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Scaring up viewers? Wright-Pat ghosts on TV

Submitted for your approval: a sprawling Air Force base in the heartland of America, home to Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and, some claim, ghosts.

That’s why Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, lead investigators for the SciFi Channel’s “Ghost Hunters,” spent the week of Jan. 3-10 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Base employees have for years reported suspicious, possibly paranormal, activity at three buildings, including Hap Arnold’s former home.

The episode featuring Wright-Pat will air at 9 and 11 p.m. Wednesday.

The Ghost Hunters were intrigued by the tales of “full-body apparitions, shadow figures, the sounds of people walking when nobody’s there,” Hawes said. But their mission is always first to prove the ghosts do not exist.

“Over 80 percent of all claims can be disproved,” Hawes said.

Then again, “When you get the military saying they have experience, you tend to believe them a little more,” Wilson said.

The team employed all kinds of high-tech audio and video equipment in search of the otherworldly beings, including zero lux cameras, which can see in total darkness. They even brought in a Faraday cage — a copper enclosure around a microphone which blocks out all static and random radio chatter.

Working on an Air Force base presents plenty of difficulties for this kind of investigation, Wilson said.

“You got C-5s flying overhead all the time, and you got a lot of radio frequency you’ve got to work around.”

Another hurdle: All cameras had to be accompanied by a base public affairs officer.

“They were very ninjalike,” Wilson said, though the investigators wouldn’t say how the PAOs held up in the spooky conditions.

Nor would Wilson nor Hawes reveal whether they caught Hap Arnold’s ghost — or anyone else’s, for that matter — saying you’ll just have to tune in to find out.