Free I am Haunted: Living Life Through the Dead by Zak Bagans, Kelly Crigger

going on with the tech setup. They’re responsible for setting up the nerve center and wiring the four X-cameras, and being a hands-on guy, I like to know how that process is going. Early on, I go through with them where we want the cameras because camera placement is crucial to the success of the production. Like real estate, X-cameras are all about location, location, location, so I’m picky about where they are set up. I want them in reportedly haunted hotspots and at intersections where they can cover lots of ground, so we place them where they can see down long hallways, especially if the camera can shoot down another long hallway easily when turned remotely. Some of them have remote heads that can be controlled from the nerve center so that Billy and Jay can see more of the location and become a fourth and fifth set of eyes for us.
    The X-cameras are awesome because they’re like robotic investigators. They watch our backs and help us capture evidence (both audio and visual) that we might have missed on our own. More important, they can clue Billy and Jay in if any of us are being affected by dark forces. Billy and Jay can contact us by walkie-talkie if they notice one of us behaving strangely so that we can close in on the person being affected and help him out. For example, when we were investigating the Overland Hotel, the X-cameras helped Billy and Jay see that Nick and I both needed help. Nick was definitely under the influence of a spirit downstairs, and I was on my back in the upstairs hallway after some invisible force had run through me. Billy and Jay saw it all happen on the X-cams and got us help.
    These cameras also catch anomalies that manifest near us that we can later connect to a period of our being affected. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve caught balls of light disappearing into someone’s body at the same time that person became someone else.
    So the positioning of the X-cams is very important, and on lockdown day I’m making sure that they’re good to go. After I get out of their hair, Billy and Jay finish setting up all the electronics, which takes about five hours. Aaron and I each spend time alone and go through our own individual routines to get ready for the investigation. As you’ll read about later, a lot of weird and hazardous things happen to us during these investigations, and they don’t just go away when the sun comes up. A lockdown is draining and frequently takes days to get over, so we don’t take this significant event lightly. I’m a big fan of mixed martial arts, so I compare my preparation on lockdown day to that of an MMA fighter on fight day. I imagine it’s like a pilot who has to land a jumbo jet on a tiny dirt strip at night. He knows how to do it, but it’s nerve-wracking, and throughout the flight it’s in the back of his mind that a lot of people are counting on him to put this beast safely on the ground.
    Aaron has a ritual that involves shaving his head with a rusty old Ginsu knife. Okay, I made up the Ginsu part, but he does shave his head. That’s really all I know about what anyone does to prepare—and all I want to know. Lockdown day is a personal thing, and we respect one another’s space.
    In the days leading up to an investigation, I like to put myself in the shoes of the people whose spirits I’m trying to contact. I walk where they walked, sit where they sat, and feel the objects that they held dear. I really enjoy re-creating past events, too. Reenactments enable us to tune into the energy of that era, which gives us a better connection to the spirits. People criticize us for not getting straight into the investigation and taking up part of each episode with reenacting an event from the past, but there’s more to paranormal investigation than putting on the equipment, going into a building, and walking around. You have to get into the right frame of mind and
feel
the location, and reenactments help us do that.
    One of the most important