By Donald Wittkowski
Alas, not all ghost stories end up with ghosts in them.
Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango, of “Ghost Hunters” TV fame, recalled one time when they investigated some alleged paranormal activity on board the old Queen Mary luxury liner harbored in Long Beach, Calif.
One woman on the ship told them that she kept hearing “ghostly music” emanating from somewhere on the enormous vessel.
“All of a sudden, I hear a quartet playing strings,” Gonsalves said.
So, he began searching for some musically inclined apparitions. But what Gonsalves discovered, after climbing three decks of the ship, was a live quartet providing entertainment on the Queen Mary
Mystery solved. No ghosts.
Gonsalves and Tango, however, delighted a roomful of “Ghost Hunters” fans by recounting other much spookier tales during a pre-Halloween appearance Tuesday night at the Ocean City Free Public Library.
One particularly creepy story told by Gonsalves and Tango involved the deserted Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Louisville, Kentucky. It opened in the early 1900s as a hospital for tuberculosis patients, but over the years it became known as a house of horrors for the way bodies were callously disposed of in a “death chute” and carted away for incineration.
While investigating reports of supernatural occurrences in the sanitarium, Gonsalves and Tango decided to enclose themselves in the “morgue drawers” where bodies were stored before cremation. Lying down in the drawers for about an hour, they had their cameras with them, waiting patiently for any ghosts to show up.
Suddenly, and inexplicably, they heard a female voice that somehow penetrated the supposedly soundproof drawers.
“I’m positive the sound couldn’t get through. To have that voice come through was pretty awesome,” Gonsalves said.
Now that’s a ghost story.
Over the years, Gonsalves and Tango have become famous through the “Ghost Hunters” franchise on the Syfy channel for debunking ghost stories – not perpetuating them. Although in some cases, as with the mysterious female voice at the Waverly Hills Sanitarium, they just aren’t sure what they encountered.
“You can disprove any time. But you can’t get a ghost to come out all of the time,” Tango said of the outcome of some of their investigations.
As members of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, or TAPS, Tango and Gonsalves have conducted investigations of the supernatural in haunted houses, old forts and other spooky places throughout the United States and abroad.
In New Jersey, they have searched for ghosts at the Southern Mansion in Cape May, the Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City and the Burlington County Prison. They are tentatively scheduled to return to the Southern Mansion on Jan. 26 or 27.
Their free appearance at the Ocean City Free Public Library drew enthusiastic fans who waited in line for more than an hour for the chance to meet them and get their autographs and pictures.
“We notice that the people in New Jersey seem to be into this sort of thing,” Gonsalves said.
Some of the “Ghost Hunters” fans said they are true believers of the supernatural, including one woman who insisted she has encountered a young spirit named Tommy who haunts a 17th century house at Historic Cold Spring Village near Cape May.
“He would always come over to my dress and tug at it,” Martha Cella, of North Cape May, said of Tommy.
Cella, who was part of the ghost tours at Historic Cold Spring Village, said Tommy is about as tall as her knee and whenever he is near her, there is a sensation of cold air around her body.
When asked what people usually do when she tells them that story, Cella laughed and said, “They look at me like I’m crazy.”
The 53-year-old Cella isn’t the only one in her family who believes in ghosts. Joining her Tuesday night for the “Ghost Hunters” presentation was her daughter, Fran Cella, 22.
Fran Cella acknowledged the possible existence of ghosts, although she noted she has never encountered one herself.
“I’m sort of a believer,” she said. “I’m probably not as strong a believer as my mother, because I’ve never had a personal experience to learn from.”
Another “Ghost Hunters” fan, 11-year-old Katie McAlister, the daughter of Ocean City Board of Education Vice President Jacqueline McAlister, said she can’t wait to see her first ghost.
“Somehow, I know they’re there,” Katie said. “I haven’t seen one, but I really want to.”
Although she hasn’t spotted a ghost yet, Katie can boast to her fellow sixth-graders at the Ocean City Intermediate School that she did have a close encounter of the first kind with the “Ghost Hunters,” Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango.
