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The sun drops below the horizon as darkness envelopes the historical Alamo Plaza.
Forty-five people wait anxiously around the Alamo Cenotaph searching the crowd for a person carrying a blue backpack and a baseball cap reading, "Alamo City Paranormal."
These are the instructions in the ghost hunt pamphlet.
Finally, the figure emerges from the crowded plaza and greets the patient ghost hunters.
Paranormal investigator Martin Leal - also a former student at this college - hosts a nightly 90-minute ghost hunt walking tour that covers the Alamo and five surrounding blocks.
He has been a ghost hunter for more than 15 years in 30 states and also has conducted investigations in Canada and Mexico .
Leal said 80 percent of the ghosts are in the plumbing and foundations.
Sometimes people hear creaky noises in those certain places, he said. "It's people's imagination," Leal joked.
Ron Deyoung, a tourist from Des Moines, Iowa, said his wife says they have a ghost in their house.
"I'm very skeptical," Deyoung said before taking the tour. Yet he admits something odd happens in his house.
He said his 6-year-old daughter Cassidy sometimes looks at certain spots and waves to the empty place.
The first stop for the ghost hunt is the Cenotaph, also known as the Spirit of Sacrifice.
The monument was erected in 1940 by Pompeo Coppini. Leal said the monument's illustrations are based on fact.
Leal said there was a time when people wanted to demolish the remains of the Alamo, but a ghost appeared saying not to touch the walls.
He later pointed to the images below the torch bearer on the monument and said those were the valiant fighters fallen during the battle of the Alamo in 1836.
Leal then asked the novice ghost hunters why the Alamo had its own police force.
No one replied.
Leal said rocker Ozzy Osborne relieved himself on the Cradle of Liberty in 1982, earning a 10-year ban on his performances in the city.
After Ozzy's act, Leal said the devil's number, 666, started popping out on the front wall of the Alamo. Leal pinpointed the symbol with a laser as the group observed astonished.
He pointed to the right front window of the Alamo.
Leal said sometimes an unidentified person looks through the window.
Leal guided his followers to the north gate of the Alamo and used his laser to point to a water well, a spooky spot where people have seen a 5-foot-7 person with a dark western coat.
"What kind of idiot wears a big, heavy coat," he said, noting the hot temperatures in this city. "The guy looks like a flasher."
Leal then herded his faithful congregates to the sidewalk of the Emily Morgan Hotel. "The Emily Morgan is full of ghosts," he said.
The hotel first opened as the Medical Arts Building in 1926.
"There is no guessing in how many people died in there," Leal said. Getting a room on the eighth or 14th floors is the best deal, Leal said, adding, "They don't charge for the other people inside."
The 13th floor was the operating room and the basement housed the morgue and crematorium. Leal said the front desk gets calls two to three times a week reporting the ghost of a man.
About a year ago in Room 811, two tourists got the fright of the night when they saw a man walking through the wall at about 2:30 a.m.
"They decided to go back to Germany," Leal said.
After a 40-minute walk, the group rested outside the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Leal pulled out a pair of goggles - ghost glasses, he called them.
The ghost glasses are specially coated to block out all lights except red.
Leal explained the goggles were needed for staring into a light for 90 seconds before being able to see people's auras.
Purple is for spiritual. Green is for healing. Yellow represents teaching. Red represents energy and athletics. Brown represents a laid back person. White represents a perfect balance.
Rachel Rosenblum, a tourist from Cleveland who is working on a doctorate in biomedical engineering, said her aura was yellow.
After checking auras, Leal pulled out a Raytek temperature gun - a cold spot detector.
Shaped like a price scanner from a grocery store, the device detects cold spots where a paranormal presence may appear, Leal said.
"It's a ghost getting ready to manifest," he said.
According to the Ghost Tracker Web page from North Florida Paranormal Research Inc., a cold spot is "an area or place that for unknown reasons seems to be cooler than the surrounding areas.
"Paranormal investigators usually use thermometers to detect the fluctuations of temperature in a location."
Once Leal explained how the device works, he lent it to the novice hunters for 30 minutes. "They can't wait for me to shut up," he joked.
Leal said he is not interested in changing people's beliefs, but he is sure some people leave with second thoughts. "I just make people wonder whether they should be open-minded," he said.
For more information on ghost hunts, call Leal at 348-6640.
Adults are $10, children ages' 7-17 are $5 and younger than six is free.
For more information on ghost stories, log on to http://www.ghosttracker.com/index.html.
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