Throughout 2022 and 2023, strange auditory incidents have been happening in Mentor High School that have been distracting and discomforting some individuals.
The strange phenomenon arose when a summer camp that attends Mentor High School for rehearsal started having some issues with unnatural sounds. High-pitched growls and noises that sounded like people screaming were erupting from A-lecture. The noises spanned throughout the A-lecture area, even being so loud that it could be heard from the hallways. The sounds also came through the school headsets they were using for their camp rehearsal.
The staff were unsure on how to fix the issue and administrators of the school explained that it was possible that a mischievous student tampered with the equipment. The assistant director, Nicole Ajdinovich, found an issue with that claim.
“It was never one of our kids,” Nicole, an MHS graduate, said in an interview with Cardinal Nation. “At one point we were all gathered together and still heard it. And it never played through the speakers. On dress rehearsal day, we heard the scream plenty, and we didn’t run sound on that day.”
The assistant director doubted the headsets could be tampered with as the equipment was on a closed circuit, which was confirmed by Mr. Paul Gatzke, the Fine Arts Center supervisor and Mentor Theatre tech specialist. A staff member was luckily able to capture some audio of the screaming and the growls:
People were absolutely baffled at the noises.
It confused the campers that these random noises occurred unexpectedly and the staff was perplexed even more so. Another of the staff, Casey Couch, even claimed that the screams originated in different directions, making it impossible for a person alone to have acted. It seemed as though no one had a logical explanation for the events which to led some people to believe that something more superstitious was at play.
Ghosts – what are they?
Ghosts, according to believers, can generate electrical interference while also scaring people visually or through sound. A common interpretation of a ghost is a dead person whose soul has managed to return to the land of the living. A shadow of their former self, they gain faded memories and a semblance of their former personalities but they’re never quite the same person they once were. ghosts spend their time either wandering or settling down on the premises of a place. They can either intentionally haunt people and manifest and make people lives miserable, or they simply stay on a premises, with a weird unusual paranormal event occurring every now and then.
While the concepts of ghosts and scary stories in general have existed for millennia, the investigation of paranormal activity started to get popular during the middle of the 19th century and expanded heavily as new technology arose.
Imagine a person being alive over 100-150 years ago and managing to get your hands on a radio, phonograph, a telegraph, and telephones as they were first invented. Back then, communication would always have to be in-person or through the mail. Instant communication felt surreal.
Keep in mind, ghost stories were prevalent back then and people loved to spread their experiences of what they thought was spiritual.
With new technology that was seemingly other-wordly and paranormal, it motivated people to investigate alleged strange incidents with their own eyes and even try to invent their own technology when it came to investigating the paranormal. What emerged was ghost-hunting as a hobby, where people would investigate strange seemingly supernatural events and try to catch and trace the presence of the paranormal.
As evidence of this fascination in the late 1800s, an organization called The Society for Physical Research was invented in the year 1882, dedicated to the concept of the paranormal.
You don’t have to go back to the 1880s to experience a quality ghost hunt. Many do it currently. MHS art teacher Cynthia Wolski enjoys ghost hunting as a hobby. After a request by Cardinal Nation, Mrs. Wolski and her team collaborated with our staff to do a ghost hunt in MHS and attempt to explain these phenomenon. What did they find?
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this story in coming weeks, when we plan to share the results!
