The Science of Ghosts

by Joe Nickell

  Many visitors have reported eerie sensations when walking through the building. Some have reported a light emanating from a second floor room late at night…. Other people have spoken with volunteers who confirmed a ghostly presence haunts the lighthouse. (Davis 2001, 15–16)

  Elsewhere, the same author concedes that “there are several stories about the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, which conflict in some details, like the name of the missing girl,” and he has therefore “summarized the most popular stories” (Davis 1999, 158). Another source (Castle et al. 1979, 22) reports:

  There is an old story that the lighthouse is haunted. A century ago a young woman was believed murdered there, although her body was never found. Later, those venturing nearby were supposed to have heard moaning and cries for help. Ships at sea were said to have been guided by a strange light.

  Sources often pair the girl's specter with the wandering ghost of a murdered sea captain. According to Dennis William Hauck in his Haunted Places: The National Directory, the latter ghost, with “the face of a skeleton,” told a housewife he was searching for “a place to stay and someone to join him in death” (1996, 346). Apparently the abandoned Yaquina Bay Lighthouse filled the bill, and you know the rest of the story. The apparition of the captain, says Hauck, “and that of a young woman in a white dress, would be encountered by scores of witnesses over the next 120 years.”

  As we have discussed before, those differing versions of the story—what folklorists term variants—are evidence of folklore at work. They result from stories being passed by word of mouth or, in more recent times, by writers copying other writers—a process clearly accelerated by the Internet.

  VERISIMILITUDE

  We must ask, however, do ghostly sightings and reports of spectral activity confirm the reality of the original story? Emphatically, the answer is no, because the narrative of the young lady who entered the recently abandoned lighthouse never to be seen again is, in fact, fictional. It derives from a short story about the seeming murder of a young girl, Muriel Trevenard, by a ghost. Titled “The Haunted Light,” it was penned by Lischen M. Miller and published in the Pacific Monthly in 1899.1

  Lischen M. Miller was actually a founder of the Pacific Monthly (which ran from October 1898 to April 1900). A sister-in-law of western writer and adventurer Joaquin Miller (pen name of Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, 1837–1913), she was a writer of stories, meditations, and poems. One of the latter, complementing her haunted-lighthouse tale, is “Sea-Drift”:

  Once in a twelvemonth given,

  At midnight of the year,

  To rise from their graves as vapor

  That shadows the face of fear,

  And up through the green of surges,

  A sweep to the headlands base,

  Like a white mist blown to landward,

  They come to this lofty place—

  Pale as the heart of sorrow

  Dim as a dream might be—

  The souls of ship wrecked sailors,

  And them that drowned at sea.

  In swift and silent procession

  Circle the lonely sweep,

  Where the wild wind faints before them,

  And hushed is the roar of the deep.

  Miller's “The Haunted Light” is clearly a work of prose fiction, though naïve readers may have mistaken its verisimilitude for truth. Among those taken in were the coauthors of Historic Haunted America (Norman and Scott 1995, 288–91), who cite Lischen M. Miller but refer to her short story as “an account compiled by” Miller! Yet these ghost mongers seem not even to have consulted the original story: for example, they omit it from their bibliography. They also have errors in what folklorists call motifs (or story elements), notably having Muriel seek to retrieve her “scarf” rather than the “handkerchief” of the original story (Norman and Scott, 1995, 290, 436). (Other sources refer to “gloves” [Hauck 1996, 346] or merely to “something she left behind” [Castle et al. 1979, 22].)

  The story was reprinted as a pamphlet in 1973 by the historical society (which operates the lighthouse as a museum), and the ghost story was included in a short video that used to be shown to visitors. Area resident Sue Garner—whose daughter Kenna Warsinske interned at CFI in 2011 and first alerted me to the fiction-to-folklore story—recalls that when Kenna and her sister were little the video played about every thirty minutes in the lighthouse basement.

  LIGHT OF TRUTH

  Now, however, reports Sue Garner (who generously revisited the lighthouse on my behalf and provided much of the research material for this chapter), the historical society is working diligently to downplay the ghost tale, so the video is no longer shown.

  Among those getting the true facts out is cameraman/producer Scott Gibson. His 2007 DVD Oregon Lights, a documentary on the state's historic—and often “haunted”—lighthouses, debunks the ghost tale and concludes with his poignant comment: “I don't know if any of the other ghost stories have any credibility, but lighthouses are truly remarkable structures. It's sad to think another one will never be built.”

  It will be interesting to see if the ghost-girl genie can ever be put back in its bottle and the bottle effectively stoppered, although the effort is commendable. Meanwhile, we can continue to monitor the “haunting” of the old Yaquina Bay Lighthouse—a fictional one that, truth be told, may be as authentic as they get.

  They embody legend: romantic, swashbuckling, heroic figures—enchanting rogues whose ghosts eternally guard their buried treasures, search for their lost heads, or simply beckon to the credulous from their supposed coastal haunts. I have sought their specters from New Orleans to Savannah, from North Carolina's Ocracoke Island to Oak Island in Nova Scotia's Mahone Bay. Here is a look at some of what I found; as usual, not everything was as it seemed.

  JEAN LAFITTE

  I began to think about pirates’ ghosts on an investigative trip to Louisiana in 2000, when a nighttime tour of New Orleans “haunted” spots took me to two sites associated with an unlikely American hero, Jean Lafitte.

  Lafitte (ca. 1780–1825) be came known as “the Terror of the Gulf” for his exploits as a smuggler, privateer (one licensed by a government to seize its enemy's ships), and later pirate. Lafitte was transformed into a hero during the war of 1812. Suspected of complicity with British forces, he proved his loyalty to American general Andrew Jackson in 1815, spurning a British bribe of ®30,000 and fighting heroically in defense of his adopted homeland during the Battle of New Orleans (Groom 2006).

  Dead since approximately 1825, Jean Lafitte still reportedly gets around, haunting, some say, a New Orleans bar, Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, at 941 Bourbon Street. One ghost guide claims the structure was built “around 1722” (Belanger 2005, 91), but other sources place it at least half a century later—no earlier than 1772 (Dickinson 1997, 54). (See also Herczog 2000, 255; Cook 1999, 52; Bultman 1998, 95.) Of briqueté entre poleaux construction (i.e., bricked between posts), it was stuccoed over at a later period and now is in “alarmingly tumbledown” condition (Cook 1999, 52). (See figure 15.1.) Some sources (e.g., Nott 1928, 37, 39) are skeptical of tales that Lafitte actually ran a blacksmith shop as a cover for smuggling, but, says one, “it makes a good story” (Downs and Edge 2000, 197).

  Certainly, as I can attest, the place is darkly atmospheric, and both the ambiance and imbibed spirits, together with the power of suggestion, no doubt contribute to reported sightings of the pirate. However, even one ghost promoter concedes, “Such sightings may not withstand a sobriety test, but this does little to dampen the pervasive appeal of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and Bar” (Sillery 2001, 110). In other instances—as when a bartender reported that “a short, stout man walked out of the fireplace” (Belanger 2005, 91)—the circumstances are suggestive. The bartender may well have been tired (it was “late one rainy night”) and in a daydreaming state (he was “alone” with the soothing patter of rain), just the conditions known to prompt apparitional sightings in which images from the subconscious can momentarily be superim
posed on the individual's surroundings (Nickell 2001, 290–93).

  This is most likely to happen with imaginative individuals, especially those having fantasy-prone personalities. Psychics and mediums typically have characteristics associated with fantasizers (such as encountering apparitions, communicating with paranormal entities, and so on [Wilson and Barber 1983]). Consider a New Orleans ghost guide who calls herself “Bloody Mary”—a self-described “mystic,” “psychic,” and “medium” who believes she has had previous lives (quoted in Belanger 2005, 88–90). She writes:

  The first time in this lifetime that I entered Lafitte's I was compelled to stare into the dual smithy (now turned fireplace). Staring at me from the center was a pair of eyes—free floating, with no face to be seen. My eyes and his were locked in a trance for some time until the eyes simply poofed into two bursts of flame and disappeared. That, of course, broke my trance, and when I bent down again to recheck the scene, nothing was to be seen. I checked for mirrors, candles, and such mundane things that might explain what I saw, but I found none. Shrugging my shoulders, I simply decided it was a sign of welcome. (quoted in Belanger 2005, 91)

  Elsewhere she has felt rooms “calling” to her, has sensed a “time portal,” and has been lured to a room by “astral travel,” saying, “I truly believe I had stayed there before.” She has spirits who travel with her, sees a spectral resident in her hallways, and will “occasionally invite inside and outside spirits to parties” (quoted in Belanger 2005, 88–91). Over the years I have observed a correlation between fantasy proneness and intensity of ghostly experiences (Nickell 2001, 299). “Bloody Mary” provides further evidence of the link.

  “Ghost” photos taken by patrons at the Lafitte Blacksmith Shop and Bar have been described by Victor C. Klein (1999, 54) as exhibiting “strange luminous, somewhat amorphous, translucent cloudlike images.” Although he does not reproduce the photos, the descriptions are consistent with the camera's flash rebounding from smoke or mist. Note Barbara Sillery's comment that “the pirate has been frequently sighted in the smoky haze of the dimly lit rooms” (2001, 110, emphasis added) that are illuminated entirely by candles (Herczog 2000, 255). Not a single ghost has ever been authenticated by mainstream science, which attributes them to myriad nonsupernatural causes (see Nickell 1994, 146–59; 2008).

  Not far from Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a slate-paved pedestrian walkway known as Pirate's Alley. It is supposedly haunted by the famous pirate, but—as one source acknowledges—“every historic site in New Orleans claims the ghost of Jean Lafitte” (“Pirate's Alley Café Reviews” 2009). The claim for Pirate's Alley is that Lafitte met Andrew Jackson there in 1815 to plan the Battle of New Orleans; however, the alley was not actually constructed until the 1830s (Cook 1999, 25). (See figure 15.2.)

  Lafitte's ghost is also reputed to make appearances at La Porte, Texas (east of Houston). Legendarily, Lafitte buried a treasure there, consisting of gold and jewels and allegedly protected by his ghost. However, the treasure-guarding ghost is a common folklore motif (or story element) (Thompson 1955, 2:429), and reports of some residents having been “awakened in the middle of the night by Lafitte's ghost, dressed in a red coat, standing at the foot of their beds” are easily explained as waking dreams. These occur in a state between wakefulness and sleep, and they are responsible for countless ghostly visitations (Nickell 1995, 41, 46, 55).

  CAPTAIN FLINT

  Some sources associate Lafitte (if not his ghost) with another place, Pirates’ House Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, where I investigated and had a pleasant lunch on March 24, 2004. A more cautious source states only that “famous pirates such as Jean Lafitte came to port in Savannah,” so it is “reasonable to suppose that many of them came to the Pirates [sic] House to enjoy a bit of grog, a sea chanty, and a coarse joke or two.” This source adds:

  There are some who believe that the spirits of pirates still inhabit the Pirates [sic] House. Mysterious lights have been seen in the old seamen's quarters, and noises heard, apparitions that cannot be pegged to any human activity. There are those who have sensed presences and scenes of ancient violence. Yet others have passed years without noticing anything unusual in the building suggesting that the only piratical activity still in the house is the imbibing of generous quantities of ale by the witnesses to these events. (“Legend of the Pirates’ House” 2009)

  A popular ghost guide—Haunted Places: The National Directory—alleges that the restaurant was once Lafitte's home, adding, however, that “it is the ghost of another notorious pirate known as Captain Flint, who haunts the place” (Hauck 1996, 141).

  A history provided by the restaurant's website states:

  ’Tis said that old Captain Flint, who originally buried the fabulous treasure on Treasure Island, died here in an upstairs room. In the story, his faithful mate, Billy Bones, was at his side when he breathed his last, muttering “Darby bring aft the rum.” Even now, many swear that the ghost of Captain Flint still haunts the Pirates’ House on moonless nights. (“History” 2009)

  It helps here to realize that “Captain Flint” was a fictitious character in Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of greedy pirates and revenge, Treasure Island (1883). Although it is claimed that “Captain Flint” was modeled on a historical character, that remains unproved, and there is only a supposed connection to Pirates’ House (“Legend of the Pirates’ House” 2009; “Captain Flint” 2009). This case is instructive in showing that an apparently fictional character can haunt a place just as convincingly as a real one!

  CAPTAIN KIDD

  Treasure Island appears to be a source for other tales involving pirates’ ghosts and the buried treasures they allegedly guard—none more famous than that of “Captain” William Kidd. A seventeenth-century privateer for the British against the French off the coast of North America, Kidd later became an outright pirate. British authorities declared him such, arrested him at Boston, and transported him to England. There he was tried, convicted, and hanged in 1701. His remains were displayed publicly, in a dangling iron cage, as a warning to others (Cawthorne 2005, 169–91; Klein 2006, 51–64).

  “After his death,” according to a scholarly source, “Kidd became a legendary figure in both England and the U.S. He became the hero of many ballads, his ghost was seen on several occasions, and numerous attempts were made to discover a fabulous treasure that he supposedly buried in various points ranging from Oak Island, Nova Scotia, to Gardiner's Island, New York” (Benet's 1987, 529). In addition to Treasure Island, the Kidd legend also strongly influenced Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Gold Bug” (1843). Treasure was recovered from Kidd, but even before his hanging rumors spread that there was much, much more (Klein 2006, 58). (See also Shute 2002; Beck 1973, 337–38.)

  Although proof or even credible evidence is lacking, Oak Island in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, is believed by many to contain a fabulous treasure—possibly Kidd's imagined trove. The island is steeped in legends about ghosts who guard the fabled “money pit.” The focus of “the world's longest and most expensive treasure hunt” (O'Connor 1988, 4), this is a shaft, dug and redug for some two centuries, representing an inverted monument to greed, folly, and even death (Crooker 1993, 92–93; Nickell 2001, 219–34).

  I visited Oak Island in mid-1999 after giving a presentation at a forensic conference in nearby New Brunswick. Although at the time the area was guarded by a no-trespassing sign rather than pirates’ ghosts, I was able to access the island by a causeway and spend quality time with Dan Blankenship, dubbed “Oak Island's most obsessive searcher” (O'Connor 1988, 145). The next day I viewed the remainder of the island by boat, piloted by local private eye Jim Harvey. After considerable subsequent research (Nickell 2001, 219, 234), I concluded that the “money pit” and accompanying “pirate tunnels” were natural cavern features, that the treasure was fictitious, and that many of the cryptic elements in the Oak Island saga were attributable to “Secret Vault” rituals of the Freemasons. Indeed, the long “search” for Oak Isl
and's legendary treasure was carried out largely by prominent Nova Scotia Masons.

  Over the years, the legendary pirate-guarded treasure has also been the target of dowsers, psychics, dream interpreters, and other mystics—not one of them successful. If the site was indeed guarded by a ghost—of Kidd or an anonymous pirate—he seems not to have known he was wasting his effort on a nonexistent treasure trove.

  BLACKBEARD

  Of history's most notorious pirates, Edward Teach surely tops the list. Born possibly in Bristol, England, circa 1680, Teach, like others of his ilk, turned from privateering to piracy, his trademark jet beard earning him his sobriquet “Blackbeard.” His “terrifying appearance, daring raids and murderous exploits” made him an enduring legend (Klein 2006, 76). He plundered the Atlantic coast, but when he planned to establish a fort at Ocracoke, an island off North Carolina's Outer Banks, the governor of neighboring Virginia responded. The governor persuaded the Virginia Assembly to post a £100 reward for Black beard, dead or alive, and lesser rewards for his men.

  On November 22, 1718, two sloops under the command of Lt. Robert Maynard confronted Blackbeard's Adventure at Ocracoke. After unleashing a broadside against the Jane, Teach and his men boarded her, only to be overwhelmed by armed men hidden in the cargo hold. In the ensuing fight Maynard attacked Teach with pistol and sword, finally decapitating him. When its companion sloop pulled up, decks of the Jane were awash in blood. Maynard suspended Teach's head as a trophy from his sloop's bowsprit (Klein 2006, 76–87; Cawthorne 2005, 199–207).

  Today, Ocracoke is as lush with legends as it is with scenery. My wife and I visited Ocracoke on our honeymoon in 2006. The name itself has a Blackbeard legend attached: supposedly, during the night before his encounter with Maynard, Blackbeard was impatient for dawn, crying out, “O crow cock! O crow cock!”—hence the name of the inlet and the island. Actually, long before Blackbeard, old maps show the area below Cape Hatteras with the name Wokokon. Sometimes spelled Woccocock, this apparently Native American name evolved (its W dropped) to Occocock (various spellings) and then to the present Ocracoke (Rondthaler n.d.).