Pair plays ghostly recording

Middleborough selectmen hear Town Hall report

MIDDLEBOROUGH - It's official. Town Hall is haunted.

That's the conclusion of a pair of spirit seekers who came last week to investigate ghostly happenings in the sprawling complex erected in 1873.

Last night, they presented audio and photographic evidence, including a chilling recording of what they said was a voice crying for help. Town board members joked about the findings, but no independent authorities were present to verify the discovery.

Before they played a recording to a small, hushed crowd, Ed Beaulieu and Len Anderson of the Paranormal Institute of New England, explained that they had shouted, "Do you want us to leave?" as they scoured Middleborough Town Hall in the search for otherworldly activity.

At first, there was no audible response, they said.

Then, they played an audio clip. On it, a guttural man's voice could be heard pleading in a 1.1-second digital recording, "Help me."

The sound seemed to mesmerize the more than a dozen town officials and others who heard it last night.

An independent tape taken at the same time by Paul Lazarovich, a Middleborough resident and radio commentator on WVBF's "Cranberry Country Journal" on Saturday mornings who had accompanied the sleuths that night, was also played. "Help," a voice could be heard saying.

That development and digital photos depicting small, floating white orbs moving about the Grand Ballroom led Beaulieu to declare: "I think we can say, unequivocally, that there is paranormal activity in the Town Hall of Middleborough, Massachusetts."

"But what is it? I don't know," he admitted. "We don't know the answer, but we did get some very positive results."

The men were allowed to visit the sprawling, ornate building after there were reports of unexplained sounds of footsteps upstairs at night. Other instances of orbs making their way into videotaped community performances there had also been reported.

Town Hall once served both as a district court and a lock-up for transients. During last night's meeting, a rumor that the structure's architect killed himself in the tower was quashed when Jane Lopes, head of the town's historical commission, said her research showed the man died as construction got underway.

Spirits, according to Beaulieu and Anderson, are not visible to the naked eye, but register in photos and videotape and sometimes on recordings.

During their nightlong probe, the men said they experienced an equipment malfunction, in which a laser thermal detector that should have dropped 10 to 12 degrees if a presence was detected, spiked to 140 degrees when it was placed by Anderson's hand.

A digital camera also temporarily stopped working, they said.

The recording, which chilled those who heard it, was pinpointed in the ballroom's balcony, where one photo displayed an orb hovering over a seat in the front row.

Selectmen took the news well, thanked the men for their work, and even gave them a round of applause before they granted permission to come back and to explore further.

Chairwoman Marsha Brunelle joked that the town might earn income through the unexplainable by offering tours. She hastened to state that no taxpayer funds have gone to the jaunt.

"I'm going to come back and haunt this place someday," promised Selectman Wayne Perkins, while Adam Bond, another selectman, asked Beaulieu why there would be a need for a voice.

"They're trying to speak to us," Beaulieu replied. "But this one is very disturbing to me, when I hear the word help." The recording is considered an "electronic voice phenomenon," Beaulieu explained.

Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net.