October 19th, 2008 by djb
The people in the House and Senate scare me much more than any ghosts that may ramble in the US Capitol building. 
The citizen-times.com has published a nice article telling some ghost stories of former politicians who just don’t know when it’s time to leave. Again I know some living politicians who have the same problem.
Marble tubs were installed in the basement of the Senate side of the Capitol in the 1850s, creating bathing facilities for the senators since they lived in boarding houses, says Steve Livengood, public programs director and chief guide of the United States Capitol Historical Society.
Vice President Henry Wilson, who was President Ulysses S. Grant’s second vice president, “would use that facility quite often,” Livengood says. “(Wilson) would sometimes be seen rushing through the building wrapped up in towels” because he had to get back to his office and put his clothes on to preside over the Senate.
“And for many years after he died (in 1875), Senate employees would see this ghost running through the basement of the Capitol wrapped in towels just like Vice President Henry Wilson.”
So whats changed? We still have living politicians running around Washington looking for their clothes.
October 19th, 2008 by djb
The marconews.com has published a Halloween article. A Halloween article this time of year is not news of course but the article introduces a term we have not heard before: Crisis Apparition.
According to paranormal professionals, supernatural devotees, and the general realm of ghost hunters, “Crisis Apparitions” probably affect more living souls than any other supernatural form. These spirits appear or materialize as a fond feeling or strong emotion of a loved one, just as the loved one passes — even if the loved one is many miles away or even across the globe.
Crisis apparitions can sometimes be as simple as a glimpse of the departed in a reflection of glass, or as a feeling so strong, we are compelled to say the name of the person aloud.
Crisis apparitions normally manifest only once and quite often occur at the exact time of the loved one’s death. There are no paranormal experts that would consider a crisis apparition to be classified as a haunting.
Another interesting item in the paranormal world; or an interesting trait about humans in general. The article is well written and we suggest reading it as it contains some fun ghost stories.
May 11th, 2008 by djb
One of the creepiest ghost tales we have heard here at Spectral Review is the witnessing of the “Lincoln Ghost Train”. The Lincoln funeral train made it’s way from Washington DC to Springfield, Illinois after the President was assassinated.
The story is that a “ghost train” is seen every year at the end of April during the anniversary of the original trip. The “ghost train” travels slowly, makes no noise, but witnesses tell of seeing a flag draped coffin surrounded by many mourners.
It’s personally creepy to your favorite Spectral Review editor because he commutes to the day job on an interstate that parallels the train tracks where Lincoln’s funeral train had traveled in 1865. To compound things the book Civil War Ghosts and Legends tells of a sighting near Albany, NY and quotes from Albany Evening Times which is the area in which your editor lives:
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December 1st, 2007 by djb
This is a story told by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco:
“In the summer of 1881 I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war. At its close he had settled in Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was to me sufficient evidence that the latter was in every way worthy of my confidence and esteem. At dinner one day Conway told me that it had been solemnly agreed between him and Barting that the one who died first should, if possible, communicate with the other from beyond the grave, in some unmistakable way – just how, they had left (wisely, it seemed to me) to be decided by the deceased, according to the opportunities that his altered circumstances might present.
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December 1st, 2007 by djb
“HALLOA! Below there!”
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
“Halloa! Below!”
From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.
“Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?”
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November 4th, 2007 by djb
The subject of ghosts continue to pervade the popular culture. Sometimes it gets annoying though! At least to some people in Nantucket. A man by the name Will Alexander gets the ghosts to pay his bills, well sorta.
Now entering his third season of summer ghost tours, Alexander has expanded the venture to include merchandise, a web site, and he even advertises for The Atlantic Paranormal Society haunting investigators, called TAPS, in his brochures. For Alexander, the business has allowed him to make a living doing what he loves.
The article in The Inquirer and Mirror details how Alexander’s enterprise has annoyed his neighbors and local Historic District Commission. They probably want all the “ghost action” to themselves.
October 31st, 2007 by djb
Here are some chilling ghost stories for your reading pleasure.
The Angry Couple.
This article contains two stories. The first “The Voice in the Water” and the second “The Ghost and the Traveling Salesman”.
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