my photo from the Charleston Dungeon tour
This week I was fortunate enough to be on vacation with my dear friends Dawn and her husband Bill (I changed their names to keep their privacy).
Dawn is a psychic and has been on about every
ghost tour around. She and Bill invited us to go on vacation with them this
year and we chose Charleston, SC. Besides the normal shopping and dining out we
took a few ghost tours and paid to be part of a ghost hunt.
Before the
ghost hunt (which was from midnight to 2AM) we took the regular tour to get an
idea of the history of the place. Google Old Charleston Jail for more
information, but suffice to say this is a very bad place, whether you believe
in ghosts or not. To begin with, the entire city of Charleston is built over
dead people. They just dumped bodies for hundreds of years into the water and
then eventually dredged up the dirt from the river and built on it.
Occasionally they even find bones during construction. But as far as the jail
goes, in a nut shell, it was used to house local criminals, civil war prisoners
and runaway slaves (to be punished severely for their "crime"). This
was not a place of rehabilitation, this was a place of torture and death. If
you went to this jail you went there to die.
If you are
ever in Charleston I highly recommend you go to Bulldog Tours and ask for
Braxton to be your guild. He is a writer and actor so he tells a fabulous story
and is very knowledgeable about the area. Smart and nerdy, I of course panted
at his heels the whole time.
The tour
was interesting. It was dark and flashlights were needed as the steps were not
even and the place is metal on the inside with many odd corners and ironwork.
Not your typical jail, most of it is made up of rooms instead of small cells.
You may have seen it since every ghost show on TV has investigated it and
deemed it haunted. Use of ghost hunting equipment and cameras were encouraged
and Braxton brought and EMF detector.
After the
tour, the 11 of us who had paid extra for the hunt stayed behind. Braxton took
us to one room and pulled out his EMF detector. For those that do not know,
this stands for Electromagnetic Field. All electric wires give off this field,
at least the older ones, and the device is used to find major leaks in homes
which can have physical effects on people. For ghost hunting purposes, after
determining there are no EMF sources in the vicinity, they are used to
communicate with spirits. No one knows exactly how, but the spirits can make
the lights blink on these detectors, so you can have a real time yes and no
question and answer session with them. If you have ever watched a ghost hunting
show you know what they are but to see one in real life and watch it answer
your questions, well that is a completely different thing. The only other
equipment there was a tape recorder our friends had brought. I await their full
results, though I did hear a response on playback right there on the spot (it
was very short but clear and I cannot recall what it said but nothing
nefarious). I had a camera and got a lot of "orbs" but since I do not
believe orbs are anything but dust or bugs then I have to report I got nothing
on film.
Back to real-time
hunting. After the initial talk, Braxton told us we could split up into groups.
Anyone who knows me knows this was my queue to boogie out and away from
everyone else as fast as I could. I went up and down halls and through doors,
around corners and into dead ends. Mark was with me most of the time and though
I "felt" nothing, he felt quite uneasy and queasy, something we would
find out later 3 others felt as well.
At one
point another "hunter' popped out of nowhere (and scared the bejeebers out
of me). He was lost and looked scared so I invited him to join me and Mark,
where shortly after we found the best room in the place...the one with the air
conditioning! I live in Florida and I will tell you my time in Charleston was
miserable as far as the weather goes, even for a Floridian. Hot, sticky, not a
breeze to be found, how anyone in colonial times wore layers and layers of
clothing is beyond me. No wonder they all fainted!
As we sat
there cooling off the door creaked open and it was Braxton, requesting we
rejoin the group. I recall him taking us to a room where people were severely
tortured. Ropes hung from the ceiling and you were tied to them and whipped
mercilessly, each slap of the whip slicing through your skin to the flesh.
Whipping is not like you see on TV, where a bit of blood oozes out, it is a
brutal practice and most who are doomed to "40 lashes" do not survive
it. While in this room I felt a profound sadness so I left the room but that
did not help, it got worse and I felt the entire weight of the place
emotionally on me, like I was drowning in the sorrow. I did not get a sense of
hate or evil or anger there (though there are known psychopaths who died there)
I only felt the sadness and desperation of the people who were once there. I
actually began to cry a bit. Being alone was not helping so I made my way back
to the group who were still in this room. They were doing an EVP
"session" and each time the lights on the device went on I felt a
mild breeze pass by me where I had found a comfy spot in the doorway. Not your
typical cold spot, but like someone passing by me very closely, yet no one was there.
It was then that I noticed an open window so I had to dismiss the breeze. My personal
rule for ghost hunting states that if there is any possible natural explanation,
no matter how remote, that is the one you must go with. Yet it till kept
happening...the lights went on on the EMF and I felt this breeze at the same
time. I followed it out the door. I followed it a few feet down the hall. It
was very dark but I did not want to scare it away with my flashlight. Farther
and farther down the empty dark hall I meandered, following this fleeting
breeze and hearing the voices of the group grow fainter as I made my way to the
belly of the building. I have never been afraid of ghosts (I have encountered
spirits before) but I have never felt compelled like I did here. The next thing
I know Braxton is hollering down the hall at me, "Where are you
going?" Guiltily, I told him I was following this breeze and he
replied," Please come back. It has been known to do this. It is luring you
away from the group. It is trying to isolate you. Come back in here with
us". This started me out of a mild trance I did not realize I was in and I
scooted back to the group, cursing the crafty spirit, and myself, under my
breath. I know better than this! When I got back to the room Mark was leaning
over, ashen, and said he felt the nausea again.
Later in the tour, Dawn was sitting on the steps (she
was having back pains the whole week so she had to sit once in a while) and as
we were doing more EVPs she cried out "stop touching me!" and told
our shocked faces that something was tugging on her shirt.
After some
very interesting (but horrifying and sad) history, many cool spots (we would enter a room and
there would be a cold spot that immediately left as soon as we got there) the
tour was over. I asked Bill if he felt anything but he refused to talk about
it. I did not push him but the next day he offered his experience...at one
point he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach, enough to double him
over. Bill is a brave man in my book. If that would have happened to me I would
have been out of there! After the tour, while comparing notes, there were
several people who, during the hunt, were fine but then would suddenly get a
chill accompanied by a creepy feeling, like they were being watched or followed,
and at least 3 others besides Mark were ill, a common occurrence when there is
a nasty spirit present.
A real
ghost hunt is a bit different than I had expected. For one, I thought we would
have frightened people, or even hyper vigilant ones, but everyone was calm and
tried to be as cooperative as they could. At the end while in the courtyard a
cute couple came up, the girl had to be under 20, and she got all wide eyed and
amazed when she realized we had done the ghost hunt, saying she would never be
able to do that. I think she could. When you are with a group and you have a guide
you can have faith in, even the biggest chicken would feel safe I believe. It
is also different from the "professionals" in other ways.
Professionals are part of a team, a group who is used to working together,
whereas we were just a rag tag group who all happened to pay for the same hunt.
Therefore, people whispered during the EVP sessions (Electronic Voice Phenomena)
so the recordings are practically useless, and everyone who took a photo of an
"orb" did not realize it was dust (orbs are actually very rare and
look nothing like what most of us know as orbs, which are really just close ups
of dust particles lit up by the flash). In a real hunt you also cannot have others
just meandering around the place because they will contaminate your evidence.
At the least, if you do have wanderers you should have some means of
communication with each other.
This ghost
hunt was five days ago and I spoke to Dawn yesterday. She asked me why I left
my body wash in the bathroom...which I did NOT do. I specifically recall
emptying out that entire closet and this was a big bottle, I could not have
over looked it. Yet there it was, in her cabinet, in a position I never would
have left it in, and anyway I am sure I packed it . She said that things have been
disappearing and reappearing in odd places since all these tours we took.
Usually that can be chalked up to forgetfulness but when you find your keys in
the oven and you don't have Alzheimer's it does make one wonder....
If you find yourself in the Charleston
area do yourself a favor and book a Bulldog tour and ask that Braxton Williams
be your guide. You will have a wonderful time and see Old Charleston in a new
light. I went on The Haunted Jail Tour and the Jail Ghost Hunt and the Ghost
and Dungeon Walking Tour but I have heard all but the Dark Side of Charleston
are good (and the Cemetery tour only shows one cemetery). Please check out
their website, if nothing else the writing is a hoot. http://bulldogtours.com/.
Oh and please tip your guide.
