Second in an ongoing series about purported haunted locations in the Star's territory.

The story goes as follows: Nun becomes pregnant by priest. In light of the sin that has been committed, said nun opts to take her own life, deciding suicide was preferable to the shame she would most likely face should the dirty secret surface.

In the years since the sister supposedly hanged herself, people have reported seeing ghostly sightings, or witnessing strange occurrences at Ravenhill Mansion, the site at which the suicide allegedly took place.

The mansion, which sits on the property of Philadelphia University, was built in 1802. Throughout the years, it has served as a private residence, home for a religious order and a girls' private school.

Today, it functions as an administrative building for the university. Despite the changes in use, one thing that has remained constant is the supernatural lore surrounding the building.

Tales of the paranormal at Ravenhill date back to the time when the building was occupied by the Religious of the Assumption, an order of nuns that called the structure home from 1919 to 1982. After the sisters left, Philadelphia University, then called Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, purchased the property.

Ravenhill Academy, a private Catholic school for girls, operated out of the mansion during the time the religious order occupied the building.

Details of the nun's supposed suicide are sketchy, but it is said that ever since that alleged tragedy, people have reported strange happenings at the mansion.

According to local legend, the story goes that the nun committed suicide by hanging herself on the mansion's upper floor.

The attic is supposedly locked up, but some have reported witnessing strange occurrences in this area, including seeing lights in the closed-off room. Some have even seen the figure of the nun herself.

Frank Machos doesn't need any convincing. The East Falls resident, now 29, was 19 or 20 when he last visited the mansion. At the time, Machos was dating a girl who attended the university, and accompanied her to a seminar on the supernatural delivered by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren of Amityville Horror fame.

While attending the event, Machos and some friends noticed a rather quiet man standing off to the side. That man was John Zaffis Jr., nephew of the Warrens, who today heads up the Paranormal Research Society of New England.

Machos recalled that a student approached Zaffis after the seminar to tell him about Ravenhill. There was a place right here on campus with supposed supernatural activity, Machos recalled the student telling Zaffis and then asking: Why not do some investigating?

Well, that's just what Zaffis did. He gathered a small group, including Machos, a buddy, two students and a security guard.

Machos recalled that Zaffis took things quite seriously.

"Look, this isn't a game, a joke," Machos recalled Zaffis telling the group.

Those who agreed to press on understood the seriousness of the matter; Machos wasn't so sure, being a skeptic, but he decided to go forward.

The group first visited the building's attic.

"It was pretty much just an empty storage room," Machos recalled.

The small group sat in a tight circle, and Zaffis hit the lights.

"(Zaffis) called out to whatever was there, trying to get this thing to show itself or make itself known," Machos recalled.

Nothing too exciting happened, so the group descended downstairs. One thing Machos does remember, however, was the red LED light on the digital voice recorder used by Zaffis as he called out questions into the darkness. The light would blink steadily if all was quiet, Machos said, but would remain solid if someone spoke.

Downstairs, the group investigated a room with a large wall mirror. Machos said Zaffis mentioned how spirits sometimes present themselves in mirrors. At this point, some people claimed to have seen things, but not Machos.

"I was forever the skeptic," he said. "Wrote it off as a car driving by. There was nothing I was seeing at this point that had me believing there was anything in this building."

But that would soon change. After taking a break for some fresh air, the group went back inside, and once again formed a circle in the final room. One person claimed to have felt a breeze, "but I continued to write it off," Machos said, blaming an open window or something other logical explanation.

Then something happened. Zaffis once again got out his recorder, and started asking questions. He asked if someone was in the room with them, and if so, if that entity had a name. Was it true that there was a nun here who had taken her life because she had become pregnant, and if she had been shamed by what happened?

Machos remembered the LED light. It was supposed to flicker when all was still, and remain solid when voices were heard. Well, nobody was speaking, and the light was solid. When the tape was played back, Machos said the group heard unexplained sounds.

"When you played the tape back, there was a sound on the tape replying directly after the question was asked," Machos recalled.

The name was hard to make out, maybe "Kathy," or "Kathleen," but something was definitely responding to Zaffis' inquiries. Machos had no earthly explanation for what happened.

"I had never heard that before in my life, and now I get the chills after I see any show where they show you that," Machos said, referring to TV shows on the paranormal, which have experienced a surge in popularity.

Zaffis' little excursion that night a decade ago was so popular that it became a regular thing. According to Tim Butler, director of students activities at Philadelphia University, Zaffis has conducted a handful of tours of the mansion in the years since that initial visit. Butler also has arranged for other paranormal investigators to visit the supposed haunted campus, events that are usually timed with Halloween. (Zaffis will conduct an investigation at Ravenhill on Friday, Oct. 16. Numerous attempts to contact him by phone and e-mail were unsuccessful).

"It's always a lot of fun," Butler said of the ghost hunts at Philly U. "Of course it's real sensational and everything like that, but it's always been pretty cool."

Like Machos, Butler admitted to hearing strange sounds picked up on a voice recorder after an event one year. But asked if it made a believer out of him, Butler hesitates.

"I'm kind of on the fence," he said. "I think there's a lot of stuff that's hard to explain."

So, the question remains, is Philadelphia University, particularly Ravenhill Mansion, haunted?

"No comment," Butler said with a laugh.

Machos, however, doesn't hesitate when answering the same question.

"To this day, I cannot drive by and not think about what's going on in that building," he said.

Reporter Jon Campisi can be reached at 215-354-3038 or jcampisi@phillynews.com