Do you believe... in the paranormal? Whether your answer is yes or no, there's a place in Western New York that's a hotbed for the supernatural. As we continue to Explore New York, Seth Voorhees visits Rolling Hills Asylum, a place ghost hunters know well.
BETHANY, N.Y. -- It is a symbol of a dark past. If you believe it, some say it's a place where lost souls linger.
"Here, they'll call out your name. Wish you happy birthday. Mock you endlessly," said Sharon Coyle, owner of Rolling Hills Asylum.
Rolling Hills Asylum was a dumping ground for Genesee County's unwanted. The homeless, orphans, the criminally insane. For Coyle, it's a place where you're never really alone.
"It gets very active around here. Very active. It's pretty crazy!" she said.
Coyle says she began to experience the paranormal when she was a kid.
"Even when I was a child things would happen in our household. I always had a healthy interest in this," she said.
Her first visit to Rolling Hills was on a ghost hunt eight years ago.
"When I came here I had incredible activity. Full body apparitions, all kinds of crazy stuff," she said.
The next year, she bought the place. And, she says, the lost souls that came with it.
"They'll touch you or come up to you or you'll smell things lemon cookies or chocolate cakes and there's nothing like that around," said Coyle.
Offering tours and investigations, Rolling Hills draws the curious, believers and non-believers.
"We do get a lot of skeptics here. When they have things that happen that they can't explain, they walk out scratching their head and come back and try to figure out what they did experience," said Coyle.
When it opened in 1827, Rolling Hills was Genesee County's poor house. By the 1950's it had become a home for the infirmed. In the years in between, thousands of people stayed there, lived there, and died there.
During a recent visit to Rolling Hills, something uniquely strange happened—something which might be hard to explain.
"The door to my right, which is deadbolted, just moved. And we heard footsteps," said Coyle.
Coyle says things like this happen all the time. She chalks it up to old friends making their presence known.
"I think everybody has the ability. It's whether or not you're open to it," said Coyle.