Quincy ghost buster Tom Ventosi wants to find out who or what might be haunting Middleboro Town Hall, an effort that could take months to complete.
Ventosi, vice president of Mass Paranormal, a group that investigates the existence of ghosts at no charge, would use infrared cameras positioned in several locations to film for four to eight hours, as well as infrared video, sound recorders and night-vision viewers.
Reviewing the recorded material, which could include 1,000 still pictures, would take up to a month, he said.
Ventosi’s team includes a spiritual adviser who deals with “dark energy,” a shaman and a priest, who might perform a blessing.
Two local ghost hunters say they recently found evidence of paranormal presences in the 135-year-old building.
Several town leaders say they have heard inexplicable sounds in the building’s grand ballroom late at night. , while another official who sometimes works into the evening has not detected signs of a specter wandering the old structure.
Not everyone is convinced that town hall is haunted. Richard Pavadore, chairman of the town’s finance committee, is an electrical engineer who specializes in microwave and wave theory.
He said the content of an audio recording made at town hall by two local men active with the Paranormal Institute of New England is in the ear of the beholder. Some who have listened to the recording think they heard a spirit crying for help.
“In this case, we are using only our ears and emotional state to decipher what this may be,” he said. “This is subjective to the listener.”
When budget time rolls around, Pavadore spends many late nights at town hall. He said he has never heard a ghost.
But Building Commissioner Robert J. Whalen says he has seen an apparition.
Seven years ago, he was filming a production for the Burt Woods School of Performing Arts and, as he manned the camera, “a white puffy cloud came out of the floor. It floated across the top of the balcony,” Whalen said.
When he called someone to look at it, the apparition disappeared, but the shape showed up on the videotape, he said.
