We have all seen the shows in some form or another. These shows are ghost hunting shows, and the popularity of them has increased a lot. Some people have even gone into business to make money off the hype of ghost hunting. You can buy all sorts of ghost hunting tools from emf meters to spirit boxes to SLS cameras.
A couple weeks ago in the events section on Facebook an event for a ghost investigation in Virginia City popped up on my suggestions. I couldn't pass it up for a great date night with the wife and to experience something that deep down inside almost every one of us has wanted to go and do. That is chasing ghosts. So, for the sum of $20 per person I bought two tickets.
Virginia City MT is a ghost town so it would only make sense that it would have a lot of ghosts. The town was the first state capital in Montana. It has a somewhat violent history with the Road Agents and the Vigilantes, not to mention the number of people that died of painful accidents involved in early days of mining.
The ghost tour was hosted by the Bozeman Paranormal Society and our main guide was a nice lady, Elies. She had many encounters with the ghosts of Virginia City and Nevada City, and she did a wonderful job of explaining what each tool did, what to expect, and a little history of what they thought the spirits they have interacted with did in their previous life.
We started at the Road Agents Roost restaurant in the back. A young girl whose family lived and ran a furniture store still resides in the building. They believe she may have drowned and that she is harmless. I was skeptical as she explained how an EMF meter worked, how dowsing rods worked, and the other pieces of equipment help one communicate with a spirit.
Soon we were given the tools to use and to start investigating in this area. You would ask questions and your EMF meter would not light up, then you would move and ask another question. Sometimes you would get one or two lights but sometimes it would jump to its highest reading. At the restaurant using the dowsing rods I would ask questions and they would move being skeptical. I figured it was gravity and the way you held them. At one point I did feel a cold touch on my arm and hand followed by the rods almost feeling as if they were being pulled. It started to make me question what I was feeling and seeing.
Next, we moved on to the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; this building has been part of the community since 1904. I am sure it has seen its fair share of events. The building was a replacement for the older building that was falling apart. In 1900 prominent businessman Henry Eling died, his widow offered money for a brand-new church, as a memorial to him. The church was finished in 1904. The stone is native and was quarried from the hills above Hillside Cemetery.
The outside of the church reminds a person of an old English church: the stones are covered in a green moss, the windows are stained glass, and the old wooden doors are heavy.
We were given almost free range of the church in a respectable manner. We got to explore the basement all the time asking questions and checking the EMF meter. The highlight of the church would be as we sat in the pews with a spirit box asking questions and our EMF meters would spike randomly on different people. As the meter spiked the area would also get colder you could see this as well as feel it. The meter would stop spiking and the area would feel the right temperature again.
Next stop the Hangman’s Building, the building became famous on January 14, 1864, Vigilantes used the heavy center support beam of this under construction building, to hang five of Henry Plummer’s Road Agents: Frank Parish, Boone Helm, Jack Gallagher, Haze Lyons, and Clubfoot George Lane. Our guide told us about the time when she first started her foray into ghost hunting and how she walked by this building after a man asked her what she was doing. She turned to find a man in a hat drinking a bottle of beer standing inside the building with the door opened. She talked to the man for a while and somehow, she ended up from one side of the building to the other. She would leave the building and look back to see the man was no longer there. Her story is much more in depth but that is for her to tell.
We did not have as much activity at Hangman’s Building that night, but we had a bonus building to explore. One of the fellow ghost hunters owns the business the Madisonian was in, and she has experienced unusual things in her building. From things moving to the constant cold spot above her register. We all gathered in the building, asked our questions, and found some EMF readings but for most of us the knowledge of the building and events in the town that she shared with us distracted us from the ghost of the Madisonian.
After the event was over, my wife and I gathered back into our car to travel back home. We discussed what we experienced that night as well as experiences we have had before. Are ghosts real? I believe that is up to everyone to decide on, but I have had a few encounters with things I cannot explain, and I do believe that just maybe we do have spirits among us. If you would like to experience one of these adventures, they will be offering them in the future as well as the ones they have at the Old Montana Prison. I hear from one of the fellow participants that a prison adventure is a must.
