Coral Springs man to join Titanic ghost-hunting trip

By Robert Nolin - Sun Sentinel

Far out in the bleak North Atlantic, waves roll restless over the spot where RMS Titanic lies more than two miles down on the ocean floor.

But ghost hunter William Brower of Coral Springs, a self-educated expert on the Titanic, believes more than waves mark the grave of the world's best known shipwreck. Eerie voices of its doomed passengers, he contends, still can be heard on the salty wind. And Brower intends to capture them.

He's one of nearly 20 paranormal investigators who want to mount a spring expedition to where the massive liner sank nearly 100 years ago. They plan to deploy special microphones to record the spectral echoes — cries of fear and despair, perhaps — imprinted on the site by the more than 1,500 people who died there.

"I think it will be dramatic," the 35-year-old author and freelance writer said. "We're probably going to hear people screaming for help."

The Titanic Endeavor Tour, headed by Matthew "Sandman" Kelley, a paranormal researcher from Markleysburg, Pa., will charter a boat to the shipwreck 960 miles east of New York and try to invoke the spirits of those who died there. Expedition members will dine from the Titanic's menu, observe a memorial service and strain to detect, through psychic sensitivity or special equipment, traces of souls who haunt the site.

The goal is to record electronic voice phenomenon of spirits who linger at the site. EVP, in which microphones record silence from which researchers later discern voices upon playback, is becoming a popular paranormal research tool.

"We're going to get a lot of emotion, a lot of people looking for their loved ones, a lot of people realizing they're never going to see their loved ones again," said Kelley, 42, a retired truck driver. "It's going to be very sad."

Not everyone in the paranormal community supports the Titanic mission. Terra King, a believer who writes about the paranormal for an online website, said seeking EVPs in places such as battlefields or disasters is "disrespectful and unethical."

"Too many groups who are searching for the voices of those who have died are downright ghoulish," King said via e-mail. "This expedition falls within this category. Trolling the North Atlantic for EVPs is ridiculous."

Brower, who wrote a book on the Titanic and for years performed a one-man show about the disaster, said people can react strongly over paranormal research. "It's a very, very controversial science," he said.

Kelley said his team will operate with respect. "The Titanic is now part of our history," he said. The expedition "is going to be a form of closure."

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