I’m a practical person who doesn’t put much stock in such things as ghosts, Bigfoot, captured alien spacecraft, or conspiracy theories. In my seventy-three years, I have only experienced one paranormal moment.
Driving home from classes at Louisiana Tech one day, my car was suddenly filled with the smell of freshly baked peanut butter cookies. Then, miraculously, when I got home, I found Mom pulling peanut butter cookies out of the oven. Not as dramatic as some people’s experiences, for sure, but I have never forgotten it.
While I have never had an encounter with ghosts, I know people who believe they have. My wife Carol, in fact, insists that the first house we lived in at Natchitoches was haunted by a child’s spirit.
One day while I was at work, Carol lay on the bed after putting our toddler, Laura, in her crib for a nap. A little while later, she clearly heard a child whisper in her ear, “Momma.” Thinking Laura had crawled out the crib, Carol was surprised to find no one there and that Laura was still asleep in the other room.
On another occasion, Carol was cleaning on one side of a room while Laura was playing on the other side. Carol started to back up when she felt a small hand push against her lower back. Thinking she was bumping into Laura, she turned around and saw Laura still playing several feet away.
My sister-in-law, Sue Jordan, also experienced the phenomenon. She was babysitting Laura one night and, after putting her to bed, walked back into the living room to find our child-sized rocking chair rocking back and forth like someone was sitting in it. Freaked Sue out.
My specialty in history is the Civil War, and while traveling and researching, I have met several people who swear they have had encounters with ghosts.
When I was in graduate school at Texas A&M, my major professor was friends with a man who lived on a Civil War battlefield. I visited him once, and he invited me to his guest room to see a huge collection of artifacts he had found while metal detecting. The man’s prized find was a Minié ball that still had blue threads embedded in it from the Yankee uniform it tore through.
When I returned to A&M, my professor told me that his friend believed the Yankee soldier who was killed by the special bullet haunted his guest room. According to him, framed objects would fall from the walls for no reason and racked pool balls would be scattered over the table, even though no one had been in the room.
One night a guest was awakened by someone strangling him. The man fought his way out of bed, flipped the light on and found no one there. He refused to go back into the room.
Once while researching a Civil War soldier, I stopped by a house he had lived in and got permission from the owner to take some photos. Then she began telling me about the strange things that occurred there.
The woman said she would sometimes thoroughly clean a flower bed or room, turn around for a second and then find a coin or Civil War bullet lying where she had just cleaned. On other occasions, when the family was upstairs, they would hear the front door open and someone in heavy boots walk across the hardwood floor. Even their dog would hear it and go to the top of the stairs to look down. There was never anyone there.
One day, she and her children carried groceries into the kitchen that had two doors on a wall that led to the hallway. While they were putting away the groceries, they saw the handle of one door knob turn and the door slowly swing open. Then, in the amount of time it would take for someone to walk to the other door, it also opened.
The woman explained that the family never felt threatened or scared of the presence. In fact, she said, it was almost like whatever spirit was there was happy to share the house with them.
The most incredible ghost story I have heard came from a man who had worked many years at a major Civil War battlefield. We were talking at a history conference and I jokingly asked if he had ever seen any ghosts there. I was taken aback when he said, “yes,” he had.
It was a bright, sunny day and he was driving some visiting dignitaries around the battlefield. When he topped a slight rise in the road, he slammed on the brakes and squalled to a stop because there ahead of him was a Confederate battle line sweeping over the road from right to left.
He said the image was clearly visible, except it faded away below their knees and halfway up their battle flags. “How many of them were there?” I asked. “Thousands!” he said.
Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. An autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, costs $25. Contact him at tljones505@gmail.com
