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Ghosts, Haunted Places Part of 'Weird Texas'
WOAI ^ | 10/28/05

Posted on 10/28/2005 8:28:35 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana

Ghosts, Haunted Places Part of "Weird Texas" LAST UPDATE: 10/28/2005 6:28:16 PM This story is available on your cell phone at mobile.woai.com.

This tale begins with a larger-than-life bronze statue of Christ, arms outstretched, resting atop a concrete pedestal above a family plot in the tree-lined gloom of the Oakwood Cemetery.

The statue's hands are palms up during the day. At night, so the tale goes, the statue's palms turn downward. And, the eyes follow any movement in the graveyard, home to the remains of Sam Houston, the father of Texas.

Known to locals as the "Black Jesus" because the bronze quickly weathered to ebony years ago, the sculpture marks the grave of prominent Texas lawyer Benjamin Harrison Powell, who died in 1960.

The yarn is featured in "Weird Texas," a new book of legends, mysteries, oddities, haunted places and ghostly tales of the state.

Over nearly 300 pages, the trio of writers Wesley Treat, of Arlington; Bob Riggs, of Austin; and Heather Shade, of El Paso, cover one end of Texas to the other in pursuit of unexplained phenomena, quirks and oddballs.

"Texas is an eccentric state," said Treat, who supplements his writing as a photographer and occasional actor. "Few people would disagree Texas has its own personality, quite a few eccentric people, a lot of tall tales, a lot of braggers. So stories get around."

Stories like a lost gold mine near El Paso. The crash of an alien airship in 1897 outside Aurora, north of Fort Worth. Ghost lights at Marfa in West Texas and in the Big Thicket of East Texas.

"I don't like to write about things I haven't personally visited," said Treat, 31. "I'll actually go and visit these things, track down people or local experts and talk to them. That's part of the fun, finding out real stories."

The book, an offspring of New Jersey publishers Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, who turned their "Weird NJ" magazine into a "Weird U.S." book, includes a disclaimer that says while the authors attempted to present a historical record of legends and folklore, many of the anecdotes couldn't be independently confirmed or corroborated.

"Some of it's complete myth, urban legends," Treat said. "But some have a ring of truth to it."

Some of the truthful weird sites and phenomenon are easy to verify - like the thousands of Mexican bats that fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge over Austin's Town Lake during warm nights, or the famed Cadillac Ranch, where 10 classic Cadillacs are buried face down, tail-ends up in a wheat field near Amarillo.

Others, however, require some imagination, which adds to the mystery.

Ghost sightings, for example, are plentiful in Texas, from the Lockhart firehouse, the railroad tracks in San Antonio, White Rock Lake near Dallas to the ghost nun of Loretto's Tower in El Paso and the Ring of Ghosts in Brazoria.

Ghosts apparently haunt Waco's Cameron Park, where supposedly a pair of horse thieves were hanged in trees by vigilantes, and at Arlington's Screaming Bridge tombstones reportedly glow in the Trinity River where a carload of teenagers were killed in a traffic accident in 1961.

The book's section on "creepy crypts and telltale tombs" tells the tale about the glowing grave in Kilgore of Karen Silkwood, a whistleblowing union activist and the subject of the movie "Silkwood" who mysteriously died in a 1974 traffic wreck in Oklahoma, and the concrete grave marker of a woman in a fetal position over a plot in the Old Fairview Cemetery in the Panhandle town of Memphis. What's weird about this one is no one's sure for whom the marker is intended.

Co-author Riggs is particularly familiar with East Texas, where he grew up in Sour Lake in Hardin County and now publishes a health magazine in Austin.

"People who live in the big cities don't have any clue how weird it is out in the woods and swamps of East Texas," said Riggs, 60.

He points to Ghost Road, otherwise known as Bragg Road, legendary in the Big Thicket as home of a playful basketball-sized ball of light.

"People sometimes see a light there and the light exhibits unusual behavior," Riggs said. "What I'm seeing in my work is this light is a genuine scientific anomaly, not just swamp gas, but a genuine unknown. I've been hearing stories about this stuff since I was a kid."

Riggs likes to tell about meeting a game warden who talked about people making repeated reports of seeing strange creatures or unexplained livestock killings in East Texas.

"This is a Parks and Wildlife Department game warden telling me this, but it wasn't hard for him to believe," he said. "I've done a lot of research, had enough things happen, been scared a few times myself."

---

On the Net:

www.weirdus.com


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: ghosts; texas
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I've seen the Cadillacs buried tail-up, and I've been in the creepy Oakwood Cemetery. I've also heard WEIRD stories about a park with monkey cages outside of Athens, Texas (birthplace of the hamburger). My grandpa used to tell creepy stories of ghosts he saw around the San Antonio area (of course, they might have been tequila-inspired).
1 posted on 10/28/2005 8:28:36 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana
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To: CurlyBill

ghost ping!


2 posted on 10/28/2005 8:37:57 PM PDT by sneakers
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To: hispanarepublicana

You want to hear a real weird ghost story, about 15 years ago I use to rent a basement apt in a house that was right next to a graveyard, and before I rented it, my landlord (the guy who owned the house) told me on several occasions he had some creepy stuff happen to him that he couldn`t explain, ghost stuff etc etc and me being the fool just brushed him off...yeah yeah yeah.. Until a few months later, one night I was watching TV by myself.

As I swear to this day, I was not drunk, I was not on drugs, I was wide awake and I was definately by myself with my back to the wall and I`ll swear on my mother while I was watching TV I felt a hand cover my face...Not the whole hand, but the finger tips, all five of them. No I am not kidding, someones hand that I could not see touched my face for about a second, and as soon as I felt it on my face I immediately knew what it was and practically jumped through the ceiling screaming and ran the hell outside. Needless to say I didn`t stay there long.


3 posted on 10/28/2005 8:45:02 PM PDT by WillamShakespeare (Who is John Kerry?)
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To: stand watie

weird East Texas PING


4 posted on 10/28/2005 8:45:21 PM PDT by japaneseghost ((Been there, done that.... remember Kallstrom and FL800?))
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To: hispanarepublicana

AS a teenager I went to Sour Lake (Don't drink the water) to try to see the ghost light. Never saw it.


5 posted on 10/28/2005 8:51:05 PM PDT by HuntsvilleTxVeteran (I shot an error into the air. It's still going everywhere. R. A. HEINLEIN)
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To: WillamShakespeare

I'd have peed my pants. The "weirdest" thing I've had happen was that aI was going through a very difficult time in my life during college, and all of a sudden there was a mourning dove outside my window every time I got really upset. My dear grandmother had always said that if we were to come back as some other living being, she'd want to come back as a mourning dove. And there she was.


6 posted on 10/28/2005 8:56:49 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana (No amnesty needed...My ancestors proudly served. [remodel of an old '70s bumper sticker])
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To: hispanarepublicana
Back when I was 17, a freind and I ate table-spoonfuls of chocolate mescaline with orange sunshine acid, and sat on a couch and concentrated on seeing "God the White light" ...( we thought we were really spiritual back then)

Anyway, I had this experience of rising through darkness, and speeding upward through space toward this light. It was a brilliant white light that got brighter and brighter as I approached it.
And then all of a sudden I physically felt hands on me, stopping me, and pushing me back down...and the next thing I knew I was sitting back on the couch.

I told my friend about it and he said the same thing happened to him.

We both did it a few times and were convinced that it was real beings, like Angels that pushed us back into this world, and we decided not to try it anymore.

7 posted on 10/28/2005 9:04:55 PM PDT by Jorge (Q)
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To: hispanarepublicana

I still remember those weird ghost stories of cemetaries full of voters who brought LBJ his victories.


8 posted on 10/28/2005 9:07:02 PM PDT by Cvengr (<;^))
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To: hispanarepublicana

bookmarking for later! Thanks for the Halloween-y post!


9 posted on 10/28/2005 9:07:49 PM PDT by VRWCer (All things work together for good to them that love God. - Romans 8:28)
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To: Cvengr

Those weren't just stories.


10 posted on 10/28/2005 9:09:45 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana (No amnesty needed...My ancestors proudly served. [remodel of an old '70s bumper sticker])
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To: hispanarepublicana

My father was OLD East Texas - from the 1920's, back near the Big Thicket. He told me that he himself had heard "the Voice in the Swamp" - the unknown voice that would call the name of travelers while they walked alone in the Thicket. He heard it call his name when he roamed the bottoms of the Naches river as a boy, a ghostly sweet voice, but he never answered back. He told me that no one should ever answer the voice back; if one did, one would be led astray and into the Thicket forever...

The big trees hide many secrets.


11 posted on 10/28/2005 9:14:33 PM PDT by dandelion (F)
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To: dandelion

Does he know anything about Athens?


12 posted on 10/28/2005 9:17:27 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana (No amnesty needed...My ancestors proudly served. [remodel of an old '70s bumper sticker])
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To: WillamShakespeare

What did Will say...


Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
"Hamlet" (1.4.43-9), Hamlet to the Ghost


13 posted on 10/28/2005 9:19:16 PM PDT by PetroniusMaximus
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To: hispanarepublicana

Wow that is wild..I tell you, I don`t know what it is, but to people who don`t believe in ghosts, spirits etc etc, they shouldn`t completely brush it off as nonsense because it is not ALL nothing, there is no way in hell it was a hallucination what I experienced. It felt as real to me as anything..Just imagine someone walking right up to you and putting their hand on your face, that`s how it felt. Plus besides feeling it, I just had this overwhelming sensation that someone was there which I think made me freak out even more than the hand thing. I just knew immediately what was going on.

I don`t know if it`s spirits or another reason ..Maybe it`s dual universes interacting and the people in one universe appear as ghosts in ours and vice versa, but there is NOT nothing to this. Another thing I read a lot about is people just knowing when someone close to them has died or is hurt. I think I remember reading about this last happening to Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, he just knew his brother was in trouble and sure enough, his brother died. But of course you get those who want hard evidence. The only thing I can provide is a lie detector test which I would take in two seconds flat, but thats about it. It`s pretty tough to get evidence on something that lasts a second and happens very infrequently, but I know what happened to me was as real as it can get.


14 posted on 10/28/2005 9:23:00 PM PDT by WillamShakespeare (Who is John Kerry?)
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To: hispanarepublicana

bump


15 posted on 10/28/2005 9:23:35 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Conservatives are from earth. Liberals are from Uranus.)
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To: hispanarepublicana
In elementary school in Kingsville, Texas, some friends and I went into a classroom during recess and had a seance. Typical kids' stuff...held hands...sat in a circle...asked the spirits to give us a sign. This classroom had a sink and we were startled out of our wits when the water came on spontaneously and just as abruptly turned itself off. Now, who knows...since the room spent a lot of time empty, perhaps this was a common occurrence nobody had witnessed before, a way of relieving pipe pressure or something, but WE BELIEVED...and it frightened us so much that most of us quit dabbling after that.
16 posted on 10/28/2005 9:26:13 PM PDT by lsee
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To: WillamShakespeare

I have a job that is not very physically demanding (skirts, pantyhose and heels every day); but, during my career, there have been maybe 3 times when I've been so beaten-up and bruised mentally and emotionally that I've driven home from work almost FEELING bruises and bumps physically and half-way expecting to see bruises when I look in the mirror.
Each of those 3 or 4 times throughout my almost 20-yr long career, my mother will call me 1 or 2 days later and say, "Is everything alright? I dreamed that you came to me with bruises on your face."
Every single time, I am simultaneously chilled of spine and warmed of heart.


17 posted on 10/28/2005 9:35:59 PM PDT by hispanarepublicana (No amnesty needed...My ancestors proudly served. [remodel of an old '70s bumper sticker])
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To: hispanarepublicana
I remember about 3 years ago, that whole summer I thought I was going crazy. All my grandparents died within 2 months of each other. Around that time I would hear strange noises in the middle of night, my dad told me if I was downstairs the other night because he heard a woman screaming at around 2 AM and I was pretty young (15). Well around July I was still sleeping with my door open to the hallway and had no lock on my door. Around 1 AM I got up got some mountain dew and went back to bed, however, around 30 minutes later I heard some commotion in the kitchen. I shook it off as my dad or brother. I heard the steps coming down the hall and I can tell how my dad walks due to certain creaks in the floor because of his weight and his step pattern. It did not sound too much like him but my brother was home. I had my face the the wall so I had Nada visibility. It wasn't until the steps shuffled into my room that I started to sweat allot...I mean i was drenched...and it seemed like FOREVER...sounded like heavy breathing standing over my bed I just pretended to sleep, I felt like whatever it was, was watching me. I thought some one broke in personally because I was a bit paranoid about that back then. about 15 minutes later I'd say, the steps shuffled off into the living room and I waited another couple minutes to get up my courage, then I grabbed a machete and ran into the living room screaming. Nothing was touched or disturbed, i checked the locks and all was sound...my dad woke up and was mad as hell I woke him up and my brother was sound asleep, mom wasn't home at the time. Needless to say even I thought I was crazy...
18 posted on 10/28/2005 9:42:20 PM PDT by Xenophon450 (In a world of spoonfed emotion, intelligence can save.)
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To: hispanarepublicana
The "weirdest" thing I've had happen was that aI was going through a very difficult time in my life during college, and all of a sudden there was a mourning dove outside my window every time I got really upset.

About 2 years ago I passed out cold and was hospitalized with atrial fibrillation. So there I was lying in a hospital bed at 6 a.m. scared s--tless, looking at my erratic heartbeat on the moniter and this big white seagull with a smear of garbage on it's beak comes and sits right outside my window 3' away and just stares at me.

So the first thing that goes through my mind is, "How the hell did I get this crappy spirit guide? What's he going to do, lead me to the great landfill in the sky?"

As it turns out he was a regular visitor that went around at meal times begging for food.

19 posted on 10/28/2005 9:44:19 PM PDT by elmer fudd
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To: sneakers

East Texas ghost/wierd stuff ping!


20 posted on 10/28/2005 9:45:56 PM PDT by BigCinBigD
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