I usually don't include stories sent in to podcasts, but this one was too creepy to ignore.
A fellow named Archer, who lives in Georgia, sent an MP3 containing this story into the Anything Ghost podcast...
Archer had bought a white noise machine to help him sleep. You've probably seen these machines before, they produce various different sounds - rain, a flowing creek, etc. - to act as background noise, and cancel out other noises that may interfere with a person's sleep. Archer liked the creek setting, and would turn it on as he went to bed.
One night, a friend of Archer's was visiting from out of town. The next morning, he asked Archer about the talking machine that had been on all night. Archer explained that it was not a "talking machine" but a white noise machine, and that it had been playing the sound of a flowing creek. His friend insisted that he heard it speaking, though he couldn't understand the words, but Archer heard no such thing and figured that his friend was joking.
Later, another friend came to visit, and reported the same thing. After this visit, Archer decided to try turning the machine on and visiting different bedrooms in his home to see if there was something about the acoustics of the place that would cause the machine's noises to sound like speech. He found nothing, and just thought it was odd, without giving it much more thought.
A short time later, Archer went on a trip to another city. He brought the white noise machine with him, and turned it on when he was ready to go to sleep. This time, though, he didn't just hear the flowing creek, but rather the strange voice, and it was screaming in a deep, angry tone. While the screaming occurred, a hot wind began to blow through the hotel room. Archer hit the power button numerous times, but to no avail. He finally unplugged the unit from the wall, causing the sound to stop and the wind to stop blowing in the room.
He threw away the machine and has stated that he hasn't bought a replacement.
Commentary: So, this is the second "haunted object" that I have written about here. This is also an interesting one in that, given that it apparently hosted an angry spirit, it could also fall into the "demons" category, and might be thought of as a possessed object.
Unlike some of the other stories on this blog, my interest in this story comes not from an intellectual interest in the structure or elements of the story, but simply from the fact that it is a damn effective scary story. I have told the story to, or played the podcast for, several people, and all of them have been suitably creeped out by it.
I discovered the hard way that telling this story to your girlfriend late at night is a good way to get her both unnerved and angry with you. Thankfully, I have also discovered that this can be neutralized to a degree by suggesting that she imagine that, rather than a deep demonic voice emanating from the machine, the voice of Bill Cosby telling a rambling anecdote that goes nowhere is coming from the machine. Really, it's hard to be frightened when you imagine that the eternal damned babble incoherently about Jello pudding through a set of cheap speakers.
It's worth noting that devices that produce white noise, including white noise generators, but also including items such as electric fans or televisions and radios set to static, as well as devices that simply produce other types of random noise, can be thought to produce speech because of a phenomenon known as pareidolia - the tendency for the brain to perceive distinct patterns even when there is only randomness, in this case to hear voices or language where none actually is. This is likely the phenomenon behind most electronic voice phenomenon and the claimed backward messages on rock albums* as well as the tendency for people to see things such as religious figures in burn marks or alien spaceships in cloud formations.
But, of course, that wouldn't explain a machine screaming at the owner. Whether this is a case of something strange actually happening to Archer, or a case of someone simply wanting to tell a scary story to an audience via a podcast, I haven't a clue. But it makes for a damn good ghost story.
For more on how paradolia can cause us to hear things that aren't there, check out these two podcasts: this one and this one
Sources: Podcast (the story starts at the 30:14 mark)
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Friday, January 22, 2010
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Andersonville Prison, Georgia
Andersonville Prison (A.K.A. Camp Sumter), near Americus Georgia, is often brought up as an example of the brutal conditions of Civil-War era military prisons. The prison was really little more than wood and cloth temporary structures surrounded by a stockade wall, patrolled by armed guards who were generally willing to kill anyone who passed the "deadline" - a line that created a buffer between the prisoner's area and the prison's walls.
Like most prisons of its day, the camp was plagued by poor sanitation, crowding, and violence both among the prisoners and between the prisoners and guards. One notable group was "Mosby's Raiders", a group of prisoners led by Mosby Collins who would terrorize and take advantage of the other prisoners. Eventually, the warden allowed the prisoners to put several of the "raiders" on trial and execute them.
Up to 13,000 prisoners died during the prison's operation. The prison population could equal 20,000 prisoners at any one time. In 1864, with Union soldiers pushing their way into Georgia, most of the prisoners were vacated from Andersonville and moved to other locations. A group of approximately 1,500 prisoners was left behind, guarded by a skeleton crew of Confederate soldiers. The prison was closed down in 1865 due to the end of the war.
In the century and a half since the closing of the prison, numerous frightening stories have been told about the place. Phantom soldiers have been said to appear and vanish. Overnight campers, taking part in civil war reenactments, have reported developing a strange sickness during the course of the night and feeling an overwhelming malevolence that compelled them to leave. Other visitors have reported being physically pushed by unseen forces; hearing the sounds of screams, marching, and gunshots; seeing figures faintly during fog, accompanied by sounds of screaming and moaning; Hearing voices calling for specific individuals known to have been at the prison; and being overwhelmed by a strong charnel-house smell.
One noteworthy apparition is that of Captain Wirz - the designer and warden of the prison, who was put on trial for war crimes after the end of the war. He was summarily executed.
One popular story holds that a soldier in era-uniform has been seen walking down the road near the prison, visible by the light of the lantern he carries. When the Hometown Tales guys began to speak with people about this story, they quickly found the likely origin of this particular story. One of their contacts, a Civil War re-enacter, was walking along the road during an event-related camping trip. When a truck passed by, the driver appears to have caught a glimpse of the uniformed man and nearly crashed, but took off again without finding out what was really going on.
Commentary: The Civil War occupies a unique place in the American mind. Although inter-state antagonism is not unusual, most people within the nation will identify themselves primarily as citizens of the United States, and secondarily as Georgians, Floridans, Californians, Hoosiers (residents of Indiana), etc. Although this story was different during the late 18th and early 19th century, this hierarchy of identities has long been typical of the people of the U.S.A.
As such, the Civil War represents a breakdown of the perceived natural order. And it is a festering psychic scar on the American consciousness, one that has come to represent different things to different people. To most of us, it represents the final death knell of slavery within the U.S. To a small, but vocal, group, it represents the tyranny of industrial progressives over God-fearing rural people. Of course, neither mythologized view is quite correct, but that doesn't stop them from maintaining popularity.
The Civil war is also significant in the American mind in that it is one of only two wars in which a significant number of people died on U.S. soil, the other being the Revolutionary war (smaller conflicts resulted in deaths on a smaller scale, or a large number of deaths but over a larger period of time - such as wars against Native American groups), and of these two, the Civil war was by far the bloodier. As a result, sites associated with the Civil War take on great significance even amongst those who do not subscribe to supernatural beliefs.
To those who do subscribe to such beliefs these locations are hallowed and haunted ground. Stories of civil war ghosts run the gamut from rather prosaic stories about seeing a single individual in uniform appearing and vanishing to stories about battles being re-enacted by spectral armies. Although Gettysburg is the best known example, others are in ready supply throughout the south, mid-west, and on the east coast.
That Andersonville should have weird events attributed to it is not surprising. Aside from being significant in terms of its ties to the Civil War, it is also a place that witnessed considerable misery and cruelty. Even those who do not believe in ghosts may feel themselves creeped out by such places.
...and another video treat from you, from the rather groovy fella's at
Hometown Tales:
...and another one from another source...
Sources: Hometown Tales, Internet, Internet, National Park Service
Like most prisons of its day, the camp was plagued by poor sanitation, crowding, and violence both among the prisoners and between the prisoners and guards. One notable group was "Mosby's Raiders", a group of prisoners led by Mosby Collins who would terrorize and take advantage of the other prisoners. Eventually, the warden allowed the prisoners to put several of the "raiders" on trial and execute them.
Up to 13,000 prisoners died during the prison's operation. The prison population could equal 20,000 prisoners at any one time. In 1864, with Union soldiers pushing their way into Georgia, most of the prisoners were vacated from Andersonville and moved to other locations. A group of approximately 1,500 prisoners was left behind, guarded by a skeleton crew of Confederate soldiers. The prison was closed down in 1865 due to the end of the war.
In the century and a half since the closing of the prison, numerous frightening stories have been told about the place. Phantom soldiers have been said to appear and vanish. Overnight campers, taking part in civil war reenactments, have reported developing a strange sickness during the course of the night and feeling an overwhelming malevolence that compelled them to leave. Other visitors have reported being physically pushed by unseen forces; hearing the sounds of screams, marching, and gunshots; seeing figures faintly during fog, accompanied by sounds of screaming and moaning; Hearing voices calling for specific individuals known to have been at the prison; and being overwhelmed by a strong charnel-house smell.
One noteworthy apparition is that of Captain Wirz - the designer and warden of the prison, who was put on trial for war crimes after the end of the war. He was summarily executed.
One popular story holds that a soldier in era-uniform has been seen walking down the road near the prison, visible by the light of the lantern he carries. When the Hometown Tales guys began to speak with people about this story, they quickly found the likely origin of this particular story. One of their contacts, a Civil War re-enacter, was walking along the road during an event-related camping trip. When a truck passed by, the driver appears to have caught a glimpse of the uniformed man and nearly crashed, but took off again without finding out what was really going on.
Commentary: The Civil War occupies a unique place in the American mind. Although inter-state antagonism is not unusual, most people within the nation will identify themselves primarily as citizens of the United States, and secondarily as Georgians, Floridans, Californians, Hoosiers (residents of Indiana), etc. Although this story was different during the late 18th and early 19th century, this hierarchy of identities has long been typical of the people of the U.S.A.
As such, the Civil War represents a breakdown of the perceived natural order. And it is a festering psychic scar on the American consciousness, one that has come to represent different things to different people. To most of us, it represents the final death knell of slavery within the U.S. To a small, but vocal, group, it represents the tyranny of industrial progressives over God-fearing rural people. Of course, neither mythologized view is quite correct, but that doesn't stop them from maintaining popularity.
The Civil war is also significant in the American mind in that it is one of only two wars in which a significant number of people died on U.S. soil, the other being the Revolutionary war (smaller conflicts resulted in deaths on a smaller scale, or a large number of deaths but over a larger period of time - such as wars against Native American groups), and of these two, the Civil war was by far the bloodier. As a result, sites associated with the Civil War take on great significance even amongst those who do not subscribe to supernatural beliefs.
To those who do subscribe to such beliefs these locations are hallowed and haunted ground. Stories of civil war ghosts run the gamut from rather prosaic stories about seeing a single individual in uniform appearing and vanishing to stories about battles being re-enacted by spectral armies. Although Gettysburg is the best known example, others are in ready supply throughout the south, mid-west, and on the east coast.
That Andersonville should have weird events attributed to it is not surprising. Aside from being significant in terms of its ties to the Civil War, it is also a place that witnessed considerable misery and cruelty. Even those who do not believe in ghosts may feel themselves creeped out by such places.
...and another video treat from you, from the rather groovy fella's at
Hometown Tales:
...and another one from another source...
Sources: Hometown Tales, Internet, Internet, National Park Service
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