WILTON — Every Halloween ghost hunters come looking for a thrill at Vale End Cemetery, having heard of eerie myths and terrifying hauntings at the town’s best-known burial place.

But nearly all leave disappointed — criminal trespass warning in hand.

Police Chief Brent Hautanen said it isn’t just the month of October that officers find people trespassing at the cemetery, which is closed between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. It is a problem year round.

The problem is so bad, especially during summer and fall nights, police issue trespassing warnings to groups of people found there after hours an average of four to five times a week.

“It’s hard to even estimate how many people we kick out of there,” Hautanen said. “I can tell you, there are probably hundreds of people a year we deal with. It’s a significant problem for us.”

The police department’s policy is to warn each person found at the cemetery after hours and instruct them to leave. If a person is found there again, he or she will be arrested for criminal trespassing, Hautanen said.

“A month and a half ago, we arrested somebody who was with a group of people looking for ghosts. He was the only repeat offender in the group and that’s why he was arrested,” he said.

Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor on first offense, but is upgraded to a class B felony for any subsequent offense.

All the traffic at the cemetery has led to many other problems there, including vandalism, littering, underage drinking and other criminal activity, Hautanen said. As recently as a year and a half ago, a person who wanted to visit the cemetery after hours could ask the Cemetery Trustees, and the Select Board for a special exemption.

Susan Allen, the lead investigator for a group she formed called Souhegan Paranormal Investigators, said she was granted permission to visit the cemetery after hours in October of 2007. She said she’s heard the stories, particularly the ones about the most famous ghost that allegedly haunts the grounds — Mary Ritter Spaulding, known among ghost hunters as “The Blue Lady.”

However, even Allen didn’t notice much activity when she and her team visited the sight.

“We did an investigation, but we didn’t find much of anything. Nothing concrete,” Allen said.

Allen said she has been interested in returning to the cemetery, but when she sought permission to visit after hours a second time, she was told the Select Board no longer granted special exemptions.

Cemetery Trustee chairperson Doreece Miller said that policy was changed recently, due to ongoing problems with vandalism at the cemetery.

“Probably the people asking are not the ones who are doing damage. To allow no one there makes it very clear that when someone is there, the police take notice. We don’t want anybody there after hours.”

Miller said she also worries that stories propagated by ghost hunters visiting with permission could draw more unwanted traffic.

There is certainly no shortage of ghoulish tales about Vale End Cemetery, including a story that has a significant following online from a ghost hunter named Fiona Broome about demons that haunt the grounds. The increasing popularity of the cemetery as a ghost hunting location has probably been fueled almost entirely by these personal accounts posted on the Internet, Hautanen said.

“The people we’re seeing are juveniles who don’t live in this area. I’ve even seen a woman on YouTube.com who claims she’s gone in there and heard voices. That spurs that interest and curiosity even more,” Hautanen said. “My perspective is, people have to remember, there are families in town who have relatives buried there and they need to respect their privacy and allow them to rest in peace.”

Despite all the stories, the people who visit Vale End Cemetery the most — Wilton police officers dishing out trespass warnings — have never reported seeing a ghost.

“My officers are in that cemetery multiple times a night, especially around this time of year, and we’ve never seen anything that could be considered paranormal,” Hautanen said.