CAMERAS
AND APPARITIONS
It is common for our guests to get pictures of orbs, fog, ghosts, and unexplainable images. Hundreds of pictures have been taken in the Grant home, plus hundreds more outside and in the two cemeteries.
The most common of these pictures feature orbs. An orb is a round light image that appears on a camera’s picture. It can be large or small. I took a picture in the attic of an orb that was at least two feet in diameter. They can also be just a couple of inches across. Most of them have designs on them that remind me of Celtic circles. On rare occasions they will have a face. A guest of ours filmed in the Adelaide room and got an orb coming out of the ceiling by the bathroom. It went to a picture of a ship that I have on the wall, went between the glass, and the picture and moved back and forth over the ship. It then flew off the picture and through the glass, then went across the room and back up into the attic.
One morning after breakfast in the dining room (we sometimes eat outside), a guest took a picture of everyone sitting around the table. We had spent about an hour discussing spirits. Lo and behold, the camera had captured ten orbs of different sizes floating above the table—big ones, small ones, all sizes.
Orbs appeared in every photo this family took during their stay
at Captain Grant’s. Photo credit: Rebecca Abrams
In the south cemetery known as Cemetery #17, there is an orb that appears as bright orange or sometimes red and at other times as bright yellow. It has been captured by several cameras but has also been seen with the naked eye. I keep thinking it has to be a light from somewhere, but I don’t know where that somewhere would be. Behind the cemetery is a short cliff, a stream below that, and then woods—nothing else. I have seen this orb on several occasions. I have walked into the meadow and stared at the red orb. No one is there. Nothing is there. I have questioned my neighbors, but they don’t know what it is either. It’s just a round red light that is sometimes yellow and is really not there. Although this phenomenon is round, it is probably a different entity altogether and not a true orb. Guests have recorded that the light seemed to follow them. I won’t go into the cemetery at night. There are graves that have sunk into the ground, with only a few inches remaining above the ground. The graves are not in even rows, and if you don’t have good light you could fall. There are also more graves with headstones leaning over than standing up straight.
One of the most interesting orbs I’ve seen was captured outside the house at night. It was sitting on top of Captain Grant’s and had to be at least three feet in diameter. And, no, it was not the moon. The moon was in another section of the sky. The size of this orb was phenomenal, to say the least. It was captured on film and then poof, it was gone.
Debunkers don’t believe that there are orbs or that orbs are the souls of spirits. They have thrown dust in the air and have gotten dust orbs on pictures. Dust orbs and spirit orbs are quite different entities. You can also get orbs with water thrown into the air. Spirit orbs are captured on film in unlikely places. Take the one on our roof. How did that get up there and what about the size? It was huge. Also, consider the orb that passed through the picture to be under the glass and over the ship. While under the glass, it moved back and forth and then shot through the glass to the other side of the room. I strongly believe that orbs are the souls of those who have passed out of this world and into the next. For the scientists out there, how can you make a bit of dust go under a picture and then through glass?
Pictures of fog and mist have also been taken on the property. I find them very interesting. They do not look exactly like fog. There is a shape to them somewhat like looking up at clouds. At Captain Grant’s, the usual places to find fog are on the first-floor deck where we have breakfast in the morning or in the old cemetery behind the house. You can’t see this fog with the naked eye, but only with a camera. Guests who have taken several pictures in a row have captured the fog and then in the next frame it’s gone. Before starting this journey with spirits, I had never heard of a “fog.” Maybe this is the “mist” some people describe, only there was not a dampness in the air when the pictures were taken and I believe a mist would feel damp. It is truly amazing to look at the edge of your deck, in a picture, and see something as total fog when you were unable to see it with your naked eye.
A series of photos taken in the cemetery near Captain Grant’s.
The mist wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
Photo credits: Dennis and Carrie Lowe
The big question is, why can the camera capture the image but we cannot see it with the naked eye? My husband has a theory about this. The human eye can see only a certain width on the spectrum of light. The camera must be able to see just a bit wider on that spectrum than we can.
It is not just cameras but also some dogs, cats, and humans who have this ability. Are they able to see just a bit wider width, as well as a camera can? This is a theory that is worth exploring. Science could study spectrum widths with people known to be able to see spirits. They could also study spectrum widths with cats and dogs. Do they match the spectrum widths of cameras? This is a challenge to all of those scientists out there that say there are no ghosts.
What about the people who see ghosts on rare occasions? I am one of them. As I recounted earlier, I saw my first and my second spirit in my early thirties. I was living in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, in my first haunted house. The two spirits that I saw were most likely the same spirit. The first time I saw him he was on top of our bedroom chest of drawers. I was sitting up in bed waiting for my husband when an orb appeared above the chest of drawers. Then it grew a body and legs. I remember that my mouth was wide open and I was staring. “Holy smoke!” I said to myself. I called out to my husband and as soon as I did, it shriveled up, its head going last.
The next time I saw this spirit was about a year later. I was reading a book at the kitchen table. My husband was standing next to me. I knew he wanted to go to bed and was in a hurry for me to put the book down. Then I heard my husband call my name from the other side of the house and ask me when I was coming to bed. I froze. I looked sideways and he vanished.
That house was seriously haunted. We couldn’t get babysitters, and everyone who stayed with us told us we had a ghost. Friends and relatives would come over to visit and say, “Did you know that you have a ghost in this house?” My mother-in-law told me that we had a ghost. She was a devout Catholic and would never have said such a thing unless she really believed it. We bought the home from a widow who lost her husband in a tragic motorcycle accident. I think that the spirit could have been that man.
My third experience with seeing a ghost was at Captain Grant’s. It was after a big breakfast. The inn was full with guests that day. The staff were at the Avery house (where we live) cleaning rooms, and my husband had just gone to his workshop. I was alone.
If you are in the kitchen of Captain Grant’s, you have a clear line of sight through the house going through the kitchen, dining room, and keeping room. I looked through into the keeping room and saw a man with dark hair and wearing black pants and a white shirt walk toward the front door. I called out. No answer. I called out again. No answer. Then I called for my husband. “Ted, are you here?” No answer. I went to see who was there, and of course there was no one.
We had a young maid named Amie who had a child spirit walk through her. We had another staff member see a woman dressed in colonial garb on the stairs, and several guests have seen a woman and two children in the Adelaide room. A few of our guests have drawn pictures of what they saw.
Amie, our maid, had been straightening a metal mini blind in the Adelaide bathroom. Her arms were stretched out in front of her when a little girl walked through them. Amie was inconsolable. We sent her home, where she stayed for three days, too scared to come back to work.
My point is, why can some people see spirits and then not be able to see them? Why can some of us see spirits only at intervals? We are not the individuals who can see beyond the usual spectrum of light. We are the people in between. Someone once called me a sensitive. Maybe those of us who see the spirits occasionally indeed are sensitives. The spirits told me that a sensitive has the ability to give off energy. That makes it possible for spirits to manifest. They have to have energy to manifest fully. Individuals who always can see in a wider spectrum of light would be able to see spirits at any time.