Investigating the Phelps Mansion in Binghamton, NY: What We Found Inside One of New York's Most Historic Haunted Buildings
“Some locations explain themselves completely by the time we wrap up. The Phelps Mansion is not one of them — and the evidence we captured deserves a careful look before anyone draws a conclusion.”
— Jason Hawes
Some buildings carry their history quietly. The Phelps Mansion in Binghamton, New York is not one of them. Built in the 1870s for Sherman D. Phelps, this mansion has outlasted nearly everything that once surrounded it — and if the claims are to be believed, it may have held onto a few of its former occupants as well.
I've been doing this long enough to know that the most dangerous thing you can bring into an investigation is a conclusion you've already reached. When my team and I walked into the Phelps Mansion, we weren't there to prove a haunting. We were there to understand the building, document what happened, and find every reasonable explanation we could before entertaining anything else. That's the job. That's always been the job.
We spent time touring the property and learning its history before we ever pulled out a single piece of equipment. That part matters more than people realize. You can't investigate a location you don't understand. The Phelps Mansion has more than 150 years of history layered into its walls — ownership changes, families, the passage of time — and any one of those chapters could be responsible for what people have reported experiencing here. Old buildings settle. They have drafts, they have sounds, they have quirks that have perfectly ordinary explanations. My first job is always to find those explanations. If I can't, then we start asking harder questions.
Once the building went quiet and we began the formal investigation, we moved through the rooms methodically, documenting environmental baselines and paying close attention to any areas that had generated consistent reports from staff or visitors. We used a combination of audio recording equipment, full-spectrum cameras, and environmental sensors to track temperature, electromagnetic fields, and any anomalies in the atmosphere of the rooms. When something happened — and things did happen — we stopped, we tested, and we tried to explain it before we logged it as unexplained. A sound gets investigated for a structural source. A temperature drop gets cross-referenced with drafts, HVAC activity, and exterior conditions. Nothing gets credited to the paranormal until we've exhausted the alternatives. That's not me being closed-minded. That's me being responsible.
What I will say is that the Phelps Mansion is not a building that gives up its secrets easily. There were moments during the investigation that made us stop and pay attention — audio we captured that warranted a closer listen, environmental readings that didn't line up with obvious sources, and at least one moment that the team felt needed to go into the evidence review before we drew any conclusions. I've been in hundreds of locations. Some of them explain themselves completely by the time we wrap up. Others leave you with questions. The Phelps Mansion falls into the second category, and I think the full investigation footage reflects that honestly.
After reviewing everything we documented inside the Phelps Mansion, I'm not ready to call this location definitively haunted — but I'm not walking away without questions either. What I can say with confidence is that this building deserves serious attention, and the evidence we captured deserves a careful look. Watch the full investigation, listen closely, and make up your own mind.