Halloween might be the time of year where people are hearing about tales of spirits most often.

For one group in Lethbridge, the paranormal is a year-round business.

The West Canadian Paranormal Society has been doing paranormal investigations around Lethbridge, Southern Alberta and beyond since it was founded three years ago.

With thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment, they are determined to find and in some cases, eliminate paranormal activity.

They have a YouTube channel and a show on Shaw’s public access channel showcasing their investigations.

They currently have a team of seven and go on investigations when people contact them about possible paranormal activity in their home.

The group was founded by Ben Martin, now the lead investigator for the group.

He started the group as a hobby before it grew into making its own investigation videos.

Martin explains his first experience with the paranormal.

“My mother, unbeknownst to her at the time had moved into a home that was plagued with a very nasty homicide. I remember being very young and being terrified because I saw these shadowy figures looming over me. At that point in my life I wouldn’t really know what that was, but it was the first real distinct memory I have of an encounter with the paranormal.”

He has an affinity to history and storytelling, and says it meshes well with his interest in the paranormal.

Martin and the team do investigations every few months and record all of their findings they provide to the owners of the properties as well as create their own content.

The group has recorded strange phenomena on audio and video.

Thomas Stone, supervising producer for the team, says he misses some of the phenomena until they start to edit the footage.

“Sometimes you see things on camera that you couldn’t see on location. When I see something, I go into the settings and I don’t alter anything, I simply enhance that to see if we got anything. And sometimes there’s a challenge with that. The brain wants to see something that isn’t there, so I’m always on guard for that.”

Stone has been a skeptic most of his life, until he began working with Martin on the investigations.

The Paranormal Society tries to investigate the past of the places they investigate to learn about the historical significance of the area or people that may have lived there.

Martin says they want to show a lighter side to the paranormal to the public, that it sometimes it can be welcoming

“There’s a beauty to it and there’s definitely a lot of warmth and love that fan be felt and experienced when dealing with the paranormal,” Martin said. “We want to showcase that side more than focusing on the spooky Halloween ghost scene.”

He went on to say he feels the spooky side of paranormal media is a bit of a cliché.

The WCPS has 15 recorded investigations since Martin started the group in 2015 and has over 40 videos on its YouTube channel documenting their findings.

The team is currently in production for its third season and will continue to do investigations through the winter months.