Quantitative investigation of the General Wayne Inn

Apparitions and poltergeist-like disturbances were reported by the owner an d employees of a wayside inn in Merion, Pennsylvania. The legend that a "gh ost" haunted the premises had persisted for more than 2 centuries. Quantita tive measures tested 3 sensitives and 3 controls. Participants marked on fl oor plans locations where they sensed a ghost (sensitives) or where they be lieved a credulous person might report a ghost (controls). Participants als o responded to a checklist containing brief descriptions of the reported ph enomena that were randomly interposed with descriptions of plausible distur bances that no one had reported. One sensitive's floor-plan responses signi ficantly resembled the locations of disturbances reported by witnesses (p = .026), and her checklist impressions suggested the ghostly characteristics witnesses had described (p = .059). The combined floor-plan responses of s ensitives bore a suggestive correspondence to the witnesses' reports (p = . 084). Control participants, neither individually nor as a group, produced t est responses that resembled the witnesses' accounts. No significant differ ences in the magnitudes of magnetic fields at target and control sites were found for peak magnitudes, mean magnitudes, or all measured magnitudes. Th ese findings imply that the aberrant cognitive phenomena reported by witnes ses cannot be attributed to variations in the magnitudes of ambient magneti c fields.