Everyone’s got a ghost story, from your grandma to your high school social studies teacher. In fact, some of the people that you least expect (and some skeptics as well), seem to have stories that they just can’t quite explain. One time, I remember talking to someone about ghost stories and he said, “Nothing’s really ever happened to me… well… except that time that heard my grandmother’s voice tell me to stop immediately when I was driving, and I narrowly avoided getting into a car crash that surely would have killed me.” Nope, nothing at all then.
So, this week, we decided to talk about our personal ghost stories as well as reach out to See You On The Other Side listeners to get their tales of the unexplained, so we could share them for this special episode. Wendy and I are joined by my sister, Allison from MilwaukeeGhosts.com as well as Scott Markus from WhatsYourGhostStory.com and we originally recorded it as a livestream on Facebook.
But there was a ghost in the machine that day, so we didn’t end up listening to several of the listener stories, because of technical issues. However, all of those stories have been saved for the audio podcast for your listening pleasure, including:
The ghost story Allison and my mother told us when we were kids when our parents lived across the street from a cemetery
Our family’s strange story of our great uncle seeing an “Angel In The Mirror” right before he died
A comforting ghost seen by our Patreon, Dr. Ned
Katie’s story, who as a young girl, was out on the road doing merchandise with a country singer calls us to let us know about a hotel she stayed at where the ghost got a little too friendly
Former Milwaukee ghost tour guide, Mike J., tells us of a childhood haunting in the “little pink house” that his family lived in
We’re doing more experimenting with recording the podcasts live during the lockdown of Coronavirus 2020, so thanks to everyone who’s been watching the livestreams.
For the song this week, we were inspired by Allison and my family story about our mother’s uncle who saw an angel in the mirror in the middle of the night, told his wife about it, went back to sleep, and never woke up. After hearing the tale since we were children, it seemed like it was about time that we dedicate a track to “The Angel In The Mirror”.
Far beyond its bloom only petals on the floor a broken flower wilts it won’t be pretty anymore When you hear the knock there’s nothing left to beg for how I’ve fought and how I tried to keep the lock on this door
Blinded by the love as she holds onto me the angel in the mirror is the last thing I see
Wake up in the night breathless from a dream When I open the door, I will find her ready for me. with open arms and a crooked smile it’s just a small mercy My struggle has ended I close my eyes and finally sleep
Blinded by the love as she holds onto me the angel in the mirror is the last thing I see Blinded by the love as she holds onto me the angel in the mirror is the last thing I see
With the world under quarantine for an indefinite amount of time and people everywhere being a little freaked out by the current circumstances of our COVID-19 isolation, we thought we’d brighten things up a little bit with some ghost stories that aren’t scary, but they’re happy!
In this episode, we talk about a ton of happy ghost stories and one not-so-happy one:
The Gallery Inn in San Juan, Puerto Rico which is haunted by the ghost of the husband of the owner, Manuco Gandia and the stories that the staff told me personally
Rudolph Valentino’s favorite haunts in Hollywood
The lovers that haunt the Miller Caves in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The spirit of North Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus and the ghost story there from my high school social studies teacher!
How naturalist John Muir saved his professor’s life after a psychic premonition
Milwaukee’s own Hungarian Baron, adventurer Dr. Stephan Borhegyi who still haunts the Milwaukee Public Museum
The ghosts of the Eastland Disaster and the ones that haunt Oprah’s Harpo Studios in Chicago (that’s the not so happy one)
It’s a fun episode for a weird time, but we hope you’ll enjoy these timeless tales of optimism from the Great Beyond.
Ghost stories are often meant to scare and shock, and those are awesome, but they don’t have to always be that way! As Allison says, “Ghost stories mean there’s an afterlife and when there’s life, there’s hope.” So for this week’s song, we wanted to play the heaviest, meanest song we could think of with the nicest lyrics we could think of. Here’s Sunspot with “Happy”!
I’m in such a good mood Bursting at the seams with bliss A moment of perfection that feels just so joyous
sugar, spice and everything nice Living in paradise This delight is magnified I got the whole world on my side
Rainbows and sunshine calling Puppies and hedgehogs crawling My cup runneth over and This life is but a dream Snuggles and rocking chairs Little hugs and teddy bears Did I mention that I’m so goddamn happy
Feeling so majestic So gleeful you could get sick Smiles and laughs and winks and my feet don’t touch the ground The call me Mr. Awesome Don’t need to feel caution This is my lucky day, love is all around.
Rainbows and sunshine calling Puppies and hedgehogs crawling My cup runneth over and This life is but a dream Snuggles and rocking chairs Little hugs and teddy bears Did I mention that I’m so goddamn happy
“What you think is weird is weirder than you think” – that’s the slogan that’s on the website of John E.L. Tenney and his weird lectures. That’s a fun turn of phrase but it took me a little bit to figure out what it means. We understand the idea of ghosts, we understand the idea of UFOs, we understand the concept of Bigfoot. Ghosts are the spirits of our consciousness surviving death after the physical body has died. UFOs are populated by beings that evolved on planets in some far off solar system and developed ships that can traverse the universe and they’re coming to visit. Just like us visiting the moon. Bigfoot is a kind of ape that we just haven’t been able to capture and put into a zoo yet. Even if we don’t believe in them, we grok the concepts.
But those explanations are fairly unsatisfactory because they don’t make a ton of sense. If aliens are just travelers from another planet, why are they so secretive? If our consciousness can survive bodily death, why do only some people show up sometimes? Where the #$%! are Bigfoot’s bones?! The way these things operate just doesn’t make sense with the rest of the way our universe works. So what we already think is weird (ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot) has to be weirder than we think (we don’t know how to wrap our heads around it!)
That’s why John Tenney is fascinating to listen to. Number one, it never sounds like he’s trying to get one over on you (he’s not selling salvation or life after death) and number two, he’s willing to entertain all kinds of ideas that you don’t usually hear from paranormal investigators because they don’t fit the established model.
While John has been researching the paranormal for over 30 years (his cut his teeth in the weird world by apprenticing to a Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theorist and then by becoming a researcher for Unsolved Mysteries), his interest was peaked as a young man by being pronounced dead in 1988 and then coming back. His heart stopped for two minutes and he was given a choice to either come back to earth or stay where he was. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital.
He had a show, Ghost Stalkers, on Destination America and you might have heard him on our podcast before right when the New York Times decided to get into the UFO business. But John really shines in person, when you just put a quarter in him and let him go. The very first time we met him, he was in a casino bar regaling us about witnessing an exorcism and had even met the notorious Father Malachi Martin and we were spellbound. We’ve seen his lectures before at the Michigan Paracon (he lives near Detroit) and when we found out he was coming to Wisconsin, we weren’t going to miss it!
In this episode, we take some time to talk to John before the show and then we take some of the concepts that he discussed in his lecture and try to unravel them a little bit for ourselves, including topics like:
John’s favorite paranormal story from Wisconsin (Eagle River’s Joe Simonton and the “pancakes from space”)
Could we be seeing ghosts by paranormal energy activating the “grandmother cell” inside our minds?
Are ghosts actually just time slips and the cases that John has worked that imply that
And of course, John’s idea of ghosts as timeslips instead of disembodied consciousness leads “perfectly” into this week’s song. There are some moments where it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the rest of the world, there are some minutes that you wish could be frozen in time and you could slip back to, those moments are “Perfect”.
With flood insurance and bodyguards, Humpty Dumpty bought a house of cards. I put a heart on layaway, but now I think tomorrow may be too late. And I say late, and I say late, and I say late, and I say…
It doesn’t matter if everything’s ugly, It doesn’t matter if it’s all unsafe. The baby’s out with the bathwater, The Rubicon was crossed today. It doesn’t matter if we ever notice, That the stars have all burnt out. It doesn’t matter if things are perfect, as long as everything’s perfect right now.
Some things are done before they start, Everything will always fall apart. The past is never that far away, but do you think that’s where I’m going to stay? And I say no, and I say no, and I say no, and I say I don’t think so.
It doesn’t matter if everything’s ugly, It doesn’t matter if it’s all unsafe. The baby’s out with the bathwater, The Rubicon was crossed today. It doesn’t matter if we ever notice, That the stars have all burnt out. It doesn’t matter if things are perfect, as long as everything’s perfect right…
Now, now now, I don’t wanna postpone my, Vow, vow vow, that this time I will own, How how how, I don’t care and I don’t know. Don’t know. Now, now now, I don’t wanna postpone my, Vow, vow vow, that this time I will own, How how how, I don’t care and I don’t know. Don’t know.
Be kind, take your time. Be kind, take your time.
With flood insurance and bodyguards, Humpty Dumpty bought a house of cards. The past is never that far away, but do you think that’s where I’m going to stay? And I say no, and I say no, and I say no, and I say I don’t think so.
It doesn’t matter if everything’s ugly, It doesn’t matter if it’s all unsafe. The baby’s out with the bathwater, The Rubicon was crossed today. It doesn’t matter if we ever notice, That the stars have all burnt out. It doesn’t matter if things are perfect, as long as everything’s perfect right…
Now, now now, I don’t wanna postpone my, Vow, vow vow, that this time I will own, How how how, I don’t care and I don’t know. Don’t know. Now, now now, I don’t wanna postpone my, Vow, vow vow, that this time I will own, How how how, I don’t care and I don’t know. Don’t know.
I first encountered criminal historian Gavin Schmitt while looking up information on my grandfather. My mother had told me about how her Polish cobbler father supported a family of six children through the Great Depression. One way was through being a groundskeeper at the local parish to get a discount on tuition at the Catholic School there. Another way, however, was by distributing payments in a not-quite legal local lottery operation called they called “Policy”. She talked about how her aunt had sewn special pockets in her father’s jacket to hide the winning numbers for when he went on his rounds. Sometime when my mother was a little girl in the mid-1940s, my grandfather was arrested as part of a John Doe gambling investigation and his picture was in the Mliwaukee newspaper. He was released and in the end, not charged with anything, but she was hoping I could find the paper.
So after exhausting the online archives of The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel and not having much luck looking for my not quite-notorious criminal ancestor, Leon Bohn, I found Gavin Schmitt’s book, Milwaukee Mafia: Mobsters in The Heartland. We tend to think of Chicago as the place for gangsters and it certainly was, and it seems like every dive bar in Wisconsin has a story about Al Capone coming to vist (indeed, if I were to believe all of them, I doubt Capone would have had a chance to actually commit any crimes!) But the Milwaukee mafia was able to get up to plenty of trouble on their own, the mob boss was nicknamed “The Mad Bomber” because of his penchant for blowing up people’s cars, for God’s sake!
Sixty years after our grandfather is arrested, my sister Allison was working on a special haunted history tour for the Italian Community Center in Milwaukee. She thought she might go to some older Italian hangouts and ask if they had any ghost stories, not even thinking about the Milwaukee mafia. One place that she visited on Brady Street, when she mentioned something about ghosts to the owner, he said, “Allison, I like your smile, but snitches end up in ditches.” And then he screamed at her, “Leave it alone! Leave it alone! Leave it alone!” I remember getting the call from her directly after and it was a mix of disbelief, sheer terror, but also, a fair share of amusement, that she’s gonna stumble onto some criminal conspiracy while looking for ghost stories for little old Italian ladies on Halloween.
Flash forward ten years after that, and while working on a new ghost tour route in Milwaukee, Allison uncovered some previously unheard hauntings of the old Italian neighborhood. So, it’s the perfect time to interview Gavin Schmitt about how some of his Milwaukee Mafia stories tie in to the various ghost stories of Cream City. Here’s some of the topics we cover:
Milwaukee’s scariest Polish one-armed man
How Milwaukee’s mob lawyer became obssessed with Nichelle Nichols (Uhura from Star Trek)
The Milwaukee Mafia’s Greatest “Hits” like Augie Mianaci and Louis Fazio
Allison’s ghost story from a potential mob hangout in Mequon (and a mobster that ended up in a ditch out there)
For the song this week, it was just too easy to take Allison’s experience at being yelled at by the old Italian bar owner and his simple and unforgettable rhyme, “Snitches End Up In Ditches”!
Money Women Sex all your heart’s desire.
Power Respect Wealth you best not wear a wire
Mr. Big made all this happen, so you better not betray Turn the keys to the ignition and you might get blown away.
You like the parties, ladies, and the things so nice. you had to know there was a price.
Now you’re in it for life with the gun and the knife a world of violence a code of silence You spill the blood on the saint you cut a deal with your fate but if you give it up to the feds then you’ll wind up
Dead men tell no tales about the made men who made them rich stoolies might stay out of jail but a snitch ends up in a ditch
Lucre Hookers Lust whatever you may feel
Fortunes Gambling You can bet your life we’ll kill ya if ya squeal
Mr. Big made all this happen, so you better not betray Turn the keys to the ignition and you might get blown away.
You like the parties, ladies, and the things so nice. you had to know there was a price.
Now you’re in it for life with the gun and the knife a world of violence a code of silence You spill the blood on the saint you cut a deal with your fate but if you give it up to the feds then you’ll wind up
Dead men tell no tales about the made men who made them rich stoolies might stay out of jail but a snitch ends up in a ditch
After serving in the US Army, Navy, and Air Force (I guess the Marines weren’t recruting that day!) Greg Lawson became a Sheriff’s Deputy and Mental Health Officer near Austin, Texas and has now been in law enforcement for almost three decades. In that time, he’s also pursued his interest in paranormal research, dabbled in acting, music, and has written several books, fiction and non-fiction on supernatural topics.
His new book is calledHow To Be A Paranormal Detective and it’s a how-to book hoping to help would be Mulders and Scullys in using the same skills he learned in trying to find the truth behind crimes to try and get the best evidence possible of paranormal activity.
In this interview we cover:
Some of Greg’s most peculiar cases
How he investigates a haunted place (lots to learn from this one!)
The importance of finding the terrestrial explanations first before jumping to paranormal conclusions
His work interviewing Roswell witnesses
The story from the interview that most affected me was the one Greg tells from his Pizza Hut Assistant Manager days about his employee that had a seizure right after saying “They’re here…” (you’ll love that one!) It’s fascinating and terrifying and we used that energy as inspiration for this episode’s song, “The Captured Soul”.
They’re here they appear they feed on fear and what they say you don’t need ears to hear
You’re beamed
to a dream
you’re frozen and can’t scream
your consciousness outside the atmosphere
There’s no escaping
hallucinating
you can’t run
from your fate
inside your mind
A prisoner locked in trapped and forgotten the captured soul with a body left behind
You can feel the unreal your brain a spinning wheel you know they’re there but you can’t reveal
Immobilized Paralyzed Delusional and hypnotized There’s no one you can beg, none to appeal
There’s no escaping hallucinating you can’t run from your fate inside your mind
A prisoner locked in trapped and forgotten the captured soul with a body left behind
Queen is once again one of the hottest bands around, 28 years after their beloved singer died, thanks to the amazing popularity of the biopic of Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody, as well as an Academy Award for Best Actor for the movie’s star, Rami Malek.
Even though Queen was already seemingly out of vogue by the time I started getting into music, the second tape I ever had was Queen’s Greatest Hits and at 13 years old, it blew my mind. Freddie passed away the November I was a freshman in high school and that brought attention back to the band enough where the deejay let me request “Bohemian Rhapsody” at our dances. Of course, we’d slow dance with our girlfriends to the mellow parts and then rock the f#$% out to the big riff when it came in. When Wayne’s World came out only a few months later and the everybody was headbanging in the car, it felt like it was a window into my teenage experience. That’s when I realized how universal the appeal of Queen really was.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” was always too hard to cover, so we just stuck with the easy ones, like “We Will Rock You” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, but they always had a place in my playlist. And still do, here’s a picture of Wendy and Scott from What’s Your Ghost Story at SXSW 2019 where we were partying to a Queen tribute band at the Good Omens launch party. The bald guy is the singer and he was an incredible performer. That dude had balls and we all knew it, because we could see them outlined in his full unitard!
That singer was fearless, and that’s what Freddie could inspire you to be, because as a frontman and a songwriter, he was as bold and audacious as they come. He made the line “I want to ride my bicycle” sound badass, he makes tough guys sing along to “Aw, you’re my best friend” and still think it’s cool! He could bounce from jazz to hard rock to opera in a song and it all felt natural. Not only was he an incredible guiding light for me but for millions around the world, and you can tell how deep is effect was, because people have been seeing his ghost now for decades.
Just in March of 2019, a listener to 97x, a Classic Rock station in the Quad Cities claimed that he captured a picture of Freddie Mercury’s ghost high above the stage at a Queen tribute concert in Moline, Illinois. Now it’s obviously just the way the lights are interacting with the fog machine and it looks like one of those images where people see Jesus with the sun peeking through the clouds, but it’s still pretty fun once you see it.
Someone posted in the Unexplained Mysteries discussion forum that Freddie visited them while they were listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, the best part is how he describes what the singer was wearing.
I was listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen last night and the visage of Freddy Mercury coalesced into cohesion right there in my living room!
he was wearing these snappy red leather chaps and and knee high motorcycle boots!
I said “Freddy what are you doing in my living room?” and he just snapped both fingers and vanished before my eyes!
outpatient777 – April 16th, 2009
Now the next line he asks, “Am I schizophrenic?” so it’s probably just a silly troll post, but this was a long time before Bohemian Rhapsody came out as a movie. However, they’ve never stopped playing Queen songs on Classic Rock radio, so those songs are never too far from our imagination.
Freddie also visited Jennifer Bennett, a California girl raised in the 70s, she woke up a couple of days after the 22nd anniversary of his death with the lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody” stuck in her head, and what she says was his energy. She says:
Freddie and I have never been particularly close so his presence was curious. I was a bit embarrassed to to have felt visited by him, or at least visited by the energy that he embodies. Freddie Mercury – bold, brazen, impressive, self assured, diva. It felt as if I have something to learn from him. And, of course, to hear Bohemian Rhapsody as if it was plugged directly into my brain… Jeez. The power ballad that puts all others power ballads to shame. Yet, it was only the first 3 lines I heard this morning, over and over.
She talks about how she admired him for his brash fearlessness and how she felt emboldened by his energy. Was it Freddie flitting in and out of her dreams, coming to her with a message that she needed to hear?
But while Mr. Fahrenheit might have visited Jennifer Bennett once in the morning, his ghost spent much more time with Christine Burgess. The Decemeber 15th, 1996 News Of The World (a tabloid newspaper that Queen named an album after!) features a story about how Christine said she started an affair with the ghost of Freddie Mercury shortly after his death.
Christine’s husband was said to be frustrated that Christine kept comparing him to Freddy, who he called “Mr. Perfect”. But poor Stuart also insisted that his wife was “mentally unstable” and that seemed to be proven true, because Christine would show up at the home of Mary Austin, Freddie’s sometime lover and longtime companion. Burgess said that she deserved to move into the home, which was left to Austin by Mercury, because “she and Freddie were lovers in a former life.” It wasn’t just Mary, but she hounded Queen guitarist, Brian May, as well as Freddie’s friends. And she wouldn’t be deterred, the article ends with her still claiming:
“These people are frightened because Freddie is with ME.”
I feel him around a lot. I don’t want to be too mystical about it but he is very much a part of what we do.
Brian May about Freddie Mercury
This was right when Brian was producing an animated special called One Night In Hell based on some art he has collecting, but more interestingly they were a about to release three new Freddie Mercury songs that they had found in the archives on a record called Queen Forever. So, obviously he was thinking a lot about his departed friend and hearing his voice in the studio might have brought back some of those familiar feelings. Who knows, maybe Freddie was with them, just like he visited Jennifer a few years earlier.
There has been feeling from Rami and Brian along with the film’s directorBryan Singer that Freddie is watching them prepare for filming. Rami believes Freddie’s presence is very much on-set and with him wherever he goes, including when he’s at home practicing singing Queen songs… Rami has been dreaming of Freddie telling him about how he performed on stage, showing him his moves and how it is to be a rock star.
Anonymous source from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody
But speaking of director Bryan Singer, he has himself been embroiled in controversy over sexual allegations of seducing underage boys. And it certainly doesn’t help that in many people’s minds he’s associated with Kevin Spacey, since Singer was the one who really launched the disgraced actor’s career by directing him to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in The Usual Suspects. When Malek was nominated for the Academy Award, he was immediately interviewed for the Los Angeles Times, and when pressed about the allegations against Singer, he brings up Freddie’s ghost again.
I didn’t know much about Bryan. I think that the allegations and things were, believe it or not, honestly something I was not aware of, and that is what it is. Who knows what happens with that … but I think somehow we found a way to persevere through everything that was thrown our way.
Perhaps that was Freddie himself doing it, because we wanted to make a product that was worthy of him. Who knows?
Rami Malek
So, while Freddie’s physical body has been gone almost three decades now, it looks like his spirit isn’t going anywhere. Whether or not it was actually his consciousness visiting Brian May and Rami Malek or it was just his personality was so larger than life that it’s easy to mentally create the energy in our own heads, it doesn’t really matter.
Freddie Mercury is still alive every time we sing along to words we don’t even understand like “Scaramouche scaramouche will you do the Fandango?” Freddie Mercury is still alive every time a teenager bangs his head to that incredible guitar riff and then grabs his partner to slow dance at the end. Freddie’s dead, but we bring him back to life every time we let it rip to a Queen song.
Both Jenny Wade and Julia Buccola are immortalized today and given nearly sainthood status as two women who died tragically and have left behind some legendary stories,
First, we will go to Mount Carmel Cemetery in the south Chicago suburb of Hillside, Illinois. Perhaps no cemetery illustrates the equality that death brings to all of us. No matter how glamorous or ordinary, how wealthy or struggling, or how we lived our lives, we all physically end up in the same place. Nowhere is this more true than in Mount Carmel Cemetery where the executors of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in interred in the same ground as some of their victims. Warring Mafia henchmen and leaders alike, are resting peacefully alongside their rivals. This dichotomy may not be more stark when considering that criminals like Charles Dion O’Bannion, “Machine Gun Jack” McGurn, Roger Touhy, Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, Sam Giancana and even Al Capone is buried at the same cemetery as religious leaders like Cardinal Bernardin.
On the opposite side of the cemetery from Al Capone is the beautiful gravesite of Julia Buccola Petta, who is considered a modern-day saint. Julia’s life was tragically taken at the young age of 20 while giving birth to a stillborn infant. She was buried in her wedding dress under a nondescript grave, sharing her coffin with her baby. At the time, she was remembered by her surviving family and a newly widowed husband. Now she is remembered by a whole city.
After her death, Julia’s mother began having nightmares. These nightmares consisted of her daughter begging and pleading to be removed from the earth from where she had recently been buried, as if she had been buried alive.
This started a six-year battle by her mother to have Julia’s body exhumed. Finally, the church and cemetery agreed to go through with the task to appease the elder Buccola. Their findings were remarkable.
Decomposition of the human body begins almost immediately and it tends to be a rapid process. Knowing this, all of those present during the excavation expected to see nothing but bones once the casket lid was opened. To their complete surprise, Julia’s body looked as if she were still living.
According to those who witnessed this first-hand, her skin was still fresh and soft to the touch. She looked as though she was merely sleeping. While Julia appeared completely unchanged, her infant was in the expected condition; nonexistent other than skeletal remains.
A monument was erected on Julia’s grave depicting Julia standing on her wedding day. There are two photographs attached to the base of the monument. One is Julia on her wedding day while the other was taken the day her body was exhumed, just before reburial.
Those who knew the story immediately considered Julia a saint. She died while giving birth to her first child and her body was proven to be incorruptible. She was an instant heroine for Chicago’s Italian-American women.
Indeed, Julia has been seen outside of her grave and without the help of an exhumation. Her ghost has been seen walking the grounds of the cemetery in the area nearest to her Harrison Street gravesite.
For the most part, she has been seen at night, but there is at least one notable daylight encounter where a lost little boy was eventually found holding Julia’s hand. When the worried parents finally found their child, Julia vanished.
Julia’s memory and inspirational past continues to live on throughout Chicago and, in particular, in the neighborhood around the cemetery.
Some 600 miles away in the living monument to one of America’s darkest events, Jennie Wade stands as a symbol to all the innocence lost during the Civil War. Two opposing armies clashed over three days in 1863. In all, over 175,000 soldiers would fight relentlessly around the town of Gettysburg, overrunning a town that previously only boasted some 2,400 residents. Once the smoke had cleared, 50,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in the enormous, sprawling, battle. Remarkably, only one civilian was killed. It was 20-year-old Jennie Wade.
Wade, a born and raised Gettysburg native, went to her sister Georgia’s house as the fighting broke out to tend to her and her one-week-old nephew, Louis. Instead of hiding out in the basement, Jennie was at work in the kitchen, baking bread for Union soldiers. The intensity of the fighting was outrageous, with hot spots of action popping up and shifting constantly. Perhaps, to the Wade family, they were growing apathetic to the danger around them. After all, on day one alone, their house was hit by an estimated 150 bullets. On the morning of day three of the fighting, this house saw one bullet too many. Slicing through two doors, striking Jennie in the shoulder, continuing through her heart, only to emerge from the other side of her, coming to rest in her corset, one single bullet killed Jennie instantly.
Just days later, Jennie’s fiancé would also be killed in battle, even before learning of his love’s demise.
Due to the trajectory, many believe the bullet was fired from a sniper’s nest, possibly from the Farnsworth House, some 800 feet away. Immediately after her death, her body was taken down to the cellar of the house, which seems to be the most haunted part of the property
Today, Jennie is rightfully immortalized. Her family was granted a pension as the family of a fallen soldier would since she died while serving the Union cause. The house she died in is now a National Monument and a museum while a statue of her stands out front. Her grave site is one of only two female graves in the country to fly a perpetual American flag. The other person is Betsy Ross.
The Jennie Wade House is one of the dozens of known haunted sites around Gettysburg. EVPs are commonly recorded by paranormal investigators. There are claims of colored ghost lights appearing throughout the structure. However, is it only Jennie who is still inhabiting the home? Before the war, Jennie Wade’s father, James, was arrested for not returning found money and sentenced to two years of solitary confinement in the notoriously haunted Eastern State Penitentiary. By the time he was released, he was a broken, mentally damaged soul. He ended up spending the rest of his life residing in the Adams County Alms House, an asylum/poor farm. Today, the museum’s cellar contains a blanket-covered mannequin, reproducing the scene of Jennie’s body laying here after her death. Many speculate that it’s Jennie’s father who watches over this scene, still trying to protect his lost daughter. People in the area have felt the unmistakable sensation of a hand grabbing them firmly, usually sending the unsuspecting individual running across the room.
It’s Mike from your favorite paranormal and pop culture podcast coming atcha with the weirdest and most interesting stories that we saw this week. Here’s some of the best news you might have missed!
The video, filmed in Anchorage, Alaska, appears to show a mysterious object plunging to the ground with a trail of thick smoke behind it. No one knows what it is yet.
In the last two years, scientists, politicians, and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject of UFOs and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.
Here we go. Unidentified: Inside America’s UFO Investigation will feature new evidence, video footage, plus interviews with former military personnel. Is Tom DeLonge a hero, stooge, or charlatan?
Speaking of Vince Neil, he spent some time in the wilderness in the early 90s when he left Mötley Crüe and went solo. After a few years they patched up their differences and when he came back into the band, their comeback album was called Generation Swine. Along with a few new tracks they also tried to Nine Inch Nails up their occult classic “Shout At The Devil” by adding some electronics and loops. You might have never heard it, so here’s your chance!
Next week, we’re bringing on everyone’s favorite drive in movie host, Joe Bob Briggs – so subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher here to get it right away when it comes out!
Happy Friday !It’s your weird friend Mike again and I hope everyone had as good a Valentine’s Day as Dan Aykroyd did in Ghostbusters…
Hey now! But just because love was in the air doesn’t mean that there also weren’t spirits as well. Here are the most interesting paranormal stories this week…
Cryptocurrency has been all the rage for speculative investors for the past couple of years. Feeling lucky? A Texas psychic says that she can predict Bitcoin prices, maybe it’s time for me to invest!
Former Major Leaguer Jose Canseco is following up his tweets last week about aliens and time travel with an offer to accompany him on a search for the sasquatch! It only costs $5,000 and the spots are limited to 5 people. There’s even a phone number to sign up. Call 702-374-3735 for details (and then tell us if you go!)
Al Ula is a remote corner of Saudi Arabia home to a pre-Arab people long since disappeared and proclaimed by the Prophet Mohammed to be been haunted by the evil djinn. In fact, in 2012 the Saudi Arabian government ordered the area open, only to re-close it after students started reported djinn sightings. But even the djinn can’t stop capitalism and they’re going to try and turn it into a tourism destination. Is it just me, or does that sound like the beginning of a horror movie?
Probably because hauntings are never too far from my mind, my 2-year old often asks about ghosts. She hasn’t seen one yet (even though I’ve looked in the closet a few times) but lots of kids say they see them. Some might actually see them, but it looks like there’s also an answer in developmental psychology.
Speaking of kids seeing ghosts, Mos Def, Kid Cudi, and Yeezus himself combine forces on this track. Kanye and Cudi named their partnership after this song and it’s a perfect one to listen to while you read this week’s newsletter. Click here to listen to the song.
If you haven’t heard this last episode with author Louis Proud, you shouldn’t miss it. (Click here to listen.) It will make you think in new ways about poltergeists and Spontaneous Human Combustion (What?! You don’t think about those things all the time?)
The whole team will be be back the saddle for the next episode and we’ll see YOU on the other side of the weekend!
While the witches in the United States are casting hexes on President Trump, they’re doing the opposite in Russia. Is Putin harnessing the supernatural power of Baba Yaga and is that scarier than everyone abandoning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Hey, it’s the weekly Avi Loeb report! Currently the nation’s most vocal academic to be carrying the flag for the real possibility of alien life being closer than we think, he’s been profiled by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and now Chicago gets in on the fun.
When I was in college, I sometimes thought my dorm room was haunted. Things would never be where I thought they would be and then they would mysteriously reappear in the exact same location. Sometimes within minutes. I thought that was weird but I chalked it up to my college lifestyle, which made David Lee Roth look like a monk. Now this girl discovered an actual nightmare, her closet had a real bogeyman.
James Brown has been dead over a decade and it’s taken us this long to get a good conspiracy theory going over it. Is it believable? Well, you’ll have to read it and see. But if the only thing it does is get you to pull up some of his old performances on YouTube, then it’s worth the investigation.
This isn’t just a hit job article written by skeptics, it’s co-written by someone studying parapsychology, so there’s something worth reading here. It details all the reasons that if we’re going to prove the existence of psychic phenomena, it’s not going to be with your gut, it’s gotta be in the lab. We’re too eager to believe, especially when we want to talk to our relatives who’ve gone over to the other side.
Thinking about the last article also made me think about this deep cut from the early 90s. It’s a quintessential slice of MTV Alternative Rock and while it’s a little bit “Grunge By The Numbers” there’s a simple message that’s always resonated a little bit the me. “Why don’t you believe in your own god?” Does that make the members of Dig secretly Gospel of Thomas-style Gnostics? Nah, it’s probably just some stoner poetry.
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We’ll see you on the other side of the weekend!
A rock band's journey into the afterlife, UFOs, entertainment, and weird science.