Brian remembers his mother and father exchanging a long glance, but he didn’t grasp the full significance at age five. Later on, when he was a little older, Brian remembered his grandpa’s drawings and realized what had happened—his grandpa had come back to him. Brian believed it was his grandpa’s way of saying Merry Christmas.
For the next several years that Brian played with the chalkboard, he maintained a routine. He would draw upon it, then wipe away his artwork with the small eraser that came with the set. But he noticed he could never completely wipe away his grandpa’s stick figure—there was always a shadow of it left on the chalkboard. Even though nothing else Brian drew left a mark when it was erased, the shadow of the stick figure always remained, as if it were somehow burned upon the chalkboard’s surface. This one incident caused Brian to believe in the unseen, and as he grew older, he began to check out library books about ghosts.
Four years later when he was nine, Brian stayed at his other grandparents’ house, and since they lived between two cemeteries, he remembers wondering if ghosts could walk through his grandparents’ home from one cemetery to get to the cemetery on the other side to see their friends. Brian had a little tape recorder, and he tried to capture noises or voices of ghosts talking—an early precursor to EVPs (electronic voice phenomena)—but he never recorded any spirits walking through his grandparents’ house. I can’t even imagine what might’ve happened if he had!
Life intruded after that, so years went by before Brian decided to hunt for ghosts again. He saw a TV show that used a tape recorder to pick up EVPs and suddenly realized he’d been doing the same thing at age nine! So Brian asked his wife if she minded if he bought a recorder, and after she got over the shock of him explaining he wanted to record dead people, Brian jumped right in and hasn’t stopped since.
Brian’s family members became involved in his efforts early on, and several of them had already had their own ghostly experiences. Brian’s brother-in-law was very familiar with a haunting in the first house built in Upshur County, West Virginia, the Daniel Farnsworth log home, built in 1818.
When the Civil War came, the owners of the home decided that rather than get shot up by soldiers on both sides of the conflict, they’d turn the house into a bed-and-breakfast type of establishment, serving food to officers and allowing them to stay there. This took place mostly while the troops were going to and from the front lines. The officers would sleep in the upstairs of the home and the troops would camp out on and around the grounds. Many times, the wounded, the dying, and even the dead, were carried to the home directly from the battlefield.
When Brian’s brother-in-law was young, his aunt owned the house. As a teen, he would stay often at his aunt’s house, and sometimes when he came down in the morning to make himself breakfast, all the cabinets would be open. He would close them and go to work, but when he got home, they’d all be open again. Sometimes the drawers were open too. This happened regularly. Years later as an adult, he and his wife lived in the house again. One time his wife was shocked to see a scene materialize before her in one of the rooms—Abraham Lincoln playing checkers with a general. It was as clear and present as anything else in the room, then suddenly it was gone. Brian’s sister-in-law felt very silly even mentioning this to anyone, but it was too incredible not to tell.
Who knows whether this was possible, but Old Abe did travel around to meet his generals—and he also played checkers. It’s just possible, though unable to be confirmed, that Abe might have come there while traveling to meet with his command.
The aunt eventually rented out the old home but could not keep renters because of the hauntings. Tenants would sign a year’s lease and then be gone in six months. Finally his aunt decided to make it a six-month lease instead, but still couldn’t keep renters beyond that. Finally, the house sat empty for a long time, and Brian’s group, MGHS, was invited to investigate.
Brian had tried to rig up his laptop as a way to listen to EVPs in real time to better communicate with whatever resided there, but after trying it for about twenty seconds, he realized it wasn’t working. He then shut off the recorder. When MGHS later played back those twenty seconds, Brian had asked, “What is your name?” And a man’s voice answers, “Daniel,” which is great evidence, considering the man who built the home was named Daniel.
Later, while they were all downstairs, they heard boots walking across the floor upstairs. Then they heard the low tones of conversation. When the group members followed, the footsteps moved to the second floor, always walking away from Brian as he neared. He literally followed the footsteps all over the house.
Brian hadn’t had time to do a full spirit profile on the old house before they were invited to investigate it. This is what most ghost hunters do, and it includes land and record searches to find who built and lived at a house. When Brian found out that Daniel Farnsworth was the builder, he realized his twenty-second EVP had probably caught the voice of the original owner. But the jury is still out on the vision of Abraham Lincoln!
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16
Bumps in the Night
Pandora’s home was a historic one built in the last century on a very old trail called the Carolina Road, which had been traveled by everyone since the area was first settled in the 1700s. In fact, the trail was used long before that by traders and Native Americans. Pandora’s house was once a place where people could stop and stay, or even purchase a few goods before continuing on their way. Eventually, it was turned into a private home, and Pandora and her husband have lived there for almost a decade. Many historic homes surrounded Pandora’s house as well. The neighborhood buildings run the gamut from schools to plantations. The one thing they have in common is that all of them are old.
The phone rang one day, and it was my artist friend Pandora, calling from her home in a Southern state six hours away.
I had just spoken to her a few days before, as she told me her ghost stories and wondered if she’d forgotten something.
“Oh my God. I’m shaking! My sewing machine just started running without me!”
I didn’t understand what she meant, and Pandora explained.
She’d come into her workroom and had sat down not two feet away, when the machine began sewing by itself. Pandora knew the machine could only run by the foot pedal, so there was no way this could be happening. It really freaked her out, and she thought maybe one of her cats had snuck in and stepped on the pedal. But when she checked, there were no cats in the room with her.
We talked for a little while, and I thanked her for telling me about it. She’d told me many stories of the unseen residents of her home when we’d talked earlier that week, and I knew it was just another normal day in her haunted house. She still loved her home and had grown as used to the spirits as she could. The ghosts continued to present themselves in different ways, so there was never a dull moment. The phenomena hadn’t really lessened over the years either.
About the third week after Pandora and her husband had moved into their home a decade earlier, Pan began to hear singing between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 a.m., and it usually woke her up. It was very soft, but obviously a woman. It sounded like a lilting, almost Gaelic song to Pandora. And as soon as she heard the singing each time, the house would go cold.
One day, not long after this started, a man stopped by who knew the area well and was related to most of the town’s founders. Pandora decided to bring up the singing and was surprised to be told she’d heard the voice of Mary.
“Mary? Are you telling me this place is haunted?” Pandora asked apprehensively.
“No worse than any of these other buildings on this section of land. It’s the land itself that’s haunted,” said the old man, chuckling a bit. Then he proceeded to tell Pandora about her ghost.
Mary was a medicine woman who used to travel around with her herbs and potions, riding on the back of a white mule. She was found dead one da
y near what is now Pandora’s property, and she just sort of stayed around. The man told Pan she was very lucky to hear her, though, as not very many people did. He was of the opinion that this meant Mary really liked Pandora.
“Oh, goodie for me,” Pan told him sarcastically. “Maybe I can get a discount or something for buying a haunted house!”
A few weeks after that, Pandora’s son-in-law was fetching something in her bedroom, where Pan kept a small wooden box with a lid on her dresser. Her son-in-law came out white-faced a few moments afterward.
He’d just watched the lid come off the box and move across the dresser!
Soon after, both Pan’s son-in-law and daughter felt the room they were in go cold, and then they heard Mary singing too. In a way, Pandora was glad, since it was no longer just her who’d experienced it now.
The front bedroom in Pandora’s house is also freezing. It stays cold all the time, not just intermittently, and there is a lot of activity there too. Pandora only has one cat that will even go in the front room. But the front bedroom is certainly not the only haunted place in the house. Pandora told me another story, one that had truly scared her.
About three years earlier, Pandora was doing the laundry. Her washer and dryer were in the hallway near that very cold front bedroom. No one else was home at the time. Pan suddenly felt a slight pressure on her left shoulder, and then someone whispered in her ear! She could feel their breath on her face—it even moved her hair. It was a woman’s voice with an almost Irish brogue-type lilt. “I’m watching you,” said the voice.
The voice wasn’t sinister at all; it was more like a matter-of-fact statement—as if she was just telling Pan that she was watching her do the laundry.
I told Pandora that the ghost might not know what a washing machine was, and Pan agreed.
But either way, Pan almost fainted. Her knees buckled, and she just about went down. Pandora thought this reaction may have scared the spirit because she didn’t hear singing, or much of anything else, for a good year and a half. And that was a relief.
I asked if the house had ever been investigated by a paranormal team, and Pandora said it had. She’d met a professor of parapsychology at one of her art shows. She and Pan got to talking, and the lady mentioned the trail that Pan lived on. Pan told her that she thought her house was haunted, and the professor asked if it was okay to bring a crew to see what they could pick up.
Not long after, the lady and her team showed up with lots of gadgets and electronics and went through the house and all around the property outside. Finally they came back inside and told Pandora the house wasn’t haunted, rather it was the ground itself, just as the old man had originally told her. The professor said there was so much activity outside she couldn’t believe it.
Pandora’s neighbor eventually told her they heard the singing in their house too, so the ghost definitely doesn’t just stay in one place. The ghost of Mary comes and goes on the haunted ground. Pan believes she must’ve upset the ghost badly when she almost fainted that day doing laundry, and maybe the spirit went over to the neighbors for a while.
I told Pandora no one could fault her for nearly passing out. Even seasoned professionals still get frightened by direct contact.
Pandora said that when she and her husband sit in their living room, they can see shadows. They appear and disappear with no rhyme or reason, nor is there anything that could be making a shadow. A lot of the time, along with the shadows, they will smell a rose scent, and sometimes cigarette smoke—and neither of them smoke.
I wondered aloud whether Mary brought the rose scent when she appeared.
Then Pan told me that just the other day she’d had the exterminator out to inspect, and they were talking about the age of her home. He was standing in front of the sink facing Pan’s living room, and Pan was facing him. All of a sudden, every ounce of color went out of this poor man’s face—at something behind Pan! She turned around quickly to see a shadow moving down the wall toward the bedroom. It passed over a quilt she had hanging there, which made it even more obvious. The exterminator said, “Did you see that?”
“Yeah, it happens all the time around here,” Pan told him.
“I’ve gotta go,” he said abruptly. And he got out of there fast.
It was a very dark shadow, according to Pandora, and really tall and thin. She hadn’t seen where it came from, and the guy didn’t stick around to tell her. The shadow had touched the ceiling but didn’t come all the way down to the floor. It was almost as though someone was walking down the hall but their feet weren’t touching the ground. The shadow just continued on down and into the bedroom. After the exterminator walked out, Pandora went into the bedroom herself to check it out. The room was ice cold, so she knew something had been there. All Pandora had to say was, “I bet I won’t get that guy back to spray for bugs!”
Pan then told me her son-in-law dreads having to stay in that front bedroom when they visit. But Pan sleeps there now, mostly to get away from her husband’s snoring, and she’s okay with that because she just knows it’s not something that’s going to hurt her. It sometimes just feels to Pandora as if they are in a different dimension, functioning as they used to and not even aware of them.
“That’s what we call a residual haunting, recurring over and over but unaware of you. Now, Mary, or whoever it was who whispered to you in your laundry room, that would be classified as an intelligent haunting—a spirit who can interact with you,” I told her.
Pan said her daughter, son-in-law, and their two young sons came to stay over the Christmas holidays. One of their kids had a cold, so Pan’s daughter got up and went into the front room to rock him. Pan said that when anyone walks across the floor in the front room, there is a distinctive creaking, and everything vibrates. Her daughter was rocking away and suddenly felt the vibrations behind her. She thought her father had gotten up and maybe was using the bathroom. She said, “Hey, Pops, what are you doing up?” But there was no answer. Suddenly, Pan’s daughter heard the sound of many feet beginning to march in formation, passing by her. She could feel the wind from them moving past, and they continued on by her and right on out the front door! Her daughter froze in fear for a moment, but then felt it wasn’t anything that would do them harm, so she was able to relax and resume rocking her child.
This incredible story made sense. The area was involved in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, so troops marching there would’ve been common during those times.
The next night, Pandora’s daughter was out in the front room again, around the same time in the early morning, and the same thing happened. Not too long after that, a friend of Pandora’s, a nurse, came to stay with Pan after she had surgery. Pandora was only comfortable sleeping in the recliner, so her friend slept in the living room with her. The marching woke Pan’s friend up one night, while Pandora had been lying there awake. Pandora felt the wind go past, but thought it was from the heavy meds they’d given her after her operation. But Pan’s friend confirmed that it wasn’t the meds! Later, Pandora found out they used to march the Revolutionary War prisoners right through there on their way to the town north of them. This sound and the vibration of the troops passing by, along with the wind, is really something to witness. Pandora said it lasts for quite a few seconds each time it happens.
I mentioned residual hauntings again, the kind that play the same scene over and over like a tape loop. This was what the marching seemed to be. But the ghost of Mary singing and whispering in her ear, that was definitely intelligent, able to interact with the living and make herself understood. The shadow could have been either of those, but without further investigation, it is hard to speculate.
I thanked Pandora for calling to fill me in on the sewing machine running by itself, and I joked that perhaps Mary was learning how to operate twenty-first-century machinery. Maybe after observing how great the modern washer was, Mary was ready to try the sew
ing machine too!
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17
DÉjÀ Vu
My next-door neighbor called, and I could tell right away she was excited about something.
“Your book!” blurted Tammy. “I just read the part about the ghost in the red plaid shirt! I’ve seen him too!”
It didn’t hit me right away what she was talking about. My first book had just shipped to all those who’d ordered it before its upcoming release. I’d already been hearing back from friends and acquaintances who’d received their copy.
Tammy was talking about a section where I’d recounted many of the paranormal events in my haunted house. One night while sitting on the sofa reading a book in my front room, I’d felt someone watching me. I looked up, over toward the living room, and saw a young man with long, dark hair standing silently beside the fireplace, staring at me. He simply stood, hands at his sides, wearing a red plaid shirt with black suspenders and dark pants. I couldn’t see the fireplace through him, so he looked as solid and as real as anyone. Shocked and caught off guard, I squealed and looked away, then looked back. And just like that, he was gone. I’ve never seen him again, but I’ve speculated
he was the former owner or possibly the owner’s son.
My neighbor Tammy told me that during their first year there, she saw the same man constantly. He always walked across the breezeway at the back of their house, then crossed over into our garage! When her two boys began having nightmares, Tammy finally had a guy come and do a cleansing in her basement, the part of their house that felt the creepiest to Tammy and her family.
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