It was a dark night at the St. Mary's Art Center in Virginia City over a decade ago, when Paula Burris was monitoring live cameras for a ghost hunting group and had a haunting experience of her own.
"I'm watching (the monitors), I have my back to it, and I hear, 'hey!' And I turn around, and there was like an 8 or 9 year old boy, just his head, sticking out of that room - red hair and freckles, I mean, I can still see him in my mind's eye," she told 2 News Nevada, sitting in a room on the third floor of St. Mary's.
Her first ghost sighting - a patient in the old children's ward at the 150-year-old former hospital, now an art center.
It propelled her into ghost hunting at St. Mary's. Today, she guides tour groups through the haunted building. Burris says she's become familiar with the building's deceased residents.
"Over the years, I've created somewhat of a rapport to them," she explained. "I talk to them just like I'm talking to you."
It's a slew of gadgets that help her conduct those conversations, from a sensor that buzzes when somebody stands nearby or waves their hand over it, to the classic dowsing rods that seem to be a favorite of the ghosts in St. Mary's.
Standing in the hospital's preserved mental health room, she held out the rods and explained to a 2 News Nevada reporter that you can ask a question, and if the rods cross, it's a ghost telling you that the answer is yes.
Supposedly, a former patient named Dave haunts the mental health wing.
"Will you cross the rods for me if you're here?" Burris asked aloud.
With a slow tremble, the dowsing rods turned in her hands.
Burris knows that not everybody believes that there are ghosts haunting St. Mary's. But she describes herself as curious and open-minded, and her approach to paranormal investigations is scientific. She's always on the hunt for more evidence to support or disprove her theories about ghosts and the afterlife.
"I don't know that we'll ever have solid answers until we get there," she said.
But once she 'gets there,' she says she'll do everything in her power to return to St. Mary's and answer questions for the paranormal investigators who carry her torch.
To join in on a paranormal investigation at St. Mary's, watch their website for upcoming excursions, or follow Burris' Facebook page for updates.
