Ever climbed the 182 steps to the top of the Fire Island Lighthouse?

Did you hear moaning? Unexplained footsteps?

If so, you might have encountered the ghost of Nathaniel Smith.

In the mid-1800s, Smith is the lighthouse keeper as it is undergoing a major construction project. He lives nearby with his wife and daughter.

Winter hits and Smith’s daughter falls ill from the Long Island cold.

There’s no bridge to Fire Island at the time, and the lighthouse is still under construction. So it takes doctors three days to reach the island.

By then, it is too late. Smith’s daughter dies.

Some say the pain drove Smith and his wife apart and that he died years later, alone and heartbroken, at his quarters near the lighthouse.

Legend has it that the unexplained sound of footsteps are Smith racing to the top of the lighthouse as one more attempt at getting help for his daughter.

And the moans heard at the top of the lighthouse could be yells for the doctors to hurry – or the pain of a father who has just lost his daughter.

There have even been some reports of people seeing a man at the very top of the lighthouse – holding vigil, even 150 years later, that help would arrive for his little girl.

But that help would not arrive in time.

So the next time you’re on Fire Island, take a moment to think about Smith, whose contributions made the lighthouse the marvel it is today – but who also paid a great personal price for his efforts.

Katie’s Bar in Smithtown has long been a place to hang. And if you start seeing things, you should know – it might just not be that you’ve had a few too many.

In the 1920s, a bartender named Charlie Klein works at the Smithtown Hotel, just across the railroad tracks from where Katie’s stands today.

Charlie’s life hits a rough patch; his wife passes away, and he soon gets into legal trouble for serving alcohol during Prohibition.

Charlie takes his own life.

Not long after, patrons at Katie’s begin seeing a man in a 1920s-style topcoat and hat walking through the bar.

It’s believed to be the ghost of Charlie Klein.

And despite reports of flying wine glasses, unexplained footsteps and people getting sudden chills, there’s one crucial thing you should know about this apparition.

Not long after current owner Brian Karppinen bought Katie’s, he was trying to close an emergency door at the top of the stairs, when he says the handle suddenly broke.

He fell backwards. “But then I felt something push me on my back forward, to keep me from falling” down the steps.

He believes he was actually saved by Charlie … yes, despite his tortured past, Charlie is considered a “guardian angel” and friendly presence, says George Arns, who owns the house where Charlie killed himself.

Karppinen says there seems to be an array of ever-shifting spirits, and video posted on YouTube shows things such as an orb zipping around the bar and a soda gun floating on its own.

So the next time you’re at Katie’s in Smithtown, check out the basement bar, which is believed to be the most haunted area.

And if you see a man in a derby hat disappear into a wall. Well, now you know the back story!

Many ghost stories are about death. Some are about unfulfilled romance.

But Raynham Hall in Oyster Bay can lay claim to both – so say visitors who report seeing a young woman and a British soldier within its walls.

It’s the winter of 1778 — the height of the Revolutionary War — and 17-year-old Sally Townsend and her family are at home when a British commander, Lt. Col. John Simcoe, 27, arrives to the white saltbox house.

He tells the family he’s moving in and establishing a British base there; the Townsends have no choice but to comply.

Sally takes a liking to Simcoe. She bakes him doughnuts and he writes her what some historians believe is America’s first valentine. Their romance blooms in the coming months.

One day, Sally sees a mystery man sneaking into the house and leaving a note in a kitchen cupboard. Not long after, a friend of Simcoe’s — Maj. John Andre, who frequently visited the house — sneaks in and reads it.

He does not know Sally has seen him.

What he also doesn’t know was that before he had gotten there, Sally had snuck into the kitchen and read the note herself. Later in the day, she tells her brother – one of George Washington’s most trusted spies – what she has read and seen.

Maj. Andre is soon captured and executed. Simcoe, pictured here, feels betrayed and soon leaves Oyster Bay, never to return.

Sally never marries. She dies alone at Raynham Hall at the age of 82, a valentine from Simcoe still among her most prized possessions.

To this day, visitors say her second-floor bedroom is the coldest spot at the house. “It makes you feel anxious, as if it’s a weight on your chest,” said one.

Noises have been known to come from the room late at night, including screams of “no!”

Visitors have also felt a coldness in the Colonial Room, the room downstairs where Sally hid as she watched the men in the kitchen that day. And a gardener has reported seeing a vision of Sally in a black dress walking the grounds.

Other visions have been known to haunt the property as well, especially a hairy 20-something man in a dark coat with brass buttons on it. Sometimes he rides a white horse.

Visitors report doors swinging open, papers rattling, and the sounds of foot steps.

Many say it’s Maj. Andre (pictured), executed for what happened at that house. In recent years, one psychic walked into the bedroom Andre used and said, “Somebody’s dead in there.”

So what was on that note that Sally read?

The note allegedly revealed that Andre had been plotting with Benedict Arnold to bring about the surrender of West Point, in a development that could have changed the course of the entire Revolutionary War.

But a teenager making doughnuts at her home in Oyster Bay had foiled the plot and changed the course of American history – before dying alone and heartbroken for her troubles.

These days, Raynham Hall still operates as a museum and is more focused on their history than any alleged ghosts …

…but every year, they still hold a Ghost Parade to honor that part of their history. This year, amid the coronavirus, they instead have five 12-foot ghost puppets up and about.

Be afraid!