'Portals to Hell' Season 2: Jack and Katrina investigate Iron Island Museum's demonic, paranormal activities
In the latest episode of 'Portals to Hell', Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman journey to Buffalo, New York to pay the Iron Island Museum a visit, which is supposed to be haunted not by one, but several spirits.
Iron Island is an old neighborhood, earning its name from the several train tracks that are laden around the area. The museum building holds much of the neighborhood's history of the military and the railroads, which is mostly why it is believed to be haunted. The current owners have reported some eerie happenings in the museum that Osbourne and Weidman plan to investigate and uncover.
History of the museum
The Island Museum was formerly the Lovejoy Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1883. It shut its doors to the public in the 1940s and it sat empty for over a decade.
In 1956 the barren church building was purchased and turned into a funeral home. They constructed a building within the church's infrastructure to meet the needs of the funeral home.
In August 2000, the building was donated to the Iron Island Preservation Society of Lovejoy, Inc and they transformed it into their museum. Marge and Linda Hastreiter are the current owners and caretakers of the haunted museum which is open to the public for guided tours.
The museum's exterior doesn't give away anything about the spooky phenomenon that transpires inside. It looks like any ordinary building would, with its well-maintained and trimmed lawns and any unsuspecting museum-goer would imagine it to be a normal archive with historical exhibits. However, it is reportedly home to several resident ghosts who like to make themselves known from time to time, even tagging along during the tours.
Paranormal activity
People who have visited the premises have reported hearing sounds of laughter, seeing shadows and apparitions and movement of objects like furniture. Marge believes that the museum houses a demonic presence after encountering the dark figure of a man with eyes like glowing coals.
Linda supposes that most of these spirits belonged to the people who were waked in the building when it was a funeral home and a lot of them were children. She also mentioned hearing a dark voice that often tells them to get out. Psychics that have previously visited the museum have said to the mother-and-daughter duo that there are two likely portals (a place where there is a concentrated amount of activity) in this building.
The ghosts
The kid's room is haunted by the ghost of a 6-year-old boy named Tommy. Linda shuffled through a box of records dating from 1958 to 1969, left in the museum by the former director of the funeral home. She found the records of a boy who fit the description who was waked in that very room. She also said that there are several other child spirits that visit the room and move toys around and she thinks they come there to play.
When the Hastreiters took over the building in 2000, there were 24 unclaimed cremated remains left in the basement, seven of whom were veterans from World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War. In the military room, Linda said, on several occasions, they've picked up gun powder on the floors and heard the sounds of feet thumping on the floor as if in a march.
Marge recalls having seen the full-body apparition of a little girl in a plaid outfit, with socks and shoes, while she was kneeling in prayer in the chapel room. She was afraid the girl was going to kill her. In the basement, they believe there is an angry man who growls at visitors that come there during the tours.
The investigation
Osbourne and Weidman spoke to Patrick Burke, a paranormal investigator who has been a regular at the museum since 2007. Burke believes that a group who rented the museum performed some sort of ceremony with candles, and are likely to have opened a portal. He also described an incident with one of the tourists who had explored the basement and came back up to find three scratches across his forehead. Burke also said he'd interacted with the spirits to provoke them and heard a chilling response over the EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) analyzer.
Some volunteers interviewed at the museum said that felt like they were in danger every time they came by, and some heaviness in the room when there is something dark around. The investigators called in Cindy Kaza, a psychic who did a sweep and affirmed that there were in fact spirits of a lot of children running around including the little girl that Marge saw. Furthermore, she confirmed that the basement was the hotspot of the activity, where an opening allows spirits to come into the building.
Kaza felt a strong sense of negativity in the basement where there is most definitely a portal and confirmed Burke's fact about a ritual being performed, but added that it was done deliberately. Kaza also felt that Linda's presence during the investigation could trigger stir activity.
They received responses from the child spirits via the EVP in the kids' room. Osbourne said he got a sinking feeling when he came down to the basement, and heard what sounded like a bouncing ball. The sudden burst of light went off in one of the rooms amid the investigation alerting them of a presence. They use the Geoport to try and communicate with the spirits and the interaction is bone-chilling.