We meet on a dark corner in front of a candy store on Roanoke Island along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Our spirit guide is Diane. She wears a long black dress, blonde hair hanging Barbie style below her shoulders. About a dozen of us have gathered, a handful of families with older kids, a posse of raucous twenty somethings, and a young couple who hold hands the entire time..
Roanoke Island has a long history of unsolved mysteries. Most famous for its “lost colony” of over 100 English settlers who vanished in the 1580s three years after Sir Walter Raleigh founded it. Raleigh had left to go obtain supplies and it took him several years to return. When Raleigh finally did go back the colony that he had left with 100 settlers had vanished without a trace. The “lost colony” remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the colonial period.
Lost souls roam the island, Diane tells us by way of background. Many were victims of shipwrecks near its coast. Cape Hatteras forms a perfect storm close to the island where cold waters flo down the coast from the north collide with the warm Gulf Stream current coursing up from the tropics triggering sudden, violent storms. Boats often ran aground on the 20 miles of sandbars surrounding the island.
Diane tells us we must take at least three of every picture and snap as fast as we can because you never know when or where the ghosts will come. They are said to leave behind their energy, which is almost thermodynamic and allows them to show up in photos.
We are instructed to look for four different kinds of paranormal activity including:
Orbs – Tiny globes of light or streaks that move or look like skips. These are humans or animals that have died and are moving from one place to another.
Ghosts – Usually in human form and make contact with humans they may speak, make noises, touch you, even emit a perfume odor. Experts say that many retain who they once were and can feel emotions.
Poltergeists – One of the rarest forms of haunting, a poltergeist can be constantly aggrieved or give off a strong smell such as rotten eggs. They can turn lights on and off, slam doors and even set fires.
Apparitions – You know something is there but are not sure what it is. On one tour, a Casper like creature followed the tour group around and they felt it’s presence but could not define it.
She takes us through darkened streets, past houses where no one lives except that there are windows ablaze with white light, even admits there is one she is afraid to go inside of. My photos show brilliant light even where windows were dark and a bonfire of guests who were not there replete with bright lines, squiggles, and other signs of paranormal activity.
Diane is so matter of fact about the spirits around us that one man starts giggling like a school girl, and takes a seat on a bench with a couple of friends letting us walk on ahead. Five minutes later he and I are standing in front of two graves in the local cemetery and I spy a Confederate soldier lounging between the two of them. He is wearing a brown fedora and what looks like street clothes which was common during the war after the south ran out of uniforms My photos are just red or white light and the ghost is not visible. Yet I saw him clearly through my camera lens and he is in the photos of the man standing next to me. What surprised me most is his saunter, the way he stood almost mocking me, yet there was energy between us.