Gettysburg
ghost stories pull in believers
By
T.W. BURGER
GETTYSBURG,
Pa. - Ghost researcher and author Jeff Belanger confessed that he has never seen
a ghost.
"I
still believe, though," he said. "And that is based on the number of
people I've interviewed who believe. I look in their eyes, and they say they saw
something, and I believe them."
Belanger
was one of three organizers of the Ghost World Supernatural Symposium Conference
that was held last week in Gettysburg.
The
site of one of the biggest battles in American history, which left thousands dead
and dying, Gettysburg might be viewed as a ghostly convention in and of itself.
"Every
street corner has its ghost tours, and the legends around the battlefield are
too numerous to mention," Belanger said. "You don't have to be psychic
to feel it. All you need is an understanding of what took place, right at your
feet. It really is a powerful place."
Loring
Shultz, who owns the Farnsworth House Inn on Baltimore Street, said the modern-day
fascination with ghosts in Gettysburg got started in the basement of his business.
The
brick walls of the old inn are peppered with damage from rounds fired as Union
and Confederate troops fought up and down the street in front. Soldiers died in
the house. Jenny Wade, the only civilian casualty of the battle, was shot through
the heart in a house across the street.
Farnsworth
House employee Patty O'Day began telling ghost stories to goose-pimpled tourists
in the inn's spooky basement. "That was in 1986, and everybody laughed at
her," Shultz said. "Now there are 10 or 12 groups in town giving ghost
tours. I was born and raised here, and I've never seen anything like it. It's
phenomenal."
Shultz
has never seen a ghost, but he knows people who believe they have.
"Everybody's got their
thing, you know," he said.
The
point of the symposium was to bring together paranormal investigators and parapsychologists
from around the world, Belanger said, and to develop a central repository of information
that researchers worldwide can access.
Vince
Wilson of the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society said, "The general public's
interest (in the paranormal) is booming like it never has before. ... Now people
from all walks of life can contribute to the newest discoveries and techniques"
into the research of phenomena.
Despite
cases in which researchers have been fooled by tricksters, Belanger and his partners
said that "evidence overwhelmingly suggests that there is indeed reason to
believe in psychic powers," but information from researchers has never been
cataloged and shared.
"Through
suggestions and proposals made by attendees of the Ghost World Symposium, and
through input from the parapsychology community, we hope to change the face of
ghost research forever," Wilson said.
