WESTVILLE — Sitting in an empty house, waiting for an apparition to appear — or rather, waiting to debunk the existence of a spirit — can be boring at times.

Then, you get home, play back the recorder, and you hear a voice that wasn’t there earlier. “And your heart starts racing,” Misty Adkins of Georgetown said. “It’s very exciting when we catch something.”

That’s what keeps the investigators coming back — the excitement of just not knowing what to expect.

“We try to focus on the scientific aspect,” said Nick Trosper, co-founder of Regional Investigators of the Paranormal (RIP), based in Westville. “It’s fun to debunk something. It’s a challenge.”

“We love a challenge,” said Adkins, one of two lead investigators with RIP.

The non-profit group, founded in 2009, has 12-13 members who pay a small monthly fee that goes toward gasoline and equipment. Upon request, they will investigate unusual occurrences in private residences or public buildings at no charge.

The group’s motto is “We help others get their rest in peace.”

The members, including the other lead investigator William Cronk, are strong skeptics who aren’t easily swayed.

“We don’t go in as believers,” Adkins said. “We go in to get the evidence. Ninety percent of what happens can be debunked.”

The members don’t like to be called “ghost busters” or “ghost hunters.” That implies they’re going in to a house seeking out the spirits. Instead, the investigators go into a home or building, seeking to disprove the existence of spirits. They want to find the scientific proof behind those strange occurrences, and they usually do.

In fact, they go to great lengths to debunk something — even crawling into small, dirty, spider-infested spaces. Sometimes that odd noise is caused by a settling building or a clanging pipe.

Of the 65 investigations that the group has conducted, only one place is considered haunted, Trosper said. He noted there’s a difference between saying a house has paranormal activity and saying it’s haunted, which means there’s a negative energy present that could hurt a person.

That one place is the Black Moon Manor in Greenfield, Ind., a former smallpox hospital with a reputation for being haunted. The investigators have been there twice, and they’ve seen “heavy activity everywhere,” Trosper said.

One time, several people were standing in the part of the building that used to be a funeral parlor, and they were getting ready to end the investigation. It was about 4 or 5 a.m., and suddenly a plastic skull flew 5 feet across the room, landing at someone’s feet.

That was the first and only time Trosper has seen an inanimate object move. The people in the room could find no reason for the skull’s movement, and they were unable to recreate it. Some strong force had propelled it across the room.

Another time, at Whispers Estates in Mitchell, Ind., the group’s cameraman — an even bigger skeptic than Trosper — happened to catch on film an image that looks like a little girl on a staircase. He didn’t notice the image at the time, but saw it later.

“Usually when you’re not paying attention is when you see something,” Adkins said.

The members have covered about 95 percent of the Fischer Theatre, including being on the overhead catwalks. They’ve captured some “cool” electronic voice phenomenon, including one that sounded like a foreign language.

Cronk said he listened to that tape about six times before he called Trosper to say that he had something unusual. No one has been able to translate it.

Trosper said he’s always been interested in the paranormal; he and his best friend, Jason Welker, decided to join another guy who was forming an investigative group. When that didn’t work out, Trosper and Welker formed their own group and asked Adkins to join them.

Their first client was Cronk of Westville, who lives in an old home with a lot of activity. Cronk got used to strange things happening; for example, one day he was making a sandwich and left the room for a minute. When he returned, the loaf of bread had disappeared; it was found in the oven a day and a half later. He had been alone in the house.

His house is near a collapsed mine, where a couple of children and about 13 workers were killed, he said. He’s heard children’s voices in his home.

While Trosper and Adkins said they’ve never had a spirit follow them home, Cronk said, “I’ve gotten so used to paranormal activity that if something followed me home, I wouldn’t know the difference.”

Adkins also is used to odd things happening. As a teenager, she and her sister woke up one night during a storm to see a man standing in the closet. Their mother has seen her grandmother at the top of the stairs, as well.

When the investigators go into a private residence, their main goal is to make the residents feel safe.

They’ve been to many homes in the area — examples can be found on the group’s website — and public places, such as Niccum Cemetery in Danville, Covington (Ind.) Cemetery and Cherokee Hills Campground at Georgetown.

Members of RIP are planning an informational event for next June so people can get to know them better.

On the web

To learn more, visit http://www.regional-investigators-of-the-paranormal. com.