If you’re at the Oliver House and you feel the hairs on the back of your neck suddenly prickle ... who ya gonna call?
The answer is Chris Bores, author of the recently released book Haunted Toledo.
Bores calls himself a “ghost behaviorist” as opposed to a “ghost hunter,” and describes himself as basically a psychologist for the spirit world. His trademark is communicating with apparitions and trying to figure out why they stick around haunting places.
On Sunday and Oct. 22, Bores will present a 90-minute presentation and dinner at the Oliver House to celebrate the release of Haunted Toledo. On Oct. 16 and 30, Bores will lead guided tours through the historic Oliver House, which he said is “filled” with restless spirits.
A representative of the Oliver House declined to comment.
Tickets for the dinner and ghost tours are $60; tickets for the guided ghost tours by themselves are $30. The Oct. 30 tour is already sold out. For more information, call 419-243-1302.
One such restless spirit is the military wife who Bores said haunts the fireside room in Rockwell’s, one of the restaurants that operates within the historic Oliver House. According to Bores’ book, she is the spirit of a woman whose husband left to fight in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and was killed in battle. Bores’ investigations determined the wife, who was pregnant, miscarried due to grief, and she later became a teacher to the many children who lived in the Oliver House around the turn of the 20th century, when he writes that part of the building was a boarding house. Bores writes in his book that the military wife watches over the various spirits of children that also haunt the Oliver House, and described her as “feisty.”
“I ended up getting a manifestation on command at the Oliver House,” Bores said. “I was talking to the military wife and she’s very protective of the area she’s in. And I got some EVP [electronic voice phenomenon] recording of her saying, ‘Get out.’” In another recording, he said the apparition used an expletive.
During this Oliver House investigation in 2021, Bores captured an image on film that resembles a hand.
“It can’t be a reflection because there’s a window pane behind it,” Bores said about the image.
Bores describes the military wife and other apparitions in Haunted Toledo, which is part of Arcadia Publishing’s Haunted America series. He draws on self-conducted historical research and revelations he said he’s gleaned from his ghost hunting sessions.
Haunted Toledo also chronicles Bores’ other investigations throughout the Glass City, including the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, which he said is haunted by the ghost of a little girl, and one of Toledo’s most notorious haunted sites, the Collingwood Arts Center, which he writes is haunted by everything from a ghostly nun to a demonic force in the basement.
“I found 50 locations in Toledo that are haunted,” Bores said. “Some are rumors. A lot of places I actually investigated and I do my best to try to interview the spirit, find out where they came from.”
Bores, who says he doesn’t have any mediumistic abilities, uses equipment such as lights and electronic meters to communicate with spirits.
“When I go in, I have to tailor my approach for the spirit and figure out what class it is, because when I do that, I know I’ll get interactions that will last,” Bores said. “I’ve had interactions that have lasted 90 minutes.”
Bores has come up with seven classification of spirits, ranging from “hungry ghosts,” which are spirits that have unfinished business of some sort, to “destructive ghosts,” which Bores writes are spirits that are “are wild with anger and are comparable to a child throwing a temper tantrum.”
“When you interact with the spirit world, it’s a mixed bag,” said Bores, who shares his work on his YouTube channel Ghost Doctor. “That’s why I had to come up with a classification system for spirits, because you can’t throw everything under the same umbrella.”
First Published October 5, 2022, 2:00 p.m.
