For Lauderdale Ghost Tours — Hunt The Haunted Tonight!

Hunt ghosts with the Ghosts, Mysteries & Legends tour of Old Fort Lauderdale, www.fortlauderdaleghosttours.com, Fort Lauderdale’s premier ghost tour. Ghost Guides introduce visitors and locals to Fort Lauderdale’s “other night life” as they walk along the banks of the New River in the city’s historic district.

The ghost tour takes guests to the city’s most haunted places right in the heart of downtown, where the Tequesta Indians lived when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived and where the city as we know it today began.

The tour’s chief ghost guide, Christian Rieger, says, “We concentrate our tour in the area where Fort Lauderdale started as a modern city – where the Flagler railroad came through in 1896.

”The freeze of 1895 that killed the citrus trees through central Florida, caused Henry Flagler to extend his Florida Eastcoast Railroad from Palm Beach to what is today Miami.

The city’s first hotel, built because the railroad’s coming through, was built next to the tracks at the river. Historians say that it is this area, where we have our ghost hunting, that the city, as we know it today, began.”

Ghost tour guides, wearing a cape, top hat and carrying a lantern, tell stories of the fabled New River, trading posts and 100 year-old mansions. Is the Ghost Train that speeds silently over the tracks the train that caused the death 500 people in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935? Some locals who claim to have seen it think so.

Visitors on the tour will discover the mystery of the woman in the white wedding dress and why she stands alone on the balcony of the city’s oldest standing hotel building. Guides also tell tales of Seminole Indians that still haunt the river, the ghosts of early settlers, and the haunts of a popular restaurant.

”It is great family entertainment,” says Rieger, “something for the family to do after dinner besides watch television in the hotel room. It also works great for local families, because ghost tours are a clever way of introducing local history to children – a way of making history interesting and easy to listen to.”

”And bring your digital camera. We have had many guests who have photographed various images in the spirit world.”

For more info, contact 954 523 1501or admin@fortlauderdaleghosttours.com

http://www.fortlauderdaleghosttours.com
Christian Rieger has been writing financial and travel articles since 1965. He has also written sightseeing scripts for New York, Savannah, Key West, San Juan and Fort Lauderdale. He operates tour companies in Key West and Fort Lauderdale.

Savannah Georgia – America’s Most Haunted City

In 2003, the American Institute of Paranormal Psychology named Savannah America’s Most Haunted City.  And Savannah is able to support the title.  Ghosts, apparitions or paranormal activities have been reported at many of Savannah’s inns, restaurants, private residences, and of course, cemeteries.

There are many magnificently restored buildings nestled around Savannah’s twenty-one squares.  Many of these buildings are stately homes supposedly still occupied by former owners.  James Habersham has been known to roam around the Olde Pink House, now a restaurant, but formerly his home.  Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, was born and raised in Savannah.  Her parents, long deceased, are said to still roam Juliette’s childhood home.

Savannah’s Sorrel-Weed House, visited by The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) in 2005 as part of their SciFi Ghost Hunters Halloween special, is supposedly haunted.  The story goes that Mrs. Weed caught her husband in a compromising position with one of the Weed’s many slaves.  Mrs. Weed, very distraught, ran back to her second-floor bedroom.  After a long argument with her husband, she either threw herself (or was thrown) to her death from a second floor balcony.  Soon after Mrs. Weed’s death, the slave found with Mr. Weed was found hung in her slave quarters.  Both women are said to be still roaming the grounds.

The Hampton-Lillibridge House was said to be so haunted, that Jim Williams (of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” fame) had an exorcism performed at this former boarding house.  On countless occasions, residents and passersby have heard the sound of jazz coming from inside the home.

The Kehoes were a very prominent family in Savannah, as Mr. Kehoe owned the ironworks on the riverfront.  The Kehoes built this fireproof, all-iron home and lived there with their 10 children.  The Kehoe’s heirs sold the house in 1930 and the property changed hands many times to include use for 65 years as the Goette Funeral Home.  It is now a beautiful bed and breakfast where many of its visitors report supernatural occurrences such as a woman screaming, a nurse shushing visitors, the Lady in White making appearances, and several instances involving ghosts of children.

The list goes on and on!

So, what is it about Savannah that makes it so attractive to ghosts and ghost stories?  Many people start with the fact that Savannah is literally built on its dead.  Savannah was the first city in Georgia founded in 1733.  It was established in the same location as the Creek and Choctaw maintained their burial grounds. 

As the colony began to grow and thrive, it needed more room.  Buildings were erected on the burial plots of the original colonists.  Tombstones in cemeteries were moved to make room for sidewalks and roads.  Places of worship were erected on the graves of slaves.

Second, Savannah has a very violent history.  Many bloody battles and skirmishes were fought in Savannah.  One of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution, the Siege of Savannah, where about 1200 men lost their lives in one hour, was fought in Savannah.

Also, the city has been victim to many city-wide fires, at least two yellow-fever epidemics and several hurricanes.

Third, Savannah has been a major port city since the days of King Cotton, so many a sailor has ventured through Savannah spinning a romantic tale or two.

Fourth, Savannahians are (proudly) an eccentric bunch, as were their ancestors, which adds history and volume to the ghost stories.  Take the

Lastly, I blame the large amounts of Spanish moss hanging from the majestic oak trees.  The blankets of moss look like ghostly shrouds and give the entire region an eerie look.

Whatever the reason, the ghost stories are endless, earning the Savannah the right to the title of America’s Most Haunted City.

 

Deb Bunting is an accountant who makes her home in Oklahoma City. She is an avid traveler with special interest in historical places. Visit her site at www.loveofsavannah.com.

Haunted Skies: Ghosts Of The Eastern 401 Disaster

My experience with the story of Eastern Flight 401 began early in 1973. I flew from Tampa, Florida, to New York City and back several times that year. Most of my close relatives lived in the New York City area. During school breaks, I took the opportunity to combine visits with them with opportunities to attend various paranormal seminars scheduled for that year.

At sixteen, I was an experienced traveler and made most of my own airline reservations and arrangements. I hated crowds and loved red eye flights. Traveling at odd hours was no big deal for me. During the middle of Summer Break 1973, I was aboard a Sunday afternoon EAL flight that seemed almost empty. In those days there were always more flight attendants than needed on the off peak hours flights. The younger, less experienced crew members tended to hob knob with passengers. That’s how I met Susan. (I am being polite: Flight Attendants were called Stewardesses if they were women and Stewards if they were men in those days)

Her attention was drawn to a book I was reading about Flying Saucers. Like most of the flight attendants that I met during the 1970s, Susan was from the South. She seemed about twenty years old and had a pleasant personality. We talked on and off as her free time allowed. I had enough time in the air to know that there were several topics that you never brought up on a plane. These included UFOs and Airline Crashes, but both subjects came up anyway.

Susan was obviously well read on the UFO subject. Like me, she had relatives in the Air Force. She also knew people that had personally seen UFOs while on commercial flights. Most were not spectacular sightings, but strange enough to cause concern. What really got her started were some of the ghost stories I told. It turned out that hers was much better than mine.

I didn’t know much about the Flight 401 Air Disaster except that it involved an Eastern Airlines Passenger Jet which went down in the Florida Everglades about six months before. Personally, I was more concerned about airline hijackers in those days than crashes. Susan asked if I had heard any of the stories about ghosts from that flight appearing to people. I hadn’t. Before she could utter another word, a male flight attendant walking by grabbed her by the arm. Both vanished into the First Class section.

After a few minutes the male flight attendant reappeared. Although he worked in First Class, he came up to my seat and asked how I was doing? I said I was fine and didn’t need anything. He introduced himself as Bobby and asked if I wanted to move up to First Class. I accepted the invitation. While walking through the curtain that separated the sections, Susan whizzed by me with just a quick smile and stuffed some folded mimeographed papers into my hand. I shoved them into my pocket.

The five folded pages that Susan stuffed into my hand looked like some kind of insider’s newsletter. Something a Flight Attendant had put together for other Flight Attendants. It made reference to the 401 crash and how that some flight crews were seeing ghosts from the 401 crash. The pages were badly worn and had obviously been passed around and handled a lot. Although names and specifics were left out, it was obvious that this was a how-to sheet for crew members that wanted to avoid being on planes known for the 401 ghost appearances.

After we landed, I told Bobby that I left something in my seat back in coach. Before he could say anything, I headed back to speak to Susan. She was putting away pillows, so I thanked her for being so nice, pulled the mimeographed sheets out of my pocket and asked her, “Did you see any of the ghosts?” She looked down and thanked me for flying Eastern. Cold! I felt as if I had been dumped by a prom date! I mean, it wasn’t like I expected her to give me her telephone number. I just wanted to talk Airline spooks.

While in New York, I went to a library and looked up more information about the crash. It seems that the whole thing began when Flight 401 left Tampa for New York on December 29, 1972. The flight crew was Pilot Bob Loft, First Officer Albert Stockstill and Flight Engineer Don Repo. On the return leg to Miami, a problem developed. While on approach to Miami International at 11:30pm, a landing gear light failed to come on. As a result, the crew attempted to be sure the gear was down.

While trying to remedy the landing gear light issue, it’s likely that someone bumped the aircraft control column and deactivated the auto pilot. This caused a slow decent that wasn’t noticed by the flight crew until it was too late. Loft and Stockstill perished in the cockpit, although Loft hung on for a while after the crash. Stockstill was thirty-nine and Loft was fifty-five years old. Don Repo, fifty-one years old, initially survived the crash and died a day later in the hospital. In the end, ninety-six of one hundred and sixty-three passengers died.

Two weeks later I flew back to Tampa, Florida. I wondered if it had been sheer luck that caused me to learn about the 401 ghost stories on a flight from Tampa and to New York. Maybe, but I wasn’t lucky enough to end up on a flight with Susan again. My off peak flight took off on a late Sunday afternoon with a completely different crew. There were maybe thirty people on board and we ended up with an experienced Flight Attendant. She was kind of bossy, so I sat and read quietly.

At some point, I took out the folded pages that Susan gave me. I tucked them into a notebook I purchased at the airport and had been trying to decode the worn mimeo sheets for days. It proved difficult and was very frustrating, but I thought I would use the flight time back to Florida to try again. While I was using a magnifying glass to try and make out the words and letters, a member of the flight crew passed by. It was the First Officer headed to the back of the aircraft.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed him, but he stopped at my seat and looked at the sheets. He asked, “Pardon me, did someone on this flight or at the airport give that to you?” I told him no and made the mistake of saying that I found it in one of the magazines on board. I didn’t want to get Susan in trouble. He reached over and grabbed it out of my hands saying it was a scandal sheet passed around by ill-informed employees.

I had no way of knowing that I was flying Eastern at a time when the Flight 401 ghost sightings were at their high point. The sightings began in January of 1973 and continued in earnest until the summer of 1974. These events were exposed to the world in The Ghost of Flight 401, a book written by John G. Fuller. Fuller is one of my favorite authors. His book, Interrupted Journey chronicled the famous Betty and Barney Hill UFO Abduction Case and there were others like Incident at Exeter that I enjoyed as well.

Fuller’s book came out a couple of years after the ghost sightings ended. His wife, Elizabeth, was an Eastern Flight Attendant that helped him get the goods on the 401 ghost sightings. Her book, My Search for the Ghost of Flight 401, was just as good as his and I read both with equal enthusiasm. Anyone interested the paranormal should dig up copies of these and read them cover to cover.

The film, The Ghost of Flight 401, starred Ernest Borgnine and was a part of a one-two punch delivered by Hollywood. The second was the release of Crash, another film about the 401 disaster. This one starred William Shatner. Both films were shown on Broadcast Television in the USA and released in theaters in some other Countries. All told, the films were well received and probably gave Frank Borman more sleepless nights than the ghosts themselves.

In The Ghost of Flight 401, the ghosts appear as any human would. For example, during a 1973 flight from Newark to Miami, A Flight Attendant was doing a head count when she noticed a man in an Eastern Airlines Pilot uniform seated with the passengers. He refused to acknowledge her, so she contacted the flight crew. The Captain of that flight came back to see what was going on and recognized the man as Bob Loft. He cried out, “Oh my God, that’s Bob Loft!” At that point Loft vanished. Everyone present saw it happen.

During a 1974 flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Newark, NJ, the Pilot sees Don Repo sitting in the Flight Engineer’s seat. Repo says, “There will never be another crash of an L-1011, we will not allow it.” Repo vanishes after speaking. During another sighting, Repo appeared to a Flight Crew member and said he had completed the preflight check.

On another occasion, a Flight Attendant saw a man in a Flight Engineer uniform fixing a microwave oven. Thinking nothing of it, she went about her business. Later she asked the Flight Engineer what was wrong with the microwave. He had no idea what she was talking about. Repo also appeared several times in the Hell Hole (electronics room) beneath the cockpit after crew members heard knocking in that area and went to investigate.

While boarding a flight that would take him from JFK in New York to Miami International in 1973, a Vice President of Eastern Airlines entered the First Class Cabin and saw an Eastern Pilot sitting there. When he got close enough to see his face, it was Bob Loft. Loft vanished before his eyes. Loft was seen by a number of flight crews and spoke occasionally warning about problems or potential problems on board an aircraft.

There were some other types of appearances as well. Flight Attendant Faye Merryweather saw the face of Don Repo staring at her from an oven in the galley of Tri-Star 318. The galley was salvaged from the wreckage of 401. Merryweather summoned two other Flight Attendants. One was a friend of Repo and recognized his face. Repo spoke and said, “Watch out for fire on this airplane.” The airliner ended up having engine trouble a short time later on route to Acapulco. After landing, the rest of its flight was cancelled.
And it wasn’t just flight crews that saw the deceased crew members.

Several Marriott Food Service workers saw a Flight Engineer vanish in the galley of an airliner being stocked for the next flight and refused to continue their work. That flight was delayed for over an hour. Airline cleaners and mechanics began to find reasons to avoid working on or in Ship #318 where most of the sightings took place. Some believe that’s because parts were salvaged from the aircraft involved in the 401 crash and transplanted into #318. It’s as good as explanation as any.

Although the details remain sketchy and there’s a great deal of disagreement about it, the end of the ghost sightings may have had something to do with a psychic intervention of sorts. It’s been reported that one or more people who knew Loft and Repo managed to contact them through the help of a psychic medium who persuaded them to move on. The ghost sightings ended about a year and a half after the crash.

A haunting of this intensity and frequency reveals how woefully inadequate our attempts to understand or investigate the paranormal have been. This is especially true of those who do not care to acknowledge paranormal events in the first place. Rather than believe their own people, Eastern chose to ignore the ghost reports and recommend mental health evaluations and treatment for those who saw them. If the ghosts that appeared after the 401 crash have taught us anything, I would hope it is that simply ignoring paranormal events will not make them vanish into thin air.

Read more true stories about the Unexplained, order paranormal DVDs and experience the unexplained at http://www.UFOguy.com

Author: Bill Knell Author’s Website: http://www.ufoguy.com Terms To Use Article: Permission is granted to use this article for free online or in print with the addition of a link to http://www.ufoguy.com or that URL printed with the article.

Haunted Lighthouses – Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse

Located at the southern end of Gasparilla Island you’ll find the Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse. Right next to the lighthouse sits its twin – a building that served as the lighthouse keeper’s assitant’s home. Originally built in 1890, these two buildings were nearly lost to the sea. By 1970, the shoreline had been eroded by hundreds of feet and the sea was beginning to reach the lighthouse foundation. Local concern grew and the government took steps ensure the lighthouse would be around for future generations.


When phosphate was discovered several miles upriver from the lighthouse’s future location in the early 1880’s, the phosphate was shipped down the river on barges to Port Boca Grande and then loaded onto ocean-going vessels. Due to the increased business of the port, Congress appriated $35,000 for the construction of a lighthouse at the southern tip of Gasparilla Island in 1888, and the Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse was born.


Lighthouse keepers and their families lived and worked in the lighthouse from 1890 until 1951. The Boca Grande lighthouse served as a home for the lighthouse keeper and his family, and the twin building next to it served as home to the assistant lighthouse keeper. The keeper would take care of the light until midnight, and then his assistant would tend to the light for the rest of the night.


The Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse is thought to have two ghosts. During the lighthouse’s history, the young daughter of one of the keepers died in the dwelling, most likely of diphtheria or whooping cough. Tour guides say that she can be heard playing in one of the rooms of the building’s upper floor. A former park ranger who led tours of the lighthouse, often pointed to a doorway on the second floor and told visitors that it was one of the little girl’s favorite places to play. the former ranger also said that at midnight, the little girl can be heard upstairs playing.


The second ghost is said to be the headless spectre of a Spanish princess named Josefa. Legend says that a Spanish pirate, Jose Gaspar (aka Gasparilla), buried his treasure in the sand close to where the Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse was to be built some ninety years later. Apparently, Gaspar fell in love with this Spanish princess he had kidnapped. She wasn’t interested and when she rejected his love, he drew his sword in a fit of rage and cut off her head. Shamed by what he had done to Josefa, Gasparilla gathered up her lifeless body and buried her in the sand on the island. Unfortunately for her, his love for her was so great that he didn’t want to leave her and legend says he carried his beloved’s head with him for the rest of his days. Reports say that her headless spirit has been seen wandering the beach on Gasparilla Island, presumably looking for her head.


The U.S. Coast Guard automated the light in 1956. Ten years later, in 1966, the Coast Guard removed the light from the building, which was deteriorating due to neglect and beach erosion. In 1972 Lee County took over ownership of the lighthouse and surrounding 13 acres, and began a long process to save the building. Funds were raised by the Gasparilla Island Conservation Association, and the lighthouse was restored.


The lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and in 1986 the lighthouse was relit and returned to service as a working Coast Guard light. In 1988 the lighthouse and surrounding land was transferred from Lee County to the State of Florida and became Gasparilla Island State Park.


The Old Port Boca Grande Lighthouse is open to the public. Although it’s fenced off, you can get a great view of the lighthouse from the nearby park and beach. The assistant keeper’s house is now used as a house for the park ranger.

Denise Villani is an author and the webmaster of several websites and article directories. Find more articles and information on haunted lighthouses by visiting
HauntedLightHouses.info.

Haunted Lighthouses – New London Ledge Lighthouse

Located at the mouth of the Thames River, entrance to New London Harbor, Connecticut at the eastern end of Long Island Sound sits the New London Ledge Lighthouse. Built in 1909 on the Southwest Ledge, the lighthouse was originally called the Southwest Ledge Light, but to avoid confusion with another lighthouse in New Haven, the Southwest Ledge Light, the lighthouse was renamed to New London Ledge Light in 1910.


This lighthouse itself is a unique, one-of-a-kind structure with square red brick quarters topped with a mansard roof (a French type of roof designed to make maximum use of the interior space of the attic) and a circular lantern room. To appease the residents who didnt want to gaze upon an eyesore sitting in the sea, the lighthouse was built in Colonial and French architectural style in order to blend in with the large and historic homes on the shores.


The lighthouse was finally built after a half-century of petitions requesting an offshore lighthouse – the first one in 1845 – from mariners and residents stating the dangers to maritime traffic in the area due to the inadequcy of the four buoys in the harbor and the The New London Harbor Lighthouse on the shore. The Lighthouse Board detailed the inherent dangers to maritime traffic at New London to Congress in 1902 and 1903 and requested funds for constructing a lighthouse. The construction was completed in 1909. The United States Coast Guard officially took over the care of the lighthouse in 1939 and still keeps an eye on the place. Most of the stories of the ghostly lightkeeper have come from the Coast Guard crews manning the lighthouse.


New London Ledge is locally famous for the ghost nicknamed Ernie who allegedly haunts the lighthouse. The famous ghost legend Ernie was a lightkeeper supposedly jumped to his death from the roof of the lighthouse after learning that his wife ran off with the captain of the Block Island Ferry in 1936.


Ernie is said to make his presence known by opening and closing doors, washing the decks, operating the light and fog signal, and untying secured boats to let them drift away. Before the station was automated, Coast Guard crews on duty reported frequently hearing mysterious knocks on their bedroom doors in the middle of the night, doors opening and closing, the television being turned on and off repeatedly, and covers pulled off the end of their bed.


The New London Ledge Lighthouse was the last remaining manned lighthouse on Long Island Sound when it was finally automated in 1987. Since then, reports of Ernie’s visits have dramatically decreased, most likely because there is hardly ever anyone there. This seems to be a relief to those who were stuck manning the light house. The final day of manned operation shows a log entry reading, “A Rock of slow torture. Ernie’s domain. Hell on earth. May New London Ledge’s light shine on forever because I’m through. I will watch it from afar while drinking a brew.”


There have been investigations at the lighthouse. In the late ’90s, a TV reporter from Japan spent a night inside the lighthouse to investigate the story of Ernie, and loud whispering noises were heard through the night, audible on camera. The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), who have become known by their series “Ghost Hunters” on the Sci-Fi Channel, investigated the place in 2005 but made no significant observations.


Today, the lighthouse is leased by the Coast Guard to the New London Ledge Lighthouse Foundation, partly funded by the City of New London. The lighthouse is used as a maritime classroom, while the Coast Guard continues to maintain the automated light. The group plans to eventually open the lighthouse as a museum and may offer overnight accommodations.

Denise Villani is an author and the webmaster of several websites and article directories. Find more articles and information on haunted stuff by visiting
HauntedStuff.net.