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Photo by Travis Pratt
Mason Dixon Paranormal Society’s Darryl Keller plays back audio recordings from an investigation that took place several weeks ago at the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum.
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Recordings of disembodied voices and a number of eerie personal experiences are enough for the Mason Dixon Paranormal Society to conclude that the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum is haunted.
After conducting a two-night paranormal investigation nearly three weeks ago, the society met with the museum's staff Monday to reveal its findings.
During the investigation, which was open to the public for a fee to benefit the museum, the society collected about 70 hours of digital video recordings, more than two hours of thermal imaging video, and 180 hours of audio. After days of close watching and listening, the group came away with 35 electronic voice phenomena -- believed to be recordings of ghostly voices.
"It's a very low frequency tone that you cannot hear with the human ear," said Stewart Cornelius, co-founder of Gettysburg, Pa.,-based society. "But for some reason mechanical devices can pick it up."
Some EVPs from the Schifferstadt investigation feature clear answers to questions posed by the investigators -- "yes" or "no" from unidentifiable voices.
Twice, society recorded a child's voice saying what sounds like "mommy."
Other recordings seem to be in German -- fitting because Schifferstadt was originally home to German settlers. Even a few longer phrases were captured, such as a deep, raspy voice saying, "On the wall over there."
Although the EVPs were chilling, they are not enough to scare away the Schifferstadt's staff.
"It doesn't really change things for me, but I already knew what was going on," said Greg Glewwe, who helps with the museum's Spirit Tours. "Even if you do get a little bit of a creepy feeling, there's never been anything negative happen. In the end, there's some stuff that you can't come up with an explanation for."
Liz Lipke, Schifferstadt's former director and a self-proclaimed skeptic, thinks the ghostly evidence is more reassuring than anything.
"I have heard footsteps here myself and I can't explain where they come from. I think that the investigation is a way to capture evidence of what the unexplained is -- maybe make me feel as if other people have heard what I heard, and it's not just my imagination."
But to anyone unfamiliar with the paranormal and the strange happenings at Schifferstadt, the society findings may seem outlandish.
"People come up to me and they say I don't believe it, and that's fine," said Darryl Keller, society co-founder. "You might not believe it and then you can be shown evidence, and that evidence could be taken to the most qualified video expert, and he can say, 'Yes, I can tell you that this film is not tampered with.' And still people won't believe it until it happens to them."
Whether someone believes in ghosts, there nothing paranormal about the society's willingness to boost the museum's fundraising efforts by doing the investigation.
Christina Murphy is the museum's head gardener.
"I want to thank the MDPS," she said, "for their generosity to help support the Schifferstadt."
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