Old Fort Pierce Park is the site of an Ais Indian burial mound that predates Columbus by several hundred years. The location later became an Army fort used during the Second Seminole War (1838-1842). During the Seminole War, it was commanded by Lt. Col. Benjamin Pierce, brother to President Franklin Pierce. It is also believed that it is the location of a Spanish settlement, mission and military outpost dating back to 1567.

For a long while the Fort has been neglected. Not even a historical marker to honor the long extinct tribe or the soldiers that were later stationed  there. The burial mounds concrete steps and dense undergrowth combined with poor lighting had turned the Old Fort Park into something of a “Lover’s Lane”. Our group has made several investigations at the site with promising results, but when we were there several months ago to film a school history project for my daughter, it appeared that one of the local gangs had been there and “tagged” the trees and steps.

We had decided to scratch it off our list due to safety concerns. No investigation is worth risking one of our investigators becoming a ghost themselves. However, several weeks ago the city came through and completely cleaned out the dense foliage on the indian mound. I’m not sure of their reasoning, whether it was because of the gang activity or  to honor the requirements of being a National Historic Site. Either way, it is sad to see these 100 year old trees cut down, but it may return the park to a place that is safe to visit and investigate.

Steps to the top of the mound in May 2008.

Indian Mound late 1890′s

Looking up the mound today

Ancient oyster shells and other debris from midden mounds laying on the ground around the entire park site.

Location History

Old Fort Park is the site of Fort Pierce, a military installation constructed by the U.S. Army in Florida with the purpose of being a main supply depot for the army during the Second Seminole War. During the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the U.S. Army began setting up military posts throughout the state of Florida. In 1837 Col. Benjamin K. Pierce (brother to the future 14th president) was sent down the Indian River from St. Augustine, charged with finding a location to build a base for operations in the area. Finding a fresh water spring, he chose his spot on a bluff overlooking the Indian River Lagoon. A year later, he built a fort out of palmetto trees.

Col. Pierce and his men were far from the first residents in the area, though the town is named after him. In fact, the fort itself was constructed near an ancient burial mound of the Ais Indians.

The mound is several hundred feet around, and a series of stone steps takes you to the top, where there is a beautiful view of the Indian River, named after the Ais. Although the Ais died out 250 years before the fort was built- long before the Seminoles migrated south from Alabama and Georgia- the survival of their structure compared to the vanishing of the soldiers’ fort, which burned to the ground in the 1840s, is quite remarkable.

Investigation Summary

While we had personal experiences at the Fort, the documentation does not prove or disprove those experiences.  The incident with the scratches remains inexplicable.  At this point, we feel that further exploration of the Old Fort Park would yield similar results to our three expeditions. Until we are capable of returning with a larger team of investigators and additional equipment, we are forced to call this investigation inconclusive.

To read the investigation summaries as they were written and to review the evidence, use the following links:

Old Fort Park, Final Investigation

Incident At The Old Fort

Back To The Old Fort

Old Fort Investigation, Round 1

Investigation Images

This afternoon I met a friend and her young son downtown for lunch. We enjoyed our meal along the water front as we caught up on the goings on in our lives. During the conversation, we began discussing the Old Fort Park. Curious, she asked if I would take her over there, as it is only a few minutes from where we were. We packed up and headed to the park.

I walked with her, taking her around the front of the mound, then up to the top. After that, we walked back down the mound and went around the southern end, coming out at the western center of the park. During this walk she told me she felt as if she were being watched (I did as well) and at one point even felt nauseated.

We then headed over to the area of the odd planting in the middle of the palms; this is the same location at which I’d had the odd feeling the last time we’d been there at night. I held the baby as she walked between two trees and headed towards the mound. As she passed between the trees, she appeared to stumble. There were no roots, no protruding branches. Coming over to stand next to me, she explained that she’d felt as if the ground suddenly ‘sank’, had a sense of vertigo and felt as if she’d been pushed. At this point, her young son looked at the trees and began waving, saying “Hi”.

We finished up our visit, with her declaring that the Old Fort Park gave her the creeps even in the daylight and headed our own ways. Shortly afterwards, she sent me this message:

“When i got in the car and got onto Indian River Drive, I continued to feel like I was being watched; almost like something hitched a ride. I didn’t feel scared or freaked or anything, but my little guy kept saying HI HI HI and waving. As I turned at Midway Road, I felt like my arm was burning. At the same time, my ears popped and the baby started screaming- like something had scared the heck out of him; he was bright red in the face. I looked down and saw I’d been scratched on my arm. As soon as I felt the scratch, the feeling of being watched was gone, but I felt really scared. When we got home, I tried to put the little guy down for a nap, but he won’t go to sleep- he’s still obviously upset.”

I can’t confirm or deny the incident that took place in the car, but I can tell you that while we were at the park she did not come into contact with anything that would have caused the injuries pictured in the images below.  The first two images were taken only moments after the scratches appeared; the others were taken a little over an hour and a half later.

We went back to the Old Fort Park on Friday, Sept. 28th, in a final attempt to reach the mound.  There were no other people at the park on this night, so we were able to explore not only the area of the Old Fort and behind the mound, but also the area of the steps and the top of the mound.

We began by walking around the Old Fort area; there was one section where there was an ‘odd’ feeling of being watched.  If you look at the Scouting photographs, you will be able to locate the spot, as it is near the large ‘planting’ area.

After this, we went over and explored the mound. We climbed to the top and were somewhat disappointed to find that there was not even an odd feeling in that location.  However, as we were coming off the mound, I felt again that I was being watched.  I commented to Jim that I didn’t want to be the last off the mound; he laughed and said he didn’t want to have to go first.  About that time I stopped short; it felt as if someone had just brushed by me. As I stood there trying to figure out if there was a tree or some other innocuous reason for the feeling, it happened a second time, only this was much lower to the ground, almost like a small dog or animal.  The second incident even caused my pant leg to move.  After reviewing the audio of the incident, we were somewhat interested to hear that I had just announced we would be leaving the mound prior to this occurring.  We also were surprised to hear that there were two out of place wind gusts at that time.  After the incident, I asked a question and in response there is another wind gust.

While this information is highly subjective, we felt it was interesting enough to share.  Below you will find the audio of the incident; note that at one point you will hear a loud bang as I move the audio recorder in order to take a picture.

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When we finished exploring the mound, we went around to the back of it yet again.  As we rounded the south west side of the mound, both Jim and I felt an overwhelming sense of being watched.  The EMF meter remained steady, with no odd spikes.   I should point out at this time that during all of our investigations at the park, the EMF meter remained fairly steady, ranging between .0 and .4.

The feeling of being watched was so powerful that Jim even began taking photographs over his shoulder, just to see if he could catch anything behind him.

During the investigation, we again caught several oddities on the digital camera. There was no rain, no fog or mist during the time we were there; nor had it rained during the day. The grass and trees were dry, and – as per our protocol- the equipment had all been cleaned prior to beginning the investigation.  We are unable to reasonably explain the oddities we captured with the theory that it is dust or moisture in the air. While none of these are as impressive as the anomaly found during the previous trip, we thought we’d post them here for you to review. We’ve also included an image of the oak tree, which we just felt was a great capture and wanted to share.

As a final note, I wanted to mention that Searcher and I went back to the fort and did a quick walk-through of the entire park with the EMF meter.  The wind was howling (25 mph average) and there was absolutely no sense of anything odd at any of the locations.  However, the EMF meter repeatedly spiked to 1.8 & 1.9, with no obvious source for the spiking.  We are completely baffled as to what would have caused this.

Summary:

At this point, we feel that further exploration of the Old Fort Park would yield similar results to our three expeditions. Until we are capable of returning with a larger team of investigators and additional equipment, we are forced to call this investigation inconclusive.

We were hoping to find a scientific explanation for the uneasy feelings along the backside of the mound. Well, that didn’t work out the way we planned; we actually left with more questions than we started out with. Let me explain.

We arrived as the sun was setting and started to walk towards the west side of the burial mound. I was getting a base EMF reading of 0.0 to 0.3. We immediately checked the electrical box and found EMF readings as high as 35.0 within 12 inches of the box, but at five feet away, the EMF returned to the base reading.

Next we decided to follow the trail behind the mound. As we passed through the trees in the image below an uneasy feeling began to grow. We came to a spot where the hair on my arms started to tingle and the hair on my neck stood on end. Luna mentioned she was also having the same feeling, without any prompting from me.

The EMF meter stayed at the base reading as Luna snapped a few pictures, including this one:

Obviously, there is a bug in the picture, but we are not sure exactly what the blue light could be. Just to clarify, this picture was taken facing the back of the burial mound, which is 15 feet high or so with no lights. For now, we’re going to refer to this as an anomaly.

Here is a close up:

Next we continued to move south behind the mound and we noticed a raised area of earth that runs from the mound under the fence to the rail yard. I don’t know if this is part of the mound or just dirt from the construction of the railroad. There is no way to be sure since the railroad has been in that location for nearly 100 years.

As we moved along the south side and headed back east, the uneasy feeling seemed to fade. We decided to take a look at the steps going up to the top of the mound. As we approached the steps, the feeling returned and was even stronger. We stopped to do a little EVP work but, like before, audio at this location is going to be difficult at best. Between trains, radios from the rail yard and people talking it will be nearly impossible to get uncontaminated audio.

Luna was about six to eight feet in front of me as we went up the steps of the mound when she suddenly stopped and turned around. She looked at me, had a strange expression on her face and said that someone or something had just touched her on the shoulder. Later, she described it as having been two taps. A quick examination of the area turned up no likely suspects for the tap- no low hanging tree branches, and I was too far away. Here is the audio clip from this point in the investigation.

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About this time a couple of cars showed up and we decided to call it a night and head home to review what we had caught. We ended up with one photo anomaly, one personal experience and we managed to disprove our theory that the uneasy feeling in certain areas was caused by high EMF coming from the rail yard.

It occurred to us that we are ghost hunting at a place that- to the best of our knowledge- has no history of paranormal activity, but we believe that between the Ais burial mound and the Fort, the possibility exists. Remarkably little information is readily available about the fort, its activities or the men that served there from 1838-1842. For this reason, I sent a request to the Library of Congress for diagrams and layouts of the fort, military rolls, service records and death records for Fort Pierce. At one point twelve to fourteen hundred soldiers were stationed here. There is no record of where the dead were buried-and we find it hard to believe that in four years, not a single soldier died of disease, old age, accident, animal encounter or Indian engagement.

The Library of Congress has redirected me to the National Archives, so we will keep you posted.

Last night we went on a preliminary investigation at the Old Fort. We knew weather would be an issue due to thunderstorms in the area, but we felt like it would be a good night to get a feel for what we would be up against. We arrived at the location and were disappointed to see that there were other people already there, apparently on the top of the mound. Since the Fort is sometimes known as a ‘lovers lane’, we felt it wise to give them a wide berth.

We decided to attempt a few photos, video and sound recordings. We headed to the area of interest from our scouting expedition, the north west corner of the lot. There was a strong smell of decay in this area, although there were no remains that were visible. We proceeded from there around the back of the mound. At this location we both experienced a sense of unease; however, this is near the East Coast Railway hookup station, so we will need to check the area for high EMF readings.

As we came around the front of the mound, we continued to take pictures and record audio and video. The video showed nothing interesting and the audio (a sample of which is posted below) was virtually useless due to the excessive noise coming from the Railway station.

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Wrapping up for the night, we headed home and reviewed the images we’d captured. We were interested by two anomalies in the images, which can be seen in the gallery below. The first was an odd red light that appeared at random locations through out the park. There was no actual light in the area that would have caused this, but after deliberating over the images, we realized that it was caused by lightning in an offshore storm.

The second anomaly came in the form of two nearly blank images. These were the last two photographs of the night and were taken as we headed back to the car. Both were direct shots of the burial mound. What makes them so interesting is that, while you can see light points in them, there is nothing in the images. Despite the fact that every other image taken has at least something in it (tree, leaves, ground), these two are empty.

While we find it interesting, there is nothing here that is of any real use. We will be going back to the Fort at another time, hopefully in better weather and without company.

We recently took a trip to the Old Fort to scout for the upcoming investigation. After spending quite a bit of time there, we noticed that there were four main areas of concern:

The steps are very steep and could pose a serious hazard in the dark. In addition, the park is large and will need to be worked in teams so that nobody gets hurt or lost.

The main road at the entrance to the park is quite busy and could easily cast shadows in through the trees.

There is a large pump house and electrical box located on the property. These could give false readings.

The railway runs directly behind the park, giving list to a host of electrical, sight and sound issues that must be kept in mind.

Now that we are aware of these issues, the investigation can be planned around them.

As we prepare for an in-depth exploration of the Old Fort Park, we felt it imperative to understand the history behind the location.

Old Fort Park is the site of Fort Pierce, a military installation constructed by the U.S. Army in Florida with the purpose of being a main supply depot for the army during the Second Seminole War. During the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the U.S. Army began setting up military posts throughout the state of Florida. In 1837 Col. Benjamin K. Pierce (brother to the future 14th president) was sent down the Indian River from St. Augustine, charged with finding a location to build a base for operations in the area. Finding a fresh water spring, he chose his spot on a bluff overlooking the Indian River Lagoon. A year later, he built a fort out of palmetto trees.

Col. Pierce and his men were far from the first residents in the area, though the town is named after him. In fact, the fort itself was constructed near an ancient burial mound of the Ais Indians.

The mound is several hundred feet around, and a series of stone steps takes you to the top, where there is a beautiful view of the Indian River, named after the Ais. Although the Ais died out 250 years before the fort was built- long before the Seminoles migrated south from Alabama and Georgia- the survival of their structure compared to the vanishing of the soldiers’ fort, which burned to the ground in the 1840s, is quite remarkable.

We will be going out during the day to take pictures of the location and to scout for any situations that might interfere with the conduction of an investigation.