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Paranormal
investigator leads tour of haunted Hampton Bays store - 20080311
Humans wearing scary masks and
costumes can usually be found lurking in poorly lit corners,
or creeping along long, dark hallways in most haunted houses
on the East End. But on Friday night, a paranormal investigator
sought to prove that real spirits are lurking in the woodwork
of an 84-year-old building on Main Street in Hampton Bays.
Joe Giaquinto, a lifelong Hampton Bays resident
who said he first realized that he could communicate with
ghosts when he moved to upstate New York in 1980, offered
tours Friday night of the Hampton Music and Arts store to
some 15 people seeking paranormal thrills not associated with
run-of-the-mill haunted houses.
The store in question, which was built in
1924 by piano salesman Henry Hornbeck and now is filled with
new and antique instruments, might very well be haunted, according
to both Mr. Giaquinto and store owner Mark Schumacher. Both
said that the two-story building is fertile ground for ghost
sightings and Mr. Schumacher said he spotted his first—and
last—ghost inside the building in 1975, when he first
opened his business.
Mr. Schumacher explained that he was wandering
around the apartment located above the retail shop when he
heard doors slamming and people walking on the lower level.
In retrospect, Mr. Schumacher said that, in his haste, he
might have scared away a ghost.
“I went downstairs and I said ‘You
can stay, but leave me alone,’” Mr. Schumacher said
he told what he thought was a spirit. “I haven’t
heard anything since then.”
Mr. Schumacher said that experience 33 years
ago prompted him to allow Mr. Giaquinto to host Friday’s
tour of his building.
For his tour, Mr. Giaquinto was armed with
ghost-hunting equipment, such as divining rods, two L-shaped
wire sticks that sense energy, and a ghost meter, the latter
an electronic device that measures the electromagnetic frequency
in a room.
While leading two tour groups through the
store, Mr. Giaquinto said he felt a sudden chill near the
violins, which were on display in a glass case toward the
front of the store and near the cash register. At that moment,
Mr. Giaquinto asked those on the tour to try to communicate
with what he felt was a spiritual presence inside the store.
Anthony Morace, 10, a student in the South
Huntington School District who traveled all the way from Huntington
with his parents, Christine and Michael Pan, to Hampton Bays,
asked the spirit, while using Mr. Giaquinto’s microphone,
if it was a boy or girl. Mr. Giaquinto paused, taking in the
silence, and stated that he believed the spirit was a boy
named Russell.
“Children are not yet socialized to not
hear these things,” Mr. Giaquinto said about Anthony,
who, earlier in the evening, revealed that he heard spirits
calling his name while taking a test at school. Most adults,
on the other hand, are socialized to filter out paranormal
noise, Mr. Giaquinto explained.
While speaking prior to leading the tours,
Mr. Giaquinto explained that ghosts are not evil or scary;
he said that they are simply spirits that live in a different
realm than the living.
“There are a lot of events, people do
a spooky Halloween,” Mr. Giaquinto said about standard
haunted houses. “But this is different and special.”
Mr. Giaquinto explained that what people believe
are ghosts are actually essences, or memories. He blinked
a flashlight at the ceiling of the music store—one second
the circle of light was there, the next it was not. He explained
that although the circle of light was gone after the flashlight
was turned off, the memory of the light was still present
in the memories of audience members. That same theory applies
to many types of spirits, according to Mr. Giaquinto.
Mr. Giaquinto then spoke about how “threads”
of spirits inhabit the human world as well. “We are the
same in the physical world and after we pass on,” Mr.
Giaquinto said. “But when we pass on, we have a different
energy state. We have a higher frequency.”
For example, Mr. Giaquinto explained that,
because vehicle traffic was “nutty” on Montauk Highway
in Hampton Bays on Friday night, he said that his surroundings
did not feel right. He added that he experiences a similar
feeling at times when he is driving in a lot of traffic on
the Long Island Expressway. A feeling of unease washes over
him, and he knows to leave the highway and drive on the back
roads for a while. He explained that the uneasy feeling comes
from pockets of negative energy.
Before leading Friday’s tours, Mr. Giaquinto
played tape recordings of EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena,
that he says are the voices of spirits. Members of the audience
gasped when they heard what was either a gun or cannon shot
in the background of Mr. Giaquinto’s tape recordings
taken from a visit to Sagamore Hill, President Theodore Roosevelt’s
old mansion in Oyster Bay. Mr. Giaquinto explained that, at
the time of the recording, he was in the room where President
Roosevelt stored his gun collection—a fitting setting
for a loud gunshot.
“There were no guns fired,” Mr. Giaquinto
said. “It was an imprint from the past.”
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