They felt it was time to debunk the stories and put the legend of Tug Hill Annie to rest.
But at the end of their project, it wasn't only the legend they felt was put to rest. The specter of Tug Hill Annie herself was finally allowed to rest, they believe, as her spirit was lifted from the area around Sears Pond Road, where she was killed June 14, 1954.
The Andaloras are not the sort of folks most people would associate with paranormal investigations. The two have master's degrees and work as special-education teachers - Mr. Andalora for the South Jefferson Central School District and Mrs. Andalora for the Board of Cooperative Educational Services in the Lowville Central School District.
"I never thought I'd do anything like this," Mrs. Andalora said late one afternoon a few weeks ago at their McDonald Road home.
The two became paranormal investigators and head researchers at the Lewis County-based Northern Paranormal Society in 2008 when founder Heather A. Sliter decided to leave the group.
"She asked if we were interested in taking over," Mr. Andalora said.
Since then, the Andaloras have tackled 15 cases. They volunteer their time, about 80 hours a month.
"It's the helping-people aspect we enjoy," Mr. Andalora said. "Almost always, after an investigation, people feel relieved."
"If we find something, a lot of reaction is, 'Oh, that's good, you saw it too. We're not crazy,'" Mrs. Andalora said.
But the Andaloras say they don't approach their work with hopes of finding something paranormal. They take a skeptical approach. If noises turn out to have plumbing or electrical causes, they share those findings. If an apparition appears in a photo, Mr. Andalora will attempt to re-create the effect to find a logical explanation.
They expected to find nothing when the took on the Tug Hill Annie project.
"It just goes to show you," Mrs. Andalora said, "never prejudge what you think you're going to find."
A FATEFUL TRIP
Anna J. Machowski Tebidor was killed June 14, 1954, when a 1949 Studebaker truck she was driving flipped on Sears Pond Road in Montague, just east of the intersection with Liberty Road. Mrs. Tebidor was decapitated. A Times report said she and a passenger, her neighbor, were coming back from Barnes Corners, where they had purchased wine.
Shortly after the crash, stories began of a female ghost wandering the crash area.
"By 1960, Anna was already being referred to as Tug Hill Annie," Mr. Andalora said. "Over the years, the stories got wilder."
Mr. Andalora said stories of the Tebidor crash and legend became mistakenly commingled over the years with other road fatalities that happened along the Route 177 corridor.
Mr. Andalora said the paranormal society decided to get involved in the Tug Hill Annie case in the fall of 2008 to discover the truth about the legend and to give some closure to Anna's family members.
"I wouldn't want my mother or grandmother to be this legendary ghost by the side of the road," Mr. Andalora said. "I decided to do something about it and put it to rest for the family."
He added, "A lot of our investigations are based on debunking things. Our initial belief was to go there and find nothing."
SOUNDS AND LIGHTS
Mr. and Mrs. Andalora and two other Northern Paranormal Society investigators - Thomas Hineline of Chaumont and Sherry Kloster of Croghan - arrived at 9 p.m. June 14 at the crash site. An audio recorder was set up on a boulder about 25 feet from the curve at the site. Another recorder was carried by an investigator. They also took photos with a digital camera.
"The team had quite a few odd occurrences," Mr. Andalora said.
They reported seeing lights in the fields and trees.
Mr. Andalora has a picture taken that night of a light in a field.
"If it was a lighting bug, it had to be as big as a peach," Mr. Andalora said. "We had no idea what that was. That's typical of the lights we saw. It was almost like someone was carrying a lantern."
One investigator reported hearing someone walking along the road on the gravel, even though no other investigator was there.
More surprises were in store when digital photographs of the investigation were uploaded. There were unusual mist shapes. In one, a shape appears near Mr. Andalora. The investigators ruled out ground mist. Mr. and Mrs. Andalora say that in two of the pictures they can make out features that resemble Anna's facial features in the mist.
When the investigators studied the audio recordings, they heard a female voice. Mr. Andalora said someone was saying his wife's name. In another, they could make out someone saying, "Anna - wake up."
"People are going to say what they want, but we know what we saw and heard," Mr. Andalora said.
The results of the investigation troubled the Andaloras, who believed their findings would prolong the family's distress. Throughout the project, they worked with family contact Pamela Greenfield of Lowville. Mrs. Greenfield is not a direct relation to Anna J. Tebidor; she is the daughter of Anna's husband, Alfred, and his second wife. But she gave updates to Anna's four sons and daughters, who live outside of Northern New York.
"It felt like we were giving her a 50-pound knapsack," Mr. Andalora said.
'CROSSING OVER'
In July, the Andaloras, through another project, met a medium, Danyelle Barrett of Amsterdam, who helped them to decide what to do next. They held a candlelight sunrise "crossing over" ceremony Sept. 20 with some members of the Tebidor family. It was designed to lift the spirit of Anna from the crash site.
Ms. Barrett, who said she has done eight such "releases," felt a presence at the site.
"Every living thing is made up of energy," she said. "So just as a person might know that someone was standing next to him or her in a crowd, I was able to feel Anna's energy in front of me."
But the Andaloras wanted to make sure the ceremony worked. They decided to do a second investigation. "We couldn't leave it there," Mrs. Andalora said.
That investigation was held Oct. 3. "The contrast between the two investigations was amazing," Mr. Andalora said. "Our opinion is that it worked. She went over to the other side."
The Andaloras feel relieved.
"No one is an expert on this," Mrs. Andalora said. "But what if Annie was there for 55 years and couldn't wake up? And here we come along, the first people in 55 years, who try to communicate with her."
She said there may be a deeper meaning to the case.
"People have all different religious values and beliefs," she said. "But I feel all people deserve heaven."
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