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Strange happenings abound on historical ghost tour

DaShane Watkins of the Spiritual Historians of Paranormal Evidence Society describes how to use infrared light with a digital camera during a ghost tour of the Glendower Mansion in Lebanon Friday evening, April 23. Working with the Warren County Historical Society, the paranormal team used various types of ghost hunting equipment to explore the mansion.

Jessica Uttinger/Contributing photographer DaShane Watkins of the Spiritual Historians of Paranormal Evidence Society describes how to use infrared light with a digital camera during a ghost tour of the Glendower Mansion in Lebanon Friday evening, April 23. Working with the Warren County Historical Society, the paranormal team used various types of ghost hunting equipment to explore the mansion.

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer 10:11 PM Sunday, April 25, 2010

LEBANON — The haunted mansion — it’s not just an attraction at the Disney parks.

According to some, its also the historic Glendower Mansion in Lebanon, where the Warren County Historical Society and paranormal investigators held a “ghost tour” with about 20 guests Friday, April 23.

The guests, and the Cincinnati-based Spiritual Historians of Paranormal Evidence Society discovered some positive signs that strange spirits lurk about in the 1845 mansion at 105 Cincinnati Ave.

“Everybody be open-minded but be skeptical,” said DaShane Watkins, the founder of the society.

The Spiritual H.O.P.E. Society arrived with cases full of equipment, including digital voice recorders, thermometers, ultraviolet lights, and electromagnetic readers, which the guests were allowed to use.

Also helping was Kodi, an 8-year-old schipperke dog who carried the batteries and who has been known to growl at strange things in the mansion, said Watkins. With them was Crystal Ayers, the director of operations, who recorded the evidence.

The mansion was ripe for discovery. Since the last tour in October, historical society staff had done a lot of work in the mansion, painting the walls and moving the furniture.

“When we move stuff around that tends to stir stuff up,” said Victoria Tappy, the executive director of the Warren County Historical Society.

Guests, wielding their various detectors, made their way from room to room as Tappy provided historical context.

In an upstairs bedroom, one of the electromagnetic detectors went off repeatedly as it sat on the bed, while Watkins asked if the “spirit” was male or female, an adult or a child.

Kodhi lay nonchalantly nearby as the detector flashed a red light on and off.

Guest Betsy Miller of Fairfield, who claims to have had multiple experiences with ghosts, said she experienced the unexplainable during a previous Glendower tour.

“It wasn’t what you saw, it was what you felt. I got pushed,” she said.

During Friday’s ghost tour, Miller held two dowsing rods, which crossed several times during the tour, prompting her to exclaim, “That was freaky!”

The paranormal team’s methodology is not strictly to find ghosts. They record their findings and see if they can explain it somehow, using paranormal activity as the last explanation. For instance, wires and electrical outlets can set of the electromagnetic detectors.

“Let’s find the wire under the floor, or let’s find the ghost,” Ayers said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette@coxohio.com.

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