The White Lady
A White Lady is a type of female ghost purported to appear in many rural areas, usually having died or suffered trauma in life. These legends are found around the world, with common themes involving the loss of or betrayal by a husband or fiancé. They are often associated with an individual family line, signifying a harbinger of death. When a lady in white is seen it indicates that someone in the family is going to die, similar to the appearance of a banshee.
Generally the ghost is female, dressed in late era Victorian garb, is often seen driving along a rural road, and/or associated with some local legend or tragedy. Most reports referring to white ladies have similar attributes. These ghosts possess clouded, white eyes and not-so-long white hair. Their skin is like milk, and indistinguishable from their clothes, save for the outlined details of their hair, nose, eyes, eyebrows and lips. Her face is often sad, not scary in the slightest.
White ladies are said to look directly into one’s eyes, with many reporting that they felt she wanted to tell them something. Also, these ghosts seem to only appear to specific people, and usually only once, the disappearing the moment someone else is called to observe.
Ghost On The Stairs
Tim writes:
“About a month ago, I learned that one of my co-workers and his girlfriend moved out of her house 9 months ago because of paranormal activity and due to circumstances beyond her control have to move back in. Needless to say, they’re afraid of the house and asked me for help.
Activity includes disembodied voices, blankets yanked off her kids beds, footsteps, doors slamming shut, full body apparitions, shadow figures, etc, etc. The phenomena was also witnessed by a few of her friends as well as her whole family for a span of about a year or so. I instructed her to take pictures throughout the house and would be there the next night. The morning before my 1st investigation she emailed me a picture taken in her basement by her friend and there appears to be an apparition on the stairs. It was taken at 10:30 in the morning and when the picture was taken nothing unusual was noticed until she viewed the pictures after the fact.”
The Pink Lady Of Greencastle
These pictures were taken in Greencastle Indiana by paranormal investigators who were investigating an abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town. While one investigator entered the house, the other stayed outside to take pictures of the exterior of the ruined building.
The investigator on the inside became panicked by a feeling that he wasn’t alone and began hearing what he described as a heartbeat next to his ear. He quickly left the house and he and his colleague, spooked by the entire encounter, fled the area in a hurry.
When the film was developed, three consecutive pictures showed a wispy figure bathed in a pink light in one of the windows while another picture showed the same figure at the backdoor.
The Sydney Quarantine Station
From the beginning of colonization in Australia until the dawn of modern medicine, contagious diseases posed a deadly threat to the isolated community. With the arrival of each ship in Sydney Harbor came the dreaded prospect of epidemics. With smallpox, cholera, Spanish influenza, bubonic plague and other contagious diseases regularly sweeping the world, it became essential to the colony that a quarantine facility be established. The combination of maritime convenience and geographic isolation made North Head the ideal location.
The Quarantine Act was passed in 1832 and the Station was officially established. It would protect Australia for over 100 years. At peak periods there could be as many as 8 ships moored off Quarantine Beach and the Station would run out of accommodation, the residents forced to camp on surrounding hills in generally miserable conditions. The atmosphere of the Station was sombre at best, as most of those quarantined had been forced to endure long voyages from across the world on diseased ridden ships. In the case of the typhus ridden Lady McNaughton, she arrived in Sydney Harbor in 1837 after losing fifty four passengers en route, only to find the Quarantine Station proved no sanctuary. Thirteen more died after arrival in what were then described as “truly appalling conditions with a sense of misery, wretchedness and disease present everywhere.”
Captain Stokes of the Beagle wrote that he was able to identify the Quarantine Station by the number of tombstones whitening on the side of the hill. Not surprisingly, the old Station is said to be the most haunted place in Australia. Since records were first kept, reports of disembodied patients, doctors and nurses have flooded in.
In 1984 ownership passed from the State and Federal Governments to the national Parks and Wildlife Service for inclusion in the Sydney harbor National Park. They regularly conducts a three hour ghost tour after sunset, where visitors are lead by tour guides through the winding unlit streets and buildings that constitute the Station. Listening to familiar stories of colonial life and the Station’s often grizzly history, tales turn more and more to ghostly activity. There are no theme park gimmicks or theatrics to frighten visitors, the emphasis on the Station’s history and documented cases of paranormal phenomena.
The effect on people can be dramatic, visitors have reported seeing ghosts, feeling cold spots and being tapped on the shoulder when no one was anywhere near them. Stories of haunting phenomena date back more than a century, when nurses on night shift reported seeing ghostly “chinamen” with long ponytails wandering through the wards and across verandas. Park Rangers living in the Station regularly report seeing ghostly figures and lights in unoccupied hospital wards, but upon investigation find no one present and nothing amiss.
In 2010 the team from Ghost Hunters International investigated the station, declaring it haunted.
Linda Vista Hospital
Linda Vista Hospital in California is not an easy find and once you arrive there, it’s not easy to stay. It was said to be built more than a century ago in 1904. Built by the Santa Fe Railroad in order to treat their own employees, it was named, in the beginning, the Santa Fe Coastal Lines Hospital.
More and more rooms were added as the hospital grew and in 1937 it was renamed to use the current name, which means beautiful view. Around 1990, the Linda Vista hospital closed. There were rumors of patient deaths and abuse although none of those rumors have been proven or disproven. The building closed in a very odd way. According to those who have entered the building, it appeared to them that those who left simply walked away, leaving papers, jobs and other items as if they were abandoning a sinking ship.
There are, according to sources, multiple active spirits in Linda Vista hospital. They are a physician, a lady who is middle age, and and three patients who are also part of those who are active and walking.
The physician is older, salt and pepper haired and has a beard, while the lady is in her mid thirties. Those who were patients were at the time, or so it is said, patients in the psychiatric ward. They were, it is believed, not permitted to leave the premises and it is felt they can’t leave even today.
The doctor’s spirit is a harsher one. He was according to those in the know, not well liked and in many cases was even feared. They say that he displays great caring for some of his charges as well as vast penchant for cruelty with others. What keeps the doctor here, why are the patients still roaming the halls and who is the mysterious younger lady who seems to wander, keeping them all company as they roam?
Is Linda Vista really haunted, and if so, why are these spirits chained to this place for so long?
The Lizzie Borden House
“Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
The grisly poem above was inspired by one of the most famous cases of murder to ever occur on U.S. soil. The Lizzie Borden murders captivated the entire country during the late 19th century and continues to inspire ghost stories and tales of paranormal activity by anyone who dares to enter the home of Lizzie Borden.
It’s not surprising that reports of haunted activity and paranormal occurrences have been whispered about at the Lizzie Borden House for quite some time. The violent and emotional nature of the tragic events that transpired there have been forever burned into it’s walls and the memories of residents in Fall River, Massachusetts.
The haunted history of The Lizzie Borden House begins on a Thursday afternoon during the year of 1892. Lizzie Borden was the daughter of Andrew Jackson Borden, who was a wealthy and influential citizen of Fall River. He was not particularly friendly to people, but took his business matters seriously. He was the board director for several banks in the local area and had his hand in commercial real estate as well.
His choice for a home wasn’t very impressive when compared to homes of other men of his stature. Lizzie Borden had openly expressed her desire to move into a better area and a bigger, more beautiful home. Andrew Borden would have no part of this and being the penny pinching type of fellow that he was, preferred the lesser expensive home that was close to his business dealings. Many have attributed the sense of entitlement that Lizzie felt as one of the factors that Lizzie Borden began to put a strain on her relationship with her father and his second wife, Abby. The relationship between Lizzie and her stepmother wasn’t particularly great either.
Nobody would ever have guessed that Lizzie Borden, a Sunday school teacher and well known member of the community would have been responsible for what would happen that day.
Sometime before noon, as Andrew Borden napped on the couch, he was attacked by someone wielding an axe. He was struck repeatedly until he was dead. The body was hacked to the point that it was unrecognizable by most. Little did he know as he laid down for his nap that his wife Abby was already dead on the floor above, her blood seeping through the cracks of the wooden floor. She had been attacked with the same axe. The position of her body when found suggested that she was kneeling down beside the bed when the gruesome attack occurred. Some say she was praying, others say that she was simply making the bed. Either way, Abby Borden didn’t have a chance when her murderer entered the room, filled with rage and armed with an axe.
The news traveled fast in those times and sinister acts such as these were practically unheard of. Lizzie Borden was arrested for the murders although she maintained her innocence. The trial made headlines nationwide as the world became fascinated with the Sunday school teacher that had hacked her parents to death. Eventually, Lizzie Borden was found innocent of the crimes by the courts.
Some of the local townsfolk however, had a different opinion. Lizzie Borden was somewhat of an outcast from the community and forever marked as a murderer. This didn’t bother Lizzie very much as she immediately purchased a grand home on the hill along with her sister who had always been equally unhappy with the home that Andrew Borden had chosen for them. They named the home “Maplecroft”. Lizzie lived in the home until her death at age 67. She was buried alongside the graves her father and stepmother in Fall River’s Oak Grove Cemetery.
Over one hundred years later, The Borden House has been turned into the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. Many patrons of the inn have reported various accounts of ghostly activity within the house. The most popular room and reportedly the most haunted is the room in which Abby Borden was hacked to death. People have witnessed a woman in 19th century clothing making the bed. Disembodied voices have been heard coming from empty rooms and echoing through the house. Footsteps that belong to no one are also a common experience inside The Lizzie Borden House. Perhaps the most spooky reports are that of a woman heard crying throughout the home. Is it the sobbing spirit of Lizzie Borden, riddled with guilt for the slaying of her parents? Or perhaps the spirit of Abby Borden whose life was cut short by the edge of an axe? Either way, The Lizzie Borden House will forever remain one of the most interesting and allegedly haunted places in America. If you are ever in Massachusetts, You can always reserve the most special room at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast and test the local legends for yourself.
The Back Seat Ghost
Taken in 1959 by Mabel Chinnery
While visiting the gravesite of her mother, Mabel Chinnery took this spur of the moment picture of her husband, who was waiting in the car. Upon developing the film and noticing the eerie figure in the back seat, just behind her husband’s right shoulder, Mabel exclaimed that the ghostly person was her mother. An expert examined the photo for signs of fraud and was noted as saying, “I stake my reputation on the fact that the picture is genuine,” adding that the image was not a reflection nor a double exposure.
The Ghost of Hampton Court
To the sceptic it may simply look like a fuzzy CCTV image of someone in a long coat walking through a doorway. Experts say the long-coated figure could be the best proof yet found that things really do go bump in the night… and the day too. The mystery surfaced two months ago at the 16th-century palace, once home to King Henry VIII. Security staff heard alarms ringing near an exhibition hall, indicating fire doors had been opened. But on investigation they found the doors closed. Perplexed, they examined CCTV footage, and that is when it got spooky. The cameras showed the heavy doors popping open but no one there. Then, suddenly, the long- coated figure appeared and slammed the doors shut. The guards were told the same thing happened at the same time - about 1pm - the day before.
To add to the mystery, the doors also flew open at the same time the very next day. But the ghostly figure has been spotted only once. The suspected spook has not just been sighted by CCTV. Australian tourists also claim to have seen a ghost near the exhibition area. The palace, in West London, has ruled out its guides as suspects because they do not enter that part of the building. Psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman said the spectre, nicknamed “Skeletor”, might prove to be a significant discovery. ‘It could be the best ghost sighting ever,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen anything that would match that at all.’
Skinwalker Ranch
A team of scientists based in Las Vegas has been conducting a study that may be different from anything that’s ever been tried. The research is focused on a ranch in rural Utah where, for 50 years or more, paranormal activity has been reported, including UFOs, Bigfoot, mutilated animals and poltergeists. Some call the place Skinwalker Ranch, and George Knapp of the I-Team is the only journalist allowed to visit the property.
Oil executive Gregory Todd is one of the hundreds, if not thousands of north-eastern Utah residents who’ve seen weird objects — call them UFOs — over their homes in the past 50 years. The Utah basin has also been a hotbed of other strange activity including Bigfoot encounters and mutilated animals.
In a basin known for an array of unexplained phenomena, the epicentre of high strangeness seems to be a picturesque spread known to many as Skinwalker Ranch. Native Americans who live near the property advise members to steer clear because, they say, this is the path of the skinwalker, an evil force.
The last family to live on this spread lasted only 20 months. From the first day back in 1994, they were terrorized by an unseen intelligence that played mind games with them, shadowy figures inside their house, objects that moved on their own, disembodied voices and bad things happening to their animals beginning with cattle and bulls that disappeared and others that were carved up with surgical precision in broad daylight. A gigantic wolf that attacked one of their calves was tracked through the mud, but the tracks simply stopped as if the animal had evaporated into thin air. Three dogs were vaporized after while chasing blue orbs of light in a pasture.
In 1995, the ranch came to the attention of NIDS, the National Institute for Discovery Science based in Las Vegas. NIDS bought the property and began an unprecedented scientific study. Observation posts were built. Video cameras were installed and operated. Scientific personnel and former lawmen were on the property 24-7 for 8 straight years. Dr. Colm Kelleher headed up the NIDS study.
Dr. Colm Kelleher said, “We probably have, if you count all the pre-NIDS and post-NIDS incidents, close to 100 different incidents. If you look at all of them, the one thing that jumps out is how unreproducible they are.”
In other words, nothing ever happened the same. The scientists would spend all night out in the darkness and witnessed dozens of UFOs and odd balls of light. They also encountered large unknown animals, including ones that emerged from tunnels of light in the fields. Whatever it was proved elusive. The cameras that were installed atop telephone poles were attacked and dismantled, but whatever did it was invisible.
Dr. Colm Kelleher said, “We checked the time stamps on this pole versus this pole. We looked at when the camera lost power and nothing was on the tape. There should have been something visible because the range of these things is pretty good.”
NIDS still owns the ranch, but it appears the phenomena have gone underground, as if weary of being hunted. As yet, the mystery of Skinwalker Ranch remains unsolved. Kelleher said, “If anything, it has created more questions that I had when I came into this thing.”
The ranch remains off limits to outsiders. Visitors — from this world anyway — are not welcome.
The Ghost of Boothill Cemetery
Terry Ike Clanton took this photo of his friend at Boothill Graveyard, who wanted Old West-looking pictures of himself dressed in Clanton’s 1880-period clothes. Among the gravestones, just to the right of his friend, is the image of what appears to be a thin man in a dark hat.
“This is the photo that changed my opinion about ghost photos! I personally shot this photograph of my friend in Boothill Graveyard… We had it developed at Thrifty Drug Store and I know no one tampered with it! The picture was shot in black & white, because my friend wanted old west looking pictures of himself dressed up in my 1880 period clothes. All I can say is… I know there was no other person in this photograph when I shot it, especially some guy holding a knife! That’s right folks, if you look carefully the person in the background appears to be holding a knife!”
- Terry Ike Clanton
