By BROOKLYN BROWN
One Feather Reporter
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Since 2017, the Cherokee Paranormal Society (CHPS) has been exploring the spookiest spots that us locals all know and love – or fear. Founders Sylvia Smoker, Kristy Maney Herron (Photographer/Videographer), and Tyra Maney (Moral Support), operate CHPS with good intentions, local knowledge, and lots of fun.
“We’re really peaceful. We don’t provoke. We don’t do anything shady like that. And we understand too, stuff was here long before we were, and we need to be respectful of that, human or not,” Smoker said.
Sylvia Smoker, Kristy Maney Herron, and Tyra Maney comprise the fearless ghost-hunting trio known as Cherokee Paranormal Society. (BROOKLYN BROWN/One Feather photo)
Herron added, “We always end with, ‘It was nice talking to you. Thanks for interacting with us, but just so you know, you cannot attach yourself to us and come home with us.’”
CHPS origins stem from the bond of a father and daughter. Smoker and her father, Billy Joe King, shared a love for ghost hunting. “My dad and I used to watch Ghost Hunters all the time on the SYFY channel. We would always joke around that we’re going to have our own ghost hunting group one day,” Smoker said. “It always just comes down to, for me personally, my dad. This is how I’m honoring him.”
The group shares an appreciation for the paranormal, and they have experienced many spooky encounters together.
“I think our best one is the old high school before it was torn down. We just happened to go around the corner to the bottom section where it would slope down, and it was a boiler room or something underneath the pool. That door was kind of open all the time. It wouldn’t shut or whatever, but you could see inside there and there was a red light,” Herron said.
“We always record with a voice recorder. We listened back to the audio, and you could hear a little girl say, ‘How are you doing this?’ and then in the background, you hear an older person say what sounds like ‘Tsesdi,’ which is ‘Stop it’ in Cherokee language.”
Smoker posited that the “little girl” in the audio might not have been a little girl, but a mimic, which is a type of spirit known for imitating other spirits. “I had chills when I really think, was that really supposedly a little girl, or did we have someone there that was watching over us because there was something there trying to imitate something else, and they told them to leave us alone.”
CHPS has visited several places where locals have noted their own experiences with paranormal activity. They said the Museum of the Cherokee People, where Maney currently works, was a hotspot for activity. “We had some good ones at the museum. We got a lot of good responses. We would ask questions and it was almost automatic. Sometimes we will ask a bunch of questions before they really start interacting with us, but there at the museum we would ask maybe two questions and they would respond almost immediately,” Herron said.
The Ginger Lynn Welch building, where CHPS discovered paranormal activity. (Photo by Tyra Maney)
The team says paranormal activity is not necessarily a bad thing. They indicated that most of the places they visit have good or neutral energy, but they can remember one place that felt off.
“Finance was weird, and we didn’t get a lot of activity there, even though it felt like there was a presence there. They weren’t communicating with us. A lot of people from Finance said that it’s very active there, and they told us hotspots like their conference room,” Maney said.
“In the past, Finance used to be the old hospital, and then it used to be the police department, so there’s activity there. But it just felt off. We didn’t get anything good there, and they didn’t want to talk to us,” Herron said.
The group recently explored the Ginger Lynn Welch building, and noted some activity, especially in the Qualla Boundary Public Library.
“We caught a weird light on video that kept popping up. At first, we were thinking it might’ve been the reflection of a vehicle that went by, but we would pay attention to the windows in the background and there was nothing there. It was just this blueish light that kept popping up on the bookshelves,” Herron said.
“There was nothing there we could find to reason it away. You couldn’t see any shadows or light reflecting or anything like that. It almost looked like it came out of the bookshelf,” Smoker said.
CHPS is open to suggestions for future haunts. You can find footage from their previous visits on their Facebook page. They eventually want to establish a YouTube series.
“It’s always exciting whenever we hear something or experience something, and the connection of us being together and hanging out and having a good time, even though it might be creepy, we just enjoy ourselves.” Herron said.
