The following article originally appeared on the front page of the Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 edition of The Republican American. It was written by Michael Puffer.

Whether she’s creeping along through dark hallways in search of ghosts or taking pictures of glowing orbs in cemeteries, Nicole Hall, 33, doesn’t scare easily.

That was clear when Hall, of Naugatuck, and her new team of paranormal investigators were confronted by something that went smash in the night at Gunntown Cemetery around 1:30 a.m. Monday. A vandal challenged the five-person team in the dark Naugatuck cemetery, smashed windows of Hall’s 2001 Ford Explorer and took off, she said.

A digital audio recorder intended to detect faint noises of spooks caught the altercation. A man using an authoritative voice demands to know if they have permission to be in the cemetery. Hall replies that she does.

“OK, I didn’t know,” the man responds. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

Four tremendous bangs quickly follow — the sound of three windows and a rearview mirror being smashed on the driver’s side.

A stream of angry and colorful language flows from Hall’s mouth. The recorder also catches the sound of her feet running toward the assailant. “What was that?” asks a member of her team.

“I don’t know but we need to go and (expletive) find them,” an angry Hall says.

Hall said the vandal fled in a pickup. Later, she admitted she’d have had no idea what to do even if she had caught him.

Instead, the team waited for about half a dozen police cruisers. They were interviewed for 15 minutes before the police left, she said.

Attempts to reach a Naugatuck police spokesman Monday were unsuccessful. A dispatcher confirmed there had been a vandalism complaint at the cemetery early Monday.

Ghosts: Cemetery has History of Haunting

Gunntown Cemetery has a reputation for haunting. A quick internet search turns up dozens of testimonials. The laughter of children and old ragtime music is commonly reported. The small cemetery is surrounded by a stone wall along a narrow and hilly road. It contains only a few dozen graves, mostly dating back to the mid-1800s or earlier.

Robert Sutherland, president of the Grove Cemetery Association, said that in recent years vandalism has been infrequent at Gunntown and the association’s three other cemeteries, but it does happen.

Sutherland claims relations to about 20 percent of those buried at Gunntown through his mother’s side of the family. He doesn’t put any stock in tales they’re resting uneasily.

“I certainly hope not,” Sutherland joked.

Hall and her team – CT Soul Seekers – have visited the cemetery six times to take audio and video recordings. Hall’s fiancee, Angel Ortiz, 36, carries photo and video cameras, digital field recorders, electromagnetic frequency detectors, night-vision goggles and more to conduct investigations.

Hall, a preschool teacher in Waterbury, has always been a fan of the paranormal. Ortiz started as a skeptic. they launched CT Soul Seekers with four friends in April. So far, they’ve conducted 25 investigations, including Gunntown, the Carousel Gardens Restaurant in Seymour and the Rolling Hills Paranormal Research Center in New York.

They’ve got a photo album. There’s a picture of a big spectral shadow in the graveyard, and strange mists. “It’s amazing, the things we’ve caught on tape,” Hall said.

Hall is surprised at the wave of interest from others, including co-workers. Ortiz, who installs windows for a living, hasn’t had it so easy.

“Shhhh! Did you hear that!” or “who you gonna call?” were phrases frequently heard on work sites.

Ortiz said he just laughed along with his co-workers and, eventually some started asking him serious questions about his hobby. He remembers one crank call to the hotline.

“They asked ‘You guys got an old ambulance?’” Ortiz said, recalled the mocking reference to the “Ghost Busters” movie with a flowing laugh. “I said ‘no, but we’re going to get one.’”

Early Monday evening, Ortiz and Hall returned to Gunntown Cemetery to sweep up the broken glass, not wanting anybody to get injured or to leave litter on the grounds.

Ortiz said, a few of their investigations have turned up natural causes for things like banging walls or slamming doors – old pipes and drafts. And that’s fine. It’s nice to reassure a homeowner they’re in no peril, he said.

When they do find a nuisance ghost, there are a few simple rites the group can perform tat seem to calm things, Hall said. It’s much harder harder to contend with corporeal people like Monday’s vandal.

“Like I say, it’s not the dead you have to worry about, it’s the living,” Hall said.