When she opened the door, no one was there.
She checked the living room. Her boyfriend was in the same position she left him. That's when, she says, she knew it had not been her boyfriend.
It was something else. Something paranormal, she says.
Bernstein, 30, is one of a growing number of Americans who believe in ghosts.
A Gallup Poll done in May found that 38 percent of Americans surveyed are convinced that ghosts exist. That is a 13 percent increase from a poll done in 1990. Forty-two percent of respondents said they believed in haunted houses, also a 13 percent increase from 1990.
The recent poll also found that young Americans, especially women, were more likely to believe in both. The survey of more than 1,000 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Stuart Vyse, a psychology professor at Connecticut College who studies human behavior and the unknown, believes the media's interest in themes involving the paranormal and a lack of confidence in science is behind the increase.
''People don't think scientifically in their own lives. If things go beyond the norm, they believe in something fantastical, and the media keeps making that more attractive,'' Vyse said.
Thinking scientifically did not allay Bernstein's fears, who could not think of any reasonable explanation for the bathroom incident.
She said it was one of a series of unusual events that occurred at the house, including lights turning on and off by themselves, some rooms being colder than others, and electrical appliances unplugging by themselves.
''I hate staying here by myself. I get very scared,'' Bernstein said. ''If something is going to happen or not, I don't know. But just the fear of it happening is freaking me out.''
On Friday the 13th of April, Bernstein had the New England Skeptical Society inspect the Trumbull house.
After spending the night taking electromagnetic readings, measuring possible temperature anomalies, and photographing ''active'' areas - a protocol the society says replicates investigations by so-called ghost hunters - a trio of skeptic investigators discovered no paranormal activity.
''There aren't really haunted houses; there are haunted people,'' said the society's president, Steven Novella, who investigated the house with Perry DeAngelis and Evan Bernstein, Emilee's brother. ''As these people travel from house to house, the haunting phenomenon follows them.''
The group, which promotes the use of science and critical thinking, has investigated about a dozen ''haunted'' houses in its five years of existence and has not discovered any evidence of ghosts, Novella said.
Belief in ghosts usually goes in cycles, Novella said. The current upswing should die down in the next 20 years, he predicted.
People want so much to believe in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena that they ignore basic scientific methods and critical thinking that would lead to other conclusions, he said.
''Before you conclude that a new phenomenon, let alone a paranormal phenomenon, is responsible for something, you should probably try to rule out some more mundane factors,'' said Novella, a neurology professor at Yale University.
Despite the society's conclusion, Emilee Bernstein still has fears about the house.
''When you experience something like this, it's really hard to turn around and say it's not a ghost just because it wasn't proven,'' Bernstein said. ''Now that it's happened to me, I don't know what to believe anymore.''
Lorraine Warren and her husband, Ed, have been investigating paranormal phenomena for over three decades as the heads of the New England Society of Psychic Research.
She says there is more belief in ghosts today because there is more paranormal activity occurring.
''Many things invite it in: more awareness, more exposure of cases through the media, people dabbling in the occult, but especially people's lifestyles,'' Warren said.
She believes that more people are living unethical lives and moving away from religion, causing more hauntings.
''It gives energy to it. Like attracts like. A good person attracts good, a bad person attracts evil,'' she said.
Skeptic Society Fails To Record Ghosts
RUMBULL, Conn. - [AP} Footsteps approached the bathroom door, but Emilee Bernstein thought nothing of it.
She heard a mutter growing louder with each step and thought it was her boyfriend, who had been snoring on the living room couch. As the footsteps came closer, her dog barreled into the bathroom.
[Original headline: Haunted experiences draw skeptical society together]
Boston Globe / MA - July 22 2001
