(Bristol, N.Y.) - Bristol Town Hall is haunted-- at least according to some sheriff's deputies. In 16 years, deputy Paul Hagan has never seen a ghost, but he's heard all about them, like the time when a fellow deputy used the satellite office on his midnight shift.
"He was using the bathroom and heard something--and pretty much packed up all his stuff and walked out pretty promptly," said Deputy paul Hagen.
Soon, stories like that spread throughout the department.
"They would think that it was haunted and they didn't want to go in there," Hagen said.
But who protects and serves those sworn to protect and serve?
Turns out, the town historian Helen Fox does. "I mean, these are six foot tall men with guns that are telling me this!" she chuckled. "I told one of them, if you hear something, call me and I'll go upstairs."
Fox spends most of her day in the place deputies run from. "Genealogy is my thing," she explained. Surrounded by records of the dead, she set out to prove they hadn't come back as ghosts. "I really thought it'd be worth our while to have the paranormal group come and do a sweep."
Paranormal investigators set up cameras in every corner, noise recorders, heat detectors and other instruments to find out if there's any sort of ghostly activity.
"Maybe they'll find something,” Fox said, “but I doubt it."
She says the building sways and creaks because it's old.
Books fall because it's drafty.
Noises are probably just mice.
But then again, fox has an explanation for most everything--she dismisses presence of a carved devil's head, the same way she dismisses the deputies' stories -- with a joke.
"Perhaps if I do see a ghost, I might recognize them as someone I used to know!"
The New York Paranormal Investigators Group says it should take another week or so to get the results of its overnight stakeout.
The group says it gets calls from all around the nation.
