Haunted House
I like Halloween and always have and it wasn’t just the free candy; although, let’s be honest, when you’re a kid in South Troy having people fill your pillow case with Snickers bars is pretty cool. When I got older, I turned my attention to the more adult fun that goes with Halloween: costume parties and horror movies. I strongly recommend you dig up a 1980 film called “The Changeling” with George C. Scott. Thank me later.
When I became a journalist, I’d talk my boss into letting me do a spooky story for television that would run around All Hallows’ Eve. I did all the usual stuff reporters do — I’d pick one of the local places that’s rumored to be haunted, grab a woman who claimed to be psychic and take her to the spooky graveyard. Then we’d wind her up and watch her go. It made for great TV. It was all harmless fun and I was quite certain everyone watching my story was about as afraid of what I was showing them as you are of the fake skeletons and skulls that will be 50 percent off at CVS next week.
So this year when my boss told me he wanted me to do something fun for Halloween I made a suggestion. I said if we’re going to do a story on a haunted house, let me do a story on a haunted house! After he nodded with hesitation, kind of the way you react when your 12 year old asks if he can use the box cutter for the first time, I hopped on Facebook and told people exactly what I wanted. Most folks didn’t listen and suggested we “investigate” one of the half dozen places that are always thought to be haunted. These are the same places reporters have gone to before. Then I got the email I was hoping for. A young couple in our area purchased a home 18 months ago and within days of them moving in things were happening that couldn’t be explained.
My first question was, “Who are you?” I wanted to make sure I didn’t have some odd birds who were eating strange mushrooms in the basement and hallucinating the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters.” They weren’t. He works in law enforcement and she has an office type job; both as normal as can be. They told me what was happening wasn’t very threatening and if there was a spirit in their house it was trying to communicate or say, “Hi I’m here too.” They weren’t scared, just curious.
My next move was to find people who investigate these kinds of things for a living. You’d be surprised how many people in the 518 area code are into the paranormal and I had no shortage of volunteers to go with me to this house in the country. After carefully vetting my many applicants, I chose a team of investigators that included a couple of psychics, a demonologist and a few others who were good at capturing ghosts on tape if they showed up. We picked a night and agreed to all meet at the home in question.
Now I don’t want to give away my whole TV story or my boss will get mad at me, but I will tell you a few things that struck me. The first is how serious these paranormal investigators were about what they do. They weren’t wacky people, in fact they strike you as normal as the accountant who does your taxes. They just have an interest in this spiritual world and have chosen to pursue it. They also are there to help the homeowner solve the problem and quite often that means showing them that what’s happening in the home isn’t supernatural. It could be explained in normal ways that the couple never thought of. So there’s not a ghost in every pot with these guys.
Now in this home the owners reported strange noises, things being moved on their own and the occasional shadows, footsteps or whispering that couldn’t be explained. Both the husband and wife experienced this at different times. One thing that particularly tickled my fancy was the fact that one specific object had a way of moving on its own, but hadn’t done it in quite some time; I’m talking weeks. Yet within hours of the homeowner emailing me and inviting me over with my team of ghost hunters they say the object decided to move again while they slept.
Another thing I found interesting is the team of paranormal investigators break up into pairs and go separately into the house at first. I went with each team and even though they hadn’t spoken to each other or compared notes, all three teams were drawn to the same area of the house in an upstairs bedroom. I’m talking one specific four foot area of a very large home. I don’t want to giveaway what happened next because I want you to watch my story on this. I’ll only say there was one thing we caught on camera that I couldn’t quite explain. The story runs tomorrow night at 6 and 10 p.m. Trick or treat? Watch and find out.