Drake Vella (from left to right), Jason Zimmerman, Joe Houser, Kelly Lundgren, Dani Vella and Cecilia Houser stand inside Levity Brewing. Courtesy photo

When the jumbled buzz of static floating out of the black plastic case of the SB11 Spirit Box began to coalesce into words, and eventually “… Cecilia,” Cecilia Houser knew it was real.

Houser was one of a small handful of people huddled inside the Old Stone Jail in Ebensburg, investigating traces of spirit energy lingering within the 19th-century prison.

She walked into the jail that night a skeptic, but left as a believer the following morning and is now a full-fledged member of the group, Allegheny Ridge Paranormal, central Pennsylvania’s leading amateur ghost investigation group.

Origins

The group began in 2012 in Cambria County, when long-time friends Jennifer Coffinberger and Joe Houser, Cecilia’s brother, connected over a shared passion.

“We were friends in high school since 2002, and we just bonded again about our mutual interest in the paranormal,” Coffinberger said. “It hit us at the same time so we thought ‘why not make a group and see what happens.'”

Coffinberger has been interested in the occult since her childhood growing up in a “house we always thought was haunted,” but the incident that truly lit her fire came years later while she was deployed as a medic with the U.S. Navy in 2011.

Coffinberger was stationed on an aircraft carrier at the time as the ship was dry docked in Virginia for repairs after returning from a deployment, assigned to an on-call overnight shift.

“I was sleeping in the medical ward where we slept on duty,” she said, “I was starting to fall asleep and I heard what sounded like a gurney … we didn’t have anything like that there, but I could hear squeaky wheels coming up the hallway so it kind of freaked me out. Then I felt something blowing on my ear, in my head it felt like rushing water, like a train it was so loud, then the door to the medical ward slammed shut, and we kept those doors latched open.”

Coffinberger attributes her experience to some sort of lingering spiritual energy that got “stirred up” while the vessel was undergoing maintenance work, noting that several people had died in that same ward in the nearly four decades since the ship launched in the 1970s.

That incident, and sharing her experience with Houser upon returning home, created the momentum that birthed Allegheny Ridge the following year.

Since then, the group has grown to about 12 active members who conduct one investigation per month on average.

These range from private residences to historic churches and regional landmarks spread across central Pennsylvania.

Most often, the owners of these properties reach out to Allegheny Ridge in search of expert assistance after a troubling paranormal incident, with a small percentage of investigations self-started by group members interested in checking out a particularly haunted locale.

One of the most compelling investigations Coffinberger ever participated in was at a local Catholic monastery held shortly after the group began.

“It was one of the first ones we did as a group, and one of the best,” she said. “Best defined as getting the most solidified evidence.”

Getting a reading on one device could be a fluke, but getting concurrent readings across multiple devices, such as a night vision camera and EMF sensor, is far more substantial.

“We like to get evidence that stacks,” Coffinberger said.

The monastery investigation yielded several electronic voice phenomena, or EVPS, and photographs of unexplainable mist captured in photographs.

Word quickly spread across Cambria County, with the group soon fielding a steady stream of calls about potential paranormal hotspots to investigate.

Houser formally joined Allegheny Ridge in 2020 after her transformative experience at the Old Stone Jail, where she joined the investigative party that night at the request of her brother.

Each member of the team brings a different expertise, Houser said, with some offering more scientific knowledge, while others possess a more spiritual inclination.

Having a finely attuned sixth sense is not a prerequisite to join the group, but it is certainly a welcome addition.

“The longer I’ve been doing this … I’m definitely better at sensing things when we’re out on an investigation than when I first started,” Houser said.

The group built on preexisting relationships, forging a closer connection through a shared fascination with the otherworldly.

All three Houser siblings, Cecilia, Joe and Claire, are involved, as well as Coffinberger and her husband, Charles, plus an extended family of cousins and friends.

“We all kind of have this desire to investigate the unknown, and are all skeptics by nature,” Houser said.

Not every member attends each investigation, she said, as all members of the group have busy careers outside of their work with Allegheny Ridge.

‘Debunk everything’

Allegheny Ridge members pride themselves on applying scientific rigor to all their investigations, and not walking into a potentially haunted space with any preconceived notions of what they may or may not find, Houser said.

After receiving an invitation to investigate a space, the group begins researching the history of the property.

That includes when it was built, who lived there and any misfortunes they may have encountered, she said.

This foreknowledge allows the investigative team to assemble a collection of “trigger items,” Houser said, which are designed to elicit a reaction from any potential paranormal presence.

For their session in the Old Stone Jail, Houser brought cigars, liquor and poker chips — all items a 19th-century inmate would covet.

The team also employs a range of specialized spirit-hunting technology, including dowsing rods, EMF readers, night vision cameras and audio recording equipment.

Chief among these tools is the SB11 Spirit Box, a more modern invention that cycles through radio channels to produce fragments of audio which ghosts can theoretically influence to communicate with the living.

“Our goal is to debunk everything,” Houser said.

The team works to systematically eliminate any outside interference from their investigations, trying to double check potential spirit encounters across multiple types of recording tools before classifying them as substantiated.

Investigations often yield no evidence at all, which is a stark difference from paranormal TV shows that often incorporate dramatized depictions of their findings, Coffinberger said.

“If we’re in a place for a couple hours, we might get nothing or only one thing,” she said.

Future haunts

Coffinberger would love to replicate the growth of the organization over the past 10 years into the next decade without sacrificing Allegheny Ridge’s core mission.

“We’re there for a reason; one, to help the person in need, to try to get them some answers to something that may be plaguing them … and to get some evidence to back up our findings,” Coffinberger said.

The group views their work as a type of public service, refusing payment for their investigations and self-financing their entire operation and equipment budget.

“I’d love for us to continue getting our name out there,” Coffinberger said. “There’s been a shift, where it feels like we’re helping to grow the community, we’re building relationships with local entities … the bond we’re starting to create helps alleviate some of the misconceptions about the paranormal and paranormal investigations and the anxiety or stress people feel toward that subject.”