Long Island is a region steeped in rich history and urban legends and few have explored its supernatural underbelly as thoroughly as the Long Island Paranormal Investigations. Founded in 2003,
LIPI began as a group of friends drawn together by a common curiosity about the eerie tales that populate the island. The group’s co-founder, Mike Cardinuto, shared the origins of LIPI during a recent interview.
“We started about 20 years ago; we were all just friends playing hockey and we started talking about the different urban legends of Long Island,” Cardinuto said. “I dared my friends to go into Kings Park Psych Center building 93, and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll do it.’ So they went in there, and towards the end, they heard a loud bang. The camera shut off, and they freaked out and ran out.”
That experience ignited Cardinuto’s fascination with the paranormal. He and his fellow investigators began to delve into the legends that abound across Long Island, acquiring equipment used in paranormal investigations to discern whether people’s experiences were genuine.
“Through our investigations, we started capturing evidence that we couldn’t explain, and we’ve been doing it ever since,” he explained. LIPI has conducted more than 1,000 investigations and filled out corresponding field reports, documenting their findings meticulously.
“We still investigate urban legends to this day, but as the years progressed, we started doing house investigations, library presentations and now public ghost-hunting events,” Cardinuto said. “We want to show people what being ‘in the field’ is really like—the differences between real life versus TV, per se.”
Currently, LIPI comprises 33 members with diverse backgrounds, including bankers, firefighters, nurses, hairstylists and models, among many other things. The group also includes members who consider themselves psychics or mediums. “We have three people in our group who are psychics,” Cardinuto explained. “They hate calling themselves psychics; it’s such a broad term.”
LIPI has experienced a range of investigations, with some encounters lingering in the members’ memories. Cardinuto recounted a memorable overnight investigation where the team faced a series of challenges before discovering a compelling site.
“We were trying to do an overnight and every location kept failing,” he said. Eventually, they arrived at Sagamore Hill, where their equipment unexpectedly began to register paranormal activity.
“All of a sudden, all of our equipment started to go off,” Cardinuto said. “We were like, ‘Holy crap!’ It was so wild and evident.” They later returned to the location with more equipment, but this time, nothing activated on their equipment, validating their previous experience.
As LIPI continues its work, the team also fields calls for house investigations. While demand has decreased since the pandemic, they remain committed to understanding the unexplained.
“Before COVID, we were doing two investigations a month,” Cardinuto said. “Now, we’re doing maybe three a year.”
Despite these challenges, Cardinuto remains passionate about the work LIPI does. He articulates a clear distinction between various types of paranormal activity, ranging from residual hauntings—often compared to a “tape player” on repeat—to intelligent hauntings that allow for interaction.
“We might ask, ‘Hey, can you set that device off?’ and bam, it goes off,” he explained.
Cardinuto’s experiences have also led him to explore the more ominous side of the supernatural. He recounted an investigation at Mount Misery Road, where the team encountered signs of a demonic presence.
“We were getting smells of sulfur and rotten eggs,” he noted. “One of our investigators saw something scurrying on the ground, and we all started to draw what we saw. I ran it through our demonology database, and it matched what they had drawn about 90 to 95 percent.”
With a commitment to exploration and education, LIPI remains dedicated to uncovering the truths behind Long Island’s myriad legends. Through their investigations and public events, LIPI continues to bridge the gap between urban legend and reality, seeking to understand the forces that shape the stories of their home.
Contact the Long Island Paranormal Investigators via Facebook or Instagram.
