The Lincoln Ghost Train

The following undated newspaper article was found pasted in a late 1860s scrapbook:

 

A PHANTOM TRAIN

THE DEAD LINCOLN'S YEARLY TRIP OVER THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD



A correspondent in the Albany (N.Y.) Evening Times relates a conversation with a superstitious night watchman on the New York Central Railroad. Said the watchman: "I believe in spirits and ghosts. I know such things exist. If you will come up in April I will convince you." He then told of the phantom train that every year comes up the road with the body of Abraham Lincoln. Regularly in the month of April, about midnight, the air on the track becomes very keen and cutting. On either side it is warm and still. Every watchman when he feels this air steps off the track and sits down to watch. Soon after the pilot engine, with long black streamers, and a band of black instruments, playing dirges, grinning skeletons sitting all about, will pass up noiselessly, and the very air grows black. If it is moonlight clouds always come over the moon, and the music seems to linger, as if frozen with horror. A few moments after and the phantom train glides by. Flags and streamers hang about. The track ahead seems covered with black carpet, and the wheels are draped with the same. The coffin of the murdered Lincoln is seen lying on the centre of the car, and all about it in the air and the train behind are vast numbers of blue-coated men, some with coffins on their backs, others leaning on them.

It seems then that all the vast armies that died during the war are escorting the phantom train of the President. The wind, if blowing, dies away at once, and all over the earth a solemn hush, almost stifling, prevails. If a train were passing, its noise would be drowned in silence and the phantom train would ride over it. Clocks and watches would always stop, and when looked at are found to be from five to eight minutes behind. Everywhere on the road, about the 27th of April, the time of watches and trains is found suddenly behind. This, said the leading watchman, was from the passage of the phantom train.

The route taken by Lincoln's funeral train, in large part, still exists -- marked by ancient railroad beds and towns. New Yorkers who commute daily from bedroom communities along the Hudson River, north of Manhattan, don't realize that they are traveling the same route as the 16th President's funeral train. So it is for thousands of unknowing railroad passengers.

[Taken from Bloody Crimes by James L. Swanson]

Ghosts of the SS Watertown

December 1924: The S.S. Watertown is enroute from New York City to Panama Canal. Crew members James Courtney and Michael Meehan are killed through a freak accident of dying by gas fumes. The sailors were buried at sea off the Mexican coast.

The following day, the first mate reported seeing the faces of the two dead sailors in the waves off the ship's port side. They were visible for 10 seconds before fading.  For several days thereafter, the phantom-like faces of the sailors were clearly seen by other members of the crew in the water following the ship. Captain Keith Tracy was successful in catching the images photographically, and the picture became one of the most famous paranormal photographs of all time.

Then in April 2010, paranormalist Blake Smith revealed the results of his in-depth investigation of the photo: It is a fake. Smith's research included searching the National Archives, recreation of the ship's stanchions and posts, Culver Studios and Reader's Digest. The photograph had been undeniably tampered with and, as Smith claims has thus, "no value as evidence for ... ghosts."

Smith's entire report can be read at http://paranormal.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=paranormal&cdn=newsissues&tm=124&gps=394_26_1192_567&f=11&su=p504.6.342.ip_&tt=33&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.forteantimes.com/features/fbi/3256/the_watertown_ghosts.html

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.