When it comes to haunting spirits and spooky buildings, College Station’s own Paranormal Investigation Team is on call to investigate.
This October marks the 10th anniversary of the formation of The Final Crossing, a paranormal research team based primarily in Bryan-College Station that is keenly interested in investigating the supernatural.
“There’s really nothing special about us, aside [from] the fact that we’re a bunch of crazy people that are willing to go into the more scarier places without hesitation,” said Brandon Quacker, TFC case manager.
The founders, each of whom were Texas A&M graduates, met while working at the Brazos Valley Mental Health Center, where they discussed paranormal experiences from their past.
“While TFC has had ups and downs and dry spells it has always been there and is a driving interest of mine,” said Casey Unger, founder and Class of 1992.
Unger said she has been interested in the supernatural ever since her first experience at the age of seven when she moved into a former funeral home built in 1872 in Calvert, Texas. She said the home was “active” and was instrumental in nurturing her interest.
“One night we had a man who had been an actor staying with us, and there was a sighting of a form in the shadowy hallway that looked like it was wearing a confederate uniform,” Unger said.
The team has investigated a number of buildings and homes in Bryan-College Station, including the building on 25th street in Bryan that houses the production of Insite Magazine. The magazine ran a cover story in 2011 that featured TFC.
Angelique Gammon, publisher and editor of Insite Magazine, said the building was built in the early 19th century and was previously used as a boarding house until the late 1950s and 1960s.
Gammon said there had been discussion among the employees that the second floor of the building was haunted.
“It’s enormous,” Gammon said. “It’s like 5,000 square feet up there. There are leftover bed springs in some of the rooms, ancient tubs, toilets, sinks — there are even wire hangers with little bits of cloth still hung up. I can understand why people have felt they may have seen or heard some strange things in the dark. I guess it can be a little creepy upstairs. It’s happened to a number of different employees — they firmly believe that there’s something up there besides our files.”
After setting up equipment, Unger described hearing and seeing unexplainable things.
“We just got some very, very, very creepy voices, like someone was crying or whining or pleading or something like that,” Unger said. “It came every time I asked a question.”
John Caufey, investigation coordinator and former Harris Country police officer, said the team chooses locations to investigate based on possible hauntings that they hear of by word of mouth.
“If someone says something about a location, like some odd things happening, the first thing we look at is if there’s some history to the property,” Caufey said. “If somebody gives us a backstory, like if someone hung themselves or was killed there, we try to see if there’s evidence to see if it’s true or to see if it’s just an urban legend.
The team members set up cameras, audio equipment and scan frequencies to capture any evidence they can use to prove a paranormal phenomenon is taking place. Unger said she has faced equipment failure and has many stories of menacing figures popping up in pictures as well as verbal remarks from any possible lingering spirits.
Typically the investigators come up empty-handed, Caufey said.
“If we do 10 investigations, nine of them are going to be, I guess you could say, in the neighborhood of boring,” Caufey said. “But there’s that one out of 10 where you experience something and you just cannot explain it.”
Unger said the group does what it does for a number of reasons.
“I like the adrenaline rush of facing the unknown, the camaraderie between our members and the satisfaction of knowing we are validating and helping others facing the unknown,” Unger said. “It’s like bungee jumping or driving a fast car — you get excited going into it, every investigation is a new thing.”
Unger said the team has no intention of slowing down. He said after taking a three-year hiatus due to Bastrop wildfires destroying their “mascot,” a Nissan Xtera with $5,000 worth of equipment, they have started building back up again and will resume paranormal investigating.
“When one is so immersed in the paranormal and the unexplained from such a young age, it becomes a part of you and it never goes away,” Unger said.