Not knowing where a child is can be frightening. Not knowing "if" there's a child around is downright creepy.

Ask members of Forward Township Volunteer Fire Company and Jefferson Hills Area Ambulance Association. Some of them think the fire station on Roberts Hollow Road is haunted by the spirit of a child who communicates through the building's radio system. They call the strange noise "The Kid."

Some also talk of a second spirit, an adult that they have nicknamed, for no particular reason, "Char-Man." This spirit, they say, walks through the station, opening and closing doors.

"The Kid, sounds about eight years old," said Fire Chief Steve Pierce, 30, of Forward. "He comes on [the radio] at night, laughing and making weird, funny noises like a kid does. You know, he meows and stuff like that."

It happens at random times, and since the company is made up of volunteers, no one is at the station every day to hear exactly how often it happens, Mr. Pierce said.

Unlike the younger spirit, Char-Man doesn't speak. He just walks around opening and shutting doors, witnesses say.

"We'd see doors just swing out. Hear footsteps, too. It sounds like someone would come in the main door and open up the side door. You'd come walking out of the crew room, say 'Hello?' and no one would answer. You'd look out in the parking lot, nobody's there. Then you'd come back, sit down, and it would happen again," Mr. Pierce said.

All of the station's outer doors lock from the inside, he pointed out.

No one knows for certain who the spirits might be, if indeed they are spirits, Mr. Pierce said. One story handed down from older company members claims that a child was murdered near the site before the station was built.

"Maybe it's the closest place to where he died and he just made it his home. He seems friendly. He's not hurting anyone. He's more than welcome to stay. He's a part of that fire department," Mr. Pierce said.

Another local legend has it that a man died in a house fire in the 1960s and his body was left in back of an ambulance at the station over an entire weekend because the coroner's office was busy.

Neither story is backed up with official police reports.

Just in time for the Halloween season, last Friday Peace of Mind Paranormal Society, conducted a paranormal investigation at request of the chief, who also works part-time as an emergency medical technician for the ambulance association.

The request came after a conversations that EMT Bill Milliron had with his landlord, Don Wagner, who is founder of POMPS.

"We want the investigation to confirm [whether or not] something is there,'' Mr. Pierce said.

Ambulance staffers have witnessed the activity because the association had a sub-base at the fire station until early this summer. Staff would hang out there overnight, waiting for calls.

Still, Mr. Pierce said he's the only person ''The Kid'' has ever "spoken'' to.

He recalled that in late 2006 he was on standby for an ambulance call and was about to sit down on the arm of a chair.

"All of sudden this little kid's voice comes across the radio and says, "Don't you be sittin' there!' The hair on my arms and the back of my neck just stood straight up and I turned white," Mr. Pierce said. "I jumped up, grabbed the radio, and left as fast as I could to go outside," he said.

He said the voice came out of the station's two-way radio speaker on a frequency shared by fire company and ambulance personnel, and Allegheny County 911 dispatchers. He called the 911 center in Point Breeze to ask if they heard the voice; they told him they did not.

Paramedic Howard McBride, of Jefferson Hills, heard "The Kid's'' laughs and giggles two years ago.

"The voice only came out of the building's loud speaker, not any of the portables on the same frequency. We had radios on our hips and were trying to see if we could hear it on them. We couldn't," he said.

While former fire chief Stacy Joll, of Forward, doesn't recall any such activity, Mr. Pierce claims that at least a dozen people have heard or seen the activity.

"I'd be the last person to leave and first to arrive there, and things would be moved or missing in the crew room, things like keys and magazines," said Mr. Milliron, 23, of Finleyville.

He also said that chains holding up the snow plow on a four-wheel drive there have rattled by themselves.

Last Friday's three-hour POMPS investigation started with "lights out" at 9:45 p.m. after building-wide equipment set-up by Mr. Wagner and team members Brent Chaikcic, of Franklin Township, Fayette County; Erik Spinneweber, of Mt. Pleasant, Westmoreland County, and T.J. Meanor, of Bulger, Washington County.

Equipment included items like digital video cameras; meters to measure fluctuations in electromagnetic fields, or EMFs; and digital audio recorders to capture electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs, which are sounds and voices that can only be heard upon playback.

Trying to get "Char-Man" and "The Kid'' to make themselves known, team members talked to the air. They would say, for example: "Are you here? Show yourself. Make something move. ... Don't be afraid. We're not here to hurt you."

But nothing happened all night, even after Mr. Wagner tried provoking a reaction from Char-Man by swearing at him, calling him "useless" and demeaning his character.

"A lot of times nothing will happen during an investigation. But when we review the evidence, we'll find a lot of EVPs and images. We'll see what happens," Mr. Wagner said.

That study is still under way.

Mr. Wagner said he is also esearching the as-yet unsubstantiated reports of a child murder and fatal fire.