The full moon shone through the trees, casting an eerie glow on the weathered gravestones of the Jackson family dating back to the 1800s.

A mist hanging in the cool October night air added to the eerie atmosphere made more mysterious by subconscious notions drawn from scary movies, ghost stories and Stephen King scenes.

“It’s only natural for humans to have strange feelings,” Harold “Bubba” Murray, director of the Bangor Area Ghost Hunter Association, said as he walked toward the graveyard in northern Hancock County.

Murray was the first to pass through the antiquated metal gate into the cemetery last Friday night. He folded his hands, bowed his head and said a quiet prayer before allowing two other members of his team to begin their work.

“This is a cemetery. You have to show respect to them,” he said.

Murray, an ordained minister and retired magician, said he was watching television when he first became intrigued by the gadgets ghost hunters use. Now he carries his own gadgets, along with a Bible and holy water, in a small, worn suitcase on wheels.

“We are not like any of the shows you see on TV,” he said.

While an average ghost hunt excerpted on television usually takes no more than eight hours to complete, the Bangor association can spend two to three weeks, even years, investigating a site or an incident.

This is no Halloween joke. Some 25 members and a few prospects make up the Bangor association, which Murray formed about 10 years ago. The group is not paid for its work. Members consider it a hobby. Some are retirees. Others have regular jobs. A sister organization exists in Massachusetts. Contacts for investigations and inquiries about joining the association are done through its Web site, bangorghosthuntersassociation.com.

The Jackson cemetery site is one they have been drawn to for years. A small handcrafted sign tacked to a tree marks the narrow dirt road to the cemetery, but it’s not easy to find and the ride is bumpy.

“There’s a lot of moisture in the air,” Murray said as he and the others began to test and calibrate their meters that measure electromagnetic fields, magnetism interruptions and fluctuations.

“I’m getting strange readings, but it’s nothing to really jump up and down about and say there’s going to be a ghost here,” Murray said. He added that much of it likely could be explained by the dampness.

During investigations, the team also uses flashlights, cameras, video and audio recorders, and some special equipment they’ve outfitted with night vision, video and audio recording capabilities.

“When I came into this, I was a skeptic,” Murray said. “Am I still skeptical? Somewhat.”

When they first started with Maine Paranormal in Lewiston, Murray and his team were boggled by what appeared to be unexplainable phenomena. After hundreds of cases and now under the name Bangor Ghost Hunters Association, they frequently talk to other ghost hunters and since have learned that almost everything has an explanation – reflections, dust, weather conditions, geological formations.

Still, those few things remain that have no immediate answers and pique the team’s interest.

“A lot of the problems are explainable, but there’s definitely ones out there that aren’t,” investigator Spike Hughes said in a recent interview. Hughes is the team’s geology specialist who also practices dowsing – the art of using a divining rod or forked stick to find water and minerals in the earth.

“I call him the human trifield,” Murray said, referring to meters that measure electromagnetic fields.

Other members of the team have their own specialties.

Gay MacLeod is the group’s photographer, while Rita Watson is a case manager and self-described sensitive.

“I can usually feel if they’re pleasant or naughty,” Watson said. “Sometimes I don’t feel anything.”

She also can perceive subtle temperature changes and shifts in other conditions around her.

Watson was in high school when she first felt she might have special abilities.

“I had a total out-of-body experience right in the middle of class,” she said. “It runs in the family, I guess.”

Watson said both her mother and grandmother had an uncanny ability to sense certain things around them.

Have the ghost hunters ever been scared? Of course.

Unexplained occurrences often aren’t seen or heard until photographs, audio recordings and videotape from the site are reviewed afterward. While investigating a house in Old Town, Harold Murray’s son John Murray was working upstairs. A video of the Old Town house showed a boy’s head coming out of the wall near where John Murray was standing.

“It was a solid wall,” Harold Murray said. “When the owners saw that, they sold the house.”

Most people who contact the Bangor Ghost Hunters are looking to talk to someone who has died.

Others just want an explanation of something they’ve felt or noticed at their home or business that they can’t explain.

“Maine’s a very superstitious state,” Murray said. “They just want somebody to say they’re not crazy.”

The most interesting cases for Murray involve children, and that’s often where junior investigators on the team are the most helpful.

“Children, anyone under the age of 18, are more likely to be susceptible to feelings from the paranormal,” junior investigator Christina Pegg said. She’s Murray’s niece and became interested in ghost hunting after hearing stories from her uncle.

“I’m kind of skeptical about the whole thing, but I’ve begun to believe that there are other things out there,” Pegg said.

On one visit to the Jackson cemetery, the team members said, they picked up electronic voice phenomena of someone calling out for “Martha.” They haven’t been able to explain the voice, but there is a link to the site: In a small plot slightly to the right of the rest of the family, a worn headstone marks the grave of 2-year-old Martha Ellen who died Sept. 18, 1857.

What happened to Martha and whether there is someone who haunts the cemetery has yet to be decided, but photographs of the site depict what investigators believe is ectoplasm – a spirit that’s starting to take form. In the photos, Murray said, they’ve counted up to five potential silhouettes.

On Friday night, unexplained meter fluctuations and static that appeared on the screen of one of the digital cameras in one specific area caused the team to proclaim they were going to have to look into some things.

“I can’t explain what happened here yet,” Murray said.

That’s typical of any investigation. Once they pack up their equipment, individuals review their own photos and footage, then turn them over to Murray for review.

Then the team gets together and goes over possibilities.

“It will take some time before we can determine what it is,” Murray said. “[But] believe what you will.”