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"Ghost Hunters" Jason Hawes and daughter Samantha are coming to Yankee Candle. (Syfy photos)
IF YOU GO
Event:
Meet and greet with Ghost Hunters stars Jason and Samantha Hawes
When:
Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where:
Yankee Candle, South Deerfield
Cost:
$20 per person
For more info:
Call (877) 636-7707 or online at
If you’ve had a paranormal experience, who you gonna call?
Ghost Hunters.
Or visit them at Yankee Candle.
Ghost Hunters is a paranormal reality television series on Syfy that premiered 2004. It features paranormal investigators Jason C. Hawes and his team, who investigate places that are reported to be haunted.
Samantha Hawes, 24, has been investigating with her father since she was a child and has been on the series for two years.
“It’s an honor to hang out with her and see her same interest and drive to understand,” said Jason Hawes, the father of five. “Hanging out with your kids at work is wonderful.”
A plumber by trade, he founded The Atlantic Paranormal Society, which has been featured on SyFy's Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, Ghost Hunters Academy, Ghost Hunters International, Larry King Live, Katie Couric and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
During investigations, the TAPS ghost hunters team use various equipment they believe is capable of detecting paranormal activity, including digital thermometers, thermographic and night vision cameras, handheld and static digital video cameras, digital audio recorders and laptop computers.
Jason – co-creator of Ghost Hunters – and Samantha Hawes will be at Yankee Candle in South Deerfield Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to do an exclusive meet and greet, their only New England appearance together for the balance of the year.
Jason Hawes had his first paranormal experience almost 25 years ago when he saw what appeared to be an apparition. “I wasn’t a believer in the paranormal,” he said in a phone interview from Warwick, R.I., where he lives. “But it took me down a path to find out how these things are possible.”
He since has done work for individuals, churches and the U.S. government, he said. “We go in believing more than 80 percent of claims can be disproved.”
He has conducted more than 3,000 investigations during the last 25-plus years, traveling throughout the world.
There have been many remarkable cases, but Hawes especially likes the ones that can be disproven, like that of a woman who was mixing old and new medication, a mixture that created hallucinations.
“Every case is extremely interesting,” Hawes said, noting that he and his team have caught on film figures walking through doors and objects moving on their own.
“I believe in evidence,” he said. “I need something tangible I can look at.”
Though not a religious person, he also believes in an afterlife and in a higher power.
Hawes takes each investigation on a case-by-case basis and said “there are many different types of hauntings;” some could be created by “trapped energy” or by a soul “that sticks around and is maybe scared of judgment.”
Asked if he has ever been scared in his work, he replied seriously: “Only by the living.”
The living can harm others, like a person with a loaded gun under his pillow or an attention seeker, he said. “You have to be careful.”
“I’m intrigued by the paranormal. I have been startled,” he said. “As long as you don’t hightail it out of there it’s all good.”
Ghost Hunters is the longest running SyFy network reality series and averages more than 1.3 million viewers per episode.
It has been filmed at locations throughout the world including in Massachusetts in Salem, Orleans and Springfield and in Hartford, Conn. It airs in 170 countries.
The TAPS website at www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com got more than 96 million hits last year, and the organization gets more than 1,000 e-mails a day.
Fans of Ghost Hunters will be able to meet Jason and Samantha Hawes at Yankee Candle, talk about the show and share a paranormal experience; fans also will have the opportunity to take a photo with them.
The entry fee is $20 per person, which includes the meet and greet and photo opportunity. Participants will get 25 percent off their purchase that day at Yankee Candle.