Reported in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Photograph taken at the public memorial that was created soon after United Flight 93
crashed into the rural field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Mysterious translucent spheres
cluster around the cross. Photograph © 2001 by Debbie Harris.
February 2, 2002 Shanksville, Pennsylvania - After September 11, 2001, the nation heard about cell phone calls from some of the passengers on United Flight 93 to loved ones, warning that terrorists had taken over the plane. One man told his wife that he and others were going to take action against the terrorists.
United Flight 93 went straight down into the rural countryside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, not far from Johnstown. All 38 passengers and 7 crew members were apparently killed instantly as the airliner impacted at high speed that produced a crater fifty feet deep in the grass and trees.
Morning of September 11, 2001, plume of smoke rises from
the crash of United Flight 93. Photograph © 2001 by Val McClaskey.
Within 48 hours, the FBI and State Police brought in a house trailer to be a command post and to store some of the evidence boxes. Eventually the crater was filled back in and local residents started referring to it as the "mass grave." In order to protect the site, the Johnstown Rent-A-Cop company known as R. A. C. was hired to patrol 24 hours a day. One of the R. A. C. security guards was assigned to duty at the crash site on November 9, two months after the 9-11 horrors. His name is Robert Wagstaff, 32-years-old and longtime Johnstown resident. He became so uneasy near the trailer that he did not want to go there alone.
He and other guards heard voices and footsteps at the trailer and once Robert even saw a ghost up near the main gate. This new development to the September 11th attack was first reported locally in Johnstown on Fox TV 8 and we will hear firsthand from anchor and reporter Renae Kluk about her own firsthand experience with footsteps on the trailer stairs.
But first, Robert Wagstaff describes some of the hauntings he has personally experienced during security duty at the United Flight 93 crash site.
Robert Wagstaff, Officer, Rent-A-Cop Services (R. A. C.), Johnstown, Pennsylvania: "Me and another guard went into the trailer down by the crash site one day. We had just got into the trailer. We were in there for only about two minutes and we heard somebody knock on the door. And there was nobody around, nobody. Well, my partner went out and he searched the area and I stood in the doorway. Now, keep in mind, I'm only five foot nine inches and I weigh about 220 pounds. So, to get passed me, it's kind of difficult to do. You know, especially in a trailer door.
Anyway, he's looking around and he didn't see nobody and he came back in and we just kind of blew it off, like maybe it was the wind or something. You know what I mean? So, we go back into the trailer and we got our coffee and we went to sit back down to play some cards. We didn't have any chairs set up yet. Well, when we went to sit back down, one of the chairs was already set up and we didn't set it up. I don't know where the chair came from. I don't know who put it there.
AND YET YOU KNOW FOR A FACT THAT IT WAS NOT THERE BEFORE THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR.
Right. And Jerry and me looked at each other like, 'What the heck?' And then we kind of ignored that, too, like maybe we're just imagining things. And we sat down and got into the chairs and started to play cards. We played two hands of cards and then we heard someone walking through the trailer.
LIKE ON THE INSIDE?
Yeah. And we looked at each other and we looked around. And there was not a soul to be seen. OK. The next thing we knew, we heard mumbled voices like they was outside of the trailer.
ANY WORDS?
We couldn't make out the words. It was too muffled, you know what I mean?
MALE OR FEMALE?
It sounded like a group of people. It sounded like more than one. They all sounded like they was outside on the back half of the trailer. So we hurried out and ran outside and we looked and there was no footprints in the snow.
AND YOU EVEN HAD SNOW TO LOOK FOR TRACKS?
Right, and there was no footprints. So, me and him got back in my car and went back up to the main gate and we didn't go back in the trailer. (laughs) Needless to say that kind of startled us.
Another time I was sitting out there at the main gate and it was about 3 o'clock in the morning. I laid my head back to kind of relax for a couple of minutes instead of just staring at the gate and doing crossword puzzles and stuff. I laid my head back and keep in mind, I'm out there all by myself. Got my car doors locked. And out of nowhere, I hear a voice inside my car say, 'So, now what?'
And I jumped up and looked around and there was nobody in my car, nobody around. I went, 'OK.'
WAS THAT A MALE OR FEMALE VOICE?
That was a male voice. And it startled me real bad.
IT WAS LOUD JUST LIKE SOMEBODY WAS SITTING IN YOUR CAR?
It sounded just like somebody was in my car, like somebody was in the passenger seat and I was in the driver's seat. That's how clear it was, but there was nobody there!
One night it had quit raining and I'm sitting there all by myself listening to my stereo, got my car running. I drive a 1987 Cougar, OK. So, it's an older car, just so you have an idea. And I'm sitting in my car and all of a sudden - have you ever felt what it feels like when you are in your car and somebody sits on your trunk?
RIGHT.
OK. I'm sitting in my car doing a crossword puzzle and it felt like somebody jumped up on the trunk of my car. And I'm looking and I don't see anybody, so I get out of my car and close the door and I walk around to the back of my car, got my spotlight on, you know, and I'm looking around. And there's absolutely no marks in the mud except for the tire tracks from me pulling in and out and moving around, you know. Otherwise, there was no tracks in the mud. There was all kind of dirt on my car. You figure it had just rained, it's muddy out there. So, I had a real filthy car at the moment, but there was no scuffs in the dirt on my car, like nothing was ever there.
But while I was looking right there in front of me, the rear end of my car jumped back up. Like whatever was on it came off.
There was one time I was sitting out there - now keep in mind, the main gate is almost a mile away from the main crash site. OK? But I seen this lady walking around in the dead of winter at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was a full moon out, 4 o'clock in the morning, and I seen this woman as clear as day, like if you was to be looking at me dead in my face and you was standing in front of me.
AND WAS SHE AT THE CRASH SITE?
She was actually coming towards my car.
FROM THE CRASH SITE?
From the direction of the crash site.
AND HOW WAS SHE DRESSED?
She had on like a blue baseball jersey. OK, one of those button-down-the-front ones with a pair of blue jeans on. She had medium length, like light brown colored, hair. She had glasses on. I mean, this lady was so clear. I was getting ready to get out of my car and ask her why she was walking around out there in the middle of the night, dead of winter, snowing. And why didn't she have on a coat?
So, I went to get out of my car and as soon as I pulled on my car door to open it, she vanished.
HOW DID SHE VANISH?
She just vanished. She totally disappeared. She didn't like fade out or nothing. It was almost as if I blinked and she wasn't there no more.
HOW FAR AWAY FROM YOU WAS SHE WHEN SHE DISAPPEARED?
An approximation as far as guess on size of her and everything else in distances, I would say probably no more than about ten to fifteen feet away.
AND WHEN SHE DISAPPEARED LIKE THAT, WHAT DID YOU THINK?
The first action for me to do being that I'm a security guard was take out my planner and write down everything I seen. I wrote down the time, the description, how old she looked to me, the whole nine yards. How far she was away from the car, what direction she was coming from and how many steps I seen her take. I seen her take like seven steps. And like I said, she was walking right towards me and vanished into thin air.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER REPORTS FROM OTHER SECURITY GUARDS?
The overnight guards have heard people walking through the trailer, heard people knocking on the trailer door. As a matter of fact, another guard mentioned he saw what appeared to be shadows of people walking around. And what those are called, those are called shadow people.' And basically what that is is spirits, too. OK? And you can only see them at night time, too.
Now, the funny part is, I would see the shadow people and there would be nothing to create a shadow. No kind of light source to create a shadow, OK? But yet, you would still see shadows running around in the dead of night.
AND WHERE WERE THEY AND WHAT DID THE SHADOWS SEEM TO BE FOCUSED UPON?
They seemed to be focused upon trying to get away from the crash site is what it looked like because they was going away from it. It was like they was running away, is what it looked like. And you would see on average probably about six or seven shadows over the course of an average night out there.
SO HOW DO YOU SEE SHADOW PEOPLE MOVING IN DARKNESS?
That's my point. I don't understand how you can see them. I mean, you just do. You see them. And I would even hit them with my spotlight. they would vanish into thin air. As soon as I would hit a shadow with my spotlight, it would vanish into thin air. But when I would take my spotlight back off of (where the shadow had been), it would be right there in front of me again running. And it was hard to catch them (with my spotlight) because they was fast. You know, it was hard to catch them with your spotlight.
NOW, WHEN YOU AND THE OTHER GUARDS AND YOUR BOSS HAVE TALKED ABOUT THIS HAUNTING OF THE FLIGHT 93 CRASH SITE, WHAT DO YOU ALL CONCLUDE?
We was going out there to protect the things that belonged to the people on the crash, that was in the crash. We was there to protect the people who was there in the crash, in a manner of speaking. And that's how most of us felt. And we can't help but think that maybe, just maybe that the spirits that are from that flight, the ones that acted heroically are trying to protect us as well. And every time we go in that trailer, they knock on the door to get our attention to get us back out of the trailer.
The people on Flight 93 who had to jump the terrorists to get them to quit flying the plane towards Washington, D. C. - just maybe they decided to use the trailer as like a prison for them terrorists. Because you get an uneasy feeling when you go into that trailer whether you've been there before or not.
SO, WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS THAT YOU ALL ARE MAKING A POINT THAT THE TERRORISTS ON THAT PLANE WHO CAUSED IT TO CRASH DIED WITH THE PASSENGERS WHO ACTED HEROICALLY ALL OF THOSE SOULS AND SPIRITS ARE MIXED UP TOGETHER?
Right.
WHAT HAVE YOU AND THE OTHER GUARDS DISCUSSED IN TERMS OF HOW CAN SOMETHING IN THE UNSEEN AFTER THE MOMENT OF DEATH INTERACT WITH MATTER TO MOVE A CHAIR, KNOCK ON A DOOR, MAKE STAIRS CREAK AND THAT SORT OF THING?
For me, I don't question it. I Honestly don't. But like one of the other guards who is a little bit younger than I am and he was the one that was originally working over night. And he kind of gun shy so to speak. He didn't really know what to expect as to how is it possible that spirits can interact with us if they are dead? And the only thing I kept telling him was, 'You can't be afraid of the dead. They really can't hurt you. The most they can do is scare you.' If you've got a bad heart, then I guess they can kill you. (laughs) But otherwise, there's really nothing to be afraid of. And he said, 'But how are they able to do it?' And I said, 'Well, honestly, I don't know. I haven't been dead yet.' (laughter)
But I believe it is a learning process once they pass on suddenly like that. I think it's a learning process for them to go ahead to be able to move things around and appear as a form of a human and so on after they pass on suddenly like that.
YES, THERE IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SUDDEN DEATH AND HAUNTINGS, THAT THERE ARE MORE HAUNTINGS WHERE THERE HAVE BEEN SUDDEN DEATHS.
Well, you can't get more sudden than that. Nobody got on that airplane expecting to die, except for the terrorists. And they wasn't even expecting it until they was boarding the plane. So, I mean, they acted heroically as far as saving a bunch of lives, but at the same time they wasn't trying to die. And that's what happened. I can't help but think with that many people dying at one time, totally unexpectedly, there's going to be something there."
First TV News Reports
When Robert Wagstaff went to the United Flight 93 website to look at the passenger photographs, he told me he shivered with goosebumps when he saw one of the females who closely matched the woman he saw vanish. In respect for the family, he has asked that her name not be given.
Renae Kluk is a recent communications graduate of Clarion College in northern Pennsylvania and works as both on-air weekend anchor, reporter AND cameraman at the Fox TV8 channel in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She has lived there all her life and has never received so much response, mostly positive, from her fellow residents as she has since first interviewing Robert Wagstaff about his ghost experiences at the Flight 93 crash site. This week she told me about her own visit to the spooky trailer.
Renae Kluk, Weekend Anchor and Reporter, Fox TV 8 and ABC 23, Johnstown, Pennsylvania: "So we drove down to the trailer and he's showing me where the chair was moved to and different things that had happened. We set up the camera to do the interview. And about half way through the interview, it was about a half hour into the interview actually, and it was about 3:30 in the morning. I said, 'Who do you think these spirits are?' And he goes, 'Well, I think that a lot of people, they were heroes, but there were a whole heck of a lot of people who are dead who weren't expecting to die on September 11.'
And at that point in the conversation, that's when we heard the sound outside. And it was like the sound of footsteps.
AND YOU HEARD THIS WITH YOUR OWN EARS?
Yeah. I heard it and Bob looks at me and there was dead silence between the two of us. We just kind of locked eyes. And I looked at him and he looked at me and we were both waiting for the knock at the door. and we were just waiting and waiting. He had said sometimes you hear footsteps and then you hear a knock at the door. And I'm sitting there and mentally thinking, 'Please don't knock! Please don't knock! Because if you knock, I'll really freak out!' (laughs)
The knock didn't come, but I do have the sound of the footsteps coming up the stairs.
SO YOU ACTUALLY GOT THE SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS ON THE VIDEOTAPE YOU WERE RUNNING?
Yeah. I don't have any video of - I just left the camera on the tripod. I do it all. I report and I run the camera and everything. I do have the audio, but no video of the outside steps. It was kind of impossible to be moving around that quickly. We were waiting for the knock.
DID YOU OPEN THE DOOR AT THAT INSTANT TO SEE?
No, we didn't get a chance to open the door at that instance because we were both sitting there with locked eyes and it was, 'OKAY!'
WHAT DID THOSE FOOTSTEPS SOUND LIKE IN TERMS OF GRAVEL, ROCKS, SOIL WHAT KIND OF?
They were metal steps.
SO, IT WAS ACTUALLY THE SOUND OF SHOES COMING UP THE METAL STEPS INTO THE TRAILER?
It was creaky like creaking up the metal steps of the trailer.
DID YOU FEEL ANY MOTION IN THE TRAILER?
No, we were pretty far away from the door at that point. We were kind of midway through the trailer, maybe 12 to 15 feet from the door. When the sound of the footsteps went up the steps and stopped. That was it. They just went up the steps and stopped at the door. No one went back down the steps. They just stopped at the door. And when I got back, I thought, 'Well...' I walked up those steps because I tape recorded our coming in on video, walking in together. And I thought, 'I have the sound of my feet going up those steps. I wonder what that sounds like?' I played it and saw what that sounded like. Then I shuttled through the tape and I listened to what we heard in the middle of our interview. And it was the exact same sound. It was like, 'Oh, those really were footsteps.'
AND HOW DOES SOMETHING IN THE UNSEEN IN THE CATEGORY OF GHOSTS AFTER DEATH INTERACT WITH THE MATTER WORLD TO MAKE ANY KIND OF SOUND?
Yeah. Exactly. That's one of the unexplained. If they don't have any weight or mass...
HOW DO THEY DO THAT?
How do they create the noise to do it?
WHAT KIND OF RESPONSE HAVE YOU HAD TO YOUR TWO TV REPORTS?
When I went in earlier the next day, I had one e-mail message from a viewer basically saying we needed to let the spirits of Flight 93 rest and we should not have done the story. However, other public response wherever I've gone out, lots of people have come up and asked, 'Did you really experience the footsteps? Do you really think it is haunted?' I've gotten far more positive response than negative.
In fact, I have to say out of all the stories I have ever done in this market, and this is my hometown, so I have a lot of friends in the area. Out of everything I've ever done, this has been the one story I've gotten the most response from. And you know, I keep wondering: if this is going on in Shanksville, Somerset County, what's going on in New York? What's going on down at the Pentagon? Because I'm sure if these spirits are just as discontent or should we say, as vocal, I'm sure they are experiencing kind of the same thing there, too."
Pennsylvania Ghost Hunters Society, Johnstown
An extraordinary photograph was taken at the public memorial to the victims of United Flight 93 back in September by Nancy Coplin, Director of the Johnstown branch of the Pennsylvania ghost Hunters Society. She and her ghost hunter colleagues have studied the many reports of hauntings at the Gettysburg battle field. In their investigations, she uses still and video cameras and audio recorders. I asked her about the relationship between sudden death and the frequency of hauntings.
Nancy Coplin, Director, Johnstown Branch of Pennsylvania Ghost Hunters Society, Johnstown, Pennsylvania: "When death came to them, it came very quickly which leads us to believe that they don't even realize they are dead. It may take time for their minds to clear and rational thought to return after death. And what occurs at the time of death affects post-death behavior. Fear and confusion alone in itself can become an anchor.
ON THIS MATTER WORLD.
In this particular instance, yes. We know that they died a very horrible, tragic death in that situation. And they do indeed attempt to make human contact at times.
AND IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT IT IS IN THE VERY SUDDEN DEATH AND VIOLENT INCIDENTS THAT THERE SEEMS TO BE A LINK TO MORE HAUNTINGS AFTERWARD?
Yeah, because there are unresolved issues and unfinished business. They are not ready to go. We find that in a lot of cases. That can be compared to a situation like on the Gettysburg Battlefield where so many hauntings are reported where we've done numerous investigations there. We compare this similar to that: sudden, tragic, untimely deaths in which none of those folks were ready to go.
AND WHAT IN THE LITERATURE SUGGESTS IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP THOSE SPIRITS MOVE ON?
We really can't officially send them into the light. We don't use psychics or anything like that. We use strictly scientific methods with cameras and video and audio. There are at times attempts to make human contact looking for help. We feel that those who are receptive to these types of hauntings, we can suggest we know they hear us because they respond when we are doing investigations we can only make suggestions and try to help them realize that they are in this transition. And once they accept the death of their physical body, we feel they discover their new shining body which in turn allows them their soul to soar. It helps to release the anchors that bind them here to begin with.
HAVE YOU BEEN OUT TO THE SITE AND TAKEN PHOTOGRAPHS?
Yes, we did. We went out when the temporary memorial was there at the very beginning. We went one late afternoon and stayed into the dark and took photographs and yes, we did get some photographs of anomalies out there.
WHAT KIND?
The most common anomaly we photographed is the orb or ball of light which is a form of spirit energy.
AND YOU DO HAVE PHOTOGRAPHS THAT SHOW THOSE AT THE CRASH SITE?
Not at the crash site, not where the crater was. That was roped off and it still is. There is no trespassing down to the crater site, but we did get photographs at the memorial. I was not surprised to hear this story on the news when it first came out here locally. I was kind of thinking this is going to be the case out there.
THAT IT WOULD END UP BEING A HAUNTED SITE BECAUSE IT WAS SUCH A SUDDEN AND VIOLENT DEATH?
Yes."
About The Memorial Site Photograph With Cluster of Spheres Around Cross
"When we take photographs like this, I can't sit here and tell you that those balls of lights that we photographed out there that evening are indeed the crash victims. There is no way for us to tell by looking at photographs like that. The only way we actually know is to conduct an investigation by using electronic devices like tape recorders and trying to get electronic voice phenomenon. This holds true, no matter what investigation you do. Just because you get ectoplasm or some type of energy on film or videotape, that doesn't tell you who it is. When you use a recorder and you ask a specific question: Can you tell me you name? If we get a name back and say it would be one of the crash victims, and that is entirely possible, but we haven't tried it - then we know for sure. We can say, yes, this is one person who is there.
WOULD YOU PLAN TO DO SUCH RESEARCH?
I am hoping to with the help of Renae Kluk who did the report on TV 8. The Somerset County Sheriffs Office has taken over and the sheriff told Renae to give him a month or two to see if his men who are guarding the site out there have any stories. If so, we will try to organize an investigation with cameras and tape recorders as we have in the past at the Gettysburg battlefield."
Copyright © 2002 Linda Moulton Howe
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