GHOST STORIES
THESE ARE REAL GHOST STORIES NOT FOUND ANYWHERE ELSE (c)
Copyright 2011
Hi, I’m Al and I will be your tour guide for tonight.
When you do a ghost tour from night to night in a haunted area like Saint Augustine Florida, you’re bound to encounter paranormal activity. It’s like getting paid to do a paranormal investigation, except you are responsible for dozens of people which can take the wind out of you at times but it's fun.
Besides doing ghost tours from time to time, I’m also a ghost hunter and have engineering degrees so you can probably guess what I’m thinking of when I see, hear or feel something out of the ordinary. Science! I originally took a ghost tour guide job because I thought it would be a fun diversion from my serous technical work, but what I’ve experienced changed my whole view of the World.
Here are just a few stories accumulated throughout my tours. Some have been told to me by tourists and some have been experienced by me. Keep in mind that not every tour was paranormally active, I noticed that paranormal activity comes in waves. Sometimes weeks or even months will go by with nothing happening then all of the sudden you have a week or two that is real active.
Enjoy this compilation of ghost stories. Make a hot drink, dim the lights and let your mind wander.
I almost quit!
My experience August 2006
When you’re doing a ghost tour every week visiting haunted areas you’re bound to encounter paranormal activity.
My first encounter had me totally spooked and freaked out. If I wasn’t responsible for tourists that day I would have bolted out of there so fast all you would see is smoke.
I was outside the lighthouse keeper’s house with about 8 people in my tour group. Since I have a rather large wallet and keys to the ghost transport vehicle plus my house and car keys, I make it a point to carry a belt pouch, some call it a side saddle. My keys were half hanging from it and it was packed, including my cell phone.
As I was telling the story of the people who died there and their ghosts who haunt the area I started feeling some heavy tugs at my bag from child level, about 3 feed from the ground. I thought it was a cat and looked around as I was talking but saw nothing so I shrugged it off. I kept talking and I felt the tugs again, this time they were heavier. My heart jumped as I knew nobody was around me at all but I didn’t want to spook the guests, besides, they would never believe me.
I decided to walk around the side of the house and finish my stories there. We all walked around and settled in to a semi circle, I started talking again and the tugs started again immediately. I ignored the first round of tugs hoping it was just my imagination but like a spoiled little child, this thing that was tugging at me was trying to get my attention so it tugged again.
This time I lost all train of thought and started turning white. The tour group asked me if I was ok, I sheepishly said the following, “I’m not trying to scare anyone and this is definitely not part of the tour, but something keeps tugging at my bag here.” I saw people looking at me funny so I got my composure back and started the stories and the tugging started again, more and more and heavier and heavier then someone in the crowd interrupted and said “excuse me, but your bag just moved”.
That’s all I had to hear, that was it for me. I ended the tour early and asked everyone to get in the transport. I was out of there!
I seriously thought about quitting. I then spoke it over with my Wife that night then could not sleep all night long. Since I liked the job and the owner begged me to stay, I had to hang tough. More things happened throughout my tours but knowing that I’m basiclly outside all the times and I can run like a cheetah if I get scared, I didn’t think too much about it. Also, I never felt threatened by any paranormal encounter so I got used to it.
My experience October 2006
It was a very cool, dry October night for St. Augustine. So cool that most of the people in the old city were wearing jackets. After a night of fun and ghost stories riding in a 32 year old transport, the tourists were driven to the highlight of the tour, the St. Augustine Lighthouse.
After parking the transport, the I guide the tourists out of the car and lead them to the front of the famous lighthouse museum, which was the original lighthouse keeper’s home. The tour of 8 people gather around close to hear the ghostly lighthouse stories except one tourist who decides to lean by the front gates a few feet away. The fence is attached to a low brick fence surround the lighthouse museum.
As I was speaking of Hezekiah Pittee’s daughters who died on that fatal construction tram accident in the early 1870s, I noticed the face of the tourist who was leaning his back by the front gate turn white. I stopped the story and asked him what was wrong, at the same time we all noticed the bottom rim of his jacked moving as if someone was tugging on it from behind. He then told us with a soft voice that someone was tugging at his jacket from the back.
Nobody is allowed in the lighthouse at night and no-one was around except my tour guests and I yet his jacket was being tugged at a child’s height behind the gate. I had to go on with the tour but could not finish the tour there because he seemed disturbed by the experience so I asked the tour to walk around to another corner of the lighthouse brick fence. When everyone settled down we all saw the resident black and white cat I like to call “Spooky” coming out to greet us. Spooky is a very friendly cat and his colors match the lighthouse, what is ominous is that every time he appears from the fence or the bushes something weird happens.
Similar tugs can be felt at the Myrtles Plantation in Pennsylvania. People say it’s as if a small child is trying to get your attention which is exactly what was felt.
I found this latest incident very gratifying because when this occurred I did not tell my personal “ghost tugging” story to this group, therefore nobody knew of the incident. After the incident I related my story about feeling something similar close to the spot where this man stood. “
Could the “ghostly tugging” be done by the ghost of the little girl in the lighthouse? You know how kids try to get your attention at times by tugging at your clothes, could it be that some entity beyond our frequency or dimension tried to get our attention that night?
Tour guest story November 2006.
I was told this story and I can relate because the same thing happened to my Wife.
It was a weekday afternoon during a thunderstorm. Jim and his Wife decided to go to the lighthouse that day. When they arrived they found very few cars in the parking lot and knew they had the lighthouse to themselves, they hurriedly went in, paid their entrance fee at the gift shop then walked to the lighthouse keeper’s house museum.
When they inquired of the lighthouse museum workers about why no tourists were around, they were told that the lighthouse was closed due to lightning strikes in the area, and since that is the main attraction, people left. Jim and his Wife stayed and enjoyed the soggy grounds, there reported a strange energetic feeling that made them feel good while at the lighthouse museum therefore most of their time was spent in the museum which use to be the lighthouse keeper’s home at times past.
Nobody was around and the first floor and basement were particularly quiet. The space in the basement was very opened and well lit with many historical artifacts of lighthouse living. An eerie feeling came over Jim as he glanced at a doll behind a glass case. No doubt some child must have owned it in the period when lighthouse keepers lived and worked there until the lighthouse was automated in the mid 1950s. Jim remembered a story about a “little girl” ghost haunting the premises and wondered if this doll was hers.
As Jim was slowly walking inside the building going up and down the circular stairs from the first floor to the basement and back, his Wife, Doris was sitting still and quiet in a basement chair enjoying the strange silence. She then felt one of her long earrings move as if someone was touching it. Apparently this ghost tried to get Doris’ attention and was primarily interested in her earrings as it moved the earrings with a cold feathery touch, as Doris describes it. She suddenly became concerned and called out for her husband. When he answered from the first floor, she quickly got up and ran to the stairs telling her husband everything that happened.
“It was a weird feeling” she exclaimed, “but I wasn’t afraid, just startled”. Doris is a jewelry maker and fashioned those earrings herself. Who could it be that was interested in such earrings? Was the ghost a curious playful male? Or the ghost of a female admiring the earrings? We don’t know, however Doris described the feeling as cold and feathery. It is a known fact that when ions move through the air they cause a cold sensation on the skin. Jim and Doris left that day feeling a bit overwhelmed with the experience overall, but they swore to visit again.
My experience January 2007
Two young ladies from South Florida wanted to take the midnight tour. I was expecting more people for the tour but since it leaves around midnight and no one else was present I left on time as I always do and basically had only these two ladies with me. From experience, I know that when I have a small crowd the ghosts like to come out and play. As we did our tour route I reminded them that cool dry nights are great for external ghostly activity. I also told them that the last time I gave a tour to two ladies, my gauss meter went off and one of the ladies got poked in the back meaning a ghost came by and was playing around with us.
The tour went well. We had some ghostly activity from Margaret Worth in the form of the gauss meter going off. Margaret use to live in an old mansion which is now a restaurant. The ladies were very thrilled over the interaction between me and Margaret. We then proceed to the lighthouse, it’s now 12:30AM and I started to tell the history of the lighthouse and the people that died there. What I like about the lighthouse at that time in the morning nobody is around the neighborhood. It’s very quiet.
As I was talking in front of the lighthouse keeper’s house steps, we all heard loud footsteps rustling the leaves and grass about 4 feet from us. I thought it was someone behind me walking by as at times amateur ghost hunters come around lurking from time to time trying to capture EVPs or ORBs, I tuned to look and I saw nobody. I suddenly froze. The two young ladies were in shock.
We followed the sound of the steps, looked in the general vicinity and saw depressions in the grass and dead leaves being bent as if someone was walking on them. The two ladies at this point were looking at me with the amazement. I too was amazed because this was an unusual experience however I calmed down and told them who it probably was, Captain Rasmussen. He is known to walk around the lighthouse smoking a cigar, however the ladies did not smell cigar smoke and I had a little cold so I couldn’t smell anything at all.
The invisible walking ghost didn’t stir my EMF meter which I thought was strange, however I believe there has to be a fast moving electrostatic field present prior to my gauss meter going off. If I had a trifield meter I would probably pick something up.
My experience February 2008
I had a 9 year old boy in the tour for the purpose of protecting his identity I will call him Todd. He was with two adult women, his Mother and his Aunt, his Brother who was also there, he was about 11 years old. His Mother told me that Todd was a “sensitive” or more simply, he could see ghosts. The theory behind that is that some people operate at a slightly different mental frequency and therefore can tap in to other realms more readily.
At first I thought this kid had a great imagination, however as soon as I opened the transport for him to get in he started quietly crying saying there were ghosts in there. His Mother told me that he was not use to different ghosts, he doesn’t know these beings so he’s afraid. I gulped and said “I have to drive that thing at night… ALONE! And you’re telling me there are ghosts in here?”. She said that’s what Todd sees.
Since I started to open my mind to such possibilities I didn’t dismiss his words as fantasy, every time he spoke I asked him specific questions to try and draw him out. I listened carefully as he was muttering under his voice because he possibly felt embarrassed about what he was saying, therefore I tried to make him feel comfortable by asking questions and being very attentive to his answers.
Soon we went to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and he was telling me what ghosts he saw there before I started saying anything, apparently there are many ghosts on the grounds and interestingly enough he said one of the little girls was climbing a tree. The same tree tourists use to get strange pictures with orbs in them. Sure enough, a picture was taken of that tree at that time by one of the other tourists in my group and there was an orb. Remember, it was cool and dry. No rain, no bugs, no dust. Orbs in pictures under such conditions are to be trusted, yet my Gauss meter did not go off which was strange. I can understand if an electromagnetic entity moved slowly the Gauss meter would not pick up the energy, much like when a magnet is waved over a Gauss meter, if it’s done fast then the meter goes off if it’s slow the meter doesn’t detect any Electromagnetic energy. Back to the lighthouse tour…
Todd started crying again. He was definitely scared so his Mother took him away from the lighthouse grounds and waited for that part of the tour to be over. I was still skeptical about this child but intrigued because of the fact that an orb was captured at the very spot he said there was a ghost.
The tour was then over and I thought they would leave but these people paid for another tour, they couldn’t get enough. We had 4 extra people scheduled so there was still room in the transport. This is the first time I had the same people pay for 2 tours back to back. This time Todd started to acclimate to the strange ghosts around us and me, he was being more vocal and was crying less. We went to the military cemetery south of St. Augustine and he mentioned that there was a celebration going on, many ghosts were present including Margaret Worth, a person buried in the cemetery which I consider my friend. She was the wife of General Worth who fought the Mexican wars in the early to mid 1800s. While at the cemetery I pointed her tombstone which depicted her name Margaret Stafford (wife of General Worth). A few moments later he asked me if I knew her in real life. I said “no, she died a long time ago, but I’ve been doing these tours for over a year now and I call her to come close to me so my EMF meter can go off and she has done so many times, therefore I feel I gained her friendship”.
He said that she likes me and she’s close to me now. I guess Margaret at this point is use to the Gauss meter and knows how to set it off because at that point my EMF meter goes off with the same exact signature sound that depicts a ghostly presence, a whiney pulsating noise. This sent chills up my spine and everyone in the tour stopped and listened carefully. Nobody got touched but this boy was attracting a lot of activity.
The 4 extra people who joined us on the second tour took a picture where Todd mentioned there were soldiers celebrating and the picture showed 3 smoky blue apparitions which looked like people in soldiers uniforms.
I looked at Todd with amazement, then I asked Todd to speak to Margaret and ask her why her headstone says Margaret Stafford instead of Margaret Worth. I asked, “did she re-marry?” The boy replied that she said it was her family’s name, in other words, her maiden name given to her at birth. I didn’t know this about Margaret, I assumed she re-married after her husband died.
The tour then ended and we all went home. I took the transport to the parking spot and spoke to the ghosts in there not to do anything because I may join them, meaning I will probably crash the transport while having a heart-attack.
This kid was special so I was determined to follow up on this bit of evidence on Margaret Worth. When I got home I immediately went on the Internet I started doing research on General Worth and found the following. Let the proof speak for itself.
(Buckley B. Paddock, History of Texas: Fort Worth and the Texas Northwest Edition [4 vols., Chicago: Lewis, 1922]). Paraphrased… “Fort Worth, originally Camp Worth, was established at the end of the Mexican War on June 6, 1849, the camp was named for Brig. Gen. William Jenkins Worth later changed to Fort Worth on November 14, 1849. He married Margaret Stafford of Albany, New York, in 1818. They had three daughters and a son. Brig. Gen. William Jenkins Worth served in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War that Fort Worth is named after. There is also a Lake Worth in downtown Fort Worth named after him as well as a village called Worth, which is a suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, which is named after him. Also Worth County, Georgia and Lake Worth, Florida are named for him.
William Jenkins Worth (1794-1849), United States Army major general, the son of Thomas and Abigail (Jenkins) Worth, was born in Hudson, New York, on March 1, 1794. A member of an old seafaring family. Worth was severely wounded and permanently lamed at the battle of Lundy's Lane, but he remained in the army after the war. In 1840 Worth was transferred to Florida, where in 1842 he successfully ended the Seminole War, and was made a brigadier general on March 1, 1842. Worth was assigned as a commander of the newly created Department of Texas, with headquarters in San Antonio. His tenure in Texas was brief, for he soon contracted cholera from the troops under his command and died in San Antonio on May 7, 1849. Eight years after his death, the city of New York reburied his remains in a public monument and tomb, fifty-one feet tall, located at the juncture of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Worth was a member of the Church of Christ (Congregational)”
Wow! Todd has my respect.
My experience April 2008
This one is for the record books. I took my gauss EMF meter to the lighthouse, I had switch installed so it would stay on in sensitive mode. While at the lighthouse it was picking up stray EMF readings but was pretty quiet for the most part.
As I walked around the side of the house, I felt goose bumps. I had 2 ladies with me at the time, one was a kindergarten teacher, another was a grammar school teacher. I was talking about Elisah, the ghost of the little girl and suddenly the EMF meter peaked screaming pulsating tones three times very quickly as if something flew by me, right after that the teacher yelled, she said she felt someone poking her in the back a few times. It was very freaky. The other lady felt something hold her hand as well and it was cold.
Elisah may not respond to me but she responded to these two ladies that night. The gauss gauss meter works well on sensitive mode.
My experience July 2008
Outside Margaret’s old mansion which is a restaurant called OC Whites, Margaret always comes out for the tour to flip the meter. It was a muggy hot night and I thought it was too humid for her to come out but I called her anyway from the outside of the restaurant. Lo an behold she came out but the EMF meter hardly moved, yet at the time I called Margaret out, a tourist took two pictures and one orb was seen moving close to the meter.
Although the meter registered slightly, the pictures were the proof here.
Tourist experience September 2008
A lady taking the tour told me that she slept in the Elisabeth suite a few days ago. She thinks Ms. Lilly was there because while she was sleeping, that’s when Ms. Lilly like to do her thing so to speak. The lady heard someone opening her zippered luggage which had makeup in it. She thought she was dreaming at the time and dismissed the noise. Then she heard some rustling in her luggage. She said she was very sleepy at the time and didn’t pay attention to it as this occurred early in the early morning.
(side note) I notice lots of things happen early in the morning rather than midnight with ghosts, plus this is not the first time I hear that Ms. Lily likes makeup.
When she woke up she saw her luggage opened and her makeup on the floor. This lady checked her door to make sure it was locked and it was. Ms. Lily paid her a visit.
Another lady spoke up in the tour and told us a story about three models that stayed in the Elisabeth Suite. While they were out the next morning to visit the town, someone went through their makeup bags. When they came back they saw their makeup all over the place. When the models complained the staff said nobody went inside the suite.
Ms. Lilli is a very active ghost in the St. Francis Inn, the oldest Inn in St. Augustine, Florida. An excellent place to stay and very elegant. It is said that Ms. Lilli likes makeup and has a taste for practical jokes. She was the maid servant when the Inn was a home and she died there of a broken heart as her boyfriend killed himself in the same building. She committed suicide as well.
My experience Jaunary 2009
I took one of the tours to a known haunted place called Starlet O’Haras. This was a Victorian home turned in to a pub. There is a very old picture at this pub on the second floor of a man who use to live there then died, the story goes that a murder occurred in the house and the ghost of the murdered soul keeps haunting the pub.
People feel tugs, touches and pokes in this old building and although it’s packed full of life and people. The ghost there likes to take things, and touch people. I heard of this many times so I thought I would give it a try and go there.
While I was looking at this very old painting on the second floor I felt a hand touch me on my lower rear ribcage, as if it was jabbing me. I quickly turned and saw nobody there. I had some distance between people yet this sensation was very real and heavy.
I didn’t have my gauss meter with me, then again, the place was so noisy I probably could not hear the sound at all.
My experience February 2010
I had this lady on the tour with me who lived in New Hampshire in a haunted home. She mentioned that she can actually see orbs so I put her to the test. I asked her where the orbs were when at the cemetery. She pointed to them out and pictures were taken. Lo and behold, we all got orbs. One person actually followed an orb flying in mid air by taking multiple pictures.
This was very exciting to me because I’m trying to understand the relationship between Electromagnetic waves and orb movement so I asked her how orbs move. She explained that some are large and more translucent and some are smaller and brighter. Most of the ones she sees are either grayish white or blue, however she does see green ones as well.
You can’t ask for any better proof. This lady actually saw orbs. She explained that orbs move about like hummingbirds do, they stay in one spot then fly off to another.
At this time I had my Trifield meter and yes, I got some spikes on the static side.
I’m starting to carry my trifield meter more and more, even though it’s more bulky than the gauss meter, I just got a slightly bigger pouch and boy does it make a difference!
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