Sancho's Den of Paranormal Lore...
Reader Submitted Stories
(9/2011) I apologise if your submitted story was never posted, my last email address, that was posted for several years when life circumstances prohibited me from updating this site, was flooded with 1000's of SPAM Emails, and eventually I gave up trying to pick through it. The new address is checked occassionally (every month or two), so please be patient: I will notify you when your story appears.
If you submit a story and don't include a specific location, (or don't want it revealed) it will be placed here. All submissions welcome! First names only will be used and no email addresses will be revealed.
This story was sent to me by Michael Baxter:
Southern Ghosts Haunt “Spirited” Alabama
Island Destination
Whether they admit it or not, most of those who live on Dauphin
Island, Alabama have heard the tales. Some have actually experienced the
chilling encounters first hand. It’s just common knowledge among the locals that
anyone who ventures out after dark on this historical sliver of sand and charm
may cross paths with one of the Island’s resident spirits. You see . . . Dauphin
Island is haunted.There is no doubt that the Lighthouse Bakery on Chaumont
Avenue is the place for incredible pastries and made to order omelets every
morning, but once the sun goes down on the 100-year-old structure, strange
things start cooking in the kitchen.
“I might be working in the shop late at night and I’ll see a
shadow from the corner of my eye pass bye,” said the bakery owner, Mary
Scarcliff. “Things move around in the kitchen and fall off the shelves for no
apparent reason . . . and we just think . . . whatever.”
Originally a simple country-style residence and even a one-time
“cathouse”, the Lighthouse Bakery had been thought to be home to a single entity
says Scarcliff, but another ghostly image was recently seen outside the house.
“For the longest time we had seen the image of an older lady inside the bakery
wearing a 1930s or ‘40s style dress and a kitchen apron,” said Mary. “Her
presence is never threatening or mean-spirited.”
But, a group of paranormal investigators brought in by Scarcliff
recently found possible evidence of more than one spirit. “The investigators had
instrument readings inside the house that were especially strong in the middle
dining room,” she said, “but, it was what they found outside in the yard and on
the porch that surprised us.”
The
investigators captured photos of a dark presence that Mary describes as “really,
really weird.” “I don’t know what it was in those pictures, but it had a dark,
almost skeletal appearance,” she said.
Does the existence of an extra night time “baker” in the kitchen
creep out the employees of the Lighthouse Bakery? “Not really,” Mary said. “We
know that she’s there and we just accept it.”
At the far eastern end of Cadillac Avenue is what’s come to be
known as the Goat Trees, a large stand of ages-old oaks once used by the
Island’s climbing wild goats as a treetop perch to escape marauding alligators
that roamed below at night. But, as the story goes, throughout the years the
alligators were not the only things to move quietly among the Spanish moss once
darkness fell on Dauphin Island.
Islander Ursula Prince shared a tale told to her many years ago about young love
gone tragically wrong among the Goat Trees. “I was told by one of the real
old-timers, that in the years long, long before the Dauphin Island Bridge was
built, when the Island was more secluded from the outside world, Islanders would
hold their weddings beneath the giant Goat Trees for luck,” she said.
“One lovely day a young couple was to be married there, but for
whatever reason the groom never showed up for the ceremony,” said Prince. “The
jilted bride was devastated, so that night out of desperation and sadness she
hanged herself from one of the branches of an old oak there.”
Feeling that the site was tainted and no longer appropriate for
such happy occasions, no wedding was ever again held beneath the sprawling
canopy of the Goat Trees. And, to this day when the moon is full and the gulf
breeze blows, the rustling sounds heard coming from Goat Tree Park near Ursula
Prince’s home are said to be the spirit of the young bride wandering the grounds
and looking for the suitor who left her at the altar.
Local photographer and artist Joy Harper Russell believes that
she may have captured the misty digital images of the departed at several
locations on the Island including the Dauphin Island’s east end. “After
downloading a series of photos from an outdoor concert one night, I noticed that
some of the shots had weird ‘fog spots’ in them,” Russell said. “I had never
considered that they might have been ghosts until a friend mentioned the stories
of Civil War soldiers and others who still walked the grounds there.”
A professional photographer herself, Russell knew that the misty
shapes were not the result of temperature change on the lens because she had
been shooting outside for some time that evening. She also ruled out reflections
and glare from other light sources, and dust on the camera’s internal sensor.
So, what were these images that appeared randomly in some frames, but not
others?
It was then that she
remembered similar “fog spots” in other photos that she had taken . . . photos
on the misty marshes on the Island’s north side and others snapped beneath the
old oaks at the legendary Goat Trees. “I remember taking pictures at the Goat
Trees early one evening,” she said. “In an otherwise clear series of shots the
misty images had appeared near a bench under the moss draped Goat tree near
Cadillac and Grant Street.”Over time Russell has been told of similar “fog
spots” captured by others both digitally and on film. “At the time I took these
photos I didn’t even know that several places on the Island were thought to be
haunted,” Russell said. “I may be trying too hard to convince myself that it was
a ghost or spirit that I had photographed when it really wasn’t, but no one has
given me a definitive explanation. Whatever it is, it’s definitely odd.”
Ghost hunters have taken other photos of an old home on Bienville
Boulevard rumored for years to be haunted. Images of what are described by some
to be both human and animal-like figures were captured on more than one occasion
from the yard and through lower windows of the structure.
According to legend two identical houses
once sat side by side for more than 110-years on the spirited east end of
Dauphin island. Some years back the more structurally sound of the two was moved
to its present location to be restored and made “livable”. That’s when the so
called “bumps in the night” began. It has been reported that during restoration
the owners had trouble keeping contractors on the job as the ghostly residents
regularly scared them into leaving.
Today the home sits for sale just minutes from its original
location with the spirited occupants at the ready to again “welcome” any new
buyer or looky-loo.
Dauphin
Islanders are well aware that their little piece of paradise has a reputation
for having a “spirited” nightlife. From the Goat Trees, to other rumored haunts
such as Cadillac Square Park, and the prehistoric Shell Mounds – a regular site
for séances and paranormal investigations, the legendary Dauphin Island is like
few other destinations along the Gulf coast whether in this life or the next.
Dauphin Island is
just 33 miles south of Mobile, Alabama on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. For more
information visit www.dauphinislandcoc.com. Dauphin Island is Alabama’s Family
Beach Within Reach. ®
Illinois: Old Salem
Cemetery near Lacon, haunted cornfield near Lacon, and Bartonville Asylum
I grew up less than 2 miles from Old Salem and although it is a beautiful old country cemetery that conjures up thoughts of spooks, I'm sorry to report that as far as spirts go, this is a very calm place. I've been to it literally hundreds of times, I've slept there all night on three occasions. Nothing. I don't want to discourage respectful visitors, and maybe someone will find something there, but even visits with sensitive friends has turned up nothing. I'm also sorry to report the truth behind some of the "true" stories well known from local gossip to be false. First, I was about 8 - 10 years old when the "Satanists in hoods" story popped up, the same summer a local farmer burned an old vehicle at the gate to increase the rumors of bad things to try to discourage the rash of teens visiting. This was a misguided attempt to scare off kids after someone pulled down the sign over the gate with a truck, pulled out part of the old iron fence, and used a tow chain to destroy dozens of stones. An elderly lady who I knew well lived within sight of it and took great delight shooting roman candles and shotguns when she saw cars head down the lane to the cemetery. One other Old Salem legend I didn't see referenced dealt with rumors of odd things after a Peoria paper ran a story about a farmer whose property butts up to the cemetery finding several of his sheep mauled to death with their throats torn open. (Maybe 1987ish?) It happened 2 or 3 times. Turns out a woman was renting a home across the ravine and raising Chow Chows. For whatever reason, they were badly neglected, inbreed, starving, and left alone on her property for weeks while she avoided the landlord. There were seven or eight dogs all together. I think I heard 2 dogs were destroyed, but she left and took the others somewhere that fall. The dogs were so wild my mom met us at the road when the bus came home, and all the neighbors kept their own pets close and watched for the pack. My dad lent a small shotgun to the farmer's wife so she could shoot the dogs if they came too close. As you can imagine, before long Old Salem was supposed haunted by black satanic wolf dogs craving sacrificial blood (BTW...Only two of the dogs were black, the others redish-yellow.) But like I said, don't be discouraged... maybe all of the time I spent there I'm well known and boring to the spirits and they ignore me.
(Iris goes on to descibe a haunted farm near Lacon that I've chosen not to disclose the location to, as it is on private land) Just as soon as you turn left onto the road, you'll see a barn standing where a farmhouse was burned down about 8 years ago. When the house was still standing, friends and I went there a few times. We usually felt a very uncomfortable physical feeling of tightness in our chests, or splitting headaches, and I once felt an usually cold spot in the heat of summer in the daytime, and all of the insects trilling in the grass fell silent. It's a strangely intimidating feeling beyond the usual neck chills you get in a presence. One time I parked out there with a guy who knew nothing about the place. He got out of the car to pee, but got back in and decided to keep the door open and pee from the seat rather than stand outside of the car. He turned to me with a weird look and said "did i just have a seizure? He wanted to go to a hospital until he heard about the feelings others had at the place. He's a skeptic, and still tells people he must have epilepsy because he had a seizure once! If you go, beware!!! There are 3 wells on the property and with the house burned and plowed, I can't describe just where to find them....
As far as Bartonville.... I'm old enough
that I was actually able to enter the main building 3 times before the police
crackdowns and lots of the outbuildings before they were razed. It's everybit as
crazy as they say and as I've already dragged on about Old Salem, I'll be brief!
The "hard evidence" I have is a photo taken in early April of 1998. It's a long
shot taken from the top of the main staircase from the admitting area facing
left. My roommate is in the picture with her back to me watching out of the
window at the end of the hall for cops. It was early afternoon, she saw no cars,
but later in the developed shot, there are three lights like headlight
reflections, although you can actually see the road out of the window and it is
empty. I was shooting high speed film without a flash, and even had my flash
fired, it would not have left three reflections spaced so oddly. The scariest
feeling I ever got there (or anywhere for that fact) though,was about three
years later when peering into one of the sub-terrarian tunnels built to move
supplies and people between buildings on the campus without going outdoors and
crossing the road. I don't know how to describe it except to say I never been
gripped by terror poking about in hidden worlds, except that one single time.
So that's what I know, hope it
brings someone closer to a discovery someday!
--E.Iris
P.S. Old
Book's tree has been gone long before my time, I think it rotted away. People
claim a tree there is old Book's, but I've been told by those who know the area
well it's a different tree, isn't in the right part of the cemetary to date from
Book's time, and it isn't big enough in diameter to be the original, which was
gone by the early 80's.
Chris was nice enough to relate this unusual tale to me in 2011:
DELNOR PARK ST
CHARLES, ILLINOIS.......ROUTE 25 (5TH STREET)
I used to play around the
streams in the back of the park. I remember pulling some branches out next to
the stream and multicolored green and purple and white eyeballs swam down the
stream. One was the mother eyeball and large bubble of purple and green and
yellow mist and the pupil was scared of me and directing her children eyeballs
to follow her downstream, frightened of me. That was only the beggening.
I got in a fight with my parents one night in the fall and started a bon fire
next to the bridge past the no terrpassing fence, part of the park, the haunted
park is somebodies back yard but they never go back there. It is a big park and
property. That night someone wistled at me and no one was there. I was cursing
my parents out loud next the the fire I started and something repeated after me,
it sounded like an owl moching me. Lights were floating around in the skies. One
light hovered pink went over to the over light and ate it then went back to its
original spot and faded out. Another orange light buzzed back and force like it
was chained to a tree. A crocodile splashed out of the pond next to the small
bridge, expanded to a 20 by 20 foot black mist and faded out. It made a snapping
sound like it was breaking off a rope when it splashed out of the water, it was
definitly a crocodile or aligator in the middle of the chicago suburbs! Later
that night near morning something attacked me on the north side wrustling around
in attack position in the leaves and on the southside another being surrounded
me accomponied by a deer. Why would coyotes or wolves attack me with a deer
right there watching the whole thing. I defended the tree next to my fire
whipping the tree with my bicycle chain , trapped, cornered by what I thought
was wolves or coyoties surrounding me. My clothes felt really sticky and I had
to scrub myself after I went back home there is something on the course of time
that defeinitly went on back there. There is a mound that might be an indian
burial ground next to the pond. Also the next spring I went back there facinated
and there was like a mini frog man gargoyle sitting next to the stream as if
made out of leaves and garabge and oils and a white flowering tree exactly took
the shape of R2-D2 , I swear to god. The Tree shaped its flowers R2-D2 from star
wars as if the tree was a lving human mind. Another tree looks like a giant
squid, the tree is dying and if you listen , something is up with that tree.
In conclusion I think about this spot every day since that night, Those
beautiful lights in the skies , the crocodile!
So a few days ago I buried
some USB 4-ports with a USB Memory stick attached to one of the ports in honor
of the things that happened to me back there. I felt bad because I put my GPS in
the ducktapped 6 plastic bags so I went back yesterday and dug my stuff back up.
When i opened the back after I got back home the USB memory drive had magically
disappeared out of the 6 airtight ducktapped plastic bags. Something bent some
of the ports on the usb-4ports and after rechecking again and again, something
magically made the memory stick disappear, I guesse it was worth something to
whatever it is that lives back there. Maybe that mini frog gargoyle took it.
interesting park, go in the back way or on route 25, (5th street)and the
whole area in back of that pond is wierd. I knew something would take my stuff
if I left it there , thats why I did it!
(a few months later Chris
added:)ive been meaning to report this for a couple years, I had a Video
converter USB chip disappeared out of my pocket one night there so I buried some
stuff last week and when I dug it back up something took my USB flash drive! I
Know now I wasnt going crazy there is something going on back there with this
wierd frog gargoyle that is like 2 feet tall! I am not kidding I saw this mini
toad man with my own eyes sitting there on the side of the pond. It looked like
he was made out of mud, A two foot tall toad man that steals microchips out of
airtight bags! You know im not crazy, well there it is another mystery exists
here in st charles, Illinois. I swear that park has something to do with egypt
and RA sungod because of that crocodile human...Urit was her name from egyptian
mythology. I appears like UFOS once crashed there or something was dumped there
a long time ago. I think this might be the streams or river in which "all life
began" With Atum - RA the frog headed man, which I saw and Urit , Ras
crocodile-dog that ate Souls. I saw both atum and urit there, I think this spot
has to do with Ra sungod.
Joanne
was nice enough to send me her unusual story:
Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your
website.
I grew up in an extremely haunted house for much of my childhood, and would
like to write a book (or a website) about everything that happened.
The home I grew up in was a 1920's era clapboard home, and very well kept
by the original owners. My father was into real estate and purchased the
home from this widowed woman, who was dying of cancer. In the interim, my
father rented or leased it (or possibly carried a loan for them to buy it -
not straight on this, sorry) to what turned out to be some "hoodlum" types
- a quiet couple that often kept company with a lot of bikers and such.
They only lived in the house for a short time before my father took the
house back and kept it for us. A few years later, I came along, and in
another few, my father left my mother with a handful of kids.
Anyway, growing up in this house, not knowing at the time the history that
I had just revealed to you proved very interesting. I had numerous
disturbing dreams about men fighting each other, robberies (bank related)
and burglaries (homes, etc), suicides and murders that had taken place, and
often feeling as if I had somehow been an unfortunate "witness" somehow. I
had woken up numerous times as a child trying to understand it all.
There were strange lights, flashes, noises, bangings, shadows that would
into the walls, sheets being pulled off my bed, cold hands that would grab
my feet, and items that would drop off the shelves unprovoked. A few
times, it sounded as if someone had been poking around in the next room, as
if looking for a lost article. The worst memory was when I was awoken to
the sound of motorcycles rumbling outside my room in the middle of the
night followed by the front door violently thrown open - and seeing a
bandana (the kind "cholos" or gang members wear) floating across my room.
There seemed to be a mixture of personalities - from violent to excessively
protective or motherly.
The events lasted half my life at that time - from the time I was 5, in
kindergarden (1970) until I was in high school (14-15) in 1980, just prior
to meeting my first boyfriend, who I stayed with for nine years. Nothing
ever happened again after that.
I spoke to a psychic a couple of years ago who explained that the house had
had a very bloody history, that three murders had taken place there, and
that there was a lot of anger that was being played out. One of the things
I was most curious about was why these events only seemed to take
shape/unfold around me, and not in front of anyone else in my family. I
was told that I was the only one who could "tap" into their energy - that I
was able to connect with them, while everyone else seemed immediately able
to tune it all out.
It was certainly an amazing experience. I never was able to find out about
the events that took place there -- but I did find out from prior neighbors
that a suicide had taken place there (something I had heard about while
living there, and had dreams about), and that the people who lived there
were indeed "crooked".
Thanks for a great website.
Thanks, Joanne!
