In her teen years, Nichole Boscia had a firsthand encounter with the paranormal that made a lifetime impression and led her to search the unexplained. She has run a paranormal investigation group called GhostGirls in Northern California since 2009. She currently works at NASA Ames Research Center as a senior technical engineer. During her fourteen years at NASA, she has published several technical papers in her field.

Nikki contributed reports on the GhostGirls’ investigations of the Haunted Mansion to both The Haunted Mansion Project: Year One and to Year Two.

Q: Had you ever had a paranormal experience before you came to the Haunted Mansion?

NB: I’ve had a lot of paranormal experiences during our investigations, which have covered a variety of locations from navy ships to asylums to historic parks. However, the most memorable experience I had was my first one, when I was a young teenager back home in rural Pennsylvania.

I was home alone, typing up a report for school on a classic typewriter, before I went downstairs to do laundry. While I was folding clothes, I heard the front screen door open and close a few times. Shortly afterward, I heard footsteps right above my head, creaking across the floor to the area where I had just been doing my homework. I hear someone typing on the typewriter. It was the rhythmic that is easily identifiable as a real person typing something, not random keys being hit.

I considered peeking up the stairs to see who was there, but I had an overwhelming feeling of dread and felt I had to get out of there. I grabbed scissors, ran outside, and hid for hours until my parents came home.

When they did, we saw that not only was the screen door locked, but the front door was also closed and locked. It could not have opened. Nothing appeared on the typewriter, either, but to me, there was no question as to whether or not someone had been in the house.

GhostGirls investigation of the Haunted Mansion, photographed by Lisa Morton.

Q: Did anything spooky happen to you at the Mansion?

NB: Two spooky events stand out in my mind. First was hearing an EVP with the voice recorder that allows us to listen live. It caught me off-guard because it was very loud and right into the microphone. No one else in the room heard anything, so we knew it was an EVP and not a disembodied voice. Second, I got very lightheaded, dizzy, and weak suddenly in one of the third-floor bedrooms. As I tried to leave the room, I collapsed from lack of strength. After I was out, I recovered fairly quick and felt normal again. We captured some very unpleasant EVPs in that room.

Q: Do you expect to come back to the next Haunted Mansion Retreat in 2015?

NB: Yes, definitely! We know the spirits there now pretty well; it almost feels like visiting old friends.

How you can keep up with the investigations of the GhostGirls:
The GhostGirls homepage: http://ghostgirls.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/GhostGirls/208084055886844
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/gh0stgirls

Information on the 2015 Haunted Mansion Writer’s Retreat: http://hauntedmansionwriters.blogspot.com/2013/06/official-dates-for-haunted-mansion.html