Now, after being a member of the club for almost two full years, Steinhauer said she has a better understanding of the paranormal.

And to help other students gain similar understanding, Steinhauer and other members of the Paranormal Society hosted a public investigation of paranormal activity Saturday night in Morrill Hall.

The event, called ParaMorrill Activity, allowed attendees to use the group’s equipment to try to find evidence of activity in MSU’s oldest building, which according to the group’s research was the site of a reported death.

At the event, more than 200 attendees discussed aspects of the paranormal in the Union, then split into three groups to investigate Morrill Hall. Using a video camera, a digital camera, temperature gauges, audio recorders and electromagnetic field detectors, the society led students through different parts of the building, looking for any evidence of activity.

As a skeptic of the paranormal, physiology freshman Marisa Martini decided to attend the investigation to see if she could get her own glimpse of the haunting.

“I didn’t really see or feel anything during (the investigation),” Martini said. “But it was cool to learn more about the paranormal, even though I don’t really believe in it.”

Steinhauer is one of about 30 students in the Paranormal Society who investigate paranormal activity in the Lansing area, as well as spread knowledge and promote discussion about the topic of the paranormal.

Although Dane Dario, the society’s president and a social relations and policy, psychology and religious studies senior, never had a paranormal experience before joining the group, he said he always has been interested in researching the topic. Now, Dario has been involved in the group’s investigations of paranormal activity in different areas of campus and Lansing.

“You see paranormal investigations on TV shows, but when you actually go do it yourself, it’s so much different,” he said.

The Paranormal Society gets contacted to do investigations in homes where the residents believe they are being haunted by a spirit, Dario said.

“We’re not trying to prove something,” he said. “We’re trying to disprove something is there. If we think that there is a haunting, then we tell our clients and ask them what they want us to do from there.”

And sometimes, the evidence they find is personal.

“Last year during one of our investigations, we picked up a female’s voice on the audio recorder in one of the bedrooms of the house,” Dario said. “The voice sounds like it’s saying, ‘Hey Dane, watch your back.’ I was shocked.”

Steinhauer’s work with the Paranormal Society has helped her deal with her own ghostly visitor, whom she calls Joe.

“There is a ghost that seems to follow me around,” Steinhauer said. “I see shadow figures once a month.”

Dario said part of the purpose of the society is having conversations with skeptics such as Martini.

“Sometimes talking about the paranormal can be kind of a taboo topic,” he said. “So we always like to have opportunities like (the Morrill Hall investigation) to talk about it and inform the public.”