Historical museum to host ghost-hunting event
WAYNESBURG – Greene County Historical Society and its haunted past will be investigated for paranormal activity by a local ghost-hunting team.
The 52-room farm house along Rolling Meadows Road in Franklin Township was first constructed in the 1860s and was once the county’s “poor farm,” where indigent and homeless people lived and worked. With many coming and going for many years, people speculate some spirits remain.
The museum is giving the community a chance to experience the paranormal Aug. 29 when a guided ghost hunt led by the Ghosts N’at team, which appeared on the SyFy channel’s “Ghosts Hunters” show.
“We prefer that people have an open mind when they come,” said TJ Porfeli, who is the lead investigator and founder of Western Pennsylvania Paranormal Hunters. “It is not as glamorous as the TV shows make it out to be, but it is still a different and great experience.”
He said people who sign up should be ready to see objects move on their own, hear voices sometimes speak in complete sentences, see shadow movement, have their equipment turned off or maybe even see things they can’t quite explain.
In past trips to the museum, crews and workers experienced many frightening situations, Porfeli said.
“I have been ghost hunting for seven years and this is one of the most active places I have ever been to,” Porfeli said. “Every time we are there, something happens.”
Porfeli himself has been to the museum many times. Some of his most memorable moments in the museum were hearing a child’s voice in the library area, hearing a voice say, “Sit right here” to a crewman looking for a seat and a voice saying as he took a box of thin mints out to his car, “TJ has the thin mints.”
The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. and continue until midnight. Tickets cost $35 and paranormal investigative kits will be for sale to help document the night of hunting.
“They will get to see the museum from a different view,” Porfeli said. “It is a totally different place when the lights go off.”
This tour will be exploring places of the museum that were never investigated by any paranormal team before. Some of those places include the basement under the original part of the home, one of the outdoor barns and underneath another barn.
Go to www.ghostsnat.com/events.html to sign up for the guided hunt.