It was about 10 p.m. on a balmy Saturday evening in July as I sat in the darkness of Pushman Cottage listening to Christmas carols echoing through the offices. While we thought the building was empty, many believe there are still some “residents” who have never left.
Along with Rob Britt ’04, founder of the Pennsylvania Paranormal Association (PaPA), and his team of seven paranormal investigators, I was about to embark on a ghostly investigation of two of Albright’s “haunts,” Pushman Cottage and Selwyn Hall North.
I was there that evening with Britt and his PaPA team to find out if the stories held any merit. Were there really spirits roaming the halls of our beautiful campus? Britt, who graduated from Albright’s Accelerated Degree Program with a degree in organizational behavior/applied psychology, says the paranormal has always appealed to him. “I’ve always been interested in subjects that were on the fringe of science, starting with watching Leonard Nimoy on ‘In Search Of’ back in the ‘70s, continuing through to ‘Ghost Hunters’ today,” says Britt. “A friend knew of my interest and asked if I would like to start up a local team. That was the beginning of the Pennsylvania Paranormal Association in Berks County.”
I’d always been interested in the paranormal myself, so the chance to spend the evening with some experts was exciting. Every campus has its stories of paranormal activity. Most involve the untimely death of a student whose soul roams a particular building or part of campus. Like everyone at Albright, I’d heard the stories. Were they fact or fiction? That question was now up to Britt and his team to answer.
Pushman Cottage dates back to 1800. Originally known as Sherman Cottage and acquired by Albright in 1924, the farmhouse was renamed in 1994 to honor the generous gifts of V. Lester and Maryann Pushman. Once a laboratory for home economics majors, it now houses the Alumni Relations Office
Alumni Relations staff have reported many strange occurrences within the Cottage’s walls: lights inexplicably turning on and off, and the fax machine and copier operating on their own. An apparition of a woman with a lit candle has been seen in an upstairs window.
During the winter holidays when Alumni Relations hosts an open house, staff have reported seeing figures sitting in the chairs set up for the event. These sightings, however, are usually before any invited guests arrive for the party.
With most students gone for summer break and employees gone for the weekend, campus was dead quiet that night as Britt and his team wired Pushman Cottage with two night-vision cameras and three digital recorders. They also decorated the cottage as it would have been during the holiday season.
Hence the Christmas carols.
“Recreating a scene often brings about activity,” explains Phil Wheeler, an investigator with the team. So the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that someone unseen would be there. One investigator even sat wearing a Santa hat and invited the spirits to come take the hat.
Quietly we waited, and waited, and waited until finally…we moved on to Selwyn Hall. The spirits of Pushman Cottage did not want to play.
Selwyn Hall North, which has a rich history as one of the oldest buildings in the City of Reading, is reported to be a hotspot for paranormal activity as well. Selwyn was built in 1836 as a private home, Linden Hall. Since then it has served as a war college, an Episcopal boy’s school and a beer garden. In 1888, Schuylkill Seminary occupied the building and it has served as a college ever since.
Footsteps in unoccupied offices in Selwyn Hall and disembodied voices are normal occurrences in the building, according to occupants. Karen Evans, director of the Career Development Center, reports trying to open the second-floor bathroom door and finding a trash can pushed up against the inside of the closed door; a feat possible only for someone who never left the room.
On the third floor, PaPA members investigated a large restroom that has remained largely unchanged over the years. The floor and the walls are still covered in black and white tile. Two large bathtubs line the wall, a reminder of the days when Selwyn served as a residence hall. Four single light fixtures hang from the ceiling, a beer can resting in one. After locking the doors and double and triple checks to ensure that the building was empty, the digital recorders were hooked up and the vigil began.
We sat quietly in the blackness of the room. All that could be heard was the faint, trickling sound of the fountain outside in Sylvan Pond. Investigator Kathie Sutton asked for anyone present to make contact. As the room grew even quieter, we waited for some sign from the great beyond.
Nothing.
Finally, after approximately seven hours, and with a total of more than 40 hours of recorded evidence taken from both locations, PaPA members packed up their equipment and we all headed home. It was a disappointing evening with very little evidence at either building.
Or was it?
Several weeks later, PaPA team members Phil and Mindy Wheeler arrived at the College Relations Office to reveal the results of their investigation. Jennifer Stoudt, editor of The Albright Reporter, and I sat at a conference room table with headphones over our ears eager to know what the digital recorders would reveal. Stoudt is a skeptic by heart and showed little emotion until sounds broke the silence.
“That’s just creepy, I don’t want to hear that again,” Stoudt exclaims, her eyes wide with surprise. She was referring to a loud, piercing shriek heard clearly on the recording.
The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena defines electronic voice phenomena or EVP as anomalous, intelligible speech recorded in or produced by electronic devices, and for which no currently understood physical explanations can account.
The shriek was one of almost 50 EVPs digitally recorded in the third-floor restroom in Selwyn Hall North while the building was empty and locked down.
We also heard stall doors slamming and footsteps slowly walking in a syncopated rhythm across the ceramic floor tiles. There were whisper-like noises that distinctly sounded like two women talking. A slow, quiet tune could be heard faintly in the background. And, of course, there was the shriek.
I was surprised to say the least. While I was in the buildings that night with the investigators I heard nothing, felt nothing and thought the stories were just campus lore. But to hear the sounds on the digital recorder and know I was sitting there in the same room … it was shocking.
Like children on Christmas morning, Britt and his team were giddy over their find. “We usually don’t get this consistency in EVP,” says investigator Mindy Wheeler. “It was almost every couple of seconds that we were getting sounds, but only while the building was empty.”
So the evening was not as uneventful as we originally thought. Maybe we weren’t alone after all.
Want to judge for yourself? Listen to some of the sounds recorded in Selwyn Hall while the building was empty. No heating or air conditioning was on during these sessions and the campus was vacant.
Britt and his PaPA team plan to continue their ghostly investigations on campus, but we need your help. Do you have a ghost story from your days at Albright? Submit your tale to jstoudt@alb.edu and help PaPA plan future investigations at Albright.