Ghost Hunting in Birmingham

I began my investigations in Birmingham with the historic Tutwiler hotel, which I immediately assumed was not haunted.  I was completely bowled over by the human activity within the hotel and the unhelpful staff.   After the night had quieted and the party ended,  I awoke with the dawn and started again.  My son was more eager than me and was up before the sun taking EMF readings and taking pictures of the room.   I was much less enthusiastic, but he showed me a picture he took of the balcony outside our room with a very odd white form in it and my enthusiasm was restored.

We all got up and went down to torture the morning staff with our ghostly questions. The early morning staff did not have to contend with drunk men hobbling around the lobby or bridal parties giggling at them, so they were much more helpful and they told me in hushed tones about the ghost on the 6th floor.  Apparently, the Tutwiler I was in was not the orignal Tutwiler.  That Tutwiler had been demolished and the building that was now the Tutwiler was in fact an apartment complex called The Ridgely.   On the 6th floor,  a small child had lived and died in her apartment.  None of the staff were sure of her name, but one young man told me that her ghost is known to be particularly active on the 6th floor.  Luckily, our room had been on the sixth floor.   He also said that rooms 604 and 614 had frequently reported seeing her ghost.  Our room shared a balcony with 614, making my son's picture all the more intriguing.  His picture is above. 

Another side note,   I thought I saw a ghost in the window across from mine last night.  The picture of  what I saw is to the right.  I looked into the history of this building and it is the Birmingham Public library which is thought to be haunted.  Tomorrow's story will give more information on this building and my investigations of it.

 The last picture at the bottom tonight is just for fun.   I always find it very strange that Birmingham's five points is centered around a somewhat demonic looking goat man that is strategically placed in front of a church.  Birmingham is a ghost hunter's  dream.

The Tutwiler

I took a little road trip today and traveled to the famous Tutwiler Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama.  This hotel is famous for it's friendly ghost,  Colonel Tutwiler.  He supposedly likes to turn lights on and off in the kitchen and make a rather large mess from time to time. I have asked as many staff as I have been able to find about this playful spirit and two staff members looked at me like I was insane and another told me the story like he was reading it from a historic brochure.  

I travelled here late at night and found the streets of Birmingham to be virtually deserted.  This city seems to lack the kind of night life, restraunts, or bars that would bring people to wander through it's labrynthian streets.   The tall buildings overshadow empty roads and many buildings seem to be unused.   At night, the city itself seems to be a ghost town.   I am told that with morning, the streets will come to life, but now it seems to be entirely forgotten and it is a Saturday night.

From this quiet, I entered into the Tutwiler and found myself knocked over by noise and comotion.  The hotel is filled with throngs of guests for parties and weddings.  In this frolicing atmosphere, it is hard to imagine that this hotel is the one that is haunted.  The hotel itself is stunning.  It's fascade is intricate and covered in the kind of elaborate molding modern builders seem to have forgotten how to make.   The details within the hotel also adds to the atmosphere.   Despite all this beauty and history,  I have found it impossible to feel any haunting when the hotel is bursting with such life and vigor.

However,  as I have sat staring blankly at the odd building outside my window, I can't help but feel chills creep up and down my spine.  One window even seems to have something in it that looks like a face staring out at me.   The building appears to be an old library and has the quote "Books are the legacy that a great genius leaves to mankind,"  engraved on the stone in very large letters.  I will have to look into the building in the morning.   The pictures above are the pictures of the Tutwiler.  The pictures below are of the library across the street.

Citigate Lawyer

From: Kin Yoshi
Subject: Legal Services Required
Date: February 4, 2010 2:37:57 AM PST
To: undisclosed recipients: ;

CITIGATE MACHINES OVERSEAS LTD.
2-11 Matsuba-cho, Kadoma City,Osaka, 571-8503, Japan
TEL: +81-3-4520-9305 www.citigatemachines.com

Dear Sir ,

We the management of Citigate Machines LTD require your legal Services/representation for our Customers in your country. After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that you are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested.
We are a Japan based Drilling Company, with branches in Hong Kong, Singapore and other parts of Asia. Our principal activities including; drilling, mining, machines trading, the manufacture and sale of drilling and mining machineries. We export and import drilling and mining machineries.

We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers in your country so we are of the opinion that the ability to consolidate payments from your country will reduce delays due to inter-continental monetary transaction between Asia and your country. Hence, we request for your services accordingly in this regards. We understand that a proper Attorney Client Retainer will provide the necessary authorization and we are most inclined to commence talks as soon as possible.

Please accept my sincere appreciation for your consideration. Our request is highly anticipated and we look forward to your prompt response to our request.
Email: kinyoshi1955@gmail.com
Sincerely yours,

Kin Yoshi,
Citigate Machines Ltd.

A Phantom Soldier

I have been out and about talking with people about ghosts and trying to find the origin of certain local ghost stories.   In my journey,  I've discovered something wonderful.  Once you start asking about ghosts, people pull you aside and tell you the most amazing ghost stories.  Here is one of the wonderful stories I heard today.

This story came from a man of science who had always considered himself a skeptic.  He went on a trip to a secluded cabin in the woods with his wife.   It was a small, rustic cabin with a field behind it and a hot tub on the back deck.  He and his wife were having a good time in the hot tub and he took a picture of his wife with her back to the field.  Later, when he studied the picture, he saw a phantom man standing behind his wife in the field.  The man was dressed in old clothes and looked like a soldier.   As a skeptic, this man did everything he could to explain the diaphonous figure standing behind his wife, clutching a hat.   But there was simply no rational explaination for the figure.   The man then went to the cabin's owner and asked about the cabin.  The owner explained that the field behind the cabin had been the site of  a minor skirmish or two during the civil war and that the cabin had always been the site of strange occurences.  I asked the man if I could get the information from him so I could rent this haunted cabin.  He was reluctant to pass the information on and as we were speaking, the owner of the cabin, whom he hadn't spoken to in over a year, called him. 

The Reliability of Internet Ghost Stories

I love finding ghost stories on the internet.  There are several websites I go to on a regular basis to find interesting stories.  The internet is cluttered with sites that list the haunted locations through out the world and usually do some kind of write up or short description of the haunted site.  Often times, the write up seems to be word for word the same on multiple sites so they are obviously getting their little stories from one location that they share or they borrow from each other.

Over the last few weeks,  I've gone out and explored many of the stories I've found on these sites.  I travelled to their source and interviewed people and read the history books.   What I've found is that in most cases there may be a grain a truth in the stories, but much of the story itself is false.  It seems that these false stories spread so they are papered over the internet until the lie almost seems like the truth just by the sheer number of times the lie has been told.  It reminds me of that game I used to play as a child where one child would whisper in another child's ear and that child would whisper in another child's ear all saying the same thing until it reached the end and the end sentence would bear no resemblance to the beginning one.

An example of this can be found in the Space Camp haunting I found online.  According to online sources, there was some kind of explosion during some kind of construction there and this explosion lead to fatalities.  The ghosts of the unfortunate victims of this explosion still wander the halls of space camp.  After I completed my research, I found that there was never any kind of explosion at space camp.   In 1999, a construction worker did fall from some scaffolding, but that is nothing like the explosion described by these sites.

So this creates a big question for me.   How much obligation do we, as online ghost story collectors, have to make sure we are telling the truth.  It is true that ghost stories aren't held to the high standards of researched truth as other areas, but  should we have to make sure a ghost story is at least somewhat based in truth before we retell it?  If we don't have some standards is there any difference between our stories and fiction? 

The Ghosts of Mackinac

Mackinac Island is a small island pushed up against the North of Michigan in Lake Huron.  For me, this tiny island was a place of magic.  My earliest childhood memories started with trips on the Ferry across the lake to a place that seemed to be trapped in history.  I felt like a time traveller.   I'm not the first person to see this island as magic.  This island was used by the Ojibwa Indians long before the white man ever set foot in the North.   The natives thought that the island was the home of  Gitche Manitou  or the "Great Spirit".  This island was the first land to appear on earth after the great flood and was a magic place where all the tribes gathered in peace.
 
The French were the first whites to come to this island and they were followed by a long processiong of white men who took this once sacred island and used it for their various purposes.  I will explore these histories more deeply in later blogs about the many historic, haunted places on this mystic island.  Tonight, I will start with a simple Mackinac haunt. 

The people of Mackinac take their history very seriously and have worked to preserve it in a way that is unprecedented.  They've worked so hard to preserve it that as you step off the Ferry onto dry land the first thing you will notice is the complete absence of motor vehicles.   The usual noise of traffic has been replaced by the clop clop of horses hooves on the pavement and the occasional ring of a bicycle bell.  The streets are crowded with tourists during the summer.  They come seeking a glimpse into a lost world and a forgotten time.

Bob Hughey decided to open his little restaurant on Mackinac to capitalize on this tourist trade.  He moved there after World War II and his little restaurant thrived in the historic atmosphere of the island.  It did so well he decided to purchase the little pine cottage near his restaurant and expand.   He got much more than he expected, however.    Unknown to him,  in 1942, a woman had been brutally murdered in the pretty little cottage.  Her murder had never been solved and her ghost lingered in the cottage.

Mr. Hughey felt the ghostly presence very quickly and noticed doors opening and shutting and the sound of footsteps in empty halls as soon as he moved in to the quaint cottage.  This was only the beginning for poor Mr. Hughey who went on to be haunted by not only the murdered woman's ghost but multiple other ghosts that seemed trapped in the cottage.   He even walked into his room one night to see a diaphonous woman standing over his bed.   The haunted increased in intensity and malevolence the longer he lingered in his business/home.    He awoke at night to see strange men standing over his bed and the halls were filled with weeping at night.

Mr. Hughey fled Makinac in 1995.  He could no longer take the spirits that had tormented him so long and he moved his restaurant to St. Ignace.   The ghosts remain behind him and the stories of this haunted cottage still bring tourists to gaze on it's darkened windows.  The cottage is now a bed and breakfast and brave tourists can stay in this haunted location and witness the ghosts themselves.

The Haunted University

According to many, The University of North Alabama is one of the most haunted universities in the country.  The ghosts here seem as common as the trees and many of the buildings have haunted histories.  UNA is Alabama's oldest four University and was founded in 1830.  It's history stretches into the dark parts of the civil war and back to desegregation.  It has seen all of Alabama's history and stood the test of time, but not without it's ghosts.

Among the many haunted locations on this campus, is Guillot University Center.  Long ago this old  building was a girl's dormitory.  Apparently,  a young woman who lived there wasn't very happy because she hung herself from an elevator shaft.  Since that time, the building has changed function but students report seeing her ghost wandering the halls.  Norton Auditorium is also said to be haunted by a ghost named George.  George was working on Norton auditorium as a construction worker.  He fell from the scaffolding and died, but his ghost lives on haunting students and visitors alike and adding his ghostly presence to the numerous phantoms that haunt the halls of UNA.

The Wesleyan Building is also said to be haunted by a civil war general's son who drown himself in a river not far away.   His ghost must have formed some attachment to the old building, because his footsteps can still be seen and heard walking the halls at night.   Additionally, the off campus bookstore is haunted by the ghost of a little girl who died of rabies.

So if you like to be surrounded by ghosts, UNA is the place to go to school.