Eastern Connecticut State University’s Friday After Dark program recently brought in paranormal investigator Brian Cano to regale students on his escapades with the supernatural. Cano’s career has been affiliated with platforms such as the Travel Channel and the History Channel.

After some brief anecdotes about the gadgets and methods behind ghost-hunting, Cano told his feature tale of a supernatural encounter at the Grand Midway Hotel in Windber, PA. He prefaced his story with, “This was the only case in my 21-year career where I feel comfortable saying there was something demonic going on.”

The hotel was originally housing for European immigrants who came to work in the states in the late 1800s as miners. Decades after the mine and hotel were shut down, the hotel was purchased off Ebay for $11,000 and turned into a haven for artists. One particularly eccentric resident had a habit of taking hallucinogens and painting the same unsettling figure over and over on the walls of his room. This resident would later leave the hotel and drug addiction behind after reporting that the figure manifested and tried to speak with him.

Cano, along with a diverse team of believers, skeptics, and demonologists went to scrutinize the hotel in 2009. Their target was the former resident’s painting-covered room on the third floor, known as the “Demon Room.” Through the aid of a psychic, they got some intelligence on an unseen force who was gradually getting pushier with its inquisitions. The psychic testified that the apparition had an appearance eerily like the melty-faced creature that the room’s former resident frequently painted.

Cano himself admits that he wasn’t always totally on board with the thought of supernatural activity. He was first intrigued by the uncanny when he was in college, making short films with friends in abandoned institutions. “Each experience with the paranormal is like a grain of sand,” said Cano. “You don’t acknowledge individual ones, until one day, you’re standing on a beach.”

Cano is currently on a mission to share his experiences with college students across the country, highlighting the importance of continually asking questions and actively seeking answers. Differing perceptions, whether in favor or skeptical of the paranormal, are the key to finding a definitive answer.

“As investigators, our job is to find the truth,” said Cano, “I don’t think the cycle of paranormal investigation will ever end, but we continually increase our own understanding, which sparks more questions.”