Gettysburg Ghost

Every season, we say the same thing: don’t taunt ghosts. Don’t make fun of them, don’t tease them, and whatever you do, don’t make a joke about bringing them home with you, because they might just end up making your life a waking nightmare.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Glynn Washington?

  Hickory, dickory, dock. A boy picked up a rock. His friend could see, no place to flee. Hickory, dickory, dock.

• 0:23Glynn Washington?

  You've arrived at Spook.

• 0:30Glynn Washington?

  Stay tuned.

• 0:36Glynn Washington?

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. And sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you, along with 24/7 claim support and great customer service. So, when you think about it, that's like four great decisions that more than makes up for the TV debacle. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 1:19Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. We want more spook, you said. We want the support to show, you said. And, can we please, for the love of all that is holy, please get rid of those ads? Well, prayers answered. Spooked Plus has risen. Ad-free spook. The entire library, no interruptions. Just you and whatever's lurking in the shadows. Exclusive bonus stories every month. Fresh nightmares you won't hear anywhere else. The Spooked Plus community, listen together, chat in real time, because no one should face the darkest alone. And, and, ask me anything for yours truly.

• 2:03Glynn Washington?

  If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spooksters, we are a small team chasing down the big mystery. Your support keeps this flame burning, so come on in. The door is open. Spooked.supercast.com. That's spooked.supercast.com. Spooked Plus.

• 2:29Glynn Washington?

  Don't turn out the lights.

• 2:45Glynn Washington?

  Fifth grade, Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Every day I walk to school. Every day, same route with my buddy Danny Walters. And every day, from late and even on the rare days we're not late, we cut through several backyards to get to Fancher Elementary. Everyone did it, a kid's super highway.

• 3:09Glynn Washington?

  And every day, running through the Peterson's backyard, I see their Doberman mutt mix, Rusty, tied to a tree. And Rusty had a reputation, big dog, mean dog, whatever. Whatever, I like dogs. And Rusty was never mean to me. Just don't surprise him. Approach him slowly, slowly. Palm out, he'd sniff, put my hand. Even let me pet him, "Good boy." "Good boy like every other dog in any other backyard."

• 3:49Glynn Washington?

  And that's how I knew Shelby was a jerk.

• 3:58Glynn Washington?

  He'd always tease Rusty with a stick, with a water gun, with his lunchbox, bravely outside the area. Rusty's chain would let him go. There'd stand Shelby. Rusty barking crazy, furiously. Shelby laughing, poking, laughing. "Dude, leave the dog alone." "Make me stupid."

• 4:23Glynn Washington?

  Every day, every day, this mad furious barking, straining on the chain. Shelby prodding, prodding, laughing. "Leave the dog alone."

• 4:40Glynn Washington?

  Until one bright glorious morning. Just a little bit of nighttime chill still left in the air. Rusty, Rusty broke that chain.

• 4:58Glynn Washington?

  And got him from Shelby's ass and I wish, I wish I had been there to see it. But several houses away, I could hear it. We could all hear it. The screaming, the shrieks, the monstrous growls, the please. Sounded like karma. And I couldn't have been happier. And we ran, pulled the dog off him, called the adults, to tell the teachers, to tell each other what we had each seen, where we were standing when we heard the screams, what so-and-so said to so-and-so after they found out, what I told that idiot kid a long time ago, how

• 5:40Glynn Washington?

  anybody with half a brain could see it coming, stupid dummy. We laughed some more when we heard the verdict. Fifteen stitches on his right calf, fifteen. We should call him dog food, stupid kid. I didn't even pay, let's never mind, but I didn't pass by Rusty the next day. Or the day after that, or the day after that, I asked my buddy Danny Walters, "Hey, what happened to Rusty?" "What do you mean what happened? Same thing that happens to any dog that attacks any kid."

• 6:27Glynn Washington?

  And right then, the almost summer day turns cold, cold, cold. But Rusty didn't attack anybody. Same difference. A few days later, I see a kid running toward the school, tears in his eyes, Shelby right behind him, grinning that same grin. I think it's from Washington. Some folk think the world is fair.

• 7:07Glynn Washington?

  Spook Starts. Now.

• 7:32Glynn Washington?

  So, most people, they want to go somewhere romantic on their honeymoon. The beaches of Bali, canals of Venice, walks on the sand, sunsets, candlelight dinners. But some people, people like Trina, wow, their love is special and they gotta do something totally different. Spooked.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  My husband has an archaeology degree. For me, I'm a teacher. And so, when we were trying to decide on places to go, he wanted someplace historical and that was why we decided to go to Gettysburg. Gettysburg is the furthest north that the South ever got. So, there was a major clash there, huge amounts of casualties, and it took place over this one small town. And when the battle was over, that one small town then had to deal with all of the casualties and body disposal.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  So many men died on the battlefield in Gettysburg that four months later, vultures and hogs were still feeding on their corpses. Today, Gettysburg is considered one of the most haunted places in America. There are reports of phantoms in uniform, mysterious myths, the apparition of a Civil War-era nurse looking for wounded soldiers to tend.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  We took a lot of the walking tours. We did the full course. The only thing different that we really did was we did the ghost hunting tour one time. That was my husband's idea. He's a believer. He does watch the ghost hunting shows. I'm a lot more of a skeptic. I'm always going to look for a logical explanation versus just drinking the Kool-Aid.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  With a couple of other tourists and a guide, she and her husband walked to the tour site. It was nighttime, so they used cell phones to light their way across a covered bridge and down an empty road. They were headed to an area where nurses treated wounded soldiers.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  The road dips down and curves, and then it flattens out into these two fields. There are some residential houses around, but they aren't super close. The road bisects the two fields. So you had this open field, then you have a one-lane road, and then you have another field that has trees in it. So when the soldiers were injured at Gettysburg, they turned this field into a hospital, and it was right by a creek.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  The idea was to give the wounded men easy access to sunlight and fresh water. But then came the rain. As the creek rose higher and higher, the injured soldiers tried to drag themselves to safety. A Gettysburg resident named Sarah Broadhead wrote in her diary, "Men wounded in three and four places, not able to help themselves the least bit, lay almost swimming in water." Some of the men made it. Some of them drowned, right there on what should have been dry land.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  We were there at night, probably about 10 o'clock, so there was enough moonlight to see by. I think we had one little flashlight. It really wasn't a tour. It was, "We're gonna take you out here, and then you're on your own." They gave us a brief history. And then they were like, "You're free to do what you want." They gave us those, the little MF boxes, I think is what they're called. When you were supposed to be communicating with the spirits, it would light up and make noise and allow the ghosts to manipulate the electronics to communicate back. Twice for no, once for yes. It wasn't that high-tech. This was not like the future of ghost hunting.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  My husband had it almost the whole time. See, it was his thing. I was like, you take the little box, you do your thing with them. I was pretty bored pretty quick with them. So they gave us those and they were said, you're free to stick here with us or you can explore on your own.

• 12:19Glynn Washington?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. Imagine opening my closet, looking for a shirt, and I see that jacket, that jacket, that jacket I got for that party I never went to three years ago. That jacket, it's still there. It's still mocking me. Well, it was still there. Because then I stopped and I reached for my phone because Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes that you no longer wear. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. Once an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And Vinted has no seller fees. I mean, you keep every dollar you earn. And

• 13:01Glynn Washington?

  I could get a little more room in my closet, you know, for that next jacket. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. No seller fees, so you keep everything you earn.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are no antibiotics in their meat department, ever. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All their delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Hello, I'm Chris Richards, general manager at Saffir Volkswagen Richmond. I'm here to announce an exciting new program that I want you to listen to. Here's my friend, Happy.

• 13:57Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Happy Harry Turner, a special finance manager at SaffirCredit.com. If you're in an open Chapter 13 bankruptcy, recently filed a Chapter 7, or you've been turned down because of credit challenges, don't give up. For nearly 30 years, I've helped people get reliable transportation when others said no. Visit SaffirCredit.com. Remember, I'm not happy unless you are.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  I'm not a people person. I don't, I don't like being with strangers and, and so I was like, let's get out of here. Let's go find our own kind of corner of this field. So we go across the road into the opposite field. We stepped into this field and like I said, it was mainly my husband doing the questioning. So he has a lot of interest in history. And so some of his questions were along those lines. It's like, did you die in the battle? Did you die when the creek flooded? At one point in time, I don't know why the questions turned down a certain route that they did.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  I think of what started it. I said, if I were a ghost, I would be pretty irritated with people coming around here asking me questions all the time. So sidekick slash comedy relief was my role. He's like, are you irritated with us? And I believe the answer was yes. That then followed, are you angry with us? And it was like, yes. And he was like, do you want to hurt us? And it was like, yes. Even after it was like, yeah, I want to hurt you. I wasn't really phased by that. I'm not a big believer. And so I was just like, okay, whatever. At this point, I was starting to tease him that we should take a ghost home with us as a souvenir.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  My husband did not find this funny. He was like, you need to take that back. I was like, no, I'll make it coffee and we'll set up a cot in the office. It can live with us. You know, again, my husband's like, do not do this. This is not funny. You are inviting something dangerous. Um, which just made me double down. I was like, no, no, no, it can come back in the car with us. Let's bring this thing home. Eventually, the tour guides came out of the other field and they're like, are you okay? So we're like, yeah, and why shouldn't we be? And they were like, we don't go in that field because there are evil spirits that have hurt people.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  We've had people get scratched and hit in that field. As we started to walk away, I did get a very ominous feeling. That thing you get where you feel like something's watching you. I wouldn't say fear, but definitely ominous, like something suddenly was very heavy. Something is pressing down on you.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  This dread, like, maybe I should walk a little faster. It was atmospheric for spooky, spooky shit. You know, the moon was out, things were getting to me and I was allowing them to affect me. My husband, on the other hand, he gave me a talking to once we got back in the car. He insisted that we sage our hotel room.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Because Gettysburg has such a reputation for being haunted, it wasn't hard to find a shop that sold sage.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  The only problem with this is that neither one of us knew how to sage anything. You know, he at least knew that he should sage something. He's just waving the sage around. Meanwhile, I'm still sitting there like, oh, I'm gonna sneak it home in my luggage.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Trina's husband also wanted her to take back what she'd said before.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  I was like, I am not doing that. That is ridiculous.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  He's like, take it back. You have to say out loud that you were uninviting this ghost. I did finally do it to make him happy. However, I don't know if I necessarily put the correct emotion behind it when I did it. I wasn't worried something followed us home.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  That was before things started happening.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I got in the shower, the water had warmed up. I was washing my hair and just all of a sudden blasted with boiling hot water. It was hot enough that it turned my skin red.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  It happened to Trina the next time she showered too. And again, and again, and again.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Every shower was me ducking in and out, trying to figure out when I was going to get blasted by hot water. So I could jump out of the way. We went to the apartment maintenance. They examined the shower, they examined the water heater. No one else was having this problem. None of our neighbors, they had never had this complaint before. They had absolutely no idea how to fix it and they couldn't see anything wrong. And then we also had a, like, we could not keep light bulbs to save our lives. Anywhere where there was water, the kitchen and the bathrooms, the light bulb would blow all the time.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  It took a while for me to put together patterns. Like, it was directly above the sinks is where the bulbs would blow. Bulbs shouldn't be blowing every other week. I had put something in the microwave. I believe it was just a cup of water for tea. I hit the timer and then I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room where I was watching TV. And suddenly, there was a loud bang. The door of the microwave had flown open. So I ran over and closed it because it was still running.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  There wasn't a big cloud of steam that came out. It wasn't like I had heated the water up so hot that steam had busted the door open. I'd only put it in for like two minutes. I was boiling water for pasta, so I had put a pan on the stove top. The vent hood was running and I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. I heard a click, some subtle noise that made me look back to the kitchen. And that's when I saw a column of water erupt out of the pan.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Solid mass of water that exploded up, hit the vent hood and then it was like a geyser. Hit the vent hood and then splashed down and over top the stove. I ran back into the kitchen and took the pan off of the stove and there was just water everywhere. Um, it was dripping off the vent hood. It was, uh, pooled on the countertops. This wasn't an isolated incident. It did happen multiple times and it was almost the same scenario every time. Where I would put water on, I would step away.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Some subtle sound would make me look over and then there would be a column of water shooting out of the pan. Most of the time I was out in the living room or the dining room, but there was one time it happened when I was standing at the sink. I was trying to figure out was it the cup, was it the water? Was there anything unusual that I did that I don't normally do? I even would try switching pans on the stove. It didn't matter what pan I used. It was like, what the hell is going on? I do believe it was my husband that finally said, this isn't adding up. This is probably something supernatural.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  I cannot recall who necessarily attributed it to Gettysburg, but where else would we go to pick up the ghost? I couldn't say, um, every week this will happen or every month. You would almost get lulled into a false sense of security that something else wasn't going to happen and then something would happen. I was in the kitchen cooking and in the corner of our kitchen, we had a stand and on top of that was the microwave and on top of that was a vase and a kitchen timer. And the kitchen timer was a kitty cat. It's gray with ears and has gray big eyes.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  The top of the microwave was about at my chest. I was cooking and I heard a noise behind me. It sounded like a slide, like something slid on the microwave a little bit, like that metallic ching, like it was very soft. And when I turned around, that kitchen timer was eye level with me. It went from the top of the microwave about eight inches to a foot and it held there for a second, long enough for me to look at, look at its little kitty eyes and then it dropped to the floor.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  You turn around and an inanimate object is looking you in the eye, even if it was just for a split second, you get that oh fuck feeling come over you. I stopped dead in my tracks and my stomach dropped. I don't think it would be possible to not get a little creeped out at that point. I wasn't telling friends and family about it. You're already entertaining the fact that your apartment's haunted, that you've probably invited a hostile energy into your home. There's all those fears. On the other hand, there's also the

• 24:32Speaker 01

  very real fear that you're flipping your shit and if you tell anybody about it, they will view you as a crazy person.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  We had some friends over and we watched a documentary about a haunting. There was a lot of joking taking place. Our friends left and my husband went to bed and I was sitting out in the living room. And I had the lights off because I was on my phone and I was kind of gearing up for bed. And it was a little after 3 a.m. and I heard a roar come out of our laundry area. It literally sounded like a car had crashed through this laundry room. There was that initial crash and then it hit the sliding doors. And then there was the crashing of a couple of glass objects hitting the top of the washer and shattering.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  And then the final sound was just sort of like a thunking as something hit the doors and snaked down to the floor. I did let out a scream and I froze for a minute. I went over and opened the doors. I just saw, oh man, it was bad because it was just laundry detergent was everywhere. It had, the cap had busted off and it was pooling into the carpet. I was alone in the living room and this happened. I really didn't have too many reservations about going ahead and contributing in to the

• 26:21Speaker 01

  ghost at that point, but I still tried to logically see if it was something else. I examined the holes in the wall. I examined the shelf. This was one of those wire shelves and it had been screwed into the studs, but there were no drag marks. I have some siblings who are engineers and they couldn't really give me an explanation for it. I knew.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  There was probably something supernatural occurring.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  I knew it was hostile.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  But I wasn't walking around in fear. The only time I was afraid is when the health problems started.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I, I have a CPAP. Well, CPAP is a machine specifically for sleep apnea. And sleep apnea is where you stop breathing while you sleep. Every CPAP unit has a water tank on it. And the machine heats that water up to steam. The steam passes through the hose and into your airways. The hose would fly off in the middle of the night. For no apparent reason. It would literally fly off of the machine. It wasn't because I pulled it off. I don't move much in my sleep. It had never happened prior. The thing that helped me breathe would suddenly stop.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  It got worse.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I was on the phone with my husband. As we talked,

• 28:03Speaker 01

  my chest felt very heavy and I started getting some pain. And then as I was breathing, the pain increased.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  We hung up and it just, it kept getting worse until I couldn't move without searing pain. My whole chest felt very heavy. And then there was these stabbing pains. Eventually, my mom took me to the ER. I went to the ER and they said, you have pneumonia. And I said, no, I don't. I have not been sick. Two specialists were able to tell me that it was a fluid in my body that had, for some reason, accumulated to the point that it was crushing my heart. The fluid was putting pressure on my lungs, limiting my ability to breathe. I was telling my niece, my nephew, and my mom about it for the first time.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  My nephew was like, you do realize that you have suddenly developed this condition where you are drowning?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  And you have a ghost that came from a watery field where they drowned. Like, are you not getting the connection here?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  All the men in that field died of drowning. And basically, I was drowning in my own fluids.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I don't know if I would say I brought it on myself. I do acknowledge my responsibility in that I invited something to my home that I shouldn't have. I will own when I did, but I won't take responsibility for a spirit's actions.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Trina got treatment, but it was time to get rid of the ghost. This time for good. The couple bought a house and packed their things. Shortly before they moved out, Trina was in their apartment alone.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  I was in the apartment alone and I heard movement. Someone was moving around. I opened the door to the bedroom um, to see what was going on. I had left a light on for when my husband came home. And um, I saw a black mass gliding across the floor. And when I say black, I mean absolute black. Void of all color. Deep abyss black.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  It was flat against the ground, like someone took black paper and cut it out in a shape and then slid it along the floor. I could see its profile, but there were no eyes. There were two hands with elongated fingers, very pointed at the end. Very angular nose, very angular chin. The apartment we lived in faced a pond. It glided across the floor at a diagonal,

• 31:00Speaker 01

  moving towards the pond.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Moving toward the water.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  I'm not sure if you gravitate towards water. If that's how you ended your existence. It just becomes elementally something that's a part of you. I don't know if it lives in water and communicates through electricity. It was a physical manifestation of whatever the hell was in that apartment. This was no longer a phenomenon that you could maybe explain in some capacity. This was flat out, "It's all a ghost." I sure the hell wasn't gonna walk down the hallway and go find out where it went. I had no illusion that it was leaving. I just shut the door and I went to bed.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Finally, moving day came. Trina's husband sage the apartment again, but this time he'd done his research.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  So previously, when he saged and kept all the doors and windows closed, he was just chasing it around the apartment, pissing it off. This time, he opens all the windows, he opens the doors. We were told that it allows the spirit to actually exit the building.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  For good measure, he saged the new house, too.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  None of the things that happened at the apartment have happened here. I do think, you know, it's very possible that we left our souvenir at the apartment.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  There's just one thing that still troubles Trina.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Our basement has flooded. I've had three companies out and they cannot explain to me how the water is getting in.

• 32:58Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Trina, for sharing your story at The Spooked. Remember, please, don't prod the beast for all of our sakes. The original score for that story was by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Ann Ford.

• 33:25Glynn Washington?

  The end? The end, there is no end. If you have a story that spooked you, a personal story, let us know. Send us your stories. [email protected]. There is nothing better than a spooked story from a spooked listener. And if you like the storytelling without all the creepy crawlies, subscribe to the amazing Snap Judgment Podcast, which might just change your life.

• 33:56Glynn Washington?

  Spooked is brought to you by the team that knows the best romantic getaway. Except for Mark Ristich, he prefers Denny's. Anna Sussman, the chief spookster is Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrick, Annie Nguyen, Lauren Newsom, Leon Morimoto, Renzo Goryo, Taylor Decot, Marissa Dodge, Aliyah Yates, Zoe Feringo, Greta Weber, Jacob Winnick, Sonnacan, Tiffany Delisa, Anne Ford, Fernando Hernandez, and Flo Wiley. The Spook theme song is by Pat McSibby-Miller. My name is from Washington. When you close that laptop, when you finish that book, when you shut off the TV for the night,

• 34:38Glynn Washington?

  always remember and don't forget to never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, ever, never turn out lights.