Description of Place: Winterhaven is a small village and artist community, which survives mostly on its tourist industry. The town has five inns, twelve restaurants and three skiing resorts all in the rolling hills of Southwest Connecticut. The Winterhaven Power and Light Company is operated within a former warehouse in the middle of town. Several tunnels left over when the area was a mining community link some of the structures and now serve to connect utilities and sewers.

Ghostly Manifestations: For much of October 1976, Winterhaven went through the wettest autumn for over twenty years. Freezing rain warned of a cold snowy winter and many store owners and innkeepers looked forward to the type of money from tourists and skiers arriving in their peaceful and tranquil little artist colony. It was not a good night for Dylan Collins who owned the power company for the area. When he arrived that night on October 18, 1976 to address a power failure, he arrived to find a dark structure looking down upon him from within the rain and ice covered windows of his car. His team of two security guards, five electricians and three maintenance workers now stood under the awning across the street in the lights of the coffee house powered by an old civil defense shelter. Upset that they were all away from work, he was not in a mood to listen or take excuses. He had to restore power to some five thousand angry, confused and waiting paying customers in an area of some hundred square miles. Reentering the deserted power company, some fuses were checked, some lines were inspected and expected water damage looked for before throwing a switch and recharging the city generators. Streetlights soon lit up the city once more and the local townsfolk celebrated a brief reprieve from what was almost permanent darkness. Less than a minute later, the power was down again but this time, Collins had a brief glimpse of the presence his employees had tried to tell him about. Walking twelve feet above the floor on a non-existent catwalk was a human figure in the air above their heads.

Today, it is very obvious to those who work for the power company that the building is haunted. This figure of a former employee has been seen several times for over twenty years making noises, gasping for a breath, slamming doors or just generally making his rounds. Those who have seen him from a distance have reported that he looks like just any other employee; he appears in the traditional gray work suit and metal cap. It is not until he vanishes that one realizes that he is actually the ghost that is supposed to wander the structure. One female clerk from out of the office ran into him while heading to the ladies restroom. She was pushing the door open and got a brief glance of him in the ladies room just before the door was slammed shut in her face. A bit rattled and surprised, she pressed against the door again to enter, but there was no one in sight.

Clerks and bookkeepers for the power company often experience several odd events that can’t always be explained. Electrical typewriters still wrapped in their dust covers can be heard going; their keys striking and pounding out an unknown message. One electrical socket in the employee break room is covered in paper so no one can use it. Every coffee maker, radio or appliance has exploded within minutes of being plugged into it. It’s been checked, replaced, rewired and rechecked several times, but still, everything that has been used to test it has exploded. The decision is that there is some things about electricity that just don’t make sense, but the unofficial reason is that the ghost doesn’t want anyone using it. Nevertheless, every other electrical outlet in the room operates without a problem.

Poltergeist activity is also randomly reported. Objects and belongings vanish from sealed lockers and tools vanish from storage compartments. A voltage reader belonging to an employee once vanished to be never seen again and at least three thermos of coffee have wandered off on their own power and turned up sitting on steel ceiling supports twenty feet off the floor or in dust filled cabinets that aren’t used. One office employee staying late in the building felt a pencil bounced off her head while her back was to the rear of the room. There’s no rear entry to the office area, but she soon began sensing she was not alone and quickly wrapped up her paper work in fear that she was about to see something she didn’t want to see.

On one occasion, Collins recalls standing above an employee checking fuses on the back-up transformers and sensed a figure coming up behind him. He had even noticed the shadow of the figure cross behind him in the reflection on the equipment. He finished giving instructions to the electrician, turned round to see whom it was, but no one was there. Turning forward again, he noticed that the shadow was tone as well.

Several of the electricians have also sensed and experienced a massive store of electrostatic energy in the air. One electrician received and even saw a shock register off a doorknob. Both employees and visitors leaning on the walls for a minute or more have received electrical shocks from off the walls. In summer of 1980, it was noticed that an iron support beam in the basement had become magnetized. There was no reason for it as it wasn’t in contact with anything electrical, but it was more than capable to attract everything from paper clips to a metal lunch box on the table against the wall. Unable to figure out was it was magnetic, a contractor came in, removed it and replaced it with an oak beam. Once removed, the support beam lost its magnetic properties.

Despite the hauntings, the whole building and property itself tends to exude other worldly properties that come and go. In April 1981, three of the power plant trucks parked in back against the wall started honking, moving their wipers and flashing their lights for three to five minutes despite the fact that no one was in them and the keys weren’t in them. It’s been reported that at one time compasses pointed to the location of the power plant instead of directly south. Even Collins working on the property for twenty-four hours straight described he was getting feelings of being lost and disoriented as if time had seemed to exist around him. The security guards at night also have had this feeling of having been awake for several days within a short period of time.

Publicly speaking, the Winterhaven Power Plant is not haunted. The supposed ghost of the power plant doesn’t seem to affect the area homeowners and businesses except in the form of a few solitary blackouts coinciding with the odd random thunderstorm. Some customers, however, calling up for information sometimes report someone answering the phones and setting the receiver off the hook before wandering off. In fact, the phones in the office are often found off the hook without a reason.

Outside the power company, Maitland House off Rural Route 10 on the other hand is credited with what seems to be another spirit of its own.

History: Winterhaven is situated not far from the Housatonic River. It was originally a mining colony for limestone and quartz and then a trading post. It was then a fishing community, but two housing booms in the 1850s and again in the 1940s brought several people to area who appreciated the serenity and tranquil location. In fact, portions of the area are as untouched as they were over two hundred years ago except for the presence of massive steel towers stringing power cables several hundred feet off the ground. The epitome of the model New England town, Winterhaven was chartered in 1856 and had its first electrical power plant in 1938 based in the location of an old former mill. The current larger facility was established in 1946 within a former warehouse, which has since been modified and renovated several times over during its use. The building was acquired by the Newton Electric Company in 1992.

Identity of Ghosts: It is believed the ghost is that of Max Voltner, an electrical engineer who was blown off a tall electrical tower in 1975 while trying to connect a broken line. Some accounts say he was electrocuted while working the hundred feet off the ground, and his body was never found. However, this is not the case as Voltner turned up alive in prison a few years later after he was exposed in some sort of criminal activity. Nevertheless, ghostly phenomenon started about a month after his death but the source of the activity has yet to be revealed.

Source/Comments: Scooby Doo, Where Are You (Episode: “Watt A Shocking Ghost”), Hauntings based on the Limerick Power Generating Plant in Limerick, Pennsylvania, Grand Rapids Telephone Service in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and Gurney Manufacturing in Prattville, Alabama.