“ I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts!”

Photo by Gabriel on Unsplash

I’ve been on ghost hunts.

I didn’t have an EMF detector (Electro-magnetic field — EMF counts may increase if something abnormal is around) but I did have a small digital recorder to capture those EVPs — electronic voice phenomena (voices or sounds that may not be heard but are recorded, many time in answer to a question, i.e. “Is anyone here?”

Some of the more famous EVPs are bugle calls recorded on the Gettysburg Battlefield.

My ghost hunting trips were at the behest of local ghost hunting groups who allowed me to accompany them so I could write a newspaper article. Or I went as an observer and student (many times in Gettysburg).

A ghost hunt usually includes specific histories of the areas for hunting. In Gettysburg, it’s not always on the Battlefield. Farmhouses were taken over and used as field hospitals, as was a large building now part of Gettysburg College.

Stories of Gettysburg hauntings are numerous; author Mark Nesbitt, has a series of books about the town’s ghost stories and also runs a ghost tour. Ghost tours have become a tourist mainstay in many historic towns.

Apart from the supernatural and the unknown, it’s the history that attracts me to ghost hunting. I’d be the one pouring over old ledgers and microfiche to find out who or what (sometimes the…