Ghosts don’t just happen. In a sense, they are born. Some spirits become stuck on earth after death because they are afraid to move on, while others aren’t even aware that they have passed away. Those who die sudden, emotional deaths sometimes remain behind to haunt the areas where they died, so it’s no wonder that military bases, boats and battlefields are hotspots for ghostly activity.
Military hauntings are a fascinating subset of paranormal research that often goes unnoticed. Some stories are kept out of the public eye because the army would rather not admit that soldiers have actually witnessed sightings of ghosts and other paranormal activity. Other military haunting stories are dismissed as simply being urban legends that evolved over time with no real evidence to back them up. But the sheer number of stories, and the credibility of the eyewitnesses make it clear that military ghost stories are definitely worth exploring.
Soldiers stationed on military bases are well aware of the tales of ghosts haunting barracks, hangars, airfields, airplanes and tanks. There are stories of soldiers hearing strange voices coming from abandoned aircraft hangars, or of seeing misty figures gliding across airstrips. The same goes for tourists who visit famous battlefields where thousands of men lost their lives in bloody battles.
Although ghost stories about soldiers killed in battle are found all over the world, the following military ghost tales come from battlefields and military bases in the United States. But this first military ghost story isn’t about a place, it’s about a person--George S. Patton.
Patton was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II, and the United States Army Central in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. (1)
Although he considered himself a Christian, Patton was a firm believer in reincarnation, and he said that he had lived many past lives as a soldier. He also believed that he would be reincarnated after his death.
As a child, Patton believed he fought Turkish armies, and that he had fought beside John the Blind of Bohemia in the 1300s. When he was a young man, he was kicked by a horse and nearly died from his wounds. As he lay in bed he had a vision of his death as a Viking in a previous life.
As an adult, Patton claimed that he had been a soldier in ancient Greece, as well as a first century Roman soldier who had died after being shot with a number of arrows through his neck. He said that he remembered being stationed in France as a Roman legionnaire in Caesar’s army, and that he fought in England with King Henry V. He also claimed that he fought alongside Alexander the Great and Napoleon, and that he crossed the Alps on an elephant during his incarnation as the Carthaginian conqueror, Hannibal.
Patton’s belief in reincarnation and life after death was strengthened by two incidents during World War I. During a particularly vicious battle, he found himself lying on the ground, too terrified to stand and fight. Suddenly he saw the faces of his dead grandfather and several uncles before him. They demanded that he stop being a coward, after which he got up and started fighting.
The other instance took place in Langres, France. Though he had never visited the city before, Patton was easily able to navigate his way without assistance from locals. At one point he even gave a Frenchman a tour of the Roman ruins. He knew the exact location of the amphitheater, the parade ground, and a number of temples dedicated to various Roman gods. He also drove straight to the spot where he claimed Caesar had once pitched his tent.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a military haunting story without a ghost. In this case, the ghost was that of Patton himself. When Patton died in 1945 after a freak car accident, both of his daughters were visited by their father’s ghost.
Thirty-year-old Ruth Ellen was not with her father when he died, but at the moment of his death she woke up and saw him standing at the foot of her bed dressed in full military uniform. “I sat up in bed,” she recounted, “and I could see him plainly. When he saw I was looking at him, he gave me the sweetest smile I've ever seen.”
Patton’s other daughter, thirty-four-year-old Beatrice had her own visitation from her father the night of his death. Beatrice said that she had been fast asleep when the phone by her bed rang. When she picked it up there was a lot of static on the line, but she clearly heard her father's voice say, "Little Bee, are you alright?" The line went dead, so Beatrice called the overseas operator who said that no calls had been made to her number that night.
Pearl Harbor - Oahu, Hawaii
If sudden untimely death is a formula for hauntings, then Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu should be crawling with ghosts. The battle that brought the US into World War II lasted just one hour and fifteen minutes, but in that short time thousands lost their lives.
On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Navy ordered a fleet of warships to attack the United States Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor. The armada consisted of six aircraft carriers that carried 414 planes. In order to catch the Americans by surprise, the ships maintained strict radio silence throughout their 3,500 mile trip.
On Sunday, December 7, the first wave of Japanese planes lifted off from the carriers. At 7:53 AM the head pilot broke radio silence by shouting the coded message “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to alert the Japanese fleet that they had taken the Americans by surprise.
When the Japanese made landfall a barrage of bombs and bullets rained down on American ships and servicemen. Twenty American naval vessels were destroyed or severely damaged, including eight battleships, and over three hundred airplanes. The attack killed 2,403 US personnel, including 68 civilians, and 1,178 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
With so many soldiers killed suddenly and under such tragic circumstances, it’s no surprise that Pearl Harbor is considered one of the most haunted battlegrounds in the United States. Paranormal activity related to the 1941 attack has been reported all over the island, but the majority of reports come from the military areas that were hit that day.
Ford Island was at the center of the attack, and residents have reported hearing strange sounds, and seeing mysterious figures inside and outside of their homes. On the island’s army base there have been numerous reports about sightings of ghostly soldiers, the sound of eerie voices and phantom footsteps, and of other paranormal activity. The base’s airstrip has a reputation of being particularly haunted, as it is here that visitors often report seeing strange glowing shapes hovering over its surface, and misty figures walking across the tarmac. Security guards who patrol the base admit that they don’t like walking the grounds at night because of all the strange activity.
One of the most well-known ghosts on the island is known as Charley. He is often blamed for water faucets turning themselves on and off, for heavy doors swinging back and forth, and for other playful activity. At the site of former military bases, radios reportedly turn on and off by themselves. The activity is sometimes accompanied by the sound of jangling of keys and loud footsteps coming from empty hallways.
Residents of Ford Island have reported hearing phantom voices and footsteps in their homes. In addition, objects move, lights and electronics turn on and off by themselves, dark shadows have been seen walking aimlessly both indoors and out. When approached, these army clad specters vanish into thin air.
At the Pacific Aviation Museum in Honolulu, visitors and staff have reported seeing and even interacting with the ghosts of the servicemen who died that day. During an investigation for the Travel Channel's Ghost Hunters TV show, a tour guide said that one day she was closing up for the day when she saw someone walking around in the museum’s map area. She went up to the man and said, “The museum is closed. We really need to shut the doors, so you need to leave the building.” She followed him out the front door and locked the doors behind him.
The following day, someone noticed something strange on the security camera footage. Throughout the entire time that the woman was talking to this person and leading them out of the building, she was the only one in the video. She could clearly be seen talking animatedly, then walking to the front door and continuing to talk, but the entire time she was totally alone.
In the Hangar 37 area of the museum is a mannequin dressed in an army uniform that the staff calls Kramer. When the museum opens in the morning, the position of Kramer’s arms and hands are often found to have moved overnight. The mannequin has also been found holding pieces of paper, and even a large propeller that is usually stored in another area of the museum. The staff thinks that the spirit of a playful soldier is responsible for the mannequin's strange behavior.
There are a number of wooden benches scattered around Hangar 37 where visitors can take a rest, or sit and study the exhibits. After the museum has closed for the day and the room is dark, the staff has reported seeing men sitting on these benches. They are so solid looking that they are often mistaken for real people, but when approached these enigmatic figures vanish into thin air.
In the theater area of the museum, the projector operator has seen the apparition of a man sitting in the front row as if he’s waiting for the movie to start. This mysterious figure is always in the front row, and sits either in the aisle seat, or the second seat into the row. The theater had originally been an area where soldiers worked on repairing aircraft. It is also a place where many men lost their lives during the battle of Pearl Harbor.
The ghosts of Hangar 37 are not only seen, they are also heard. Anne Muratta, director of marketing for the museum, had an eerie experience while working alone in her office one night. She was sitting quietly at her desk when she suddenly heard music and the sound of men’s voices coming from an area where vintage airplanes are displayed. When she went to investigate, the music and voices suddenly stopped. The lights were on in the museum at the time, so she could see that the place was totally empty. She returned to her office and the music and voices started up again.
Hangar 79 is a huge facility that houses a number of vintage aircraft which are under restoration. This part of the museum is particularly eerie because the hangar’s windows still have bullet holes in them from the December 7, 1941 attack. Mechanics and volunteers who work in the hangar report hearing footsteps, strange noises, and the sound of men’s voices talking. They also hear people walking on the upper deck of the hangar when the building is empty.
In one area of the hangar is a Sikorski helicopter from the 1950s. Ms. Muratta said that a paranormal group once visited the hangar and that one of the investigators happened to look under the aircraft and actually saw feet walking around the back of the helicopter. When he went to investigate, there was no one there.
Outside of Hangar 79 is the ‘Artifacts Trailer’. One of the museum’s registrars had been taking photographs inside the trailer. When she put the camera down it turned on by itself several times. The woman said out loud, “If somebody is here, can you turn the camera on and off three times?” After a few minutes, the camera turned on and off three times, then remained off. This same woman said that on several occasions she has heard the sound of someone in heavy boots walking throughout the trailer, even though she was the only one present.
Gettysburg - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
The fields and forests around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where it is estimated over 50,000 soldiers died during the bloody 1863 battle, are considered to be the most haunted battlefields in the United States. There are so many stories of ghostly activity in and around the city that volumes have been written about the subject.
The Jennie Wade House, the site of the only civilian death during the Battle of Gettysburg, is often referred to as America’s scariest house. Visitors report hearing loud banging sounds, and the voice of a young child talking and singing. Others say they’ve felt the arms of little children holding onto their legs as they tour the house. It’s also common to feel sudden rushes of cold air while walking on the second floor.
The Sachs Covered Bridge is one of only four remaining covered bridges in Gettysburg. It is also considered to be extremely haunted. Near the end of the Civil War three army deserters were executed on the bridge, and the retreating Confederate Army used it when they were retreating from the Union Army. Those who visit the bridge have reported smelling cigar smoke, hearing the sound of men’s voices talking, the feeling of being touched while walking through the bridge’s dark interior, and the sight of the apparitions of soldiers approaching the bridge and walking through it.
Gettysburg College is another well known haunted location. During the two days of bloody fighting, the college was used as a hospital to treat dying and wounded soldiers. From all accounts, the ghosts of the men who died there, as well as those of the doctors and nurses who treated them still roam the buildings.
One of the strangest stories was told by two campus administrators. Sometime in the 1980s, the two women were on the elevator in Pennsylvania Hall when it malfunctioned and took them to the basement instead of the floor they wanted to go to. When the elevator doors opened, they witnessed a horrifying glimpse into the past. There before them was a bloody Civil War operating room. They could see doctors working feverishly to save the injured and dying soldiers who lay bleeding on tables and on mats on the floor. As the two women stared at amazement at the scene, one of the doctors started walking toward the elevator. Suddenly, the doors closed and the elevator moved to another floor. The two women quickly called a security guard who accompanied them back to the basement. Even though only a few minutes had passed, when they arrived at the basement, it was completely empty.
Year in and year out, students who attend the college claim to have experienced eerie, ghostly encounters all over campus. Gabby Gill, a Gettysburg senior, had a spooky experience during her freshman year in Huber Hall. She said, “I woke up one night to a pressure on my chest and I heard someone dragging across the floor. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, every single item on my desk, and on my roommate’s desk had been thrown onto the floor.” (2)
Another student described an experience he had while rooming at 520 Carlisle Street, an off-campus house overlooking the battlefield. He said, “In the middle of the night, I felt something brushing against my feet incessantly,” he said. “When I opened my eyes, I saw three black silhouettes shining lights on us. When I opened my eyes one of them was shining a light on me and when I sat up, all three left the room. In the morning my friends said they felt arms around them, but they didn’t open their eyes.” (3)
You can read a lot of Gettysburg ghost stories in books and online, but I wanted to share a few stories that were told to me by two people who attended my lectures. The first story was told by a man who heard it from a very reliable witness. He said:
“I’m a board member at a library in Connecticut. I was talking to one of our older librarians, and of course I asked her if the library was haunted, and if she had seen anything. She said, 'No, I’ve never seen anything in the library, but I did see a ghost down in Pennsylvania.'
She said that about ten years ago, she and two other adults were escorting a group of high school students on a trip to Gettysburg. They had rented a van and that afternoon they were driving around the battlefield. It was getting toward the end of the afternoon, so it was near dusk, but it wasn’t dark. They decided to drive on a dirt road out to Devil’s den which is one of the areas out on the battlefield. People had pretty much left for the day, so the battlefield was pretty much empty. There were not many people around at all.
As they were driving down this dirt road, they came into a field and they saw a man walking up ahead of them on the right side of the road. He was heading in the same direction as they were driving, so they saw the gentleman’s back. He was a fellow that looked like a Civil war Confederate general with a hat on, a sash, and they could see his insignia on his shoulder. He was clearly a Confederate general. He was walking along in front of them, and then they passed him and drove on for about twenty feet or so.
They thought that he was a Civil war reenactor, so they figured that they would stop and ask him about the events that were going on in Gettysburg. They stopped the car and rolled down the windows and opened the doors. Of course, you know the end of the story--there was nobody there. This took place in a big, open field. There was no forest nearby, no rocks to hide behind, no structures, no nothing, and all of a sudden the person is just gone. Everyone in the van had seen this gentleman as they drove by him. They thought it was a real person. It wasn’t a wispy looking figure or anything like that.
Again, this story comes from a very, very believable older librarian. When she told me the story, there was no snickering or anything like that, and there was no reason for her to make this story up.”
The second Gettysburg story was told by a gentleman who stayed in the Farnsworth House Inn. During the battle, the inn housed Confederate snipers. It is the site from which the shot that killed Jennie Wade was fired. Visitors who stay at the bed and breakfast tell stories of strange sounds coming from the attic, and of singing voices coming from the basement. During one of my lectures, the man told the following story:
“I spent a night at the Farnsworth Hotel. It’s right in the middle of the battle of Gettysburg, and it’s probably one of the most haunted hotels in America. The room that I stayed in, The Sweeney Room, is probably one of the most active rooms in that hotel. Guests have reported hearing the sound of something heavy being dragged back-and-forth in the attic, and I heard it the night I stayed there. I was in the room underneath the attic. When the sharpshooters were killed in the battle, they would drag their bodies to the other side of the attic and they would lay there for three or four days. I heard the dragging back-and-forth.
The hotel is decorated in the style of the period, and the crystals on one of the lamps kept swinging during the night. The toilet would flush by itself, and the electricity on my phone charger kept getting unplugged throughout the night.”
This same gentleman had a strange encounter on one of the battlefields. He said, “When I was visiting one of the battlefields, I experienced an overwhelming smell of death. It was pretty amazing. What happened is, I saw a person who was farther down who was looking at one of the exhibits. After he left my friend and I went over to where this guy had been standing and I said, ‘Wow, I can still smell this guy,’ because I thought the putrid odor I was smelling came from him. My friend said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘I can smell the guy who was just over here. Can’t you smell it? I smelled him when we were all the way over at the other exhibit, and I can still smell it. I can’t believe you can’t smell it!’
We walked down toward the battlefield and the smell got worse and worse and worse. It was a very putrid smell. I asked my friend and another person, ‘Do you smell anything out of the ordinary?”’ and they said, ‘No, not at all.’ It was just an overwhelming smell.
This happened on one of the main battlefields. Little Bighorn was the hill, and there was a tremendous battle there. It was a very moving experience. I could feel the energy. The energy of that place was like no other.”
Camp Devens - Devens, Massachusetts
In 1917, Camp Devens in Devens, Massachusetts was established as a temporary military quarters for training soldiers during World War I. It was a reception center for war selectees and became a demobilization center after the war. Approximately 850 soldiers, mostly privates, died at the camp during 1918 from the Spanish flu, In the 1930s, Fort Devens Army Airfield was established. The facility included more than 1200 wooden buildings and an airfield. Devens also housed a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners from 1944 to 1946. It was designated as early as 1942 for detaining "enemy aliens" of Italian, German and Japanese birth. The U.S. Army post which resided at Fort Devens was officially closed in 1996 after 79 years of service.
I recently interviewed a soldier about an amazing experience he had while stationed at Fort Devens. He said:
In the early 1980s, I was stationed in the Army at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. At that time, a series of barracks built during World War II were still in use. Several of these buildings were on a street together. There was a barbed wire fence around it, and there was a guard building that you had to pass through before you could go in.
My unit’s mission was to occupy these barracks for a few weeks, and to pour over maps and other information in order to plan for what the unit would do in the case of World War III. Some of the information was classified, which is the reason why we had to stay in a secure compound with restricted access.
Now, if there’s a ghost on an army base everybody knows about it. It’s part of the base’s mythology and lore. At Fort Devens, one of these World War II era buildings was known to be haunted, so we arranged for our team to stay in that building for the couple of weeks that we were going to be studying for our mission.
We had heard a few anecdotal stories about the place. One guy in our unit stayed in the building when his team was studying for its mission. He said that he was upstairs one day when he heard the screen door in the barracks open, then slam closed. He thought it was one of his team mates, so he called out, “Hey, which one of you guys just came in?” There was no answer, so he went downstairs but there was nobody there. There was classified information in the building, and he thought that somebody came in, so he quickly notified the military police.
The MPs came to the building and after listening to his story they said, “Oh yeah. I guess nobody told you, you’re in the haunted building. What you heard was probably just the ghost. We get called to come here all the time. Somebody will see movement in the upstairs window when this building isn’t even occupied, so we have to investigate it.” So even the MPs at Fort Devens knew that this building was haunted.
Rumor was that this series of buildings was once part of the German prisoner of war camp at Fort Devens during World War II. This isn’t as far fetched as it might sound. Many US army bases housed German prisoners captured off U-boats or captured overseas and transported here. According to the Fort Devens Post Cemetery website, “22 German and Italian prisoners of war who were captured in North Africa and held at Fort Devens between 1943 and 1946 are buried here. This group of graves includes that of a German U-boat Commander, Captain Friederic Steinhoff, who surrendered at the New Hampshire Navy Yard. Steinhoff, his brother, and Werner von Braun developed the underwater missile system used during World War II.”
I had seen these German soldiers’ graves myself one day, so as a young guy in my 20’s I was thinking, “Hey, there was a POW camp here, and there are dead Germans buried in the cemetery. Maybe the ghosts of some of the guys buried here are haunting the building.”
To fully understand my story, it’s important to know the layout of the two story barracks. Downstairs were the living quarters which consisted of bunk beds and a shower at the end. Upstairs was the work space--desks, a chalkboard, typewriters, stuff like that, and at the far end of the building was a footlocker filled with maps and books and classified information about Eastern Europe.
My team moved in downstairs in the afternoon, and the classified material was brought upstairs. That first night I told my team mates, “Hey guys, I’m going to try to get the ghosts to show us that they’re here. I’m going to try to get them to manifest and to demonstrate their presence.” My buddies were like, “OK, whatever man”.
That night as we lay down to go to sleep, I wanted to welcome whatever spirits were in this building. So, just before going to sleep I asked any spirits who were present to demonstrate their presence and to show themselves. I said something like, “Go ahead and pass through me. Use me as a portal. If you need to pass through me from the other side to manifest yourself here, go ahead.” I also repeated this same thing in German, to the best of my ability, in case the ghosts of the Germans could only understand German.
I know now that this was a stupid thing to do. You never make an offer like that to spirits. You don’t know who will take you up on it, or if they will ever leave once they catch hold of you. You also don’t know if doing so might affect you in a negative way for the rest of your life. But I was young and foolish and totally inexperienced in these matters, so I made the offer then went back to sleep.
I woke up at 2 AM. I was on the top bunk and everyone was snoring quietly, so I made the offer again. I said, “Hey, go ahead and pass through me. Show us a sign that you’re here. Please enter this area.” Then I said it in German.
As soon as I finished saying this, three things happened all at the same time. First, I immediately perceived an increase in what felt like the gravitational pull on my body. I felt my body literally like being pressed down on, but there were no pressure points. Something like a gravitational pull was pulling me into the mattress. It was as if my body was so much heavier, and that I was literally sinking into the mattress.
Secondly, I could feel a mild electric charge throughout my whole body. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but I could feel this electric vibration from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.
The third thing that I experienced was what would best be described as tachycardia. My heart rate was faster than it had ever been from exercise. I didn’t feel like I was having an adrenaline dump, and it wasn’t like a heart that races from fright. It was just a doubling or tripling of the highest heart rate I had ever had. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was noticeable. So these three physical manifestations all occurred simultaneously.
I also experienced an emotion during this time, and that was euphoria. I was so excited that all of these three things were happening because I felt like the offer that I had made was actually transpiring, and my physical body was experiencing the use as a portal. So, these three things happened all at once, and the duration was about ten or fifteen seconds. Then suddenly, it just stopped. Everything stopped at once.
I sat up in bed and leaned over to my bunkmate and said, “Hey, did you just hear anything or feel anything?” He woke up and said, “No, nothing”. I lay back down and quickly fell back asleep. As I look back now, I really shouldn’t have been able to fall asleep so fast after something so exciting that just happened. But I did. I fell asleep in minutes after that experience.
About an hour later, I woke up. There was enough ambient light coming through the windows, and I could see about half the guys on my team, about six guys, are leaning up in their bunks on their elbows, and they’re looking up at the ceiling. One of the guys said to me, “Hey, whatever you invited here tonight, go upstairs and tell it to leave.” I heard what they were hearing too--a room full of guys in heavy boots walking around upstairs.
Imagine the sound of a bunch of men in military boots walking on a wooden floor covered with linoleum coming into a classroom. We heard the sound of walking feet, we heard chairs being pulled around, we heard seats being taken, and then we heard writing on a chalkboard--that loud tapping sound you hear when somebody has real chalk on a real chalkboard and they start writing, “My name is …” or “Welcome to …” We heard all of these things, but I don’t recall hearing any voices.
Then over a period of about 30 seconds, the sound of the walking, the creaking seats, and the rapping of chalk on the chalkboard, all of that sound dialed down like a volume dial on a sound system. It didn’t stop, it faded. It decreased little by little until it was totally gone. After the guys told me to go upstairs and tell it to stop I said something like, “I don’t hear anything now. I’ll check in the morning!”
That day we went upstairs and there was no sign of anything. The room looked just the way it had looked the day before. Nothing was moved, and there was no writing on the chalkboard. There was some talk about the incident that morning, but we had work to do so we got busy with our work. The rest of our time our unit was there, there were no other paranormal incidents.
After all these years, I still think back on that experience and try to make sense of it. Initially, I had thought that it was the spirits of German soldiers who had manifested that night. But a lot of other soldiers had occupied the building since World War II, so it really could have been anyone. While I was working there, I noticed that there was graffiti scratched into several desks. The graffiti said stuff like “Last day in the states. Shipping out to the Nam tomorrow. Hope I make it back”.
I learned later that the building had also been used as a soldier processing center prior to their shipment overseas to Vietnam. I can’t help but wonder about the anxiety of young soldiers sitting there. I’ve sat through big administrative meetings like that where you had to write your will and fill out your GI life insurance papers. For all I know, the sounds we heard that night might have been from a class from the distant past on how to fill out your death benefit insurance for your family. I wonder if all of that emotional anxiety could have been imprinted on that space.
By offering myself as a portal to the ghosts of Fort Devens, I may have allowed a scene from the past to replay in the upstairs meeting room. Or, I may have granted permission to the ghosts of soldiers who once passed through these buildings to manifest. I’ll never know for sure, but the experience is one that had a profound influence on the way that I look at this life, and the afterlife.
During the Civil War, Major Sullivan Ballou wrote his wife one last letter before heading off to the battle at First Bull Run; the battle where he would lose his life just two weeks later. The words he wrote are both noble and haunting.
Headquarters, Camp Clark
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861
My Very Dear Wife:
Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again. (4)
Resources
https://taskandpurpose.com/history/military-ghost-stories-will-hiding-woobie/
https://www.dreadcentral.com/cold-spots/16592/cold-spots-pearl-harbor/
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6g2q5k
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/pennsylvania/haunted-gettysburg-pa/
http://ghosthuntersofasheville.blogspot.com/search/label/General%20George%20Patton
https://www.militarytimes.com/2013/10/27/military-spots-where-spirits-are-said-to-roam/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton
https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-religious-life-of-george-s-patton#:~:text=He%20was%20a%20communicant%20of,marriage%20to%20a%20Roman%20Catholic.
https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/pearl-harbor-fact-sheet-1.pdf
https://gettysburgian.com/2014/11/haunted-g-burg-the-paranormal-pervades-campus/
https://www.historynet.com/o-sarah-sullivan-ballou-letter.htm
Military hauntings are a fascinating subset of paranormal research that often goes unnoticed. Some stories are kept out of the public eye because the army would rather not admit that soldiers have actually witnessed sightings of ghosts and other paranormal activity. Other military haunting stories are dismissed as simply being urban legends that evolved over time with no real evidence to back them up. But the sheer number of stories, and the credibility of the eyewitnesses make it clear that military ghost stories are definitely worth exploring.
Soldiers stationed on military bases are well aware of the tales of ghosts haunting barracks, hangars, airfields, airplanes and tanks. There are stories of soldiers hearing strange voices coming from abandoned aircraft hangars, or of seeing misty figures gliding across airstrips. The same goes for tourists who visit famous battlefields where thousands of men lost their lives in bloody battles.
Although ghost stories about soldiers killed in battle are found all over the world, the following military ghost tales come from battlefields and military bases in the United States. But this first military ghost story isn’t about a place, it’s about a person--George S. Patton.
Patton was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II, and the United States Army Central in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. (1)
Although he considered himself a Christian, Patton was a firm believer in reincarnation, and he said that he had lived many past lives as a soldier. He also believed that he would be reincarnated after his death.
As a child, Patton believed he fought Turkish armies, and that he had fought beside John the Blind of Bohemia in the 1300s. When he was a young man, he was kicked by a horse and nearly died from his wounds. As he lay in bed he had a vision of his death as a Viking in a previous life.
As an adult, Patton claimed that he had been a soldier in ancient Greece, as well as a first century Roman soldier who had died after being shot with a number of arrows through his neck. He said that he remembered being stationed in France as a Roman legionnaire in Caesar’s army, and that he fought in England with King Henry V. He also claimed that he fought alongside Alexander the Great and Napoleon, and that he crossed the Alps on an elephant during his incarnation as the Carthaginian conqueror, Hannibal.
Patton’s belief in reincarnation and life after death was strengthened by two incidents during World War I. During a particularly vicious battle, he found himself lying on the ground, too terrified to stand and fight. Suddenly he saw the faces of his dead grandfather and several uncles before him. They demanded that he stop being a coward, after which he got up and started fighting.
The other instance took place in Langres, France. Though he had never visited the city before, Patton was easily able to navigate his way without assistance from locals. At one point he even gave a Frenchman a tour of the Roman ruins. He knew the exact location of the amphitheater, the parade ground, and a number of temples dedicated to various Roman gods. He also drove straight to the spot where he claimed Caesar had once pitched his tent.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a military haunting story without a ghost. In this case, the ghost was that of Patton himself. When Patton died in 1945 after a freak car accident, both of his daughters were visited by their father’s ghost.
Thirty-year-old Ruth Ellen was not with her father when he died, but at the moment of his death she woke up and saw him standing at the foot of her bed dressed in full military uniform. “I sat up in bed,” she recounted, “and I could see him plainly. When he saw I was looking at him, he gave me the sweetest smile I've ever seen.”
Patton’s other daughter, thirty-four-year-old Beatrice had her own visitation from her father the night of his death. Beatrice said that she had been fast asleep when the phone by her bed rang. When she picked it up there was a lot of static on the line, but she clearly heard her father's voice say, "Little Bee, are you alright?" The line went dead, so Beatrice called the overseas operator who said that no calls had been made to her number that night.
Pearl Harbor - Oahu, Hawaii
If sudden untimely death is a formula for hauntings, then Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu should be crawling with ghosts. The battle that brought the US into World War II lasted just one hour and fifteen minutes, but in that short time thousands lost their lives.
On November 26, 1941, the Japanese Navy ordered a fleet of warships to attack the United States Pacific Fleet base at Pearl Harbor. The armada consisted of six aircraft carriers that carried 414 planes. In order to catch the Americans by surprise, the ships maintained strict radio silence throughout their 3,500 mile trip.
On Sunday, December 7, the first wave of Japanese planes lifted off from the carriers. At 7:53 AM the head pilot broke radio silence by shouting the coded message “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to alert the Japanese fleet that they had taken the Americans by surprise.
When the Japanese made landfall a barrage of bombs and bullets rained down on American ships and servicemen. Twenty American naval vessels were destroyed or severely damaged, including eight battleships, and over three hundred airplanes. The attack killed 2,403 US personnel, including 68 civilians, and 1,178 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
With so many soldiers killed suddenly and under such tragic circumstances, it’s no surprise that Pearl Harbor is considered one of the most haunted battlegrounds in the United States. Paranormal activity related to the 1941 attack has been reported all over the island, but the majority of reports come from the military areas that were hit that day.
Ford Island was at the center of the attack, and residents have reported hearing strange sounds, and seeing mysterious figures inside and outside of their homes. On the island’s army base there have been numerous reports about sightings of ghostly soldiers, the sound of eerie voices and phantom footsteps, and of other paranormal activity. The base’s airstrip has a reputation of being particularly haunted, as it is here that visitors often report seeing strange glowing shapes hovering over its surface, and misty figures walking across the tarmac. Security guards who patrol the base admit that they don’t like walking the grounds at night because of all the strange activity.
One of the most well-known ghosts on the island is known as Charley. He is often blamed for water faucets turning themselves on and off, for heavy doors swinging back and forth, and for other playful activity. At the site of former military bases, radios reportedly turn on and off by themselves. The activity is sometimes accompanied by the sound of jangling of keys and loud footsteps coming from empty hallways.
Residents of Ford Island have reported hearing phantom voices and footsteps in their homes. In addition, objects move, lights and electronics turn on and off by themselves, dark shadows have been seen walking aimlessly both indoors and out. When approached, these army clad specters vanish into thin air.
At the Pacific Aviation Museum in Honolulu, visitors and staff have reported seeing and even interacting with the ghosts of the servicemen who died that day. During an investigation for the Travel Channel's Ghost Hunters TV show, a tour guide said that one day she was closing up for the day when she saw someone walking around in the museum’s map area. She went up to the man and said, “The museum is closed. We really need to shut the doors, so you need to leave the building.” She followed him out the front door and locked the doors behind him.
The following day, someone noticed something strange on the security camera footage. Throughout the entire time that the woman was talking to this person and leading them out of the building, she was the only one in the video. She could clearly be seen talking animatedly, then walking to the front door and continuing to talk, but the entire time she was totally alone.
In the Hangar 37 area of the museum is a mannequin dressed in an army uniform that the staff calls Kramer. When the museum opens in the morning, the position of Kramer’s arms and hands are often found to have moved overnight. The mannequin has also been found holding pieces of paper, and even a large propeller that is usually stored in another area of the museum. The staff thinks that the spirit of a playful soldier is responsible for the mannequin's strange behavior.
There are a number of wooden benches scattered around Hangar 37 where visitors can take a rest, or sit and study the exhibits. After the museum has closed for the day and the room is dark, the staff has reported seeing men sitting on these benches. They are so solid looking that they are often mistaken for real people, but when approached these enigmatic figures vanish into thin air.
In the theater area of the museum, the projector operator has seen the apparition of a man sitting in the front row as if he’s waiting for the movie to start. This mysterious figure is always in the front row, and sits either in the aisle seat, or the second seat into the row. The theater had originally been an area where soldiers worked on repairing aircraft. It is also a place where many men lost their lives during the battle of Pearl Harbor.
The ghosts of Hangar 37 are not only seen, they are also heard. Anne Muratta, director of marketing for the museum, had an eerie experience while working alone in her office one night. She was sitting quietly at her desk when she suddenly heard music and the sound of men’s voices coming from an area where vintage airplanes are displayed. When she went to investigate, the music and voices suddenly stopped. The lights were on in the museum at the time, so she could see that the place was totally empty. She returned to her office and the music and voices started up again.
Hangar 79 is a huge facility that houses a number of vintage aircraft which are under restoration. This part of the museum is particularly eerie because the hangar’s windows still have bullet holes in them from the December 7, 1941 attack. Mechanics and volunteers who work in the hangar report hearing footsteps, strange noises, and the sound of men’s voices talking. They also hear people walking on the upper deck of the hangar when the building is empty.
In one area of the hangar is a Sikorski helicopter from the 1950s. Ms. Muratta said that a paranormal group once visited the hangar and that one of the investigators happened to look under the aircraft and actually saw feet walking around the back of the helicopter. When he went to investigate, there was no one there.
Outside of Hangar 79 is the ‘Artifacts Trailer’. One of the museum’s registrars had been taking photographs inside the trailer. When she put the camera down it turned on by itself several times. The woman said out loud, “If somebody is here, can you turn the camera on and off three times?” After a few minutes, the camera turned on and off three times, then remained off. This same woman said that on several occasions she has heard the sound of someone in heavy boots walking throughout the trailer, even though she was the only one present.
Gettysburg - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
The fields and forests around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where it is estimated over 50,000 soldiers died during the bloody 1863 battle, are considered to be the most haunted battlefields in the United States. There are so many stories of ghostly activity in and around the city that volumes have been written about the subject.
The Jennie Wade House, the site of the only civilian death during the Battle of Gettysburg, is often referred to as America’s scariest house. Visitors report hearing loud banging sounds, and the voice of a young child talking and singing. Others say they’ve felt the arms of little children holding onto their legs as they tour the house. It’s also common to feel sudden rushes of cold air while walking on the second floor.
The Sachs Covered Bridge is one of only four remaining covered bridges in Gettysburg. It is also considered to be extremely haunted. Near the end of the Civil War three army deserters were executed on the bridge, and the retreating Confederate Army used it when they were retreating from the Union Army. Those who visit the bridge have reported smelling cigar smoke, hearing the sound of men’s voices talking, the feeling of being touched while walking through the bridge’s dark interior, and the sight of the apparitions of soldiers approaching the bridge and walking through it.
Gettysburg College is another well known haunted location. During the two days of bloody fighting, the college was used as a hospital to treat dying and wounded soldiers. From all accounts, the ghosts of the men who died there, as well as those of the doctors and nurses who treated them still roam the buildings.
One of the strangest stories was told by two campus administrators. Sometime in the 1980s, the two women were on the elevator in Pennsylvania Hall when it malfunctioned and took them to the basement instead of the floor they wanted to go to. When the elevator doors opened, they witnessed a horrifying glimpse into the past. There before them was a bloody Civil War operating room. They could see doctors working feverishly to save the injured and dying soldiers who lay bleeding on tables and on mats on the floor. As the two women stared at amazement at the scene, one of the doctors started walking toward the elevator. Suddenly, the doors closed and the elevator moved to another floor. The two women quickly called a security guard who accompanied them back to the basement. Even though only a few minutes had passed, when they arrived at the basement, it was completely empty.
Year in and year out, students who attend the college claim to have experienced eerie, ghostly encounters all over campus. Gabby Gill, a Gettysburg senior, had a spooky experience during her freshman year in Huber Hall. She said, “I woke up one night to a pressure on my chest and I heard someone dragging across the floor. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, every single item on my desk, and on my roommate’s desk had been thrown onto the floor.” (2)
Another student described an experience he had while rooming at 520 Carlisle Street, an off-campus house overlooking the battlefield. He said, “In the middle of the night, I felt something brushing against my feet incessantly,” he said. “When I opened my eyes, I saw three black silhouettes shining lights on us. When I opened my eyes one of them was shining a light on me and when I sat up, all three left the room. In the morning my friends said they felt arms around them, but they didn’t open their eyes.” (3)
You can read a lot of Gettysburg ghost stories in books and online, but I wanted to share a few stories that were told to me by two people who attended my lectures. The first story was told by a man who heard it from a very reliable witness. He said:
“I’m a board member at a library in Connecticut. I was talking to one of our older librarians, and of course I asked her if the library was haunted, and if she had seen anything. She said, 'No, I’ve never seen anything in the library, but I did see a ghost down in Pennsylvania.'
She said that about ten years ago, she and two other adults were escorting a group of high school students on a trip to Gettysburg. They had rented a van and that afternoon they were driving around the battlefield. It was getting toward the end of the afternoon, so it was near dusk, but it wasn’t dark. They decided to drive on a dirt road out to Devil’s den which is one of the areas out on the battlefield. People had pretty much left for the day, so the battlefield was pretty much empty. There were not many people around at all.
As they were driving down this dirt road, they came into a field and they saw a man walking up ahead of them on the right side of the road. He was heading in the same direction as they were driving, so they saw the gentleman’s back. He was a fellow that looked like a Civil war Confederate general with a hat on, a sash, and they could see his insignia on his shoulder. He was clearly a Confederate general. He was walking along in front of them, and then they passed him and drove on for about twenty feet or so.
They thought that he was a Civil war reenactor, so they figured that they would stop and ask him about the events that were going on in Gettysburg. They stopped the car and rolled down the windows and opened the doors. Of course, you know the end of the story--there was nobody there. This took place in a big, open field. There was no forest nearby, no rocks to hide behind, no structures, no nothing, and all of a sudden the person is just gone. Everyone in the van had seen this gentleman as they drove by him. They thought it was a real person. It wasn’t a wispy looking figure or anything like that.
Again, this story comes from a very, very believable older librarian. When she told me the story, there was no snickering or anything like that, and there was no reason for her to make this story up.”
The second Gettysburg story was told by a gentleman who stayed in the Farnsworth House Inn. During the battle, the inn housed Confederate snipers. It is the site from which the shot that killed Jennie Wade was fired. Visitors who stay at the bed and breakfast tell stories of strange sounds coming from the attic, and of singing voices coming from the basement. During one of my lectures, the man told the following story:
“I spent a night at the Farnsworth Hotel. It’s right in the middle of the battle of Gettysburg, and it’s probably one of the most haunted hotels in America. The room that I stayed in, The Sweeney Room, is probably one of the most active rooms in that hotel. Guests have reported hearing the sound of something heavy being dragged back-and-forth in the attic, and I heard it the night I stayed there. I was in the room underneath the attic. When the sharpshooters were killed in the battle, they would drag their bodies to the other side of the attic and they would lay there for three or four days. I heard the dragging back-and-forth.
The hotel is decorated in the style of the period, and the crystals on one of the lamps kept swinging during the night. The toilet would flush by itself, and the electricity on my phone charger kept getting unplugged throughout the night.”
This same gentleman had a strange encounter on one of the battlefields. He said, “When I was visiting one of the battlefields, I experienced an overwhelming smell of death. It was pretty amazing. What happened is, I saw a person who was farther down who was looking at one of the exhibits. After he left my friend and I went over to where this guy had been standing and I said, ‘Wow, I can still smell this guy,’ because I thought the putrid odor I was smelling came from him. My friend said, ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘I can smell the guy who was just over here. Can’t you smell it? I smelled him when we were all the way over at the other exhibit, and I can still smell it. I can’t believe you can’t smell it!’
We walked down toward the battlefield and the smell got worse and worse and worse. It was a very putrid smell. I asked my friend and another person, ‘Do you smell anything out of the ordinary?”’ and they said, ‘No, not at all.’ It was just an overwhelming smell.
This happened on one of the main battlefields. Little Bighorn was the hill, and there was a tremendous battle there. It was a very moving experience. I could feel the energy. The energy of that place was like no other.”
Camp Devens - Devens, Massachusetts
In 1917, Camp Devens in Devens, Massachusetts was established as a temporary military quarters for training soldiers during World War I. It was a reception center for war selectees and became a demobilization center after the war. Approximately 850 soldiers, mostly privates, died at the camp during 1918 from the Spanish flu, In the 1930s, Fort Devens Army Airfield was established. The facility included more than 1200 wooden buildings and an airfield. Devens also housed a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners from 1944 to 1946. It was designated as early as 1942 for detaining "enemy aliens" of Italian, German and Japanese birth. The U.S. Army post which resided at Fort Devens was officially closed in 1996 after 79 years of service.
I recently interviewed a soldier about an amazing experience he had while stationed at Fort Devens. He said:
In the early 1980s, I was stationed in the Army at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. At that time, a series of barracks built during World War II were still in use. Several of these buildings were on a street together. There was a barbed wire fence around it, and there was a guard building that you had to pass through before you could go in.
My unit’s mission was to occupy these barracks for a few weeks, and to pour over maps and other information in order to plan for what the unit would do in the case of World War III. Some of the information was classified, which is the reason why we had to stay in a secure compound with restricted access.
Now, if there’s a ghost on an army base everybody knows about it. It’s part of the base’s mythology and lore. At Fort Devens, one of these World War II era buildings was known to be haunted, so we arranged for our team to stay in that building for the couple of weeks that we were going to be studying for our mission.
We had heard a few anecdotal stories about the place. One guy in our unit stayed in the building when his team was studying for its mission. He said that he was upstairs one day when he heard the screen door in the barracks open, then slam closed. He thought it was one of his team mates, so he called out, “Hey, which one of you guys just came in?” There was no answer, so he went downstairs but there was nobody there. There was classified information in the building, and he thought that somebody came in, so he quickly notified the military police.
The MPs came to the building and after listening to his story they said, “Oh yeah. I guess nobody told you, you’re in the haunted building. What you heard was probably just the ghost. We get called to come here all the time. Somebody will see movement in the upstairs window when this building isn’t even occupied, so we have to investigate it.” So even the MPs at Fort Devens knew that this building was haunted.
Rumor was that this series of buildings was once part of the German prisoner of war camp at Fort Devens during World War II. This isn’t as far fetched as it might sound. Many US army bases housed German prisoners captured off U-boats or captured overseas and transported here. According to the Fort Devens Post Cemetery website, “22 German and Italian prisoners of war who were captured in North Africa and held at Fort Devens between 1943 and 1946 are buried here. This group of graves includes that of a German U-boat Commander, Captain Friederic Steinhoff, who surrendered at the New Hampshire Navy Yard. Steinhoff, his brother, and Werner von Braun developed the underwater missile system used during World War II.”
I had seen these German soldiers’ graves myself one day, so as a young guy in my 20’s I was thinking, “Hey, there was a POW camp here, and there are dead Germans buried in the cemetery. Maybe the ghosts of some of the guys buried here are haunting the building.”
To fully understand my story, it’s important to know the layout of the two story barracks. Downstairs were the living quarters which consisted of bunk beds and a shower at the end. Upstairs was the work space--desks, a chalkboard, typewriters, stuff like that, and at the far end of the building was a footlocker filled with maps and books and classified information about Eastern Europe.
My team moved in downstairs in the afternoon, and the classified material was brought upstairs. That first night I told my team mates, “Hey guys, I’m going to try to get the ghosts to show us that they’re here. I’m going to try to get them to manifest and to demonstrate their presence.” My buddies were like, “OK, whatever man”.
That night as we lay down to go to sleep, I wanted to welcome whatever spirits were in this building. So, just before going to sleep I asked any spirits who were present to demonstrate their presence and to show themselves. I said something like, “Go ahead and pass through me. Use me as a portal. If you need to pass through me from the other side to manifest yourself here, go ahead.” I also repeated this same thing in German, to the best of my ability, in case the ghosts of the Germans could only understand German.
I know now that this was a stupid thing to do. You never make an offer like that to spirits. You don’t know who will take you up on it, or if they will ever leave once they catch hold of you. You also don’t know if doing so might affect you in a negative way for the rest of your life. But I was young and foolish and totally inexperienced in these matters, so I made the offer then went back to sleep.
I woke up at 2 AM. I was on the top bunk and everyone was snoring quietly, so I made the offer again. I said, “Hey, go ahead and pass through me. Show us a sign that you’re here. Please enter this area.” Then I said it in German.
As soon as I finished saying this, three things happened all at the same time. First, I immediately perceived an increase in what felt like the gravitational pull on my body. I felt my body literally like being pressed down on, but there were no pressure points. Something like a gravitational pull was pulling me into the mattress. It was as if my body was so much heavier, and that I was literally sinking into the mattress.
Secondly, I could feel a mild electric charge throughout my whole body. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but I could feel this electric vibration from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.
The third thing that I experienced was what would best be described as tachycardia. My heart rate was faster than it had ever been from exercise. I didn’t feel like I was having an adrenaline dump, and it wasn’t like a heart that races from fright. It was just a doubling or tripling of the highest heart rate I had ever had. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was noticeable. So these three physical manifestations all occurred simultaneously.
I also experienced an emotion during this time, and that was euphoria. I was so excited that all of these three things were happening because I felt like the offer that I had made was actually transpiring, and my physical body was experiencing the use as a portal. So, these three things happened all at once, and the duration was about ten or fifteen seconds. Then suddenly, it just stopped. Everything stopped at once.
I sat up in bed and leaned over to my bunkmate and said, “Hey, did you just hear anything or feel anything?” He woke up and said, “No, nothing”. I lay back down and quickly fell back asleep. As I look back now, I really shouldn’t have been able to fall asleep so fast after something so exciting that just happened. But I did. I fell asleep in minutes after that experience.
About an hour later, I woke up. There was enough ambient light coming through the windows, and I could see about half the guys on my team, about six guys, are leaning up in their bunks on their elbows, and they’re looking up at the ceiling. One of the guys said to me, “Hey, whatever you invited here tonight, go upstairs and tell it to leave.” I heard what they were hearing too--a room full of guys in heavy boots walking around upstairs.
Imagine the sound of a bunch of men in military boots walking on a wooden floor covered with linoleum coming into a classroom. We heard the sound of walking feet, we heard chairs being pulled around, we heard seats being taken, and then we heard writing on a chalkboard--that loud tapping sound you hear when somebody has real chalk on a real chalkboard and they start writing, “My name is …” or “Welcome to …” We heard all of these things, but I don’t recall hearing any voices.
Then over a period of about 30 seconds, the sound of the walking, the creaking seats, and the rapping of chalk on the chalkboard, all of that sound dialed down like a volume dial on a sound system. It didn’t stop, it faded. It decreased little by little until it was totally gone. After the guys told me to go upstairs and tell it to stop I said something like, “I don’t hear anything now. I’ll check in the morning!”
That day we went upstairs and there was no sign of anything. The room looked just the way it had looked the day before. Nothing was moved, and there was no writing on the chalkboard. There was some talk about the incident that morning, but we had work to do so we got busy with our work. The rest of our time our unit was there, there were no other paranormal incidents.
After all these years, I still think back on that experience and try to make sense of it. Initially, I had thought that it was the spirits of German soldiers who had manifested that night. But a lot of other soldiers had occupied the building since World War II, so it really could have been anyone. While I was working there, I noticed that there was graffiti scratched into several desks. The graffiti said stuff like “Last day in the states. Shipping out to the Nam tomorrow. Hope I make it back”.
I learned later that the building had also been used as a soldier processing center prior to their shipment overseas to Vietnam. I can’t help but wonder about the anxiety of young soldiers sitting there. I’ve sat through big administrative meetings like that where you had to write your will and fill out your GI life insurance papers. For all I know, the sounds we heard that night might have been from a class from the distant past on how to fill out your death benefit insurance for your family. I wonder if all of that emotional anxiety could have been imprinted on that space.
By offering myself as a portal to the ghosts of Fort Devens, I may have allowed a scene from the past to replay in the upstairs meeting room. Or, I may have granted permission to the ghosts of soldiers who once passed through these buildings to manifest. I’ll never know for sure, but the experience is one that had a profound influence on the way that I look at this life, and the afterlife.
During the Civil War, Major Sullivan Ballou wrote his wife one last letter before heading off to the battle at First Bull Run; the battle where he would lose his life just two weeks later. The words he wrote are both noble and haunting.
Headquarters, Camp Clark
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861
My Very Dear Wife:
Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again. (4)
Resources
https://taskandpurpose.com/history/military-ghost-stories-will-hiding-woobie/
https://www.dreadcentral.com/cold-spots/16592/cold-spots-pearl-harbor/
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6g2q5k
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/pennsylvania/haunted-gettysburg-pa/
http://ghosthuntersofasheville.blogspot.com/search/label/General%20George%20Patton
https://www.militarytimes.com/2013/10/27/military-spots-where-spirits-are-said-to-roam/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton
https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-religious-life-of-george-s-patton#:~:text=He%20was%20a%20communicant%20of,marriage%20to%20a%20Roman%20Catholic.
https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/pearl-harbor-fact-sheet-1.pdf
https://gettysburgian.com/2014/11/haunted-g-burg-the-paranormal-pervades-campus/
https://www.historynet.com/o-sarah-sullivan-ballou-letter.htm
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