How to go
What: Ryan’s Tavern “Ghost Tour” led by Tri-State Ohio Paranormal Society (TriOPs)
Where: Ryan’s Tavern at 241 High St., Hamilton
When: 7 to 10 p.m. Sundays, Sept. 18-Oct. 30
Cost $25 per ticket, pre-sale only
More info: Stop by Ryan’s Tavern to purchase tickets or credit card sales by phone, (513) 737-2200
HAMILTON — Ryan’s Tavern has again joined forces with Butler County’s Tri-State Ohio Paranormal Society for tours including food and phenomenon.
Back for a second year, the Ghost Tour is a three-hour event that includes guided, hands-on investigation of the Ryan’s Tavern building. Tours are offered every Sunday through Halloween.
Tour participants will see and hear audio and video evidence of paranormal activity collected at Ryan’s Tavern, along with a presentation of equipment used in paranormal investigation. They will learn what makes Ryan’s Tavern so interesting to these experienced paranormal investigators.
After the tour, guests will discuss their findings with the TriOPs staff while enjoying a buffet meal.
Since its creation in April 2008, TriOPs has provided professional paranormal investigative services to the Tri-state area. Comparing Ryan’s Tavern to Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, an early 1900s hospital built to house tuberculosis patients and well-known hot-spot of paranormal activity, Charles “C.G.” Spicer, TriOPs founder and CEO, calls evidence collected at Ryan’s Tavern “more convincing.”
“We spent eight hours at Waverly Hills and only four hours at Ryan’s,” Spicer said, “and the evidence from Ryan’s is overwhelming.”
As an example, Spicer said every night between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m., Ryan’s patrons hear “a loud thunk” near the elevator.
What makes this unexplained noise so intriguing, Spicer said, is that when Ohio time changes with the seasons, the timing of the “thunk” stays the same. “In the spring, you hear it between 11:30 and 11:45 p.m.,” Spicer said.
Much of the Tavern’s décor is original to the building, such as the brick walls in the dining areas and the arched plaster ceiling in the Shamrock Room. “We have a lot of authentic Irish antiques,” owner Vickie Ryan said, “and local antiques, too.”
Antiques that may, she has been told, have some connection to the paranormal activities.
Staff at Ryan’s Tavern report dishes breaking, elevator doors opening and toilets flushing when no one is around. Last year’s tour participants took photos of what appeared to be a dog on the second floor, and Ryan said she has gone to check on a “guest” at a back booth she discovered was unoccupied. “I would have sworn someone was there, though,” Ryan said.
Spicer said the anomalies recorded by TriOPs’ electronic equipment show evidence of “something that doesn’t fit inside normal scientific parameters.”
The Ryan’s Tavern/TriOPs Ghost Tour is $25 per person and includes a guided, hands-on tour of the facility and buffet meal. Presale tickets can be purchased at Ryan’s Tavern or by phone.
Participants are encouraged to bring digital cameras and recorders (cellular phones are fine) and a flashlight. The Ghost Tour includes multiple staircases, but an elevator is available for most parts of the tour.
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