Is there something strange in your neighborhood?

While you sleep, he hunts ghosts.

Michael David Einspanjer of Memphis Paranormal Investigations offers free ghost hunting classes and free home ghost removal.

"We look for any kind of anomaly you can't explain away," he said. "When you're out in a cemetery and a hand touches you, you can't explain that away. You can be sure that's a ghost."

His classes visit cemeteries armed with flashlights, digital cameras, electromagnetic field detectors, digital thermometers and audio recorders to capture evidence of life after death.

Einspanjer said that evidence comes in several forms, including strange mists, recorded voices heard on tape but not in person (electronic voice phenomenon or EVP), and balls of light, known as "orbs," which show up on cameras.

"If there are two of us at a cemetery, and we suddenly hear the voice of an elderly woman right next to us, and we turn and snap a picture of an orb, that's a ghost," he said.

Einspanjer's ghost hunting classes typically consist of his 10-person team and students who have been chosen carefully through multiple interviews.

"I try to weed out the thrill-seekers," he said.

In his classes, Einspanjer stresses respect for the dead. Before a class last Saturday at Bartlett Ellendale Cemetery, he reminded his team and students to be on their best behavior.

"There's no difference between them and us except that they have no body," he said. "Don't step on the graves, don't spit on the graves and don't use bad language. If you have to relieve yourself or if you have to smoke, step outside the cemetery."

These polite measures also extend to cleaning abandoned or vandalized cemeteries, where Einspanjer and volunteers mow grass, remove fallen tree branches and place flowers on graves. Einspanjer called it "good karma" that builds a positive relationship with the dead, some of whom he said have not had visitors in decades.

"We are their families," he said. "It's an odd feeling. When we walk in the gate, it's like getting a big hug."

Einspanjer's first paranormal experience was not as pleasant.

He said his grandmother's house was haunted by the ghost of the original owner, who committed suicide.

"He stomped up and down the stairs, he opened windows and slammed doors - he was very loud," he said. Einspanjer, who was 6 years-old at the time, called the experience "terrifying."

Though some ghosts simply linger in their former residencies, Einspanjer said there are ways to invite spirits into your home but warns against doing so. One of those ways is the Ouija board, a device that, in theory, is used to spell out messages from the other side.

"It's not to play with," he said. "It's the quickest way to get your home haunted. It's the act of opening yourself up to that world. You become the doorway, and you have no control over who or what comes through that door."

Patricia Box, junior nursing major, said she too believes in the supernatural power of Ouija boards.

"I won't go in a house where there's a Ouija board being played," she said.

Einspanjer said he doesn't require a Ouija board to communicate with the dead and is capable of automatic writing, the process of "allowing a spirit to write through yourself." It's a spontaneous act that Einspanjer said can occur anywhere at any time, but it takes practice and meditation to perform.

"I put the pen to the paper, and I know what to write," he said. "I can see pictures. It's almost like a film strip."

Some students at The U of M, like junior advertising major Frank Hanlon, are skeptical about the existence of ghosts.

"I don't believe in ghosts," he said. "I'd have to see one with my own eyes."

Others are open to the possibility. Matthew Howell, senior biomedical engineering major, said he's had strange experiences before but doesn't know if they were supernatural.

"I think there are a lot of things that happen that we can't explain," he said.

Einspanjer said one ghost hunting class is enough to convert skeptics.

"Come with us one time," he said. "People can tell you about God all of your life. But to believe in God, you have to have a God experience. He has to say, 'Hello, I'm here.' Ghosts are the same way."

Memphis Paranormal Investigations also works to prove or disprove local urban legends.

One of the local myths Einspanjer said he's disproven is the supposedly haunted Voodoo Village. Since the 1960s, animal sacrifices, black magic and voodoo rituals have been rumored to take place at the South Memphis borough.

But all that's really behind the iron gates of Voodoo Village is the home of "normal" people living below the poverty line who are harassed daily by thrill-seeking locals, Einspanjer said.

"It's not haunted," he said. "It's all urban legend. We went there, and they were nice and cordial. There's no voodoo. Most of them were Baptist or African Methodist Episcopal."

Memphis' most famous ghost may not be living in Memphis at all, according to Einspanjer. The ghost of Elvis Presley has long been a staple of Memphis mythology, but Einspanjer said when it comes to the afterlife, Elvis has left the building.

"He's probably not in Memphis," he said. "Here, he was a prisoner in his own home, and he was addicted to all kinds of drugs. He was generally unhappy here."

Presley's ghost has more than likely returned to his hometown of Tupelo, Miss., Einspanjer said.

"If he was going to go somewhere, it would probably be in Tupelo," he said. "That's where he was happiest."