Redefining School "Spirit"

The four most haunted buildings are churches, hospitals, jails, and schools. Toss in a school built on top of a cemetery and you have a different definition of "school spirit."

 

Lee Williams High School in Kingman, Arizona is one of these schools. Ghosts have appeared at graduation events in prairie gowns and 19th century men's suits. A man wearing a bowler hat and long coat lurks in the hallways; a little girl calls out at night asking to go out and play. There are also cold spots, disembodied footsteps, flickering lights, and alarms and motion detectors that go off randomly.

 

Kingman was the site of many battles between Native American tribes and settlers who arrived after the area was annexed from Mexico in 1848. These settlers needed the water at the springs where the tribes lived. Conflict ensued, and then violence. Those who died were buried at Pioneer Cemetery in unmarked graves. This site later became part of the school's football field with a set of bleachers resting on top of the graves of 350 settlers and more than 70 Hualapai.

 

Some graves were moved in 1944 before the original school was built, but the $45 charge per body ($600 today) proved too dear a price in war-time America and most bodies ended up left behind.

 

Then, bodies were discovered two years ago. Fifty workers were digging a trench behind the bleachers in construction of the new high school. They unearthed 11 grave sites, seven coffins and cuff links, medallion, jewelry and a brass nameplate. Drake Havatone, Hualapai tribal elder, was called in.

"We believe it's a taboo to move or disturb a body, because the spirits become unrestful," Drake said. "Many will be angry." Havatone performed a ceremony to pacify the spirits, blessing all the spirits along with the workers who had disturbed the graves. "Spirits will sometimes go home with the person who disturbs them," Havatone had said. A cleansing of the workers left them pacified as well.

The new high school opened in 2012. No word yet on whether the hauntings continue.




 

The Pink Lady of Ghost Park Inn

The Grove Park Inn denied it for years: There were no hauntings, no pink apparitions, no ghostly phenomena. But after 80 years of sightings, reports and screams, the Inn could no longer deny it; the Grove Park Inn was indeed haunted by a young woman dressed in a flowing pink gown.

The Pink Lady has been an unregistered visitor of the Grove Park Inn for over 80 years and has been witnessed by senior management, children, maintenance personnel, security. It is told the pink-clad ghost fell to her death in the Palm Court atrium circa 1920. Not so, according to the Asheville Paranormal Society. Their investigations led to communications with the ghost; The Pink Lady told them her name was Katie. Employed as a servant in a wealthy, aristocratic household, Katie says she became pregnant by the master of the house. He had a reputation to protect, a position to safeguard. Katie was pushed from an upper floor of the Inn onto the stones of the Palm Court atrium. She and the baby were no longer inconvenient.

The Pink Lady has been seen in a number of places within the historic Main Inn although the greatest amount of energy and paranormal occurrences seem to revolve around room 545. Among the witnessed accounts:

 Manager of Elaine's, the GPI nightclub: "It's like a real dense smoke -- a pinkish pastel that just flows. It's a real gentle spirit whatever it is." The manager has seen the spirit several times in 5 years.


Although the hotel was closed and locked for the winter, 2 employees saw all the 6th floor guest room lights come on and then off followed by the lights in the Main Inn following suit. The President of the National Federation of Press Women experienced toe tickling in the middle of the night ... twice.

Employees report The Pink Lady likes to manipulate the environment, turning on and off the lights all at once, pulling back curtains, turning on televisions and radios.

Yes, scores of people have seen, sensed and been touched by the spirit of The Pink Lady and, as the unexplained and reports continue to occur, a substantial waiting list grows - of those courageous visitors who want to stay in room 545.

The Ghosts of Ford's Theater

Ford's Theater in Washington DC was built in 1833 as a Baptist Church. It transitioned into a live performance theater in 1861 and launched into the American consciousness when President Abraham Lincoln was assassination by John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin.

The federal government took possession of the building after threats of arson were made against the theater's owner should it reopen after the assassination. The theater was converted into a 3-story office building that housed the Army Medical Museum, the War Department, and the Office of the Surgeon General.

On June 8, 1893, the front of the building collapsed, plunging workers, desks and filing cabinets into its cellar. Sixty-five people were injured; 22 were killed. The building was largely left vacant for 60 years until Congress approved funds for restoration. The theater was reopened on January 30, 1868 as a National Historic Site and working theater. Ford's Theater today still presents live theater productions and is an organized museum of Lincoln's Presidency, assassination and legacy.

The theater plays host to many paranormal spectacles as part of the many traumatic deaths which have occurred there. Residual energy is witnessed as the events of Lincoln's assassination occasionally repeats itself by the sounds of running footsteps headed towards Lincoln's box, a gunshot, screams and shouts of murder. A witness has seen an apparition of Mrs. Lincoln at the railing of their former theater box and pointing to the stage shouting, "He has killed the President!" as she did at the time of the murder. Actors have reported experiencing an intense cold spot on stage left that has caused them to become nauseous or have uncontrollable tremors. Booth's spirit has also been seen scurrying across the stage, re-enacting his getaway.

Ghost Hunters of Asheville discovered strong indications of paranormal activity on their equipment during a recent visit.

Phone Calls from the Dead

There is perhaps no greater paranormal experience than receiving a phone call from a ghost. However unfathomable such an incident may seem, it's not necessarily an uncommon experience and was the subject of a ground-breaking book written by parapsychologists and psychic investigators D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless.Their book, Phone Calls From The Dead, was published in 1979.

Rogo and Bayliss spent years researching the subject, combing the world over to find credible documentation. They discovered hundreds of well-documented accounts; many ghostly phone calls were witnessed by more than one person. Specifically, an individual answered the phone before turning it over to the person the spirit was calling for. In one case, two people on two separate phone held a "conference call" with a ghost. Most phone call recipients had no previous experience or interest with the paranormal. The phone call had been a one-time occurrence, brief, and the caller was typically a deceased relative or friend.

Rogo and Bayliss assert that nearly all of the cases fell into one of three categories:

1. Apparent Cases: The person receiving the call doesn't know the caller is dead and believes they are talking to a living person.
2. Intention Cases: The recipient receives an urgent phone call from a friend, relative or unknown individul (who explains they are placing the call for a friend or relative.) The witness later learns the friend never made the call nor authorized someone to call. The voice on the phone sounds exactly like that of a friend or relative.
3. Answer Cases: The recipient receives an urgent phone call from a friend, relative or uknown individual who claims to be placing the call for a friend or relative. The witness later learns the friend or relative never made the call nor authorized anyone to call. The voice on the phone sounds exactly like the friend or relative.

The researchers claim that most cases fall into the first scenario.

The Tulip Staircase Ghost

Fourth in a Series of Famous Paranormal Photographs.

















This 1966 photograph was snapped by retired clergyman Ralph Hardy in the Queen's House section of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. When taking the photograph of the property's elegantly spiraled "Tulip Staircase," Hardy also inadvertently captured a shrouded figure appearing to be climbing the stairs, holding the railing with both hands. Experts, including some from Kodak, have examined the original negative and concluded there had been no tampering. Unexplained figures and phantom footsteps have always been reported in the vicinity of this staircase.

This 400-year-old Queen's House has hosted many paranormal occurrences: the choral chanting of children, slamming doors, and the pinching of tourists by unseen fingers. Other apparition sightings have included the figure of a woman frantically mopping blood at the bottom of the Staircase -- reportedly from an incident 300 years ago when a maid was thrown from the highest banister, plunging 50 feet to her death.