"Graveyards are Dead Spots"---Not This One!

Pettyboro District Cemetery
Bath, NH

On the last weekend of April, almost 9 p.m., I was awoken from a nap. It was Nancy Fortin, one of the members of NEPI. She asked if I was interested in going ghost hunting. The nap was great and this was very short notice, but ghost hunting? I'm in. I grabbed my stuff, which is in a nice case, all ready to go, and I was off into a ghost adventure that I had no clue of where we were going. Neither did they apparently, because when I stepped inside there was at least six teenagers sitting in the living (including Nancy's children) waiting to go on the ghost hunt with us. We discussed a few possible places, such as the Cathouse, a random cemetery here or there, and then I thought of one. I have no idea why it popped in my head, but it is the one on Pettyboro road heading towards Bath, New Hampshire.

It sounded like a good idea. There is only a few houses here and there, but they are all spread apart. The great thing about that is there is a slim to none chance of noise contamination (i.e. traffic, people doing random things in their houses, etc.). We get there---no cemetery. Due to my horrible direction skills (trust me on this one, I gave NEPI the directions to my neighbors house instead of my own!) we get back into the car, head down the road probably only about forty feet and there's the cemetery up on this hill that looks ungodly dangerous to go up. I grab my gear, because I'm the only one that brought anything, and we are ready to go.

Now, last year I wrote this series of Do It Yourself Ghost Hunting. One of the discussions was giving advice to aspiring paranormal investigators on where to try doing their first hunts and I suggested a cemetery. I posted it on paranormalnews.com and some gentleman replied back to it basically saying that cemeteries weren't the best place to go, because he doesn't get anything. Okay, but every place is different, just because one house isn't haunted doesn't mean they all are not. I think if he went in there with us, he'd probably have to eat his own words. For the hour that we stayed there we got a lot more than just a random ghost hunt out of the blue.

First thing happens to me: I'm walking up this hill and I'm walking between two gravestones and I hear someone walking behind me. I look behind me and there is nobody there. First thing I do is try to debunk it: Everybody went before me, so no one was in back of me. Critter? Possible, but with seven sets of eyes watching all corners of the cemetery with flashlights and a somewhat bright moon, someone would of saw something. My case possibly dragging? It was mid length, so no. I mean, it sounded like human footsteps on leafs. The night wasn't over though.

Almost everyone kept seeing this little specks of red light floating about the woods. I'm not calling it paranormal, but it was odd. Anthony said he saw someone standing right in the moonlight and then taking a step back into the dark void that is the woods. Nancy also said she saw a shadow figure walking amongst the graves. The honorary investigators would also hear whispering that wasn't any of us. One final experiment we tried was sending Nancy's daughter, Faith, walking the upper part of the cemetery by herself. Nancy and a few of the teens claimed how at times it looked like someone, or something, was following Faith.

The Pettyboro District Cemetery is quite old, with the oldest (that we found, could be some older) gravestone being all the way from 1842. However, according to a few eyewitnesses that night, it was very much alive with activity. Being how old most of the gravestones are, you got to believe that if these spirits have stayed with their remains, that they haven't seen people visiting them, asking them questions, in a very long time. It must feel good to know they are still those who care for them and want to see them move on. We, being NEPI, hope we can do a further investigation on the cemetery soon.