Film crew investigates the haunts of Hamilton Street in Old Saginaw City

Jodi McFarland | By Jodi McFarland | The Saginaw News
on August 30, 2009 at 4:01 AM, updated August 31, 2009 at 3:37 PM
Paranormal investigators Prozak, also known as Steve T. Shippy, and Adam W. Eugenio and Tim T. Rooney, all of Saginaw, stand near The Stable, an outdoor outfitter in Old Saginaw City, during an overnight film session. The Seekers plan to show their documentary around Halloween.

Prozak is the first to admit his ghost-hunting partners, the Seekers, probably won't convince skeptics of paranormal activity along Old Saginaw City's Hamilton Street.

It's not as if a ghost welcomed the rapper who bills himself as the Hitchcock of Hip Hop and fellow seekers Andy Rooney and Adam W. Eugenio to The Stable with a "Hello, I'm Mrs. Benjamin. I lived here 100 years ago."

But when the team's documentary, "Seekers: Vol. One," premieres around Halloween in a Saginaw theater, the eerie "Why?" recorded at the former Moose Lodge, the singing specter at the Schuch Hotel and the swinging light fixture on The Stable's second floor promise to raise a few goosebumps.

Use this link to see more photos of Prozak and Seekers.

"This has always been a hobby for me, and I included a trailer on the bonus DVD with my last album," said Prozac, a Saginaw musician-turned-filmmaker also known as Steve T. Shippy. "When we decided to shoot a series, Hamilton Street was a natural with the lawlessness, and the violence and death it experienced in the past. A lot of stuff has gone down around here."

Footsteps in The Stable

The Seekers' investigations have come up with "some pretty amazing" findings, Prozak said.

"Some paranormal groups want things so bad, they take it all at face value," he said. "We go for the evidence; we try to be over-the-top objective."

The Stable, 300 S. Hamilton, once was a city stable and mortuary. Workers there have heard unexplained sounds, among other odd happenings.

On a recent weekend, that meant spending "the bewitching hours," from 2 a.m. until daybreak, at The Stable, 300 S. Hamilton near Adams with digital infrared cameras, electro-magnetic field sensors, pocket recorders and fellow ghost-hunters from Bay City and Detroit. Eugenio had worked with Prozak on his DVD, and Rooney, one of the filmmakers behind the zombie film "Locked Away," became acquainted through that project.

The Stable offers an interesting history of its own. The north portion was the former city stable, where the horses that pulled the police and fire wagons were housed, and the southern quarters was a mortuary. The faint traces of an ad on a brick wall promote "Governor Bliss," the Saginaw politician who led the state from 1901 to 1904, and a room away, ornate wooden display cases stand empty of the caskets that used to fold out of the wall like Murphy beds.

"We'll hear footsteps up there, and doors opening, though we haven't seen any ghosts," said Chad R. Stoney, the ski and bike shop's assistant manager. "The incident that stands out the most happened about six or seven years ago. I was here alone, watching a football game, when I felt someone grab my shoulder. I did a quick 360, and nobody was there."

A 'boom' in an empty room

A photograph has made the rounds, he said, of a ghostly Mrs. Benjamin standing on a staircase. And many report an uneasy feeling around the third floor bedroom where the stable boy once lived.

"That's up by our layaway area now, and you want to get up there and back down quick," Stoney said.

Prozac prepares cameras and audio equipment. The team uses infrared cameras and audio equipment to explore sights and sounds in the 127-year-old building.

That's where Detroit ghost-hunters Rose Dakroub, Celia Fucay and Casey Dietrich headed on the overnight exploration, waiting for the nearby Hamilton Street Pub crowd to leave the block in silence.

"It's a mix of emotions when something happens, fascinating and scary at the same time," Fucay said. "Sitting here, we could feel something was in the room. We tried to communicate, to ask for some noise, and it really responded when we asked about Mrs. Benjamin.

"That's when the tapping started."

Prozak's electro-magnetic field sensor went wild, rapidly beeping as the red lights flashed. A couch was pulled a few feet from the wall. A huge boom, as if something fell to the floor, was heard from an empty room.

And the light started swaying, a phenomenon caught on camera. The team jumped to action, shaking the rafters, trying to make the lamp sway again. They couldn't replicate it.

"We'll correlate the data we've gathered and investigate it again," Prozak said. "There's a lot of chaos; there's a lot of 100-year-old dust flying around, making it hard to breathe.

"But maybe it's a bat loose. We have the cameras set up around the rooms, and we'll go through everything it recorded."

Caught on camera?

Post-fright-night review of the footage is how the Seekers say they heard the EVP -- electronic voice phenomenon -- that showed up on recordings while not caught at the time at the old Moose Lodge, 220 N. Hamilton, and the Schuch, now known as Perry's Schuch Hotel, 303 N. Hamilton.

"We never heard a thing while it was happening, but it was caught on the cameras and the recorders," Prozak said.

Then there's the flashlight that at the Moose Lodge turned itself off, caught on camera, and then turned itself back on seconds before Prozak and his team returned to the room, Rooney said.

"You don't know how to take it," he said. "But it's right there in the picture."

Next on the Seekers' radar is Savannah, Ga. After selecting the location, they'll begin researching the history, narrowing their focus to a handful of spots and contacting owners.

"We do our homework," Prozak said. "We correlate everything and sort through what's myth and what's real. If you're not a believer, if you find this objectionable, don't watch.

"But we'll give everyone else something to think about."