For some people, ghosts are just good subjects of fiction, science-fiction, or horror movies. For others, ghosts are an everyday part of their lives.

The North Coast Ghost Hunters fall under the latter category.

Wade Long moved to Humboldt County in 2002, and on Halloween 2007, he opened the Pathfinder’s Book Store in the Henderson Center in Eureka. A few months ago, he organized the first-ever North Coast Ghost Hunters meeting, and more than 20 people attended.

Some were veteran ghost hunters, others were just interested in getting involved.

They meet the last Friday of every month at 7 p.m., at Pathfinder’s Book Store.

The group does not try to capture ghosts. Instead, they combine their resources and document supernatural sightings. Though, if someone had a ghost in their house and wanted it gone, they could help try to dispel a ghost or two. The group is trying to conduct a walk-through of Fort Humboldt with devices that measure disturbances in the electromagnetic fields and photographers that specialize in taking pictures of ghosts.

Long says that he has believed in ghosts since he was a kid. He grew up in a house in central Pennsylvania that he said: “always had stuff floating around.” In the region where he grew up, it was common knowledge that ghosts existed, he said.

“Even people who don’t believe in anything else — believe in ghosts,” said Long.

Long described ghosts as a sort of leftover mental imprint of a human that died in a traumatic way. Often, he said, the ghost won’t even know that it is dead, and getting rid of an unwanted spirit can be as easy as asking it to leave.

Long said that ghosts are very common in this area because of the history of the county and the age of a lot of houses.

When he moved to Eureka with his family, Long said, there was a spirit residing in his house. The spirit was bothering his daughter. He said he taught her how to engage the ghost and tell it to leave. “You have to let them know it’s not their house anymore.”

Cathy Finney is the secretary at Saint Bernard’s Catholic Church. She said she saw a ghost in her house five years ago.

“It was in the bathroom, I live in an old Victorian. It was really uncomfortable to go into the bathtub. I asked around to see if anyone knew if any bad things had happened in there,” Finney said.

No one knew anything, so she said she got a friend to burn sage in the room and prayed a few times and then it was gone.

“It wasn’t so much that you saw the ghost, but you felt it,” she said.

She said she used to take long baths, but couldn’t do it in that tub.

Long has known other people to have a ghost in their house and instead of dispelling it, they keep it around to help out. “They can alert the people if there is danger, or visitor coming to the house,” he said.

Something that is harder to expel are demons or imps, which Long describes as bundles of bad energy. “These might require an exorcism,” he said.

Long does perform exorcisms and offers his services to those in the community who would want them. He can be found at Pathfinder’s Book Store, and reached at 707-268-8469.

“In my 57 years as a Catholic, I’ve never encountered an exorcism in the church, or anyone I’ve come into contact with. I certainly believe in ghosts, but I don’t mind them,” said Deirdre Frontczack, the communication director for the Catholic diocese of Santa Rosa
(from Petaluma to Oregon).

“Bishop Walsh, who served his entire priestly life in the Santa Rosa/Bay Area, can only remember two exorcisms. It’s only performed by a priest, with the permission of the bishop, who is trained, and very holy,” said Deirdre Frontczak.

David Kilmer is the interim pastor at Arcata First Baptist Church.

“I would say, according to the scripture, a ghost is really a demon. They aren’t two different things. It’s not a disembodied spirit. It can be called a familiar spirit. They can live in houses for years, and we’ve taken teams through and clean out houses of the demons,”
Kilmer said.

“You would need to have some training in what you do because it can be potentially dangerous. We don’t actually have a team that does that right now. It’s good to go as a team. We believe in the priesthood of believers, we would have the authority to do that as
believers,” he said.

Kilmer’s wife grew up with a poltergeist in their house. The BBC did a show about it. “I believe it brought all sorts of spiritual confusion into the house,” said Kilmer.

Things would disappear; things would be missing only to be found later. When Kilmer and his wife moved to Humboldt County Kilmer said the spirit followed them. “When we understood what this thing was, we began to take authority over it, in the name of Jesus. Jesus
has authority over the demonic realm; it’s a clash of two kingdoms that can’t co-exist,” said Kilmer.

Kilmer pointed out in First John 4:4 that Jesus gave to his church the power to cast out demons in his name. “We believe we do not have to live in fear of unseen spirits,” said Kilmer.

Whether you believe in ghosts, demons, imps, or not, there are lots of different ways to go about spiritual house-cleaning.