I have a love/hate relationship with haunted houses.

It always seems like a good idea to check one out, but about halfway through, I seriously regret entering in the first place and try get through the rest of it as quickly as possible so the terror can end.

So when I found out that the owners of Terror at Skellington Manor claimed the building is actually haunted, I made a promise to myself that if I saw anything otherworldly that I would never preview another haunted house again. And I don't believe in ghosts.

Mike Kennedy, an electrician by trade who sets up all the animatronic props in the haunted house, gave me a tour before it opened to a sneak peek Saturday night. There were no actors or scary music during the tour, but I still had to warn our online editor to keep his ears peeled when he edited my video for a few four-letter words that escaped my lips every time something spooked me.

But I manned up and even interviewed Kennedy at the spot where he says he saw an apparition of a woman walking across the top of the staircase while he was alone in the building one night.

When I returned to the office to review my video, I was particularly interested to see whether the part about an animatronic character called Wapsi Willie turned out because the light on my camera was dying when I shot it. The video didn't turn out, but there was a man's voice yelling something in the background, and there were three orbs visible in the dark background as well.

The problem is that I was 99.9 percent sure the room was silent while I was shooting the video. I watched it again, and the images I took just before and after the Wapsi Willie shot of an organ and a bigfoot are silent. Then I called Penni Steen, Terror at Skellington Manor's co-owner, to ask whether there is any vocalization when the animatronic Wapsi Willie jumps out from behind a grave. She said there is a creepy laugh, but no words are spoken.

To make sure I wasn't losing my mind, I played the video for Entertainment Editor David Burke and asked whether he could make out what was being said in the video. He said it sounded like someone was saying something about memories. Only then did I inform him that the room was silent when I shot the video.

Brenda Bonay, the lead investigator for Mercer County Paranormal Investigators, calls the voice on the video an electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP, and said she has picked up some of her own while investigating claims of the supernatural at Skellington Manor. EVP are sounds that can't be heard with the ear but are picked up by recording devices and can be heard when played back later. Bonay said she has picked up EVPs of men's and women's voices at Skellington Manor and could, in one case, make out the phrase "Who's there?"

Do I believe that the voice I heard was a ghost haunting Skellington Manor? I don't know. I'll leave it up to you to decide. You can see the video and hear the voice for yourself at www.qctimes.tv.