ST. MARTINVILLE — It’s just after 8 p.m. Saturday and while many people were out getting a bite to eat or taking in a movie, others  were trying to catch ghosts.

The group, which is affiliated with TAPS or The Atlantic Paranormal Society, is called Louisiana Spirits and its members were responding to a call from Michelle and J.D. Kirkwood.

The Kirkwoods said they have been noticing some strange and unexplained things happening in their house, which is one of the Olivier homes in St. Martinville.

1/5/07 Lori Russell, from left, photographs stairwell while Michelle Savoy and Kristy King watch. Lee Ball/The Daily Iberian Advertisement

“Her mother’s picture was sitting right on this book and it just feel off,” J.D. said. “I was in the bathroom and I thought the cats had knocked it off.”

J.D. said Michelle saw the picture fall without the cats or anyone else touching it. And, Michelle said the picture is only the beginning.

She said there have been a number of other unexplained things happening in the home like the air conditioning thermostat turning on or off, radios turning on, sounds of people walking upstairs and an attic door closing by itself.

“I saw it (the door) was open and I turned around to do some work and my daughter said, ‘momma look, it’s closed,’” Michelle said.

And, Michelle said there was even a report of someone seen walking through the home.

“We had a guest in town who said she saw an older lady walking in the living room,” she said.

Brad Duplechain, the founder of Louisiana Spirits, said when he and the other volunteers began investigating the paranormal, it was hard for people to take them seriously.

“Nobody wanted to contact us when we first started out so we would go to places that were supposed to be haunted,” Duplechain said.

“But, then we got our name out there and people started contacting us.”

Duplechain said while the members of his group are believers, they still have to treat every case with a certain degree of skepticism.

He said, “80 percent of the time, it (the activity) is explainable.”

Duplechain, who is from Alexandria, runs the chapter of Louisiana Spirits that handles the cases for the southwest part of the state.

Jennifer Broussard, a group member from Lafayette, said she has been there when they investigated the Bienvenue House in St. Martinville and Rip Van Winkle Gardens at Jefferson Island.

“We did pick up an interesting EVP (electronic voice phenomenon at Bienvenue House),” she said.

Broussard said that EVP was the voice of a woman who said the French words, “gette pas,” which means “don’t look.”

At Jefferson Island, Broussard said they captured a ball of light moving from one window to the next.

The group monitored the Kirkwood’s home until around 1 a.m. Sunday. Duplechain said they still had to watch and listen to hours of video and audio taken during their investigation, but he said they were able to rule out a few things.

“The sounds of people walking, it’s an old house,” he said.  “When one of us would walk, it would sound like someone was walking on the other side of the house.”

Anything the group finds during its investigations is posted on its Web site, www.laspirits.com. And, while ghost hunting may be far fetched for many skeptics, it is growing in popularity.

Duplechain said his group has been asked to teach a continuing education class at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and McNeese University in Lake Charles could be interested, as well.