Folsom history museum partners with paranormal investigators to host ghost tours
FOLSOM — Do ghosts really exist? That's what a handful of people are trying to find out on the streets of Folsom.
It's part of an after-hours history tour looking for signs of spirits.
Equipped with specialized frequency detectors and sensitive handheld acoustic sensors, a team of volunteer ghost hunters hits the streets of historic downtown Folsom.
"There's a lot of wayward spirits," said Nor-CAPS investigator Ryan Mick.
It's the Folsom History Museum's first foray into supernatural study.
"We're taking folks around different areas in the historic district and using instruments to see if we can find out any anomalies in the area," said David Mues of the history museum.
Historians team up with seasoned paranormal investigators to give participants a tour of Sutter Street and the old railyards square and talk about stories from the town's gold rush era while looking for any signs of spirits.
"They actually go hand in hand because anytime you do a paranormal investigation, you have to know the history," Mick said.
Over the decades, Folsom's seen a lot of unnatural and untimely deaths.
"There was 94 executions in Folsom prison," Mick said. "There was prostitution, stuff like that going on, and shady deals that probably ended very bad."
Some leave the ghost-hunting tour as believers and others remain paranormal skeptics, but there's no denying this town has a lot of history lessons to learn.
"For us, it's a win-win because the more things they get to research, the more we get to corroborate anything that we find during these investigations," Mick said.
"I think people will always be interested in how Folsom became what it is and why it continues to be what it is," Mues said.
The Folsom ghost hunting tickets cost $30 with proceeds going to the history museum. Three more tours are scheduled later this month.