Something going bump in the night?

Who you gonna call?

The Professional Investigative Multi Paranormal Society?

The La Feria-based volunteer ghost hunting group, along with some members of a similar team from Corpus Christi, are slated to convene in Rio Grande City on Friday to check out stories that La Borde House, the city’s historic hotel, is haunted.

But if you need them to check on a ghoul or spirit while they’re in the neighborhood, said group founder Mary Catherine Zimmerer, they’ll be happy to.

Zimmerer, 33, has a day job as a medical technician, but she and six others spend free time investigating reports of hauntings in homes and public buildings.

Lured by tales of strange noises, self-activating lights and creepy visitations, they plan to monopolize the hotel and set up recording equipment — video and "EVP" audio recorders — to fish for spirits.

EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena. Many spectre-seekers use digital audio equipment to filter out noises the human ear can pick up, looking for messages and voices underneath.

Zimmerer has already begun poring over maps of the building and reading up on its history.

"We take our time and go through everything," she said. "We try to debunk as much as possible, as to what could possibly be making the noise; or if someone is seeing a shadow or a reflection, we try to see what could be reflecting."

Guests and employees at the hotel have long traded stories of images in mirrors and the sounds of footsteps and children laughing. Theories vary as to who or what is doing the haunting, and why.

Zimmerer’s crew is connected to a network of fiend fans. She is a contributor to the national radio show Nightwatch and is doing advance work for the gentlemen of TAPS — The Atlantic Paranormal Society — who star in a SciFi Channel series, "Ghost Hunters" and are likely to visit the Rio Grande Valley in June after a convention in Houston.

Getting permission to scout sites can often be the most difficult part, despite the promise of confidentiality posted on the local group’s MySpace Web home. Owners and tenants of Starr County’s compliance and collection department building nixed a technological séance at the site, which was featured in a December Monitor article.

But the group’s popularity appears to be growing. They’re even gaining allies from unexpected places.

Several members of the Combes Police Department joined the group after the group investigated the department’s spooky headquarters/town hall building, a repurposed house plagued by oddities.

"That place had so much activity," Zimmerer said. According to police Chief Brady Parker, the department calls its ghost Oliver.

EVP recordings caught what Zimmerer said was gurgling and screaming from a young woman who may have been drowned by her father in the house.

The article above was found on Google and was published originally on The Monitor