Real Haunts

Among one of the many secondary battle sites to the Civil War is the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Battle of Chattanooga in November 1863 was a crucial step forward for the Union forces to gain a foothold in the Deep South as the battles raged eastward from Missionary Ridge up to the famous Lookout Mountain. The Union was led by William Tecumseh Sherman, and the Confederates were headed by Braxton Bragg. When the two-day battle finished, over twelve thousand men lay dead. In a supernatural twist, it is not the Civil War battle sites that reputed to be haunted, instead, it is the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga that is said to hold all the ghosts.

Is the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Haunted?

Founded back in 1886, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, or UTC, was initially called Chattanooga University and then University of Chattanooga before being accepted into the University of Tennessee system by 1969. Early heavy enrollments really made the university thrive since its inception, as each year the school branched out further and further into the downtown area to acquire more buildings to meet the high student demand. As with any university, there are always stories about the macabre or supernatural that seem to break through and become legend and UTC is certainly no exception.

Haunted Hooper Hall

Hooper Hall holds more administration offices than it ever did classrooms, except for a lone science lab. Sometime in January of 1924, a grounds manager named John Hocking suffered a personal tragedy as his wife and child died in a house fire. Tormented with grief, Hocking went into the science lab and committed suicide via asphyxiation from the chemicals kept in the lab. Over the years, more administration offices crept up in the building and staff have reported unusual activity. Doors opening or slamming with nobody there, heavy fast footsteps on the antiquated tile floor. Students report feeling watched by an unseen presence that seems to bring a chill with it.

Bizarre enough is that the dean’s office is located in the same building. His office staff have reported that late one night after a meeting, an unusual and loud cuckoo clock sound would go off behind his locked office door. Informing the dean about clock going off in jest one day, he confessed to his staff that his office in fact didn’t have a cuckoo clock or any other such device that would make a sound.

Patten Chapel and the Woman in White

Nearly adjacent to Hooper Hall is a building called Patten Chapel. Naturally, it holds within it a sizable chapel for worship services and has been known to hold weddings and funerals for those who weren’t even students at all, due to its antiquated southern charm. Despite being an on-campus church, the Patten Chapel is haunted by the spirit of a woman dressed in white. She has been seen in both the daytime as well as night time, drifting for an instant by stunned students and agog faculty members. The look of her dress is thought to be that of a nurse and some have speculated her to have been a Civil War nurse tending to the city’s many wounded before suffering death herself. Of course doors slam and voices whisper, but the most disturbing is the eerie organ music in the chapel that has been played in the dead of night with nobody manning the organ at all.

Confederate Cemetery and Brock Hall

Down campus on its edge is an actual graveyard simply called Confederate Cemetery. It was erected during the Civil War era and has the body of soldiers as well as slaves in its ground. Near this edge stands Brock Hall. This four-story campus cornerstone wasn’t always a college landmark building. On the same grounds decades before, the area served as a local jail for Confederate soldiers. Executions were also said to have taken place on the very spot as well until the troops in the area eventually moved out. Decades later when the university was constructed, Brock Hall was erected on the very site in which all this occurred. Incidentally enough, the university’s morgue and medical college were also housed in this building.

Over the years, both students and faculty alike have reported a wide range of paranormal activity. Longtime professor of Spanish, Dr. Roberto Rojas was particularly attuned to what was occurring. He had been known to speak about leaving his office to get a quick coffee across the street at the campus food court, only to return and his papers and books in his office to have been tossed about in a flurry. Rather than straighten things, he also spoke of such piles being mysteriously and meticulously being put back together while he was in a neighboring room without anyone entering or making a sound at all. Extremely cold air has permeated the many floors of the building even during sizzling hot summer semesters before spiking back up without any explanation. Despite the cold hair and activity, some students have even seen shadow figures that have been known to be spotted on the building’s stairwell. Are these figures the disembodied spirits of the executed Civil War soldiers who once stood there long ago?

Today, unlike other universities and places of higher learning, UTC has not tried to ignore or shut down any talk of the paranormal on its campus. In fact, it has rather embraced it during the Halloween season and has even held an overnight ghost hunt watch on occasion to document any paranormal activity.

Choosing and attending a university is one of the most difficult decisions a student can ever make. Family history at an institution, faculty with award-winning accolades, and even die-hard allegiance to the sports programs are just some of the reasons that help decide where someone goes. But what if your choice was a university that is haunted? Marquette University is perhaps the most haunted school in the entire state of Wisconsin.

Is Marquette University Haunted?

Marquette University was founded all the way back in 1881 and stands a private Roman Catholic school that was initially built by the Jesuits under the instruction of the local Bishop of Milwaukee. The university was built in regards to the ever-rowing German population in the Milwaukee area. Growing throughout the decades by adding many academic programs, Marquette emerged as one of the more established private university powerhouses in the Upper Midwest area. But as students have shuffled in and out over the years they have naturally walked away with a degree, but many have also walked away with an unintended education in paranormal encounters as well.

The Haunted Schroeder Hall Dorm

One of the most haunted places on campus is within the Schroeder Hall dormitory. Particularly on the ninth floor is where most activity has taken place. It’s difficult to label whether the spirit is a simple poltergeist or something more sinister. A student confessed to the university’s newspaper about an encounter with the spirit which resulted in a mysterious broken ankle after being spooked to the point he was reaching for his Rosary before he felt his ankle snap. Supernatural tensions were so high that the priest was brought in to bless the room to quiet down any activity. Another student had what some believe to have been actual tinted ectoplasm seep through the dormitory wall! Even with cleanup and inspection, there was never a true source or cause for the mysterious liquid to form.

The Haunted Humphrey Hall

Down campus at Humphrey Hall, the paranormal activity there is just as compelling. Objects have frequently been known to move around mysteriously or even disappear completely before being returned. This part of campus was formerly the children’s hospital decades ago and many think that the departed spirit of a child wanting attention is the likely cause.

The Haunted Johnston and Mashuda Halls

Over in Johnston Hall, a long-standing story had a young Jesuit priest committing suicide there many years ago in 1963. Doors opening, mysterious tapping sounds, and even a low moan sound have been heard by students there. And even at Mashuda Hall, objects that levitated and moved caused such a disturbance that there is a long-standing rumor around campus that an actual exorcism was performed in the hall so as to end the paranormal activity!

Today, Marquette University still enjoys both high academic, and sports success. Activity is few and far between on campus, but as with anything regarding such institutions of record, there are always ghost stories that are here to stay.

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For anyone looking into visiting one of the historic and haunted cemeteries of the New Orleans area, a quick search is likely to show St. Louis Cemetery No.1 or Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 as the top ones. While neither cemetery will disappoint those looking to bask among the many rows of historical mausoleums and gothic headstones while searching for paranormal activity; they’re not the only cemeteries in the area that have a reputation for supernatural encounters. The little known St. Roch Cemetery in the heart of the city has earned a reputation of being one of the more haunted places to visit.

Is the St. Roch Cemetery in New Orleans Haunted?

The history behind the origin of the St. Roch neighborhood goes back to the mid-1800s. This smaller parish area was originally called Faubourg Franklin which was named due to the emerging railroad connections that it shared with the Pontchartrain area. However, as with most of New Orleans at the time, a deadly outbreak of Yellow Fever was ravaging the population. A German priest named Father Peter Thevis prayed for the intercession of St. Roch, a Catholic patron saint for good health. Fr. Thevis prayed that should nobody in his tiny parish die, he would build a chapel in honor of St. Roch. True to his saintly ways, the intercessory prayer worked with nobody dying and Fr. Thevis built not only a chapel but also a shrine and eventual cemetery. Word of the saint’s protection spread and the area was renamed in honor of St. Roch. Today the enormous iron gates bearing the saint’s name as it’s flanked by a pair of praying angels is what welcomes many to the cemetery.

The cemetery itself holds one of the rare paranormal distinctions of having a ghost dog on the premises which itself is ironic considering St. Roch is a patron saint for dogs as well. Over the years many visitors have seen a big black dog with shadow-esque features strolling throughout the rows of headstones. In the paranormal community, some say that a black dog is indicative of foreshadowing an event, while others claim it’s the supernatural manifestation of a repressed spirit.

This ghost dog that has prowled about the St. Roch cemetery only has the entrance or exit from which to enter, and some animal lovers have been heard to try and approach the dog to help aid it only for the dog to vanish into thin air or run into the entrance of a mausoleum and disappear!

Another ghostly specter resident to the cemetery is simply known locally as “the Hooded Ghost.” There’s no known origin to this spirit that is described as wearing a dark-colored robe with a hood. The Hooded Ghost’s face has yet to ever fully been described as anyone who has seen them has taken more notice of the height of this very elusive spirit. Some speculate this hooded entity may not altogether be a positive one as a sense of dread or sudden heart palpitations have befallen people that spot the elusive spirit.

Unlike some of the other cemeteries in New Orleans, the St. Roch Cemetery is maintained by the adjoining church and actually has longer, albeit normal business hours that typically restrict entry near sunset. This is one cemetery that’s off the beaten path and not subject to many ghost tours, thus making a visit to it a real supernatural treasure.

New Orleans is a fantastic old-world city built upon a supernatural charm that many other cities in the United States seem to lack. Ask anyone about this charm associated with New Orleans and you may get responses that speak on Voodoo High Priestess Madame Laveau, the strange haunts of the LaLaurie Mansion or the Lafitte Guest House, Pat O’Brien’s ghost pub, or the ghosts at the Old Absinthe House. But by far and away the number one thing most people associate and speak to the level of paranormal activity in New Orleans on are the cemeteries. Looking for a good haunted one? The Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 has you covered.

Situated within the famous Garden District of New Orleans, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was believed to have originally been built back in 1832. At the time, the city of New Orleans has charged a local official named Benjamin Buisson to plot out the land and have it consecrated. Once boundaries were meted out, Buisson ended up giving this particular cemetery the name of Lafayette, which was named for the city of Lafayette that had been annexed and absorbed by the ever-expanding New Orleans city.

Sitting just blocks north of the Irish Channel which was named for an influx of Irish immigrants in the early 1800s, the cemetery holds a large contingent of Irish graves who fell victim to the Saffron Scourge yellow fever epidemic of the 1800s. The cemetery is believed to contain over 7,000 graves, but also contains an untold number of ghosts and spirits.

Is the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans Haunted?

The most fascinating aspect about the Lafayette No. 1 Cemetery’s haunted reputation is not that it is haunted by a spate of famous ghosts from historical tombs, but is based on the visitor experiences with the paranormal here. A former groundskeeper caught an older woman stealing flowers off fresh graves to sell in the French Quarter to tourists. He warned her and sent her on her way only months later to die herself and be buried. To his surprise, late one night, he witnessed firsthand her spirit descending over the gated fence to pluck fresh flowers off another grave.

Strange sounds run the gamut in the permanently haunted grounds as walking tour visitors have been known to hear sobbing within close earshot. Tears in such a place are to be expected, but not when nobody else is standing around you at all! EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) have been captured in all areas of the cemetery grounds to include the words: “hospital”, “fever”, and “help me”.

Spots to purchase in the cemetery are opened once a year and the rumored price is to be upwards of $200,000 for a plot due to the super high demand. For family tombs, the top portion is always open and whatever remains are pushed in, the previous remains are dropped into the bottom of the antiquated tomb. Such unintended burial formalities are perhaps what has caused a slew of shadow figures to be photographed all across the cemetery.

As with most cemeteries in New Orleans, the walking tours and public access to the Lafayette are incredibly limited and often the cemetery closes by 2 pm. Anything after that is considered a trespassing situation and this is done to avoid any unusual and unwanted occult behavior that may occur in this historical cemetery.

For people looking to explore some of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States, there is absolutely no question that they look to the city of New Orleans to fill this need. Unexplained as it may be, New Orleans is a city of heart, soul, voodoo, and magic that over time has created some of the most haunted places known to man. While cemeteries such as St. Louis Cemetery No 1 or St. Roch Cemetery of New Orleans are confirmed paranormal hits, for those willing to take a little bit of a drive the Big Woods Cemetery of Edgerly, Louisiana is a definite can’t miss where a ghostly gatekeeper looks to keep the living out permanently.

Is the Big Woods Cemetery Haunted?

Big Woods Cemetery was officially consecrated as a cemetery all the way back in 1827 when a wealthy Louisiana resident named James Bryan donated a dozen acres of land for the cemetery’s construction. It would take another decade or so before the plots began to gradually fill in with the graves of the deceased. Overcast with enormous oak trees, the cemetery remained an Edgerly mainstay for burials over the years even with the nearby adjoining Antioch Cemetery being added at a later date. To this day, the deceased are still interred inside Big Woods, but it’s the many ghost sightings over the years that have had some visitors to the cemetery on quite a paranormal edge.

Unofficially dubbed “the Gatekeeper”, many believe that there is a singular chief entity that roams about the grounds of the Big Woods. Oral legends from area locals claim that the stories began with people witnessing a brightly lit mist that would float about the cemetery in the dead of night. Nobody has ever been known to approach it, as those (un)fortunate enough to see it have explained that there is a sense of dread or uneasiness that seems to be attached to it that makes the living want to stay away.  It’s possible that his misty manifestation may be from the Gatekeeper who is said to prowl about the cemetery.

The most commonly reported encounter is seeing a dark shadow in the loose form of a man pacing somewhere near the main cemetery gate. One unlucky visitor claimed that upon approaching the gate near sunset, they were chased off the property by someone in a dark-colored antique-looking truck that was rather hellbent on them not entering the cemetery. Similar to the automotive troubles of the Smith Anderson Cemetery of Maine, visitors to Big Woods have claimed that upon coming across the shadow of the Gatekeeper, they immediately look to leave the cemetery only to find that their car engines fail to start preventing a hasty escape.

Some visitors believe that female spirits are responsible as the sightings of a young girl spirit walking and crying before disappearing might be responsible for some of the paranormal activity here. One visitor, in particular, claimed to come across a woman in a black robe with bright red hair smiling a devilish smile before walking past a large headstone and seemingly disappearing. Other times, visitors have seen streaking orbs blitz between rows of worn tombstones before being absorbed into the air itself with claims of ectoplasm being left behind on the tops of tombstones.

Big Woods Cemetery may be a three-hour drive due west of New Orleans, but with all the paranormal activity going on there, it’s hard not to mention the haunts of this so-called eternal resting place.

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Whether it be called a pub, tavern, bar, saloon, joint, inn, lounge, taproom, ale-house, beer joint, or brewery, businesses that serve alcohol are often a much sought after activity for the socially thirsty. New Orleans has the fourth most number of bars to household population in the entire United States. With the infamous street festival Mardi Gras drawing in crowds upwards of 50,000 people within a few city blocks, as well as the city of New Orleans having a very liberal open alcohol container law, the city goes through thousands of gallons of alcohol. The hottest spot before, during, and after Mardi Gras is none other than Pat O’Brien’s bar, where you’re likely to encounter spirits in both the bottom of a glass as well as floating past you.

Is Pat O’Brien’s Haunted?

Pat O’Brien was a man who opened up a bar in New Orleans on the heels of the Prohibition Era in December 1933. Coming off his previous venture of owning a speakeasy in town, O’Brien helped to craft from the plentiful Caribbean rum that coursed through the city, a new and future long-time drink staple of the city….the Hurricane. Due to the overcrowding and diminutive size of the place, the pianos were placed upright against one another which helped fuel the classic New Orleans dueling piano jazz music we have today (these pianos have also been heard to play a few notes by unseen ghosts). Interestingly enough, the bar’s location on St. Peter street was originally constructed all the way back in 1791. Does the age, history, and reputation of serving over one billion people at this location play into the supernatural?

Pat O’Brien’s Courtyard

The most haunted spot in the bar is said to be the ladies’ restroom up on the second floor. Women visitors and employees alike have said that even the ascent to the second floor near the restroom brings forth a certain eeriness. Vicious cold spots along with a heavy stomping sound that seems to descend from the antiquated attic storage area above are the first things they notice. Once inside the restroom, the ghostly activity ratchets up even more with the supernatural antics of what is believed to be a former female restroom attendant. Footsteps and bizarre sounds emitting from the restroom stalls; a quick peek underneath the front of the stall shows it to be unoccupied, yet the human sounds continue.

Like most establishments in New Orleans, the backside area holds smaller courtyards and the one at Pat O’Briens features typical patio furniture for visitors. Many times during non-peak hours, the staff will have the patio furniture straightened and perfected for any visitors, only to walk back outside moments later and see that the furniture has been completely strewn about in disarray by an unseen force.

Today Pat O’Brien’s is fully open for business and enjoys a rather busy establishment. It’s worth noting that given the absolute historic location, many people have posed for an array of photographs inside the bar, but have noticed that after the picture is taken unexplained shadowy figures and the outlines of ghosts are spotted in the pictures.

The 200-Year-Old Haunted Old Absinthe House

As a popular tourist destination, New Orleans enjoys one of the premier street fair spectacles in existence every February with the infamous Mardi Gras. Thousands upon thousands of people immersed in total revelry take adequate and proper use of the supremely lax public drinking laws within the city limits. Popular crafted street drinks such as the Hand Grenade, Hurricane, and Crawdad Bloody Mary make the good times even greater. One of the more hidden gem cocktails for the swarthy city streets is an Absinthe Frappe, which of course is composed largely of absinthe. For those unfamiliar, absinthe is an anise-fennel flavored spirit that contains trace amounts of thujone, a chemical that has been known to pack quite a hallucinogenic punch. No better place to indulge in this sort of drink than at the Old Absinthe House located right on Bourbon Street in the heart of the French Quarter. However, a glass of Absinthe may not be the only spirit you encounter at this historic establishment.

Is the Old Absinthe House Haunted?

The Old Absinthe House was built somewhere around the year 1807 and was initially a ground floor street saloon that went by the name of The Absinthe Room. It was said that a bartender named Cayetano Ferrer is the one who created the famous Absinthe Frappe from the hotly imported spirit that was being shipped into the city. For decades the bar and the drink were a hit until it ran afoul of Prohibition. The bar was moved down the street for a time to a backroom speakeasy until the Volstead Act was eventually repealed and the bar staff returned to their original location with a second-floor upgrade, renovated into a Spanish villa-style exterior outside, and it was renamed The Old Absinthe House. However, despite the new name, there are some old ghosts to go along with it here.

The Ghost of Jean Lafitte

The most famous spirit here is said to be that of pirate Jean Lafitte himself. The early 19th-century pirate and bootlegger is said to haunt the second floor of the bar, where some people have claimed to see not only Lafitte standing near the window in his trademark hat but also next to the ghost of former President Andrew Jackson. It was here in this very building, according to legend, that Old Hickory himself met with Lafitte to help him get an edge on the plans for the Battle of New Orleans.

People have said that upon stumbling upon the two spirits, that they fade away into the air. Lafitte and Jackson are not the only two famous spirits that haunt, voodoo queen Marie Laveau also has been spotted staring out into space at different places in the bar. Laveau’s presence also paranormally paradoxical in the sense that she is said to haunt around her tomb at St. Louis Cemetery No 1 as well. Former employees at the Old Absinthe also have spoken about drink glasses mysteriously being moved around or accidentally knocked off bar tables by unseen forces. Even with some table chairs being rearranged, one of the more audible manifestations is the sound of laughter and merriment from corners of the bar in which nobody is present at all.

Be it spirits who enjoyed the many good times at the Old Absinthe House or something more unexplained, the activity here is believed to have been fed off the energy of all the many decades of barroom activity that’s been confined here. Today, the Old Absinthe House is open for business, a local ghost tour favorite, and one of the most popular places in all the French Quarter.

New Orleans is a supernaturally charged city with a heterogeneous mixture of life, death, soul, voodoo, and the outlying occult.  Centuries of ships and sailors from all over the world have come to this bustling port city engaging in everything from commerce and cutthroat behavior, to trade and ceremonial magic.  Over time such behaviors have resulted in thousands and thousands of people from all over the world having their final resting places being carved out deep in the Louisiana soil. One of the more haunted cemeteries in the city is St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 where the sightings are so frequent that it closes even before sundown due to all the activity.

Is the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 Haunted?

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was first consecrated and opened up for the departed all the way back in 1789.   The nearby Saint Peter Cemetery had actually brimmed overcapacity and the St. Louis was then opened up to accommodate the area’s ever-mounting dead.  It was named for the nearby Catholic Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis which is one block over from the very heart of the French Quarter.  Close to seven hundred tombs and nearly one hundred thousand dead are said to be interred inside, but what of the paranormal activity?

The Tomb of Madame Marie Laveau

One of the most prevailing theories is that the activity in the St. Louis No. 1 is high because of its most famous posthumous resident. The Voodoo Queen herself, Madame Marie Laveau is buried inside the cemetery gates.  A New Orleans fixture since the early 19th Century, Madame Laveau is credited with bringing and polarizing the occult practice of voodoo to New Orleans.  After her death and interment, her followers still visited her grave decades later and adhere to a voodoo practice of drawing three “x’s” on her tombstone in favor of a wish being granted.  While this has lead to vandalism and crackdown on activity in the cemetery, it has also lead to harm. Those not taking Madame Laveau seriously have mocked her grave and touched the tombstone only moments later to fall violently ill, as well as having sinister misfortune befall them.

People also have claimed to see the ghost of former 19th Century sailor Henry Vignes who haunts his family’s tomb.  Legend has it his lost some important papers after sailing away only to come back and find them missing before falling ill and dying.  Decades later visitors have talked about a tall, pale-looking man with intense eyes who appears from out of nowhere and asks if anyone has seen his papers before disappearing behind a headstone.  Some people have also seen his spirit and heard him exclaim that he’s very tired and needs to find rest.

Today, the only visitors allowed inside St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 are those who sign up via a tour group or ghost hunt to enter as vandalism and occult practices are so high that the city formally made it off-limits to the public.  But if you enter, be mindful if you feel a spirit grab your hand and tug, it may be that of Alphonse a young man who has lost his grave and wants you to help him find it.

In New Orleans, the historic and classically gothic style cemeteries are one of the more enticing sights to see in the city. Many people cannot explain it and sometimes confess to feeling slightly awkward about it, but touring a cemetery in a visiting city provides something of disquieting thrill that they cannot explain. Naturally, a city as old as New Orleans is just about the most perfect place to take a cemetery ghost tour or venture off on your own and explore some of the most breathtaking and eerie graveyard sights you’ve ever seen. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 or St. Roch Cemetery maybe some of the more popular ones to visit, but for many who look for another haunted one to explore would be pleased with the paranormal sights and sounds at the Metairie Cemetery.

Is the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans Haunted?

The Metairie Cemetery sits in the lower easter portion of the Metairie area which of course is just a couple miles north of downtown New Orleans proper. Despite countless city blocks and streets, Metairie is sometimes affectionately referred to by locals as the rural portion of New Orleans. The grassy cemetery itself takes up over ten city blocks in Metairie and this makes sense considering the grounds were formerly the Metairie Race Course horse racing track that was built in 1838. The race track enjoyed twenty-six years of success until the events of the Civil War suspended action there. Soon enough bodies from the war began to pile up and by 1872, the track was closed and Metairie Cemetery was consecrated and opened for business with its most famous burial resident at the time being former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. However, as innocuous as this cemetery seems on the surface, it is anything but quiet.

Fighting against local corruption in the late 1800s, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessey was rumored to be murdered by Mafia members who had taken to bootlegging alcohol that came to New Orleans through various Caribbean connections. Hennessey’s murderers were never found, but he was buried in the cemetery. People who have visited claim to see a man in a police uniform staked out in front of Hennessey’s grave from time to time as if he were looking for someone in a sort of afterlife investigation into his own death.

The Tomb of Josie Arlington

One of the more popular haunted areas of this cemetery is the grave of a former New Orleans madam named Josie Arlington, who helped run the red-light district areas of the city which flowed from her own prestigious brothel. In 1905 the brothel burned to the ground taking a number of her employees with it.  From that point on, Josie was said to be obsessed with her own mortality, to the point that she purchased a lavish plot in the Metairie Cemetery. When she finally died in 1914, her relatives seemed to squander away most of her finances and since the mausoleum plot was an expensive one, her body was moved to a cheaper spot, and the plot sold for a hefty sum. However, Josie’s spirit is believed to be none to thrilled with this as paranormal theorists be of the opinion that the callous disturbance of her mortal remains somehow activated the supernatural activity that many experience in the Metairie Cemetery today.

Josie’s mausoleum at the Metairie stands nearly twelve feet tall and is built entirely out of granite. The area inside is occupied by the bodies of two people who bought the plot from Josie’s cash-strapped family members. To the front of the tomb are two copper doors, each with a round door knocker in the center of it. Most impressive is the granite statue of a woman whose hand is lovingly placed against the doors as if she were in mourning. Capping off the top of the mausoleum is a pair granite flames, that are painstakingly detailed in their design.

After Josie’s remains were moved, visitors near the tomb claimed that the nearby streetlights would turn red, no doubt a chilling afterlife reminder that Josie made her trade in the red-light districts of New Orleans. The most haunting aspect of this tomb is that visitors and sextons employed at the cemetery have claimed that the statue has disappeared completely at times and reappeared in other parts of the cemetery! The bizarre paranormal activity doesn’t stop there with this particular grave, as on Valentine’s Day every year (the anniversary of Josie’s death) the granite flames atop her former tomb are said to briefly turn into fire and burn before physically manifesting back into granite. Nobody has ever been able to capture this amazing feat on film, but the image of this occurring under such morbid circumstances give this plot in the Metairie Cemetery a whole new paranormal edge.

The Metairie Cemetery still remains one of the more popular cemeteries to visit for anyone traveling slightly north of the city of New Orleans. But if you go be sure to take a camera when visiting as you may be the very first to capture the “Flaming Tomb” in paranormal action.

St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the United States as Spanish Admiral Pedro de Aviles founded the city all the way back in 1565. The city was named for the Catholic saint as Aviles and his men made contact with the shores of the city on the saint’s feast day. Over the centuries of beachside prosperity that came to the city, one of the most lasting is the Ponce De Leon Hotel. Built in 1888 by Standard Oil co-founder Henry Flagler, the Ponce De Leon Hotel was built to be the most luxurious hotel in the area. Poured from a concrete foundation that was revolutionary at the time along with local coquina, the immense hotel was fashioned and styled in Spanish Renaissance architecture. At one point Flagler even commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany to create and install the beautiful stained glass interiors of the hotel. But just how did this luxury hotel turn into a private liberal arts college that’s haunted?

During WWII the Ponce De Leon was temporarily commandeered by the United States Coast Guard as a training center, and as headquarters for the newly formed Coast Guard Reserves. After the war, the hotel was actually part of a 1964 Civil Rights sit-in that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King which resulted in a number of violent clashes and arrests. By 1967, business at the once-booming luxury hotel had dried up and it was put up for sale as tourism as a whole had declined in the area. Philanthropist Lawrence Lewis Jr, a distant nephew of Henry Flagler himself, purchased the sprawling nineteen-acre property with a vision of creating a small, private liberal arts college to try and bring some prosperity back to the area. In 1968 Flagler College was officially opened with the Ponce De Leon Hotel serving as a preserved historical centerpiece to the newfound college.

Is Flagler College Haunted?

Said to be haunting Flagler College is none other than the spirit of its namesake, Henry Flagler himself. His death was officially recorded in 1913 after a terrible fall at his home, and because he was so attached to the Ponce De Leon Hotel, his body actually was moved there to be laid in state as he was so popular there and in the St. Augustine area in general. There’s a long-standing oral legend that when it came time to remove Flagler’s body from the hotel, all the doors in the area in which he was laid began to open and close furiously without anyone touching them at all!

Janitorial staff have been known to see Flagler’s ghostly image staring back at them from different surface areas all over the hotel. Henry was a bit of a ladies man back in the day and was known to have a wide assortment of mistresses all over the place. His second wife Ida Flagler was said to come from a family with extensive mental health issues, and Henry’s philandering took a toll on her to a point where he had her committed to a sanitarium. However, prior to this Ida was known to regularly hold seances via Ouija Board in the hotel. When Ida passed away, many of those close to her reported seeing her ghostly spirit drifting throughout the halls of the hotel! In particular, her spirit was reported to have always been drawn to an oil painting portrait of Henry on the wall and she is said to have stared at it for an uncomfortable amount of time before fading away.

Building upon Henry’s assortment of mistresses all over the city, he is said to have favored one of them above all, and while her name remains a mystery her presence at the hotel is quite well know. She’s commonly referred to as “The Woman In Black” by many and was said to be given her own personal suite on the 4th floor of the hotel. Whenever Ida came around, Henry was quick to see that the young mistress was locked away in the suite so as to avoid detection by his wife.

Over time, the young woman became frequently depressed and alone in her isolation that she committed suicide in her room. Today, her veiled face and shadowy black dress figure is said to be traipsing around the 4th floor of the hotel, an area which has been boarded off from the public for quite a while. Adjacent to this area of the hotel is the student dormitory where many enrollees claim to hear high pitched screams as well as see objects flying off shelves when nearing this area. Strange light anomalies have been reported to permeate this area of the hotel that reaches into the college grounds. Reportedly a few brave students have breached the closed-off area to the room and a campus rumor claims that some of them entered the room and saw a shadowy figure dangling from the ceiling by their neck.

Today, Flagler College enjoys tremendous academic success and the Ponce De Leon Hotel area of the grounds is one of the most visited and photographed places in all of St. Augustine. But be sure to examine any photographs taken inside the hotel area as many people claim to pick up shadowy figures in the background of their image.

St. Petersburg, Florida is an idyllic seaside community on the enormous fringe of Tampa Bay. The weather is so favorable for this area that it’s called the “Sunshine City” as it’s reported to average nearly 361 days of constant year-round sunshine. St. Petersburg has consistently been one of the top-ranked beach areas as it bustles with tourism no matter the season. However, at the Vinoy Renaissance Resort, no amount of sunshine outdoors can ward off the paranormal activity that is contained deep inside, to the point that even major league sportsmen do their best to avoid it.

Is the Vinoy Renaissance Resort Haunted?

The Vinoy Renaissance was started as a project by a Pennsylvania entrepreneur named Aymer Vinoy Laughner. Looking to capitalize on the picturesque seascape and ever-increasing tourism, Laughner poured in over three million dollars to have the 375-room Vinoy Renaissance open for business. Named after himself, the Vinoy was constructed in a charming Mediterranean villa-style fashion, that copied the most luxurious amenities from European hotels. At a time when seasonal hotels were still a thing, celebrities and athletes descended upon the hotel in winter months to take advantage of the still-warm Florida weather. Baseball players in particular took a liking to the Vinoy including all-time great Babe Ruth. However, once World War II broke out, the United States military used it as a makeshift training school taking full advantage of the tides that no doubt helped with the invasion at Normandy. After the war ended, the hotel was sold and resold as renovations naturally came along the way refining the hotel until it became listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Baseball and Ghosts

Given the ideal weather, baseball teams take full advantage of spring training in the Tampa Bay area and naturally play games against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Scott Williamson had a particularly difficult evening in his room. Lying in bed trying to sleep, he recalled an eerie-looking light emerging from the pool area until it faded and passed through his body. A spine-chilling cold hit him and he had difficulty breathing as he later recounted that it was as if someone were actually sitting on top of him. Turning over seemed to shift the invisible force off of him until he glanced across the room and noticed a man in 1930s period dress complete with a top hat and suit coat staring back at him.

On another occasion, a strength coach was in his room and turned to see the same suited man sitting at the desk in his very room. As the coach opened his mouth to speak, the man disappeared right in front of his very eyes. Many other players as well as hotel guests’ experiences at the Vinoy have all claimed to see this suited man with a hat in period clothing traipsing around the many floors of the hotel. The one paranormal takeaway from encounters with this entity is that whenever he is spoken to by someone, he disappears. However, if someone doesn’t speak or approach him, then his spirit has been known to linger in the vicinity for some time.

World Series Champion manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, Cito Gaston had a terrifying experience in an undisclosed room at the Vinoy. In bed sleeping after a game against the Devil Rays, Gaston was woken up in the middle of the night by the security chain on his room door. At first, the chain innocuously rattled, and Gaston thought nothing of it as possibly more than a heavy-footed guest walking past his door or perhaps a bellboy pushing a loaded trolley past. But then things passed into the realm of the paranormally unexplained when the security chain was unlocked by a pair of unseen hands and then re-lock itself over and over again for several minutes.

Due to the voluminous amounts of baseball games played in a season, lots of teams have had games to play in Tampa Bay over the years and the sheer amount of major league baseball players that have recounted paranormal experiences at the Vinoy is absolutely staggering. In fact, so many have been frightened that a large portion of them have spoken about their experiences to sportswriters over the years and have stayed anonymous. One mysterious pitcher from a National League team wanted to treat his family and let them stay at the luxurious Vinoy while he engaged in some spring training. The wife of the pitcher has reservations as stories of the paranormal even reached her and the other player’s wives, but he reassured her and she stayed with her kids. Off during spring training, the pitcher got a frantic call from his wife who cried that the water faucets inside the room would slowly turn themselves on to full blast and then suddenly snap off. Worse yet the lights in the room would flicker madly and the television would turn on and off without provocation. The woman and her children fled the hotel in fear.

Stay With The Ghosts at the Vinoy Renaissance Resort

Today the Vinoy Renaissance remains the premier luxury hotel in the St. Petersburg area. Recently the hotel was purchased by the elite hotel chain Marriott, which has made even more luxurious upgrades to the hotel. As for the ghost, whoever it may be that haunts the Vinoy is a total mystery, as no foul play or sinister deaths have revealed anything. With all the activity and witness accounts, the spirit comes across as benevolent as no malicious activity has occurred. In terms of origin, the spirit here will just have to remain a total supernatural mystery for now.

The University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), is situated just a mile and a half away from all the gambling glitz of the famous Las Vegas Strip. Proximate to both the mysteriously tragic Luxor Hotel, and even Ghost Adventures paranormal frontman Zak Bagans Haunted Museum, UNLV is of all things just a simple university that happens to be situated in the center of Sin City. But not it’s not the bright lights, big-time shows, or high stakes games that students have been known to muse about in their time away from academia. In fact, the whispers across this desert campus are tinged with paranormal frights.

Is the University of Nevada Haunted?

UNLV is relatively new in terms of its age, as it was first established in 1959 as an extension of the University of Nevada. Designed to be a system university, the state legislature put together a paltry $200,000 at the time to construct the first building on campus, Frazier Hall. The location of the university borderline predates the big casino boom that would eventually overtake the area. Over the past fifty years, UNLV has expanded its athletics program and grown to accommodate an over 30,000 student body population offering up a number of top-flight programs including one of the top five creative writing doctoral programs in the entire United States. With such a thriving and albeit normal appearance, just what spirits lurk around this desert campus?

The Ghosts at UNLV

Kitty Rodman Hall for all purposes is a normal, three-story block-shaped dormitory that has a capacity for over one hundred students. There is a long-gestating rumor that a student here had taken her own life sometime early on in the school’s history. This origin aside, the spirit is that of a female with long dark hair who appears to be wearing a white dress that is from the late 19th Century. Her face is often obscured with her hair, but that is not the most terrifying aspect of this ghostly sighting. Some students have woken up to find this glowing white spirit standing in the doorway of their room closet! Silent and foreboding, her spectral visage has been known to just stare in silence before fading completely away.

Not to be outdone, at times some students at the nearby Tonopah Residence Hall have remarked that there has been a tapping sound somewhere in the vicinity of 3 am when they’re trying to sleep. The hallways are lit and what is most disturbing is that there doesn’t appear to be any feet seen underneath the doorway as the knocking is said to have occurred. Other times a frustrated student has opened the door to find nobody standing there at all.

One particular chilling story involved a student sitting in the grassy complex area of the hall on a winter day near the end of the semester studying over last-minute notes for a test when a pale and awkward behaving female student asked him for the time. Turning to his side to fetch his watch, he grabbed it to turn back and tell it to her when she had completely disappeared. Some have even claimed to see darker shadows in the evening time against the campus lights.

Shadow men in outdoor resident complexes? Closet spirits and mysterious 3 am knocks on doors? While none of these occurrences are malicious in nature it still no doubt suggests that the UNLV campus has some paranormal activity. Class dismissed.

Moss Beach is a relatively small coastal area on the Pacific Ocean that is twenty-five miles due south of San Francisco. Lonely and windswept from the gusty ocean waves, this small town with a population of only three thousand people casually displays its oceanic charms with little fanfare. Things at Moss Beach however were once not so quiet, and in fact during the late 1920s Prohibition Era, the beach reeled in an influx of bootleggers, gangsters, and high-end strumpets. Nearly one hundred years later, the most exciting place then and still, is the fantastically haunted Moss Beach Distillery.

Is the Moss Beach Distillery Haunted?

Capitalizing on the 1920s bootlegging, a businessman named Frank Torres opened up a speakeasy restaurant called Frank’s Place. Basking in the nearby oceanic cliffs, Frank’s Place was becoming a major draw for the California elite and the rum-running bootleggers. Eventually, when Prohibition was over, Torres remained on with the newly renamed Moss Beach Distillery and ensure it became one of the most successful restaurants around. However, it wasn’t before long that employees and guests began to take particular notice of one ghostly specter that has affectionately been called The Lady In Blue.

The Lady in Blue

The origin of the Lady In Blue began during the Prohibition Era when a married woman began to frequent Frank’s Place. Dressed always in a flowing blue dress, she eventually fell in love with the establishment’s piano player. One night they arranged for a romantic tryst on the beach when she was found out by her husband. A knife was drawn and a brawl broke out between the men, causing the Lady in Blue to be fatally stabbed trying to break up the argument. Decades later, the Lady In Blue’s spirit is said to haunt the Moss Beach Distillery.

Employees and some dinner guests have exclaimed that one of the telltale signs of her presence is that an immediate rush of fragrant cold air blows upon them. Some employees have even believed to have heard a ghostly voice call out their own name when they’re alone. Former owner Patricia Andrews confessed that the Lady In Blue was more of a mischievous, and fun-loving spirit instead of a malicious entity. Andrews confessed to being locked out of her manager’s office at the restaurant on more than one occasion by the spirit. Another time she was closing up by herself alone at night in her office totaling receipts and she saw the restaurant’s business checkbook levitate completely off her desk right in front of her! She later said that it floated in a slow circle around the room completely by the Lady In Blue. Amused, Andrews asked the spirit to kindly put it back on the desk, and that’s exactly what she did.

Another former owner of the Moss Beach Distillery named John Barbour, had purchased the restaurant from Patricia Andrews in the early 1990s. A self-proclaimed skeptic of anything concerning the Lady In Blue, let alone paranormal activity, Barbour was staunchly incredulous at anyone claiming there was a ghost in his new restaurant. That was until Barbour himself actually had an experience that he couldn’t explain in the form of actual object levitations. This extended down to another employee who was a janitor there at the restaurant.

The Ghost of Mary Anne Morley

Late one evening the Lady In Blue actually manifested in front of her, clothed in her typical blue chiffon period dress, and tried to verbalize what many believe was her name. Shaken by the event and other apparitions that were made to this particular employee, famed psychic Sylvia Browne was brought in. Sylvia held seances at the restaurant and came up with a name that the spirit revealed to her, Mary Anne Morley. In another random turn of paranormal events, Browne also revealed that there were three other spirits haunting the establishment as well.

On the whole, Browne felt that the Lady In Blue as well as all the other spirits there were genial in nature, if not loving. During her last seance, Browne claimed that the spirit told her that the employees must be vigilant because a fire was going to break out there at the restaurant. Within ten days of the seance, a raging fire broke out in the kitchen area which was thankfully contained. The Lady In Blue’s caring doesn’t seem to stop there at the restaurant. Presumably, on the beach area in which she was killed, some children were playing amongst the dunes in what they thought was shallow water. Moments later the children ran screaming to their parents up at the restaurant claiming that a lady in a long blue dress came to them and warned them of the sudden high tides that were to strike before completely disappearing.

Today the Moss Beach Distillery is a wildly successful restaurant destination in the Moss Beach area. The current owners are very respectful of the Lady In Blue and her supernatural history with the restaurant.