Ghosts don’t really exist, do they?
You be the judge.
This Halloween, we submit for your perusal the following haunting tales.
Ghost of Deer Island
In 1922, Anthony Ragusin of Biloxi, Mississippi, relayed a tale of two fishermen who spent a night on Deer Island, off Biloxi’s coast, in the early 1800s.
The fishermen made a campfire on the beach and were preparing a meal, when suddenly they heard a loud rustling in the palmetto bushes. Thinking it was wild hogs, they paid little attention. But when they looked around later, they beheld a headless skeleton standing erect.
“The fishermen, completely surprised, managed to move back some feet but the headless ghost began to follow,” Ragusin told the Biloxi Sun Herald. The men immediately made a beeline for their boat and left the island, leaving all their equipment behind.
According to legend, the bony frame belongs to a pirate who was rendered headless by his captain. The pirate’s body was left behind as a ghastly guard to watch over buried treasure. Which, apparently, it has been doing for more than 100 years.
The Dakota
The Dakota apartment building in New York City has been home to the rich and famous since it first opened in 1884. Over the years, numerous ghosts sightings have been claimed.
Before John Lennon was assassinated on the steps outside the building in 1980, he alleged to have seen a “crying lady ghost” roaming the halls. After his death, several residents reported seeing Lennon himself, dressed in his characteristic white flared suit, leaning against a wall in the stone archway where he died.
Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, still resides at the Dakota. She, also, says she has witnessed John’s ghost — sitting at his piano. She claims he told her, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.”
Building residents also have reported seeing a little girl, dressed in period clothing, waving and smiling from several lower-floor windows.
Huggin’ Molly
Beginning in the early 1900s, tales were told of a giant woman (“seven feet tall and as big around as a bale of cotton”) dressed in a black shroud, who would roam the dark streets of Abbeville, Alabama, late at night. She would chase down unsuspecting victims (usually teenagers), and then hug them fiercely while emitting a loud scream in their ear.
Several of the town’s residents have recounted stories of being chased by the specter known as “Huggin’ Molly.” According to lifelong Abbeville resident Jimmy Rane, all the locals are familiar with her. “If your mother or dad didn’t want you to be out after dark, they’d tell you Huggin’ Molly would get you. And you believed it, too,” Rane said.
It seems Abbeville parents are not inclined to discourage such talk, if it keeps their kids in line.
Honest Abe
For years, numerous White House residents, guests and staff have claimed to have either seen or felt the presence of Abraham Lincoln.
The first report came from the wife of Calvin Coolidge. Grace Coolidge said she saw the 16th president standing at a window of the Oval Office. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he was gazing out over the Potomac.
In 1942, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was a guest at FDR’s White House when she was awakened one night by a knock on her bedroom door.
She opened the door to find a top-hatted figure of President Lincoln standing in the hallway. She promptly fainted. By the time she came to, the apparition had vanished.
Dwight Eisenhower reported to press secretary James Hagerty that he had once been walking down a hallway in the White House when he spied a figure walking straight toward him.
After a moment, he realized it was Abraham Lincoln.
But ghosts don’t really exist…do they?
Sources:
Featured Image: Adobe, License Granted
Biloxi Sun Herald
Ephemeral New York
Huggin Molly’s
Mental Floss