SEXY SINGLE GHOSTS IN YOUR AREA
Do ghosts exist? Here's proof (kind of)
“You live here long enough and you’ll see some spirits,” the old bus driver told me recently. He moved to Savannah when he was 10-years-old and when I asked if he had had any paranormal activity, he responded, “You mean this week?”
Ghosts are everywhere here.
I haven’t see any ghosts yet, but I did start taking pictures at night. All - and I mean ALL - of my pictures of Savannah’s many ghostly squares feature orbs. That’s to be expected considering about half of these squares were burial grounds for various things like cholera and yellow fever victims, Native Americans, enslaved people, fallen soldiers from various wars, and even famous founders like Chief Tomochichi and the one and only Casimir Pulaski. So, yeah, you’re gonna pick up an orb or two.
I haven’t gotten any real ghosts, but I’m going to keep trying because pictures of ghosts is an actual obsession of mine.
When I was a tween I attended a lecture (for real) at my local library (in rural Illinois) about photos of ghosts. I also attended one about the historical vampire. Both of these were rad beyond belief and my mom went with me to both of them because it is important to take an interest in your child’s interests - which, make no mistake, was factual evidence of ghosts and vampires.
The ghost one was more interesting because it had pictures. Yes, PICTURES. PICTURES OF GHOSTS. Do you know how often I google “real pictures of ghosts”? The answer may surprise you!
So while I am simply snapping photos of orbs, there are some people who have claimed to take pictures of actual apparitions and one of the most famous apparition photos comes to us from Chicago’s own Bachelor’s Grove. Bachelor’s Grove is one of the most haunted places in the Chicagoland area. It is an abandoned cemetery in the middle of the woods which is spooky in and of itself. The forgotten graves are overgrown with wooded wildlife. People see all kinds of things when searchingfor the cemetery like A LITERAL HOUSE THAT DOES NOT EXIST. I don’t know how you see a straight up Ghost House and live to tell the tale, but people have. If I saw a Ghost House, I would think that I was in Haunted Brigadoon and you would simply never see me again because I would waltz my way into a hospital to live out the rest of my days.
A curious adventurer to Bachelor’s Grove took pcitures of the cemetery. After developing the pictures, they made a startling discovery. This:
A WOMAN SITTING ON A GRAVE. BUT THE WOMAN WAS NOT THERE. ALLEGEDLY. THIS IS BEFORE SMART PHONES, SO WE JUST HAVE TO TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT WHICH IS HOW MOST GHOST STORIES GO. BUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT? THAT’S HOW ALL STORIES GO. REALLY MAKES YOU THINK, DOESN’T IT?!
This photo was shown to us in the ghost photos lecture that I went to as a tween and it has haunted me (ok, lol) my entire life. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better photo of a ghost. Have you?! Please show me!!!!!
I know what you are thinking: Stephanie, do you honestly think that ghosts are everywhere in Savannah? And are any of them single?
I don’t know how to answer the second question, but my answer to the first is a strong maybe. I live in an old building and it appears to be spirit-free despite a scary attic door with HANDPRINTS ON IT that we cannot reach and do not want to because I have the highest ceilings in the world. I feel safe where I live, but others have a lot of stories of hauntings in their home - good and bad.
BUT THEN THIS HAPPENED!!! So I wrote this entire post and two days later I was training for a job as a ghost tour guide. I went to The Pirate’s House for the first time. The Pirate’s House is famous in Savannah for being extremely old and extremely haunted. Treasure Island was written in The Pirate’s House and real pirates were up to all kinds of shady dealings in this low-ceilinged place…especially in the rum cellar.
On the tour we went downstairs to the rum cellar. The guide let people wander to take pictures and then he offered to turn the lights off for any brave souls that want to explore in the dark. That means, as a future tour guide, that I will have to stand there in the dark several times a night. Ew. Since it was my first time down there and I was feeling the spirit of the thing, I took pictures. And, y’all, I snapped this:
Do you see that thing that looks like Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas floating on the left hand side? GHOST. I took other photos and this doesn’t appear in them. Only in this one. GA-GA-GA-GHOST! I showed my coworkers that night and they were like ‘yeah, you got a really clear ghost shot here’. I know it’s featureless, but it is a step above an orb (and, of course, you can also spot orbs in the photo).
It is hard to tell what is a haunting and what is just High Strangeness here. The people are, well, strange. Is that really a ghost or is that a tour guide in an old-timey costume walking home from work? Or is that just a SCAD student experimenting with makeup? It can sometimes be impossible to tell, so you just learn to go with the flow. Give me a Coexist bumper sticker because I’m learning to live with ghosts! We’re coexisting because that’s the only way. Otherwise? My ass is going to get CURSED.
What I’m watching: Unsolved Mysteries, but next week is the Savannah Film Festival!
What I’m reading: Something is Killing the Children