Ghost Pictures

Sadly, I missed a day of blogging yesterday and to make ammends for my missing ghost story I went wandering in the woods in the freezing cold in search of an old, abandoned cementary.   The cementary is about one hundred years old and is almost completely forgotten.  For an avid hiker seeing small cementaries in the wilderness is not that uncommon of an experience.  I had been to this one before and with my new ghost story blog in mind,  I drug my family out into the darkness, turned the flash off the camera, turned off the flashlights, and took pictures of the cementery.  I then turned the flash back on and took pictures with the light of the flash.   I have included both sets of shots here.  I can account for some lights in the distance that belong to houses, but the rest I'm not sure about.  I'll leave it to my readers to decide.

The USS Alabama

The USS Alabama is a large and impressive ship that is a major tourist attraction for Mobile, Alabama. It has been retired and docked in the Mobile bay and sees thousands of visitors every day. At night, the ship hosts many cubscout campouts so the battleship is rarely empty or quiet. Despite the fact that officials claim the ship is not, nor has ever been haunted, many claim to have seen ghosts on this ship. There have been reports of phantom foot steps and odd noises. It is said that late at night bulkheads open and close by themselves and odd tapping noises can be heard throughout the ship.

The Alabama’s first two deaths were of men who were in the Norfolk shipyard as she was under construction. She was finished in 1942 and served 37 months without any deaths due to enemy fire. As for death under friendly fire, however, there were 8 deaths on gun mount #5 when gun mount #9 fired upon them. It seems that the safety feature that was supposed to prevent the turrets from firing upon each other had failed. The men were completely destroyed; the only thing left of the his gun commander was his boots.

My boys were fortunate enough to spend the night on this wonderful ship this summer. Both of my boys claim that they saw and heard ghosts the night they stayed on the ship. Of course, as normal parents, we shook our heads and said there is no such thing as ghosts. So when I began researching haunted places in Alabama, I was surprised to find out the ghosts may not have been the products of their young imaginations. My oldest son says he saw a barefoot ghost by turret five. I have attached a picture of their overnight to this blog that clearly shows an orb by one of the turrets. The orb is directly above my son's head.

Hell's Gates

Today we took a trip to Hell's Gates. Hell's Gates is a set of broken, rusted gates on Green Mountain in Alabama. There are many stories about these gates although there is no story as to how these gates aquired their diabolical significance.

The most commonly told story about Hell's Gates is that when you pull up to them and wait, a car will pursue you down the mountain. The car will vanish at the bottom of the mountain. My husband reports that he tried this when he was young and he was pursued by a ghostly car that vanished. Another of my friends cooberates this story, however, when we tried this today nothing happened.

A final source told me a more diabolical story about Hell's Gates. The story is that a group of her acquantances once went into the woods behind the gates to participate in some pagan ritual or another. They built a large fire and one of their group wandered off into the woods. That friend was never seen again.

Chickamauga Battlefield

One of the most interesting things about looking for ghost stories is discovering history. Most ghost stories touch on some piece of history. In my journey to Chattanooga, TN today, I went in search of history and didn't know what I would find. I did no research. I just popped in to the Lookout Mountain Battlefield and started to read about the Battle of Chickamauga, which saw some of the civil war's hardest fighting. The battle began in a fight for Chattanooga, TN which was the rail center of the South. It started in 1863 when General Rosecrans brought his army of 70,000 men to Chattanooga and faced off against The Confederate General Braxton Bragg's army of 43,000 men. General Bragg dug his army in and the fight for Chattanooga began. The fight lasted from June until August when Bragg withdrew southward, abandoning Chattanooga and retreating 26 miles South to the final site of the Battle of Chicamauga.

The battle began on Sept 19th. The Confederates used the site I visited on Lookout Mountain to bombard the battlefield below with cannon fire and were able to push the Federals back to Chattanooga, but causalities for both sides were heavy. It claimed an estimated 34,624 casualties (16,170 for the Union; 18,454 for the Confederates).

Since that time there have been claims of every type of haunted and ghostly occurrence in this area. There have been mysterious deaths, numerous ghost sitings, and even claims of a mysterious "green eyed beast" that roams the battle sites at night. Apparently, these supernatural specters come out at night and casual observers from all walks of life have reported seeing a woman in white haunting the battle field looking for her lost love. They have seen glowing orbs and dead soldiers. According to www.hauntedamericatours.com, this battle field ranks #3 in the most haunted battle fields in the country.

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Riverhaven

Most ghost stories are creepy. They hint at some unhappy soul lurking just beyond reality waiting to do us harm. The Riverhaven cabin is haunted, but the ghosts there seem pleasant and inviting.

Riverhaven is a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN. It is described by the reality company as plesant and comfortable. This historic log home is an antique Chestnut log approx. 200 years old built in 1800. It has unique wormy Chestnut paneling inside. The cabin was constructed in the National Park and was moved in the 1930's to its current location in downtown Gatlinburg. The realtors website shows many pretty pictures of the cabin and if you rent it, when you enter you'll be pleasantly surprised by it's comfort and warmth.

Every cabin in Gatlinburg has a log or journal for visitors to share their experiences in. Typically, these logs are filled with stories of family vacations. Every page has the same bland pleasantries. It is as if they came from a script. Guests tell about their family, what they did, and the great time they had in the cabin. Riverhaven's journal is different. Each guest tells about flickering lights, moving objects, vanishing items, and odd noises. Not every resident there concludes the cabin is haunted, but every page indicated there is something odd about this pleasant cabin nestled by the river.

I only stayed at Riverhaven for three nights and for the most part it was quiet. I stayed with my family and we complained to each other about the lack of linens in the cabin. We searched it from top to bottom, pulling it apart in a futile quest for a table cloth or anything to cover the splintery, ancient dining table. Finally, on the first night we gave up and ate on our laps. We went to bed and dead bolted the door and locked the door with the sliding lock that even someone with a key couldn't open. In the morning, we awoke to find every table set with table cloths and silverware. The cabin was clean and pretty and we certainly hadn't left it that way when we went to sleep. We often laugh about this cabin as we flounder to explain our experiences there, but when I think of the strange journal there and the consistency of all the stories, I have to assume it was haunted by ghosts that liked us.