There were no werewolves howling in the distance, there wasn’t a thunderstorm rumbling, but Carla Levix had an encounter with a ghost many years ago. She was laying in bed, talking to her husband in the dark bedroom of her mother-in-law’s pre-Civil War home in Port Jefferson, when she was whacked in the face with a pillow. “I sat up and gasped, ‘What did you do that for?’” Levix recalls. Except she then noticed that her husband was fast asleep.
Kathryn Wood had a paranormal experience at a Massapequa home purported to be haunted. With its castle-like architecture and what appears to be the lining of coffins for curtains, the house is an urban legend. Wood says she felt cold just driving past the house. When she touched the home’s wrought iron gate: “I felt an electric, supernatural feeling. I got in the car and bolted out of there.”
Mary Hull is a case manager with Long Island Paranormal Detectives, an organization that investigates claims of haunted homes and businesses free of charge. One homeowner reported objects moving and a child’s voice whispering “Mommy” one night. “She said she felt breath on her face from whatever spoke to her,” says Hull. She woke up and nothing was there.
Peggy Vetrano is founder of Eastern Suffolk Paranormal, another investigative group. She says Long Island is ripe for paranormal activity thanks to a rich history including Native Americans and the Revolutionary War. “There are so many moments frozen in time here,” she says.
Hull says the people who call for an investigation range from entertainment-seekers to those who truly believe they have a spirit. Business heats up around Halloween. “The veil between life and death gets more see-through this time of year,” she says.
