Janice Oberding, author of "Haunted Nevada," will join 60 ghost hunters in Virginia City on Friday to see if they can commune with the spirit world for a documentary film.
She joins Zak Bagans, host of "Ghost Adventures," a two-hour documentary film that chases ghosts all over Nevada's mining towns, for the special ghost hunt.
The group will be at Piper's Opera House from 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday and will go on for most of the night. Over the two-day event, the ghost hunters also plan to perform séances in the Washoe Club, visit the Union Brewery and the visitors center and make trips to the Silver Terrace Cemeteries.
Cost is $199 for both days and reservations can be made by e-mailing lasvegas4reel@yahoo.com.
Oberding praised Bagans as "very serious about what he does."
She said more than 60 people are expected at the ghost-hunting event, from as far away as New Jersey and Minnesota.
She said that the group will use ITC, or intratranscommunication, in their séances.
"We set up a camera and a TV screen and as you are calling spirits, you try to get them to show up on the screen," she said.
The group is going to try to explain mysterious lights that are said to appear in the cemetery in Virginia City, including a headstone that glows.
She is hoping to call some famous spirits of Virginia City, but said she'll be happy with anyone who shows up.
"As a writer, I would like to call Mark Twain," she said. "But even Eilley Bowers, she and her friends did a lot of séances there. Maybe that's why there are so many spirits there. But let's just see who we get."
Oberding has been involved in other seances on the Comstock, including one in the Gold Hill, where, she said, a spirit identified with the past showed up.
"We've done a couple of seances at the Gold Hill Hotel," she said. "We got some names and they were verifiable."
Bagans, 30, of Las Vegas, plans on videotaping the event and using it for a future film and DVD project.
"Ghost Adventures" premiered on the Science Fiction Channel in July and can be seen there at 2 p.m. on Halloween.
• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 881-7351.
If You Go
WHAT: Virginia City Ghost Hunt
WHEN: Friday-Saturday
WHERE: Piper's Opera House, Washoe Club, visitors center, Union Brewery, cemetery and other locations in Virginia City.
COST: $199
E-MAIL: lasvegas4reel@yahoo.com