I work in a museum and for some time now I've heard many things since I started here three years ago. But of late things have gotten stranger here. Maybe some one has suggestions about the haunting.
Some of my coworkers have experience some of the same things that I have. Voices in the museum when there should be no one in here, loud crashes on the roof, footsteps, and tappings.
Of late, I've been hearing the most things out of everybody here. Just the other day I was seating at the front desk and I heard a tapping on the counter behind me, no one was in the museum since we were closed. My co-workers were in the back in the offices and it couldn't have been them. In the past the activity seemed to stay in one spot, the room we call the stone room. Its walls and floors are made of stone, hence the name. I have heard footsteps in there and also someone sitting on the wooden window seat in there. I have heard noises like some one opening the window seat and slamming the lid back down.
Some of the weirdest things that I have heared in there has been someone coughing, when no one was in the museum. I was standing with my coworker and a volunteer at the front desk. i had just asked them if anybody was in the museum and they replied in the negative. Then seconds later I heard the cough, as though someone was drawing my attention to them. Another strange thing that happened to me in there was just as I was opening the museum, I was walking through the stone room to get to the videos in our display area. I was almost through the room when I heard the sound of a man's shoe scuffing the floor, in the area I just walked through. I turned around to see if anybody was behind me and there wasn't anyone there.

Then yesterday, I think I saw our ghost. I was once again sitting at the front desk, we were closed again. I turned slightly to my right and to the back of the desk to get a drink. Out of the corner of my eye I thought that I saw a young man, clean shaven standing by the counter. It wasn't one of my coworkers, since the youngest one has a beard. I turned to look at him and there was no one there. Earlier in the day I heard the tapping on the counter again, it seemed like someone tapping a pen or their fingers on the surface.

Hmm... he seems rather persistent! Have you considered acknowledging him? (You could do this when you're alone - I don't know how your co-workers feel about this kind of thing!) When you hear or see him, just say something like "yes, I hear you - I know you're here". See if that doesn't calm things down a bit.

Are you able to take pics in there? Any ideas who this might be.... have you done any research on the place?

Kell

Kell has some good suggestions. I've heard of several haunted museums and have experienced some real heebie jeebies in some. I think anytime you gather so many things from the past together something is bound to crop up -- same thing with antique stores.
I've got a good friend that is a museum curator. I'll have to ask her sometime if she's ever had anything happen!

Wow! I would not be surprised since many museums are converted residences or other use spaces. My museum is modern, but until last year a lot of the offices and departments were located in old brownstones that were donated to MoMA by patrons.

Many times you would be alone on the weekends and hear footsteps on the stairs, on floors above you. Sometimes it would be security, but a lot of times not.

Sometimes we do acknowledge him. Usually just jokingly, if we hear something odd we say it must be the ghost. Most of my co-workers work outside of the museum on our grounds I'm not sure if they believe in the ghost or not. But I do know that my coworker in the museum has heard things here, so I'm not alone in believing in him.
As for the history of the museum this is what I know.

The Battle that took place here was in 1763. From that time up to the late 1800's it was mainly used for farming. It was bought by a memorial group at first 6.5 arces then 13 more. They then gave it to the state in 1927. The land then became a state park and was devolped along those lines, flags were placed in the critial places on the property, a monument was erected, a longhouse was built, later to be burned down in the 1970's. There was a farm house on the property that was used a as an employee residence until it was burned down. One of our older guides told us that the fire was started by a kerosene lamp and killed the wife of the caretaker. The house was also used as the original museum. After the fire, our present museum was built. The stone room, which held the collection area, was built in the 1950's and a later addition to the museum was built in the 1990's.
I've been here for almost 3 years now and I know that most of the things have occured to me since day one. I do know that other then the caretakers wife that an employee that worked here before me died suddenly in his sleep one night. He loved his job and never missed work. So that's about all the history of the museum that I know.

Very interesting Blackadder. It sounds as though you have quite an opportunity to document the activity taking place in your museum.

If I were you, I would start with the Stone room you mentioned. You said this is where most of the activity occurs. I'm not sure if you are familiar with EVP recording, but this would be a good place to start. You would go into this room alone with your recorder, and ask questions pertaining to this occurence. "Is anyone here?" etc. The following link explains EVP in detail if you are not familiar with it.

http://photos2.ghostweb.com/evp.html[/URL]

You may get results. If you do, they may open your eyes to the situation. If you don't get results, you could try to see if you can up anything on film or video.

I'm curious to know the history of the museum. Do you know of anything in the museum's history that might relate to the activity you are experiencing?

I’ve heard that spirits can be connected to objects and they can be connected to places. Are there exhibits in the Stone Room? If not, do you know where the stone came from that was used in the construction of this room? If it was stone from a prior location, maybe the spirit came with the stone itself.

Thanks for the link to the EVP recording site. it was very informative. I've tried to record once before and I didn't get anything on the tape. I think it might have been the tape recorder that I was using, it's an older model and all I got was static. I plan in the future to try again when I'm able to do so.
As for the stone that the room was built with I'm not sure where it came for. There is a possiblity it came from our site, there is a stone quarry on one of the trails. I will have to ask about that.
At one time the stone room housed the exhibits, but they have been moved to a new part of the museum. It does now house a temporary exhibit of painting concerning this time period. But the noises have been here before we got that exhibit. So I'm not sure where its coming from.

Hi blackadder,

When you attempt another EVP recording, try to use an external mic. It will cut down the static sounds of the internal workings of the tape recorder.

Kell

Thanks for the tip KellKell!

You're welcome!

Good luck... let us know if you get anything!

[ November 14, 2002, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: KellKell ]

I am curious, how many of us on this message board work in a museum? I do. There are a lot of haunted museum stories out there. There is an Art Gallery in Burnaby, British Columbia, called Ceperly House. I have heard some stories. Ther is another suppsed haunted museum called Irving House. SOmeone I worked with worked there, and she never had any experiences there. Mind you, she didn't work there all that long either..hmmm. Staff there did share stories with her. She assured me that she would like to say she had seen or heard something....