Michelle Loubon

There's some­thing strange in the neigh­bour­hood. Who you gonna call? Ghost Hunters! GHI (Ghost Hunters' In­ter­na­tion­al and SYFY Chan­nel)-the team com­pris­ing Bar­ry Fitzger­ald and Kris Williams-re­cent­ly doc­u­ment­ed para­nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty in the Lopinot Val­ley.Their lo­cal coun­ter­parts Para­nor­mal In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team Trinidad (Pitt) lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor Fer­nan­do Ro­das and Pres­i­dent of the Lopinot Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Dona Mo­ra aid­ed their in­ves­ti­ga­tions around the Leg­end of Comte De Lopinot. On Wednes­day, Ro­das and Mo­ra said that Lopinot was cat­a­pult­ed on­to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage via a doc­u­men­tary which would air on Ju­ly 13 at 9 pm, and on Cha­cachacare on Ju­ly 20. Lopinot hung on a pedestal as one of the best places they ever in­ves­ti­gat­ed. Prid­ing him­self on be­ing a ghost hunter, Ro­das said: "Imag­ine lit­tle old Lopinot will be on the world stage. That is great mar­ket­ing for T&T. That is great for Lopinot. "In the whole his­to­ry of the show, they said they got more ev­i­dence there than any­where else in the world about para­nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty."

Sworn to se­cre­cy

Both Ro­das and Mo­ra agreed Lopinot was fer­tile ter­ri­to­ry for para­nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty-which means any­thing that is in­ex­plic­a­ble. For ex­am­ple, nois­es in the at­tic, doors shut­ting and clos­ing by them­selves. The ac­tiv­i­ty must be la­belled bizarre, out-of-this-world and strange. Re­flect­ing on the moun­tain of in­ter­est in Lopinot, Ro­das said he had made an in­ter­ven­tion when me­dia re­ports sur­faced about chil­dren be­ing at­tacked by spir­its at Moru­ga. Moru­ga al­so laid claim to be­ing the home­town of the late Pa­pa Neeza. Ro­das said: "GHI heard about it. SCY­FY read the sto­ry and con­tact­ed me. (De­cem­ber 2010). I am not dis­count­ing what the wit­ness said. They are con­vinced there were spir­its and obeah. If it was para­nor­mal, it did not show it­self to me. I would be hap­py to come down and help." Ro­das added: "They want­ed to know about my or­gan­i­sa­tion. I came up with two oth­er lo­ca­tions...Lopinot and Cha­cachacare, sim­ply be­cause there was noth­ing go­ing on in Moru­ga. Cha­cachacare is one of the places with the most para­nor­mal ex­pe­ri­ences in Trinidad." When the doc­u­men­tary pre­mieres, Ro­das will be fea­tured in Chachachacare along with mem­bers of his para­nor­mal group. Putting her fin­gers on her lips, Mo­ra said: "I am sworn to se­cre­cy. We had to sign doc­u­ments. All I can say is they got stuff they have nev­er known or record­ed be­fore.

"The bo­nan­za was a lot of para­nor­mal ev­i­dence they have nev­er seen be­fore."

CAP­TION: Para­nor­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tor Fer­nan­do Ro­das and Don­na Mo­ra, pres­i­dent of the Lopinot Vil­lage Coun­cil gush about Compte de Lopinot leg­end be­ing on the SCY­FY chan­nel. Pho­tos: Dilip Singh

Cap­ti­vat­ed by Lopinot

Lopinot res­i­dents are im­mense­ly proud of the pic­turesque vil­lage which serves as the venue for May Cross cel­e­bra­tions. Thus it was not sur­pris­ing that the show's pro­duc­ers were smit­ten by this pris­tine neck of the woods. Ro­das said: "The pro­duc­ers came down and want­ed to see beau­ti­ful Lopinot. They found it was a beau­ti­ful lo­ca­tion. They thought they would do the show there." With­out hes­i­tat­ing, they called the net­work and brought down their state-of-the-art equip­ment for film­mak­ing. Roam­ing the Lopinot land­scape, they cap­tured both day­time/nigh­t­ime shots of the caves and ceme­tery. Wal­low­ing in Lopinot hos­pi­tal­i­ty, tour guide Mar­tin Gomez and res­i­dent Mikey Plaza fur­nished them with a trea­sure trove of in­for­ma­tion. As leg­ends un­fold, par­tic­u­lar­ly via oral tra­di­tions, the sto­ry­line ex­trap­o­lates. Mo­ra paint­ed as ac­cu­rate a pic­ture as she could about the strange in­ci­dents in the Lopinot Val­ley. She said: "About 100 slaves had died un­der Compte de Lopinot. Some of them died cru­el deaths and their souls are not at rest. A lot of the vil­lagers ex­pe­ri­ence strange ac­tiv­i­ties. They com­plain they feel a heavy pres­ence. Ghost hunters in­ves­ti­gat­ed it. Carib ar­ti­facts were found around the ceme­tery. It sug­gests there might have been a lit­tle vil­lage on the ceme­tery plot."

Para­noia re­places para­nor­ma

Ro­das has had his fair share of wild goose chas­es and spec­u­la­tion. "Peo­ple would call and say they hear nois­es in the at­tic. They are won­der­ing if it's ghosts. I would go to those peo­ple's homes to try to find out things. When some­one doesn't see any­thing, es­pe­cial­ly in a su­per­sti­tious place like T&T they say 'there is a ghost or spir­it in the house'. It's just your imag­i­na­tion at work." Ro­das got a call from a woman in Gas­par­il­lo-on­ly to dis­cov­er "crea­tures of the night." I said: "La­dy, you're crazy. There are no ghosts in the house. "It's just a nest of bats in the ceil­ing." All was not smooth sail­ing. While the ocean lapped against the shore, he had "per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences in an old aban­doned house in Ma­yaro. Re­count­ing the night, Ro­das said: "First night noth­ing...sec­ond night noth­ing... third night...I was touched by some­thing."

Compte de Lopinot His­tor­i­cal Com­plex beck­ons do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al tourists. Pho­tos: Dilip Singh

About Fer­nan­do Ro­das

He was born in New Jer­sey, USA, but em­i­grat­ed to T&T ten years ago. He is mar­ried to a Tri­ni girl, Can­dice and has two chil­dren Ar­i­an­na, 10, and Ma­son, six. He is em­ployed as a project man­ag­er for an oil com­pa­ny. He lives at St Joseph Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do. Quizzed on his for­ay in­to para­nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty, he said: "I have been do­ing ghost hunt­ing for a lit­tle over two years. I felt it when I was grow­ing up. I lived in a house that had para­nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ty... al­ways sens­ing and feel­ing things." As he ma­tured, he de­vel­oped a keen­er in­ter­est in the un­known. He added: "I just de­cid­ed to buy equip­ment that deals with elec­tro-mag­net­ic fields (EMF) me­tre...That's what ghosts use to man­i­fest them­selves. I got dig­i­tal voice recorders and full spec­trum cam­eras. I bought a lot of night­time equip­ment to cap­ture the strange phe­nom­e­na." His hob­by takes him down creak­ing steps. Ad­mit­ting his friends think he's crazy to get all ex­cit­ed about ghost hunt­ing, he said: "They get fright­ened. They won't be caught dead...walk­ing alone. They say, 'Fer­nan­do, you're crazy.' I like to walk around and look for spooky things. It gives me a thrill. It's fun." Ro­das boasts that his be­witch­ing hour "is around three in the morn­ing." He opined: " I am more afraid of the liv­ing than the dead."

Lopinot Tours

• In­ter­est­ed peo­ple can con­tact Fer­nan­do Ro­das at 785-5433 or at Face­book PITT

• The Lopinot doc­u­men­tary airs on SCY­FY on Ju­ly 13 at 9 pm

• Cha­cachacare-Ju­ly 20.

The Compte de Lopinot Com­plex is now ful­ly op­er­a­tional. Cu­ra­tor Mar­tin Gomez is avail­able to con­duct tours.