Vigil summons tales of the supernatural

The 42-story gothic tower piercing Pittsburgh’s skyline looks like it was constructed specifically for Halloween night.

Between the chilling limestone walls and incandescent chandeliers that hang forebodingly far below the arched ceiling, the Cathedral of Learning evokes the supernatural with its medieval charm.

E. Maxine Bruhns, director of the nationality rooms, will allow the public to test the Cathedral’s haunted reputation during a tour of the notorious Early American Nationality Room. She will host a “ghost watch” tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Cathedral of Learning.

The Early American Nationality Room, located on the third floor, holds a great deal of mystery for visitors who have experienced inexplicable activity in the room. According to legend, the ghost of Bruhns’s late grandmother, Martha Jane Poe, began to haunt the room after her possessions were used to furnish the upstairs bedroom.

Poe is said to be a cousin of one of America’s best-known horror writers, Edgar Allen Poe, but Bruhns said she doesn’t believe Martha ever had contact with the author.

Events attributed to Martha have shocked skeptics into believing.

Based on an article published in 2005 in the University Times, a janitor dubious of Martha’s existence witnessed the sheets of her bed fly back one night while cleaning the room.

He is now a believer.

Bruhns said she recalls her own supernatural experience during a ghost watch last year. 

“As I began to reference my grandmother … the cradle with my baby pillow on it rocked three times,” she said in an email. “I thought, at first, that Catula, Dracula’s cat, had done it, but he was sound asleep.”

Author Melissa Haas’ cat, Catula, will be in attendance tonight. Haas has written children’s books featuring her feline that fictionalize Dracula and his three pets. 

Jessica Penot, a blogger, columnist and author of the “Haunted America” book series retold stories of people’s encounters with the paranormal.

Through her research, she has discovered that seeing is believing, to an extent.

“I’ve known a lot of people that very solidly don’t believe in ghosts and then something happens and they very strongly believe in ghosts,” Penot said. “I think it is something that is hard to believe in until you’ve seen it with your own eyes, because again, there is no way to prove it.”

many Pitt students grapple with this uncanny idea, since it counters the fact-based, scientific material that professors often teach in class.

Count junior engineering major Thomas Tyler as someone who bases his beliefs in science, but still has an appreciation for the supernatural.

“I would say the logical, engineering side of me says, ‘No, [ghosts] don’t exist,’” Tyler said. “But the kid in me says, ‘Oh, I wish they existed so much — that’d be so cool.’”

Tyler’s conviction is shared by Bruhns, who has sworn to have felt her grandmother Martha’s presence in the Early American Room on multiple occasions.

“Spend an evening alone in the Early American bedroom as I did years ago,” Bruhns said. “Some spirit scared the bejeezus out of me that night. The skeptic should be so lucky.”