BANGOR (NEWS CENTER Maine) - Around Halloween time, your neighborhood may be a spooky scene: jack-o-lanterns, witches and ghosts decorating front yards. However, there's a place in Bangor where the paranormal and all things spooky are the themes all year round.
If you stay at the Charles Inn in downtown Bangor, you should not be surprised if you think you see ghosts or hear goblins. The hotel is historically haunted, and the owners say they've witnessed strange activity first hand.
When Allan and Leanne Hewey took over the inn three years ago, they say they didn't know it had an extensive haunted history and that it was a staple on the Bangor ghost walk.
Allan says, "We just knew it was an old rundown hotel." The two entrepreneurs set out to give the old hotel new life. That's when they started experiencing things that couldn't be explained.
Leanne says she's seen wine glasses fly across the room on their own. She has also heard strange voices.
"I heard this little tiny voice go 'nee nee nee nee nee,' and I looked at [my husband] and I said, 'Oh, the grandkids are out in the hall.' And he goes, 'No, they're not here.' And I said, 'Do you hear that?' And he turned down the TV and I heard the same thing again, this little voice next to me, then I got completely cold."
The Heweys and the guests alike say they've heard voices, squeaking floors, and knocking on doors.
Allan says, "Guests would say that somebody was knocking on the door, and they'd open the door and nobody would be there."
Amy Crossman, who stayed in the Charles Inn for three nights, says she experienced just that.
"A couple times I hopped up because I heard somebody jiggling my door handle. So I hopped up and I looked out the peephole, and I didn't see anything, so I was kind of freaked out again. That happened maybe three times."
After several strange incidents that couldn't be explained, the Heweys knew they had to do something.
Leanna describes that feeling, saying, "Something's going on, and how do we find out what it is and get control of it so number one, it doesn't hurt our business, and number two, we don't have people thinking we're crazy, because we're not crazy."
The couple reached out to the East Coast Ghost Trackers. Co-founder, Jamie Dube, says years of experience has changed the way he thinks about the tracking process.
Dube says, "My approach now is more about fascination. It started out as fear, but as time wore on I realized it's not as scary as people think it is."
While working with the trackers, the couple says they came to accept their paranormal guests and even grow to appreciate them.
Leanne says, "Now it's more inquisitiveness. Who's there? Why do I feel so cold when I'm on this floor?
...For us, it's fun. It's adventurous. It just kind of helps us to know that we're not alone."