Haunted History?

[Liv'n the past]

Has anyone ever happened upon an area or historical location and you find yourself looking over your shoulder because you just don't feel alone? Or you have that favorite location to relic hunt where you get such a sense of peace unlike any other? It's hard to put your finger on the whys of such feelings but the reasons are undeniable. One of my varied interests that I've picked up over the years is paranormal investigation of historical places. Sites include the site of a civil war hospital, a 250 plus tavern on an old stage route, an outside hub of colonial activity that has remained virtually unchanged to this day and a section of property that was part of a settlement destroyed during King Phillips War. I come away from these experiences not alway knowing the who's and whys but definitely come away knowing that there is a lot more out there than what we can actually see Not sure if there's any interest. Just throwing it out there

[Kyflintguy]

A couple good stories from members here...

http://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/other-activities-hobbies-gc26/the-great-outdoors-gc12/219117-strange-outdoor-experiences

There are some other good threads on the subject its just a matter of digging them up.

[Liv'n the past]

Thanks Kyflintguy. I'll check them out

[Havenhunter]

Virginia is reportedly the most haunted state in the country. I've toured an estate just up the road that was once owned by John Lennon & Yoko Ono. The house had so many spirits she had it exorcised. It freaked her out!
We encountered a phantom tree that had fallen across the highway one night. As we slammed on the brakes in hopes of minimizing the damage to our SUV, we simply "passed" through it like it wasn't there! We still talk about that happening whenever we pass the plantation where it occurred. I could tell you dozens of tales!!

[Liv'n the past]

It's fascinating stuff HavenHunter and have had enough experiences of my own to not doubt a word of yours. Thanks for sharing it

[badger51]

My wife insists (perhaps due to her heritage) that any artifacts brought into our home need to be smudged.

[JoshinMO]

Over The Summer when I would get to The Creek, Trees would break and fall. First time didn't think much of it but second time (maybe 2 weeks later) it happened on both sides of The creek at The same time. Calm normal Days. Hollered into The Woods that second time to let Anyone know that I was there but got no response.

[Liv'n the past]

Your wife is a wise lady Badger and you'd be wise to pay attention to her intuitions. I believe 99pct of every artifact recovered out there is ok to bring into your home but that other 1 pct is probably best left whee it lay. Can I ever relate with your story Josh, I was detecting the edge of a field rimmed by ancient hardwoods not far from an old stage road. About 80 ft to my right the bushes started rustling in a way that got my attention enough to start walking toward the commotion I got roughly 60 ft to my destination and heard a loud crack and crash behind me. Where I'd been standing a small tree size branch broke free of a huge Maple and landed where I had been standing Shaking like a leaf I walked down to where the bushes had shook. There was nothing there. S**t luck,coincidence or intervention. You be the judge

[sailorjoe]

Haunted houses and such things are nonsense. If a person is disposed or conditioned to believing in superstitious things and he knows before hand that a place or building has a certain history then he or she is more likely to have certain feelings or "experiences" upon visiting them. The mind can often play tricks upon itself. As a person interested in history most of my adult life I have visited many battlefields and more old cemeteries than I can count. I've visited "Boothill " cemetery in old Tombstone, Arizona and many more. I have visited old cathedrals where the bodies of saints are entombed and I have visited the cemeteries where many of my ancestors are buried for photos to include in my family tree records. I have never seen a ghost, heard voices or strange sounds. I think Harry Houdini dispelled the idea of mediums and communicating with the dead long ago. Having said that, there are certain phenomena that are frequently considered to be among the "paranormal" that are the subject of scientific experimentation but that would be a whole different thread. BOO!!

[sailorjoe]

Just a word to the moderators if one is looking in. Perhaps this thread should be moved to the Off the Wall topic area.

[Liv'n the past]

Thanks for you input Sailor Joe and point taken on the appropriateness of posting experiences here. My parents live in Benson Az and when I visited them I had the chance to visit Tombstone as well. The BirdCage Theatre was an interesting place. As far as never having any paranormal experiences you are not alone,a great many people have not. That said there are many very educated, unsuperstitious people who have experienced such things and approaching the subject with a closed mind benefits no one.

[sailorjoe]

Hi Lin the P: Greetings. If you are insinuating that I have a closed mind then you have misinterpreted my comment. Believing is one thing. Knowing is another. I did not mean to demean your beliefs. How one interprets naturally occurring events is up to the individual. I generally interpret my experiences empirically. And BTW, the level of education often has little to do with emotional feelings. Often our feelings interfere with rational thought. They have with me and they have with everyone.

[CMD]

I like to think what some call supernatural is just aspects of the natural that have yet to be understood/incorporated into a theory of nature. And the universe itself seems more malleable when one realizes quantum physics is pointing to the realization that consciousness may preceed matter, that the observer has a direct effect on the observed. Our observation causes the wave function to collapse in other words. When one cannot separate the observer from the observed, the universe can "get personal" as it were.

But, all that is truly beyond me. I had one experience, I've mentioned it several times, which could cause one to wonder "just how is this universe put together"? I could call it paranormal, call it a psychic experience. But I really did not at the time. I just decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I just decided to accept what the universe was presenting at the time, and not be too concerned about what it might say regarding the nature of reality.

Walking a corn field, daydreaming instead of bearing down. My wife to my left, about 300 feet distant. Into my right ear came an out loud voice: "arrowhead!!". It startled me and I spun around to my right. Of course there was nobody in sight as far as the eye could see. What the hell was that voice?? Well, quite clearly it was an auditory hallucination. First and only time in my life. I did not say, this is impossible. Instead I looked at the ground all around me, where I had walked, where I would walk, etc. There was no arrowhead. I started to continue my hunt, but said "no, there has to be a reason for that voice!!". At my feet was a giant oak or maple leaf. It was Fall, but I forget what type of leaf. It lay aside my left foot. I squatted down, and lifted up the leaf. There was the arrowhead. I put it in my pocket and kept walking. It had been completely hidden, no way did my eyes see that arrowhead. I would not have found it without that auditory hallucination. I did not try to figure out what that event said about the nature of reality. I just accepted it as a neat experience. Only time in my life for such an experience, and the point itself was a true arrowhead. It was far from my only so-called psychic experience. I've had a few; I just accept them and don't force the universe/nature to meet my expectations or else. But I do believe the future of consciousness studies will lead to an understanding of reality that will explain such odd experiences.

So I always just smile in wonder when things like this happen, as they have a few times. Glimpses into the structure of nature that don't seem to quite fit our everyday notions of how the universe goes together. My wife had a much more typical "ghost" sighting, as described at the link Josh left. But we never got caught up in claiming it was a ghost story at all. One simply accepts what happened, file it under "unknown" and go on with life. It can open up the entire subject of just how the universe works, and just what is the relationship of mind to matter, just as the observer-observed effect in quantum physics calls into question how consciousness itself effects the greater universe. I do believe what may seem paranormal now will seem normal once our understanding advances. Which a I believe it will.

And here's that point "the voice" helped me find. Without that voice, the point would not have been found. And it was indeed tiny, a true arrowhead.....

[Havenhunter]

SailorJoe, I can appreciate your scepticism if you have never experienced the unexplainable. The story of our collision with a phantom tree was my first and was also witnessed by my husband (a scientist) & our teenaged daughter. That tree lying across our highway was as real as any I've seen and all 3 of us braced for what we feared would be a horrible collision with a tree at least three feet in diameter. To instead pass through it was mind altering. We turned around & went back, trying to fathom what we had seen. It was a moonless night so there were no shadows cast that we could have mistaken. It shook us to the core & our daughter had nightmares afterwards. It certainly wasn't nonscense.
The second incident happened one rainy day as I prepared to drive to the dentist. Debating whether to take our two dogs with me, like Charlie I distinctly heard a voice say "leave the dogs at home". Call it BS if you like but I decided to heed that warning. Ten minutes later, while sitting at a red light, a tractor trailer doing 45 obliterated the rearend of my SUV where my dogs would have been when he failed to stop. I will never know who or what spoke to me, but I will be forever grateful.

[sailorjoe]

Hi HH: You are incorrect if you have assumed that I have not experienced the unexplainable. But you are quite correct in saying that I'm skeptical. I am probably more skeptical than the average person, in fact, likely much more. And BTW, as for my use of the word nonsense in my first post. I should have said that it is nonsense to me. Obviously your interpretation of what you saw would not be nonsense to you. As I commented to L,nTP I do not mean to demean your believes or your belief system. As regards my unexplained experiences: I have had those many times and I am still skeptical. I probably have experienced my fair share of things about which I can not explain. But I won't detail those that I can remember now. It is only that it appears that unlike you when such phenomena occur that I don't ascribe supernatural or paranormal explanations as reasons for their occurrence.I don't doubt that you believe that what you think you saw was real. Because all experiences are viewed through the mind and because the mind can produce experiences, as well, then we all should be very careful when interpreting our experiences when relating cause and effect. What self may experience through the prism of the mind usually does but does not have to be based on absolute reality. And multiple people experiencing the same thing simultaneously does not necessarily prove reality. And beliefs and belief systems are exactly that-beliefs and belief systems. They may be based on absolute reality but are not necessarily so. Having said that, there are various kinds of unexplained phenomena that are usually grouped with the paranormal category that are areas of scientific inquiry and which seem to exist and about which we can't now explain but appear to be real because of duplication under controlled double blind experiments. Explanations may be a long time coming. I doubt if I will live long enough to know about it.And finally, nothing dies harder than a belief. Some beliefs die before the body does and some do not. And that is what I believe. :-), LOL

[CMD]

Liv'n the past, I did move the topic over to "off the wall". I do not regard such stories as "off the wall" as in "crazy". Not in the least. I believe the experiences I and others have had reveal a universe that is at odds with classical physics. But that does not mean, as our understanding of the universe advances, (and in this day and age, very serious consideration is being given to the notion that the universe is a simulation to cite one "crazy" idea gaining steam) that what seems impossible, or crazy, or "it did not happen, it does not happen" may just be something that will appear normal and natural as our knowledge advances. But, I don't think we want to create an entire new category for these kinds of things. They have appeared here in "off the wall" before, and it seems appropriate enough appearing here. Hope you don't mind that I did move it over.

[Looks2Much]

I have had a few experiences that are hard to explain in my life. When I was a kid we lived in a house that some would call haunted... we had countless experiences there that defy explanation. One of the weirdest (and shortest) stories has to do with a wall in the house between the kitchen and living room. It was just a short, interior, wall that made up the space to the right of a bedroom door. The wall was always icy cold to the touch and we could NOT hang pictures on that wall. Every time my mother tried, the pictures would fall to the floor within minutes of being hung there, the nails still stuck fast. Very strange.

I have had some pleasant experiences where intense memories and--depending on your beliefs--coincidence or something more cosmic came together to create a memorable experience. Here's a blog entry I wrote on the subject if anyone cares to delve further into the dark caves of my inner self... lol http://www.surfcastersjournal.com/gramp/

I haven't had any of these feelings while point hunting yet. The feeling I get from this new (to me) hobby have to do with the piece of land I'm standing on and it's long history. I find it really easy to... sort of... blur my eyes and see into the past. I can picture the small encampment, native men, women and children scattered about the area conducting their daily routines. When I walk out and drive away, I try to see the landscape as it was, it's an unexpected aspect of point hunting that I really, really enjoy.

The snow melted the other night and I figured I'd go have a look. My daughter and I brought a picnic lunch, found a few points and a cool knife... when it was time to eat, I wanted to get out of the wind so we walked around the east side of a stand of brush and small trees, where some flat rocks made a great spot to sit and eat. There in the area where I planned to sit was a small - handful sized - pile of dried corn, right on top of a small flat rock. The closest cornfield is more than 2 miles away, how the heck did that get there?!?! I'm sure there is an explanation... heck, maybe the spirits wanted more M&M's! (My daughter dumped about 20 of them on the ground there last time we were there)... I wish I took a picture of the corn.

Don't misread this an me suggesting that I'm trading wares with a 3000 years gone sachem, but it was a head-scratcher for sure...