Quick-Fire Quips is a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama! Today, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with Laura Lineberry, an investigator with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group.
Baillee: Hey, Laura. How are you?
Laura: I'm great. How are you?
Baillee: I'm doing good. I'm so excited to chat with you today. Tell me about your job. It seems really exciting!
Laura: It is. So I belong to a group of about—I think there's ten of us now. We typically will investigate known haunted places, places that have a reputation for being haunted. And that's where we get a lot of our experience.
Collectively, we have about sixty plus years of paranormal experience. We primarily do those for practice, but our real job is investigating private homes and helping people figure out exactly what's going on in their home.
Baillee: I saw on the website that you guys take a strictly scientific approach. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Laura: So what we like to do is, we don't just go in and investigate a location and immediately deem it haunted. We go through a series of tests, and our equipment is ridiculously large—the number of pieces of equipment that we have. And yes, there does exist ghost-hunting equipment that will read energy EMF fields, it'll read temperature, you name it.
But we'll go in more than once, especially in a private home, to take everything into consideration: from the weather, the time of night, what exactly happens. We've been at locations where we'll have a lot of activity the first time we go, and then nothing the second time. So we have to go back a third time. The best investigations are when we can validate some of the things that are happening that the homeowner has experienced.
Baillee: How did you fall into this job?
Laura: Well, I've always been interested because I'm one of those people—and I say that with air quotes—where the paranormal has found me. All through my life, I would have kind of odd things happen. When I got to college is when I experienced my first ghost, and it was a pretty interesting situation where I would come home and find the hangers in my closet, the empty hangers, strewn about my room.
I thought my roommates were playing a prank on me. So I kept testing it and trying to catch them. I think what finally convinced me is I walked in my room, put all the hangers back, walked out of my room into the kitchen, came back—now nobody else was home—and there they were all over the floor again.
I sat on my bed, just totally exasperated by it, not trying to figure it out, and something sat next to me. I couldn't see it, but we all know what that feels like, you know? Something sat next to me, and that was the beginning of a new beginning of understanding reality as it is.
Baillee: Yeah, I've had a couple of experiences like that before. What is your favorite part of the job?
Laura: My favorite part is when you capture something that can't be explained. So we do all kinds of tests. We do what we call trigger—we take trigger objects into a location: things that mean something to an entity or spirit that we've become accustomed to.
There is one location where if we bring a bottle of whiskey and a deck of cards, we can almost always meet the gentleman that haunts that place. He will come in. We have equipment that can tell if it's being touched; we have equipment that can capture voices as they come across. Clearly this gentleman really appreciates us bringing the material. But like clockwork, down to the minute and how long it takes for him to react to it, we've gotten that down to a science.
Baillee: How can people connect with the group?
Laura: We're at Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group. A quick search on Google will take you right to our website.
Potential clients can contact us through the website, and there's a series of questions and a process we go through to make sure that there isn't any pranksters, mental illness. If somebody has videos or photos that they want us to look at, we'll have them submitted.
We will even ask for the pictures before and the pictures after. You know, it's a very vetted process, for lack of a better word, in that we want to make sure that we're dealing with somebody that is possibly experiencing paranormal activity.
Baillee: More to come, but now the introductions are done. Let's get you warmed up for the questionnaire. To do that, I want you to say Quick-Fire Quips three times fast.
Laura: Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick— oh, geez. You want the third one? Quick-Fire Quips.
Laura and Baillee laugh
Baillee: There we go! Okay, here's the first question: What comes to mind when you hear "Alabama"?
Laura: I didn't originally grow up here. So, when I first moved here, I got a lot of flak from my Florida friends. They wanted to know if we wore shoes here, or if it was still "the most racist place in the country." And it made me realize that the media just gets it wrong.
Immediately, I think of Southern hospitality. It is one of those places where your neighbors become friends, they become family—family that you choose. I couldn't get over how many people would look me in the eye when they first met me, would welcome me to church, or welcome me to their home.
These kind of things didn't happen in Fort Lauderdale, where I came from. Everybody just stayed in their own little groups. I love that here in Alabama, when you hear that saying, "Sweet Home Alabama"—Alabama is home. Not just to me, but it feels like home. The whole state feels like home.
Baillee: What is a hidden gem around Smith Lake or in Cullman that more people should know about?
Laura: Smith Lake is one of the cleanest lakes in the state, and it's absolutely stunningly beautiful. I think when people think of a lake in the South, they think of just a flattened kind of area. But I think the most interesting thing about this lake is that there are places that are as deep as 250 feet, and some that are much shallower. But the cliffs and the forestry—we sit alongside Bankhead National Forest.
Baillee: Oh, wow!
Laura: When I used to live in Tuscaloosa, if I had known more about Bankhead National Forest, I would have gone there. I would have gone to check it out. If you go to that side of the lake, it's absolutely stunning. It's a tourist lake, so it's really busy in the summer, but that doesn't mean you can't come in the fall when it's so calm and so beautiful, and you get the fall colors. It is a gem itself.
Baillee: Sounds like it. What is your favorite thing about living in Alabama?
Laura: I'm going to go back to the "home" answer. I lived in Tuscaloosa for almost 33 years. So moving here to retire, I was worried about the change. I was worried about living so far away from a grocery store. But I love the rural.
Driving the country roads and coming across the nature—I see foxes, rabbits, deer, and turtles every day. I love that part of it. I love the quietness, but I'm going to go back to community. When I first moved here, within two weeks, I had a whole group of core friends. I still have them after five years now, and we look out for each other. I love that. And, of course, I still have my friends in Tuscaloosa.
Baillee: Of course. What is something that you don't like about living in Alabama?
Laura: I'm not exactly thrilled with the educational system in Alabama. I remember when I first moved here—and, of course, that was 33 years ago—I was a little bit shocked at what was available to the children. So much good has happened since then, but I think, honestly, we're moving a little bit backwards, and I'm worried about how that's going to affect our children in the future.
Baillee: What is a bad stereotype or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
Laura: Well, I think the biggest stereotype is that if you talk with a very strong Southern accent, you must be dumb. That is the farthest from the truth.
Baillee: What is your favorite haunted location in Alabama?
Laura: There's so many. I used to teach on campus, and The University of Alabama has more haunted locations than you can imagine. The Drish House is my favorite because I can go back in there, and there's a spirit in there that within minutes will make herself known, and we can have full conversations with her. That's special, and that only happens when you've kind of fostered that relationship and gained the trust of the entities that are there.
But I will say a couple of places on campus that are my favorite: the Gorgas House for one, the Alabama Museum of Natural History, and I taught in Woods Hall, and Woods Hall was pretty interesting at times. Of course... close to Reese Phifer, it has a history of hauntings.
But almost every location that I've been to that's haunted on campus has been somehow related to the Civil War, so there's a lot of activity around that, especially on the quad.
Baillee: So, you mentioned the spirit that makes herself known in the Drish House and how you guys are able to have conversations. What does that look like?
Laura: Let me tell you a story. Remember I mentioned trigger objects? There's one entity there, and I don't want to share too much because I don't want her disrespected in any way, but her trigger object is young men. This took us a while to figure out what was missing in her life, and the answer was love.
We always tested things; the house became for us—and Mr. McCool, who owns the house, has always been so kind to us. Even when other investigators come in that she's not familiar with, she asks us to be there because we do respect them. But this particular one, we thought, "Let's try this." At the time, we were giving haunted tours around town when the Drish House first opened back up after it was restored. We had tried all kinds of things; there's a couple of other entities that we figured out what makes them tick, but not her.
So we asked a young man in the group—I pulled him aside, me and one of the other investigators, and we said, "Can you help us with this little test?" And he said, "Sure." We asked him to flirt with her, but it had to be pre-Civil War-era flirting. You can't say, "Hey, let's go hang." You had to say, "Let's go have lemonade on the porch with your father sitting beside us." So it was a little bit of training.
The interesting thing that happened was we actually heard her kind of giggle in a blushing way, like, "Oh," and we all heard it in the room. But then the young man experienced some things that he shared with us that literally created for us a formula of how things would happen. One would be a very floral scent, and when we smell it, we know she's there. Then when she's there, we give the young man the cue to start flirting. When he flirts, they almost always have—this is what happens to all the men we've done this to. First, they feel something around their chest.
We've had a couple think they're being choked, and we're like, "Calm down, you're not being choked." And then they feel love and emotion, and then they get the chill bumps. It happens in this order, which is pretty amazing. Then they get extremely emotional—we've had them cry, we've had them tear up, we've had them say, "I can't do this anymore." It's been pretty cool to watch it happen.
We had a student filmmaker from Florida State come into the Drish House one time and do a little film, and we told his production crew what to expect, but we didn't tell him. He started—as soon as he said, "I smell this floral scent," we said, "Okay, it's time. Come in here, sit down." And he started, and we had the list in front of the camera, just checking it off one on one. He went through every single thing. We've determined that the choking is a hug, that she's not physically choking them, but they can actually feel the embrace, and that's been wonderful.
Another time, we went in and we mentioned a cousin of hers, and it was rumored that this cousin and her didn't get along. She would not speak to us that night. So we learned: don't bring up the cousin. She wasn't so mad that she didn't speak to us the next time, but she was mad enough to say, "No, you brought up my enemy, not talking to you."
Baillee: Oh, that's so cool!
Laura: It is very cool.
Baillee: You've mentioned church a couple of times in our conversation, and I wanted to ask: how has experiencing the paranormal changed your perspective, whether it comes to faith or how you see things in the world differently? How has being an investigator changed any of that?
Laura: I was raised Episcopalian, devout. My family was very religious. As far as institutional religion, it was a part of our life. But like I said, I've experienced these things since I was young, and my mother did, and I have a brother and a sister that did... I grew up recognizing that this was something that we shared in my family and had been passed down through generations.
We fear what we don't understand; that's what happens. We've been told all along through media, television, movies, etc., that the Ouija board is evil. In the Bible, it says, "Don't fall for the charlatans," but not every person who does what I do is a charlatan.
I still very much believe in God. I still very much follow the morals and the lessons and whatnot that I received as an Episcopalian, but I've reached a point right now where instead of being religious, I'm extremely spiritual. I feel closer to God in that, and I have always believed God was in my heart. But I also know that as a soul within this vessel, my body, I'm also a part of the souls before me and a part of the souls after me.
I've always been told God is in my heart, and I believe that's where he lives. Even in the Bible, it says, "I am neither man nor woman; we are all one." He's in me, he's in you—he or she, they, fair enough. Souls are souls, and souls have available infinite knowledge. They thrive on love, and they're going to visit their loved ones. I've had it happen many, many times. When somebody says something to me about it, whether or not it's regarding Christianity, I always say, "I'm so sorry that this hasn't happened to you, because it's absolutely amazing."
Baillee: What would you say to someone who is genuinely afraid of a specific area because they feel like it's haunted or because there's bad energy?
Laura: I have two answers to that. First one, I'll answer in the form of a story. There was a salon in Tuscaloosa that was concerned that the place was haunted. One of the reasons they felt it was haunted was that when she took her clients into microblading—they felt very uncomfortable in that room, some people would get nauseous, and some people just didn't like the room and couldn't tell why.
We were able to pretty much explain everything, but in that room, one of the devices we have measures electromagnetic fields. These can surround this kind of anomalous energy that comes around, and the theory is that when an EMF meter goes up, there's a spirit there. That is the case most of the time, but sometimes faulty wiring can cause an excess of EMF, and with that comes nausea, hallucinations, hearing things.
We had one woman that felt like something was being stuck in her ears, and this particular room was the highest EMF we have ever measured. Our advice was: get an electrician in and fix the wiring. That solved it; there was not a haunting at all. But I walked in the room and within a minute had a bad headache.
That goes into the second part: before I walk into a location, and most of us on my team will do this, we will do almost like a pre-flight check. We will take note of everything in our own body: how does my stomach feel, how does my chest feel, is my head clear, the temperature of your body. Then when you walk into the location, you're better able to determine what is changing immediately.
For me, a couple of things happen when I know I'm in the presence of some sort of energy. One is a heaviness in my chest—it's like this place is heavy, and people who have experienced that know that feeling. The other feeling I get, and one of the other women in our group does the same thing, is static electricity all around me. That's kind of fun because I know that something is nearby and probably friendly.
I had a very weird thing happen in a house in Brookwood. We were investigating for this couple, and they had just done some renovation and were having all kinds of paranormal activity. We were in a room, and several people said it feels female, whatever is here feels female, but we were given the names of some men, no females. While I was sitting there, I had a very quick vision of a woman writing the name "Mary." Didn't know what to do with that, so I ignored it. Then it happened again. I said, "Well, apparently I'm supposed to ask if there's a Mary here." We still didn't get anything on the EVP.
The next time we saw the homeowners, we were giving them a report. That wasn't in the report because that was a personal experience; that wasn't anything we could back up with evidence. I looked at the wife and I said, "Does the name Mary mean anything to you?" She gasped and said, "That's my mother's name, and she used to live here in the house." Some things we can't explain. I don't know if that was a soul speaking to me, I don't know where that came from, but that was one of those aha moments. We quickly learned to trust what is also happening within our own senses, with our third eye, etc.
Now—what do you do if your house is haunted and you're uncomfortable? You can ask them to leave, or just say, "I don't think you realize you're scaring us, and I don't want you to scare my children anymore."
You could also just say, "It's my home now, and I want you to move on." It's not our job to tell them to cross over, because they may already be over.
Baillee: We've talked a lot about spirits and ghosts and things like that. Do you happen to have any superstitions or rational fears?
Laura: Boy, that's changed over the years. Prior to the past couple of years, my rational fear was being my authentic self. Sometimes with age comes the "I don't give a crap." Evolving into who I was meant to be, sharing my experiences, sharing my authentic self, and putting it out there in different ways has made my life so much easier—so much easier!
Baillee: Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Laura: I'm addicted. I'm addicted to Diet Coke. I wish I wasn't, but I'm so addicted to it... I don't know if you've ever heard of Biscoff cookie spread.
Baillee: Oh, I have. I'm familiar, yeah!
Laura: You're supposed to put it on things, but I put it on a spoon. I put it on a spoon, and that's probably one of my guilty pleasures.
Baillee: Tell me something on your bucket list.
Laura: On this kind of spiritual journey I've been on, just something about Sedona is attracting me. It's one of these locations where mindfulness happens, and things like what happens to me are accepted. A lot of people say there are vortexes there and there's some magic that happens there.
Baillee: What is a piece of advice that someone gave you that you still think about today?
Laura: I came home from college one day. He was living in Ocala with my stepmother, and I walked in. Back in those days—this was in the 80s—you weren't anybody unless you owned a pair of Calvin Klein jeans.
I walk in, and I have on the Calvin Klein jeans. Now, my father was a very wealthy man, and he said, "What are you wearing?" I was like, "What?" He goes, "What are you wearing?" I said, "Well, my jeans. These are Calvin Klein jeans." And he said to me, "Why would you pay so much more money to make another man rich?"
It stunned me. From then on, I kind of shied away from name brands or any kind of couture that carried somebody else's name just for the sake of wearing their name, because essentially it doesn't make you better—it just makes that person richer.
Baillee: What do you want to be remembered for?
Laura: I hope—and I try to be—kind... I think that's what I want to be remembered for. One of my proudest moments was opening my senior yearbook in school, and under my picture it says, "Happiness is making others so." I was so proud because I knew that's what made me happy, but I didn't realize other people saw that.
Baillee: Here is the last question: What does Alabama need?
Laura: Culturally we do real well. We have a state that appreciates the arts, we have a state that appreciates higher education. They're real good about that. But I think what they need is leadership that takes into consideration everybody, not just select groups.
The leadership is one of the things that, when I'm talking to people from other states, I get a little embarrassed about because there's some things that go on. I understand that it's a very divisive political environment right now, but I'd like to think that if I voted for a governor or treasurer or whatever, that they take everybody into consideration, not just their side.
That's a shame; we got away from that at some point a long time ago, and all it's done is create chaos among the people. If there's a way that we had leadership that could bring everybody together—and I don't mean just Alabama, I mean the whole U.S.—that's where we are hurting.
I think that's what it needs in every aspect, everywhere: in the workplace, just better leaders.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was Laura Lineberry, an investigator with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group. Find us at APR.org for more Quick-Fire Quips!
