About six months after moving in, the couple noticed something like footsteps sounding upstairs, usually in the afternoon. An examination revealed no culprit, either human or animal, as the source of the noises. Mr. Daniels concluded that the noises must have been caused by the afternoon sun, heating the wood in the upstairs floor, which created the sounds. His initial concern had been that a coon had somehow gotten into the house.
Mrs. Daniels, on the other hand, was not satisfied. True, she usually heard them in the afternoon when she was in the house alone, but she did not always hear “footsteps” on sunny days. However, a few funny sounds in an otherwise pleasant home was hardly a major concern.
She wrote her son, Buck, about the noises, but otherwise simply learned to ignore them.
One fall afternoon, she distinctly heard footsteps. She walked to the bottom of the stairs and yelled, fussing about whoever was tramping around, making so much noise. The house became eerily quiet. Then, very distinctly, she heard the sound of a single marble rolled across the wooden floor.
Mrs. Daniels hurried upstairs to see what caused the noise. Nothing. Nobody. No marble.
The whole incident was so peculiar that she wrote her son, Buck, about it. Several months ago, Mr. Daniels had made it very clear that there was nothing extraordinary about hearing random noises in a quiet house.
At the end of December 1962, Buck returned home for the New Year’s holiday with two guests: Buck’s platoon sergeant and the sergeant’s wife. Both Buck and the sergeant had been required to work over Christmas. The sergeant had charge of quarters duty and Buck has served as his assistant.
Everyone decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve staying up until midnight to bid farewell to 1962. Mr. Daniels, who was on various medications for health issues, politely declined to stay up or enjoy the fine Kentucky whiskey, which Mrs. Daniels had bought for their guests. He bid them a goodnight at 9 p.m. and retired for the evening.
The four, Mrs. Daniels, Buck, the sergeant, and the sergeant’s wife, sat around chatting about numerous subjects. As the flames in the fireplace crackled and burned merrily, it was not quite 11 p.m. when the sergeant’s wife brought up the subject of the Civil War and traditional Southern ghost stories. A New York City girl, she always found gothic Southern ghost stories mysterious and romantic.
It was at that point Buck mentioned the ghostly phenomenon his mother had been experiencing. The sergeant’s wife was intrigued. Mrs. Daniels replied, “Modern suburban homes do not have Civil War ghosts walking around in them.”
“But you’ve really heard footsteps?” asked the sergeant’s wife.
“Yes,” answered Buck.
“Only in the afternoon and not always,” Mrs. Daniels replied. She didn’t actually wish to discuss the sounds in the house with her guests. Her husband, Mr. Daniels, would not be pleased.
Her son, however, was just warming up to the subject. Due to his mother’s letters, he had been reading up on Spiritualism and ghosts. According to Buck, the last night of the calendar year might be an optimal time for a séance.
Mrs. Daniels was reluctant for several reasons. Her husband would not approve of such silliness as a séance, besides she remembered what the bible had to say about trafficking with familiar spirits. Finally, she had thoroughly been enjoying the Kentucky whiskey herself and while, as a lady, she was certainly not tipsy, she did feel relaxed and a bit mellow.
However, Buck persisted and the sergeant and his wife seemed thoroughly intrigued by the notion.
Finally, Mrs. Daniels agreed. The men took four chairs from the dining room and set them in a circle in front of the fireplace. Buck threw another log on the fire and dimmed the lights. The four sat in a circle, silently holding hands and concentrating.
After several minutes, Mrs. Daniels began to feel extremely foolish and said, “This isn’t doing anything. We might as well stop.”
“We must need a Spirit Guide to act as our control,” Buck said thoughtfully.
The sergeant joked, “How about an Indian guide? Didn’t this used to be Injun Country?”
Mrs. Daniels, who was very unhappy with the whole game, answered, “Everywhere in America used to be Indian Country.”
To her exasperation, Buck replied, “We could try an Indian guide.”
At which point, Mrs. Daniels said to Buck: “Maybe you should call your great, great Grandmother, Little-White-Flower-Whatever.”
“Great, great Grandmother?”
“Well, supposedly,” answered Buck, turning to the sergeant’s wife, “My Dad’s mother had an ancestor who married a Cherokee woman in the 18th century. Nobody knows if it’s true. My Grandma told me that this woman’s Christian name had been recorded in a family bible, but that bible got lost in a fire.”
“Oh,” said the sergeant, who had really enjoyed a good bit of the Kentucky whiskey. He picked up his glass and raised it like a toast, “To Little White Flower in the Happy Hunting Grounds!” He took a swallow and rejoined hands with his wife.
Behind Buck’s sergeant, Mrs. Daniels spied an orb of light manifesting in the fireplace. As Mrs. Daniels watched open-mouthed, it rose several inches above the flames and hovered, like a glowing, orange and blue lit ball. Then it dropped and faded back into the flame. Just before the orb melted completely back into the fire, the sergeant’s wife exclaimed, “Oh, look!” It vanished as Buck and the sergeant turned around.
It was then Mrs. Daniels and the others heard the countdown for midnight on the TV set in the other room, announcing the arrival of 1963.
Nothing more unusual happened that night.
Buck and his sergeant and the sergeant’s wife headed back to their base after a couple of days.
After they left, Mrs. Daniels still heard the footsteps from upstairs in the afternoons. However, Mrs. Daniels began to notice something new. She also began to find small triangular stones, just one or two at a time, around the house. They particularly turned up in the living room where the fireplace was located. The stones looked vaguely like arrowheads.
She’d dust an area, then return and find little triangular stones. She found them under the edge of the couch in the living room. She would clean them up and then more stones would reappear when she came back to that spot again.
She asked her husband if he had started bringing home odd shaped rocks. Mr. Daniels denied purposely bringing any rocks home.
One February afternoon, Mrs. Daniels was laying on her back, stretched out reading on the living room couch. Very tired, she dozed and napped for awhile. When she awoke suddenly, she experienced a sense of overwhelming dread. A heavy weight pressed down on her chest. She was unable to move or speak and it was difficult to breathe. Finally, she managed to gasp, “Dear God in Heaven.” The feeling of immobility passed as suddenly as it had come on.
Shaken by the incident, Mrs. Daniels, thereafter, avoided napping in the afternoon. Yet, nothing more happened. When she didn’t hear the footsteps anymore, Mrs. Daniels wondered if the entire episode was over.
Yet, about a month later, the triangular stones began to appear inexplicably again, especially downstairs. Whenever she found a triangular shaped stone, she immediately tossed it in the garbage and took the trash outside. One night, she dreamed that two red eyes watched her as she slept. She finally confided in a friend that she suspected the house might have acquired a ghost. Her friend suggested that she might want to contact someone who did home cleansings.
Mrs. Daniels sighed, "Oh, but you know how Buck's father feels about it."
Concerned that the whole situation didn't seem to be abating by itself, Mrs. Daniels eventually contacted a paranormal investigator, who also practiced home cleansings. The name of the paranormal investigator had been given to her by the same friend. She arranged for the investigator to come by one afternoon when her husband was out.
Mrs. Daniels recounted her story to the investigator and she wondered aloud if the séance had really summoned her husband’s Cherokee ancestor.
The investigator pointed out that her husband had been oblivious to any of the spiritual activity, usually not noticing the noises.
As some spirit might be involved, the investigator advised a spiritual cleansing of the home. A spiritual cleansing of the home, also known as a house cleaning, ought to put an end to the poltergeist phenomenon. Opening up a King James Bible, the investigator read aloud Psalms 91, 23, and 29, and forcefully ordered any disruptive, unwanted, or noxious spirit to leave. Then, the investigator and Mrs. Daniels held hands and recited the Lord’s Prayer together. Mrs. Daniels wept, perhaps in relief, as she recited the Lord's Prayer.
Afterwards, Mrs. Daniels said, “The house feels different.”
At the last known report, the poltergeist phenomenon had not resumed and everything returned to normal. It is quite possible that the Daniels no longer reside at this house--if it is still standing as of this writing. Buck would at least be in his seventies and his parents probably would be in their nineties.
Copyright 2013 Myth Woodling
Comments
The most marvelous thing about this tale is that it draws on lore connected to both hoodoo and Spiritualism--as well as being an old fashioned ghost story in a 20th century setting.
This story has apports, ghostly footsteps, a séance, spirit manifestations in the fireplace at the witching hour, the terrifying Hag Phenomenon, an unaffected skeptic, Kentucky whiskey, a hoodoo spirit-work banishing (house cleansing), and maybe a genuine Native American ancestor spirit.
The apports and ghostly footsteps are poltergeist phenomenon. Poltergeist means "noisy ghost" and refers to sounds and the movement or sudden appearance of solid objects.
The term, apports, is used in Spiritualism. It refers to physical objects transported from one location to another due to paranormal activity. In this case, the apports are the small, triangular shaped stones, which were reported to appear inexplicably around the house.
The appearance of the ghostly ball of light in the fireplace refers to what a ghost hunder calls an "orb," a glob of spirit energy, or a ghost, in the form of a ball of light. Spook lights in Southern ghost lore are often likewise described as a ball of light. Particularly interesting is an old folktale motif that someone gazing into a hearth fire can and will see images in the flames. Sometimes the presence of a spirit might manifest itself visibly by manipulating the shapes of the flames. The fact that the spirit would actually visibly manifest at midnight (witching hour) on New Year's Eve definitely hails from British folklore.
The "Hag Phenomenon," also known the "Old Hag Syndrome," can likewise be found in the folklore of the British Isles. An invisible spirit known as the "maera" or "hag" perches upon a sleeper's chest, often pinning the sleeper down and making it difficult to breath.
To those who study sleep patterns and sleep disorders, this type of experience is known as "sleep paralysis." It can occur when the brain is transitioning between REM (dreaming sleep) and coming fully awake.
As a woman once described her experience, "I could not move and could not scream. It lasted about 30 seconds and was gone. I saw nothing ... I felt a very strong force holding me down."
The phenomenon of sleep paralysis can be found among people from different cultures and has been plaguing sleepers for centuries.
According to Dr. David Huang, medical director of the Tallahassee Memorial Sleep Center in Tallahasse, Florida, "If you have sleep paralysis as you're waking up, it's not all that uncommon."
Sleep paralysis usually occurs during sleep onset or during waking up. It is sometimes associated with terrifying or monstrous hallucinations. Thus, in British folklore, the experience used to be called being "hagged" or "hagridden" as the spirit attacking the person was usually perceived to be female and, if seen, was described as an ugly old woman.
The skeptical materialist in the Daniels household makes an interesting addition to the tale. Paranormal events do not exist as far as he is concerned. Therefore, he does not notice any supernatural phenomenon, and noises in the house are nothing but normal creaks.
As for the Kentucky whiskey, it is a popular practice to offer spirits whiskey in hoodoo spirit work, with the exception of Native American Indian spirits. Giving alcohol to Black Hawk, or any other Indian spirits or Indian ancestors, is completely contrary to Native American spiritual traditions. Many hoodooists would advise against using whiskey to honor a Native American ancestor. If Mr. Daniels' Cherokee ancestor was present in the house during the séance, a toast such as the sergeant's would have been extremely offensive, whether intended or not. The spirit of Black Hawk has stated in his biography about exactly how he feels alcohol being a poison.
In hoodoo, it is a common practice to hold house cleansings, usually accompanied by prayer and the Psalms. In the case of a banishing a particularly troublesome spirit, Psalm 91, 24, and 29 are often used.
This last point begs the question of whether there was any spirit involved or not. I think almost any Spiritualist or root worker or hoodoo practitioner would agree, the séance--as described--was thoroughly botched. While hoodoo practitioners don't forbid a little bit of whiskey, practicing sober during spirit work is sound advice. Some Spiritualists might quote:
And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;Nobody in this group had any clear idea of what they were mucking around with. Furthermore, since Mrs. Daniels felt very uncomfortable about "trafficking with familiar spirits," this New Year's Eve party was not a good venue for a séance. On the possibility they might have attracted the attention of a genuine spirit, Cherokee ancestor or otherwise, the spirit may have been annoyed or at least inclined to practice numerous pranks in response.
--Ephesians 5:18-20 (KJV)
This ghostly tale is based upon an allegedly "true account," which I learned about some years ago. It is supposed to have taken place in a modern suburban home near Covington, Kentucky, atop a hill, which supposedly had a beautiful manmade pond in front.
My retelling, however, has expanded the account while keeping the meat. For example, I gave the married couple the name of Mr. and Mrs. Daniels. I have no idea what their actual last name might have been. I also have no idea if the sergeant's wife grew up in New York. I have no idea why the gentleman retired early when guests were present. I have no idea if the banishing/exorcism/cleansing actually involved reading the Psalms, but apparently a bible was used. Finally, to dramatize the tale, I have added dialog from my own imagination.
Just try to imagine that I am telling you a ghost story in front of a cracklying fireplace on a cold winter night.
Copyright 2013 Myth Woodling
Sources:
Jason Dehart, The 'Hag Phenomenon,' Tallahassee Magazine, November-December 2012, accessed November 16, 2013.
Denise Alvarado, The Art of Conjure: To Fire Up or Not to Fire Up, That is the Question, Thursday, November 22, 2012, accessed November 16, 2013.