Have You Ever Been on a Ghost Walk?

I have never seen a ghost and don’t expect to. Don’t really want to. Then you might ask why go on a ghost walk. An excellent question. But it’s October. A man has been doing ghost walks in our little town every week since April, but stops the end of October. Sometimes a person just gets curious. Even if they are skeptical. Like me. And like my sister, Jane. Both of us skeptical, but curious. So when Jane said she might like to take the ghost walk sometime and the night was clear and not too cold, it just seemed to be the thing to do. Especially since the ghost walk ended in the huge old house that I used as a setting for my upcoming 3rd Hidden Springs mystery. How could I pass up an opportunity to see the house at night?

So almost fifty people showed up at the meeting place to get ready to hear about ghosts in my town. Most of them were not hometown people. They’d come from several neighboring towns. Perhaps their towns don’t have ghost stories or at least no one giving ghost walk tours. Actually nearby Frankfort has a ghost walk too, I think. But perhaps if you’ve heard about one ghost, you want to hear about more.

I had really expected it just to be the guy in charge telling stories about ghost legends. But no. It was more like I’d stepped into one of those ghost hunting shows that you can see on television. The guy leading the walk, Jeff Waldridge, has actually worked with some of those type shows. He is a paranormal searcher. He puts cameras and recorders in empty buildings that are said to be haunted and then examines the phenomenon captured. He and others also go into said places to attempt to catch photos and communicate with apparitions. He did not call them ghosts in spite of calling what he leads people on through town “ghost” walks.  He showed us several photos of said apparitions. (Is my skepticism showing?) He also had many recordings of EPA’s. Not sure what that stands for, but those were supposedly ghosts or rather apparitions talking. I actually thought I might have heard words in the static on a couple of the recordings.

But the talk about the town and some of the history of the businesses and stories about what took place in this or that building was interesting. I have to admit I never knew so many places along Main Street were suspected of being haunted. Nor did I know that the guy leading the tour and others had done so much paranormal hunting along Main. But obviously they had. Our old post office building, now the Chamber of Commerce building, an old drugstore, a hotel that stopped being a hotel decades ago, a section of stores that had once been the site of another hotel, and even our courthouse all have stories of strange happenings and hauntings. I grew up here and had no idea our town was so spooky.

Actually, my sister and I thought the spookiest thing on the walk is that the clock on the courthouse that hasn’t worked for years suddenly chimed twelve while we were all standing in front of the courthouse talking about ghosts inside. The clock hands weren’t even on twelve. Explain that! LOL.

After the courthouse ghost talk and strange clock chiming, we headed on to the big old mansion pictured above – the main reason I went on the walk. It’s a beautiful place, slowly being restored by descendants of the original owner after years of neglect. I have to admit it’s a perfect place for a ghost walk finale. It was dark. Actually totally dark when they turned off the lights for a moment. But I did not see a ghost. Or hear a ghost. Or take a picture of a ghost. But I did have a good time hearing a little town history with a few ghost stories mixed in. After all, it is October.

I do want to say that although I am a skeptic for many of the ghost hunting programs on television, I am aware that many unusual things do happen. Things that cannot be explained do occur. And just because I’ve never experienced any of those sort of things, doesn’t mean that I don’t believe others when they say they have. My mother said she saw a ghost once. I think she did. I was glad I didn’t.

So how about you? Have you ever been on a ghost walk? Perhaps had something unusual that cannot be explained happen to you?

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