CVU Senior Investigates Paranormal Activity
by Kaya Yurieff,
April 7, 2011, page 19.....

Grad Challenge Title:

Paranormal Activity in Vermont

“Get out!” Senior Chris Sulva rewinds the audio recording again, and sure enough he hears the same thing – is it really a spirit or some kind of ghost? For his Grad Challenge project, Sulva decided to investigate paranormal activity in Vermont. “I wanted to do something fun that no one has really done before. As a child, I was always interested in those ghost-hunting shows. I wanted to be involved and try it myself,” said Sulva.
He worked with a group called the Vermont Spirits Detective Agency. “We get called by people who want their houses or other places inspected and we go there to test for activity,” said Sulva. The agency uses devices such as video cameras and audio recorders to collect evidence that determines if the place is haunted or not. “During investigations we ask questions to provoke the spirit, like ‘you can touch one of us.’ Sometimes doors open out of nowhere, or we hear sounds. But no one has been touched before or anything,” said Sulva.
For his tangible product, Sulva is creating a documentary on haunted places in Vermont. He has videotaped investigations and has also gone alone to various haunted places. While videotaping, he tells the stories of the different places. However, his project is not without challenges. “Finding time to go out individually and check the places out is hard. There also aren’t always investigations, especially in the winter because it’s really cold,” said Sulva.
Sulva’s community consultant is Matt Bordon, who organized the agency. “He contacts me when there is an investigation, gives me ideas of where to film and who to talk to. I’ve interviewed him and he showed me all the equipment,” said Sulva. One time Bordon was in North Hero doing an investigation. One of the other detectives said he was going outside and would knock three times on the door when he returned. This way they would know he wasn’t a ghost. When they played the audio recording back, they could hear a voice saying, “One, two, three. Leave!” They didn’t hear it while they were investigating.
“I’ve definitely enjoyed the investigations the most. Just being there at night, hearing stuff. You don’t even know what you’re hearing or what it is. It’s an adrenaline rush. It’s just really exciting,” said Sulva.

This is the third in a series of profiles about Charlotte students and their CVU Grad Challenge projects by Kaya Yurieff, a CVU senior from Williston who served a summer internship at The Charlotte News in 2010. For her Grad Challenge project, Kaya is creating an informational/documentary video about her father’s charity for children, called the Russian Gift of Life, that brings children with heart defects from Russia to the United States for free heart surgery.