Ghosts of Long Island
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Ghosts of Long Island
by Brian Gaugler
While Long Island may not be known as a ufological or cryptozoological
hotspot to most, if there's one thing that the island does have plenty
of, it's ghosts. The most famous case from Long Island would without a
doubt have to be the "Amityville haunting", spawning a series of movies
and national interest in the events that took place in "High Hopes"
despite the case eventually being exposed as a hoax. Regardless of this
fact, reports of hauntings and ghostly experiences have being noted in
local newspapers for over a century, serving as a documentation of the
island's paranormal history.
While there are many cases that could be discussed and analyzed, for now
a small catalog of reports taken from that most Fortean of newspapers,
the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, shall serve as a quick illustration of the
nature of ghost reports near the end of the 19th century:
1) Visits The Earth Again - The Screams of a Murderer's Ghost Heard in
Port Jefferson (Aug. 11, 1889)
The residents of Port Jefferson were terrifed in this year by
mysterious, ear-piercing screams issuing from a barn on the Emmet
Darling property. It was known to the local residents as a place where a
double murder had taken place many years prior, ending with the
murderer, a Mr. Waters, hanging himself in said barn. The eerie screams
are said to have begun soon afterwards, lasting for several decades and
always ringing out from the barn roughly around midnight. Conventional
explanations, such as a creaky weather vane or the call of a nocturnal
bird, were put forth in order to explain the phenomenon, but all were
ruled out as not being able to adequately explain the phenomenon. The
screams eventually died out, but returned with a vengeance shortly
before the article was written, despite that Emmet Darling's aunt, who
lived at the property at the time, denied ever hearing the screams (one
suspects that she might have been in denial).
This article is interesting, not only because it took place in the town
next to mine, but because strange, highpitched screams have long been a
staple of Fortean phenomena. Indeed, as Loren Coleman writes in his book
Mysterious America, "This peculiar sound - also described like that of a
baby crying- often spills out of hanuted houses to bathe the locale in
eerie vibration. Strangely, the awesome Bigfoot seem to emit this sound,
as well as those elusive phantom panthers that prowl the landscape. And,
of course, the legendary banshee is famous for its terrible scream.
Often, a myriad of "unrelated" unexplained phenomena have the same
element in common."
Now, of course, no honest or sensible researcher would try to link
haunted houses to phantom panthers, or Bigfoot to the banshee, but it
has been increasingly noted by researchers that many other types of
phenomena do share many similar aspects. Whether this has any
significance towards their meaning, however, still remains a subject of
debate. (Note: In a later post, I plan on returning to the
characteristic of high pitched screams in anomalous phenomena reports,
and how it has been consistently included in reports throughout the
decades).
2) A Lively Ghost - Which Is Causing Consternation Near Far Rockaway
(Dec. 7th, 1885)
Ghosts of LongAs the heading of the article noted, the specter that was
seen regularly by "scores of persons" in the belfry of the Methodist
Episcopal Church was indeed a playful character, jumping and dancing
throughout the belfry. It also exhibited other curious behaviors, such
as "enlarging and decreasing in size according to the angle of
observation", or following certain witnesses and hanging around their
homes for hours. Some people even claimed to hear the bell of the church
ring at odd hours of the night.
In fact, one night, as the article notes, "Half the village declares
that at precisely ten o'clock the bell was tolled, and the other half is
laughing at the superstitution, as they call it. Immediately after the
tolling, three hearty amens were heard, and then the specter flattened
itself out on the roof. This was interpretated to be an attitude of
prayer."
Visit Brian Gaugler's website: forteanhistoricalarchive.blogspot.com
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