Haunted Scranton shakes up non-believers

Scranton Ghost Walk, 5, 6, 7 p.m., daily. 90 minutes, reservations required. $15 weekday, $20 weekend, credit cards accepted. Still photography permitted, no video recording. Info: scrantonghosttours.com, 570.383.9297

Claimed to be the most haunted city in America, Scranton is filled with a history of coal mines, unexplained and tragic deaths and series of hardships that lead to its local hauntings. The Scranton Ghost Walk was created to figure out the history behind the area and to uncover local claims of experiencing “odd feelings” and why these mysterious things happen where they occur.

Penny Wilkes, co-founder of the Scranton Ghost Walk, started to believe in ghosts at the Houdini Museum on North Main Avenue in Scranton.

“I never believed in any of it. I always thought, ‘Oh, people are emotional and making things up,’” said Wilkes. “That building is definitely haunted. I’ve been in it so often that I know the difference between what sounds like an old building and what sounds like something happening.”

What was described as a “haunted picture frame,” Wilkes explained that every time it was hung up on the wall in the museum, it would get “thrown on the floor” and smashed. Currently the frame, left unrepaired with broken glass, is left on a shelf in the museum where it is still being thrown around and damaged on a regular basis.

There have also been multiple claims revolving around an antique wrought-iron cat statue in the men’s bathroom in the museum.

“People say that when they’re in there, a lot of people report things happening, like the head moving or the cat purring, or the cat hissing. It’s amazing,” said Wilkes. “One guy actually was there for the evening at the haunted event, and he had to go. He said, ‘This is too much, I can’t take it.’”

The Scranton Ghost Walk is a 90-minute tour that leads walkers through the historical sites of downtown Scranton where there are many haunted legends to be told. Some of the locations described on the Ghost Walk website include the Scranton Cultural Center, Albright Library, State School for the Deaf, Harrison Avenue Bridge and the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel.

Participants with smartphones are welcome to download a free “Ghost Radar” application which can detect nearby spirits during the tour. According to Wilkes, the strangest occurrence during their tours happened recently, when the radar application on a woman’s phone began beeping to signify nearby ghosts.

When photos were taken of the surrounding area, they captured images of three “orbs” that were following the people as they moved. After they took these photos, Penny explained that they saw words across the camera screen that read “family,” “shift” and “message.” Following this strange correlation of words, one of the participants of the tour soon checked a new message on their phone that told them to hurry home because their mother was being rushed to the emergency room.

“That was creepy,” said Wilkes. “And how that happened, I don’t know. That is the strongest form of any kind of manifestation that I’ve ever seen in my life. It was creepy, but extremely accurate.”

Many attendees, who once never believed in ghosts, have been converted after going on the tour. From an armed prison warden’s “trigger hand” being tugged, to a non-believer capturing a series of photos of orbs and auras, Wilkes claims that many people walk away with a new perspective on the existence of paranormal activity.

“It’s fun like that because the people that go on the walks have different beliefs and different feelings,” she said. “Some think, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go on some corny thing, and then in the end of it, they’re like, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever been on!’”