“When I was a little kid, I had a ghost named George,” Roberts said. “You might be wondering how I knew I had a ghost — I just kind of knew.”
Roberts was onstage for October’s edition of Storyzilla, a monthly event where pre-selected individuals talk about themed stories. Janice Jaffe, a friend of Storyzilla founder Nell Weatherwax said she had been going to the event for as long as she could.
“It’s like a good party,” Jaffe said. “You get to know everyone really well.”
This month’s theme was skeletons.
“Last year we did a skeleton theme and it went really well,” said Weatherwax. “There’s just so much you can do with the word ‘skeletons.’”
Roberts had taken the theme literally and talked about his interest in the supernatural.
“Once, I was seeing if George could move objects in my room,” Roberts said. “He did.”
Somehow, a glass of water fell from a shelf, Roberts said. It fell onto a sound system his parents owned.
“I was like ‘Oh George, now I’m going to get tanned,’” Roberts said.
But to his surprise, even though the set was covered in water, he couldn’t tell by feeling it.
“It was bone dry,” Roberts said.
Roberts said his interest in the supernatural continued as an adult. When he learned he was something called “sensitive” — a term coined for those more open to the supernatural — he joined a ghost hunting group at the Monroe County Historical Center one Halloween as a guide.
“I kept seeing a straggler out of the corner of my eye, so I radioed (another guy),” Roberts said. “I told him, ‘something’s going on.’”
A man radioed him back: “Gotcha.”
Someone brought in a lighting device that threw a grid pattern over the wall. Roberts, the other guides and tourists watched it, waiting to see if something was truly going on.
“Then it moved, it definitely moved,” Roberts said. “Something made the grids move in the center and then it moved to the side.”
Roberts said he left the center the happiest he had ever been after a ghost hunt.
“Up until that point I had lived a life of ‘maybes,’” Roberts said. “Did I have a ghost as a kid? Maybe. You know, maybe something happened here and there. But did something move across the screen that night? Absolutely.”
The crowd applauded and cheered him as he stepped off the stage.
The next Storyzilla event will be Nov. 18.
