“We are here to talk to the air and hope something talks back,” said James Saccone of Smithtown, the tech manager of the Long Island Paranormal Investigators, while walking through the blacked-out halls of the Nathaniel Rogers House as a group of ghost hunters attempted to bridge the gap between the physical world and what lies beyond.
The Long Island Paranormal Investigators have been active for 21 years, using various tools and tests to investigate mysterious phenomena all around the country, including on Saturday night at the Bridgehampton landmark.
Describing one such test, Mr. Saccone said, “We’ve been experimenting with colored noise” — referring to sound frequencies associated with different types of physical sensations — “and just seeing what happens with paranormal activity based on different types of noises.”
While standing in one of the second-floor bedrooms, Mr. Saccone played two of those “colored noises,” purple and brown, from his cellphone, and then proceeded to address any “entities” that may have been present. The entire hourlong investigation was recorded on what Mr. Saccone called “the most important thing in your toolbox,” a simple digital audio recorder.
Through the recorder, along with video cameras stationed around the house, the group will be able to go back and double-check its findings, whatever they may be. In the instance of the colored noise test, an entity, in theory, could use the wavelengths of the colored noise to transmit a new message. This is what is referred to as “electronic voice phenomena,” or E.V.P., which the Long Island Paranormal Investigators describe as “the hearing of unexplainable voices during the playback of a recording made on an electronic recording device.”
“We’re very science-driven,” said Michael Cardinuto of Lake Ronkonkoma, a founder of the group. “Ever since we started, from day one, we fill out field reports. The team has done over 1,000 investigations with over 1,000 field reports.” The goal, he later continued, “is to compile all the data to see if there’s any patterns.”
From childhood, Mr. Cardinuto said, he has always had an interest in the paranormal. When he and his childhood friends got their driver’s licenses they started exploring local urban legends, such as the long-shuttered Kings Park Psychiatric Center — now a popular destination for ghost hunters and vandals alike.
“I dared two of my friends to go in and they went in with a cheap video camera and walkie-talkies,” he remembered. “They were in the sublevel basement and they heard a loud ‘bang’ sound. The camera shut off and it freaked them out, and that kinda intrigued us.”
Twenty-one years later, Mr. Cardinuto is still investigating. “We wanted to see if what people are experiencing at these locations is really occurring,” he said.
The historic Nathaniel Rogers House, which was built in 1824 and expanded by Mr. Rogers after he purchased it in 1840, reopened to the public in 2023 after an extensive restoration. In the late 19th century, it had been bought by the Hedges and Hopping families and became a hotel called the Hampton House. While the hotel closed in 1949, the Hopping family continued to own and live in the house until 2004, according to the Bridgehampton Museum, which is the current steward of the property on behalf of Southampton Town.
On Saturday night, the paranormal investigators’ cameras, motion sensors, and heat-sensing laser grids lined the hallways. Music boxes were tucked into corners. All of it was aimed at capturing any sign of ghostlike activity, left in place overnight for good measure.
The stillness and silence of the investigation might have come to a surprise to those who watch television shows like “Ghost Hunters” or “Ghost Adventures.” For the Long Island Paranormal Investigators, it’s less about combating the Hollywood stereotypes and more about resetting people’s expectations.
“Everyone’s going to assume that they’re going to come here and all the tech is going to start going off,” Mr. Cardinuto said. “We try to explain to people that’s not how it really is.”
The flashiest tests of the evening took place in the tiny bedrooms on the third floor using a cellphone app called EchoVox. “It’s an app full of word banks with phonetic sounds that supposedly spirits can manipulate,” Mr. Saccone said. “Basically, what it’s doing is taking those phonetics, mashing them together, and making words to speak with us.”
While for most of the test it sounded as if the phone were just spitting out nonsense, every question or two the phonetics would come together and form a word. There were more than a few instances of “no” and even a reference to a “feud.” It was not a complete conversation; it was just enough to send a shiver down the spine. The most telling part wasn’t the “talking,” per se, but rather the silences in between.
“The real core part of paranormal investigations is just sitting around in silence. It’s a lot like fishing,” Mr. Saccone said. “You throw your line out there and you hope you catch something. The only difference is I know there’s fish somewhere in the ocean. Do I know what’s here? I’m hoping somebody is here with us.”
