‘I didn’t go looking for the paranormal’

WEST PITTSTON — Maxim W. Furek held the audience’s attention Thursday evening with his tales of researching life from beyond the grave, a mission Furek said pursued him, not the other way around.

“I didn’t go looking for the paranormal,” Furek said. “It found me.”

Furek spoke to more than 30 guests at the West Pittston Library about his latest book, “Coal Region Hoodoo: Paranormal Tales from Inside the Pit.”

The event was free and open to the public, packed with local paranormal enthusiasts eager to hear about some of the local legends, folklore, and famously haunted spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Following the presentation, Furek took questions from the audience and signed copies of the book.

“Coal Region Hoodoo,” published in March, explores supernatural happenings from around the region, including legends of Bigfoot and UFOs, as well as Roman Catholic mysticism and whispers of a curse put on the ghost town of Centralia. The book also discusses Hollywood horror films that have regional connections, like 1958’s “Night of the Living Dead” and 1968’s “The Blob,” both of which were filmed in Pennsylvania.

Furek, a Berwick native, was motivated to write the book he believed there wasn’t enough attention paid to the mythology of the coal region.

“You know, when you go and look at paranormal sections of libraries or bookstores, they’re all about Lancaster or they’re about Gettysburg and all the ghosts that are haunting the battleground, but not about the coal region,” said Furek.

Smurl Haunting discussed

Perhaps the most famous local paranormal event that Furek discusses is the Smurl Haunting. In 1974, Janet and Jack Smurl made claims that their house on Chase Street in West Pittston was haunted by demonic forces. Famous demonologists and paranormal researchers, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who also investigated the famous Amyitville haunting, were called in to try and help the family. The haunting garnered widespread media attention and was the subject of the 1986 book, “The Haunted,” which was turned into a film in 1991.

As a researcher, Furek was fascinated with the Smurl haunting and took numerous trips to the Chase Street Duplex, where he took pictures and interviewed several neighbors. In 1988, Furek had the opportunity to meet Ed and Lorraine Warren in person when they were in Jim Thorpe. Over the years, he kept in touch with them. Ed Warren died in 2006 and Lorraine Warren died in 2019.

Music reviews and Sheppton

Furek holds a master’s degree in Communications from Bloomsburg University and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Aquinas College. He started out as a rock journalist, writing music and concert reviews for the The Press Enterprise newspaper in Bloomsburg.

His research into the band The Buoys and their 1971 hit song “Timothy,” about the aftermath of a mine cave in and the implication two survivors cannibalized their companion, led him to the 1963 Sheppton mine disaster, in which three miners were entombed more than 300 feet underground in Sheppton, Schuylkill County. While two miners were eventually rescued, the third was never found.

Furek’s subsequent book, “Sheppton: The Myth, Miracle and Music,” published in 2015, explores the eerie parallels between the disaster and The Buoys’ song, as well as claims made by the rescued miners that they had seen supernatural and religion visions while trapped inside the mines.

That book, Furek said, opened the door of the paranormal to him and he’s interested in continuing to explore the supernatural in our area and beyond. His sixth book, “Flying Saucer, Esoteric, and the Altered States of Ufology,” will be available soon.

In keeping with the paranormal theme, West Pittston Library will be holding a Bigfoot investigation program sometime in October.