I just read an article about a group of hunters and enthusiasts waiting on a railroad bridge for the return of a spectral locomotive. Well, the tragedy occurred when an all too real one came down the rolling down the tracks.

‘Ghost train’ hunter killed by train in North Carolina

Please remember to use good judgment. Nothing is worth the risk of becoming a ghost yourself.

Sometimes a ghost story can be used to start an investigation that leads to a injustice being corrected. Hopefully, this will cause the record to be set right for these people and their families.

We spend countless hours doing research, digging through microfiche, squinting at census records and bouncing ideas off each other. Often, we uncover information that completely unravels the urban legend or debunks a ghost story, but it usually opens up doors to a more interesting story. Like they say “Truth is stranger than fiction”.

Grandfather’s ghost story leads to mass grave.

Likewise, I find myself often watching T.V. shows about ghosts. I enjoy the stories for what they are – entertainment. The problem comes when you start looking into the actual facts of these stories. Often, the tales are impossible to research because they fail to give important details such as names and dates.  Do stories that are unsubstantiated have less value than those with verifiable facts? I suppose it depends on your outlook.  If all you’re looking for is entertainment, then no.  But if you’re looking for something more, something deeper, you have to be able to weed out the urban legends and get down to the bones of a story.  That is where historical research comes in.

I know we don’t update the website very often, but that isn’t because we’re not active.  While you won’t find us posting endless hours of EVPs or countless orb photographs, that doesn’t mean we’re not hard at work.  We’re usually plodding away in search of a stray fact, some dusty truth hidden below the fantastic tales told by so many websites and books.  Here is where we conduct most of our paranormal investigations:

Yep- we do most of our investigating at the local library.  You’d be amazed what you can find in there! The items in that image are the tools of the trade that often get overlooked when you drop by a ghost hunting website and check out their recommended equipment. A pen, some paper, old newspapers on film and a microfiche reader. They pair nicely with HeritageQuest, NewsBank and Ancestry.com. In fact, it doesn’t need to get much more high-tech than that to debunk most ghost stories we come across.  Fact checking the tales is tireless, often unrewarding work.  Often, we discover some tidbit of information in an old newspaper article or locate a headstone that proves without a shadow of a doubt that the tale we’ve been investigating is, well, complete make believe.  It can be quite a let-down, and being the voice of reason when everyone else wants to hear a good story can be daunting at times.  It’s a bit like being a detective, a genealogist, a historian and a lawyer arguing an unpopular case all rolled into one.

Despite all that, there is sometimes a reward; a pot of gold at the end of the research rainbow.  A good example of this can be found in the Boston House.  We’ve been researching the claims attached to the building for years.  Many of them have proven to be nothing more than a really great story to tell around a campfire.  Yet as we debunked those tales, a different picture emerged.  The Boston House has been dubbed haunted for many, many years- something well documented in the local papers.  Those reported paranormal encounters pre-date the currently popular explanation for the hauntings.  Even more interesting is the fact that the home played host to a number of tragedies, any of which could have resulted in paranormal activity.  Finally, as if it were icing on the cake, many credible witnesses have come forward over the years to share their experiences.  These experiences create the perfect situation for furthering the investigation; specific claims that can be investigated on site.

I often wonder how other groups work through their cases.  I find it hard to believe we’re alone in the stacks, the odd group out as we sift through the sensational stories to find the gems that call for further investigation.   I can only hope there are, and that groups with this methodology prevail in finding out the truth behind all the ghost stories we love to tell.

]]> http://thegrimsociety.com/2010/08/11/ghost-stories-versus-historical-research/feed/ 0 http://thegrimsociety.com/2008/09/16/it-dont-mean-a-thingif-you-aint-got-that-swing/ http://thegrimsociety.com/2008/09/16/it-dont-mean-a-thingif-you-aint-got-that-swing/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:56:18 +0000 luna http://thegrimsociety.com/2008/09/16/it-dont-mean-a-thingif-you-aint-got-that-swing/ I thought I would share this entertaining little story with you…

My family and I recently rented a house located in downtown Fort Pierce. The house itself was rather unremarkable; it had been a rental for some time and despite being updated after the hurricanes of 2004, had fallen into a near state of disrepair. Built in 1901, sadly, the old girl was starting to show her age. My wife and I took one look at the hardwood floors and the Mediterranean Revival architecture and knew it was for us. No matter the faults, the house had character and history that new houses just can’t match. We quickly signed the lease and started moving our stuff.

Shortly after the grueling process of moving finally ended, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of music, very faint and seemingly distant. I didn’t really give it to much thought because there are several restaurants and bars in the downtown area and I simply assumed the music was coming from one of those local watering holes. A week or two later, I was awakened again to the music playing. This time I was more awake- it was close to 1:30 am. Annoyed because I had to work the next morning, I was sure the music was a bit louder this time but it still wasn’t distinct enough for me to figure out what it was. Again, I chalked it up to one of the pubs or a rude neighbor and tried to get back to sleep.

It was a couple weeks later that the music started again, and this time I recognized the tune. In the middle of a still night, I could distinctly hear World War II era big band music. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about it this time; in fact the song was “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller. With the music so loud I could recognize it, I passed annoyed and went right to angry. It was 3:00 am, I had to get up early and none of the bars were open. I assumed that one of my kids had fallen a sleep with the TV or radio on, so I climbed out of bed, wandering around the house searching for the source of music. I was startled to find that no TVs, no radios were playing. Now I was certain that the culprit behind the music must be one of my neighbors, possibly taking a trip down memory lane after a few adult beverages.

So now its 3:20 am and I am wandering around the neighborhood searching for the source, probably looking like a complete madman as I tried to locate the ’swing’ sound up and down the block. Oddly, I couldn’t even hear the music outside. Somewhat confused, I made my way home, and you can probably guess that as soon as I got back inside the house, I heard the music. Baffled, I gave up and made my way back to bed, but sleep was hard to come by. The music really wasn’t a problem, but my brain was running through all kinds of weird atmospheric oddities that might cause the sound to be bouncing off buildings.

A few days later the music woke me up just before 2:00 am. I practically jumped out of bed and started searching again- this time I would figure it out! Inside, outside and up and down the street. No music anywhere but inside the house. I went from room to room and figured out that the sound was loudest in the master bedroom; outside the master bedroom, no sound. By this time, I was starting to suspect maybe something was at work other than a unattended radio.

At this point, it might help to understand a little history of Fort Pierce. During WWII, Fort Pierce was the home base for the US Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT), groups of men who were the predecessors of the modern SEALs. The UDT were training on our beaches for the D-Day Invasion, charged with clearing the landing beaches of obstacles so the landing craft could deliver their human cargo. Many of the private homes in town housed officers that did not stay on the base, which was located just across the bridge from this house, or hosted social events for the soldiers.

I don’t know of any specific casualty counts based on the units that trained in Fort Pierce, but since they were some of the first Americans on Utah and Omaha beaches I have to assume they suffered significant casualties. As you can imagine, I spent the next hour or so lying in bed and wondering about those men in the UDT before finally drifting off to sleep again.

It was about a month before I heard it again. Clearly, plainly—no doubt. I lay in bed actually bouncing my foot to the sound of Glenn Miller and I knew for sure that something was going on. We hadn’t had any other incidents while we lived in the house; no knocking or banging, no strange shadows or feelings of being watched. In fact, the house felt very much like home from the first day we moved in.

The latest incident was the one that decided to tell my wife about the music. As I was relaying the story, she got a strange look on her face and said she had a dream, “that we were at a party and they were playing big band music”. After a rather interesting discussion, we decided not to do an in-depth investigation because we didn’t want our kids to start thinking of the house as “active”. We did decide that I would keep a DVR next to the bed from that point on so I could turn it on the next time I was awakened.

Unfortunately, before the music came again the landlord was served foreclosure papers from the bank and we found ourselves packing while looking for a new place to rent. I didn’t hear the music for over a month. The last time I woke up was the second to last night in the house, but we had already packed and moved most of our belongings including our DVR, cameras and EMF Meter.

By the time we moved, I had heard the music about a half dozen times. Always between 1:00 and 3:00 am. It makes me sad to think of the probable fate of the little house. The last time I was in the house, I quietly said “Goodbye” to the house and anyone who might still like to listen to Glenn Miller late at night.

Soon Luna found one that was a little more suited for people like us called Ghost Walk of Gatlinburg. We weren’t mislead as it says right on their site that they may embellish a bit for entertainment purposes and I really enjoyed the late night walk and the stories our guide told along the way. The best part for me though was after the walk. Our guide Tyler, was available to answer questions and was more than willing to go way above and beyond the parimeters of his job by talking with my husband and I about the history of Gatlinburg and his own ghost hunting experiences in the area! He gave us more than an hour of his time and when we had to leave to go back to the cabin I’d felt as though we’d made a new friend! I’ve invited him to join us here on The G.R.I.M. Society and hope to hear from him soon!

He told us many stories along our walk but the one that I found most interesting was the story he told about the pizza parlor.

Many years ago people could buy plots in the cemetery just like they could buy any other land so people would buy up a bunch of plots and then clear off the headstones, lump the plots together on one deed and sell them as usable land. Ths is what happened to a large portion of the White Oak Flats cemetery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Just over 35 years ago (a time that the locals refer to as B.D. — Before Dollywood) two businessmen bought a plot of land adjacent to the cemetary and erected the town’s first pizza parlor. Business was going well when they experienced some vandalising night after night. The owners noticed that there was no evidence of breaking and entering and contacted the police. They posted a night watchman outside and he never saw anyone going in or coming out, yet the vandalism continued.

Eventually one of the owners installed cameras inside and was astounded to find that things were being thrown about by something he couldn’t see and now and then he’d see an apparition on the film! He was afraid that his findings would not only label him the “crazy one” about town, but that it would be bad for business to admit to the haunting so he destroyed the tape and removed the cameras immediately! His business partner was anxious to find out what was on the tape so reluctantly the first man finally told him but swore him to secrecy. Of course the man’s partner couldn’t keep this outragous information to himself so he went to his best friend and told the story.

Before long the news had traveled through the small town and to the first man’s surprise it was very good for business but unfortunately it wasn’t good for keeping help. All of the workers promptly quit and the two men were left to run the booming business all by themselves. Sadly they weren’t able to keep up with the flurry of patrons so they eventually had to close up shop. I find it hard to believe that a business would have to close due to too many customers!

Today the building has been razed and there is nothing left but the parking lot. I snapped a couple photos there but haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary in those photos.

Have you ever seen a ghost? (Actually SEEN one- not felt, heard, sensed, etc)

Now for the fun part-

Which way is the dancer spinning? (Clockwise or counter clockwise)

Can you make her change direction?

That’s it! Thanks for taking part.

Oak Hammock Park is a dangerous place at night; it is easy to become lost on the trails and there is always the concern of meeting up with a ‘worldly’ creature such as an alligator (or any other number of wild animals). It is also breaking the law to enter the property without proper permission from those in charge.

The truth of the matter is that by illegally entering the property, you are doing more harm than good to the entire area of paranormal investigation.

Please do not break the law in your attempts to satisfy your curiosity over the Devil’s Tree. We can not stress this enough.