It’s almost midnight. This place is musty and miserable. It must be 100 degrees in here. There’s no air conditioning. I’m swimming in the humidity.
And the guy I’m standing a few feet me says he just encountered a ghost.
That was the scene Aug. 21 at Carousel Gardens, the former restaurant and 20-room mansion on North Street.
Carousel Gardens is haunted, according to owner Paul Sciaraffa.
Two weeks ago Sciaraffa allowed the Enfield Paranormal Society, an eclectic bunch of paranormal enthusiasts led by Matthew Kondracki, a 27-year-old mechanic.
The Aug. 21 hunt went from about 10 p.m. Friday until 2 a.m. Saturday.
The entire adventure was carried live on Stickam, a video streaming service.
Things got interesting around 12 a.m., as Kondracki and a colleague stood in the bar area of the restaurant.
They had their various high-tech ghost hunting devices out, such as a K2 meter, a device that detects electric magnetic fields.
(They also had infrared cameras and wired the mansion with Web cams for the hundreds of viewers watching at home.)
Kondracki then began calling for a spirit to reveal itself.
Kondracki would listen, waiting patiently for a response.
This question and no answer session lasted about five minutes.
Then, at one point, after a moment or two of silence … a noise.
On the live Internet stream, it sort of sounded like ice settling in the machine.
In the room, it sounded like ice cubes moving in a glass. Kondracki took it is as a sign of the supernatural.
“Did you see it?” Kondracki called out. “Did you see it? The glass shook.”
He repeatedly asked his crew is they saw the glass move. They had not, but one member of the crew captured the audio.
After a jaunt upstairs, the ghost hunters took a break.
In addition Kondracki’s crew, there was a large number of friends and acquaintances at Carousel Gardens along for the hunt, such as Mike Dionne, of the “Celebrity Paranormal Experience,” another Internet ghost hunting site.
Dionne brought along Brian Jarvus and “Mike P.” of the Bryan Scott Band, a musical group.
Kondracki also invited a New York City model, Daniel Lescell, and her manager, JD Rich.
I’m still not clear why a rock band and a model were needed. But hey, it was my first ghost hunt.
During the break, the crew converged upon the equipment table and grabbed their cigarettes and cell phones. Everyone talked about the glass shaking, making calls to their friends who were watching along online.
“You heard that? You saw that? It was so cool,” one of the investigators quickly breathed into her phone.
Ghost hunting photographer Les Robertson showed me his K2 meter and said the battery blew out in the master bedroom in the mansion.
He had explained how a K2 meter will catch energy from a ghost or “entity.” A supernatural spirit will often drain the battery in a moment.
I was happy to report that the flashlight I borrowed still worked. Maybe ghosts prefer Duracell?
I left.
The next morning I downloaded some ghost hunt photos from my digital camera.
In one of the photos, I spotted a flash of light in a window behind Kondracki. I assumed my camera flash reflected off the window.
However, there was a light, of some kind, clearly reflected in the glass.
I enlarged the photo for a closer look.
Now the image looked like a little girl, waving.
I was nervous and excited. My mind started to run over the various details I had been given the night before regarding the various ghost children allegedly inhabiting the house.
“Wow,” I thought. “Could this be something? Is that a person? Did I catch a ghost on film?”
