Familiar haunts: Pine City team investigates the paranormal

Kara Troiber — founder of Caught in the Veil Paranormal (CITV-P), a Pine City-based paranormal investigations team — didn't have to go looking for the paranormal in her youth.

Instead, the paranormal found her.

"I had a lot of experiences as a kid, and growing up, and then eventually, just decided it would be fun to go check it out," Troiber said.

Troiber's great-grandparents bought the property of the old, abandoned location of Bradford in Isanti County, when the site still had the post office, manor, mill, stagecoach road, and other structures.

When she was three, Troiber had an imaginary friend whose name she later looked up at Big Meadows cemetery and a cemetery in North Branch, and found a match on a tombstone of a four-year-old from the old town of Bradford.

"My mom said that it was so freaky when I was three, she would kick me outside to go play because I'd be having a full conversation as if someone was sitting there next to me," Troiber recalled with a laugh.

That was the first brush with the paranormal that Troiber can remember, but not the last.

"I'm a big skeptic," Troiber said. "So I'm going to look for why it's not paranormal before I look at, 'oh my gosh, it's a demon.' I hate when people say that."

The notion of conducting paranormal investigations stuck with Troiber as a teenager and in young adulthood, and she and her husband eventually started participating in investigations for fun.

"We reached out and joined a team for a little while, and then we branched out and started our own team," she said.

Caught in the Veil is a family venture based on a shared interest in the paranormal — the team features Troiber, her mom, her husband, her oldest daughter, and some nieces and nephews who will come to some investigations.

Troiber said CITV-P is equipped with "all of the basics" when it comes to investigations: A spirit box that cycles through radio stations, an electromagnetic field (EMF) detector and pump, cameras, and voice recorders.

"We all pitch in and do different things," Troiber explained. "I kind of delegate, just because it's easier that way. We kind of sit as a group; we don't have that many people, so we stick together. Our big rule is you don't go off on your own, especially if it's a place we've never been."

The team is going on two years strong, and officially began with a trip to a familiar haunt: The eponymous Boyd House in its namesake town, tucked away in southwest Minnesota.

"I'll always recommend anybody that wants to try out paranormal investigating on their own, if they want to start their own team, or if they just want to try it out for funsies, I would go with the Boyd House," Troiber said.

Troiber said a lot of CITV-P's best stories come from the Boyd House. One of those stories came when she dealt empty chairs in the basement into a game of blackjack, and set up trigger objects to test the EMF detector in front of each seat.

Using a spirit box — a device that sweeps rapidly through radio frequencies, with the idea that spirits can communicate through words that emerge through the static — Troiber said she's gone as many as three rounds of getting responses to "hit or stick."

And, when she busted on one hand, Troiber said she heard instant laughter through the spirit box.

"They have a lot of activity, which in my opinion, is definitely real and true," she said.

Troiber said it's hit or miss when it comes to getting interactions during investigations.

"We usually get a little bit of something if it's actually a haunted location," Troiber said.

Troiber approaches each investigation with a sense of skepticism, checking off a mental list of potentially practical explanations.

"If you've checked everything, and nothing can be explained, then you look at the paranormal," she said.

Alcatraz tops the list of CITV-P's pie-in-the-sky investigation locations, but Troiber said there are spots in east-central Minnesota that the team is hoping to check out.

"Around here, I think we'd love to get into the Masonic Lodge in Rush City," Troiber said. "We've been to the Grant House multiple times under previous ownership."

Those trips to the Grant House resulted in "really cool evidence," Troiber shared, including anecdotes and photos from employees at the time.

Troiber also said cannonballs and arrowheads have been found on Freedom Road off Highway 70 in Rock Creek, and added that the team has caught what appeared to be soldiers walking in a line at a dead end where a bridge used to be.

"It's kind of cool, because it's seasonal. It only happens for, like a few days every year, in early winter," she explained. "We've been down there many times throughout the whole year, and we've only been able to catch it for those couple of days in early winter."

Troiber said CITV-P isn't on YouTube yet, and doesn't investigate the paranormal in pursuit of views or clicks.

"We do it because we love it," she said.

The team is open to new members, and Troiber encouraged fellow enthusiasts to reach out.

"We're looking for people that are reliable, but also we understand that it's not a job, it's a hobby," Troiber said.

Troiber said CITV-P is also open to having people come along on investigations as friends, and not necessarily join the team.

"It's fun to just get to know other people and different styles," she said.