I HATE haunted houses - when I was a teenager, I went to one of those haunted houses that pop up around Halloween, with my church youth group. I have never been back to another. I do not like people to touch me or jump out at me - that is, people that I do not know from Adam. So I was a little hesitant to go on a ghost walk - until the advertisement promised that there would be no tricks and no one would jump out to scare me. I figured they would surely rig something so you would feel like you got the most for your money. However, curiosity won out and we went on a ghost walk in Gatlinburg last Thursday night while on vacation.
At the risk of sounding like I may need to be committed, I am going to tell you all about what happened. You can see the pictures on Facebook - they wouldn't look so great here because they come out too small - and even on FB, they are not as good as the originals on my computer.
We started out by walking up behind the restrooms in The Village. There is a little paved road there - who knew that a graveyard was there?! I never knew. But first - it was a full moon - so we had to see something right? I am open to the possibility that spirits or souls stay on this earth after death. We know that the Bible talks of a "waiting area" for judgement day, but we also know that some came back to visit and we don't know exactly WHEN they go there. We hear about "walking into the light" so maybe some souls don't go to the light for a while after death.
Our guide was waiting for us right in front of the cemetary. He was a great story teller - we were all fascinated. I had no idea that such a small town could have such horrible deaths. I learned a couple of things as well. Way back when - around the 1800's or so, there was a disease that made people LOOK dead, but they really weren't. So there was a real danger of being buried alive. To keep this from happening, they would put a pipe with a string in it that went down inside the coffin. At the top was a bell. If you happened not to be dead, you could pull on the string that rang the bell and hope that someone was close by to hear and then hope that you didn't suffocate while they dug you out. That is where we get the term "Saved by the Bell". Also, there had to be someone to hang around the graveyard at night - just in case one of those bells rang - hence "Graveyard Shift". Of course then you had the problem if you were the ringer that the watchman might be too scared to get help and think that a ghost was ringing the bell. I also learned that 3:00 AM is called the bewitching hour because it was the exact opposite of 3:00 PM - the time that Jesus died. Supposedly if you hang out around graveyards and other ghostly places, you will always see something at 3:00 AM. I didn't try that....
The most exciting thing to me was the fact that I got an EMF (electro magnetic field) detector. Supposedly ghosts use energy from nature to move around. When that energy is collected together it forms an EMF field. Imagine my surprise when I found out that these are actually used and not just made to detect ghosts with. Ours were very simple - no numbers - just Safe, Caution and Danger. If yours went to caution or danger, you might be in the presence of a ghost. HOWEVER, look around you first. If you are standing under a street lamp or close to one of those electricity boxes, it will go off. I tested mine a bit first - mine never turned yellow under the street lamps and I had to get right up next to a transformer box for it to change. So this told me that you had to be in close proximity for it to work.
After talking in the cemetery a bit, we started walking. He took us over close to "Fort Fun". There is a parking lot and big wall there covered with ivy. There used to be a pizza parlor there. It went out of business because they couldn't keep employees - they would all quit after a few hours because of the strange things that happened. He also said that only those who lived in town could park their cars there now - strange things happened to outsider's cars....
Moving on, we went through an alley - that I would have never stepped in had I not been led there - into the back parking lot of one of the older hotels where they were building something. This particular hotel was the scene of a very brutal, bloody double murder. Now this is where the EMF detector started lighting up - both mine and Daniel's. Of course that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up - added to the fact that it was DARK - no street lamps - just the lights from the hotel and they were not very close. So I started snapping pictures - one time - and one time only - I pushed down on the button to the half way point (those of you who have digital cameras know what I am talking about) and in the screen, there was the shadow of a man with a sort of engineer's hat on. I totally freaked out and snapped - but nothing was in the picture when I went back. It gives me goose bumps now because I still see that image in my head. When I went back to the picture - on close examination, there was an orb - and this orb had a face. This was the only time that I felt funny - like I was close to a ghost - that goosebumpee feeling - you know?
We then moved on to the hotel beside the Haunted Mansion. This was the scene of two children playing in an open window - one fell inside and hit his head and the other fell out the window - both died. Many people have reported seeing a young girl playing in the water and others have recording the sounds of children playing in the stairwells there. I had some orbs in the pictures of the hotel.
Next, we turned around and looked at the space needle. Here was a horrible death of a worker who fell on top of the elevator, while it was full of people. (Beware this gets gross) His body was caught in the gears and torn up. The elevator gets stuck and his blood runs down the sides of the GLASS elevator. I got some mist in that picture. But the story alone makes you have nightmares and the guide of course embellished the story.
We headed back to the cemetery after this where our guide told us the sad story of Lydia. Lydia was in love and engaged to get married. She had already bought her beautiful wedding dress. Her fiance (whose name I have forgotten) had to make a business trip to Knoxville. The wedding day came and he had not returned. Lydia was convinced she had been stood up at the alter. She put on her wedding dress and hung herself. She can be seen walking through the cemetery in her wedding dress, on the left side looking for her fiance. The sad thing was that it was later found out that he had been attacked by a mountain lion on the road home and killed.
So on to my pictures - I snapped more than 100 pics that night. Looking through them on my camera didn't show anything - EXCEPT the strange black blob at the haunted fountain. I was very disappointed. I didn't have my camera cord with me, so I was unable to download them until I got home. Once home, I went into ghostbuster mode. I looked at every single picture and did find some orbs - which by the way - orbs are seen most often because that is an easy shape to manifest into (don't know how someone figured that one out). BUT they are also the easiest to explain away as dust or insects, so orb pictures are common. I did see on one of my "ghost" shows that I enjoy watching, that insects usually appear as a "rod" shape instead of a circle and of course experts can tell the difference between a dust orb and a spirit orb. Nevertheless, I have orbs in some of my pictures and some are impressive - especially the one with a face. I also got a couple of pictures with a ghostly mist in them as well. So all in all I was pleased. They were taken with a very unimpressive camera, one that is just a point and click digital camera and only enhanced by using the "auto correct" function on my windows computer. I don't own photoshop. I didn't add or take away. Everything above happened including the man. I had a BLAST! And I am ready to do it again.
I highly recommend the Ghost Walk in Gatlinburg. It was worth the money! The whole family - including Scooter - had a great time!
