Ryan Buell can be harder to track down than the ghosts he hunts. Call back later, staff will say -- he's at a speaking engagement. He's interviewing clients. He's on the phone with production.
Buell, director of the Paranormal Research Society (PRS), can only laugh and apologize. His schedule is so packed, he barely has time to walk his dog, Xander.
But he has no one to blame but himself. When the 26-year-old set out to start Penn State's first paranormal research club in 2001, he knew he wanted it to be something big. It's the only way he knows how to work.
"Whatever I do, it has to be ambitious and groundbreaking," he said. "I don't want to say over the top, but if you're going to do something, do it right."
It looks like his wish is coming true.
The group that began as a collection of students discussing paranormal phenomena on campus has grown to encompass a television show, a set of offices and a place in the national consciousness. This summer, PRS split with its original student affiliate, separating what was once the core constituency from a newly incorporated professional division -- PRS LLC. -- which Buell heads.
Investigator and society alike are undergoing a transformation, transcending their traditional roots to becoming something different -- something more akin to a business, friends say.
"It's something you have to accept, that it will be like this," PRS member Eilfie Music said.
Music remembers the early days, when she came to PRS meetings and didn't realize Buell was the leader. He didn't seem like the kind that would be into the paranormal, she said -- too "Abercrombie and Fitch." He, on the other hand, didn't think she spoke English.
"She always kind of hung out in the background. She never talked," he said. "When I went up to her for the first time, I spoke very slowly."
Once they got that sorted out, they led the group's first paranormal investigations -- a complete disappointment in Buell's eyes. He quickly realized most of the students that signed up didn't have the maturity, as he put it, to successfully deal with the spirit world. They were scaring themselves, running around, making fools of the group. It just wasn't good enough, he says almost icily.
"That's when we decided we would implement a more rigorous process," he said. Nowadays, to become a member of the professional PRS group, applicants have to complete vocabulary quizzes, five exams, participate in mock investigations and more.
Those that know Buell agree -- he expects the best. Music is now the only remaining member of the original group, and she recalls even in the beginning, Buell exuded a confidence that attracted some and intimidated others.
Now, she said, everyone knows who he is. "People come up and are like, 'Oh my God, Ryan!' " she said, laughing. She wants to tell them -- he's a movie nerd! He loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
If anything, that would only add to his mythos, cultivated by the society's popular A&E television show Paranormal State. Launched in 2006, the documentary did more than any single other thing to raise the group's standing in the national spotlight, Buell said. Now when they fly all over the country for cases, fans recognize them on sight.
But the show's ascension didn't come without a price, marking the parallel decline in Ryan's involvement in the student group and in student life. He'd miss Friday and Monday classes for weekend shoots, trips to New York for interviews or meetings. He dropped to studying part-time. Eventually, he stopped attending the group meetings.
"Essentially, my duties went from going to class to leaving class and talking to producers," he said. "That was a little tough."
And as of this summer, the separation is complete. If students join the Penn State chapter of the Paranormal Research Society to meet Buell or get on television, well, they figure out pretty quickly that it's not going to happen. Buell's own press secretary once tried to do a profile on the leader for a communications class, but he couldn't track him down for an interview.
Buell gave up a good part of his life for PRS. Does he have any regrets?
Sometimes he thinks about what will happen after the show, he says. He's working on two books, one about the paranormal, one about superheroes. It'd be nice to work on those some more, he said. He was a journalism major before the show blew up, and he could see himself going back to that, traveling and writing freelance.
But for now, he's invested in PRS. He can't wait to get the new office set up, put up some mood lighting, really trick the place out. He's hoping the society can maintain its momentum and become a national center for the paranormal, a center for research and reference.
"I'd like us to continue to strive to be the hub of information for people who are haunted," he said. "I want to give everyone out there who is being haunted a fair chance at being heard and being helped."
That's the plan. Buell's office on Route 26 in State College looks only half-unpacked, a great wooden desk set down in the center of an otherwise spartan room. Others in the PRS complex share space -- he sits alone.
"I wanted to someday be an authority," he said of his early ambitions. He's prepared to pay the price.
