Finally! A location that lives up to its reputation…
If you live in Buffalo, NY or anywhere else in Western New York, good luck finding a Top 5 most haunted list without Iron Island Museum appearing on it. Ever since the local Lovejoy museum appeared on the fourth season of Ghost Hunters, the museum has been a hot spot for investigation groups and paranormal enthusiasts alike, hosting a slew of public and private hunts, haunted food truck rodeos, and guided tours.
Iron Island Museum was originally an Episcopal church built in 1883 (and it still looks like a church) and it remained a church until the 1940s. It was left empty until 1956 when it became a funeral home, waking many local residents, including the current owners’ brother and son, Jimmy. In 2000, the building was donated to Marge and Linda and has acted as a local museum ever since.
Many spirits are believed to haunt the rooms of the museum, including a man named Edgar Zernicke, two boys (aside from Jimmy) who were waked at the funeral home, and a rather intimidating figure up in the attic, known by many investigators as the night watchman.
I was able to visit Iron Island Museum with a group of nine ladies for one of my follower’s birthdays (hi, Monica!). With two guides from Soul’s Gate Paranormal (the great Scott and Deidre), 11 of us wandered the museum from 7:00pm-1:00am. For just $35 per person, we were able to venture all through the Military and Railroad Rooms, the Chapel, the coat rack vortex, the basement, and even the attic where the original stained glass windows still hang (no one was quite brave enough to do that… maybe next time!).
We had a slew of equipment, but we got the best results from the Portal, SB7, and a good old fashioned EMF detector. As one who is officially obsessed with the entire EVP process, I had my trusty digital recorder running all night long and did manage to capture a few EVPs I’d love to share with you!
Below, you’ll find the best EVPs I caught that night (I got a ton, so I’m giving you the highlight reel). To make sure I don’t contaminate what you might be hearing, I’m going to make what I hear white, so you can’t see it unless you highlight it with your cursor.
PLEASE leave comments, telling me what you hear even if it doesn’t match what I think!
The Railroad Room:
This was fairly early in the night in the Railroad Room. I was sitting in the room with only two people: a young woman named Emily, and one of our guides, Scott. Between the conversation, you can hear something that none of us said or heard. I hear, “Rick,” and my husband hears, “Murky.” What do you hear? Fun fact: shortly after this session, we opened the Portal and made contact with someone named Ricky… and he stuck around for the rest of the night.
While we were playing with some flashlights in the hope of getting an intelligent response, Emily, the woman in the Railroad Room with me, heard this voice with her own two ears, yet no one else reacts to it. What do you hear? To me, it sounds like a child or a woman is saying, “Thanksgiving.”
For a 136-year-old building, Iron Island Museum is relatively quiet, aside from the furnace turning on every five minutes. That being said, both Emily and I heard three taps in the Railroad Room. Of course, my first thought was Zac Bagans looking dramatically into a camera and declaring that three taps are “a mocking of the Trinity,” hence there must be demons lurking in the darkness.
Not quite an EVP, but I laugh every time I listen to this exchange! We held an SB7 spirit box session, but instead of having it play for everyone to hear (and possibly lead us into hearing answers to our questions), we took inspiration from Adam and Amy from Kindred Spirits, and we would listen to the radio sweep with headphones in, successfully deafening the questions to the person listening for answers. As I sat and listened, I was super confused when I started talking about hopscotch and balls, but to hear it playback on the recording, interacting with what Scott and Deidre were saying is both hilarious and incredible.
The Chapel:
This was at the opening of our Portal session when Deidre asked who was in the room with us. Ricky introduces himself for the first time (I didn’t know I had already captured his introduction in the Railroad Room earlier). It’s not a name that Soul’s Gate Paranormal has heard before, making them think he was possibly just passing through or he might have arrived with one of us that night.
The Portal has a way of making literally anything and everything sound super creepy, especially when you’re in a pitch black chapel with the EMF detector beeping and someone claiming to see shadow figures coming out of a mirror and running around the room. I didn’t catch these words when I was sitting in the Chapel but listening back, it’s loud and clear. What do you hear? All I can get over and over again is, “I hear the voices.”
In this recording, Deidre is trying to get the spirit to say the word, “Apple.” Instead, something else comes through. I hear two voices–a man and a woman. The man says, “…Who’s talking?” and the woman says, “Death.”
One of the reasons why I prefer the SB7 with headphones over the Portal, is that those who are listening for the answers, also hear the questions, making it really easy to hear what you want (similar to how many believe Ouija boards, pendulums, and dowsing rods work). Here, we’re asking the entity what holiday is next (we were meeting on March 16th, the day before St. Patrick’s Day). Deidre asked if it could say, “Shamrock.” In response, I hear someone say the word, “Clover.”
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Unfortunately, while I was at Iron Island Museum, I was so wrapped up in the investigation and asking questions, I failed to take a single photo. So just because of that, I have to go back!
Iron Island Museum definitely lives up to its reputation as being haunted by restless spirits, some playful and curious, and others a bit more intimidating and grumpy. Linda and Marge are open to the idea of the haunting and encourage those curious about the afterlife to visit with an open mind… Iron Island is sure to make a believer out of you.
If I were to host a Spook-Eats ghost hunt at Iron Island, who’d join me? Raise your hands!
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