Long shadows fall across the doorway, their length and darkness solidifying as the last remnants of the setting sun slip below the horizon. It’s late October and the days are short now.
As a woman hurries to finish cleaning the windows before the last light disappears, she stoops to retrieve a dropped rag from the floor. Then the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
Clenching the rag a little too hard, she ignores the bristling hair and stands up, only to feel a shiver ripple up her spine. She’s been alone all day and knows, without a doubt, there is no one near. Still, she turns her head to take a look.
Although the room is empty, she feels a presence. She steps back against the wall, taking comfort in the cool solidity of the wood. While she waits, with her blood pounding through her veins, the wind whirls a dried leaf across the porch, but otherwise there is nothing to explain what her body is detecting.
Nothing.
It’s a feeling she’s had before. And while she tells herself it’s nonsense or just her imagination — she doesn’t step away from the wall. There is something there, not someone, for surely she’d be able to tell if another living, breathing human being was in the room. But there is a presence, a shimmering, or perhaps a shift of light that alerts her to the existence of whatever being has chosen to manifest itself at this place and at this time.
It is a ghost.
As humans, we are connected to the time we live in, unable to break from the pattern of night and day that rules our daily lives, but ghosts appear to be freer to choose when they appear and how long they stay.
What seems to ground ghosts, and to act as an anchor for their flights between levels of existence, is place. Whether it is memories of their human forms that bring them back to a place or the place itself, ghosts or hauntings are as inextricably linked to their location as a prisoner to his cell.
Ghost sightings have been reported in just about every possible place: old houses both abandoned and occupied, farm houses, churches, shipwrecks, and even old factories. In Tiny Township, with its relatively long history, there seems to be a concentration of hauntings, with many of them associated with the older historical buildings and with events that happened long ago.
There are many theories as to why ghosts are seemingly stuck at some locations. In some instances, the ghost does not realize that they are dead and, along the lines of the movie Sixth Sense, are attempting to continue living their life as if it had never ended. In other cases, the spirit has such strong ties to the location or the possessions there that they will not leave. More commonly, and the type of motivations often associated with ghosts, is that they experienced a very traumatic event, either a killing or accident, and are bound to relive the event over and over.
For Billy Walsh, the founder and Director of the Ontario Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Research Society (OGH), the reasons ghosts come back are varied. Often, the link is with the location, but it also may be to protect a loved one or to say goodbye, but ultimately he admits there’s no way to know.
“Since death is the final frontier, why some come back and others don’t … we’ll know that ourselves one day.”
One of the common myths surrounding hauntings is that ghosts of unsolved crimes have returned for justice, but as Benjamin Radford of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine writes, “If murder victims whose killings remains unsolved are truly destined to walk the ear th and haunt the living, then we should expect to encounter ghosts nearly everywhere … Using the most recent numbers, that’s about 11,000 unsolved murders per year, and 110,000 over the course of only 10 years, and probably well over a million over the course of the 20th century in America alone.”
Walsh says it’s not impor tant whether the ghosts are there but whether they can be seen. Often, a ghost won’t manifest until the right person is present. That is someone who is sensitive to ghosts and their energies. It is an idea that rings true for many of us, who have known or known of someone who seems to ‘sense’ other presences as if tuning into an instinct that is less developed or buried in all of us.
A former employee of Discovery Harbour, the hot spot of hauntings in Penetanguishene, described an instance when a young boy stood petrified outside the Officer’s Quar ters at midday, refusing to enter despite coercion from his parents and reassurances that it was safe to enter.
His only explanation had been that “he doesn’t want us to (come in).”
Local legend claims that an officer who froze to death on a winter’s eve still guards the quar ters.
The same is true for houses. A house often goes for years without any manifestations until the ‘right’ person moves in.
“A person can live in a house for years, without any paranormal events,” says Walsh, “but as soon as a ‘sensitive’ person comes in, within 30 minutes you can hear banging, etc.”
Walsh has experienced this.
As the founder of OGH, Walsh said he has heard banging, scratching, voices, seen deep dark shadows, had things moved or damaged, seen unusual water spots or blood, vortexes, faces, streaks, mist, the list goes on …
Ghost hunting is not new.
According to Walsh, there are many reasons why humans are compelled to pursue the paranormal. Some are seeking an actual answer to the age-old question of life after death, and who better to ask than a ghost? Others come out for the thrill of the hunt or to scare themselves, while the more ambitious types are hoping to be famous with a television show. Regardless, there are those, and Walsh counts himself as one of those, who take their work very seriously.
“We view it as a science, to be treated with the respect it deserves.”
The science aspect of it is where it gets tricky.
While there are all sor ts of devices for detecting ghosts, including Geiger counters, Electromagnetic Field (EMF) detectors, ion detectors, and infrared cameras, it has never been proven any of the equipment actually detects ghosts. Any anomalous reading of the meters could indicate the presence of a spirit, but there is so little known about what a ghost actually is that it is nearly impossible to provide verifiable proof.
Walsh has all the proof that he needs and says he could write a book on all the paranormal experiences he has had, from seven-foot dark shapes standing on the lawn, to a jet-black human torso rising up from two feet of water to stare at him. Ask anyone who has ever worked upstairs at the Keating House at Discovery Harbour and they too have little doubt that ghosts exist.
One interpreter, after seeing a cradle rocking on its own, bolted down the stairs and into the yard, refusing to ever return upstairs again.
It’s a common response to hauntings and while Walsh admits to being scared at times, he says as a Ghost Hunter he really has no fear of them and his concern is more for the living than the dead. Giving in to your fear and running through a dark forest or an old factory is where the real danger of ghost hunting comes from.
On his website, he advises would-be hunters to check out the potentially haunted location during the day to get a lay of the land and any possible hazards. He offers tips for new hunters and most impor tantly, and this is his number-one rule: never hunt alone. For those looking for more information on ghosts and hunting, see his website at http://ontarioghosthunters.bravehost.com