people will connect with their intuitive abilities and be able to communicate with the spirit world, including with ghosts that have remained on the earth plane.
I write about some of these experiences in Kala’s Bohemian Blog, and it is now my pleasure to share with you these stories from the ghosts of North Carolina. Each haunted site here has a profound and deeply moving story to tell.
So gather your family and friends, and join me as I share what I see and what I experience as I go ghosthunting across the state of North Carolina. The journey begins in the coastal wetlands of East Carolina, where I explore haunted lighthouses, battleships, and the shipwrecked beaches where Blackbeard and his pirates still roam. Next I journey across the Piedmont area of North Carolina, where I spend the night in the most actively haunted capitol in the United States and interact with the ghost of a former North Carolina State Governor. My research continues west into the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the ghost known as the Pink Lady and her friends await your presence at the historic Grove Park Inn, where many presidents, celebrities, and ghosts have stayed over the decades.
I visited more than 100 reportedly haunted sites located in North Carolina and culled this list down to the 25 chapters here in this book. My reason for choosing this particular 25 had to do first and foremost with finding historical research that confirmed some of the details of the legend of a reportedly haunted site. The second most important criteria in my selection process included being able to confirm reports of ghost activity around the site from a variety of people over a generous span of time. After each site made the cut on these two selections, the final decision then came down to my personal experiences at each of these locations, including what I psychically experienced firsthand at each location relative to paranormal activity. My intent in this book is to provide you with all three of the above-listed criteria in order to assist you in your paranormal research and investigations.
As a psychic and paranormal researcher, I have often been asked what it’s like to see or sense a ghost. The best way I can describe the experience is that most of the ghostly activity I immediately feel when entering a new space or building is the time loop/energy imprint type of haunting activity. That’s the easiest to detect because it’s like seeing a projector playing a movie in the home. To imagine what it looks like to me, picture walking into a home that you have never been in before. You don’t know your way around and so you cautiously walk around the home. You have been told that no one is home, but as you continue walking through the rooms, you hear a sound. As your ears strain to detect where the sound is coming from, you hear the soft murmur of voices. You are now fairly sure that someone is here in the home, but you are not sure what room they are in. You’re now a little ill at ease because you’ve been told the house is empty, but you can hear the sound of voices and as you move toward them, they are getting stronger. You see a closed door and can see a bit of light coming from this room, and you softly open the door to see what’s inside. As the door opens, you see what looks like an image from a projector that has been left on playing a family movie. The projected image plays a scene from the family’s life, and when it ends, it rewinds and plays the movie over and over again. Sometimes the image is crystal clear, and sometimes it’s worn and old with parts of the film missing, having burned away like the old celluloid films that would become damaged on the reel in old theaters. Many times, this is similar to what I see, only there’s no projector playing, it is just happening in the room, like a 3-D video being projected in the open.
These energy imprints/time loops are the easiest to detect when ghosthunting because they are running on a frequent basis like a movie, appearing nightly at a haunted house near you.
Ghostly visitations and apparitions that I have experienced, on the other hand, are much more subjective, and the ghost has the choice to appear or not appear and decides whether or not to engage with you. This is why on ghost television shows and investigations you will see some investigators attempt to draw out the ghost to interact with them by asking them questions or goading them at times to make them angry enough to show themselves. I don’t recommend doing this, as you may run into the wrong ghost who just may decide that rather than hanging around where they have been, they are now angry enough to spend their time hanging around you. One thing ghosts have that we don’t is all the time in the world. They don’t eat, they don’t sleep, and they don’t need to work for a living. Would you really want to antagonize a being like this who would have all the time they wanted to mess with you? Or worse, you could find out that it’s not a ghost, but an entity that is stronger and could cause even more trouble for you. Most of us don’t go to a dangerous part of town and attempt to pick a fight with thugs, inviting them to show us what they’ve got, so why would we want to invite this kind of trouble from a ghost? Most of the people I’ve met who do quickly regret their actions. My advice is to tread lightly and respectfully when ghosthunting. Have respect for the living and the dead at each location, protect yourself at all times, and ask politely to connect with the other side in the same manner you would if you were knocking on a stranger’s door and asking to tour their home.
The ghost stories in this book begin in East Carolina. Eastern North Carolina can be lonely and desolate in some places. There are still some areas along the Outer Banks that are only reachable by foot, horseback, or with a 4x4 vehicle. These areas are remote, isolated, and sometimes dangerous.
The shoreline of North Carolina is not welcoming to ships, and even with the abundance of lighthouses warning ships to steer clear, the number of shipwrecks reported along the coast is in the hundreds. Pirate ghosts wander the land, looking to save their sunken ships, hide their treasure, or settle a score. Blackbeard is the most famous and infamous of them all, and remains in good company with the men and women who followed a similar path.
Traveling along the coastline and the Outer Banks, I visited areas where nature appears untouched. The land appears as fresh as the day early European settlers arrived to colonize the area, including young Virginia Dare and the legend of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Standing there looking at the shore, I was touched by the beauty of the land and sea and by the bravery of those early colonists who arrived here not knowing what was in store for them. I’m struck by the fact that here on these tiny barrier islands, we now have 24-hour communications advising us of hurricanes days before the storms arrive in order to evacuate to safety. In the days of the early colonists, there was little warning, and the wind and waves crashing down on these tiny islands had to be extremely frightening to both the living and the dead.
This is where our haunted history of North Carolina begins, on the beaches and outer islands of the state. Join me as we step back into time and walk in the footsteps of pirates, colonists, adventurers, plantation owners, and the people who loved them. Perhaps Blackbeard will finally share where his treasure has been buried all this time.
Some believe that your soul can’t rest when you are lost at sea, and thus you remain a ghost. The coast of North Carolina is full of stories of ghosts said to appear and disappear at will, some to warn of approaching storms, others on patrol to guard a fort, and lighthouse keepers who remain at their station long after their final retirement.
I find it interesting to note that should you sail directly east from the coast of North Carolina, you will reach Bermuda, putting you directly into the Bermuda Triangle. Were the souls who dared to cross the Bermuda Triangle to enter the North Carolina coast doomed even before they began?
As with all of the America’s Haunted Road Trip books, travel information is provided for each haunted location for those brave enough to make the journey in person to see these sites for themselves and for paranormal researchers who are interested in exploring haunted North Carolina.
Tuck Ghosthunting North Carolina in your pocket and take the journey behind the scenes with detailed historic and personal information that I share about each destination.
Happy haunting! I look forward to hearing from you as you ghosthunt your way across the state. Visit me at www.ghosthuntingnorthcarolina.com.
