Giving Up the Ghost in Gettysburg
Tonya Keyser
Volume 19.2, June 2009
Figure 1. Grammatically Challenged sign advertising Allen Gross's ghost lectures.
Although we moved to a large town about twenty-five miles away from Gettysburg several years ago, I typically continue to spend part of every weekend there. Sometimes it is just a quick trip to switch things around in our antique mall spaces. On other occasions, we make a day and/or evening out of the trip with a delicious pizza from Tommy’s, a walk on the battlefield, and shopping while dodging the regiments of ghost tours on the town’s sidewalks. On one unseasonably warm April Saturday, we drove over the mountain to spend the afternoon and evening with friends who were visiting Gettysburg for the weekend.
After consuming a table full of artery-clogging delights and good conversation at Hunt’s Battlefield Fries, we walked around town. I was excited to show our friend Ken Biddle (author of Orbs or Dust, a book about false positives) the newest ghost-themed tourist traps. It is always entertaining to watch him display his photo analysis skills to the orb-mongers and camera-strap aficionados who line Baltimore Street like some alternate universe version of the boardwalk, minus the ocean. The tour guides stand in front of the shops hawking their tours with overly enthusiastic salesmanship typically reserved for the red light district in Amsterdam. Somehow, the scene along this street appears even seedier. At least after you pay for a hooker and she closes her velvet curtains to hide you from the street, you have a reasonable expectation of some form of satisfaction. Here, you are only guaranteed to feast from a platter of overcooked fallacies, badly seasoned photography, and greasy charlatanism that inevitably leads to mental indigestion.
We wandered away from the more crowded area to Ecto Hauntings, one of the newest ghost tour companies in town. The shop, which suspiciously smelled of cat urine and wet dog, offered a variety of goods, including reenactment clothing and accessories, tickets for ghost tours, and paranormal paraphernalia. The front wall was lined with photos of dust, pollen, rain, hair, and camera straps, all known in certain circles as proof positive of the afterlife. I was immediately drawn to the counter, where they were selling a single bead tied on a string for $16.95. This item was packaged in a plastic bag with a little brochure titled “IT—Intuition Technology.” The front of the brochure claimed that one could use this item to detect spirit energy. Um, okay. I saw the rest of the group standing at the front of the store chuckling at a homemade, stapled-together booklet. As I approached, I heard Kenny say, “Everything you need to know to begin paranormal investigation ... and it’s only six pages long.” Wow. Everything you need to know, all in six pages ... a veritable bargain at the price of $6.95. And you don’t even need to be able to read very well. I figured it couldn’t get much worse than that, and we all exited the shop giggling like a gaggle of schoolgirls.
We walked around the corner to a shop with no name. There was signage, but it was written with a sharpie on cardboard. It advertised “Nightly Ghosts Talks” (figure 1). What kind of grammar is that? I looked at the sign on the very bottom of the door, underneath the very clear and professionally placed decals that showed that they accept MasterCard and Visa, reading “Come in and enjoy our FREE (museum)” (figure 2). Priorities, I suppose.
A self-proclaimed grammar Nazi, I am always on the lookout for printed and posted material that does not adhere to the established conventions of the English language. I am annoyed and fascinated by such blatant errors and always obtain some sort of masochistic satisfaction from noticing them and pointing them out to those around me. Was I to ascertain that we were going to enjoy something called a “free”? Was the museum an afterthought or a further explanation of what “free” meant, as his use of parentheses would indicate? Unsure of what to expect, we walked in the door.
Upon entering, we figured out that the owner claims to have two haunted objects in his museum. The rest of the objects are there as distracters in a modified game of Where’s Waldo, where guests are supposed to guess or “sense” which objects have spirits attached to them. Anyone sensing correctly is entered into a monthly drawing for a K-2 meter. I wondered why someone so sensitive would need a K-2 meter. And then I wondered how the owner determined which two objects were haunted in the first place.
Figure 2. Was I to ascertain that we were going to enjoy something called a "free"?
The items themselves were quite an odd assortment. Included in the guessing-game lineup were a child’s jacket, a metal lunchbox, an antique crutch, a safety belt, a mowing sickle, an ugly green glass lamp, an electric fan, antique ice tongs, a butter churn, a milk can, a rusty and well-worn sawmill blade, and a garden hoe that Miss Beavers loved until the day she died.
There were some rather confusing items as well. First, there were several old trunks, two of which were open to reveal their contents. The sign posted above one of the trunks told the story of the trunk and its former owner. The puzzling part of the sign was the part that read “contents unknown.” I was curious how the contents could possibly be unknown when anyone with reasonably good vision could look directly into the trunk to see what was there.
Particularly interesting was a series of African-inspired art not unlike the items one might find in a store like 10,000 Villages. The sign below these items clearly read “African Hand Cravings.” Cravings? Really? Kenny boldly asked the man working at the counter if they were supposed to be “carvings.” The man said, “No. They are cravings.” I turned around and walked to the back of the museum to hide the incredulous look on my face as Kenny continued to question him relentlessly.
Before we left the store, Kenny asked about the Nightly Ghosts Talks [sic] advertised on the sign in the front window. The man behind the counter stated that the owner would be giving a talk about real ghosts. Kenny asked, “Real? How do you know they are real?”
“Because they just are,” stated the heavily accented voice, which quickly added, “He experienced it. They are real.”
Kenny and I went back for the 7:30 pm talk, but nobody else was willing to shell out the $8.00 to promote this ridiculous sham. I did it for research ... and for the entertaining Ghost Diva blog it would surely inspire.
Plus, I had to spend the money to find out exactly what a “Real” was. I was curious. And, after all, the sign (figure 3) said that the speaker is “Renowned.” I had been wondering all week what it takes to become renowned. Apparently, all it entails is saying so and printing it on a sign full of grammatical and spelling errors. At least this one was made with a printer. Business must be picking up, I thought.
When 7:30 came, the renowned Allen Gross appeared from a door in the back of the storefront like the Wizard of Oz from behind the mystical curtain. I glanced around for flying monkeys and a source of water to throw on the wicked witch, just in case. Just as he was summoning us in, two other people came in to buy tickets. We all walked into the back room together, which was filled with folding chairs. In the front of the room were two televisions and a VCR, and a laptop was set up on a table in the back of the room. Gross told us that since the group was so small, he would actually be able to show us some pictures. He then recounted two instances of people “stealing” his photos in the past, which made him cautious about sharing them with people now. He was sure to let us know that they were copyrighted. He also said that no other paranormal researcher has a collection as substantial and thought-provoking as his. I wondered where he obtained this data and exactly who the judge and jury were who proclaimed his photographs so special. I vowed to try to listen to him with an open mind and to objectively look at his pictures.
Gross then began to talk about his experience on Sach’s bridge that very morning, wondering about the deserters who were hanged there. Kenny and I exchanged knowing glances and smirks, both well aware that this popular story has no basis in actual historic fact. There is no documentation showing that anyone was ever hanged on Sach’s Bridge. I started to say something but stopped myself because I preferred to continue the entertainment portion of the evening.
The next story almost caused me to get up and leave the building because it was so painful to hear. Gross said that a few years ago, his adult son called him and said that he wanted to take a trip to Gettysburg with him. Gross told him that he would pick him up and that they would be in Washington, D.C., in about three hours. His son was rightfully confused. Apparently, at the time, Gross thought that Gettysburg was in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Memorial where the Gettysburg Address is inscribed. He never knew that Gettysburg was a real place before then. Gross quipped, “I’m not an educated man.” Either this will be a lot of fun, or it will be like gnawing off my own fingertips, I thought to myself.
The renowned paranormal investigator and world geography expert told us about his first night in the Farnsworth House, located in Gettysburg. He told the often repeated story of Jeremy, a child who reportedly died after being struck by a horse on Baltimore Street. Supposedly, Jeremy was brought to the Farnsworth House, where he later died. Gross said that he knows that the boy’s father carried him back and forth between two rooms after his death. His proof for this statement was that a psychic told him so. I again bit my tongue, as we were less than five minutes into the presentation and I wasn’t ready to get kicked out of the building quite yet. As Gross continued his story, he cued up a video tape of him sleeping and ominously stated that we would have to tell him what we thought was being said on the tape by the mysterious voice. “Some people think it’s a foreign language,” he said. I listened to several seconds of him snoring, then to sounds of him awakening, rolling over, and stretching. “Right there! That’s it!” His eyes twinkled with pride as he pointed to the video tape with authority and conviction. The sound, in my opinion, was nothing more than him clearing his throat and stretching; it was much louder at that point because he rolled over in the bed and faced the video camera. “I sent this to an audio expert, and he confirmed that it isn’t natural.” My tongue was probably gushing blood at this point, but I continued to bite down. Hard.
Figure 3. Allen Gross: renowned—at least self-renowned—paranormal investigator
“Do you remember the story I told you about the father carrying Jeremy back and forth?” he asked. “Well, this was taken in that hallway between those two rooms.” He picked up two photographs from a stack of several and arranged them painstakingly. Then came the reveal. He showed us a photograph with a wide white glowing line going down the middle of the picture. “Do you know what that is?” he asked Kenny. Uh-oh, I thought. “Yes,” said Kenny. “It’s a camera strap.”
“No it isn’t,” retorted Gross, nervously licking his lip and seemingly flabbergasted that his evidence was being questioned by someone paying to attend his special ghost talk and learn from an expert. “Explain how this photograph shows the same thing when it was taken with 800 speed film instead of 400 speed.”
“Film speed has nothing to do with it ...” Kenny began, interrupted by the increasingly flustered self-proclaimed paranormal guru. “It was a different camera and four months later,” he proudly proclaimed. “That has nothing to do with it,” stated Kenny, who continued talking even though Gross tried to interrupt him. “All it means is that there was a camera strap on both cameras.”
“I sent this to experts, and they confirmed it,” he responded smugly. “Well, I’m a photographer,” said Kenny, “and in my opinion it is a camera strap.”
Gross retorted, “Well, just wait until my book comes out.” If all else fails while trying to put forth bad evidence as proof of ghosts, just say that an expert confirmed it for you. That always works. Unless, of course, you are talking to a smart person. You have to pull out the big guns and say that your book is being published. We all know that having a book published is not proof that you are right. Look at the abysmal book The Secret, for example, or the infamous travesty of common sense The Orb Project. Publishers want books that sell, not necessarily books that provide accurate information or evidence of an iota of critical thought.
The next photograph showed what appeared to be light reflecting off of a smooth surface. In the photograph, three mirrors were visible, and there were no reference photos showing the remainder of the room. This time, he turned to me for my opinion. I said I believed that it was likely a reflection. “Oh, are you a photographer, too?” he asked.
“No,” I said, wanting to add that I had common sense, which, in this case, is enough.
Gross relocated the remainder of the talk to the back of the room, where he showed us photographs on his laptop. He prefaced this portion of the presentation by saying that he does not believe in orbs and recognizes that they are typically dust. “Or pollen or rain or snow or bugs ...” continued Kenny. Ironically, the next photograph he proudly showed was an orb. “I believe this one is something because there is evil in it,” he uttered with gravity. “It is still an orb,” stated Kenny. “But you can see its shadow!” Gross exclaimed. Kenny pointed out, ever so patiently, that what he was likely seeing was nothing more than another piece of dust or pollen. “There are experts who would disagree with you,” Gross proclaimed.
Additional pictures showed orbs, a shadow that was most likely created by the person taking the photo in the first place, and creases in a man’s shirt. Kenny and I both questioned the creases in the shirt. “Well, I sent this to some experts, and they all had the same opinion.” When we asked what that opinion was, he said, “They all agreed that it was an ectoplasmic handprint.” At this point, I just openly laughed because I was almost hoping I would get kicked out of the room. I’d had enough of his mythology-inspired word vomit.
The talk ended with some stories about his experiences with psychics, which were confirmation of nothing other than coincidence. Telling someone to “look out for a rainy night, a curve, and a railroad trestle” is bound to end up with a confirmation at some point in that person’s life. It is a vague reference using typically dangerous conditions.
Before we left, Kenny told Gross that he should read a book about false positives in photography and gave him the title of his own book as an example, without telling him that he had written the book. Gross responded, “Oh. Yeah. I’ve read that a thousand times.” Allen Gross also claims to have been investigating for thirty-five years even though the oldest piece of “evidence” he showed us was from 2004. I highly doubt he has read Kenny’s book even once. As I walked out the door, I slipped a business card into his hand so he could read the blog his presentation had inspired. “What’s this?” he asked. I kept walking as I heard his words fade away in the distance: “I hope it’s money!”
I’m sure you do, Mr. Gross. I’m sure you do.
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