Paine House Museum

Most of the Paine House's paranormal reputation traces to investigations by RISEUP (the Rhode Island Society for the Examination of Unusual Phenomena), led by Ken DeCosta. Team members Cody DesBiens and Satori Hawes have described sessions using EVP recorders and a knock-response system, in which they say a presence answered questions and, in one recording, replied "Finally, you can hear me."

The group's account attributes the activity to Sarah Whipple, daughter of a former Rhode Island lieutenant governor, along with her husband William and two daughters, Clara and Louise. DeCosta has said the family's deaths -- Sarah's, followed two weeks later by four-year-old Clara's, suggesting a shared illness -- are documented in historical records, and that the investigation's findings track those records.

A separate visitor who wrote about the house in 2016 reported furniture movement and EVP activity concentrated on the second floor, and noted an earlier recording, attributed to a different investigating group, of a voice identifying itself as a girl named Sarah -- though the writer, describing themselves as a skeptic, allowed that the recording could have been an investigator's own voice rather than a genuine EVP. As with any EVP-based claim, the recordings aren't independently verifiable; what's documented is that separate investigators, working independently, have converged on the same reported figure.