Ghost Hunting in Eastern Pennsylvania

Every Wednesday night, my family and I hunker down in the living room - the kids piled on the floor in an indistinguishable mess of arms, legs, pillows, and blankets. My husband and I get a fresh cup of coffee, and we "kill the lights" to watch one of our favorite cable programs, Ghost Hunters. After doing this for about two years, I decided, as a seasoned freelance writer, it was time to do a little investigative reporting on the issue. I know what I believe about the supernatural. I know that I believe firmly. My Catholic faith allows for me to speak daily to the dead and encourages me to implore their heavenly aide, talk to statues that might weep when moved, and watch the sun fall from the sky when Mary commands it to. Anything is possible when you are a believing Catholic.

I have ideas about where a beloved uncle is now, whether or not my Ukrainian grandmother speaks to me, and if I can "spiritually" acquire personality traits from my parents. Again, anything goes, really when you are a person of faith.

I told my husband that watching our favorite program, reading books on the subject, and getting that strange phone call every Halloween, that silent, empty phone call, on the anniversary of my beloved uncle's death, made me want to get some answers for myself. It is what all good writers do, after all. He treated my enthusiastic curiosity with a bit of skepticism. A bit like my magazine photographer did when I called him and tossed the idea of following local ghost hunters around in the middle of the night just for kicks.

I had been visiting the Meet-Up message board of some local paranormal investigators for about four months when I begged to tag along. I told them I wanted to write an article about how they do what they do for my online magazine, Nicean. Joanne DiRoma and her sister, Kathy Frable, of the Paranormal Research Association of the Tri-States immediately responded to me and said that they would be willing to meet with me in order to discuss exactly what it was I was planning on doing with them. This kind of candor always gives me an immediate dose of respect for my interviewee(s). I was already grateful for their willingness to meet with me, even if they eventually told me that I had to stay home with my notepad and recorder. Their equal willingness to allow me to bring two of my homeschooled children along for the preliminary meeting (two days before the investigation), also immensely impressed me.

When you first meet with Joanne and Kat (as Kathy is known by friends), you can almost see an aura surrounding them, a sense of light and goodness. They put you at east the moment they shake your hand, and, yet, you have a strong sense that they are both "no-nonsense", unwilling to take too much guff from anyone.

We sat and drank coffee and ate really good chocolate cream cake for about two hours, while my children interrupted and re-interrupted with questions about the paranormal. Neither Joanne, nor Kat, seemed to mind the frequent childlike derailments from our conversation. They simply turned their heads, waited for the question to be completed, and then one of them would answer my son with dignity and on a level that would not frighten or confuse him. I told them stories about my uncle, about what I thought I knew of him - after his death - and, at one point, the light behind us in the diner burst out suddenly and all of five of us at the table jumped in our seats and looked up, laughing at our own eagerness to jump.

"You are welcomed to come with us, Tiffani," Joanne told me, and she said I could bring, Tom Storm, Nicean's photographer with me.

I went home, emailed Tom, and collected my ever-faithful little orange spiral bound notepad and my, often, completely unfaithful, mini cassette recorder. I had seen the guys on Ghost Hunters using these things and not to interview the living. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do. This thought excited and frightened me as I dropped the recorder into my hiking backpack.

Tom picked me up at midnight - the perfect hour for ghost hunting, I am told. Actually, when I inquired about the "after midnight" hunting regulation, I was informed that there is an entire school of paranormal thought that says spirits come out most often around the hour of 3am - the opposite hour of Christ's death. Made sense to me as a passionately practicing Catholic. But Tom and I both wondered what happens in Japan, where Christ is not a thought during most houses of worship. When do their ghosts or the Indian's ghosts haunt most often? We all, including the investigators, shrugged our shoulders at that one.

We met at a suspected haunted inn in Eastern PA. The spirit of a little boy had been spotted more than once by the owner's niece, and often there were noises, and one of the owners swore that she had been watched and heard voices on more than one occasion when she was alone in the wee hours of the morning doing laundry in the basement.

"It sounds like a bunch of little whispers, but I can never make out what anyone is saying."

I hadn't been in a bar after hours since my mom and step dad's wedding reception. It was a strange and peaceful feeling to be in a place normally loud and bustling that was suddenly so silenced one could hear the sound of their own breathing. Tom began flashing his camera immediately, and one by one, the investigators arrived with welcoming smiles, warm handshakes, and a very open mind toward the writer and photographer with all the questions.

First, additional history ,that may have been missed during the original meeting between owners and lead investigators (Joanne and Kat), was obtained. It was learned that a creek ran beneath the floors, and several additions had been made to the building since it was first erected more than 100 years ago, were not mentioned in the deed. Strangely, there was also no record of any boy every drowning, no mention in any old newspapers or archives any of the obvious and permitted changes made to the building, and really, no mention of the place at all in local history. Which was strange, considering that it was a main "watering hole" for many decades, absolutely every other building in the area was accounted for by thrifty, accurate tax men.

Secondly, the entire old building was scoured - top to bottom - with an EMF Detector, an apparatus that measures the depth and intensity of the electromagnetic field in a certain area. Naturally, light switches and sockets measured high on the EMF, and empty, cold chairs and spaces with nothing or no one occupying it, measured an easy zero.

Shortly after that, Tom and I were assigned our places within the rather large group of about 13 investigators - that included a resident and very necessary skeptic, a Reiki-trainee, more than one clairvoyant, and those who had simply witnessed death and its effects on an every day basis in their jobs as EMTs, and only a couple of us were truly there just because we were curious. It became quite clear that PRATS was there at that empty tavern to investigate the fear that had caused frequent goosebumps on the owner's arms in the middle of the night, to reassure her that she need not fear, or that she should be running with only the clothes on her back and with a fistfull of salt tossed over her shoulder. PRATS exists to help those who, very likely, would not be taken seriously by a good portion of an easily frightened general population.

At first, nothing happened. Tom even poked me in the arm to arouse some sort of reaction from anything at all. Seven recorders sat on the round card table at the far left corner of the ba recording a whole lot of nothing. But someone noticed that a light that had been turned off in a far off room was on again. Someone else began to feel sick to her stomach, but that was explained away when a burned-out kerosene heater was discovered at the sight where the sudden ailment came and went just as fast. For several hours, nothing overtly "paranormal" seemed to occur. Joanne continued to apologize to me, while at the same time, letting Tom and I know that this was often how paranormal investigations worked. They were not always thrilling, and thank God for that, I thought silently.

My Rosary, that I prayerfully rubbed every few seconds, rattled inside my coat pocket as our group members fought for balance down the creaking steps into the basement where the owner had had most of her experiences. I could see my breath in the cold, and honestly, could not have sensed a ghostly cold spot if it froze me right there on the spot. I was already completely numb. But as others climbed deftly into the coal bin - the quintessential part of any and all old Pennsylvania houses - I stepped back and watched Tom walk off into the far corner somewhere, as he had made habit of doing most of the evening. Something from above my head struck me. Lightly, but firmly. It was like a small pebble had been tossed at the side of my head. Another girl, Luanne, in fact, the one who had come up to me earlier in the evening asking, "What did you want, Tiffani?" when I had not even spoken my question out loud, had also had her hair pulled. I began to accept that maybe something was occurring after all that evening.

When our time in the basement was over, and we met upstairs with the rest of the group, a few of the men had reported hearing a boy's name being said - Brandon, but not everyone could be sure. Joanne and Kat told the owner they both agreed that something haunted their place, but that it wasn't malevolent. I went home, looked over my notes, and let the story sit for a while.

A couple of weeks later, when I went back to the message board to let Joanne know that I would begin this article soon, sure enough - more than one recorder had caught the sound of a boy's voice, and, clearly, on each recording it answered, "Brandon," to the question, "What is your name?"

I watch Ghost Hunters with an entirely new perspective now. I have experienced ghost hunting firsthand, and I will forever be grateful to PRATS for letting me come along to get the story. My magazine will have a fall feature on the issue in October. Learn more about PRATS then, and when I come back here with more stories from one of the investigations they let me weasel my way into.