Haunted Hayride Promises Frightful Sights

The 23rd annual Woodbury Lions Haunted Hayride and Haunted Barn will take place on the following days: October 18, 19, 25 and 26, starting from Mitchell Elementary School, 14 School St., Woodbury.

Tickets for the haunted hayride are $12 for adults and $6 for children younger than 10. Tickets sales will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Mitchell School. Refreshments will be for sale at the school.

The Lions offer a children’s hayride from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19, for younger children who might be scared by the haunted hayride.

"The wagons start at Mitchell School and go through some of the quieter streets in town, and stop at the pumpkin patch, where children can select a pumpkin to take home," according to a press release from the Woodbury Lions.

Tickets are $4 for adults and $3 for children. If it rains, the children’s hayride will take place on Saturday, Oct. 26.

The following is a press release from the Woodbury Lions.

Guests climb onto a tractor-driven wagon and ride around some of the spooky fields and cemeteries in Woodbury, where, if you're lucky, you may see some of the ghosts, ghouls, zombies and other denizens of the dark that only come out this time of year. There will be a brief stop at the Three Rivers Insane Asylum, this year’s three-dimensional Haunted Barn display.

However, the question exists as to whether the barn has an extra haunt.

“We’ve been calling it the ‘haunted barn’ for years, but we finally realized that the space actually does have a ghost,” says Barn Chairman Kerry Simmons.

Workers have reported strange voices while they were working late at night and the occasional gust of wind when all the doors are closed.

“Some of our members refuse to work in the barn after dark,” Simmons said. “Nothing more than a couple of good scares have happened so far, but we don’t know what may occur in the future.”

The Connecticut Soul Seekers Paranormal Investigations group, based in Naugatuck, will be investigating the barn to see if there really are any supernatural events taking place, or if it’s entirely in the imagination of the workers.

“You can definitely feel the shift in energy in certain areas of the barn,” said Nichole Ortiz, one of the founders of the group. “I could only describe what I felt as a sensation of foreboding.”

If there are any spirits lingering about, Simmons hopes that they’re friendly.

“We have no problem sharing the space with ghosts, as long as they don’t hurt anyone,” he said.