WINDBER -- If you were driving through Windber in Somerset County Saturday afternoon, you may have noticed dozens of people draped in white sheets near the side of the road.
That's because more than 200 people attempted to break a Guinness world record for the largest gathering of people dressed as ghosts.
The record was first by Sony Pictures in Singapore in June 2016 when 263 people were dressed as ghosts as a part of a red-carpet event for the movie Ghostbusters.
Unofficially, that record has now been broken right here in Pennsylvania.
At the Grand Midway Hotel, everyone is in the Halloween spirit, draped in white sheets, trying to break a world record.
"We heard about it this morning. some of us yesterday, and we all just decided to go buy a sheet and come down here and just try to break a record,” said one Windber High School student.
Blair Murphy owns the Midway Hotel and organized the event.
"I wanted to do something that involved the town,” Murphy said. “And my building does a lot of events, but they're kind of weird and I thought this would be kind of cool. The town can get involved. And it's a win-win for everybody. It didn't cost anybody anything."
Many people were there from the beginning, but organizers needed more people to break the magic number of 263.
"We need more ghosts," dozens of people chanted.
"We were just grabbing people out of the bars, demanding they come, the funeral home, at the restaurant,” Murphy said. “People were texting people last minute. It was kind of exciting, kind of fun, last couple of minutes."
One of the late additions was Tonna Gillin who joined in on the fun.
"I drove past and it didn't look like there was enough people, so I brought my daughter and my two sons with me,” Gillin said. “And here's the town of Windber being very cooperative and trying to do this."
Everyone got a wristband on the way in to help count. Lucas Oleksa was the tiebreaker.
"We had a basketball game and then we tried to sneak it in real fast, and then I came in as the breaker," Oleksa said.
Organizers said in total, there were 281 ghosts that broke the record.
Once Guinness World Records approves the event, everyone involved will get a certificate of participation from Guinness.
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