Who you gonna call? These students

Venturing into the Salt Lake City Cemetery at night with her "Ghostbusters" class, Maren Hintz is armed with two friends, flashlights, digital audio recorder, and video and still cameras. "And my running shoes," says Hintz, 27.

"If it's going to happen, it's going to happen tonight," she says.

Hintz's ghost-hunting buddy, Lexie Jost, 25, says, "I've never seen a ghost. But we still have our fingers crossed for tonight." The two Salt Lake women had watched the movie "Paranormal Activity" earlier.

Maren Hintz's sister Kristen, 25, of Salt Lake City, said if she does see a ghost, "I'll invite it to follow these two ladies home."

"Ghostbusters" is one of several spooky courses offered this fall through Granite School District's community education program. There is also "Sixth Sense," to increase psychic abilities, and the informational "Paganism, Witchcraft, Wicca."

The paranormal investigation class, taught by self-proclaimed ghost hunter and psychic Tom Young, 48, of Salt Lake City, usually sells out. Young takes students to popular haunted sites around the Wasatch Front where students try to capture an apparition on camera or record a haunting noise.

Some students take the class because they have lost a loved one and have questions about spirits and the afterlife. "They want to know if the things they have felt are real," Young said.

Many students just want to have fun and games while a few aim to seriously communicate with spirits, Young said. "Some students are very open and willing to go further beyond paranormal investigating," he said. "We all have our gift, and some people find it through here."

The class has made believers out of many students. "Yeah, I believe in ghosts now. Oh yeah," said Holladay resident P.J. Rodgers, 33. "After what I captured in this class, wow, I don't have any other explanations for it."

Students say they like being able to visit sites they wouldn't normally be allowed into. The Rio Grande Station in Salt Lake City is a popular haunt where students have been able to photograph ghostly images.

"It's curiosity. You want to explore and see whether it's really there," Rodgers said. She took a photo outside the Historic Benson Grist Mill in Tooele, and a red mass showed up on the film.

Student Amanda Schindler, 32, of West Valley City, said her favorite haunted site is the old Utah County Jail in Provo. There she says a ghost held her feet to the ground for at least 20 minutes. "It felt like someone had their arms around the bottom of my legs," she said.

Schindler said she felt the presence of a previous resident who had a drug-abuse problem, and that the ghost was desperate and didn't want to be left alone.

"I really wasn't afraid," she said. "I was thinking, 'Well, how do I get out of this?' "