Ghost busters
By MICHAEL L. OWENS
The News Virginian

Brenda Gordon, standing, Allen Gross and Patricia Armstrong, of the
Waynesboro Paranormal Research Group, watch monitors display activity at
the Buckhorn Inn late Wednesday near Churchville. (ROSANNE
WEBER/Staff) 
 
CHURCHVILLE - Gretchen Bennett can't put her finger on why the man was
hanged from a tree.
All she can say is that a lot of people watched. It was for "ridicule
reasons."
"It was a long time ago, Civil War days or something," she whispered.
That much she can pick apart from the psychic image in her head.
And she knows it hurt. Bennett could feel the rope cut into her own
neck. Could actually feel her flesh stretch under the weight of her
body.
Then there's the story of the lonely gambler who has spent his eternity
in the front dining room.

A night for the ghosts
Eight members of the Waynesboro Paranormal Research Group spent all of
Wednesday night trying to pick apart such ghostly stories inside the
historic Buckhorn Inn near Churchville.
Some tales they collected from previous interviews.
"Everybody I've talked to has some sort of story about this place,"
group member Mark Shinn said.

Claims include a soldier who appears on the staircase. One inn waitress
once was spooked by a hand that grabbed her shoulder from behind, when
the only other person around was the waitress cleaning an adjoining
room.
Legend has it that there's a ghoulish explanation to the stains on the
hardwood floor of the coatroom. It's supposed to be the blood from the
stacks of arms and legs hacked off wounded Civil War soldiers.
Shinn, however, suspects a much less gruesome answer - it's the
discoloration left behind by wine caskets that likely were stored there.

As for the other tales? Well, those come from psychic images and the
cold spots that fill just a few feet of an otherwise warm room.
Then there's the imagination, kicked into overdrive when the hair stands
up on the back of your neck.
The heebie-jeebies spread fast among a group of people standing silently
in a dark room. Especially if it's a room at the Buckhorn Inn.
Even more so if it's the room one of the psychics refused to step foot
into again.

A funny thing happened
By the next morning, the paranormal researchers would capture by camera
mists floating in the tree limbs or in the woods behind the house.
They'd snap photos of "orbs" they suspect could be balls of spiritual
energy gliding through some of the rooms.
Almost from the outset, there were odd and unexplained events.
Drained camera batteries for a News Virginian photographer went from
annoying to eerie in the time it took to learn that dead batteries are
common on ghost hunts.

"That is a sign a lot of times," group leader Allen Gross said.
He's a retired coal miner with tales of crawling on hands and knees in
complete darkness a mile under the ground. He knows what it's like to
find his way to the surface just by following air currents, the
direction divined by following the coal dust as it falls from his
clothes.
Fading batteries could be a spirit sapping all the surrounding energy in
an attempt to manifest itself. To account for this, the paranormal
researchers often bring as much as five sets of batteries for
"everything."
Improperly recharged batteries likely were the culprits, the
photographer suggested.
Though, with a fresh set of borrowed batteries inside, she couldn't
explain why her flash began to repeatedly light up as she stood on the
front porch with the camera off.
"That's never happened before," she laughed.

The Buckhorn
With summer over, the evening air has a chilly tinge that already has
sent some people back to their cars for coats.
By the time the crescent moon creeps into the sky, those with just a
shirt on their backs began to wish they had brought a coat.
History paints the Buckhorn as a Civil War hospital, a gambling saloon
and a brothel. It's a cozy place, with at least three dining rooms
downstairs and even more bedrooms on the second floor.

Stonewall Jackson and his wife once spent a night there. And, many
soldiers from the battle of McDowell had arms and legs sawed off in
crude, painful surgeries. Then, the best doctor had a speedy saw instead
of a precise scalpel.
Rumor has it that the surgeries took place in the two front rooms of the
first floor. The front portion of the house is the oldest, with
everything from the staircase on back added on sometime soon after the
1990s.

Both psychics dispute the rumors, however, and instead swear that limbs
likely were hacked off upstairs. That's where they feel the misery.
Patricia Armstrong is a former school psychologist who dove into the
paranormal 20 years ago following a vision of and message from a woman
who died in a car accident.
Bennett, with a degree in parapsychology and astrology, works in the
jewelry department of the Waynesboro Wal-Mart.

There's more upstairs at the Buckhorn than misery, both psychics claim.
There's also the bedridden woman with rheumatic fever. And in the next
room stands the African-American nanny with a baby in a nearby crib.
Then there's the religious man - either a preacher or Bible salesman -
who seems able to sense the presence of everyone else in the room.
"The ones that are here are alive - in their dimension they're alive,"
Armstrong said.
In their dimension, it's the researchers who are otherworldly.
"The lady with rheumatic fever started screaming at us and telling us to
get out because she felt we were ghosts," Armstrong said.

Happy hunting
The hunt begins just before sundown with one psychic seeking impressions
inside the 195-year old building, and the other touring the outside.
To keep them from influencing each other, the two psychics are separated
for much of the night.
Even so, each one is sure there is a body buried next to the front
porch.
They also believe that everyone has psychic abilities. It's the erect
neck hair. It's the gut feeling not to go for a drive.

So, anyone in the inn could get an impression of a ghost, spirit, or
energy field at any time.
"If anyone feels something unusual, like the room going cold or
something passing through you, please document it," Armstrong said.
Results
For the most part, the paranormal researchers are more patient observers
than they are ghost hunters.

The tools of their after-hours trade consist of electronic gadgetry,
some psychic soul searching, and a lot of hope.
Curiosity keeps their eyes on film footage of an empty room for hours on
end. In near total darkness, they will ask unseen spirits to show
themselves, then silently wait 20 minutes or so for a sign.

Cables run along the floor of most rooms, connecting palm-sized cameras
to a pair of televisions in the ballroom downstairs.
There, they take turns hunching over a table set up on the dance floor.
Electronic recorders are tethered to the TVs, with picture tubes
oscillating from one dark room to the next.
The best pictures are taken in the dark, where there is less chance of
lights and shadows playing tricks on the eyes.

Once darkness fell, Gross grabbed a camera and set out for the woods
behind the inn. He'd snap random photographs to see if could catch
anything. A ghost, a glowing orb of energy, anything.
After several shots he shouts about an interesting capture: It appears
to be the glowing silhouette of a woman's face.
Minutes later he would debunk his ghost, ruling that the camera flash
had reflected off an odd-shaped tree limb.
"That's OK. That's how it goes sometime," an undaunted Shinn said.

Almost as much of the hunt takes place at home as it does in the
"haunted" house. Home is where they spend hour after hour staring at
film footage in search of anything they might have missed the first time
around.
There's also the time spent listening to tape recordings for EVPs, also
known as Electronic Voice Phenomenon. That's where voices not heard
during the first run through the house show up later on tape.
Shinn claims he caught one at the Presbytery Hill Cemetery behind the
Purple Foot restaurant in Waynesboro. There, tombstones include the
names of Confederate soldiers killed fighting the quick Battle of
Waynesboro.

While there, Shinn reeled into the tape the names etched over the
graves. Listening to the tape later, he heard a man's voice reply "yes"
after a name. Shinn said he also heard a "help me."
"When your personal instincts tell you what your instincts are telling
you, it's refreshing," Shinn said. "I like to have some confirmation in
what I'm feeling."

Contact Michael L. Owens at mowens@newsvirginian.com.