FREEPORT — Susan Quinn said when she is alone in the Lakewood Theater in Madison, she always feels someone is there watching her.

Quinn, who owns the 114-year-old theater with her husband, Jeff, said the feeling is not especially scary – but it’s definitely creepy.

Ruth Kirkwood of Portland sprays sage mist to clear out negative energy Sunday in Freeport. "It's a smoke-free alternative to smudging," she said. Jill Brady/Staff Photographer

Quinn said at night she wakes up in her room over the theater’s restaurant to hear music being played below. The building’s lights flicker and she feels cold spots in it, too, she said.

Quinn was one of a handful of people who regaled with ghost stories about 25 attendees of a paranormal conference on Sunday morning in Freeport. The event was sponsored by Frontiers of the Mind, a team of people who say they investigate ghosts at businesses and homes and get them to leave.

Quinn said her husband of 38 years calls her crazy.

“Yes, we have established that for 38 years,” she said she tells him, eliciting chuckles from the audience.

The conference was led by Eddita Felt of Lisbon, who claims to be a ghost buster.

The event, just two weeks before Halloween, focused on real Maine people who say they have experienced real Maine ghosts in their homes and businesses – such as Roller World in Topsham, where a poltergeist would leave piles of coins and a field of energy would cause skaters to stumble, and the Colonial-era Jameson Tavern in Freeport, where employees say ghost sightings are a weekly occurrence.

Amy Mussman said she has seen some really odd things as manager at the Maine State Music Theatre’s costume rental business at the Fort Andross Mill complex in Brunswick, home to a large cast of shadowy apparitions.

“There was this terrifying feeling of being watched in a menacing way,” Mussman said.

She said she once spotted the “doppelgänger” – or ghostly double – of a man she worked with. She said her co-workers were similarly spooked by a jokester spirit and faces that seemed to pop up out of nowhere.

“The people I work with have had experiences, enough to go, ‘Hmm,’ ” Mussman said.

Felt and her team went to the costume rental business to conduct a “redirection circle” – helping the ghost to pass into another world, she said.

“After that it felt much lighter,” Mussman said.

The conference featured writers selling their books and arts and crafts. Ruth Kirkwood of Portland was selling her sage mist, which she says clears out negative energy.

“It’s a smoke-free alternative to smudging,” said Kirkwood, referring to the American Indian practice of burning sage.

Conference attendees appeared to be a mix of believers and the curious. Jim Shaffer of Cape Elizabeth said he has been intrigued by paranormal phenomena since high school.

“And a lot of it is bunk,” said Shaffer, who has a degree in engineering.

But he said that he still believes some phenomena are inexplicable.

“There are things happening that are not easily explained by the laws of physics,” he said.

Related Stories