By Holly Hendershot
Huntington native Kerriann Flanagan Brosky has spent years investigating and writing about the history of Long Island. But in her newest book, the award-winning author received help in telling those stories – help from the ghosts of the island’s past.
Each chapter of Brosky’s new book, “Haunted Long Island Mysteries,” brings the reader to a different historic location to learn about its past and hear from people who continue to tell their stories, even after death.
“This book, in particular, has some really spiritual stories along with teaching about local history,” Brosky said, “and what better way to teach the local history than through ghost stories?”
Brosky said her book, which is her fourth book about paranormal activity on the island, includes transcriptions of communication with spirits in many historical locations such as the Long Island Maritime Museum, Milleridge Inn in Jericho and Lakeview Cemetery in Patchogue.
Brosky remembers the first time she experienced a ghost communicating with her by electronic voice phenomena through a recorder in 2006. After meeting paranormal investigator and medium Joe Giaquinto at one of her history lectures following the release of her books on the history of Huntington, he taught her about electronic voice phenomena, and they worked together to investigate the paranormal at the historic locations on the island.
Soon afterward, Brosky was transcribing an interview she conducted in a home in Huntington with the residents who had paranormal activity in their past home due to objects they had from around the world. She was shocked to find the recorder she used to catch the interview on tape had picked up an additional voice – one from the other side.
“It was as if someone pulled the recorder up towards her mouth, and it was a little girl who said, ‘hold me’,” Brosky said. “From that point on, I knew it was possible [to communicate with spirits.]”
That experience and others like it led to her first book on the paranormal titled, “Ghosts of Long Island: Stories of the Paranormal.”
While investigating for her new book, Brosky and Giaquinto, used a “Ghost Box,” a transistor radio that continues to scan stations, allowing spirits to communicate through words spoken on the stations.
“We treat them like people because they are people. They are people that crossed,” she said. “Because of how we treat them, we end up getting more responses.”
In an interaction Brosky wrote about in her new book, she had finished interviewing Denice Sheppard, director of the Oyster Bay Historical Society, at the Earle-Wightman House. Brosky and Giaquinto were recording with the Ghost Box and asking the spirits questions about a woman who may have been killed in the house.
“I asked, ‘Does the woman who killed herself in the house stay here?’ and the spirit said, ‘Of course’,” Brosky remembered. “Denice said, ‘did she kill herself or did somebody kill her?’ The spirit said, ‘It’s possible,’ another spirit said, ‘Yes,’ and another spirit said, ‘killed her.’ Denice said, ‘Hi spirits. Did somebody kill her,’ and the spirits said, ‘Yes’.”
As a professional photographer, Brosky takes her own photos for her books. She has caught apparitions in her photos, as well as orbs, which some believe to be balls of light energy connected to spirits.
One of the more bizarre experiences Brosky had was while she was taking photos at the Long Island Maritime Museum. She set her Nikon camera in the crook of her left arm after she finished taking some photos.
“I’m just looking around for anything else I might want to photograph when my camera started taking pictures on its own,” she said. “I yelled out, ‘Joe, the camera is taking pictures by itself!’ and I took my right hand and held it out, and it took three photos.”
Brosky included one of the photos in the book, captioned “Photo taken by a ghost.”
Brosky has now written nine books in total, with four on the area’s paranormal activity. She’s received positive feedback from readers, many of whom live on Long Island and visited the places she has written about. Some even told her the stories helped them see life and death in a new perspective.
In addition to helping people understand life after death and the possibilities of communicating with lost loved ones, Brosky said she hopes her books inspires people to learn more about history and understand how important it is to preserve it.
“Once our history is gone, you can’t bring it back,” she said. “I would like people to learn about local history and really take it to heart and say, ‘these places are worth preserving,’ and give support.”
Published by Arcadia Publishing, The book will be released on Sept. 13 and will be available in local bookstores, Amazon and other stores where books are sold. After its release, Brosky said the recordings of their conversations with spirits will be available to listen to by visiting her website.
Brosky’s fall book tour will start in October, with 24 lectures scheduled so far and 17 of those in person. A link to watch her virtual lectures will be available on her website.
To learn more about Brosky and her books and to receive updates concerning her fall book tour, visit her website at kerriannflanaganbrosky.com and sign up for her newsletter or visit her Facebook page.
