“Hello, Marge” was the greeting that wafted through the air in the kitchen of the Iron Island Museum. It was a man’s voice. In fact, it was the nicest man’s voice I have ever heard, and I thought it must have been God. I was alone in the museum at the time.

Later, when my daughter came in, I told her what had happened. She was surprised that someone from beyond knew my name. We went about our usual business of fixing up our artifacts, paying the bills and doing some cleaning. I tried not to think about my experience and didn’t tell too many people what had happened.

Our museum has become very popular since it was featured on the Syfi Channel a year ago. We called “Ghost Hunters” and TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) investigated on June 3, 2008. Crew members stayed overnight, in the dark, in our building — a former church from 1885 and a funeral home during the 1960s. During their stay they confirmed a lot of the ghostly activities that had been experienced by members of our preservation society.

One of our members witnessed a blue and white figure seemingly floating through the front door and turning into the first museum room. Another member noticed a picture that had been on a table sitting upright on the floor underneath the tablecloth. She picked it up and put it in its proper place. The same thing happened to her three or four more times.

We never shared our ghostly experiences until one day when I saw the “shadow man” in the front hall and near the first museum room. He was dressed in black and had red, glowing eyes. I thought he was evil by the way he stared at me. I was quite frightened and did not complete the museum hours that day. The next night, I told the others about the red-eyed man, and they all spoke up about their own experiences. That was when we called “Ghost Hunters.” Within 24 hours, an investigation was scheduled.

Twenty-two members of the cast and crew arrived and began crawling all over the museum, setting up cameras, running cords and preparing for the investigation. Their equipment was impressive and all of our visitors were very friendly. We left them alone and anxiously awaited their findings. A few days later, they came back and did the “reveal.” However, they didn’t show us everything.

When we watched the show three months later in the museum, we all got chills and goose bumps when our front door unlocked and opened by itself. The crew also recorded footsteps from our upstairs “attic” and many EVP (electronic voice phenomena). One of the cast went up into the crawl space, teased the spirits and got the EVP, “Leave me alone.” It came through loud and clear, leaving some of us gasping in surprise.

The night after the show aired, more than 100 people came through our doors, and we have been super-busy ever since. We have had visitors from at least 40 states and five foreign countries.

Many more personal experiences have been recorded since the show was on, and many unexplained photos have been downloaded and sent to us.

My greeting in the kitchen is mentioned when I give one of our Ghost Tours. I recently gave a tour to a couple from Toronto and I told them that I had just heard my name called. They returned to the museum a month later with the video from that day, and they picked up the same God-like voice saying, “Hello, Marge.”