Spirits at the Lighthouse

Location: St. Augustine Lighthouse; St. Augustine, FL

Date: March 24, 2010

       

Since we were planning to be in St. Augustine for a couple of nights, my dad decided we should try to ghost hunt at the lighthouse as well. After seeing it featured on Ghost Hunters, we had toured it on our first trip to St. Augustine, but not at night. After a few phone calls, my dad booked a private session at the lighthouse for Wednesday night from 9 to 10:30.

        

We arrived a little early, and one of the workers told us some stories of the more recent encounters with the ghosts. These ranged from people being touched and spoken to on ghost tours to full body apparitions of men in old military uniforms. One of the most popular occurrences was people photographing black shadows looking down at them over the stairwell rail in the lighthouse, very similar to what the Ghost Hunters themselves had witnessed.

        

After setting up our video camera pointing directly up into the lighthouse, we began our ascent. Though my mom and I were terrified to climb the spiraling metal stairs in the dark, my dad charged full speed ahead, hoping to encounter the ghosts of the men who had formerly lived and worked in the lighthouse. At two separate occasions on our climb, my mom and dad both witnessed a white form peeking over the rail several landings above us. We stopped at several landings to try to capture EVPs and take photos up and down the lighthouse tower. We caught a couple of orbs in the photos, but our best result from the lighthouse itself was on video.

An orb in the lighthouse.

Once you reach the next-to-the-last level of the tower a security floodlight comes on at the top. This frustrated us at first because it doesn’t go off until you climb back down past that point. At the time, though, we didn’t know this gave us some interesting video footage. Once we reviewed the tape we realized we had caught the shadow man in action. On the left side of the video, you can hear us reaching the platform that triggers the motion light. We stop there and discuss something for a while, and during that time the shadow figure leans over the railing on the right side of the tower stairs. The figure has a large, round head but no other definitive features. He leans over for a second before sliding back out of view. After he disappears you can hear us begin our climb to the top of the tower, and once we reach the top my dad looks over the rail as well. If you compare the two shadows generated by their figures, my dad’s shadow is much darker black and has definite shoulders and arms, where the other man had only had a large head that was a fuzzy gray.

        

After spending a few moments at the top we started back down the lighthouse. A few levels from the bottom we had a very interesting scare. As we were climbing down, we heard a loud booming sound and the stairwell actually shook. We all paused, taken aback by what had happened. The source of the sound and shake had to have been behind us because my mom was at the back of our party and she felt the vibrations the strongest, actually feeling the rail shake in her hands. In the front, several steps further down, my dad had heard the boom but not felt it as prominently. Once we reached the bottom and went outside minutes later, we asked the workers who were sitting only yards away at the innkeeper’s house if they had heard any large sounds. They said everything had been quite and peaceful outside the lighthouse.

        

The only other bit of evidence we captured inside the lighthouse occurred with our audio recorders right before we left. While we were packing up my mom saw a shadowy figure move several levels up the tower. She counted to four to indicate where she had seen it. This counting was caught on camera and on audio, but when we reviewed both, the audio picked up a voice the camera did not. On the audio, after my mom counts to four, a gruff male voice says, “five, six.” Apparently her shadow man had been standing up higher than she thought he was.

        

After leaving the lighthouse tower itself, we used our remaining time to investigate the innkeeper’s house. We didn’t have any personal experiences in the house or capture anything on camera. However, the audio recorder pulled through for us once again. Upstairs in the house is a large, open room with several tables and lots of folding chairs. My dad pulled up a chair and sat down to try to ask the ghosts some questions. What he got was short, but clear. His first question upon sitting down was “Is there anyone here with us tonight?” Instantly a male voice whispered, “We’re okay.” My dad’s voice was loud and a little ways away from the recorder, but the responding voice sounded as though it was directly next to the microphone. Perhaps that was the ghosts’ way of saying, we’re at peace, so you can leave us alone, because they definitely didn’t humor us with any more responses after that.

        

What we captured at the lighthouse that night wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to let us know something is there that might be worth a trip back in the future. Our few seconds of video and audio coupled with the unique experience of the stairwell shaking was proof enough for us that the rumors of ghosts in the St. Augustine Lighthouse are more than just rumors.

Hayley.


*Below you will find the EVPs we got at the lighthouse as well as the video clip showing the shadowy figure peering over the rail as we were climbing to the top of the lighthouse.