Abstract

Apparitions and poltergeist-like disturbances were reported by the owner and employees of a wayside inn in Merion, Pensylvannia. The legend that a ",ghost" haunted the premises had persisted for more than two centuries. Witnesses were interviewed and their accounts were evaluated.

The principal technique employed to study the reports used quantitative measures to test three sensitives and three controls. Participants were asked to individually tour the premises and mark on floor plans locations where they sensed a ghost (sensitives) or where they believed a credulous person might report a ghost (controls). Each participant also responded to a checklist containing brief descriptions of the reported phenomena that were randomly interposed with descriptions of plausible disturbances that no one had reported.

One sensitive's floor-plan responses significantly resembled the locations of the disturbances reported by witnesses (p = .026), and the combined floor-plan responses of sensitives bore a suggestive correspondence to the witnesses' reports (p = .084). One sensitive's checklist impressions of the ghost suggested the ghostly activities described by witnesses (p = .059). Control participants, neither individually nor as a group, produced test responses that corresponded to the witnesses' reports.

Ambient electromagnetic fields at the inn were evaluated to determine if the fields were stronger at sites where disturbances had been reported than they were at sites where no ghostly activity had been reported. No significant differences in electromagnetic fields were found for peak strengths, average strengths, or all measured strengths. These findings imply that electromagnetic fields are riot a plausible determinant of the reported phenomena.

Infrared photography, Polaroid photography, video recording, and audio tests were conducted. None produced anomalies that corresponded to the witnesses' reports. Projective psychological tests were given to three witnesses. Results indicated that one of the percipients' reports should be evaluated with special caution.