From Ghost Stories to Bathroom Escapes: A Haunting Adventure

This is the first part of our trip to Gettysburg PA. Talking about all the sights, ghosts and BOB!

Transcript

Have you ever gone ghost hunting and encountered a ghost? This is the question I pose to most people when I find out that they believe in them. Some people say yes and then tell me their experience. Some people would just shake their heads and mumble. I wish, before changing the subject, today, that answer is a yes from me, just like most days. I've encountered things that I didn't think was possible when I was younger. Yet here I am. 
00:40
Hello and welcome to the Sanctum of Strange podcast. This is the very first episode. I'm your host, Nikki, and we'll be discussing my trip to Gettysburg last year with my two friends, Emily and Jane. Last year, my friends and I decided to go to a trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which is in the United States. My friends Jane and Emily, which are not their real names but for all intents and purposes we're going to call them Jane and Emily. I've always wanted to go ghost hunting since I was a little kid. I loved watching Taps and other shows like it on TV. It always amazed me. Last year, I got to meet Steven Tango from Taps, which was at a convention. It was really cool. Jane had been to Gettysburg before and Emily just had a supernatural event a few days before our trip. I've had strange things happen to me, but I never had the opportunity to go ghost hunting. Normally they find me, not the other way around. 
01:41
The day finally comes for our trip and we're all excited. I drive to Jane's house, which is about two hours from my house, and from there we pick up Emily. She lives like two or three minutes away from Jane. It took us about four and a half hours to get to Gettysburg. We had stopped a few times to get food and gas, you know girl stuff. Once we got to town it was kind of busy and we had to go straight to the center of town because we had booked a tour to go around town and to see the sights. We found parking and then we found the headquarters of the tour. It was kind of really close to each other. So the headquarters it looked like a shop. It had a few people dressed up in period attire and Jane checked us in and we still had a little bit of time before the tour began. 
02:27
So Jane went to the bathroom in the tour HQ and me and Emily were just wandering around looking at all the merchandise. So Emily and I are wandering around looking at all the merchandise they got t-shirts, clothing, mugs, some awesome ghost hunting equipment, things along that nature. A few moments later, emily also had to go to the bathroom. She figured it would be a good idea before we got a tour around the town. So she goes and disappears down into the hallway. 
03:01
A few minutes later I heard what sounded like a struggle and someone was trying to open a door. And then I heard Jane's voice. I'm stuck, and it was a high-pitched tone and it sounded a little panicked. So I ran to find out where she was. I went down the hallway that Jane and Emily had gone down a few moments prior and found Emily pulling on a door handle. She noticed me and said Jane is stuck. I rushed over down the hall and tried to help Emily open the door, but of course my 5 foot 100 soaking power wet me wasn't going to be able to do that. I didn't. Yeah, imagine that for a second 100-pound girl trying to fling open a door, it didn't work, needless to say. So I went back down the hallway and asked the front desk person at the headquarters if they had an extra key. The man looked me over and raised an eyebrow. Someone stuck in the bathroom, I assume. I nodded and the reenactor to my left made a laughing sound and rolled his eyes. Bob probably locked someone in again. He walked off and went down the hallway. My face must have been very confused because the front desk person said the haunted doll by the bathroom. Go and look at him. His name is Bob. I knitted my eyebrows together and went back to my friends. 
04:36
By this time, jane had gotten out of the bathroom and was over in the corner talking to the reenactor and Emily. I went next to them and saw what they were looking at. There was this jester-like doll that was in a glass case and underneath it was what looked like a sigil and on top was a black rosary. This was Bob. He apparently loved locking people in bathrooms. The ghost hunting team had picked him up a few years ago, since he was terrorizing the family he was with. Bob was donated to the hunting team in August of 2023. He looks like an old-timey jester, like you would see in the age of kings and queens, would see in the age of kings and queens. He has on gold high heels and his jester costume is mostly green and purple with a little bit of pink blended in. And here is the story about Bob. 
05:37
Bob was purchased by Gary Flint for his daughter Tegan, and with a few days of having Bob, daughter Tegan, and with a few days of having Bob, paranormal things started happening. Sometimes every kitchen cabinet door would open all at once late in the night. Sometimes they would hear voices and footsteps. There was a ghost investigation team called H-A-R-T team, called H-A-R-T Hart, who was asked to retrieve Bob and remove him from the house. Gary Flint retrieved the doll from his daughter's room and he moved it to the vacant room in the house. The room had a holding sigil on the floor and Gary put Bob into the sigil in the middle of the sigil. Gary was a few feet away and all of a sudden he turned around and he was walking away when all of a sudden he heard a sliding sound and checked the doll and Bob had moved on his own about two feet. 
06:42
Now I don't know about any of you, but if a doll moves and it's not in the spot that I left it, I'm going to probably panic and run out the freaking door. I'm just saying that's what I would do. That's probably what my mother would do. My cat would probably be at, you know, up a wall in an alley, somewhere. You know, stuff people who don't typically come in contact with a paranormal doll would do typically. So the paranormal team got Bob and brought him back to the headquarters and that's where he lives until this very day, with the Black Rosary around him, thank goodness. So after learning about Bob, I felt this weird feeling. It was excitement and being scared all at once. I still, to this day, don't know how to describe it. That's probably the closest I can get. Did I touch Bob? Absolutely not. Did I go into the bathroom after all of that? Well, yeah, I did, but I have to say I was now a new fear was unlocked, getting stuck and locked in the bathroom. Thanks Bob, thanks Bob. 
08:08
Our tour was about to start, so everyone headed outside of the building and stood outside next to a very highly detailed statue of Abraham Lincoln. It wasn't crazy cold night, but it was cold. Once everyone for the tour was in attendance, our tour began. We were a group of about 15 people and we were all walking down Main Street of Gettysburg. Our tour guide pointed to a hotel in front of us. He told us a lot of these buildings were used as hospitals and the life-saving methods from back then was hey, we're just gonna chop off this limb sound good, okay, goodbye, limb Like. And then they'd go and throw it out the nearest window. So at some point you'd have all of these body parts just out the window just stockpiling, like it's a thing of snow Instead of snow, just imagine body parts. Our tour guide continued. But this hotel had one particular room that was super haunted and it had the most activity. I thought it would be cool to book a room, but as soon as I said that, our tour guide said that they are booked out for the next six months of that room. Well, of course I thought wrong time, wrong time. 
09:36
Our tour group continued to walk down the town where we were introduced to many, many different buildings, most of which are probably haunted. Soon we came across an alley and it was a very narrow alley. The tour guide told us that this alley is famous for little girls playing. He allowed us to go down the alley and he warned us that if we were claustrophobic, please don't go down the alley. So I took out my EVP recorder and my EMF recorder recorder and my EMF recorder. An EMP recorder is an electronic voice phenomena recorder. It is a tool used by paranormal investigators to capture sounds that could be from spirits, ghosts, etc. An EMF meter is an electric and magnetic field recorder that can read energy that is invisible to the human eye. I turned on my EMF reader and it was my turn to go down the alley. By this point Emily and Jane had already gone by into the alley, swooped around and came back. They didn't have any experiences. Alley swooped around and came back. They didn't have any experiences. 
10:57
I walked slowly down the alley. It was a brick alley and if you get claustrophobic, like I said, you probably don't want to go down here. I would recommend not going down, but of course I really wanted to see this alley. I turned my phone's light on and this guy who was in our tour let's just call him Ed also turned his on. So me and Ed are walking down this alley together. We got to the end of the alley. Then I looked over to my right. There was an open garden type thing and I started to feel a little weird. I don't know how to describe it. It was kind of like a lightheaded feeling, but it was kind of warm. At the same time. 
11:41
The tour was continuing, so me and the other guy, ed, made our way back, but slowly. We made it halfway down the alley when we both felt the air tone, bone-chilling cold. We looked at each other and froze in the alley. I pointed my light at my EMF and it shot all the way up. Normally when EMFs go up it means activity or an entity is nearby. There are a lot of different types of paranormal tools. My EMF goes up by numbers and gets red and beeps when it's too high. But I turned that feature off because I didn't really want to scare myself. So the EMF is red and the number is high and the tour guide and my friends are calling us. So me and Ed just book it down this alley to get to the rest of the tour area and everyone is wondering why we are out of breath. 
12:49
We tell the story and then continue on with the tour. Some people believe us, some people don't. However, one thing was for sure my friends Jane, emily and I all agreed we had to go back to that location once the tour was done. We pass by some old Mason buildings and a bunch of other old buildings with history and come across a cannon. The tour guide says that any single person who touches the cannon will get into a relationship. Um, so I forgot to touch the cannon and I'm still single. Is that a coincidence? I think not. I'm going to let you decide on that one. 
13:36
Next on the tour is a church-like place that is known to be super haunted and that sometimes, when taking photos, things will appear in the windows. The tour guide showed us what looked like two little girls in the window, which was really cool to see. Unfortunately, all of the photos that me and the other 15 people took on the tour, they didn't have anything, at least not at that time. We continued on and came across a school which had a lot of activity. The tour guide said that if you go on the school trail early in the morning, you'll sometimes hear footsteps pattering right behind you. Our tour guide also told us that sometimes the activity would get so bad in some of these classes that they would have to be outside and that would kind of suck. But hey, you'd get a free class outside, which sounds pretty nice, depending on the weather, right? We also went past a museum that had a history of haunted things in it. I made a promise to myself that the next time I go to Gettysburg I'm definitely going in there and I'm taking a lot of photos and going on the tour of that place because it sounds awesome. 
14:56
Then we came across the Jenny Wade House, which was an older, bluish looking building. Mind you, everything looks more spooky at night. From that house we went to our last place on the tour, which was a graveyard, to our last place on the tour, which was a graveyard. I'm always hesitant about graveyards and not for the reason you might be thinking about. I'm hesitant because I don't want to step on someone's grave on accident and have them be mad at me or come haunt me or something along those lines. The graveyard was small and it had maybe 20 or so graves on one side and maybe around 20 or so on the other. It was mostly dirt but had a path of brick that led to a building. Our tour guide told us that the building was year-round haunted. He said it was probably because of where the building was built. The building shared a backyard with a cemetery. I mean I would still find that kind of creepy. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was haunted. I tried my best to stay on the brick path but other people were stepping all over the graves. The tour guide told us that some of these graves were never spoken for, so the graves sometimes didn't have names. The gravestones didn't sometimes have names. The tour ended with us going back to headquarters and our good friend Bob. 
16:39
Once we got back, a bunch of people went off in different directions and some went ghost hunting on their own. So me, jane and Emily, of course, we decided that we wanted to check the alley and the graveyard again. So now that our tour was done, we were free to do so. So Jane, emily and myself, all slowly walking towards the direction we think that the alley is in Spoilers, it's in the opposite direction, because of course it is we laugh and then turn the other way. Thanks to Google Maps Shout out Google Maps, you saved some of our trip. We appreciate you. After about 10 minutes or so of walking possibly less, possibly more. Thanks Google Maps we reach the alley. 
17:31
This time, however, we don't go in. There are steps right next to the alley, so I sit on the steps and take out my EMF and EVP tools. I turn on my EVP and put it down at the entrance of the alley. My EVP goes through random radio stations and the ghost can use that to communicate with us. I ask for the ghost's names. I know they were little girls thanks to our tour. The EVP goes through the radio stations and the name Amy or Emily comes through, and the name Amy or Emily comes through. 
18:14
All three of us look at each other and Emily takes out her EMF and starts to ask some questions. Emily starts asking the normal, usual questions like what's your name? How long have you been here? Do you remember anything from the past? Do you like it here? What's your favorite color? Actually, I think I asked that one because I love learning about favorite colors. I had one time a person tell me their favorite color was rainbow. Never occurred to me that I could just pick the entire rainbow to be my favorite color. It never occurred to me, never, ever. After our first initial name from the EVP box, nothing else happens. 
19:01
Unfortunately, we stick around for another few minutes and and then we decided to go to the graveyard. Again, we had to use Jane's car to get to the graveyard, since it was getting kind of cold and a little darker out. You know, we just didn't want to be walking the streets of Gettysburg. We didn't really know where we were, so we didn't want to just walk around aimlessly, so we figured a car was much better. We got in the car and drove to the graveyard. I had my EMF on hand and started to walk towards the back of the graveyard. You know where that building was that I mentioned before. Jane and Emily were looking at the graves on our left and I chose the ones on our right, my trusty EMF in one hand and my phone with a flashlight in the other. I looked like a Mission Impossible character or the Secret Service. Either one would probably have been a fairly accurate description, minus the suit and tie, because it was the dead of winter and I definitely was not wearing a suit and tie at that night. 
20:12
I began in the back area near the building and started to ask questions how long have you been stuck here? What's your favorite color? Do you have friends that are here with you? Are you alone? Can you say hi to my dog? Can you say hi to my cat? I hope grandma's having a good time up there. 
20:40
Naturally, wouldn't you know it? My EMF wasn't doing anything. Why would it? It didn't do anything. That is until I decided to take a step near a tree which was right by the building. My EMF went kind of crazy. It started blinking red and flashing and doing weird stuff. I jumped back a little startled and kind of looked up. I shined my light on the tree and before me there was a woman in white. She had long hair, her clothes were tattered. She looked kind of sad and she looked at me. I jumped back. She was older and as quickly, unfortunately, as I saw her, as quickly as she was gone, jane and Emily came over to check on me, because it was the middle of the night and I had screamed. 
21:41
I told them what I saw and this time we investigated the area together. We looked around some trees, some bushes, a little bit of the graveyard. We played hide and seek with ourselves Haha, I'm joking. Unfortunately, nothing else happened while we were in the graveyard. About a half an hour had passed and we were all tired, so we decided to finally go check out our cabin. 
22:10
We discussed all the things that had happened to us that day, kind of like a recap, when all of a sudden, boom. We looked at each other confused. Then a few more BAM, bam, bam. It sounded like the sky was falling. Mind you, I have never gone camping or glamping or anything of the sort. I am a homebody for the most part, but then I remembered that we were in a forest surrounded by trees and trees. Had you guessed it? Egg corns. The egg corns would just our luck. Okay, there goes my cat. If you hear ringing or purring or meowing, that's probably from my cat. So back into the forest. The egg corns would fall from the trees and onto the roof of our cabin and make the boom sound. We started laughing and unpacking and turned the heat on and prepared for bed. 
Change Speaker
23:19
This was part one of our trip to Gettysburg. This is only just Friday night. We still have Saturday and Sunday and a little bit of Monday. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful night, day or evening. The very first podcast episode of Sanctum of Strange is brought to you by me, Nikki. I am the narrator as well as the writer of the podcast.