I had a great time chatting with the incomparable Jim Harold on his show, The Paranormal Podcast. If you’d like to join us around the campfire for some wonderfully spooky stories, just follow the link! https://content.blubrry.com/paranormalplus/Haunted_Amusement_Parks_and_More-Ghost_Insight_212.mp3
Ghost Stories
Lights Out #103: Pennhurst Asylum
Who’s ready for a brand-new episode of Lights Out? We’re going to wander the gloomy halls of Pennhurst Asylum. Take my hand … https://youtu.be/71Y8BaVDeac
Guess Whose Book Won First Place?
I have news! Good news! I’ve just found out that Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories has won First Place in the Bookfest Awards. How about that? And you can go here to get your very own copy, if you haven’t already: https://bookshop.org/…/days-of-the-dead-a…/9781735668987
You can also get it here: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735668982?ref=exp_hauntedroadmedia_dp_vv_d&fbclid=IwAR3sWUj9_YTBlM–2kxKyMMQo92XiWTOcAYgaBq8f6lHfINp-He4oeOQyH8
And here: Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GJ1XVMN?ref=exp_hauntedroadmedia_dp_vv_d&fbclid=IwAR1zCffiZI4zEu9_leHa_5mAplDFfEE-YvOsqpIu5cSu_haa0zwgcm6-Nf4
Lights Out: Return to Malvern Manor
What’s even better than exploring a haunted location all evening? Getting to spend the rest of the night there! And when the spirits come out to play, that’s when things get REALLY interesting … join me for another visit to one of my favorite haunted places, Malvern Manor. https://youtu.be/AoqSaueVit8
Lights Out: Devil’s Den, Gettysburg
The rocky area of Devil’s Den and Little Round Top saw some of the fiercest fighting on July 2, 1863, the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. What paranormal effects has this had since the battle? Join me to find out. https://youtu.be/LuavLYTcg1U
Lights Out — Gettysburg Ghost Tour
Join me for a walking tour of Gettysburg, with spooky stories from Sleepy Hollow Tours. https://youtu.be/-Wxh9aIpz6g
Lights Out!
Here we go with another episode of Lights Out! This time we’re visiting the Queen of Heaven Mausoleum. The mausoleum at Queen of Heaven Cemetery is a massive collection of marble, art, and dead people. Join me for a stroll through the beauty of this exquisite resting place. https://youtu.be/CFeQU5pJDQo
Bookshop Black Friday Sale!
Starting now through Monday, Bookshop is offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders placed through our website with standard mail. No special code needed. It’s the perfect opportunity to shop for everyone on your list and support independent bookstores at the same time! The savings go through Cyber Monday, so spend a few minutes this weekend browsing for Christmas presents.
And speaking of Christmas, did you know that Bookshop will wrap your presents for you? They’re now offering gift wrapping with cards and custom messages for purchases on Bookshop, which will make shipping your presents fast and easy this holiday season. Just select “this is a gift” during checkout.
‘Tis the season to curl up with a good book, so support local bookstores without even leaving the house! https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=Sylvia+Shults
Lights Out: Queen of Heaven Cemetery
Get ready for another episode of Lights Out! This time we’re visiting Queen of Heaven Cemetery, right across the street from Mount Carmel in the Chicago suburbs.
Lights Out #92: Queen of Heaven Cemetery. On December 1, 1958, one of the worst tragedies in Chicago’s history took the lives of 93 children and three nuns. The fire at Our Lady of the Angels grade school is still remembered today as one of the darkest days of Chicago’s past. Join me for a visit to the Shrine of the Holy Innocents, a memorial to those lost in the fire. https://youtu.be/FR6p5l5yQcY
Lights Out — Let’s Take a Vacation!
Hey hey, it’s time for another episode of Lights Out. We’re staying in the Dells, and lacing up our sneakers for a walking ghost tour. Want to take a stroll in beautiful Wisconsin Dells and hear some ghost stories? You’re in luck! Sit back and enjoy some spooky tales, including stories of a haunted pinball machine, a Confederate spy, and a hungry spirit that likes sandwiches.
Lights Out: Pioneer Zephyr
Stuck at home? Let’s go for a train trip! The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is home to several spirits. One of their lightly haunted exhibits is the Art Deco-inspired Pioneer Zephyr, one of the very first high-speed trains to serve the travelers of the Midwest in the 1930s. Join us for tales of the rails. https://youtu.be/I7YQOBf_VqU
Thank You!
I just wanted to give a big shout of thanks to everyone who listens to Lights Out. To everyone who watches it on YouTube (which is where the links I post take you), thanks very much. And for those who prefer the podcast experience, I really appreciate your listening as well. It may interest you to know that you guys broke a record last month! Yes, the highest month I had stats for had been January, when 232 people listened in. But yesterday, I saw that 236 people had tuned in to the podcast during the month of April — thank you guys so much! I appreciate every one of you, and I promise to keep bringing you guys awesome fun ghost stories. You all rock! (And if you weren’t aware, Lights Out is available on Spotify, iTunes, iHeart Radio, and everywhere you find quality podcasts.)
Lights Out: The Dana House
Time for another episode of Lights Out! The Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, is one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces. It’s haunted by the melancholy spirit of Susie Laurence Dana, the woman who commissioned it. Join me for a peek inside, and listen to a few of the encounters people have had in this gracious home. https://youtu.be/M_bI37h7WW8
Lights Out Extra: COVID19 Edition
Lights Out Extra: COVID19 Edition. Since we’re all cooped up at home, let me bring a bit of ghost hunting to you! I went out for some fresh air, and visited the fine folks at the Peoria State Hospital. (Don’t worry — I did stay six feet away. They’re all in the cemetery.) Enjoy the “cootie edition” of Lights Out! https://youtu.be/EHCK2Wc3b8I
Lights Out: Glore Psychiatric Museum
Let’s get out of the house and go on a field trip. How does St. Joseph, Missouri sound? Glore Psychiatric Museum is unique. Begun as a simple display for Mental Health Awareness Week in 1966, the museum now has over 10,000 artifacts of life in the St. Joseph State Hospital. And it has ghosts! Join me as we look for them. https://youtu.be/eS4X41FM3MY
Lights Out: Sallie House
Welcome back to the virtual campfire! This time we’re going to visit the Sallie House, considered one of the most haunted houses in the country. Is it haunted by the spirit of an innocent young girl? Or is there something much more malevolent here? I learned a harsh lesson with my visit to this place. https://youtu.be/Q9zaRaxAdVM
Lights Out: Mars Hill Cemetery
Welcome to another Lights Out episode! If you knew about a church and cemetery out in the middle of nowhere, that was supposed to be haunted because of Satanic activity … would you go check it out? I did, and you can come along with me. https://youtu.be/PDx9Si2nT4k
Lights Out: Malvern Manor
Gather ’round the virtual campfire — it’s time for another episode of Lights Out! Malvern Manor, in Malvern, Iowa, was once a grand, gracious hotel, the pride of the town. Through the years it played host to a very different clientele: it became a nursing home, then a home for transients, closing in 2005. Do some of these lost souls still roam Malvern Manor’s halls and curl up on the mattresses in the abandoned rooms? Join me and find out! https://youtu.be/aBd5tKtkDy0
An Extra Christmas Present
This holiday season, my friend Elizabeth Koelle suggested a return to the grand old Christmas tradition of telling ghost stories. She’s right — ghost stories are a great way to celebrate the darkest, spookiest days of the year. A roaring fire, good things to eat, a glass or mug of something lovely, and wonderful entertainment … I can’t think of a better way to spend a winter’s evening.
Here is a true ghost story from my collection Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays. Enjoy!
Footprints in the Snow
It was a cold winter afternoon early in the last century. A mother huddled in her cabin on the west fork of the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. She held two of her children in a tight embrace … but one was missing. Her two-year-old son had wandered away from the cabin earlier that day. Since then, the temperature had been falling steadily, along with a heavy snow.
A neighbor came in, stamping the snow from his boots, to grab a few moments’ warmth by the fire. The mother looked up, hope dawning briefly in her eyes—then looked back down, defeated, at the shake of the neighbor’s head. She was grateful, of course, that all the menfolk were out looking for her precious lost little one. Word had been passed from cabin to homestead, from house to church, and soon the entire community was out looking. Her own husband was off in Europe in the trenches, fighting the Germans. All she could do was pray that one of the neighbors would find her little boy—and soon.
Dr. Thomas appeared at the door of the cabin. He’d dressed warmly for the trudge through the woods. He’d come thinking to help the young mother. One look at her stricken face, though, and he realized that he could best help not by doctoring her, but by finding her missing son. Pulling his heavy overcoat closed, he headed out into the snowstorm with the other searchers.
Dr. Thomas struck off in a random direction, hoping he was looking at ground that hadn’t already been covered. With the snow falling so thickly, the footprints of the searching men were soon being covered over. Dr. Thomas held his lantern high in the gathering dusk as he scanned the area.
The shadows of the evening crowded close under the pines as the last light of day slipped away. The doctor stopped for a moment, listening to the silence of the woods. Somewhere, he knew, men were searching for the little boy with dogs. But he hadn’t yet heard the deep bay of a hound on a scent.
All around him, the snow fell in a silent hush. The branches of the pines swayed with the wind, even as laden with snow as they were. As night fell, the snowstorm grew worse. Dr. Thomas trudged along the dwindling path in the woods, stopping every so often to look closely at any fallen log that might shelter a shivering little boy. His toes were beginning to go numb, even with the three pairs of thick woolen socks he wore. But he kept wandering the woods, his lantern held high in search of any sign of the boy. If he was cold, the toddler would be even worse off.
Dr. Thomas stopped and turned in a slow circle. He couldn’t give up hope, not while the boy was still out there lost in the storm. He held his lantern high … and there on the ground was one footprint. Dr. Thomas bent closer to study it. It wasn’t the track of a deer, or a dog.
It was the footprint of a child. A child who was barefoot.
The doctor’s heart leapt, and adrenaline spun in his cold fingers and toes, warming them briefly. Finally, here was some sign of the boy! The doctor looked around carefully for more footprints.
There was another one, and a third! The bare footprints were just visible in the hard-packed old snow, and as the doctor watched, more appeared, the feathery new snow blowing off of the old prints. Carefully, the doctor followed the prints. As soon as he passed the last one, the next one appeared, leading him further into the woods. The doctor no longer cursed the biting wind, because oddly enough, the wind seemed to be blowing the fresh snow off of the prints, revealing the path the barefoot toddler had taken through the woods.
Dr. Thomas followed the footprints as they led him to a patch of evergreens. The doctor lifted a low-hanging branch, and gasped. There, curled up on a soft bed of fallen pine needles, was the young boy. But the doctor had come too late. The boy’s skin was waxy-white, and his little chest didn’t rise and fall with peaceful sleeping breath.
The boy had frozen to death in the storm.
Dr. Thomas stifled a low moan, and gathered the child up in his arms. He unbuttoned his coat and his woolen shirt, and cradled the boy to his chest. The boy had died in the freezing cold. Although it was too late, the doctor could at least keep him warm for the sad walk home. He rebuttoned his coat and headed back to the cabin.
As the doctor approached the cabin, the young mother came out to meet him. Seeing her there, silhouetted against the yellow glow of the lit cabin behind her, Dr. Thomas felt his spirits sink. How could he break this woman’s heart?
The mother caught sight of the doctor, with his sad burden, and ran to him. Dr. Thomas reached the open cabin door just as the woman came out, crying joyful tears at the return of her baby. The doctor unbuttoned his coat and opened his shirt.
“I’m so sorry. At least I found him …”
And to his shock, the little boy blinked sleepy brown eyes at him. The child turned his head, hearing his mother’s cry of joy. “Momma?”
Stunned, Dr. Thomas handed the toddler to his mother, who cuddled him fiercely. She looked up, tears of gratitude standing in her eyes.
“Thank you, doctor, thank you so much. You saved my little boy. Please, come inside and get warm.”
The doctor followed her into the cabin. His analytical mind fumbled for an explanation. The boy must have been chilled to the point where his vitals had slowed, putting him into a state of suspended animation. The walk back, cuddled against the doctor’s warm chest and wrapped in the heavy overcoat, must have warmed the child slowly, enough for him to recover with no harm done. The gentle warming had brought the child back to life as surely as a violet blooms in the spring. Vaguely, he became aware that the boy’s mother was still talking.
“I’m so grateful to you for finding him!” She kissed the toddler, who sighed sleepily in her arms.
Dr. Thomas roused himself from his thoughts. “Yes, I followed his footprints in the snow. I’m amazed he was able to wander so far with bare feet.”
“Bare feet?” the mother said, puzzled. “But he’s wearing shoes.”
Frowning, Dr. Thomas lifted one of the boy’s feet. Sure enough, the boy was wearing sturdy brogans.
“I have to tie his shoes on tightly, with double knots, so he won’t kick them off,” the mother explained.
“Here, have some coffee, it’ll warm you right up. Good job!” a neighbor said, putting a tin cup into the doctor’s hand. Dr. Thomas accepted the congratulations and heartfelt thanks of his neighbors. The little boy was safe. That was all that mattered.
But the doctor’s scientific mind wouldn’t rest until he’d figured out the answer to the mystery. Several nights later, he woke from a sound sleep, sitting bolt upright in bed, reeling from a thunderclap of realization.
The wind hadn’t blown the fresh snow off of the child’s old prints. The bare footprints had been appearing in the snow, step by step, as he’d been following them. He hadn’t been tracking a living child. He’d been following an invisible child—a ghost, or an angel.
The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Ten: Lights Out
Here’s my Christmas present to you guys; Episode 80 of Lights Out. We’ll visit the Villisca Axe Murder House, and spend the night. Just what everyone asks Santa for!
Lights Out #80: Villisca Axe Murder House. Over a century ago, 508 E 2nd Street in the small town of Villisca, Iowa, was the scene of a horrifying tragedy. On June 10, 1912, two adults and six children were hacked to death with an axe — an axe that belonged to the father of the family, Josiah Moore. This deplorable act left its mark on the small white house in the sleepy Iowa town. Are you brave enough to sleep here overnight? https://youtu.be/Sx4NgZKw5qQ
The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Eight: Creepy Boston
Holden Chapel, at Cambridge in Boston, is said to be haunted by the spirit of a young woman who suffered a tragic loss. In the 1800s, a Miss Pickham was enjoying a sleigh ride with her fiance when the horse pulling the sleigh trotted onto a patch of black ice. The horse’s feet went out from under it, and the sleigh wrecked, flipping its passengers out onto the pavement. The hysterical bride-to-be crawled from the wreckage, only to discover her fiance lying motionless nearby. His neck was broken in the crash, and he died in her arms as she cradled him, sobbing uncontrollably.
The young man was laid to rest in the Old Burial Ground, which was nearby. But Miss Pickham never got over the loss of her love. She was well aware that “resurrection men” prowled the graveyard in search of fresh burials. The grave robbers would dig up the fresh corpses and sell them to Harvard for dissection in the medical school labs. The young woman spent the rest of her life at her family’s home nearby, lamenting the early death of her lover and the loss of a lifetime with him. And with the first snowfall every year, her old paranoia and suspicion would be rekindled. She would escape the house and run shrieking to the door of the laboratory, pounding on it, demanding justice, until she was dragged away, sobbing and exhausted, by family members.
Even today, a female spirit is said to appear during the first snowstorm of the year. She howls and wails, still mourning her lost love, never letting us forget her pain.
The interesting postscript to this story is that when Holden Chapel was renovated in 1999, archaeologists were allowed to conduct a dig in the basement. Their excavation turned up the usual detritus associated with a medical laboratory, broken test tubes and glassware and such. But the archaeologists also found human remains — including skeletons whose bones had been sawed apart, a sure sign of dissection.
The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Five: Throwback … Um … Tuesday.
Welcome to the Dead of Winter! Today we’re going to revisit a couple of Lights Out episodes from years past.
Lights Out #66: Christmas 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvAANf27Eb4&t=4s
Lights Out #52: Christmas 2017 — The Roving Skeleton of Boston Bay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1o74O6A-aw&t=27s
Lights Out #51: Plymouth Courthouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZY-ntKexJk
Lights Out #32: Christmas 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alg6AOjuQvE&t=6s
The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Three: The Phantom Lighthouse
So when is a lighthouse not a lighthouse?
Off the coast of Delaware, a tall cylinder of stone rises from the rocks at Cape Henlopen State Park. This rock formation has been psyching out sailors for centuries. It’s even picked up a couple of names over the years; some locals call it the Corpse Light, while others refer to it as the Bad Weather Witch.
The first disaster caused by the Corpse Light was on December 25, 1655. The captain of the Devonshire Man was piloting his ship through a storm, saw the glow of the stone cylinder, and steered right for it, thinking it was a lighthouse. The ship was wrecked on the rocky shore, killing nearly two hundred people. On May 25, 1798, the sloop De Braak was lured too close to shore and broke apart on the rocks. In 1980, the USS Poet, a 12,000 ton grain barge, vanished without a trace in the bay.
Local lore says that the phantom lighthouse is the manifestation of an old Delaware Indian curse that speaks of “a drum of stone signalling death” for all white men. The curse was invoked because British soldiers massacred a group of natives who were in the middle of a marriage celebration. The ghost of a Native American, standing alone on top of one of the rocks, was seen by multiple witnesses in 1800, right before an excursion barge smashed against the rocks, killing many of the people on board.
Spirits of Christmas — For Free!
I’m delighted to tell you guys that Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, is now available through Biblioboard, one of several library apps. It’s available for free to anyone in Illinois — you don’t need a library card. Heck, you don’t even have to log in or create an account. With Biblioboard, there are no holds, no waiting, and you can access any book any time you like. Just visit www.inkie.org or library.biblioboard.com, and search for Spirits of Christmas. When the book cover pops up, click on it, and it will download instantly to your device. (Seriously. I tried it. It’s instantaneous.) So give yourself the gift of Christmas ghost stories, and get something to read while you’re waiting in line to buy your Christmas presents!
The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas: Day One
Welcome to the Dead of Winter! I’ve got great stuff ahead for you guys for the next twelve days, a celebration of all things Christmasy and spooky!
We’ll start off with a look at the Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. Be sure and read all the way to the end … there’s a surprise waiting there for you. Read on …
People of the early nineteenth century had only recently gotten used to the luxury of having dependable sources of light after nightfall. Gas lighting was invented in the 1790s, and gas lighting of streets and buildings began in the early 1800s. Most streets in London were lit by gas lamps as early as 1816. But gas as a means of lighting homes was distrusted for the first fifty years or so.
There’s also a theory that gas fixtures themselves contributed to the epidemic of Victorian ghost sightings. There’s a reason the bright interior decorating of the Georgian period, all that beautiful white and gold décor, turned dark and gloomy in the Victorian age. Dark Victorian wallpaper hid soot better.
Gas fixtures began to show up in city homes and manor houses in the mid-nineteenth century, and sometimes, they leaked gas and tainted the air with noxious fumes. A tightly-laced corset was only one reason for a well-bred Victorian lady to faint. Another reason was lack of oxygen in gas-lit parlors. There’s a theory in paranormal circles that gas leaks sometimes led to hallucinations of wispy figures or shadows seen out of the corner of the eye. This would go far towards explaining the explosion of ghost sightings in the Victorian era.
Whether or not nineteenth century ghosts were the product of leaky gas fixtures, we have the Victorians to thank for a wealth of supernatural-themed literature. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw countless Christmas gift books published, that were entirely devoted to ghost stories. These weren’t cheap dime novels, either. These were classy, upscale publications, of quality design and prestigious writing. Contributors to these gift books and annually published anthologies included Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Rudyard Kipling. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually introduced the character of Sherlock Holmes in a story for a Christmas annual.
But the granddaddy of all Christmas ghost stories is, of course, A Christmas Carol. This most beloved of Dickens’s works was written for a most unsentimental reason—the author had bills to pay.
In October 1843, Charles Dickens was hurting for money. He’d gotten married in 1836, and he and his wife had already produced four children, with number five on the way.
Dickens had an almost pathological horror of being in debt. His father had been thrown into debtor’s prison when Charles was twelve years old. The grown-up Charles Dickens refused above all else to put his own family through such shame and degradation. He needed a project to raise some fast cash. He had an idea for a story of a miserly old curmudgeon whose grumpy outlook on life is changed by visits from three spirits.
Dickens was actually recycling material he had already written. In The Pickwick Papers, Dickens wrote “The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton”. This told the story of Gabriel Grubb (and isn’t that just the perfect name for a gravedigger), a drunken sexton who chooses to spend Christmas Eve digging a grave instead of celebrating the holiday. (I suppose someone’s gotta do it, but hey, Christmas is Christmas.) Grubb is dragged off by goblins, and has a change of heart after the Goblin King shows him a series of visions that prove his life is worth living after all.
Dickens took this theme and embroidered it. Instead of visions, Ebenezer Scrooge received actual visits from ghosts—first his late partner, Jacob Marley, then the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. For good measure, Dickens tossed in a ridiculously sentimental subplot involving Tiny Tim Cratchit—the kind of sickly poor child the Victorians loved to weep over. He wrote the book in a fever of production; it was on his publisher’s desk in less than six weeks.
And the gamble paid off, big-time.
A Christmas Carol was released on December 19, 1843. The original print run of six thousand copies sold out within three days. Since then, it has never been out of print. Taking on a life far beyond the printed page, it has been produced as a play, a musical, and many movies, the earliest being a 1908 version by Thomas Edison.
Dickens kept up with this fashion of telling ghost stories at Christmastime. Until his death in 1870, Dickens produced a number of Christmas annuals, and invited other writers to contribute to these anthologies.
With the success of A Christmas Carol, Dickens could pay off the debt that had led to its creation. Dickens was set for life. In fact, he was able to leave both his wife (from whom he had separated in 1858) and his mistress (an actress he met in 1857) independently wealthy for the rest of their lives. Not too shabby. (Excerpted from Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays, by Sylvia Shults.)
And now for the surprise! I have a couple of copies of my new book, Fractured Souls: More History and Hauntings at the Peoria State Hospital, that are sitting around not working too hard. Use the Contact Me button at the top of this page, and tell me who you’d give a signed copy of Fractured Souls to for Christmas. I’ll send them a copy — and you get one too, for being an awesome friend!
Sylvia Shults, author 