Voices Heard From The Other Side

Lloyd Gerard, the owner of Lloyd’s Antiques on Main Street in Eastport, speaks affectionately of Uncle Levi, his itinerant helper who has been known to knock valuables off the shelves and offer items to shoppers for prices that are a 10th of the asking rate. But what can Mr. Gerard do? Levi’s been dead since 1926.“The Ghost of Uncle Levi” is one of many stories of the unexplained compiled into three books by Kerriann Flanagan Brosky about apparitions and hauntings at places on Long Island. Her latest book, “Historic Haunts of Long Island: Ghosts and Legends from the Gold Coast to Montauk Point,” on its cover features Montauk Manor, which is believed to at one time have been haunted by an Indian chief.

Ms. Brosky, along with Joe Giaquinto, a paranormal investigator, talked about Lloyd’s, Montauk Manor and other Long Island haunts on Sunday at the Shelter Island Historical Society and Monday at the Ketcham Inn in Center Moriches, which is featured in one of Ms. Brosky’s books as well. On Thursday, October 27, Ms. Brosky and Mr. Giaquinto will be speaking at the Rogers Mansion, another eerie location from “Historic Haunts.”

Almost 50 people gathered at the barn on Shelter Island to hear Ms. Brosky and Mr. Giaquinto speak about spooks and play a series of EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena, which capture eerie noises and whisperings on tape.

“Why did the ghost cross the road?” Mr. Giaquinto asked with a glint in his eye before the event began.

“Why?”

“Because he wanted to get to the other side, of course,” he answered.

Ms. Brosky’s degree from LIU CW Post is in photography, and the Huntington native started her career interning at Newsday. “But I always loved historical societies,” she said. “Preserving local history was important to me. And when you’re researching older homes, there always seems to be a ghost story or two that goes along with it.” Her involvement with local historical societies led to a popular Halloween event where she would meld history with the supernatural, and “people were always saying, ‘Why don’t you write a book about ghosts and local history?’ But I wanted to be taken seriously,” she said.

It wasn’t until her father died 11 years ago that Ms. Brosky started giving an honest appraisal to the possibility of exploring the afterlife. She certainly had the anecdotes lined up, but how to explore them?

“I needed a paranormal expert,” she said. And in 2005, she met Mr. Giaquinto, a paranormal investigator from Hampton Bays. Since then, she said, it’s been “an incredible journey.”

When people think of ghost hunters, Ms. Brosky said, “they have an image of us running out of vans in the middle of the night. What you see on TV, that’s not what we do.” Through a series of interviews with the property’s owners, historical research and a visit with Mr. Giaquinto and his paranormal equipment, the team ascertains whether there is actual activity. And even if there isn’t anything measurable, the legend makes for a good story.

“This isn’t the Amityville Horror,” Ms. Brosky told the crowd on Sunday. “There’s no blood dripping from the walls. We take a very spiritual approach. We treat the spirits as what they are, just people from the other side, like us.”

Nowhere is this more clear than on the recordings, where ghostly voices can be heard saying things like “Hi!” and a very clear “I am the photographer,” which was recorded at the Villa Paul restaurant in Hampton Bays, another location documented in Ms. Brosky’s books.

An eerie “I want to help you, Joe,” can be heard on the EVP recorded at the Rogers Mansion in Southampton, which has had its share of paranormal activity over the years.

“Ghosts can’t write Post-It notes,” said Mr. Giaquinto, with a smile. “This is the easiest way for them to communicate. It’s not as spooky if you just think of them as being moms and dads, just people like us. But it can freak you out if you don’t know what to expect.”

Ms. Brosky called herself “a big lover of Montauk,” and the Montauk Manor, built by Carl Fisher, “is absolutely gorgeous,” she said. Its paranormal past goes back to the days of the native Montauketts and even Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, who were quarantined with yellow fever in a makeshift hospital that is now the parking lot for the Manor.

“A lot of people reported seeing an Indian chief roaming the hallways of the Manor, especially the third and fourth floors,” she said, although nothing could be seen on the surveillance cameras. Ms. Brosky herself heard native drumming, “not the kind you hear from the clubs,” coming from nearby Fort Hill Cemetery. But apparently a group of Montaukett descendants held a ceremony that helped the native spirit cross over. “That sometimes happens,” she said. “But sometimes they don’t want to. They just like it better here.”

Of all the places she has outlined on Long Island, Ms. Brosky says the most active is the Country House restaurant in Stony Brook. “The activity there is constant,” she said, regaling the audience with the sad story of Annette Williamson, a young girl who was murdered in that location after she was wrongly accused of being a British Loyalist during the Revolutionary era.

The good out of all of this, Ms. Brosky said, is feeling that her father is often with her. “There is a different between ghosts and spirits,” she said. “Spirits are our own people. They help us on our own journey.” It could be a favorite song coming on the radio, seeing an animal they loved, smelling their perfume or a cigar. Ms. Brosky says people need to trust their instincts. “Our loved ones do not leave us. It’s very comforting.”

Ms. Brosky admitted that she is in high demand around this time of year, with Halloween around the corner. “But it’s not like there’s more paranormal activity,” she said. “That’s year-round.”

That’s for sure. Just ask Lloyd Gerard, who has never seen his great-great-great uncle Simon Levi, but can hear him walking around upstairs. “People come in asking for him,” he said. “But he doesn’t just appear when you want him to, on demand. I guess he’s got other things to do,” he said.