It's the ghost buster

KELLY BURNS/The Dominion Post

HOBBY SPOOK-FINDER: Brad Scott wants Wellingtonians to swing open the doors to their haunted homes and paranormal places in the name of science and "debunking" bumps in the night.

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Brad Scott ain't afraid of no ghosts.

Instead, the hobbyist spook-finder wants Wellingtonians to swing open the doors to their haunted homes and paranormal places in the name of science and "debunking" bumps in the night.

"Everyone's had some type of experience, whether it's seeing something out the corner of your eye or a door opening. There are genuine people who are terrified," he said.

Mr Scott, who moved to New Zealand from Australia last year, said Wellington had a range of buildings that would be wonderful to explore.

As lead investigator and founder of NZ Paranormal, he said his background in building and engineering allowed him to "debunk 90 per cent" of ghost claims, but it was the remaining 10 per cent of "unknown" that kept him dead keen.

"Every so often we come across evidence that we just cannot explain."

Logical explanations usually included humidity in houses or malfunctioning electronics.

He has spent thousands of dollars over the years on his ghost-detecting "tools of the trade", which include electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, voice recorders, microphones and video recorders.

As he was being interviewed at a Johnsonville cemetery, he received an elevated reading from the EMF detector.

"That's strange," he said as he stood next to a large headstone.

EMF detection meters are used to find disruptions in the "natural" magnetic field, which ghost hunters say provides "credible evidence" of paranormal activity.

Mr Scott does not charge for his service, for which he and his team - friend Rob and Rob's apprentice son Oliver - investigate suspected haunted houses.

But he does distance himself from the Hollywood perception of a ghostbuster. "I don't have a proton pack," he said, in reference to the contraption used in the 1984 blockbuster film Ghostbusters.

Mr Scott said his work aimed to "disprove" that ghosts exist, rather than prove it. "Nine out of 10 times I'm told I'm the most scariest thing there."

- © Fairfax NZ News