Spooks
at center of conference
By
SEAN HILLIARD
Evening Sun Reporter
Spooky
buildings, haunted cemeteries and abandoned battlefields all have at least one
thing in common - people out exploring them and trying to spot spirits from the
past.
So
getting a lot of these ghost hunters together in one place, such as what happened
at the Wyndham Gettysburg Hotel in Straban Township on Saturday, one would think
strange things would happen.
But
in reality at the Ghost World Conference, having all of these people together
who have had paranormal experiences only really nets you one thing - a good story
or two.
That's
because, according to Ghosts of Gettysburg author Mark Nesbitt, there's only one
thing that every ghost hunter has in common - some degree of skepticism.
"I'm
a skeptic. As a writer you're trained to be skeptical," Nesbitt said. "If
someone comes up with the answer tomorrow (to what causes the paranormal), I have
plenty of other things I can write about."
And
at the conference, which started Friday night and ends today, none of the speakers
or attendees had the answer to what causes people to occasionally spot spirits
while visiting different places or photographing them.
But
they did have some good stories.
Joseph
Svehla, of Hanover, has given ghost tours in
Gettysburg
since his retirement and is the manager of Ghostly Images. In his experiences
since starting to give tours inside the Jennie Wade House in 2003, he's seen lots
of odd things.
Up until 2005, he always told tourists that he'd never seen
a ghost personally. That was before Svehla was coming down the stairs of the house
one day with a group of boys from Ohio and glanced over to a landing where he
saw a young boy in a white shirt and black suspenders. The boy looked up, noticed
Svehla and darted out of his view into a room that was locked.
Then
there's the story of a what Svehla calls a "true skeptic," a man on
a tour who was so unbelieving that he didn't even pay attention to the guide while
being taken on a tour. That only lasted until they got to the cellar of the house
where Jennie Wade, the only civilian who was killed during the Battle of Gettysburg,
was shot. The man, and others on the tour, claimed to feel a chill, and then the
man yelped when he said he felt something hug him. He ran screaming out of the
house, jumped over a brick wall and got into his car, slamming the door shut behind
him.
Svehla,
who looks more like a banker than ghost tour guide, tells these stories without
once changing the serious expression on his face. Even when asked why he thinks
some of them happened, he never shows anything other than earnestness.
"Maybe
the spirits were saying 'Hey, pay attention. We're here,'" Svehla said of
the hugged skeptic.
Nesbitt,
who has written six books about ghosts in Gettysburg after living there for 30
years, spent part of his time in the borough as a park ranger at Gettysburg Military
Park.
"The
official view of the National Park Service is that (ghosts) don't exist,"
Nesbitt said, "but even as a ranger, I heard stories from different people
about weird experiences at the park."
One
of the oddest Nesbitt's heard involved a student at Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary.
The seminarian woke up late one night to see a middle-aged man standing with his
hands clenched in front of him in a blue uniform with nothing showing from the
waist down. The view of the man's bottom half wasn't blocked by anything, there
was simply nothing there. The future minister screamed at the man, and started
to get out of bed, thinking he was in danger, then said a few prayers. When he
opened his eyes, the man was gone.
Nesbitt
said after the student told him the story, he showed the seminarian several pictures
of generals from the Civil War, and, without hesitating, pointed to one picture.
It was a photograph of Maj. Gen. John Reynolds, the highest ranking Union officer
to die at the Battle of Gettysburg. Reynolds had been shot in the back of the
head not 500 feet from the seminary, and it is believed that the ambulance that
carried Reynolds away from the battle took him past a point not far from where
the seminarian's room is.
"We
never know what's going to be true tomorrow," said Jordan Umstattd, a member
of the New Jersey Ghost Hunter Society who lives in Lehigh Valley. "There
might be some new technology or I might get bumped in the head and see the ghost
of a general walk down this hallway."
Nesbitt
considers his research the study of death, specifically what happens after dying.
"This
is the ultimate question," Nesbitt said. "We're spending billions on
going to space or travelling to the bottom of the sea to study a squid. I don't
care about that. I want to know what happens when I die."
And
for Nesbitt, that question that no one can answer is something he says he'll keep
searching for.
"Besides,
neither you or me are going to space or the bottom of the ocean," he said.
He
flashed a smile and raised his eyebrows.
"But
we're both going to die one day."
