Haunted History

I've been extremely pleased with the history thread I started and am very happy to see that there are other TCS members who love history so I decided to take it one step further and combine history with something else that I like to read about- ghost stories and hauntings!

I'm more fascinated in reading about supposedly haunted places in parts of the world other than the U.S., especially Europe which has such a rich and often very bloody history.

While doing some reading I came across this:
http://www.welcometoyork.co.uk/treasurer_haunt.html

It got me to thinking about Varus and his legions who were ambushed and massacred in the Teutoburg Forest in 9A.D. by Germanic tribes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_..._of_the_Battle

I haven't had much success finding anything but the above story about the plumber seeing the supposed ghosts of Roman soldiers had me wondering if the site of the battle in the forest is supposed to be a haunted area. Does anyone know?

As far as a personal belief in ghosts and hauntings I'm on the fence as to whether or not I actually believe in them but I do find reading about them fascinating.

Are there any TCS members who believe in ghosts and hauntings? Also, do you believe that many historical places (buildings, battle sites, etc) around the world have the spirits of those unable to find peace still among them?

i am, hmm how to say, i dont beleave in ghosts, but sometimes i do , lol ok that is confusing. i dont know if i do or not.

have a couple of books on Haunted history and stuff, its fun to read.
I have spent alot of time at some civil war battlegounds, and yet to see anything.

I believe.

Where i live in Northumberland we have a few castles as well as the famous Roman Wall that are said to be haunted.

http://www.made-in-northumberland.co.uk/history.php

http://www.chillingham-castle.com/ghosts.htm

And Harry Potter fans can see where they did some of their filming at a castle near me called Alnwick Castle

http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/7/...astle,+England

Absolutely! My story will be a little long, lol.

When I met John, I quickly learned that he loves to go ghosthunting. I've always been a little clairvoyant but my mother was so religious that she always told me that only evil people could know the future. I met several spirits in the two homes I lived in when I was little, but if I told my mother she just said "it must be the devil playing tricks on your mind"... she told me spirits were not real even though I clearly saw them. I haven't seen one since I was little but can still feel their presence. I started going with John on his ghosthunts but he only ever went to cemetaries and occasionally a home that was reported to be haunted.

We went to Chattanooga last year for a Volkswagen show, and decided to leave early and take the extra day to go down into Georgia and Alabama (I had never been on any kind of road trip before). So we ended up coming back up through Tennessee through Nashville. We stopped in Murfreesboro for the night and went to the Civil War battlefield there with our camera and tape recorder. We actually got there late at night and then went back the next morning. We didn't get anything on tape because there were too many other noises, but got a lot on camera. We're always very careful that there's no dust or bugs or lights... we always try to account for everything in the pictures.
It would start out, I'd feel someone near me and he'd get the pictures. He finally just handed me the camera and said, "Take the pictures wherever you think they are". We ended up with lots of good pictures, in a few there are dozens of orbs. We left that night because they were surrounding us at one point, it was a scary feeling. It was such a warm night but we were so cold and you couldn't walk without feeling like you were bumping into someone (kinda weird to explain I guess).
We went back the next day in the daylight and were able to get something on the tape recorder. In one of the areas, it was back through the woods to a field. There was no one else around so we set the tape recorder down and asked a few questions. I asked if anyone was there if they'd please state their name and rank. At that point in the tape recorder it was almost a "roar" of voices (like a bunch of people speaking at once). It was a very quiet spot and no other noises around. John asked them something like "Have you ever heard of General ....?". I forget now which name he asked. But there was a very clear "Yes of course" on the recorder.

Anyway, so to sum it up... yes I do believe in spirits and I do believe that there's an extra energy in places where there were so many deaths (i.e., battlefields).

I don't mean to be a wet blanket, just trying to understand. Why is it that people who "see" things usually only see them at famous or infamous sites? We all walk on graves every day and have no way of knowing what battles, arguments, etc took place in the very spot we inhabit.

I live in a building that was built as a boarding house in 1905. So many people in and out. Even now, not many people stay for long because the apartments are small. One would think there would be many entities in a place like this.

If a place is haunted because of terrible things that happened there, why not have places that are haunted because of the great love that lived there?

I am not saying there are not entities. I do believe in the energy of life and that everything has this energy. There are places where I feel more comfortable and other places I do not.

I had an old friend who only saw ghosts in houses she thought were "creepy". Never in apartment buildings or workplaces or train stations or streets. Many people have died in those places as well. Why only creepy houses? I was never creeped out by what she was, so perhaps I just don't get it?

To help you out Bonnie, I haven't had anyplace that spooked that was famous.

A friend of mine in college claimed that her house was haunted. Apparently during a plague of TB in the turn of the 1900s her parents house had been used as a quarantined house and many people died there. We went down there one weekend and as she was showing me around, we came upon a room and I looked at her and said "This is the addition to the house" (she had mentioned one, but didn't say which room). Her mouth dropped and eyes bugged out and she said yes, that it was. I didn't see any ghosts there, but the "addition" definitely had an empty feeling about it.

I've had several others (ghost cat apartment) and was at a few famous places that I felt something.

Most things though can be explained away easily. Often times its during the night and you're up late, you're more likely to jump at ANYTHING rather than looking at things scientifically.