These Jonesborough ghost stories are on YouTube:

Or listen right here:

About the Guest: Anne Mason of Jonesborough, TN

Anne G’Fellers-Mason is the current program director of the McKinney House, formerly with the Heritage Alliance of of Northeast Tennessee & Southwest Virginia. She co-authored the book Haints and Hollers: New Ghost Tales from Appalachia, available on Amazon. She’s even familiar with Woolly Days, featured in Becky’s hilarious childhood summer camp story, Magic in Appalachia (or Shearer Terror). In this interview she shares true ghost stories about several haunted locations in and around Jonesborough, TN.

Haunted Places In Jonesborough Mentioned in Anne’s Ghost Stories

The Chester Inn

The Chester Inn is a historic site housing the Heritage Alliance of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. It’s also the oldest commercial building in Jonesborough, built in 1797. It is now a museum that offers tours to the public. But it was once a haunted apartment building that Anne’s grandparents lived in.

The inn has a spooky reputation, attracting the attention of paranormal investigators. The inn has been the subject of several paranormal investigations. These include events open to the public where participants can join in the investigation led by professional teams.

The McKinney House

This current art museum started its life as a segregated schoolhouse: the historic Booker T. Washington School (not the one Diana is an alumnus of), which was built in 1939. In 2010, the Town of Jonesborough decided to restore the school. Today, it houses the Mary B. Martin Program for the Arts and is also available for special events.

The transformation of the McKinney Center into a community arts center marks an important part of Jonesborough history. For more information, you can visit the Town of Jonesborough website.

Duncan House

The Duncan House was built in the 1840s. It is a historic site that now houses the Heritage Alliance of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. The Alliance preserves the architectural, historical, and cultural heritage of the region. For more information, you can explore the Washington County, Tennessee Department of Records Management and Archives website here.

Anne heard footsteps on the stairs for years while working in this grand old house. Then, they mysteriously stopped. Did the spirit move on, or did he just decide to stay downstairs from then on?

The Mars Hill Theater (not in Jonesborough)

The Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART) is the professional theatre company of Owen Theatre in Mars Hill, North Carolina. This theatre produces a range of plays since 1974, many of which highlight the heritage of Southern Appalachia.

Anne helped SRS Paranormal investigate this haunted theater. For more information about the theater and its productions, you can visit the SART website.

Jonesborough Stories About Ghosts and Graveyards

A Play in the Graveyard

Anne wrote an original, research-based play called “A Spot on the Hill.” Fascinatingly, you can watch it in the Old Jonesborough haunted cemetery every October. This theatrical experience narrates the stories of individuals interred in the cemetery, how they came to Jonesborough, and their fates.

The play is presented among the headstones of the actual cemetery, providing an immersive, spooky, and historically rich experience. The proceeds from ticket sales are used for tombstone restoration and preservation in the Old Jonesborough Cemetery. For more information and ticket details, you can visit the Heritage Alliance website.

The Jonesborough Cholera Pit

Anne tells us of a new development in old history. Just last year, a significant historical discovery was made by cemetery volunteer “Graveyard” Gordon Edwards. Edwards used GPR technology to locate a long-rumored mass grave from the cholera epidemic of 1873. This epidemic claimed around 35 residents of Jonesborough in a span of a month. Edwards’ research on the victims led him to a specific section of the Old Jonesborough Cemetery. His findings suggest the presence of a mass grave, potentially containing 15-20 individuals.

This discovery is an important piece in understanding the town’s history and the impact of the cholera epidemic. The Heritage Alliance of Northeast Tennessee & Southwest Virginia provides more details on this discovery on their website.

Do you work in a haunted historical building?

We still believe that working in a haunted place is the best way to reliably encounter a spirit. Even if you never hear or see them, you can be sure the ghosts are constantly gossiping about you. And like Anne, maybe say “hi” to the spirits when you get to work every day, just in case. You never know who you’ll inspire to have a spooky day!

The post All the Ghosts are Talking About Me appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Episode Summary: A Haunted Michigander with a Shaking Bed

Are certain areas of the world more haunted than others? Are certain people more haunted than others? And what happens when you place a very haunted person into a very haunted place? It becomes hard to tell where the haunting originated.

For Nick, strange things have happened everywhere he has lived in Michigan. Then again, he knows for sure things have followed him from place to place. The reasons why he is so haunted remain a mystery. But maybe you can figure it out, today, on Homespun Haints.

About today’s guest: Nick

Nick Click is a haunted Michigander optician, and also a Homespun Haints listener. Thank you for coming on the show, Nick!

Haunted places in Michigan mentioned in this episode

Here are some of the locations we talked about in this episode, along with a helpful verbal map, based on the assumption that Michigan is shaped like a mitten.

• Alpena, MI, location of the party house that’s too haunted to sleep in, but too remote to leave. There’s a lot more to do there, nowadays, apparently! (Tip o’ the index finger)
• Nick’s haunted apartments and the cool, potentially-haunted cemetery with a giant orb (Mountain Home) were all in Kalamazoo, MI. (The, uhhhhhh, pisiform of the mitten?)
• Nick’s hometown of Dexter, MI is the site of one of the most famous UFO coverups in American history. (At the base of the first metacarpal of the mitt—ok, you know what? This isn’t as helpful as I expected.)
• Zak Bagins’ The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, NV. (You’d rarely need mittens here. Or a map, really.)

What does it mean when your bed shakes at night for no reason?

Something is shaking Nick’s bed. Actually, all of Nick’s beds. No matter where he’s living, he gets woken up at night by his bed shaking.

Why does it feel like his bed is shaking while he’s sleeping? What could it be? It isn’t an earthquake, as none were recorded at the time. Nor is it his body jerking in a dream, because the shaking continues when he wakes up. It’s not sleep paralysis; he’s had that before and it’s entirely different.

And it’s not even the location. This has happened to Nick at multiple houses, alone or co-sleeping, in different beds over time. And the bed is shaking at night, when he’s in it. He never witnesses it happening during the day, or when he’s not in the bed.

Is a bed shaking for no reason a paranormal activity?

A bed that shakes is a fairly common Hollywood haunting trope, but you’d think it was pretty rare IRL. Until you notice that this Quora thread with a title beginning “Why does my bed shake/vibrate at night?” has over 170,000 views.

Why do so many people have this experience? Is the cause different for each of them? Why, if bed shaking is so common, do we not hear more about it? Also, and perhaps more importantly to the apparently many people who experience this shaking bed syndrome, how do you stop it?

So Many Haunted Houses in Michigan

We still have so many questions. Why did the creepy abandoned house have 70’s Christmas decorations? Can you fix a haunting with duct tape? What happens when you misgender a ghost? Why is Nick’s bed shaking by itself? And are we going to have a spooky day?

The post Why is My Bed Shaking? appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Episode Summary

Would you frequent a luxury resort if you knew that 20,000 bodies rested under its manicured lawn? Would you stay in a town where everything is named after cannibals? If you think this sounds perfectly fine, then you’ll fit right in with the stories our guest has to share.

Courtney has been collecting stories about the stranger aspects of San Francisco and northern California nd she’s encountered some famous ghosts along the way. Snuggle in for some bizarre history and ghost stories, where the bodies keep piling up.

AI-generated transcript of this episode available upon request.

About the Guest: Courtney Minick

Courtney Minick is a storyteller based in San Francisco. She focuses on tales of California Gothic – uncovering the ghosts, urban legends, and buried stories that haunt the Bay Area. By her own admission, she is a storyteller because she just can’t keep a story to herself…especially when it involves corpses in awkward situations.

You can read her written work at www.hereliesastory.com, her blog/saga about the famous ghosts of San Francisco and beyond that is, in her words, part therapy, part campfire, part podcast, and part ghost tour. Keep up with new posts by following her on Instagram @here_lies_a_story. 

Episode Show Notes about The Ghosts and Corpses In and Under San Francisco

Fortunately, Courtney is a fabulous and engaging writer, so we’ll refer you to her blog Here Lies A Story for the full scoop on the topics she discussed on this episode.

Mary Ellen Pleasant, Mother of Civil Rights and one of San Francisco’s most famous ghosts

Courtney has written a seven part saga about entrepreneur, abolitionist, and millionaire Mary Ellen Pleasant, which you can find here. What do you think was really going on between her and the Widow Bell? Did she really meet Marie Laveau? Where did she keep her millions? But most importantly, why haven’t we learned all about this incredible historical figure before now?

Whose corpse is under this woman’s porch?

Edith Howard Cook was 2-years-old when she died of marasmus in 1876. Her well-preserved remains (graphic actual photo here) were found in a windowed Victorian Fisk Casket under a porch in 2016. The discovery started a year-long labor of care and respect to identify the little girl and find a local relative.

The home where she was found was built over the old Odd Fellows Cemetery, which had been moved about a century prior. Before discovering the casket, the homeowner would hear ghostly children’s footsteps in her home. But those phantom pitter-patters stopped after the girl was relocated. Coincidence?

Famous Haunted Places around San Francisco Mentioned in this Episode

• Beltane Ranch in Sonoma, CA, once Mary Ellen Pleasant’s home and current vineyard.
• Bell Mansion at Bush St and Octavia St in SF, CA, by Mary Ellen Pleasant Park.
• University of San Francisco Dorms built over an old cemetery in the Lone Mountain Neighborhood, where Edith Cook was disinterred.
• Finally, Lincoln Park Golf Course, which was built atop the old City Cemetery.

Ghost Stories from San Francisco

Storytelling confers immortality. Thank goodness for indie internet blog writers like Courtney who immortalize these stories so that future generations can connect with history in a fun, spooky way.

Seen a ghost? Submit your story to be featured on the next episode of Homespun Haints! Or, let us know on our Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/homespunhaints, so we can have a spooky day together!

The post The Bodies Under San Francisco appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Episode Summary: Haunted Cemeteries of Illinois

Do you like cemeteries? Do you ever worry something might follow you home from a cemetery? Or have you ever wished that something would?

Meet Abby, a paranormal investigator and vlogger from Illinois who spends a considerable amount of time in haunted cemeteries, and has spooky experiences as a result. Hear her stories, today on Homespun Haints 

AI-generated transcript of this episode available upon request.

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About the Guest, Abby of Mysteries of the Past and Present

Abby is the creator and star of the YouTube channel Mysteries of the Past & Present. Keep up with her haunted cemetery travels around Illinois on IG: @mystery_past_present or TikTok: @Mystery0279.

She works with Maybe it’s Spiritual Podcast and Karly (of the Village Tarot Witch). She recommended following Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery of Illinois on YouTube since they actually talk about their hauntings openly. Say happy birthday to her ghost hunting cat, Smokey!

Show Notes Exploring Illinois’ Haunted Cemeteries and More

What are Mandela effects?

The human memory is quite flawed, and we often remember things very differently from how they happened. For example, you’ve probably noticed how Diana misquotes just about everybody on the show. When one person convinces another to believe their false or delusional memories, it’s called a folie à deux. But what about when many people who have never met seem to share the same false memory? When many unrelated people remember a certain event happening a specific way, but it never actually happened, that’s a Mandela effect. Similarly, when many people recall seeing a specific detail about something that’s actually false.

The simplest way to define a Mandela effect is as a collective false memory. The term was coined by author and ghost hunter Fiona Broome, after a group of presenters at DragonCon agreed they could recall the funeral of Nelson Mandela being televised in the 1990’s, when in fact president Mandela died in 2013. She was intrigued enough to found and manage a website dedicated to the phenomenon, mandelaeffect.com. Over the years, her website collected about 15 books worth of recountings of these collective distorted memories.

Where are these haunted cemeteries Abby is investigating around Illinois?

• Bloods Point Cemetery in Boone County, IL.
• Moon Point Cemetery in Cedar Point, IL, where the Witch’s Circle is.
• St. Omer Cemetery in Arcola, IL, where she visited The Witch’s Grave.
• Bachelor’s Grove of Chicago, the most haunted cemetery in IL (or maybe the country?).
  

Would you visit these haunted cemeteries in Illinois?

What is your favorite cemetery? Should we make a special trip just to visit haunted Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery since Becky was too chicken when she lived in Illinois? If we do, we’ll likely have quite a spooky day.

The post DJ Cemetery feat. Guardian Grandma appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen to the episode here:

Episode Summary: Paranormal Iowa

Sometimes ghost stories help to answer the questions we have about the paranormal. But sometimes, these stories only serve to create more questions. When you delve into the world of ghosts, demons, and other supernatural phenomena, you have to accept uncertainty, and know that some questions will never be answered.

Today, we present to you a string of incidents that occurred in the life of a young man living in Iowa. We leave it up to you to decide what to make of his experiences.

About the guest, Bailey

Bailey still identifies as a skeptic because he’s never literally “seen a ghost”. Yet he has seen the hatman; and a shadowy figure that doesn’t show up on camera harrassed him. He’s witnessed a potential alien visitation; and, of course, a mysterious invisible creature bit him while in a bedroom that backed up to a cemetery.

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Sponsored by Acid Queen Jewelry

Acid Queen Jewelry sponsors this episode. Alex is an artist who specializes in one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable artwork, inspired by folklore, magic, and other romantic notions crafted with sturdy metals and gorgeous large natural stones. Use the coupon code homespun for 10% off her gorgeous handmade necklaces, rings, earrings, and bracelet cuffs. Sign up for her newsletter for early access to all sorts of new releases.

Show Notes

Bedrooms that back up to cemeteries

We’ve had a shocking number of guests on this show that have slept in rooms where their view out the bedroom window involved cemeteries in some way. We have to wonder…does living cemetery-adjacent have something to do with their ongoing paranormal experiences? For more view-of-the-boneyard realness, listen to The Woman Who Lived in a Cemetery, Things That Crawl Out of Cemeteries, and We’re Walking Through Blood.

Is a shared imaginary friend still imaginary?

Bailey first starts to question his reality when his older brother has a childhood dreamtime vision of his own imaginary friend, Tim. If both children in the same house have the same imaginary friend, what does that mean? Could it be that one brother picked up on the other brother’s stories, and has a good imagination? Or could it be that Tim existed outside of the imagination?

The Villisca Axe Murder House

Ghost Hunters love to portray The Villisca Axe Murder House as the most haunted paranormal place in Iowa. The locals aren’t all so keen on its sordid past being exploited for it’s touristy present. But there’s no denying that the house has seen an above average number of murders within.

Aside from its sinister history, what makes this house so scary? According to the fabulous article our friends Karly and Tera of The Haunted Housewives Podcast wrote for our blog, “Tour guides, visitors, and investigators hear whispers and footsteps. A lot. People see shadows and catch them on camera. Rumor has it that if you don’t believe in ghosts, you will after spending the night at the super haunted Villisca Axe Murder House.”

The Beast of Land Between the Lakes

It’s a tale as old as time. A group of inebriated college students with too few survival skills and too many beers make their way out into the woods to go camping. As they hike, they come across holes in the ground lined with sticks and tufts of grey fur. As the darkness grows, the students feel like they’re being watched. Then the howling begins. But it’s a howl that sounds almost like maniacal laughter. Human Laughter. A few days later, police discover their half-eaten bodies lodged in nearby trees.

This is an amalgam of the modern reports of encounters with the Beast of LBL. Yet the legend goes as far back as the 1800s, when Shawnee fur traders warned French explorers to watch out for something in the woods. Their descriptions were suspiciously werewolfy. It’s uncertain whether the original beast was a true shapeshifter, or a man with an inherited family trait that caused him to go mad after nightfall. But the fact that people are still reporting sightings and evidence of the beast to this day implies that he must have fathered little beastlings to carry on his terrifying legacy.

(And yes, we know, technically, the paranormal cryptid called the Beast of Land Between the Lakes is from Kentucky, not Iowa. But with the surprising speed at which this wolfman allegedly moves, he just might get around.)

The urge to run up the basement stairs because you feel something is following you

Is this just a childhood thing, as Bailey says, or is it more sinister? Diana also had this feeling quite frequently growing up. The feeling is less since moving back into her childhood home, but still occurs from time to time. But then again, the other things happening in Diana’s basement nowadays are still quite creepy.

What is it about superstitions that allow them to overcome logic and skepticism?

Bailey had a very superstitious grandma, who helped him feel more normal when the paranormal threatened to rock his reality. In this article, Diana breaks down some reasons why we have superstitions. The post explains why you feel the illogical urge to toss salt over your shoulder. And how that might actually be making your life better.

Paranormal Iowa

We hope you enjoyed today’s episode about some of the paranormal encounters Bailey had growing up in Iowa. If you’re from Iowa and have seen strange paranormal entities there, please leave us a comment on our Facebook Group. And if you want to do some paranormal investigation in Iowa, we can vouch that Bailey would be an astute and open-minded companion. He’s also itching to visit the Villisca Axe Murder House and other haunted places around Iowa. So if you’re ghost hunting in Iowa and could use a hand, drop us a line and we’ll hook you up so you can both have a spooky day!

The post What Bit Me? A True Paranormal Story from Iowa appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen to the story here:

Episode Summary

When we stumbled upon a YouTube video of Bridgette Mongeon happily riding her bicycle through a cemetery, we thought “this is a woman we have to get to know.” It turns out she has a special talent for channeling the deceased, especially children, while giving them new life with her haunted statues—er, we mean unique bronze memorial sculptures.

Related: Listen to another episode about haunted artwork: The Haunted Portrait.

About Bridgette Mongeon

Multi-talented sculptor, author, and speaker Bridgette of Houston, TX, is a sweet soul with a passionate drive to create, educate, and empower through her works. She is the creator of the fascinating, multi-layered Move One Place On, an Alice in Wonderland-inspired sculpture in Evelyn’s park in Houston, as well as beloved local school mascots such as the Prairie View Panther and the Grambling Tiger. To see her creative process in action, go check out her YouTube channel. There’s more to Bridgette than we could ever fit here, so please visit her website for more info and photos of her work. Bridgette also put together a post on her blog which elaborates on many of the things she shared in this interview.

How do mirror neurons partially explain Bridgette’s connection with the deceased?

Mirror neurons allow us to:

• understand the behavior of others
• interpret their intentions (and thereby facilitate empathy)
• allow us to imitate others in order to learn

They prove that empathy isn’t just a psychological phenomenon. It’s neurologically hardwired into the frontal cortex and every sensory input region of the brain from the age of three. These neurons facilitate the process of learning a new language through immersion. Mirror neurons have even been used to rehabilitate stroke patients. The patients watch others perform the movements that were lost due to the stroke. When Bridgette sculpts a monument for a lost loved one, the photos, belongings, and family memories of that person fire up her mirror neurons. This process allows her to craft an image of not just their physical form, but also their essence and personality.

What is the Facial Action Coding System?

There’s actually a field of study devoted to the interpretation of every discernible facial movement, which animators use to portray emotions. Investigators also use the facial action coding system to perceive deception by scanning for micro expressions during interviews. Fascinating!

The lost wax method of sculpting

Bridgette creates her work by melding art, technology, math, science, and engineering. And yet, despite having literally written the book on computer-assisted 3D sculpting, she also practices the ancient art of lost wax casting, which dates back to the third millennium B.C.

The bronze statue in Paris that is losing its mojo

Bridgette mentions the memorial of Victor Noir, interred in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Noir’s haunted statue is polished by the hands of multiple visitors in two particular places: his lips and his “protuberance” in his pants. Apparently, if you rub (or kiss) these particular areas of Noir’s statue, you will gain fertility.

Above: Process video of acrylic painting created to illustrate this episode.

Podcasts about Ghosts and Art

We have a lot of episodes that have dealt with ghosts and art. The Haunted Portrait deals with a particularly accurate portrait whose subject liked to rearrange furniture at night. And Everyone’s a Critic, Even the Dead, discusses Becky’s experiences running a haunted art gallery with haunted statues and a gallery ghost!

We hope you enjoy streaming all our paranormal podcasts about ghosts and art. Until next time, have a spooky day!

The post Haunted Statues: The Woman Who Sculpts the Deceased appeared first on Homespun Haints.