Working in a museum is very interesting. You meet a lot of new people and learn a lot of new things. You get to surround yourself with pieces of the past. What stories could they tell? What things have they seen? What ghosts haunt them? Yes, that’s right; this post is about ghosts.
Whether you believe in them or not, you have to admit a museum would be fertile ground for spirits. Ghosts are attached to either a location or an item, so they say. Our museum is an old building located in a historic town, and we have many items belonging those long gone. For example; we have artifacts directly related to an accused murderer who swore his innocence. If that isn’t grounds for a haunting, I’m not sure what is! It may explain some of the more… unusual happenings in the museum.
The floorboards in the gallery have a bit of a squeak to them, and I swear I hear them creak whether someone’s out there or not. Sometimes there are noises in the attic or in the basement, when no one else is around. One could argue it’s the building settling or expanding from time or the weather, sure. And you could say the papers blowing off my desk is the wind okay, yeah, that one is definitely the wind. Never mind.
But what of the little things that go missing? Items which disappear, and show up later where we least expect them? Things we see from the corner of the eye- just barely there, barely recognizable? Old portraits and photographs where the eyes feel too real, like they’re watching us? One of our summer students saw someone out in the gallery, but when she went out to greet them, no one was there. Was it a trick of the light? There are so many little things that happen that we quickly laugh off as our own mistakes. It’s nothing, we tell ourselves. It’s all in our imagination.
On August 16th, let your imagination run wild with us! Starting at 9pm, we’ll have an actual ghost hunter at our museum. We will be reaching out to whatever spirits may inhabit our walls. Who, or what, lurks in the shadows? Whatever we find, it’s sure to be a great night of laughter, learning, and ghostly tales. I hope to see you there!
Summer Student, Vanessa