While we were listening, we heard footsteps on the stairs and the door swung open.

Robert Gregg

On this trip we saw some interesting stuff in the paranormal field. Like in the Farnsworth house we listened to a guide talk about all the different experiences he had in the house. While we were listening, we heard footsteps on the stairs and the door swung open. We closed it several times but it kept repeating. The guide thought it was a ghost named Jeremy who died there when he was eight. We then looked for ghosts in the woods but found none. In the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum we found a lot of paranormal activity. When we stood still and quiet, we could hear sounds behind doors and faint whispers in the air. When we asked questions with a flashlight as an answer indicator, we got quick, distinct answers on the light or K2 meter. Mr. Deitzer got a photograph of what we think is a face in a hallway. The guide kept telling us about all the things she had experienced in the Asylum. The experience has changed my opinions on ghosts. I am now not so skeptical about their existence. That is most of the paranormal activity we experienced on this trip.

We also toured some historic sites and learned a lot about them on the trip. In Gettysburg we did a driving tour of the battlefield and saw a lot of the monuments erected by the Confederate and Union troops after the war. We saw all of the places on the battlefield where the major fighting happened and where the confederates were driven back for a Union victory. In the Farnsworth house we learned that the only civilian who died in the battle died in that house. Also, 18 Confederate sharpshooters died in that house, and it served as a field hospital and all the corpses had been dragged to the basement. There were bullet holes all over one wall where Union soldiers had shot back at the sharpshooters in the house. When we visited Pittsburgh we rode the Duquesne Incline, which was built in the late 1800s to provide easy transport up Mt. Washington. And in Philadelphia we toured Independence Hall and saw Benjamin Franklin's house (or where it had been) We saw where the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were negotiated and signed. We also saw the liberty bell, which rang to announce the reading of the Declaration of Independence on July eighth.