Having never experienced a "paranormal
event" first hand, the subject
nonetheless always fascinated me.
I loved watching old reruns of The
Twilight Zone and similar programs
when I was a kid growing up in Louisville,
Kentucky and the 1984 movie Ghostbusters
is one of my all time favorite films.
So, you could imagine my surprise
as I sat in front of a computer screen
at a local public library back in
late-2002 as I clicked on a web site
by the Louisville Ghost Hunters Society.
I never knew the group existed, never
heard of them before, but within minutes
I was ready to join up and explore
the supernatural after reading their
membership information.
Shortly after attending my first meeting
of the group, presided over by President
and Founder Keith Age, I was a full
fledged, dues paying, member of the
Louisville Ghost Hunters Society.
I later attended the required workshops
sponsored by the group and went on
my first official ghost hunt a few
months later. Soon I was accepted
as a regular member and the people
within the group treated me fairly
and I quickly made many friends.
One of the first investigations I
became a part of was at the Willard
Library in Evansville, Indiana. Long
rumored to be haunted, it hosted a
different paranormal group every October
around Halloween and I thought this
would be an excellent road trip for
the LGHS members and a way to get
the LGHS name in the papers and on
the local television stations. Taking
a week's vacation in March of 2003,
I journeyed to Evansville and spoke
directly with the library's director,
Mr. Greg Hager. Doing this all on
my own, I secured the blessing of
LGHS President Keith Age before I
left as I did not want to bend the
rules or doing something I was not
supposed to do, especially being a
new member. I arrived on a weekday
and spent some time talking to the
director. It seems I was too late
to inquire about the 2003 event since
it was already booked up, but Mr.
Hager was perfectly fine with LGHS
conducting the following year's investigation
in October of 2004. So began an 18
month long wait or LGHS and myself
to investigate the Willard Library.
In between this time, I grew in importance
and stature within the group leading
a number of different paranormal investigations
for Keith Age and the LGHS. I met
my future wife at one of the first
workshops and we married in May of
2004. We both became trusted members
of the group and many members came
to rely on us to answer their questions,
provide them with the proper forms
and documents, and we would spend
hours each night gladly promoting
LGHS and with it, Keith Age himself.
The Willard Library investigation
went off as planned in late-October
2004 with over a dozen LGHS members
in attendance. Several, including
myself, were interviewed by the local
newspaper there and we all talked
up LGHS at every opportunity. The
investigation itself was flawed seeing
as how other invited guests were constantly
moving about the building's interior
and the noise level was nearly unbearable.
However, we conducted our investigation
in a professional manner and in the
end chalked it up as one we would
pass on if the chance ever came our
way again.
The Willard Library investigation
became one of the more high profile
cases conducted by LGHS. While the
LGHS members and myself were busy
in Evansville, Indiana during the
overnight investigation, LGHS President
Keith Age was safely at home in Louisville
doing more important things. But Keith
Age is the one person in LGHS that
benefited from our investigation and
the one that could mark it down on
his "to do" list as something
he accomplished. My wife and I would
later discover that Keith did a lot
of this. Sitting back and letting
others do the real leg work while
he seemed to bask in the glory of
their endeavors.
My wife and I continued on in LGHS
growing more important as time passed.
By the fall of 2004 I had been appointed
by Keith Age as the group's Case Manager
and all investigations were being
run through me. At times, by late-2005,
I was in charge of nearly twenty separate
investigations, each led by a different
LGHS member, but ultimately the final
decisions and depositions of the cases
were my domain for the most part.
Keith would have the ultimate control
over what was done, but handling the
day-to-day operations of LGHS had
fallen to my wife and myself. Keith
was more of a figurehead than the
leader of his own group. He gained
the press coverage and the glory,
but it was myself and others that
made that possible for him.
In late-February 2006, I had been
Case Manager for nearly a year-and-a-half
and I was tired of it. The position
demanded several hours of work each
night, and besides handling the individual
cases, I was also setting up library
and radio appearances for Keith, recruiting
new members, answering questions sent
it to the group that I would receive
direct from Keith, and more or less
working endlessly to make Keith Age
the most famous ghost hunter in the
City of Louisville and the surrounding
region.
I finally resigned as Case Manager
of LGHS on February 28, 2006 and quit
the group altogether less than a week
later. My wife Patti, who had taken
on the tasks of being Keith's mouthpiece
to the newer members and trying to
follow his rules, was tossed out of
LGHS within days of my departure.
After more than three years we were
both out of LGHS and the events we
were about to uncover would change
our attitudes and our beliefs forever.
After we left LGHS my wife began researching
the numerous stories and accounts
Keith had told us and others down
through the years. Many of these stories
were relatively useless as they provided
no real names or locations. But, every
once-in-a-while, Keith would string
together just enough information that
a person could check into the story
if he or she really wanted to. So,
one day we sat down and started listing
all of the stories we had been told
over the previous three year period
by Keith Age. We came up with around
a dozen or so that seemed verifiable.
And then we began checking them out.
The stories we remembered best involved
famous persons or important groups.
The Louisville Archdiocese, the U.S.
Army Corp of Engineers, Actor/Director
Kevin Smith, the Stanley Tools Corporation
and others headed the list. Keith
had claimed an intimate business relationship
with all of these aforementioned individuals
or groups. These claims were made
not only to us, but at open meetings
where the public had been invited.
My wife started contacting each one
of them trying to verify what we had
been told months before by Keith Age.
The results were amazing. None of
them, not one, had ever heard of Keith
Age or the Louisville Ghost Hunters
Society. We were amazed. We were speechless.
But we were not done. We wanted to
hear Keith's version and offered him
the chance to respond to our information.
He declined. In fact, later on he
said we were bothering him and "bordering
on harassment" when we asked
about it.
We found shortly thereafter additional
information regarding Keith Age. We
heard from former LGHS members who
had left the group years before. These
members had absolutely nothing to
gain by coming forward now, but once
they heard we were questioning some
of the stories we had heard, they
had stories of their own to tell.
These stories included their first
hand, eyewitness accounts of Keith
manipulating and distorting the results
of on-site paranormal investigations.
They also included first hand accounts
of Keith employing LGHS members to
infiltrate and destroy other paranormal
groups in the local area simply because
he wanted to maintain a monopoly of
the press coverage and the public
exposure as the most significant paranormal
organization in the City of Louisville
and the State of Kentucky.
In short, after three years in LGHS
and serving at the request of Keith
Age, we discovered nearly everything
we had been led to believe and to
trust in was a lie. No one in the
"paranormal community" seemed
all that interested in what we had
learned and the LGHS members that
remained treated us for the most part
as lepers.
So, in closing, let me offer you this
little bit of advice. Be sure of the
group and the people you are putting
your trust in because, from what we
have uncovered, you never know who
you're dealing with until you peel
away the tarnished veneer and then
it might be too late.
About Bobby Zoeller

Bobby Zoeller is a
former member of Louisville Ghost
Hunters Society. At one time he was
the Case Manager of LGHS.
Born in 1959 in Louisville,
Kentucky Bobby Zoeller has been interested
in the paranormal his entire life.
Never having experienced what he would
term a "supernatural event"
with one minor exception, that nonetheless
hasn't stopped him from seeking out
and trying to answer questions that
have always fascinated him. Raised
as a Roman Catholic, his interest
in demonic possession has always been
foremost in this field of study, but
unfortunately reliable documentation
regarding those events are few and
far between. Researching prior cases
that have come to light in recent
years has not convinced him to date
that the phenomena actually exists
to any great degree, and looking over
some of the more well publicized cases
he tends to doubt most of what he
has read and seen from the so-called
experts that comment on the events.
He joined a local paranormal group
based in Louisville back in January
of 2003 known as the Louisville Ghost
Hunters Society headed by Founder
and President Keith Age. He later
met his future wife there and they
married in May of 2004. While a member
of the organization, he became a lead
investigator with the group and was
appointed the group's Case Manager
in the fall of 2004. Both he and his
wife participated in close to two
dozen on-site investigations during
their time there, and the high profile
2004 investigation of the Willard
Library in Evansville, Indiana was
his opportunity to showcase the LGHS.
Following several questionable accounts
involving the group's president, he
resigned as Case Manager on February
28, 2006 and within a week quit the
group altogether. His wife was removed
from the group by the actions of the
president. Upon leaving LGHS and discovering
much of what he had been told in the
past and been led to believe to be
facts turned out to be mostly misinformation
or outright lies on the behalf of
the group's leader, both he and his
wife undertook a campaign to expose
what they considered fraud and the
scamming of the general public all
in the name of making the group's
leader famous. Documented evidence
was gathered from sources around the
country to prove their case and the
information was first displayed publicly
on an independent web site and later
on two Yahoo message groups. The web
site was taken down by the actions
of the former group's leader and the
first Yahoo group disappeared after
complaints were lodged against it
by the very people it was designed
to expose.
He has been fighting what he see's
as corruption and fraud within the
paranormal field now for the past
two-and-a-half years, and has had
a very difficult time when it comes
to the "experts" in the
field as it seems no one wishes to
speak ill of the others. In short,
he has discovered more deception and
more media manipulation over the past
two years than most people will witness
in an entire lifetime. The "experts"
refuse to answer direct questions
put forth to them, they in many cases
continue to con the public out of
both their money and their common
sense, and the only reason he continues
on at this point is because he does
not want the uninformed or the more
gullible members of the public and
the media conned like he was for three
years.
He currently work as the shipping
and receiving manager for a large
sheet metal fabrication plant in Louisville,
Kentucky and spends his spare time
researching and exposing what he considers
fraud and deception within the paranormal
field.
If you have any questions you would
like answered or have information
regarding any high profile "paranormal
experts" that you find troubling,
you can contact him at
r_zoeller@bellsouth.net
The
above article does not reflect the
views or opinions of Haunted America
Tours and are solely those of the
Author
Also
See: Paranormal
Politics
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Connecticut
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Beach Resort and Spa
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Hotel
Illinois
St. Charles - Hotel Baker
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Maison de Ville; Le Pavilion; Delta
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Michigan
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