‘Ghost Hunters’: Brian Murray Details Breakthroughs With FLIR Camera Capture, Spiricom and More for ‘Last Mission’ (Exclusive)

On Wednesday night’s antepenultimate episode of Ghost Hunters‘ sophomore season, the team heads to the colossal salt flats of the Utah desert to investigate stunning claims of paranormal activity at Wendover Air Force Base. But what they encounter during their investigation of the haunted grounds is something they will never forget. With the location stirring up a commotion of frightening activity between shadow figures, disembodied voices, footsteps, loud bangs and a roaming officer, the former training station’s past is a weighty one that has catapulted the grounds to become a hotbed of supernatural happenings, risking safety concerns.

In a breakdown of the episode “The Last Mission” and activity captured by the team formed by Grant Wilson, paranormal investigator, Brian Murray shares exclusively with PopCulture.com details about their case spread across three haunted locations at Wendover Airfield, including the barracks, the Enola Gay hanger and Officers’ Club, where he and paranormal tech expert, Brandon Alvis experienced intense bizarreness with the FLIR thermal camera.

The Officers’ Club apparition…

“Brandon wanted to use me as a trigger object. I know how to speak with officers,” the former Marine Corps Platoon Sergeant said. “I know the lingo of being in the military. I know a little bit about how officers operate. So, who would be better than me to go in there and try to talk to them? I went in there intending to be just like a Sergeant that’s new to the unit, and I was offering up my services — ‘I don’t know where to go.’ I was just trying to open up that line of communication and see if we could figure out if somebody would talk to us. The only time that we would get hits on our data logger or any kind of experience was when we talked about these plane crashes that occurred.”

Playing a significant role in World War II as it became a strategy post following the attack against Pearl Harbor, the site once housed the infamous B-29 Superfortress bomber, which carried out the atomic bombings in Japan and saw hundreds of serviceman sacrifice their lives while testing top secret weapons. Murray shares that once he started talking about these crashes that took place, only then they found subsequent hits with their data logger.

“It was the only time that did that and once that happened, I actually went downstairs because Brandon had seen something, ran down there and something ran across the screen on the thermal,” he said. “We have no clue to what it was. It was interesting, but it was all in correlation with the data logger going off and we had this hit and it was all about these crashes that we were talking about.”

The noisy hanger…

As the Officers’ Club emanated some unexplained phenomena with the FLIR, it was the hanger that once was home to the Enola Gay that found the team coming across some wild activity among loud bangs, clangs and footsteps — especially for co-team leader, Kristen Luman and fellow investigator, Richel Stratton who didn’t feel welcome during their investigation. Positing what he believes what went down in the hanger, especially on the team’s second night, Murray explains the inexplicable occurrences took place “several times” for their crew.

“You have to think about this as an operated — like a base that’s operating right now. These entities probably see it as still an operating base. Not a lot of people are allowed. This is the atomic bomb we’re talking about. There’s not a lot of people that would have the clearances to be in those spaces,” he said, adding how for an era with immense cultural differences in terms of genderism, there weren’t women flying planes back in the 1940s. “They weren’t messing with the bombs and things like that, so when Richel and Kristen were in there and got the initial bang, I think it was somebody saying, ‘Hey, this is our space. This is a top-secret space. Nobody’s supposed to be in here, except for the small unit that works on these.’”

In upholding the respect of his fellow serviceman, Murray later reiterates how during their investigation he also shares upon entry into the hanger how they had “clearance from the new base commander to be in there,” sharing how it was a move crucial for communication. But, did it really work? Murray states it’s a bit tricky for a place like this. “I honestly felt like something didn’t want us in there only because they didn’t believe we had the clearances to be in there,” he said.

The Spiricom’s effectiveness…

During their investigation of the hanger, the team implemented its latest device, the Spiricom — an old school device used to establish two-way communication with entities over radio frequencies. Murray praises the tech, calling it a “very effective” device for communicating. 

“In the moment that I was in right there, I was literally trying to let these men know what was going on, how to basically say, ‘You have completed your mission. Now let’s let the guys that are here now. It’s their mission now,’” he said, further explaining how he used himself as moderator of sorts to “pass the torch” as a way to let the entities know things we all right and to not fear the team’s presence. “While the Spiricom was going, how it works is it’s just frequencies that run through a laptop, that run through a radio and the different tones that it makes as it allows the entity to try to speak with us.”

Murray adds that thanks to the technology that Alvis set up as he, Murray, Luman and Stratton investigated, they collected “one of the clearest” EVPs yet. “And it correlated with what we had been talking about,” he said. With the servicemen using their own new tech during that era, the investigator adds his team chose to use it as a neat way to connect too. “These men were using brand new technology — that’s why they had so many of these crashes, so we went in there with the mindset of ‘We’re using brand new technology as well! We’re using newer technology that you haven’t seen.’ That was another thing that we were trying.”

Not alone…

While the team oftentimes admits with other cases that they can feel the sensation of someone else being in the room, Murray says this investigation at Wendover Airfield echoed that sentiment, but in a more calming way. “I felt like somebody was close to me,” he said. “I felt I was hearing footsteps. I was hearing things around me and for some reason — this is going to sound crazy — I felt really good being up [in the Officers’ Club]. I felt like it was a good atmosphere to be in. When I started asking those questions, I felt like I was making this connection and I felt like somebody really wanted to talk to me and they could talk to me because I have a similar background.”

Murray’s emotional connection…

Murray reaffirms he actually felt “pretty good” overall with the case, adding how this location — which he would definitely visit again — was a humbling one for him, especially after it could be seen by fans how emotional the Illinois native got upon reviewing the case alongside co-team member, Mustafa Gatollari with Wendover’s historian, Tom Peterson.

“I’ve been in the same situation. I was a Platoon Sergeant that had men under me, and the job is even if you’re not in combat, you make sure that these guys are doing what they’re supposed to do,” Murray said. “You make sure that they’re safe at all times. You’re a team. You’re a family. The mission’s always first. Your family is even second.”

With Peterson sharing with Murray and Gatollari that there is a strong possibility of deceased soldiers still believing their mission is incomplete, the paranormal investigator shares that their spirit remaining behind could “possibly be due to some sort of guilt.”

“You’re a platoon Sergeant or you’re a commander and you crash this airplane or somehow you and your man ended up paying the ultimate sacrifice and the guilt of knowing that you’re supposed to make sure these guys come home, you’re in charge of all of them,” he said, adding how that was a sentiment he “completely” understood. “I totally felt that since the moment I stepped foot there, that they’ll probably remain here because there was a lot of these crashes, not everybody made it and a lot of these commanders and a lot of these pilots, they lost their teams out there. The mission’s not complete and that’s why the roaming around. It just hit home. It just hit home for me. I spent several years in the service, so it was emotional for sure.”

Wendover’s hauntings…

The military aspect of the case is also one Murray tells PopCulture was a moment of sheer pride and honor, revealing how he and the whole team was humbled to be there, trying to bring peace to these late servicemen. With the team always putting integrity and respect at the forefront of every case, they did more than just their research when examining. Speaking with an incredible amount of respect to the entities and using proper commands truly elevated their results. “I think they honestly wanted to make — not only me proud — the entities proud, but I felt like they were very honored to be there as well,” he said of his team.

As for the kind of haunting that lingers around Wendover Airfield, Murray says with the weight of its history, it’s a definite mix of both residual and intelligent. “I feel like you will have residual in any type of place like that, for sure. There’s so much energy there. There’s so much emotion that runs through that base, that ran through that base,” he said. “I do think that there are people there that remained because they felt like — you have to look at it like this — a commander, a person that’s in charge of a base or anything, this is everything to them. Their family is second. It’s everything to them, and to know that some of them made that ultimate sacrifice. That’s unnerving to them. I think that they still remain there to watch over things and to protect the base and protect America.”

Ghost Hunters airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on A&E, and is produced by Lionsgate’s Pilgrim Media Group. For more on the ground-breaking reality series, spooks and other paranormal-related news, keep it locked to PopCulture.com. While you’re at it, follow us on Twitter @PopCulture for the latest and greatest in news and entertainment coverage.