Jason Hawes

A firm believer in supernatural activity, Jason Hawes co-founded an investigative organization in the Atlantic Paranormal Society when he was just 19 years old. In 2004, he brought his business to the world of television, producing the specter-searching docu-soap series "Ghost Hunters." Also serving as the show's host and alpha-male lead investigator, Hawes regularly takes viewers deep into the bowels of America's most spine-tingling houses, abandoned sanitariums, and best-kept secrets, all of which are reputedly haunted. As his team surveys the locations, taking all manner of temperature, audio-visual, and electromagnetic-field readings, Hawes offers the property owners advice on how to deal with any paranormal activity.

The format proved to be a wild success, prompting Hawes to appear on such spin-off series as "Ghost Hunters Academy" (which puts neophyte co-eds in the roles of the paranormal investigators) and "Ghost Hunters International" (which expands the team's potentially haunted terrain to the rest of the world). In addition to crossing over to similar supernatural-inspection series such as "Destination Truth," Hawes has appeared on such talk shows as "The View" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" to expound on his philosophies.