In 2013, during my first semester at Gloucester County Community College—long before it became Rowan College of Gloucester County—I was a member of a campus organization called the Ghost Chasers Club. We were a small band of paranormal fanatics who went searching for the unknown. Some of the locations we investigated included Washington Township’s Olde Stone House Village, a graveyard in South Jersey, and even Rowan University’s Bunce Hall, which is supposedly haunted. Our most infamous investigation was the Burlington County Prison Museum, a night that still lingers in the back of my mind.

Paranormal horror films, along with my own personal unexplained experiences, were what got me interested in wanting to join the Ghost Chasers Club. One of those films, 2013’s “The Conjuring,” only heightened my enthusiasm. The film depicts the investigation of the Perron Family Haunting by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the two greatest demonologists that ever lived. Ed Warren died seven years before the release of the film. Sadly, just last week, the legendary Lorraine Warren joined her husband in the afterlife at the age of 92.

Ed and Lorraine Warren were a husband-and-wife duo who made a name for themselves in paranormal research circles. One of their most famous investigations was when they visited the Amityville House, the site of a deadly mass murder in 1974. The spirits of the victims of the massacre are said to haunt the house to this day. According to Lorraine Warren, it was the investigation that haunted her the most.

The Warrens were also the most unorthodox investigators ever. Some of us like to distance ourselves from certain places we investigate.

But the Warrens?

They made it a point to take home artifacts of their adventures and put them on display in the Warren’s Occult Museum. Some of the items include human skulls, a haunted mirror, a brick from a haunted house and best of all, the world-famous Annabelle doll, which is kept safely guarded in a display case that’s locked 24/7.

I think it’s safe to say that ghost hunters everywhere owe a huge thanks to Ed and Lorraine Warren. When other paranormal experts were too scared to step out of their comfort zones, the Warrens took their careers a step further, sometimes arguably a step too far. Their contributions to paranormal research and experiences are not to be taken lightly, even by skeptics.

The greatest lesson I learned from the lives and work of Ed and Lorraine Warren is that no matter what you believe in regarding the supernatural, you have to admit that there are some things in this world that simply cannot be explained.

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