Ghost Hunters Found Strange Things Happening At Elizabeth V. Edwards School In Barnegat

Editor's note: This story first appeared in 2014. But it's worth repeating for Halloween

An overpowering odor of chocolate in a second floor hallway. Voices captured on EVP devices. Pictures flying off a table in the auditorium in a school not known for drafts. Unexplained knocks and noises.

Those were just a few examples of activity that members of the premier paranormal group “Ghost Hunters” could not explain when they visited the 84-year-old Elizabeth V. Edwards School in Barnegat.

“It’s creepy as hell to walk through this at night,” group founder Jason Hawes said at one point.

The episode “A Textbook Case” aired on the Syfy channel Wednesday night. Group members spent four chilly days back in January 2014 walking the battered hallways of the school, long rumored to be haunted.

“This is just what you would expect to see at the end of the world,” Hawes said, as he and group member Steve Gonsalves made their way through a musty second floor attic strewn with old student desks.

They heard noises and what sounded like a deep male voice, after Hawes made three short shushing sounds. Something or someone can be heard on the recording mimicking the sound, three times.

Ghost Hunters came at the request of Bill Cox - the Barnegat school district transportation officer and a tough, retired New York City cop.

Cox’s role in the episode was the “client,” the person in the show’s format who explains what the problems are and gives a little history of the location.

The Barnegat school district hopes to eventually use the school - which closed in 2004 - for possibly renting out office space to businesses.

But first the district needed to know if there was anything harmful in the building, Cox said.

“We just want to know people don’t have to worry,” Cox said.

They don’t, Hawes and Gonsalves told Cox during the “Reveal” portion at the end of the show.

But still, there are strange things going on at the Elizabeth V. Edwards School.

Group members Brett Griffith and Dave Tango spent some time in the auditorium. They were able to debunk a misty image taken previously that looked like something or someone slouched in one of the old wooden auditorium seats.

They took another picture with a cell phone and placed the previous pictures on a table. The pictures flew off the table, almost as if someone had flung them.

“Holy crap, what was that?” one of them said.

“It looks unnatural,” Tango said. “Almost like someone just grabbed it and pulled it.”

Hawes and Gonsalves were in a second floor hallway when they were suddenly overwhelmed by a strong smell of chocolate. The scent did not appear to stay in one place, but changed locations.

Hawes was so stumped he called Tango up to the second floor and asked him what he smelled.

“A candy bar”? Tango said.

“We don’t know the source of the smell,”Hawes said during the reveal. “I don’t even know how to explain it.”

The school - once the original Barnegat High School - was closed in 2004 because of structural and handicapped access problems. It has sat vacant ever since, the front door boarded up, all power to the building cut off.

Group members Adam Berry and Amy Bruni checked out a basement storage room where a former custodian named George spent a lot of time. They both heard what they thought was a door handle moving and knocks in an overhead vent.

A thermal imaging camera - which would have pinpointed warmth from a living thing - showed nothing.

“There’s something here,” Hawes said at the end of the reveal. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”

This was the second time a paranormal group has investigated the old school on Route 9. The South Jersey Paranormal Research Group went through the school last year and came up with some interesting findings of their own.

Do you think the school is haunted? Tell us in the comments section below:

Story: Patricia A. Miller

Image: Barnegat school district