Grimacing Faces and Moving Knives at a Hudson Valley Brewery

What happened

In February 2024, Newburgh Brewing owner Paul Halayko installed a motion-activated camera in the kitchen. Over two years later, he shared what it recorded with News 12 Hudson Valley. The report, by Blaise Gomez, aired on 16 October 2026, and the NY Post relayed it on 18 October.

Halayko pointed to a white shape: “Kind of like a grimaced mouth right here. Very creepy with the teeth, definitely see two eyes.” He described two overnight recordings about 47 minutes apart that show flashes of light. In side-by-side stills, pots, a garbage pail, a tray and knives appear to move or disappear. News 12 noted that “the recordings do not show those items moving.”

The footage

The footage is from the brewery’s own motion-activated kitchen camera and dates to February 2024. Halayko posted it online before going to the press. News 12 reporter Blaise Gomez shared a clip on X (@blaisegomez12) on 16 October 2026, at 15:54 UTC by the post ID. The sources give no length or timestamps. What exists publicly is a sequence of stills and short clips, not a continuous recording. Watch it at News 12 or the NY Post (links below).

Timeline

• 1850s: The building is constructed. It later housed a steam engine operation, a yarn factory and the Newburgh Paper Box Company (News 12).
• 18 January 1867: A boiler explodes at Washington Iron Works, which is associated with the property. One worker is killed and several are injured (New York Times, 20 Jan 1867, via News 12).
• 1970s: A fire, in which “nobody passed away,” according to co-owner Chris Basso.
• February 2024: The kitchen camera records the shape and the flashes.
• 16 October 2026: News 12’s first report.
• 18 October 2026: The NY Post relays it.
• 19 October 2026: News 12 reports the 1867 explosion.

What witnesses reported

Halayko said of the knives: “We’ve got two knives right there in the middle on the knife rack. Now let’s go to the next photo — they are gone.” He said an employee, not named here, has seen “a man in overalls” several times downstairs and described the encounters as positive. Halayko added: “I’d be crazy to say it’s not possible, because there are many things in this world that we don’t understand.”

Basso said of the camera: “We use that camera all the time and it catches people reliably, so I can’t explain how it would miss a person that badly.” On the 1867 find: “That was news to us.”

What the research found

The 1867 explosion. Per News 12, LaBruna found a New York Times article from 20 January 1867. It said a large boiler “blew apart, tearing through a brick wall and sending debris across Washington Street.” A Poughkeepsie Eagle account described the dead worker as “gasping in death” when he was pulled out. Newburgh Free Library local history librarian Matthew Thorenz found a Buffalo Daily Republic account that five others were injured and that the coroner’s jury censured the owners over a defective boiler. The worker’s name and family appear in the coverage but are left out here.