The Angry Bootlegger’s Ghost
More than One Apparition Haunted the PA Mill Town Residence
This case was investigated by members of the American Society for Psychical Research. When they followed up after a psychic helped, the phenomena had stopped.
The House and History
The location of the house has not been released by the ASPR. It was built by a Yugoslavian immigrant in the 1920s. He to made moonshine and began to drink heavily. He left his family in 1927. His wife took over the moonshine business. He returned and tried to sell the house without his wife’s knowledge, but was caught and had to sign it over to her. She had turned it into a boarding house during the Depression. There were two subsequent owners who experienced nothing. In 1956, when the third owners started to remodel the house, the phenomena began.
In 1978, they contacted the ASPR. The late Karlis Osis and Donna McCormick documented the investigation. Dr. Osis was well known for his work in survival theory, that a part of the human survives death of the physical body and out of body experiences, OBEs. McCormick often worked with him.
Paranormal Happenings
There were nine people in the family who moved into the house in 1956. Every family member witnessed the ghostly activity. There were cold spots and apparitions ranging from misty shadowy beings to solid human ones. They heard bangings, rappings, footsteps, doors opening and closing and footsteps. Sometimes, objects moved by themselves. Four of the people felt something grab them.
Usually, they saw a male figure. Occasionally, they saw a female. It would stand, sit in a chair or rush by. The father saw an apparition six times. He thought it was a male, but its face was turned away from him. He heard a voice tell him to leave the house. The two oldest girls went upstairs and saw a tall, skinny dark-eyed man. They thought he was a burglar. The oldest girl felt a presence in the basement and walked up the stairs. She felt something grab the back of her sweater. The mother and son said they walked through an apparition. A younger sister woke and saw a man and woman in the bedroom she and her brother shared. She ran to tell her oldest sister who scolded the ghosts. They could hear footsteps. The brother woke and saw a tall man bending over his bed. Jack and his daughter were fixing a screen door in the cellar and saw a male ghost not far from them.
ASPR Investigation
Usually ghosts and poltergeists don’t cooperate with parapsychologists and lay low during investigations. Osis saw a shadowy human form and another investigator saw a wisp of smoke.
They brought two psychics into the investigation. The first said a couple who died young were the haunters. She died in the house and he, during World War II. Historical facts did not validate this information.
The second psychic said the male haunter was the one who had built the house. He was a bootlegger and complained his wife swindled hum out of the home. He loved the house and hated the remodeling, so he tried to scare the current owners out. She had been told nothing about the history of the house or the phenomena. This psychic tried to release the bootlegger’s energy and was successful. A follow up revealed the phenomena gradually stopped.
Related Article:
Source:
Meyers, Arthur, The Ghostly Register (Contemporary Books, Inc., 1986)
