The Room Where Time Moves Backwards

While I was out investigating various ghost stories,  a man pull me aside and told me a story he thinks may have something to do with ghosts.  He wasn't exactly sure what happened, but he knew it was very odd and more than a little creepy.

He told me about a hotel in some rural town in Alabama that he used to visit with his wife.  The hotel, The Tallahassee, was very old and has since been demolished.  For a long time this old hotel was one of his favorite places to go.   They went there one time and stayed in a room he had never been in before.  His wife and he settled in and then they noticed  that there was no clock.  They needed to get up early in the morning, so he called the lobby and asked for a clock to be sent up.

Someone brought a clock up immediately and they plugged it into the wall.   The clock was working perfectly, but it was going backwards.  Another hotel employee came up and together they went to another room and tried the clock.  It worked right in the next room.   Together, the men decided to switch clocks and took a working clock from the next room and brought it into their room.  They plugged the clock into a different outlet and this new clock also went backwards.

After several attempts, the man gave up on the clock.  He called down to the lobby again and asked for a wake up call.  There seemed to be no way to get time to flow in the right direction in that particular room.

The Birmingham Public Library Archives

The old Birmingham Public Library is one of the most striking buildings in downtown Birmingham.  It's darkened windows seem to hint at movement even when the library is closed.  Sitting across from the old Library two nights ago,  I thought I saw a face staring out at me.  I watched it and it watched me and for the longest time nothing happened.  I took a picture and went to set the camera down and when I returned it was gone as quickly as it had come. 

The building was built in 1927 and was the Birmingham Public Library until 1984.   At this time the primary library was moved across the street into a modern building of glass and harsh angles.  The two buildings are attached by a catwalk and the architectural differerences between these two buildings that are connected like siamese twins are so vast that they should be in different countries.  But the two buildings are bound together by their common purpose.  

In 1984 when the old building was partially abandoned it took on a new purpose and became the archives where the old books were stored and the history was kept.  There are no stories of bizarre deaths here.  There are no horror tales of Indian burial grounds or murdered children, but the ghosts that have been described in this building are so terrifying that some of the librarians have refused to go back into the stacks alone and without every light on.  Many staff members know about the haunting in a general sort of way.  They know that doors open and close on their own and phantom noises fill the building when it is empty, but a few report an even more active haunting.

The auditorium is the most haunted portion of this old library and it is in the auditorium that a young librarian described seeing a man appear out of nowhere.   The librarian was mortified and she was even more mortified when he vanished as quickly as he came.    An electrician also saw this man.   He was working on the electrical problems that permeate the building when a man materialized in front of him and vanish again.  
Other staff members, have described the elevator moving on it's own and the doors opening with no one in them.  Some people hypothesize that the building is haunted by it's builder, but no one can be sure.  The man that wanders the halls of the library never leaves enough of a trace for anyone to know his identity.

Ghost Hunting in Birmingham

I began my investigations in Birmingham with the historic Tutwiler hotel, which I immediately assumed was not haunted.  I was completely bowled over by the human activity within the hotel and the unhelpful staff.   After the night had quieted and the party ended,  I awoke with the dawn and started again.  My son was more eager than me and was up before the sun taking EMF readings and taking pictures of the room.   I was much less enthusiastic, but he showed me a picture he took of the balcony outside our room with a very odd white form in it and my enthusiasm was restored.

We all got up and went down to torture the morning staff with our ghostly questions. The early morning staff did not have to contend with drunk men hobbling around the lobby or bridal parties giggling at them, so they were much more helpful and they told me in hushed tones about the ghost on the 6th floor.  Apparently, the Tutwiler I was in was not the orignal Tutwiler.  That Tutwiler had been demolished and the building that was now the Tutwiler was in fact an apartment complex called The Ridgely.   On the 6th floor,  a small child had lived and died in her apartment.  None of the staff were sure of her name, but one young man told me that her ghost is known to be particularly active on the 6th floor.  Luckily, our room had been on the sixth floor.   He also said that rooms 604 and 614 had frequently reported seeing her ghost.  Our room shared a balcony with 614, making my son's picture all the more intriguing.  His picture is above. 

Another side note,   I thought I saw a ghost in the window across from mine last night.  The picture of  what I saw is to the right.  I looked into the history of this building and it is the Birmingham Public library which is thought to be haunted.  Tomorrow's story will give more information on this building and my investigations of it.

 The last picture at the bottom tonight is just for fun.   I always find it very strange that Birmingham's five points is centered around a somewhat demonic looking goat man that is strategically placed in front of a church.  Birmingham is a ghost hunter's  dream.

The Tutwiler

I took a little road trip today and traveled to the famous Tutwiler Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama.  This hotel is famous for it's friendly ghost,  Colonel Tutwiler.  He supposedly likes to turn lights on and off in the kitchen and make a rather large mess from time to time. I have asked as many staff as I have been able to find about this playful spirit and two staff members looked at me like I was insane and another told me the story like he was reading it from a historic brochure.  

I travelled here late at night and found the streets of Birmingham to be virtually deserted.  This city seems to lack the kind of night life, restraunts, or bars that would bring people to wander through it's labrynthian streets.   The tall buildings overshadow empty roads and many buildings seem to be unused.   At night, the city itself seems to be a ghost town.   I am told that with morning, the streets will come to life, but now it seems to be entirely forgotten and it is a Saturday night.

From this quiet, I entered into the Tutwiler and found myself knocked over by noise and comotion.  The hotel is filled with throngs of guests for parties and weddings.  In this frolicing atmosphere, it is hard to imagine that this hotel is the one that is haunted.  The hotel itself is stunning.  It's fascade is intricate and covered in the kind of elaborate molding modern builders seem to have forgotten how to make.   The details within the hotel also adds to the atmosphere.   Despite all this beauty and history,  I have found it impossible to feel any haunting when the hotel is bursting with such life and vigor.

However,  as I have sat staring blankly at the odd building outside my window, I can't help but feel chills creep up and down my spine.  One window even seems to have something in it that looks like a face staring out at me.   The building appears to be an old library and has the quote "Books are the legacy that a great genius leaves to mankind,"  engraved on the stone in very large letters.  I will have to look into the building in the morning.   The pictures above are the pictures of the Tutwiler.  The pictures below are of the library across the street.

A Phantom Soldier

I have been out and about talking with people about ghosts and trying to find the origin of certain local ghost stories.   In my journey,  I've discovered something wonderful.  Once you start asking about ghosts, people pull you aside and tell you the most amazing ghost stories.  Here is one of the wonderful stories I heard today.

This story came from a man of science who had always considered himself a skeptic.  He went on a trip to a secluded cabin in the woods with his wife.   It was a small, rustic cabin with a field behind it and a hot tub on the back deck.  He and his wife were having a good time in the hot tub and he took a picture of his wife with her back to the field.  Later, when he studied the picture, he saw a phantom man standing behind his wife in the field.  The man was dressed in old clothes and looked like a soldier.   As a skeptic, this man did everything he could to explain the diaphonous figure standing behind his wife, clutching a hat.   But there was simply no rational explaination for the figure.   The man then went to the cabin's owner and asked about the cabin.  The owner explained that the field behind the cabin had been the site of  a minor skirmish or two during the civil war and that the cabin had always been the site of strange occurences.  I asked the man if I could get the information from him so I could rent this haunted cabin.  He was reluctant to pass the information on and as we were speaking, the owner of the cabin, whom he hadn't spoken to in over a year, called him. 

The Reliability of Internet Ghost Stories

I love finding ghost stories on the internet.  There are several websites I go to on a regular basis to find interesting stories.  The internet is cluttered with sites that list the haunted locations through out the world and usually do some kind of write up or short description of the haunted site.  Often times, the write up seems to be word for word the same on multiple sites so they are obviously getting their little stories from one location that they share or they borrow from each other.

Over the last few weeks,  I've gone out and explored many of the stories I've found on these sites.  I travelled to their source and interviewed people and read the history books.   What I've found is that in most cases there may be a grain a truth in the stories, but much of the story itself is false.  It seems that these false stories spread so they are papered over the internet until the lie almost seems like the truth just by the sheer number of times the lie has been told.  It reminds me of that game I used to play as a child where one child would whisper in another child's ear and that child would whisper in another child's ear all saying the same thing until it reached the end and the end sentence would bear no resemblance to the beginning one.

An example of this can be found in the Space Camp haunting I found online.  According to online sources, there was some kind of explosion during some kind of construction there and this explosion lead to fatalities.  The ghosts of the unfortunate victims of this explosion still wander the halls of space camp.  After I completed my research, I found that there was never any kind of explosion at space camp.   In 1999, a construction worker did fall from some scaffolding, but that is nothing like the explosion described by these sites.

So this creates a big question for me.   How much obligation do we, as online ghost story collectors, have to make sure we are telling the truth.  It is true that ghost stories aren't held to the high standards of researched truth as other areas, but  should we have to make sure a ghost story is at least somewhat based in truth before we retell it?  If we don't have some standards is there any difference between our stories and fiction? 

The Grand Hotel

The Grand Hotel embodies all of the beauty and histroy that begins in the Victorian era for Mackinac Island.   In a sense, the island is trapped in this time.  It clings to the old things and puts them on a pedastle making them great.  The hotel is the center of everything beautiful and historic on the island.   It's long, white walls can be seen from the water on the ferry ride to the island.  It sits away from the rest of the chaos of the island, amidst green gardens.  There are no cars on the island and during my many visits to the island, I have travelled to the old hotel using many modes of transportation.  Whether you approach by horse and buggy, bicycle, horseback, or on foot, the elegant porch gleams in the sunlight as the first part of the hotel you see.  The hotel is a piece of my history as much as it is the island's.  My great grandfather worked at the hotel and his father before him.  My great grandfather proposed to my great grandmother in the old hotel.  I still have the ring he proposed her with. 

The land for the hotel was bought in 1886.  During this time the popularity of the island for a summer get away was exploding.  Tourists were coming from as far as Chicago to see the scenic beauty of this quiet island.  The Grand Hotel was built to cater to the wealthier tourists that came from afar to relax in peace.  It was during the construction of the hotel that an untold number of bones were unearthed.  Most of the bones were relocated, but it is said that some of these old skeletons still remain beneath the foundation of this luxourious hotel. 

In 1887 the hotel opened and it was a success from the beginning.  During the long summers every room was filled.  Of course during the winter, when the bitter Northern Michingan wind freezes the lake and burries the hotel in snow, the hotel was still mostly empty.  In the 1890's, the hotel's owners proudly announced that they had built the longest porch in the world around the beautiful hotel.   In 1895, Mark Twain came for a reading in the Hotel's grand salon.   The Hotel was often host to famous people and  a couple of movies were shot at the hotel.  The most recent film shot there was made in the 1980's and stared Christopher Reeves as a love struck playwright.  The film was called Somewhere in Time.

Despite all this activity,  the hotel has continuously been a source of paranormal activity.  As the hotel expanded, the orignal Fort Mackinac Island cemetery was moved to make room for the horse stables.  So the stables now stand on yet another collection of old bones. Those that have worked at the Grand report phantom footsteps and doors opening and shutting.  Guests staying at the hotel have reported feeling ill at ease, as if there is something else in the room with them from time to time.   The hotel groans at night and, although all old things groan, the noises from this hotel seem loader that they should.