The story behind this legendary haunted spot may not be true, but there are still many unexplained events surrounding this eerie intersection. See our exclusive photos of the railroad crossing ghost.

Just south of San Antonio, Texas, in an unremarkable neighborhood not far from the San Juan Mission is an intersection of roadway and railroad track that has become somewhat famous in the catalog of American ghost lore. The intersection, so the story goes, was the site of a tragic accident in which several school-aged children were killed - but their ghosts linger at the spot. And the curious from all over the country come to this section of railroad track to witness firsthand the paranormal phenomena they've heard takes place there.

The story - at least 20 years old - is the stuff of urban legend and its details vary from telling to telling, but this is essentially it:

Back in the 1930s or 1940s, a school bus full of children was making its way down the road and toward the intersection when it stalled on the railroad tracks. A speeding train smashed into the bus, killing 10 of the children and the bus driver. Since that dreadful accident many years ago, any car stopped near the railroad tracks will be pushed by unseen hands across the tracks to safety. It is the spirits of the children, they say, who push the cars across the tracks to prevent a tragedy and fate like their own.

Even today, cars line up at the haunted intersection to see if the legend is true. The driver stops the cars some 20 to 30 yards from the tracks and puts the car in neutral gear. Some even turn off their engines. And sure enough, even though it appears that the road is on an upward grade, the car begins to roll. It rolls slowly first, then steadily gaining speed - seemingly of its own accord and against gravity - up and over the tracks. This has been tested time and time again, and cars really do roll up and over the tracks - every time.

But that's not all. The second half of this legend is that if a light powder - like talcum or baby powder - is sprinkled over the car's trunk and rear bumper, tiny fingerprints and handprints will appear - the prints of the ghost children pushing the car. Many who have tried it swear that indeed they can see the evidence of small children's handprints in the powder.

First-Hand Experience

Fact or fantasy? A true unexplained phenomenon or an urban legend fueled by eager participants with heightened imaginations?

One person who tested the legend with favorable results was Brenda Pacheco, the fan club president of Wayanay Inka, a musical group from Peru. "I put my car in neutral, took my foot off the pedals and the car moved!" she writes at mysa.com (for my San Antonio - a website jointly sponsored by KENS 5 television station and the San Antonio Express-News). "It moved quickly toward the tracks, up over the bump and down the other side, well out of harm's way!"

Pacheco also succeeded with the powder test, having dusted the back of her black station wagon with talcum. "I was so excited, I got out to check the back of my car and there were the tiny handprints! Plain and clear, and so, so tiny! The prints were so perfect, you could see the lines of the palms, and the swirls of the fingerprints!"

She was so thrilled with the results that Pacheco repeated the experiment, with even more startling results: "Up and over the hill again," she says. "I got out, and there were several little handprints, not only on the back of the car, but down the sides toward the back doors! And there was one big handprint on the side! (The sides had also been wiped down.) Could this be a handprint from the bus driver? That's what we think.."

What Are the Facts?

Is there any factual merit to the story? Do cars really roll uphill? And do tiny handprints really appear?

Several investigations into the legend have come up empty-handed when it comes to documentation of the accident. A precise (or even consistent) date has never been determined. There seem to be no records or archived newspaper articles about such a tragic accident. And the much-used excuse of "well, records weren't kept very well back then" seems inept at best. A San Antonio police officer, who regularly patrolled that district and had heard the ghost story, researched police records for such an accident and found nothing.

So what about the gravity-defying cars? Are they pushed or not? According to The Haunted "Ghost Tracks" of San Antonio at Abstract Dreamteching, a local television station hired a surveyor to determine whether or not there was an upward grade on the road running toward the tracks. "They claimed the results showed that, despite an illusionary appearance of a level, or even slightly inclined road, the street surface was actually at a 2 degree declination as it approached the railroad track crossing."

In other words, the road runs downhill slightly, so naturally a car in neutral will roll in that direction of its own accord.

And what of the fingerprints and handprints? The logical explanation is that a light powder reveals prints that are already there; in fact, that's the basis of fingerprint detection in police work. "Latent fingerprints can be lifted from some objects years after they are made; crimes have been solved thusly," says the author at Abstract Dreamteching.

Other Weird Things

So there's a logical explanation for everything that occurs at this railroad crossing, right? Well, maybe and maybe not. Whether there ever was an accident involving children on a school bus at this spot is open to serious question. Nevertheless, many people report other strange phenomena taking place there:

• The author at Abstract Dreamteching, using an audio cassette recorder in the course of his investigation, recorded an unexplained heartbeat. He also had "a genuinely frightening psychic/spiritual experience" of an undisclosed nature.
• The author also reported that during a few of his experiments at the intersection, his car unexplainably slowed down and stopped squarely on the tracks. "It was truly startling moment," he says. "There was no reasonable explanation for the occurrence, only the odd thought that the ghosty kids wanted some company."
• At least one other person, a native San Antonian, had car trouble on the tracks. "We did start out about 30 yards from the tracks," she told mysa.com. "But as we got closer my husband would press on the brakes. When he let go the car would go faster. He did it again and again and the car went until the last time. He stopped on the tracks and the car did not go. To top that, the car did not start either. We stayed there for about 5 or 10 minutes and decided to push it under the Loop 410 overpass. We were there all day until someone came to help us tow the car home."
• Brenda Pacheco experienced more than the ghostly handprints. "The four of us heard children's voices... loud and clear, like children playing on a school ground. We listened in amazement, then it stopped abruptly!"
• Pacheco claims another bizarre event occurred when her sister tried the experiment. Because she had a white car, they did not spread powder on it. "When her car was pushed over, we were shocked! No handprints, but there were little blood droplets all over her trunk! They continued down the sides and there were blood droplets on the inside of the car where her daughter had the window down on the back door!"

Little Girl Ghost?

Just recently I received the photograph shown here, taken at the haunted tracks by the daughter of Andy and Debi Chesney.

Debi's note reads:

"My daughter and some friends went to San Antonio, Texas this last weekend and went to the railroad tracks where they say that a busload of children were killed a long time ago. They took several pictures. They emailed them to me after they got home to show me, and a ghost appeared in this one. They had no idea that it was in the picture until the next day when I printed out the picture and showed them. It was really freaky. It appears to be a little girl carrying a teddy bear."

While some ghosts seem to be lost and confused in their altered state of existence, others - like this one - seem to be watching us, and perhaps even destined to deliver an important message.

Dee A. lives with her family in Texas, renting an old house for the past four years. She had never had a problem with the ghost that she felt lived there... until April, 2002. From that time, her relationship with the spirit that has become known as "The Pink Lady" would be a mixture dread, bewilderment and thankfulness. Here is Dee's own story of this unrelenting ghost and the effect it has had on her family.

It was Easter Sunday and members of my extended family were over for the annual dinner and egg hunt. All the kids were in the backyard jumping on the trampoline while the adults sat around out front talking and catching up. My husband, who is considerably older than I (I am 26, he is 59) went into the back to check on the kids. For some reason, he decided to get up on the trampoline with them. His reflexes not being what they used to be, my husband fell off of the trampoline, crushed his ankle and was knocked unconscious.

While all of this was going on in the backyard, I was in the front talking with my cousin. Suddenly, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and saw this lady whom I didn't recognize standing at the edge of my yard. She was dressed in a very nice (yet quite simple) pink sundress with matching pink shoes and a pink handbag. I knew no one in our neighborhood who looked like her and couldn't imagine who would just walk up into my yard like that.

As I looked at her she said, "He needs you - NOW!"

I was mortified! I told my cousin I had to go check on the kids. As I rounded the corner to the back, my son was running to me to tell me about his dad. We called 911 and he was rushed to the emergency room. He spent three days in the hospital, and for those three days the Pink Lady never seemed to leave my side. She was right there everywhere I went - when I was home with the kids and when I was at the hospital with my husband. I saw her several times. She seemed to be watching my every move.

A Change in Temperament

The day my husband came home from the hospital, he was very weak from the pain killers they had given him, so I had to help him up the front stairs, into the house and into bed. I eventually got him settled, and when I turned to get his drinking glass, there stood the Pink Lady. But this time her demeanor was quite different. Over the three days I had seen her when my husband was in the hospital, she seemed just to be watching and thinking. But now she looked angry!

I quickly walked out of the bedroom, and when I turned to close the door, there she stood in the doorway. I left the door open, never considering I could ask her to move. For one thing, I seemed to be the only one who could see this apparition, and my husband would have thought I was crazy for talking to the doorway. Second, who knows what the spirit's reaction would have been?

I tried to put her out of my mind and went to the kitchen to start preparing dinner for the kids. But the Pink Lady wasn't going to let me off that easily. I had always known there was a ghost in my house... I had felt the presence and just knew. But now to have her there... watching me and letting me see her watching me was very unnerving! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and said, "What do you want?"

The Message

She didn't answer, but just vanished. Apparently, the Pink Lady decided this was not the time for a confrontation. That was fine with me, and so the kids and I had our dinner.

I was about to clear the table before going in to check on my husband when she appeared again. I was standing there in my kitchen with an armful of dirty dishes, and this spirit glared at me with a look of total disgust on her face. "Should he come last behind EVERYTHING else?" she said.

was so horrified at this admonishment that I dropped the dishes. I ran into my bedroom where I found my husband trying to reach for his pain pills. He had apparently been lying in the bed in severe pain, but because he knew I was cooking for the kids, he did not holler out for me.

That was when I realized what the Pink Lady had been doing. She had showed herself to me in an attempt to make me see the obvious. I was neglecting the most important things to take care of the most mundane.

But who was this spirit?

I have since discovered from my landlord that his mother had lived in this house for nearly 50 years before she died. Her favorite color was pink and she loved to wear sundresses. I asked to see a picture of his mother, and he showed me the only picture that had not been lost when his own home burned down. The picture was black and white, but my landlord provided details of colors. His mother was standing on what was now OUR front porch in a pretty pink sundress, pink shoes with a pink handbag - just as I had seen her. Furthermore, the photo was taken on Easter Sunday, 1940.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the Pink Lady was enjoying our family gathering right along with us, and when my husband got injured, it disrupted our celebration as well as hers. Then, I guess, she didn't think I was taking good enough care of my patient, so she stuck around.

Once I realized that I had to pay closer attention to my husband's needs while he was out of commission, she stopped hounding me. I have not seen her since that day she admonished me, but I still feel her presence. She's no longer intrusive... but the Pink Lady is still there.

Terrifying stories from people who have seen and even touched them....

SHADOW PEOPLE may be the most commonly seen apparitions. Countless people have reported catching sight of them. Most often they are just detected as fleeting images out of the corner of one’s eye, and perhaps we can dismiss many of those instances as real shadows or optical illusions of one kind or another.

There are many other plausible cases, however, in which these shadow entities are seen straight-on for several seconds or even minutes. What are they? Dark ghosts? Beings from some other time or dimension? Whatever they are, they can be terrifying to those who see them, as you’ll read in the frightening cases told here. In all of these encounters – including some in which these shadows have actually been felt – they seem to have intelligence and may even be following some mysterious purpose. What are they… and what do they want?

It wanted the papers

In 1983, the wife of Doyle, a geologist, encountered one of these shadow people in their home near Olathe, Kansas. Its appearance followed that of another spirit – a vaporous white form. Doyle says his wife was home alone in the house one September evening. “She was headed down the hallway when she stopped, feeling a slight chill in the air,” he tells us. “Almost immediately she observed a wispy white shape, that of a woman in flowing white apparel, drift from my office into the master bedroom. This apparition seemed to look briefly at her as it passed by.

“But then ‘something’ else made its appearance. From the master bedroom into which the wispy woman in white had disappeared emerged a very solid and very ghastly apparition. This thing was a slow-moving, black, skeletal form, like some hideously animated charred corpse. It did not drift, but walked slowly into my office, not seeming to be aware of my wife. You would think this ‘thing’ would have terrified her, but she said she felt no unease whatsoever, despite its frightening appearance. In fact, she advanced to the office door and looked in. The light was on, and this thing was standing at my desk with its back to her, looking down. She said it was reaching out with a boney blackened hand at the papers on my desk, as if it were profoundly interested in those papers.

“She stood transfixed as it then slowly turned, as if aware of her presence, to face her. She said it seemed to have remnants of charred clothing clinging to its body. It then looked back at her, its faceless skull devoid of any emotion, malevolent or otherwise. Its eye sockets were black and empty. She had no thought that it meant her harm or was evil. Then it simply vanished, like a TV screen being snapped off.”

What was this dark entity looking for on Doyle’s desk? Was it a spirit merely repeating an action it took in life? Or was it some extradimensional being with a real interest in those papers?

The digging shadow man

There are other stories in which these shadow people seem to appear with a purpose. Sometimes they seem curious about the people they are visiting. Reiner recounts what happened to his brother when he was 12 years old. “One night, while everyone was fast asleep, [my brother] heard the shutter of the window open,” Reiner says. “He peeked from under his covers and saw a hand coming through the shutter. He closed his eyes thinking that it was a dream, but when he looked again, there was now a figure of a man inside the room. This figure was so dark that even in our pitch-black room his outline was clear. Terrified, he screamed and switched on the night light beside his bed. The dark figure seemed startled and leapt out the small window.”

This reaction by the figure indicates that is well aware of its surroundings. But what did it want? A year later, it returned, and behaved very mysteriously indeed. “This time the figure was already in our room,” Reiner says his brother told him. “The thing walked across our room and studied my sleeping self and our youngest brother. He then went in-between our beds and started digging with what my brother explained as a pick-like tool. The sight frightened him and he again switched on the lights and shouted for me to wake up. But this time, the figure didn't leave. It stopped its ‘digging’ and just stared at him, seeming to walk toward his bed. I woke up from his screaming, and just as I looked toward him, I saw the dark figure. It looked back at me, then back to my brother. It jumped out of the shutter just as my brother said it did before.”

This case is significant in that the being was seen by more than one person performing the same action. But digging? At what? For what possible reason? If these are beings from some other time or dimension, we can only guess at their puzzling intentions. In another case, one of these beings was seen trying to pull up a floorboard.

It seemed surprised

Shadow beings aren’t just creatures of the night. Consider Victor’s sighting on November 1, 2003 (the day after Halloween – All Souls Day) at 8 a.m. He was in his kitchen pouring himself some coffee when he saw the shadow person actually materialize on his backyard patio.

“A brownish-colored smoky mist came wrapping around the patio post from the rear,” Victor recalls. “It was about two feet tall and two inches thick and was hugging the side of the post about five feet above the ground. The ‘smoke’ stepped aside from the post and formed into a human shape. I could see the torso from above the groin (no legs), the head and right arm. I couldn't see a face and the torso didn't appear to be clothed. The whole thing was still very smoky, fluid and almost had a shimmery sparkle to it.

“The next second, the apparition actually straightened its head from a downward position (like someone standing at attention). I saw the shoulders snap into place and we stood and stared directly at each other for a split second. His whole body jolted, like he was shocked that I was looking at him. It was a very human reaction. Imagine how your body reacts when someone surprises you. He turned sideways and raised his right arm like he was running. He scooted very quickly back behind the patio post. At the same time he appeared to be running, his body also seemed to be reverting back to the smoky mist shape.”

The behavior of this apparition indicates intelligence. As it appeared in our dimension of reality, it seemed surprised that it could be seen by Victor, and retreated to whence it came. Wherever that might be.

Dark night figures

Nicky has had several encounters with these shadow beings, some completely terrifying because they have actually touched her. One night as she lay in bed with her husband, she was jolted awake. “I opened my eyes and this dark figure, which felt like a male presence, was holding my arms down and smothering me,” she says. “I kicked at it to try to feel my arms and screamed so loud that it woke up children at the other end of the house. My husband flew out of bed, and for the first time in the 12 years we have been together he saw it. The dark figure went through the ceiling. It shocked my husband so much that he sat up for an hour and didn't say a word. I was so terrified and relieved at the same time because my husband saw it and I wasn't going crazy.

After that, the visitations relented until the night of November 4, 2004. “My husband was on night shift and it was just me and the kids,” Nicky says. “It was 11.30 p.m. I felt its presence and when I opened my eyes I could clearly see the figure was not human. It was all black and crouching on four legs. It sort of reminded me of a gargoyle. It pounced at me. I screamed at it and punched the air, jumped out of bed and turned on the lights. I left the light on because I was too scared to turn it off.”

Was it real… or Nicky’s imagination? It would be easier to dismiss if her husband hadn’t seen it, too.

He touched one

Despite their shadowy appearance, some of these entities seem to have substance. How else could Nicky have felt its touch? In the case of En Vee, he believes he inadvertently touched a shadow person – a sensation he’ll never forget. It was 1977 when he was six years old, living in a circa 1900 house in New Zealand. He awoke one night to make his way to the bathroom.

“In the dark, I put my arm through the doorway to feel for the dining room light switch around on the wall. My hand settled on something damp… something that felt like cloth,” he says. “I jumped back, seeing in the near darkness something dark move away from the cream-painted wall. I shot back into my room and hid under the bed covers. After awhile, I had this overwhelming feeling that it was there in the doorway. I pulled the sheets down to my nose, but there was nothing in the doorway. Seconds later, a black shape appeared, and stayed there. I couldn't move or shout. All I could do was stare at it and hope it didn't come in. Eventually it disappeared. I remember staring at the doorway for a long long time afterward, my heart pounding loudly in the fear that it might return, but it never did.”

Did En Vee actually feel the cold dampness of a shadow being? Just the thought of it brings chills.

A history of blood, occult practices, possession and terrifying spirits.....

AN UNASSUMING yet historic building on the banks of the Licking River in Wilder, Kentucky has become a nationally famous story because of the tragic, strange and paranormal occurrences that have taken place there over the years. The "haunted house" currently is home to Bobby Mackey's Music World, a local country music hot spot that is owned by the club's featured performer, Bobby Mackey.

Author Douglas Hensley wrote a popular book on the subject – Hell's Gate: Terror at Bobby Mackey's Music World. Hensley spent five years researching the bizarre background of the nightclub and the building itself, which has a sordid history that dates back to the 1800s. In the back of the book are copies of 29 sworn and signed affidavits from club employees, patrons, Wilder Policemen and others, including Bobby Mackey's wife, Janet Mackey, who writes in her affidavit that an unseen force threw her down a flight of stairs and tried to harm her in other ways.

Hensley summed up his observations in the book's introduction: "The phenomena within and about Bobby Mackey's Music World have yet to be satisfactorily defined by any explanation other than: it's haunted."

BLOODY HISTORY

The old building that now houses Bobby Mackey's was a slaughterhouse for over 40 years during the 1800s. The ample spilled blood from the slaughterhouse and its location on the banks of the Licking River – one of two rivers in the world that flow north – attracted a hoard of satanic worshippers who used the site for sacrificial grounds.

In 1896, the building became entangled in a sensational and grizzly murder when Pearl Bryan's headless body was found nearby. The young lady's head was never found, but speculation abounded that it was likely disposed of in the slaughterhouse's basement well that was used to drain blood into the river when two local men who were active in the occult confessed to the murder. Alonzo Walling and Scott Jackson became the last two people hanged in Campbell County when they were sent to the gallows on March 21, 1897 for the murder of Pearl Bryan. With his last words on the gallows behind the Campbell County Courthouse – located near the slaughterhouse – Walling vowed to return to torment his executioners.

According to the Kentucky Post articles at the time, Walling and Jackson were offered life in prison instead of death if they told authorities where Bryan's head was located. People familiar with the two murderers claim that they refused because they were terrified they would spark the wrath of Satan if they exposed the site of his sacrificial grounds. Reportedly, they offered Bryan's head as a sacrifice to Satan, most likely in the slaughterhouse well. Local believers claim the well is a "gateway to hell" of sorts, a gruesome legend that lives on to the present day.

GHOSTS, HEADLESS AND OTHERWISE

Bryan (often a headless figure), Walling and Jackson reportedly have been seen on numerous occasions at Bobby Mackey's over the years, along with other spirits whose lives were entangled with the building in some way. In fact, several people have died unnatural deaths inside the building, which was alleged to be the site of several murders at the casino. During the 1950s, it became the Latin Quarter, another popular nightclub whose owners were arrested several times on gambling charges.

Later, the building became yet another rough-and-tumble nightclub, The Hard Rock Cafe (no relation to the restaurant chain), which was closed in 1978 by police request after several fatal shootings on the premises. Bobby Mackey purchased the building in 1978 and opened his Music World shortly thereafter.

One of the most frequently seen spirits is a young girl named Johana, a cabaret dancer during the club's casino days, who reportedly poisoned herself and her mobster father inside the building after he murdered her boyfriend, club singer Robert Randall. Other spirits who have appeared at the club regularly are Johana and gangster Albert "Red" Masterson.

According to sworn affidavits, other witnesses and local legend, paranormal activity in the club is often preceded by the strong smell of rose perfume. The juke box at Bobby Mackey's also has come on suddenly and played old tunes from the 1930s and 1940s – songs that were not loaded into the juke box! "The Anniversary Waltz" is a particular favorite, heard numerous times by many people. Chairs have moved inexplicably, rooms have gone cold and people have heard their names called, only to turn around and have no one there in the club.

CASES OF POSSESSION

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of the Bobby Mackey's saga are the claims by several people that they have had spirits enter their bodies while in the club. Some of the sworn affidavits claim they felt cold chills run through their bodies, while others claimed to have taken on different personalities and even facial features while inside.

The most celebrated case of possession at Bobby Mackey's is Carl Lawson, who lived upstairs above the nightclub as a caretaker for the club. Lawson, one of the main subjects of Hensley's book, claims to have been attacked by several of the resident spirits and actually possessed by some of them as well, including Alonzo Walling. A supposedly successful exorcism of Lawson and the entire building took place at Bobby Mackey's on August 8, 1991. It was performed by the Reverend Glenn Coe and witnessed by Hensley, who also recorded it all on videotape.

For a time, it appeared that the exorcism was successful, but in recent years, strange occurrences have begun once again at the old building. Bobby Mackey, who has refused to believe the paranormal activity was true from the beginning, nevertheless made plans to tear down the building and construct a new club on adjacent property after viewing the videotape of the Carl Lawson exorcism. However, a piece of the ceiling fell on him one day when he was discussing the demolition, and the adjacent property he purchased for the new club was rendered useless by the sudden appearance of a fissure about six inches wide and 60 feet deep that runs from the old slaughterhouse well to the middle of the adjacent property.

Mackey has never built the new club, and he continues to operate at his original club where he regularly performs a special song he wrote, "The Ballad of Johana."

Spectre in the Antique Shop
I’m somewhat psychic. I can ‘sense’ things that other people can’t. Oddly enough, most of my friends can too. We once decided to go ghost hunting in some places in my hometown that have reports of hauntings, one of which is a 100-year-old bathhouse with at least four different entities. As a child, before I learned of this, I hated the hallway that was in the back of the building. I always had the sensation I was being watched. (It’s now an antique shop.) A couple who were antique shopping were looking at a desk there, and my companion and I stared in horror at the two, wondering why they couldn’t feel it. Months later, another friend and I returned to the building, at night, to see if we could see anything. We did. Outside of a window, on the second story, was what can best be described as a shimmering ball of light, as if gas or light reflecting off of water. Wondering if it was a trick of the light from the gas station across the street, we split up and looked at it from different angles to see if it faded. It didn’t. We moved to the side of the building to look at the hallway where my friend and I had been before. Although no one is in the building after closing, the two of us saw a blue-hazy figure, roughly man-shaped, at the mouth of the hallway. – Constance P.

The Haunted Piano
My grandmother had passed when I was a teenager. My brother was a very good football player at the time. I did something wrong, so my mother grounded me from going to his game that Friday night. My grandmother had a piano in the basement, and she only knew two songs by heart; one of them was the Third Man theme. I was upstairs watching TV and feeling sorry for myself, when all of a sudden that same song was being played on the piano. I know that was my grandmother downstairs playing that song, if only in spirit. – Diane D.

Ghost Demands Attention
I have had several weird experiences with electronic and electrical devices since my mother-in-law passed away about five years ago. First was a “touch light” lamp. It would come on in the middle of the night two or three times a night. That went on for about a year, a few times a month. The lamp was given to my husband from his mother, so I believe she was trying to get our attention. During the same timeframe, my daughter has an electronic guitar. It would make a sound like someone was touching one of the keys, over and over, slowly, until I would go pick it up and move it. There was never anything sitting on it to make it go off. We moved from our apartment that we were renting into our house that we built on his mother’s family land. I thought maybe there was just a presence in the apartment, but I believe whatever it is followed us here. A “Sleep-and-Snore Ernie” doll would start talking in the middle of the night until I finally took out the batteries. I was so freaked out, I hid it in my closet. Then a Furby started making strange, defective sounds during the night, clicking its eyes and mouth. That one usually went off around midnight, so it freaked me out even more. I took the batteries out of that one too and also hid it in the closet. My husband always just thought I was crazy until the alarm clock went off one night while we were about to go to sleep. The alarm wasn’t even set. He finally had to admit that all of this was too strange, and he was a little freaked out by then. Nothing has happened since then. I believe the presence was just simply trying to get his attention, although I can’t figure out why! – Diana H.

The Ouija’s Skull
I’ve had two experiences with Ouija boards, the second of which made me get rid of mine and never touch one again. The first time was when my best friend, Melanie, and I started using the Ouija at her mother’s house, and it told us that it was a male spirit and that it was going to hurt us. It directed most of its threats and comments to Melanie, and it used a lot of bad language, something Melanie and I didn’t do. That night, Melanie said she heard knocks in the room she was sleeping in all night long! The second time Melanie and I used it was at her house. We put the board on a table that had one of those mirror tops. We lit a candle and started using the board. It kept saying that Melanie was pregnant and that it wanted to show us what it (the “spirit”) looked like. We started to get scared and said, no, we didn’t want to see it. At that point, the candle flame got really long and made a “whooshing” noise. The flame turned blue. Melanie and I were looking down at the table when we saw a the blue flame reflected in the glass. We moved away from the table and the board and then saw a face in the flame. It wasn’t Melanie or me, but a man’s face. The face slowly started turning into a skull. We blew out the candle and threw the Ouija board away. That night, we kept hearing scratching and clawing noises even though we were alone in the house and never heard those noises before. We also found out a few days later that Melanie was pregnant. I’ve never used a Ouija board since that second time, and I don’t ever intend to! – Melissa

A Final Good-bye
My husband, then 42, was in the hospital with pneumonia. His heart couldn’t take the extra strain and he passed on. That night as I lay in my own bed with three dogs, I was awakened by their barking and growling. All three perched on the foot of my bed with their hackles up. Then I felt a gentle hand rub my face. The dogs calmed down and simply turned and stared at me. Standing next to the bed, surrounded with a sparkly white light like fourth of July sparklers, was my deceased husband. He said he came to say good-bye. I wasn’t afraid, but very peaceful as I asked him if he had pain when he left us. He said he went to sleep and it was all over quickly and the pain wasn’t noticeable. I discussed it with my doctor and she said she had heard of such farewells. – Myrna G.

Beings on the Highway
My girlfriend and I were driving along a country road north of Kokomo, Ind. The road was lined with thick, tall bushes. As I drove along, my engine went dead and the radio shut off. I leaned down to fiddle with the radio and keys. Suddenly I realized that my girlfriend’s face was contorted in fear, and she was silent. She only pointed out the window in front of us. Now the engine was still dead... coasting, and the lights were very dim on this dark night. No moon. There in a line on both sides of the road were beings with only their heads and shoulders showing above the 10-ft. bushes. They had no features. They did not emit light to light up the dark around them. They were very tall above the bushes and had very wide shoulders, and the heads and shoulders were much larger than a human’s. I was amazed and immediately said, “They want to communicate. I am stopping.” My friend became violently hysterical at that comment, so we coasted on. The car engine started once we coasted by the beings. This whole episode lasted as long as it takes to coast at 10 miles an hour for about 50 ft. These beings lined the road on both sides for about 50 ft. or more. My girlfriend locked herself in the bedroom for two days and would not talk to me or her husband and kids. – Kathleen

The Ghost on the Stairs
I was standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs, which had a landing half way up. A flash of light caught my attention and as I looked up, in my mind’s eye I could see a woman standing on the landing. She was of European decent, short, about 5'3", dark hair drawn back in a bun, about 150 lbs. She was olive skinned with brown eyes. She was wearing a plaid dress with an apron over it, thick beige stockings, and “old lady shoes.” I would guess that it would be something my grandmother would wear maybe in the ’40s or ’50s. I would guess her age to be about mid-60s. She didn’t say anything to me, just looked down and smiled at me. Later in the day, my ride picked me up for work and I was telling him about what I had experienced. As I started to describe this woman, he told me who she was. To my amazement he lived in my house as a child, and the woman was a friend of his mother’s who never had any family of her own. The kids called her Auntie, and he said she was very kind to them. This incident happened over 25 years ago and I don’t live in that house anymore, but I can see her face today as if it were yesterday. – Dianne C.

The One-Handed Ghost
When I was 12 years old, my sister and her husband and their two-year-old (my niece) moved into a house on the next block. The family who vacated the house had moved because their teenage daughter had a friend who was missing, and the strain was too much for the girl. I was spending the night on a weekend, and I was downstairs with my sister and niece doing laundry. As we went up the stairs to the main floor, I turned to help my niece up the stairs. She had been playing around the basement and talking to herself (or so I thought!). As I turned to grasp her hand, she said, “C’mon lady, c’mon.” I was amazed to see a girl of about 16 or 17 standing at the base of the stairs dressed in a white dress with her arms outstretched. She was missing her right hand. On numerous occasions, I was to see this ghost. It was nothing to wake up and find her sitting on the bed or looking into your face. I would follow her down the hall into the living room or into my niece’s room. Several months passed, and the missing girl was found. She had been mutilated and cut into many pieces by a machete. Her right hand was missing when they found her. It seems that she was supposed to go to her girlfriend’s house after work on the night she disappeared. She never got there. She was abducted and murdered. Her best friend kept seeing her in the house, and her family thought she was nuts. Hence the reason they moved and my sister rented the house. I have heard that the girl still haunts the house, and it never stays occupied long. My sister lived there longer than anyone else, she is psychic, and she said that she never felt threatened by the girl. To this day, it still gives me the cold chills and nightmares. – Terri

Here's How:

1. Assemble the participants. Gather the people who will participate. Some say the number of participants must be divisible by three. But this does not seem to be an absolute rule. No fewer than three people should attempt a séance.
2. Choose a medium. You might want to choose a medium among the participants. This could be a person who has had experience with séances or someone who tends to have psychic abilities.
3. Use a round or oval table. This helps create the symbolic circle believed necessary for the ritual.
4. Set the table. In the center of the table, place some kind of simple, natural aromatic food, such as bread or soup. This is believed to help attract the spirits who still seek physical nourishment.
5. Light candles. Also in the center of the table, place no fewer than three candles (or a number divisible by three) lit candles; the more candles, the better. Spirits still seek warmth and light.
6. Create some atmosphere. Dim the lights and eliminate any distractions, such as music and television.
7. Join hands. Seated around the table, the participants must all join hands in a circle.
8. Summon the spirit. The participants must speak these words together: "Our beloved [name of spirit], we bring you gifts from life into death. Commune with us, (name of spirit), and move among us."
9. Wait for a response. If none comes, repeat the chant until the spirit responds.
10. Communicate. If and when the spirit responds -- either by rapping or some other means, or through the medium - ask your questions.
11. Begin simply. Ask yes and no questions at first -- one rap for no, two raps for yes, for example.
12. Communicate directly. If a spirit chooses to speak through the medium, you may ask any kind of question.
13. Maintain control. If the séance seems to be getting out of hand, end the séance by breaking the circle of hands, extinguishing the candles and turning on the lights.
14. End the séance. When you're done with your questioning, thank the spirit for joining you and tell them to go in peace. Break the circle of hands and extinguish the candles.

Tips:

1. Don't allow participants who you don't think could handle a séance psychologically. Children, for example, must never participate.

What You Need:

• table
• food
• candles

In 1974, Tom was in college and I living alone in an old apartment building in Queens, New York. He attended school during the week and held a job on the weekends. It was a stressful time, he recalls, filled with loneliness and sadness. Then one night he had a strange experience.

“I was asleep, and my eyes suddenly snapped open,” Tom says. “There, at the side of my bed, was the translucent figure of a man. One of his shoulders was lower than the other, his legs slightly bent. He appeared to be trying to break down a door with his shoulder, but instead, his thrust was aimed at a window. Instinctively, I jumped out of bed and took a swing at the figure, my heart pumping loudly in my chest. But the figure was gone, and I stood alone in the center of the room.”

Tom told this experience to a friend at school. The friend said that he knew a psychic who might be able to help. They arranged to come to Tom’s apartment for a séance of sorts. Tom also invited his cousin to attend. When the psychic arrived, he covered the round kitchen table with brown wrapping paper, upon which he drew a star in a circle, surrounded by magical symbols. He explained that the circle was for protection and that no one must let go of the table once the rite began.

The lights were switched off. The psychic began to breathe deeply, and soon he began to speak. Tom’s friend asked questions of the psychic, who spoke in what sounded like odd accents and foreign words. It was chilling. Then the psychic's voice rose in anger, and the table, which they lightly touched with their fingertips rose off the floor and swayed back and forth. In the dark there was a noise that sounded like pebbles being poured from a jar. “My cousin and I were amazed but frightened,” Tom says.

As the psychic continued to scream, the thick brown wrapping paper on the table began to tear with loud rending sounds. Remembering the psychic’s warning, the participants desperately clung to the paper that was under their fingers as they felt it being pulled off the table. “In the background, I could hear furniture moving on the wooden floors,” Tom remembers. “In concert with the psychic, my college friend began to shout, ‘Disperse, disperse!’ At these words the table sank to the floor in a fluttery motion and landed on the floor with a low thud.”

As all breathed heavily, Tom’s friend snapped on the lights. They were astonished to see that all the living room furniture was piled in the center of the room. But Tom was convinced that the spirit he had seen in his room was still present. “It was weeks later,” he says, “after several more séances where things flew through the air, furniture lifted off the floor, and my bedroom door held shut by rope because something in the room pulled with unbelievable strength was trying to get out (and do God knows what) that finally the psychic managed to expel the presence from my apartment. I'll never forget the fright that I experienced.”

On Friday, June 13, 1997, Alfred T. was invited to the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum by Martha McGinn, owner of the inn, located in Fall River, Massachusetts. On that night, a psychic was going to be filming a documentary and at the same time conducting a séance. A reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper was going to be there to cover the exclusive event. Alfred worked for a local radio station and had covered the opening of the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum before, so the owners invited him to cover this event as well.

For those who don’t know, Lizzie was the Fall River girl who was acquitted of murdering her father, Andrew J. Borden, and her stepmother, Abby with an ax. (Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.)

Besides covering the event, Alfred and friend Terrie were spending the night there as well. “When we started,” Alfred recalls, “there were thirteen of us joined hand-in-hand, eyes closed, and seated in a séance circle. It was a weird, cool feeling and the lady hosting it – Jane Doherty of South Plainfield, New Jersey – sat right across from me and asked me if I had lost a family member recently. I told her yes and she said that my mom wants me to stop paying money for repairs on my car and to put it toward a new truck! Which is what my mom and I always use to talk about. Well, by now you could tell how I felt.”

When the séance was over, the invited guests stayed to chat. Alfred noticed that they all stayed pretty close to one another; no one wanted to be left alone. When it was time for bed, Alfred and Terrie were given the bedroom once occupied by Emma Borden, Lizzie's sister. “I had taken my portable audiocassette recorder and placed it on the nightstand to the right of the bed between the bed and the wall,” Alfred says. “I remember Terrie and me lying down about 5:00 a.m., when it was starting to get light out. I pressed record on my recorder and tried to get some sleep.

“In the morning, we had breakfast and went off to the cemetery to see the graves. What happened the next day was unexplainable! I listened to the audio tape that I recorded the morning before on my way to and from work. At first I could hear Terrie and me talking, then silence. Then the silence turned to me snoring. I heard plenty of that. Then, about 35 minutes into the 45-minute tape, I heard what gave me the creeps and made me rewind it over and over again to make sure I heard what I heard!

“I heard my snoring, then as I'm snoring I could hear a female voice giggling. I played that audio tape on the air at two different radio stations and it definitely gave everyone the creeps. I called Jane Doherty at home and told her what I recorded that night. She told me that what I had heard and what I recorded was the laugh of Emma Borden.”

SÉANCE REACHES MOTHER

“A family I know lived happily until they came to know that the mother of the family had cancer,” says Erica. She died on October 14, 1999. Erica was very good friends with her daughter, so she went to her house that night to comfort her.

A few weeks later, Erica and her friend Danielle slept over the daughter's house. Her father wasn't home and neither was her brother, so the girls decided to have a séance. “We sat on her bed with candles, which were the color lavender – her mother's favorite color,” Erica says. “We put the candles in front of pictures of her mom. There was one picture with the mother and daughter.”

When the daughter started trying to contact her mother, the candle started to flicker excitedly. All of a sudden, the flame rose about five inches high and started to flicker even more frantically. Then her dog stared barking while looking at the candle. “We were so astonished,” Erica says. “Then out of nowhere we saw an image. It was a female-shaped body. We figured it was her mom. I got up and blew out the candle and we just sat there in awe.”

On Friday, June 13, 1997, Alfred T. was invited to the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum by Martha McGinn, owner of the inn, located in Fall River, Massachusetts. On that night, a psychic was going to be filming a documentary and at the same time conducting a séance. A reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper was going to be there to cover the exclusive event. Alfred worked for a local radio station and had covered the opening of the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum before, so the owners invited him to cover this event as well.

For those who don’t know, Lizzie was the Fall River girl who was acquitted of murdering her father, Andrew J. Borden, and her stepmother, Abby with an ax. (Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.)

Besides covering the event, Alfred and friend Terrie were spending the night there as well. “When we started,” Alfred recalls, “there were thirteen of us joined hand-in-hand, eyes closed, and seated in a séance circle. It was a weird, cool feeling and the lady hosting it – Jane Doherty of South Plainfield, New Jersey – sat right across from me and asked me if I had lost a family member recently. I told her yes and she said that my mom wants me to stop paying money for repairs on my car and to put it toward a new truck! Which is what my mom and I always use to talk about. Well, by now you could tell how I felt.”

When the séance was over, the invited guests stayed to chat. Alfred noticed that they all stayed pretty close to one another; no one wanted to be left alone. When it was time for bed, Alfred and Terrie were given the bedroom once occupied by Emma Borden, Lizzie's sister. “I had taken my portable audiocassette recorder and placed it on the nightstand to the right of the bed between the bed and the wall,” Alfred says. “I remember Terrie and me lying down about 5:00 a.m., when it was starting to get light out. I pressed record on my recorder and tried to get some sleep.

“In the morning, we had breakfast and went off to the cemetery to see the graves. What happened the next day was unexplainable! I listened to the audio tape that I recorded the morning before on my way to and from work. At first I could hear Terrie and me talking, then silence. Then the silence turned to me snoring. I heard plenty of that. Then, about 35 minutes into the 45-minute tape, I heard what gave me the creeps and made me rewind it over and over again to make sure I heard what I heard!

“I heard my snoring, then as I'm snoring I could hear a female voice giggling. I played that audio tape on the air at two different radio stations and it definitely gave everyone the creeps. I called Jane Doherty at home and told her what I recorded that night. She told me that what I had heard and what I recorded was the laugh of Emma Borden.”

SÉANCE REACHES MOTHER

“A family I know lived happily until they came to know that the mother of the family had cancer,” says Erica. She died on October 14, 1999. Erica was very good friends with her daughter, so she went to her house that night to comfort her.

A few weeks later, Erica and her friend Danielle slept over the daughter's house. Her father wasn't home and neither was her brother, so the girls decided to have a séance. “We sat on her bed with candles, which were the color lavender – her mother's favorite color,” Erica says. “We put the candles in front of pictures of her mom. There was one picture with the mother and daughter.”

When the daughter started trying to contact her mother, the candle started to flicker excitedly. All of a sudden, the flame rose about five inches high and started to flicker even more frantically. Then her dog stared barking while looking at the candle. “We were so astonished,” Erica says. “Then out of nowhere we saw an image. It was a female-shaped body. We figured it was her mom. I got up and blew out the candle and we just sat there in awe.”

WALKING SÉANCE TABLE

Amber H. lived in a house and neighborhood that dates back to the 18th century. “It's a two-story house, and some friends and I used to have séances every Friday,” she tells us. “One Friday night, my friends were busy with work and I had the day off, so I started the séance by myself. I encountered a few strange people, who got a bit angry, but nothing too serious.”

At 1:00 a.m., Amber went up to bed on the top floor of the house. “Once I got into bed, I couldn't get to sleep,” she says. “Then I heard it... the noise downstairs. It was as though someone was thumping on the wall. I got up and walked out of my bedroom door. When I was at the edge of the top step, I saw the weirdest thing: it was the table – the table I performed the séance on – trying to get up the stairs! I freaked and ran downstairs and started hitting the table, telling it to leave me alone. After five minutes it was all over. The table was as still as the air in the room.”

SÉANCES AND STRANGE PHENOMENA

Jeff F. was 18 years old when he lived in the "boondocks" of upstate New York. One afternoon when he and his best friend were hanging out, a neighbor came by and asked if Jeff could give him a ride to his girlfriend's house. The boys agreed, and the neighbor directed them even further out into the middle of nowhere. When they arrived, the boys waited to be sure that his neighbor’s girlfriend was there, and after a little while the neighbor came back to the car and said, "They're having a séance in there. Do you wanna come in?" Being adventurous and bored teens, they accepted the invitation.

“The farmhouse was large, old, and run-down,” says Jeff. “Blankets had been put over the windows to block the afternoon daylight. Upon entering, we were introduced to the family members performing the séance: an old lady and man; a younger man; the parents; and an older brother of my friend's girlfriend.

“They were seated around an old Formica and chrome kitchen table with one leg removed. A candle burned at the center of the table. They communicated with the spirits by lightly resting their fingertips on the table and inviting the spirits to come and ‘nod the table’ by tilting it at the corner that had the missing leg. In this way, the spirits could answer ‘yes’ with a quick nod of the table, ‘no’ by holding it suspended down for a moment. It could also spell out words or count numbers by repeatedly nodding the table.”

During the session, the spirits answered some questions correctly and some incorrectly, but the experience had left such an impression on Jeff and his friends that they decided they had to try it themselves a few days later.

“We used an old card table with one leg left folded up and a lit candle in the center,” Jeff recalls. “We sat with our fingertips just touching the table surface and took turns saying, ‘If there is a witch in the house, nod the table,’ just as the farmers had demonstrated. After ten minutes or so of no success, my friend Eric, a comedian, cackled like a witch to be funny, but as we all started laughing, the table abruptly nodded. We were suddenly very serious, and after asking for confirmation, realized that there was a presence moving the table.

“Feeling like car-chasing dogs that had finally caught something, we didn't know what to do with our spirit. We each asked dopey questions and received various answers. The memorable part of the session is that my friend Bernie asked the spirit if he would have trouble with his beloved truck. The spirit answered yes. Bernie asked if the trouble would be serious. The spirit answered no. We continued for a short while and closed our session.

“When Bernie went to leave a few minutes later, he came back in saying, ‘You won't believe this, but I've got a flat tire.’ Sure enough, Bernie's truck's tire had gone flat during our séance, and we proceeded to help him put on the spare.”

About a week later, three of the boys who participated in the séance were riding in Bernie's truck, coming back from another friend's house. They started discussing the séance of the previous week. As soon as they began recounting their experiences, Bernie interrupted, "Guys, you won't believe this, but I've got another flat." There was no spare this time, however, and they boys had to hike the nine miles or so into town.

“We had several séances over a three to four month timeframe,” says Jeff, “and each has its own strange story. We communicated with entities that identified themselves as dead family members, demons, and angels. I have vivid memories of the experiences and the table saying and doing things that were unbelievable. Eventually, my friends refused to participate any more after one particularly frightening session when an entity identified itself as the Devil. This entity knew Bernie's middle name, even though the rest of us did not. It said that it had a message for Bernie. That's when we blew out the candle and never tried again. The house that we held all of these séances in has continued to exhibit regular episodes of strange paranormal phenomena for the past 25 years.”

Contacting the spirit world can be a surprising, hazardous experience............

LONG BEFORE ghost boxes, EVP, and the popularity of ghost hunting, the method of choice for communicating with the spirit world was the séance. In the traditional séance, a small group of people would sit around a table and join hands. They were usually led by a spirit medium, who would channel the spirits and relay their messages to the living. In the heyday of the Spiritualist movement at the end of the 19th century, séances were all the rage, complete with ectoplasm, floating trumpets, table tilting, and other special effects. Séances were even conducted in the White House by Mary Todd Lincoln, who longed to contact her dead son.

It’s questionable how many of these séances actually succeeded in contacting the spirit world. Many mediums were exposed as frauds. Séances are held rarely these days; the closest we get to them, perhaps, are sessions with the Ouija board (which also produce questionable results).

Occasionally, people still do conduct séances. Usually, the Halloween season gets them in the mood. And many have reported extraordinary, sometimes terrifying experiences. For example....

GROSS POINT SÉANCE

“It's hard to believe that it has been over 50 years since that night in Grosse Point, Michigan that so changed my life,” says Bradford A. At the time he was a young college student, just out of the army, and studying psychology under the G.I. Bill at a college in Detroit, Michigan.

“I had mastered the art of hypnotism and, in fact, was considered one of the leading men in the field,” Bradford says. “Working part-time in an Abbotts Magic store and putting on magic shows was a form of income that was not only fun, but allowed me to meet a wide range of personalities. One person, who at his request will remain nameless, was a magician of note and a close personal friend. We had fun trying out new magic tricks and routines on each other. Because of our knowledge of the so called ‘black arts,’ we were aware of all the tricks used by magicians and mediums to ply their art on the unknowing: two-way transmitters to feed information, pat routines such as ‘The Devil’s Own Method’ of mind reading, astral projection units, and, of course, the table raising gimmicks.

“The two of us, noticing the rise of fake mediums in the area, decided that it would be fun if we did ‘spook debunking’ – that is to say, we would attend a séance or medium's performance and expose their fakery to the members present. It was a riot. We slipped into homes at the request of a person's mate that felt their partner was being taken for a ride. For this we had the satisfaction of setting things right, but no money.

“Then one day, after a magic show at the old Schubert Theatre in downtown Detroit, I was approached by a very nice elderly lady who asked if we would put on a show for a few of her friends at her home in swank Grosse Point Farms, a wealthy suburb of Detroit. She said that we could use any gimmicks or tricks we wanted and she would pay us $100. (That was a lot of money to a college student in the 1940s.) I asked my partner and he said sure, let's go for it. We rounded up as much paraphernalia as we could from the magic store and planned a really scary show for them. Our plan included getting as much information as the host lady could gather about the persons who would be in attendance. (No self-respecting medium would go in without it.)

“Finally, the night arrived. We had agreed that my partner would handle the mechanical and voice parts and I would take the part of the medium at the table with the guests. My partner planned to wait in his car down the block until all of the guests were in the house and ready for the séance. He would then enter the kitchen by the back door and connect his microphone and recorders into the speaker system I had installed and concealed in the room and set up a projector. I was introduced as ‘Sregna, The Gifted’ (my last name spelled backward), and we all took our places at the table. The table had been previously rigged to emit a hanging cloud of "magic" smoke that would hover over the table for several minutes. This cloud was used as a sort of projection screen to receive images of light from a projector controlled by my partner – in short, a sort of astral vision effect.

“We all joined hands and I began my mumbo jumbo. I could feel a slight tremble in the hand I was holding. This was just what I needed. I became quite confident. I called upon the spirits to come forth and make themselves known. A few eerie sounds preceded a voice saying that he was the departed husband of one of the guests. A mist formed, as planned, over the table and a likeness of the person was seen. There were a few shudders and oohs and ahhs. She asked her husband questions and he answered. (Very well, I thought, considering the information we were given.) This scene was repeated for several of the ladies. It was an eerie success.

“When the séance came to a close, the ladies left, each with their memories. They had been treated to quite a show. The lady who hired us wrote me a check and thanked me for a wonderful evening. I then went into the kitchen to help my partner disconnect his equipment and pack up.

“When I reached the kitchen, I was unable to locate my partner or his equipment. Then I heard a pounding on the kitchen door. It was my partner. He said when he tried to get in, someone had apparently locked the door. He said he was sorry and asked if he missed anything. I may never know what really happened that night, but I can assure you, I have not played with the supernatural since!”

Every Halloween since 1927, a séance has been held to see if legendary magician Harry Houdini would try to contact the living from the world beyond death.

It was the night of October 31, 1936. Halloween night. The men and women sat at the round table with joined hands. They awaited the message - the message they had hoped for every Halloween night for the past 10 years. But the message did not come.

Finally, one woman rose from the table and announced to the others - and to a listening radio audience - "Houdini did not come through," she said. "My last hope is gone. I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me, or to anyone...The Houdini Shrine has burned for ten years. I now, reverently... turn out the light. It is finished. Good night, Harry!"

The woman was Bess Houdini, wife of the famed magician and escape artist. And this was the last séance she would participate in to try to contact her dead husband. But the séances themselves did not stop. Every October 31, from 1927 up to the present day, a séance has been conducted with hopes of contacting the spirit of Harry Houdini. So far, the great Houdini has not made his presence known.

The Houdini séance has been a Halloween tradition since the first anniversary of his death. The magician died at the age of 52 on October 31, 1926 from peritonitis - an internal infection - as the result of a ruptured appendix.

Shortly before his death, Houdini made a pact with Bess that if he could, he would return and make contact with her from the other side. They devised a coded message that only he and Bess knew; this would prove that it really was Houdini breaking through from the afterlife. But after 10 séances in 10 years, Bess had not received her beloved husband's personal message.

Oddly enough, Harry Houdini did not necessarily believe that spirits of the dead could be contacted. Aside from his fame as a stage magician and astonishing escape artist, Houdini was just as well known - especially in the later part of his career - as a debunker of spirit mediums and phony séances. He felt, however, that if it were possible for anyone to come back, he would find a way to do it.

In the 1920s, spiritualism was at a new height in the US and Britain. There was a strong, popular belief in the notion that it was possible to communicate with the dead through séances and channeling psychics knows as mediums. The movement had begun in the mid-1800s, grew in popularity over 20 years, then slowly fizzled out toward the turn of the century as more and more mediums were exposed as frauds. But after World War I, there was a resurgence in the spiritualist movement as many families longed to contact those who had perished in battle.

And the mediums were right there to fill the need for a public so willing to believe. The best mediums were masterful tricksters and showpeople, and their séances were thrilling multimedia performances of spirit channeling, levitating tables, floating instruments that played themselves, written messages from the dead and spontaneous manifestations of ectoplasm. The performances were ingenious and succeeded in fooling many otherwise intelligent people. Houdini, being a magician and a rather ingenious fellow himself, knew that these séances were just clever hoaxes.

Houdini vs. The Mediums
Early in his career, however, Houdini wasn't above staging some phony séances of his own. According to Houdini: A Magician Among the Spirits, "Houdini hosted special Sunday night performances for the California Concert Company, a Midwestern medicine show, in 1898. During séances, Houdini floated tables and played musical instruments while tied to a chair. After the company disbanded, he and his wife Bess continued to give séances for local union halls and dime museums until they signed with the Welsh Brothers Circus later that same year. In 1899, Houdini's career skyrocketed and he left the medium business behind."

In the 1920s, Houdini became an active crusader against the spirit mediums he felt were exploiting gullible people who grieved for lost loved ones. As he traveled the country performing his act, he would seek out the local mediums and expose their deceptions. Because he was so well known, Houdini often attended these séances in disguise. In 1922, Scientific American magazine asked him to join a "psychic committee" to help investigate the claims of mediums. The magazine offered a cash prize of $2,500 to any medium who could produce a supernatural manifestation to the satisfaction of the committee. No one ever won the prize.

One of the most famous mediums to take on the challenge was a beautiful young woman named Mina Crandon, who gained renown as "Margery, the Boston Medium." But she too failed under the sharp eye of Houdini, who caught her levitating the table with her head and ringing a bell with her foot. Houdini later offered Crandon $5,000 if she could demonstrate any supernatural phenomena on stage in her home town of Boston. She declined the invitation.

Naturally, Houdini was not popular among mediums around the country, as he was a threat to their livelihood. His crusading also made him an adversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, esteemed author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, who was a staunch believer and advocate of spiritualism, and a defender of Mina Crandon. After Houdini and the Scientific American committee denounced Crandon, Doyle wrote an article for the Boston Herald criticizing the committee. Houdini, in turn, threatened to sue Doyle for his "harsh remarks."

Annual Séance
Since the Halloween night when Bess Houdini turned off the light at her husband's portrait, the séances to contact the dead magician have continued in many parts of the country, both officially and unofficially. It may be impossible to tell whether or not Houdini is really being channeled at any of these annual séances because the secret coded message Houdini devised with his wife has since been revealed - by Bess herself.

"The message was based on both sentimentality and an old vaudeville mind-reading routine," according to Houdini - magictricks.com. "The message was, 'Rosabelle- answer- tell- pray, answer- look- tell- answer, answer- tell.' Bess's wedding band bore the inscription 'Rosabelle,' the name of the song she sang in her act when they first met. The other words correspond to a secret spelling code used to pass information between a magician and his assistant during a mentalism act. Each word or word pair equals a letter. The word 'answer' stood for the letter 'B,' for example. 'Answer, answer' stood for the letter 'V.' Thus, the Houdinis' secret phrase spelled out the word 'believe'."

In 1929, a young medium named Arthur Ford claimed he had successfully received the secret message from Harry Houdini. Upon investigation, however, it was discovered that Ford's claim was a hoax. Bess, it seems, had inadvertently revealed the message to reporters more than a year earlier.

Even though Bess gave up the séances herself, she asked magician Walter B. Gibson to carry on the October 31 tradition. For many years, Gibson, along with several other magicians, held the séances at the Magic Towne House in New York City. Countless other "unofficial" Houdini séances have been held by local psychics across the country throughout the years - all in good fun, but with no definitive proof of so much as a "hello" from Harry Houdini.

Today, the official Houdini Séance is held at The Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And true to the times, they have been conducting séances on the Internet.

Some of the best-documented, frightening, and controversial poltergeist cases of the last 30 years.

CHAIRS MOVE ABOUT by themselves. Walls shake from loud, unexplained banging. Water drips from a ceiling. Hairbrushes disappear for days, only to reappear in their place on the dresser. These are some of the classic symptoms of a poltergeist haunting. From the German for “noisy ghost,” a poltergeist refers to phenomena usually credited to mischievous spirits or ghosts and are characterized by psychokinesis or other physical manifestations.

Cases have been cited almost since the beginning of recorded history. Three famous cases have taken place in this century, gaining notoriety, perhaps, because they have been extensively investigated, reported, and in some cases even photographed and videotaped.

• The Thornton Heath Poltergeist Case •
Twenty-seven years ago, in Thornton Heath, England, a family was tormented by poltergeist phenomena that started one August night when they were woken in the middle of the night by a blaring bedside radio that had somehow turned itself on – tuned to a foreign-language station. This was the beginning of a string of events that lasted nearly four years. A lampshade repeatedly was knocked to the floor by unaided hands. During the Christmas season of 1972, an ornament was hurled across the room, smashing into the husband’s forehead. “As he flopped into an armchair,” reports Haunted Croydon [link no longer works], “the Christmas tree began to shake violently. Come the New Year and there were footsteps in the bedroom when there was no one there, and one night the couple’s son awoke to find a man in old fashioned dress staring threateningly at him. The family’s fear grew when, as they entertained friends one night, there was a loud knocking at the front door, the living room door was then flung open and all the house’s lights came on.”

Having the house blessed failed to rid the house of the phenomena. “Objects flew through the air, loud noises were heard and the family would sometimes hear a noise which suggested some large piece of furniture... had crashed to floor. When they went to investigate, nothing would be disturbed.”

A medium who was consulted told the family that the house was haunted by a farmer of the name Chatterton, who considered the family trespassers on his property. An investigation bore out the fact that had indeed lived in the house in the mid-18th century. “Chatterton’s wife now joined in in causing mayhem, and often the tenant’s wife would be followed up the stairs at night by an elderly gray-haired woman wearing a pinafore and with her hair tied back in a bun. If looked at, she would disappear back into the shadows. The family even reported seeing the farmer appear on their television screens, wearing a black jacket with wide, pointed lapels, high-necked shirt and black cravat.”

After the family moved out of the house, the poltergeist activity ceased, and none have been reported by subsequent residents.

• The Enfield Poltergeist Case •
Another English ghost – this one in Enfield in North London – made headlines in 1977. The strange activity seemed to center around the daughter of Peggy Harper, a divorcee in her mid-40s. Again, it started on an August night. “Late at night,” An Urban Ghost Story relates, “Janet, aged 11 and her brother Pete, aged 10, complained that their beds were ‘jolting up and down and going all funny.’ As soon as Mrs. Harper got to the room, the movements had stopped – as far as she was concerned her kids were making it all up.”

But things got progressively more bizarre from there. Shuffling noises and knocks on the wall were followed by a heavy chest of drawers sliding by itself across the floor. Mrs. Harper promptly got her children out of the house and sought the assistance of a neighbor. “The neighbors searched the house and garden but found no one. Soon they also heard the knocks on the walls which continued at spaced out intervals. At 11 p.m. they called the police, who heard the knocks, one officer even saw a chair inexplicably move across the floor, and later signed a written statement to confirm the events.”

Several people were witness to the events that occurred in the following days: Lego bricks and marbles were thrown around the house, and were often hot to the touch. In September of that year, Maurice Grosse of the Society for Psychical Research came to investigate. “Grosse claims that he experienced the strange happenings – first a marble was thrown at him from an unseen hand, he saw doors open and close by themselves, and claimed to feel a sudden breeze that seemed to move up from his feet to his head.”

Grosse was later joined in the investigation by writer Guy Lyon Playfair, and together they studied the case for two years. “The knocking on walls and floors became an almost nightly occurrence, furniture slid across the floor and was thrown down the stairs, drawers were wrenched out of dressing tables. Toys and other objects would fly across the room, bedclothes would be pulled off, water was found in mysterious puddles on the floors, there were outbreaks of fire followed by their inexplicable extinguishing.”

The case became decidedly unnerving when the spirits revealed themselves – through Janet. Speaking in a deep, gravely voice through Janet, the spirit announced that his name was Bill and had died in the house – a fact that has been verified. The voices and the phenomenon have been recorded on tape and film, and Playfair has written a book about the case called This House is Haunted. Despite the documentation, however, much controversy surrounds the case. Skeptics claim that the case is nothing more than the work of a very clever and mischievous girl – Janet. The poltergeist activity always stopped when she was watched closely, and when she was taken to a hospital for several days to be tested for physical or mental abnormality, the phenomena ceased in the house. Some researchers believe that Janet taught herself to speak in the strange male voice, and that photos of her levitating in her bedroom merely caught her jumping off her bed. Was this poltergeist case just the result of an attention-seeking 11-year-old?

• The Danny Poltergeist Case •
In 1998, Jane Fishman, a reporter for the Savannah Morning News, began a series of articles about a possibly haunted antique bed in the home of Al Cobb of Savannah, Georgia. Cobb bought the vintage late-1800s bed at an auction as a Christmas present for his 14-year-old son, Jason – a purchase he later regretted.

“Three nights later,” Fishman reported, “Jason told his parents he felt as if someone had planted elbows on his pillow and was watching him and breathing cold air down the back of his neck. He felt sick. The next night he noticed the photo of his deceased grandparents on his wicker nightstand flipped down. So he righted it. The next day, the photo was facing down again. Later that morning, after leaving his room for breakfast, he returned and found in the middle of his bed two Beanie Babies – the zebra and the tiger – next to a conch shell, a dinosaur made of shells and a plaster toucan bird. That got his parents’ – and his twin brother, Lee’s – attention. Trying to make sense of the irrational, Al called out, ‘Do we have a Casper here? Tell me your name and how old you are.’ Then he left some lined composition paper and crayons and, with his family, walked out of the room. In 15 minutes they returned and found written vertically in large block childlike letters, ‘Danny, 7.’”

With his family out of the house, Al Cobb decided to continue trying to communicate with the spirit of Danny. With the same kind of notes, Danny indicated that his mother had died in that bed in 1899, and that he wanted to stay with the bed. He also made it clear that he didn’t want anyone else sleeping in it. “The same day they found a note reading, ‘No one sleep in bed,’ Jason, who had moved out of the room, decided to stretch out and pretend to take a nap. That, says Al, was a mistake. ‘I doubled back in the room to pick up my clothes,’ remembers Jason, ‘when this terra cotta head that had been hanging on the wall came flying through the room, just missing me before it smashed on the closet door.’”

“No one really knows,” Fishman writes in her second installment, “who – or what – is leaving the copious notes, moving the furniture, opening the kitchen drawers, setting the dining room table, flipping over the chairs, lighting the candles, arranging the posters to spell out a person’s name, Jill, then hanging the finished product on a bedroom wall. Jason also spoke of other spirits: ‘Uncle Sam,’ who had come to reclaim his daughter he said was buried under the house; ‘Gracie,’ a young girl whose sculpture sits in Bonaventure Cemetery; and ‘Jill,’ a young woman who left a number of handwritten messages, among them one inviting the Cobbs to a party in their living room.”

Parapsychologist Andrew Nichols, head of the Florida Society for Parapsychological Research, investigated the case. “What happened at the Cobbs,” he told Fishman, “– more specifically to Jason – would have happened without ‘Danny,’ or the bed. It was the electromagnetic energy of the wall – that Jason started sleeping next to when they moved the bed there – that charged a psychic ability that the boy already had.

The keepers of these magnificent landmarks refuse to leave...

What is it about lighthouses that seems to make them ideal settings for hauntings? Perhaps it's the isolation or the extreme age of many of these magnificent structures. Or perhaps it's because the lighthouse keepers – who are often said to be the ones haunting the buildings – lived in solitude for long periods of time, often cut off from other people for weeks, even months at a time. Perhaps this solitude leaves a shadowy imprint of their lives within the stone and mortar of these wind and wave-swept beacons.

Here is a mini-directory of haunted lighthouses around North America.

BIG BAY POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Location: On Lake Superior, Michigan
When built: 1896
The haunting: This stately brick lighthouse might be haunted by the ghost of H. William Prior, who was the facility’s first keeper. According to Big Bay Point Lighthouse History by Jeff and Linda Gamble, “Prior was despondent after the death of his son and on June 28th he disappeared into the woods with his gun and some strychnine. It was feared that he had gone off to kill himself, and a subsequent long search failed to find him. Mrs. Prior and her family left Big Bay on October 22, 1901 to live in Marquette. Over a year later, the following entry was made in the station log:"

Mr. Fred Babcock came to the station 12:30 pm. While hunting in the woods one and a half mile south of the station this noon he found a skeleton of a man hanging to a tree. We went to the place with him and found that the clothing and everything tally with the former keeper of this station who has been missing for seventeen months.

It’s said that the ghost of the red-haired Mr. Prior is occasionally seen on the property and may be responsible for the unexplained slamming of doors. Today, Big Bay Point Lighthouse is a bed and breakfast

GIBRALTAR POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Toronto Island, Canada
When built: 1808
The haunting: This lighthouse was so-named because the governor at the time of its building thought it should be fortified as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar. The ghost here might be that of J. P. Radan Muller, the lighthouse’s first keeper, who supplemented his income as a bootlegger of American whiskey. In 1815, soldiers from Fort York came to the island in search of some of Muller’s whiskey. He obliged, but when they requested seconds, so the story goes, Muller refused and a fight ensued. Muller was never seen again, although it is assumed that he was murdered by the soldiers. The remains of a body were discovered in 1904 and reburied. According to a 1958 short documentary about the lighthouse, workers and visitors have witnessed many forms of unexplained phenomena there, including lights in the windows where there should be none, the shadowy form of a man drifting across the sand in the moonlight, blood stains on the staircase, and an eerie moaning sound. Today, the lighthouse stands unused as a historical landmark

SHERWOOD POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
When built: 1883
The haunting: Sherwood Lighthouse was the last lighthouse on the Great Lakes to be converted to automation; it was operated by personnel up until 1983. Today, it is used as a private retreat house for Coast Guard personnel, but is open for tours to the public during the third week of May. And it just might be haunted. “We stopped at Sherwood Point and spoke with a U.S. Coast Guard Reservist, since the Coast Guard administers the site,” reader Joe Severa reports. “He said he has heard noises at night when he stays there. He also showed us a log of people who have stayed there, and their comments about unusual phenomena. Supposedly, a woman haunts the lighthouse.” Could it be the ghost of Minnie Cochems? She and her husband William operated the lighthouse during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. On the morning of August 17, 1928, as Minnie was climbing out of bed, she collapsed and died. A plaque to her memory remains on the lighthouse to this day

HECETA HEAD LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Florence, Oregon
When built: 1894
The haunting: Said to be haunted by the ghost of the "Gray Lady," who is perhaps the mother of an unknown baby whose grave has been found on the grounds. Also known as "Rue," the ghost is known for moving objects, opening and closing cupboard doors and other strange occurrences. One workman claimed to have come face-to-face with Rue in the attic and fled in terror. Days later, while working on the exterior of the building, he accidentally broke one of the attic's windows, but refused to go up there to repair it. He instead repaired it from the outside, leaving the broken glass scattered across the attic floor. That night, workers heard scraping noises in the attic. When they checked it out the next morning, all of the broken glass had been swept into a neat pile. Even today, some report that they have seen an elderly woman looking down from an attic window. The building is a bed and breakfast today.

EW LONDON LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE

Location: New London Harbor, Connecticut
When built: 1909
The haunting: This lighthouse's ghost is named Ernie. In 1936, when Ernie learned that his wife had run off with the captain of the Block Island Ferry, he jumped to his death from the roof of the lighthouse. He has since haunted the lighthouse, and his ghost has been known to open and close doors, wash the decks, turn off televisions, turn the fog horn off and on, and untie secured boats to let them drift away.

OLD PORT BOCA GRANDE LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Gasparilla Island, Gulf of Mexico, Florida
When built: 1890
The haunting: This lighthouse might have two ghosts. The first is the young daughter of one of the lighthouse's keepers, who died in the building, perhaps of diphtheria or whooping cough. Tour guides say that she can be heard playing in one of the rooms of the building's upper floor. The second ghost is reputed to be the headless spectre of a Spanish princess named Josefa. According to the legend, when Josefa rejected the love of the Spanish pirate Gasparilla, he lopped off her head with his sword. Her headless spirit has allegedly been seen wandering the beach... looking for her head.

PLYMOUTH LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Gurnet Point, Plymouth, Massachusetts
When built: 1769; replaced in 1803, rebuilt in 1843 and 1924
The haunting: Built on the property of John and Hannah Thomas in 1769; they became the lighthouse keepers. John was killed during the Revolutionary War, leaving Hannah as America's first woman lighthouse keeper. The 1924 incarnation of the lighthouse is still standing, but is automated and no longer needs residents to keep it running. Yet some believe Hannah Thomas is still there. Bob and Sandra Shanklins, professional lighthouse photographers, decided to spend the night in the house adjacent to the tower. Bob was awakened in the middle of the night by the apparition of the upper portion of a woman's body floating above his wife's head and staring at him. He described the ghost as wearing old-fashioned clothing that fit close around her neck, and had long dark hair that fell to her shoulders. Was it Hannah Thomas, thinking that her husband had finally returned from the war?

POINT LOOKOUT

Location: Chesapeake Bay, Maryland
When built: 1830; 1883
The haunting: Point Lookout has been called "America's most haunted lighthouse," mostly because of its unfortunate past. In the years of the Civil War, a prison camp was established next to the lighthouse by the Union Army. It was terribly overcrowded and became a breeding ground for disease, despair and death. Many signs of haunting have been reported since the 1860s: strange noises and disembodied voices, some of which have even been recorded on audiotape. The ghost of the first lighthouse keeper, Ann Davis, has been seen standing at the top of the stairway. Other figures have been seen in the basement and searching outside for graves that were moved a century ago.

PRESQUE ISLE LIGHTHOUSE

Location: On Lake Huron, Presque Isle, Michigan
When built: 1840
The haunting: Said to be haunted by the ghost of George Parris, the former lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse is now abandoned, yet an amber light is occasionally seen still flashing from the tower. George and Lorraine Parris moved into the small house attached to the lighthouse in 1977, where they looked after the grounds and provided tours to vacationers. The lighthouse was actually taken out of service in 1870, but it wasn't until 1979 that George and the Coast Guard removed the wiring. Yet after George died in 1991, the mystery light began to appear. "I knew right away that it was George," said his widow, who continued the caretaker duties alone. "He used to cook breakfast for me in the morning. Bacon and eggs. There were many mornings when I'd wake up to the smell of breakfast, but naturally no one was there. I knew that it was him." According to one story, a little girl touring the lighthouse with her family had climbed to the top of the tower and returned giggling. When asked who she had been talking to up there, she said, "To the man in the tower." She later identified the man as George Parris from a portrait of him in the cottage.

SEQUIN ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

Location: Georgetown, Maine
When built: 1797; rebuilt in 1820 and 1857
The haunting: Reputed to be haunted by the bride of the lighthouse keeper who murdered her there. According to the legend, to help her fight the loneliness and depression of the isolated island, the lighthouse keeper had a piano shipped there for her. Unfortunately, she only had one piece of sheet music, which she learned and played over and over again. This allegedly drove the lighthouse keeper mad and he destroyed the piano - and his young wife - with an axe. Some say her piano music still can be heard floating out over the waves.

SEUL CHOIX POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Location: On Lake Michigan, about 14 miles east of Manistique, Michigan
When built: The light was placed into service in 1892, but the tower had to be rebuilt and the station was not entirely completed until September, 1895
The haunting: "Visitors and workers at the lighthouse complex have reported strange happenings, including moved silverware and other items, footsteps, the strong smell of cigars and the sound of someone climbing the lighthouse steps. Many believe that a lighthouse keeper is still at work.

ST. AUGUSTINE LIGHTHOUSE

Location: St. Augustine, Florida
When built: 1824; 1874
The haunting: Several ghosts are said to haunt this lighthouse. The voice of the 12-year-old daughter of the lighthouse's builder, who drowned near the building, can sometimes be heard. Footsteps from some unseen presence can be heard shuffling on the gravel and on the steps outside the lighthouse. A large, dark male figure has been seen in the basement, possibly the spirit of a former caretaker who hung himself in the lighthouse.

ST. SIMONS LIGHTHOUSE

Location: St. Simons Island, Georgia
When built: 1810; 1872
The haunting: The keeper's house was the dwelling place of the lighthouse keeper, his assistant and their families. In 1880, an argument broke out between lighthouse keeper Frederick Osborne and his assistant, leaving Osborne dead. Since then, many witnesses have claimed that his heavy footsteps can still be heard climbing the tower's staircase.

WHITE RIVER LIGHT STATION

Location: On Lake Michigan, Whitehall, Michigan
When built: 1876
The haunting: They say the ghost of White River's first lighthouse keeper, Captain William Robinson, still haunts the structure. He lived there for 47 years with his wife Sara, where they raised their 11 children. When he reached retirement age, his son was appointed keeper, but the Captain refused to leave, keeping up with his daily duties well into his 80s. At 87 he was finally being forced to vacate the lighthouse, and on the evening before he was to leave, he died in his sleep. Those who know the lighthouse well say that the ghosts of the Captain and his wife both haunt the place. In his later years, Captain Robinson walked with a cane, and the distinctive sound of his footsteps and thumping cane still can be heard making his rounds late at night. His wife Sara occasionally leaves signs that she is helping to keep the place tidy.