Oct. 31 has traditionally been referenced as “Halloween,” a time set aside to honor those no longer living among us. Of course, special honor has always been given to the Saints (AKA “Halloes”), along with other martyrs and faithful who have predeceased us, but other dead are not to be ignored. As the gates of the otherworld are said to open on that day, perhaps less enlightened spirits may wish a return to their once familiar earthly haunts.

Dressing in disguise might be advisable for the living if those spirits intend us personal harm. (Hence the costuming associated with Halloween.) Being kidnapped and snatched away to an “otherworld” sounds like something best avoided.

I would like to tell an October Halloween tale in observation of the last day of that month. It’s a story of restless spirits and the living who spoke of their return. The story is basically true, although it certainly cannot be verified in its entirety. I’ve been asked to tell it numerous times over the years, even repeating it in podcast form for The Day newspaper with Lee Howard on March 10, 2018. (“Day Paper Podcast: Nazi Spy in our Midst,” still accessible online.)

This story begins one fine October day not so long ago at the Smith Harris House town museum in East Lyme. (More recently renamed “Brookside Farms.”) Preparations were underway for the annual “Heritage Weekend,” scheduled for the middle of the month. Two women were working in the house, once again making the 1845 Greek Revival home presentable for this popular and much-anticipated yearly event. Suddenly they stopped what they are doing when they heard a terrifying sound. What, on earth, was that? It was unlike anything they had ever heard before. It seemed to come from somewhere inside the old home, perhaps from an upstairs bedroom, and with one woman grabbing for her pocketbook and the other her coat, both quickly exited the building.

Later that year as preparations were underway for the annual Christmas program, the same thing would happen again. Another woman was working alone in the house and after hearing a similar blood-curdling noise, locked herself in the upstairs kitchen. There she phoned a friend, saying that she thought the frightening sound she heard came from down the hall in the master bedroom. She was advised to flee the building which she did with great haste.

As it was with the two earlier women, it would take quite some time before sufficient courage could be mustered to manage a return.

All three witnesses said the noise sounded to them like a woman’s scream, a long, drawn-out wail, the sound of a tormented soul. At the very least they agreed it was a disquieting noise and something well out of the ordinary.

Smith-Harris Commission members and the Friends of the Smith-Harris House pondered the strange occurrence. What was making that disturbing sound? Squirrels? Bats? Tree branches moved by the wind and scratching against the side of the house?

Was it the wind attempting to find its way through the old walls? Or was this perhaps a paranormal occurrence?

After checking out the more logical explanations with no success, we decided to give that last idea some consideration. My son, Kevin Littlefield, suggested we contact a friend of his who happened to be involved in paranormal investigation and research. His name … Ed Bird.

Ed Bird is a founding member of a group that call themselves The Regional Investigators of the Paranormal, or R.I.P., for short. The group at the time consisted of four primary members but could expand to over twice that number depending on the difficulty of the assignment.

We were told there were 30 or 40 other such groups operating in the state of Connecticut and thousands more operating throughout the country. For the last six years, they said, their group had been mainly doing work in the New London County area.

Group members came from all walks of life ... there was a banker, a baker, retail workers, a private investigator, to name a few. Ed Bird was a baker at Tri-Town Foods in Flanders at the time. All members had one thing in common: a burning desire to investigate and learn more about paranormal activity.

We agreed to have these “ghostbusters” come and pay us a little visit. They were eager to take us up on our offer, as they felt that it was paranormal activity that lay at the heart of the disquieting noises.

“Spirits (ghosts) remain on earth when their natural lives are cut short, or tragedy occurs,” Ed related. They are awaiting a “do over,” a different outcome, before finally crossing over. We have found over the years that such spirits become most active when threatened with changes to their immediate environment. That is why that noise was heard by the workers just when you were getting ready to do your public programs,” Ed Bird explained.

The group arrived at the Smith-Harris House with great fanfare. Their cars sported “R.I.P.” signs on the doors and they brought with them a surprising array of sophisticated equipment. Cameras with infrared light, a sensitive real-time tape recorder called an EVP, a K-2 meter to measure electric energy, computers and mixers and a space age gadget that shot out a red beam of light to record room temperature. They brought their equipment upstairs to the master bedroom where the noise was thought to originate and began work. What they would discover was nothing short of extraordinary in our estimation.

Now there is another piece to this story that needs telling here. It’s a more concrete one, an archaeological piece to be more exact. It was the discovery of a blue eyeglass lens my anthropology class had found on this same property earlier while we were doing a dig there.

It was a rather strange artifact, uncovered while the class was processing a “midden” or area the family living there had once used for refuse.

The artifact was small, rather delicate, and was oval in shape. It looked to us like something a woman might have worn. The matching lens and frames were never found.

Now this artifact was one of hundreds that had been uncovered, cleaned and catalogued. Research on it only came later and happened quite by accident, when a Civil War re-enactor at a house event began to share with us his knowledge of colored eyeglass lenses and the role they once played in the past.

Doctors in the 19th century, he said, believed that tinted eyeglass lenses exposed the body to helpful rays of sunlight that alleviated certain medical conditions. Yellow lenses, he said, were often prescribed for those suffering from venereal diseases. Pink lenses treated depression as they were thought to have a soothing effect on the brain (The expression “looking at the world through rose-colored glasses” remains with us.) Blue was yet another color eyeglasses might be tinted to aid human suffering. Blue eyeglass lenses, we were told, WERE PRESCRIBED BY DOCTORS FOR INSANITY!

Let’s return to the investigation being conducted by R.I.P. at the Smith-Harris House. After setting up their equipment, members of this paranormal group sat quietly together in the upstairs bedroom. With the tape recorder switched to the “on” position and the K-2 meter seeking out electric energy, a red beam could be seen scanning the far reaches of the darkened room looking for cold or hot spots. This continued for some time.

The silence was eventually broken when a woman member of the group announced: “I feel the presence of two females in this room. Mother and daughter, possibly. The mother is quite young,” she added. The room then became quiet once more as R.I.P. investigators sat silently for an additional 15 or 20 minutes.

Lights were finally turned on and machines were switched off. Ed Bird then called attention to the tape recorder before him. He said it was a very sensitive instrument that often caught sounds the human ear had missed. Most could hear nothing as he began to replay it, but Ed continued to listen intently. Finally turning the machine off, he posed this question based on something he said he had detected. “Was there ever a girl named “Sarah” living here?” No one present in the room at the time could offer a knowledgeable reply.

Later, however, looking through the documented history of the Smith-Harris House, it was found that the original owners of the home, Thomas and Elizabeth Avery, had lived there with their two sons, William and Charles, and a younger daughter by the name of SARAH Elizabeth. Tragically, the daughter had taken ill and died at the tender age of 2.

To add to the family heartbreak, the young mother would soon follow the daughter in death. The mother was only 29 years of age.

We wondered how Mrs. Avery had met her end as nothing specific about her death appeared in the historical record. Did she die of a broken heart? Did this woman perhaps go insane, requiring their family doctor to prescribe eyeglass lenses tinted the color blue? In her grief did she take her own life?

Whatever tragedy befell this person, it most likely happened in the second-floor master bedroom where those sounds had been heard and the investigation conducted. Were those the wailings of Elizabeth Avery, a woman perhaps unable to come to grips with the loss of her child and despite the many years that have passed, continues to cry out for a “do over,” an outcome far different than the unfortunate one life had sent her way?

Jim Littlefield is a retired history teacher in East Lyme who has written two local history books and two historical novels. His columns can also be found in the Post Road Review.