Overview of Paranormal Phenomena
This book focuses on the field research we have conducted on the Gettysburg battlefield. Our experiences support the idea that the best locations to collect evidence of ghostly activity are those where extreme violence and suffering has occurred. Unfortunately, the human tendency to search for spiritual enlightenment isn’t the only thing that has prevailed since the dawn of primitive cultures; our inclination toward violence and conquering others shares this dubious honor. As a result, a plethora of battlegrounds dot the surface of our planet. Nevertheless, if you’re interested in ghosts and plan to visit a battlefield someday, you need to know what to look for. Before you can understand the nature of an experience, you must first ask an essential question: What exactly is a ghost?
One of the first things a paranormal field investigator learns is that a ghost isn’t so simple to define. Many factors can cause a house or battle-ground to be haunted, and supernatural episodes are fairly diverse in nature. Wise men often declare that knowledge is power, and in the case of ghosts this is quite true. The best way to fight the fear of the unknown is to embrace and understand it. By properly discerning what you’re dealing with, you’ll be better equipped to confront it objectively, regardless of how scary it may seem on the surface. This is sage advice for paranormal researchers, who deal with potentially frightening situations all the time. Having said this, battlefield haunts tend to come in several guises.
Parapsychologists and researchers who remain open-minded enough to believe in such possibilities tend to define a ghost as an electromagnetic energy field containing a fragment of consciousness—or personality—of someone who has died tragically or traumatically. At the moment of death, the separation between the physical body and personality (soul) is hampered by a condition of emotional shock that prevents normal transition to the spirit world. As a result, the condition of death isn’t recorded in the conscious mind of the one who has died. Life as it was continues to exist in the mind of the deceased, and the personality to whom this occurs is unable to recognize reality. This is referred to as a genuine, or intelligent, haunting.
Some parapsychologists believe genuine hauntings account for only a small percentage of ghostly phenomena and actually represent a telepathic connection between the minds of the deceased and the living witnesses. Physicality has been removed from the equation, so the witnesses aren’t really seeing or hearing anything in a physical sense. This theory remains highly debatable, as finding the cause of this telepathic link still eludes the most ardent researchers.
An example of a genuine haunting might play out in this manner: You’re touring a battlefield with your family when suddenly all of you notice a ragged, tired-looking man wearing a tattered uniform walking toward you. He stops, verbalizes how thirsty he is, and asks your son if he has any water. As your son reaches for his water bottle, the man suddenly vanishes. You all stand there, flabbergasted. The fact that this ghostly apparition acknowledged your presence and attempted to communicate with your son indicates that your family just interacted with a discarnate entity.
Location represents a major factor in determining who the intelligent entities might be in these cases. It has been theorized that spirits are connected to places through strong emotional bonds. In the above example, it can be surmised that this ghost soldier either can’t or won’t leave the theater of war due to the traumatic circumstances surrounding his death. He appears to be bound to that location by the emotional experience of the battle, and he’s at least somewhat aware of his environment because he noticed your family and even asked for some water. By rule, if a certain location is shrouded in history—meaning notable happenings took place there—the more likely it will be haunted in some way. In other words, if you discover your home was once used as a makeshift hospital during a Revolutionary War battle or was the site of a double murder/suicide, don’t be surprised if spectral energies abound.
Another type of spectral event is known as a residual, or imprint, haunting, which occurs when the energy from an emotional or traumatic event “imprints” itself onto the surrounding environment. Theoretically, energy can be absorbed by rock, brick, wood, and concrete, as well as by trees, water, and the atmosphere itself. These episodes, or snippets in time, replay themselves over and over again much like a broken record or looped videotape, occurring whenever conditions become favorable or when you walk into the area of occurrence and trigger the haunting episode. Identifying these “trigger” conditions—whether atmospheric, psychic, or otherwise—remains a daunting, if not impossible, task.
Battle sites are conducive to residual hauntings. Fear, rage, despair, sorrow, and other highly charged emotions flood an environment during the course of a battle. The battle ends, but these energies linger on, providing startling and sometimes life-changing experiences to those who are present when the replay occurs. Residual hauntings can be visual, auditory, olfactory, and even gustatory in nature. The smell of sulfur, the sound of cannon fire, and even the taste of blood represent fairly common types of aberrant battlefield experiences one might have on any given day.
The major difference between a genuine haunt and a residual haunt, besides the fact that a residual haunting doesn’t involve the actual spirit of a deceased person, is that during an imprint playback, the same phenomenon occurs repeatedly with no changes in the action being witnessed. For example, you’re visiting Gettysburg and see a bunch of reenactors performing regimental maneuvers near the Wheatfield. They march into the Rose Woods and seem to vanish into thin air. You track down a park ranger and describe to him what happened, and he informs you no reenactors were given permits to be on the battlefield that day. He also grins as if to say, “You’re not the first person to see the ‘phantom regiment,’” and you walk away shaking your head. If this exemplifies a residual haunting, your description of the incident should mirror other accounts given by different witnesses, regardless of when the encounter occurred.
Another brand of high strangeness is known as an object haunting. Let’s imagine you go to an antique store and buy an old locket. You bring it home, and within a week strange things start happening around your house. One of two possibilities exist in this scenario: 1. The intelligent consciousness of a deceased person, who was very attached to this locket while alive, follows you home with it. One day you see the ghostly image of an elderly woman walking down your staircase. It startles the heck out of you. Guess what? Your house is now genuinely haunted because of the presence of this locket. You bring the locket back to the antique store, and the sightings cease; or 2. The emotional energies imprinted in the locket start to affect your mood. Unbeknownst to you, the person who wore this locket in 1926 was brutally murdered. You start feeling unnaturally sad or morose whenever you wear or are near the object. You begin to experience feelings of dread and even become more prone to violence. You’re now experiencing a residual energy force directly related to the locket, and you learn the hard way that you’re clairvoyant. You discard the locket and start to feel better immediately.
Combat zone object hauntings are usually associated with the personal objects that belonged to soldiers who died during a battle (e.g., diaries, photos, Bibles, guns, knives, lucky charms). The presence of these objects, now buried somewhere on the field or housed in the visitor center museum, can facilitate a psi experience (a spontaneous paranormal event that occurs the moment a persons steps into an actively haunted area) and elicit strong emotional responses from visitors. The strong bonds associated with these objects can also enhance the prevalence of intelligent haunts. Let’s suppose a soldier who fought at Little Round Top carried a tintype of his wife in his pocket. He was very suddenly and violently shot and killed in action. From time to time, his spirit is seen wandering around the base of Little Round Top, as if searching for something. He seems unaware of either time or his unfortunate circumstance (remember the phrases “fragment of consciousness” and “condition of emotional shock” used to define a ghost on page 12). The tintype actually was found and taken from the battlefield in 1867 by a looter, but the ghost soldier’s strong connection to the photograph compels what’s left of his consciousness to keep searching for it.
Although its existence is even more speculative than the more common aberrations mentioned above, portal hauntings represent another type of mysterious phenomenon that deserves mention here. Sometimes called energy vortices, portal hauntings are thought to be doorways to another world or dimension through which spirits can travel. Certain places seem to encompass a wide array of bizarre activity, including glowing balls of light, odd energy fields, strange shapes, and unexplained mists or fog. Some researchers believe these anomalies are traveling back and forth through a portal. The only evidence to support this comes in the form of high electromagnetic energy readings sometimes accompanied by a visual ripple or fluctuation in the surrounding atmosphere. The hypothetical existence of ley lines, or the alignment of a number of sacred ancient sites stretching across the planet, suggests that the Earth’s natural electromagnetic energy fields often intersect at certain locations, making them prone to certain anomalies. In truth, we have experienced possible portal phenomena at Gettysburg more than once, and it appears the presence of these strong electromagnetic fields acts as a catalyst for preternatural occurrences. Timing these events, however, is difficult, and validation of the existence of these vortices isn’t likely forthcoming anytime soon.
The hauntings described here represent those most commonly experienced on battlefields. Other ghostly aspects such as poltergeists, doppel-
gangers, shadow people, and elementals are all supported by various existential theories, but for the purposes of this book, they aren’t often associated with battlefields and therefore won’t be described in detail.
Attempting to quantify these experiences, regardless of their nature, represents an important, yet difficult, endeavor. If we’re ever going to gain a better understanding of the human mind and spirit, we need to diligently document witness testimony and carefully measure tangible evidence in the form of electromagnetic energy spikes, ion fluctuations, temperature changes, and other anomalous readings in the environment. Capturing and documenting audio and visual phenomena in the form of photographs, video footage, and tape/digital recordings greatly enhances the possibility of turning a large body of evidence into compelling proof of the existence of ghosts. And along the way, we can honor those who came before us and, if possible, help the ghost soldiers who are stuck within their own emotional quagmire to finally move on.
We assay to document our experiences in an attempt to capture what we call “living history,” or the historic moment from the perspective of the participants. In the pages that follow, you’ll share in these experiences and gain a better understanding of what it may have been like to fight in the Battle of Gettysburg, where thousands of brave individuals gave the last full measure of devotion.