped digital thermometer. As she used it to sweep the expanse of the cemetery, the temperature dropped sharply at some points -- indicating cold spots, a classic sign of a supernatural being, as any reader of Gothic novels knows.

Then Steve Carlson told her to focus the gun lower. It was, he said, picking up the colder temperatures of the surrounding mountains. She lowered it and, sure enough, the cold spots disappeared.

"He keeps our feet on the ground," said Tina Carlson, Steve's wife of nearly 23 years and the president and founder of the group. Tina Carlson, who also is co-chairwoman of The Shadowlands Ghosts & Hauntings Web site, is among the group's true believers. She freely recounts experiencing a haunting as a child, and helps local people who believe they're having a problem with recalcitrant spirits, as well as giving advice to those who request it via Shadowlands.

The community of believers -- or at least seekers -- is not small. The autumn and early winter, particularly around Halloween, traditionally are busy times for Shadowlands, but Tina Carlson said the site currently is experiencing its busiest season ever, receiving about 300 to 500 e-mails a day, with as many as 20,000 people connected to it at the same time.

Matthew Winn, assistant director of the LVSSI, is another believer.

"I grew up in a family that was very open about it," he said. At 16, he discovered the Shadowlands Web site, and eventually met the Carlsons.

While Tina Carlson maintains a light-hearted approach -- she believes humor and positive feelings help keep evil spirits at bay -- she takes the whole thing very seriously. Before entering a cemetery, the group gathers and Nancy Riggs (whose husband is a cousin of Gary Riggs) recites a prayer asking protection from St. Michael. Newbies are anointed with holy water and holy oil, and another prayer is recited when the group exits.

Inside the cemetery, the group takes care to treat graves with solemn respect, even walking around mounds they suspect may be unmarked graves. They replace a faded American flag on one grave with a brand-new one, straighten a cross on another.

And visit their friends.

"We have our favorites," Tina Carlson said cheerfully.

"This is Terry," she said, gesturing to one grave where the presence of numerous empty beer cans and a few full ones indicated that other visitors had been by.

She noted that some of the decedents don't appear to get many visitors -- in some cases because they died decades before.

"We try to talk to everyone out here," Carlson said. "Some are more receptive to us than others."

Also, she said, "Sometimes some of the people want to talk to us and sometimes they don't. They have the same emotions in death they had in life."

Some may not want to communicate on a particular night, she said, because they -- and then she caught herself and, laughing, finished the thought: "had a bad day."

There have been a few negative experiences. Nancy Riggs remembers one time at Terry's grave when Tina Carlson suddenly collapsed: "Tina's down and I can't wake her up. There was a white mist around her."

Carlson said she had a sensation that someone had picked her up and lay her down.

"And I didn't have a mark on me," she said. "It was a cool situation."

Gary Riggs had a frightening experience at another grave, where he felt that the spirit of a young boy -- fleeing, the group believes, a less benevolent being nearby -- went through his body.

So is this a case of trying to convert those who maintain the earth is flat, or simply a group of very nice people with imaginations in high gear? The truth is indeed out there, but it has yet to be revealed. But Nancy Riggs said co-workers and new friends tend not to shun her but to seek her out to share their own experiences.

In time, she said, "I hope to prove to everyone that it's real."