HGB Ep. 585 - S.K. Pierce Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Bone Collector Caterpillar (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

The vast majority of caterpillars are herbivores. They can quickly consume all the leaves and blossoms of your favorite garden plant. There are some caterpillars however, that fall into the category of carnivorous, believe it or not. One of these carnivorous caterpillars is known as the 'bone collector caterpillar'. This interesting little fella is found on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Describing the insect as unique is an understatement. The caterpillar is a scavenger for the most part, but it is also known to be cannibalistic at times. Yes, they will also eat their own kind. This strange insect will pull its meals from spider webs. Sounds dangerous for the caterpillar, right? Well not entirely, the creatures disguise themselves with the cadavers of other insects that they find. This helps to camouflage them while pilfering their next meal from unsuspecting spiders. These carnivorous caterpillars happily feast on the leftovers that a spider has hanging around its web. The caterpillar's corpse costume hides them from the unwitting spider hosts. This newly discovered insect was happened upon by Dr. Daniel Rubinoff and his colleagues while hiking the Waianae mountains nearly 20 years ago. But only recently had an article published about it in April of 2025. At the time of its discovery, the group was searching for the Hawaiian case caterpillar who shares the same genus as the Bone Collector caterpillar. The Dr. stated, “We see this little, tiny sac covered in bug bits, and honestly, we weren’t sure what it was,” says Rubinoff. “And then we take it back [to the lab], and we realize there is a little caterpillar in there.” A caterpillar that masquerades in a macabre mask and gives us Buffalo Bill, Silence of the Lambs vibes, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Brahms Born

In the month of May, on the 7th, in 1833, composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany. Brahms composed over 200 songs in his lifetime including orchestral, choral, piano, symphonies and chamber works, including his German Requiem commemorating the death of his mother. In his early years, he studied music with his father who was a horn and double bass musician. By the age of seven, Johannes was sent for piano lessons with F.W. Cossel then, three years later, Brahm graduated to lessons from Cossel's teacher, Edward Marxsen. As a teen, Johannes earned money for his family by playing near the docks of Hamburg. He also spent time composing and giving recitals. In 1853, Brahms was recommended to composer Robert Schumann and the two struck up a friendship. Due to the praises of Schumann in a public article, Brahms became well known in the world of music. Brahms was influenced by composers like Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Wagner just to name a few. Though he never married and was not apt to showing his emotions in his personal life, his musical compositions displayed deep and emotional spectrums. Pieces would range from intense energy and drama, to impeccable lyricism. Despite not easily showing outward emotions, Brahms loved spending time with children and dogs. After his good friend Robert Schumann died in 1856, Brahms offered Clara Schumann, Robert's widow, emotional support and assistance. Although Johannes and Clara developed a strong connection historians debate whether or not they ever became more than that. In April of 1897, Johannes Brahms passed away from cancer of the liver, less than a year after the death of Clara Schumann.

S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion (Suggested by: Missy Crawford and Brittany Cox) 

One can't miss the S.K. Pierce Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts. This magnificent mansion is a huge Victorian that takes up the whole corner of West Broadway and Union Street. The grand exterior makes it very inviting, but the ghost stories connected to this place might just make you think twice before entering. There are those that claim this home is the second most haunted house in Massachusetts. Some owners have been chased out by spirits. There could be more than a dozen spirits here and one of them may be the furniture magnate for whom the house was built and named: S.K. Pierce. Join us for the history and hauntings of the S.K. Pierce Mansion.

Just last month, April 2025, the S.K. Pierce Victorian mansion was listed for sale. HGB clubhouse perhaps? It's a little steep at $1.2 million, but it has a fascinating history. The mansion is located at 4 West Broadway in Gardner, Massachusetts. Gardner was first settled by Europeans in 1764 and incorporated into a township in 1785. The town was named for Colonel Thomas Gardner, an American politician and soldier who was fatally wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Woodworking factories and sawmills were the initial industries and this would grow into a furniture manufacturing powerhouse that included twelve furniture factories. So many chairs were made here that Gardner became "The Chair City of the World." They averaged 1.2 million chairs a year. To recognize this, the town has a twenty foot chair monument. A little fun fact is that an employee of one of these furniture companies, Edward G. Watkins, created a time recording device in 1888 that was used to record employees work schedule. You know, a time clock. And it was because of this that we get our saying "punching the clock." Gardner became the City of Gardner in 1923.

We've talked in other episodes about lumber barons and robber barons. Perhaps there was such a thing as a furniture baron? Ok, so that's our creation, but if there was such a thing as a furniture baron, Sylvester Knowlton Pierce would have been one. I guess the term magnate fits better. Pierce was born in 1820 in Massachusetts and went by the nickname S.K. He married Susan Elvira Jackson in 1845 and the couple had one son in 1856 whom they named Frank. S.K. amassed a large fortune with his furniture empire and he decided it was time to build himself a home befitting his station in life.

Construction began on S.K.'s masterpiece of a Victorian mansion in 1873. Architects E. Boyden and Son designed the mansion in the Second Empire architectural style, so it basically looks like the Addams Family house. The current paint job is dark gray with black shutters, so that fits with that imagery perfectly. We're not sure what color it was originally. When the mansion was completed two years later, it was three stories tall and had a basement that had a tunnel that led across the street to a furniture factory. There were 26 rooms that included 10 bedrooms, a formal dining room, billiards room, two parlors, library and four bathrooms. S.K. spared no expense in the construction and he made sure the house was as modern as possible. There were two cisterns that collected rainwater from the slate roof, so the Pierce's had running water in the house. There was gas lighting and there were speaking tubes and electric bells for communication throughout the house. A dumb waiter could reach all three floors. The interior decor was gorgeous with 16 types of wood and hand-carved moldings and cornices, a walnut staircase, Tiffany glass everywhere, crystal chandeliers and massive doors that were nine-feet tall and constructed from solid black walnut. And when we say "solid" we mean solid. The doors weighed over five-hundred pounds apiece. A tower with a circular staircase led up to a widow’s walk,so the family had sweeping views of South Gardner.

Tragedy struck right after the Pierces moved into their dream home. Susan contracted a bacterial infection, that we have heard was the flesh-eating kind, and she passed away only a few weeks after moving into the house. S.K. grieved her for a year, but when a woman thirty years younger than his wife caught his eye, he got over his sorrow. This was Nellie West and he married her in 1878. They would have two sons together, Stuart and Edward. Together, the Pierces became the social hub of Gardner. They hosted P.T. Barnum and other prominent people in the area. After ten years of marriage, S.K. passed away in the house in 1888 and he left the house to Nellie who remained in it until her death in 1902. Then the house passed onto the three Pierce boys who fought over ownership of the house and the furniture business. Frank and Stuart finally gave up and left the house to Edward. The Freemasons used the house for meetings at this time and Edward hosted some famous people at the house including President Calvin Coolidge when he was a Senator for Massachusetts, Norman Rockwell and Bette Davis. Another tragedy for the Pierce family took place here when Edward's two-year-old daughter contracted a bacterial infection and died in the house. Not sure if it was the same kind that Susan died from. About that same time, The Great Depression began and it hit the furniture business hard. Edward couldn't keep up with the house, so he and his wife opened it as a boarding house. This part of the history is murky. The sensational stories claim that the place was a brothel that hosted gambling and drinking. A lady of the evening was said to have been killed here in what later came to be known as the Red Room. Of course, we found no newspaper accounts to support this.

A Finnish immigrant named Eino Saari was sleeping in his bed when a fire broke out in 1963. When the firemen arrived, they found a weird situation. Saari had been mostly consumed and the bed was badly burned, but the fire hadn't spread to any other part of the room. This sounded like a classic example of spontaneous combustion. A young boy drowned in the basement as well during this time. Many people had died here. Edward maintained ownership of the house until 1965, when he had to sell it out of the hands of the Pierce family and a good friend named Jay Stemmermen bought the house and allowed him to live at the house until he died in 1967. By the 1980s, Stemmerman had abandoned the house. Jay was an artist and he created some weird pieces while at the house that he left behind. Paintings depicted half-man, half-beast creatures. Other pictures depicted orgies.

The mansion was slated to be demolished in 1996, but fortunately, that didn't happen. The Victorian was bought in 2000 by Suzanne and Mark Veau (Vo) and they renovated the house. Weird stuff started happening in the house and they eventually invited TAPS to come investigate and after that, they decided to start hosting ghost tours of the house. They put the house on the market in 2007 when they divorced and had to keep reducing the price before anyone would buy it because of the haunted reputation. The couple who did buy it in 2009 had no idea about the hauntings. They just thought they were getting a great deal. Amityville anyone? LOL! Although we don't believe that house had any hauntings. Anyway, Lillian Otero and Edwin Gonzalez became the new owners. After they purchased the house in 2009, they had so many paranormal experiences that they moved out of the house. The couple claimed that the ghosts in the house were angry and threatening and that one of them had even possessed Lillian. They claimed the place had been their dream home, so something must have happened to them. We'll get more into their experiences in a minute. When the couple moved out, they handed the keys over to a woman named Marion to be the caretaker and despite new owners, she has remained the caretaker to this day.

The Dark Carnival is a circus-themed haunted attraction that was established in 2010 and provided high intensity scary shows across the state of New Jersey. They worked with top animators and prop masters in the haunt industry to keep their shows cutting edge. In 2015, they - and the "they" is Rob and Allison Conti - decided to go a different route and they acquired the S.K. Pierce Mansion from Edwin and Lillian and set about restoring it further. And Yes, Lillian and Edwin owned the house for seven years, but only lived in it for two of them. Their website says, "The Dark Carnival will open the Mansion to the public for overnight rentals for the brave souls who wish to experience the Mansion during it's darkest hours, and for historical ghost tours where guests can learn about both the positive and negative history of this home. During the Halloween season we plan to open the basement only of the Mansion (weekends only in October) for what will truly be a one of a kind SK Pierce themed Halloween attraction as it will be the only haunt in the country that combines the haunt industry and the paranormal industry. As guests travel through the bowels of the Mansion, they will encounter 30-35 of our trained actors, high end illusions and animations, and may even get a glimpse of the truly paranormal. Best of all, since this attraction is only in the basement, guests can have some scares in the spirit of the season without ever affecting the majesty of the main levels of this marvelous home."

And, whelp, that never seemed to happen. The website is set up for tours, so we believe they did offer those through the years. And now the place is on the market for over $1 million. Today, the house sits on .23 acres and has 9 bedrooms and 3.5 baths with that gray exterior adorned by black shutters. The listing agent isn't shy about the haunted reputation and is using that as an angle to sell the house. And there are many stories to back up those paranormal claims. Residents of the house and guests have all claimed to experience paranormal activity. Full-bodied apparitions were seen and furniture would move on its own. Disembodied chanting and voices have been heard. The screens have come flying off the windows. There have been foul odors and weird temperature changes. And probably the weirdest claim is a sound like a lion's roar, which could shake the house. Visitors claim to be pushed by something they can't see. One was almost pushed down the stairs and another felt as though something tried to force them out a third story window.

There are estimates of thirteen ghosts here with a few of them being identified. These include S.K. Pierce himself, Susan Pierce, Edward Pierce, a Pierce nanny named Mattie Cornwell, David - the red room strangler - and the prostitute he murdered in the red room, a young boy, a younger girl, Eino Saari and some unnamed dark entities in the basement. A neighbor living next door had seen lights turn on and off in the mansion when it was empty. The fire alarms would go off as well with no fire and she would see shadows moving inside. Clearly, Mark and Suzanne experienced some stuff.

Edwin Gonzalez knew in his gut that something was wrong with the house before they put in an offer in 2009. When he and Lillian toured the house, he felt a weird pressure in certain rooms and even became nauseous a couple times. He hoped it was just lunch because Lillian really loved the house. After they closed on the house and moved in, they met their neighbor and he asked them about their children. Edwin and Lillian were confused because they didn't have kids. They explained they had no children and the neighbor looked confused. He asked, "Who was the kid that I saw earlier in the house today?" Edwin asked, "What do you mean?" The neighbor explained that he saw a boy who was probably five or six years old looking out of one of the windows on third floor and then almost immediately that same boy was looking out of a window on the opposite end of the house. Edwin just said there was no way because only he and Lillian were in the house and that it would be impossible for anybody to move that fast in the house because that person would literally have to go through a wall to do it that fast. Lillian and Edwin didn't immediately think they had a ghost though. Maybe just a weird neighbor.

But it wasn't a weird neighbor who slammed one of the big doors downstairs in the middle of the night, awakening Lillian and Edwin. They would also hear loud knocking and the doorbell went off by itself later that week. Edwin worked from home and he made the former nursery his office. He was working in there late one afternoon when the image of a man appeared and rushed towards him. The vision was so real that Edwin threw up his hands to protect himself and squeezed his eyes shut. When nothing happened, he opened then and looked around the room and there was no one there. He checked the house and he was alone. It really freaked him out. He believed this was the spirit of Eino Saari. One morning Lillian was awakened and told by a voice to get up and get dressed and go into the basement and start digging. She dug around in the kiln and found a bone. Edwin had a doctor's appointment the next day and he took the bone with him. The doctor confirmed that the bone was human. It was the pelvic bone of a teenage female. The police came to investigate the house and took the bone. No one knows who the bone belongs to, but there is some lore that claims S.K.'s son had impregnated a servant girl and did away with her. Lillian and Edwin's stories and this discovery of bones led to a book written by Joni Mayhan entitled "Bones in the Basement: Surviving the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion."

This excerpt is from the first chapter of that book. (Read excerpt) 

Joni was a part of investigations in the house and during one they recorded this EVP saying "Franklin." (SK Pierce EVP Franklin) And they got this through the Spirit Box in the basement. (SK Pierce Ghost Box Devil) Is this confirming a demon in the basement? And there's this chilling EVP. (SK Pierce EVP Help Me) A female voice calling out for help? Joni told the Dark House Podcast during an interview that she felt the spirits turned negative on Edwin and Lillian because they weren't upkeeping the house. Once the current owners came in and started pouring money into repairs, the hauntings became much more friendly.

Ghost Adventures visited in 2013 on the invite of Lillian and Edwin. They caught the sound of several loud bangs that seemed to get progressively louder. Aaron was touched on the shoulder by something on the third floor and when he and Zak ask who is up there, they hear an audible "me." The 3rd floor X camera captures a ball of light that moves above the mirror and disappears into the room that Zak and Aaron are standing in front of. The Spirit Box says "he's here", "David?", "hi", "no", "not sure" and "Lillian." The only EVP they captured said, "go to sleep."

A woman named Jeanne visited the house in October 2022. She wrote on Facebook, "A tour was taking place while I was there. These were guided tours and they started in the basement & worked their way up. When I got home & looked at my photos, I could clearly see a man, with his hands behind his back, on the first floor. But, up on the 3rd floor, there was a young boy, pointing down to us. The tours were by group, guided and if they were only on the first floor, who is that young boy on the 3rd floor? You can see the man on the 1st floor window on the right. The boy is on the top floor, middle window." (We'll post picture.) There is clearly a little head up in that window.

Jason Hawes returned to the mansion in 2025. This was his third visit and he said he's always had activity there. Upon entering, Jason and his friend JV immediately heard a bang coming from the basement. They put a REM pod on the kiln. They hear a noise that sounds like a bunch of boxes falling over. And then an audible whisper. The REM Pod went off a minute later when they asked if the person who was hurt was there with them. They heard whispering again. They think they picked up the sound of a cat later and there are reports of a ghost cat. This was a really interesting investigation, especially with all the audible voices. The caretaker/manager that we mentioned earlier, Marion, shared a picture with the guys of a figure captured in a window and it sure looks like a woman. 

The Stromedy Channel on YouTube featured a tour of the house and Marion shared a picture of something taken down in the basement on there that we'll share on Instagram also. They used a phone app for a Ghost Box and got some interesting stuff that mostly felt negative telling them to leave and go and they felt like many spirits were trying to talk to them, but this one male spirit was in charge and not letting them. The group went upstairs and used a real Spirit Box and thought they were communicating with Maddie and the story they got was that Maddie was dragged out of this room, down to the basement and killed and that Sylvester is the bad guy in the house. They also did a sort of Estes Method, but not with noise cancelling headphones, so not sure I would trust this. But during that they got that this was a family secret and a son was involved. Something interesting did happen during this when they asked Maddie to give a sign. A chair in the corner started rocking on its own. There is nothing historically to back up this story, but maybe it was just hidden well and we do have this pelvic bone that was found. Where did that come from? We will warn you if you go to watch this video that they are part of this new generation of  YouTube ghosts shows and so the camera movements are very jerky and there is a lot of silly scared reactions to everything. 

This mansion is just glorious to look at and the fact that it possibly has spirits inside it, makes it even more enchanting. Many people have had experiences here. We hope that whoever buys it next, does indeed open it to the public as there had been a waiting list of over 3,000 people wanting to overnight at the place. Is the S.K. Pierce Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 570 - Aiken Rhett House

Moment in Oddity - Voo-per-tall  Sh-vaber-baun (Vader Braun) (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

In Wuppertal Germany, there is a semi unique mode of transportation. There are many suspended public transit railways around the world, however the Wuppertal train is one of only two that actually operates upside down. Dubbed the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, it is the oldest elevated railway with hanging cars. The cars themselves are constructed with extruded aluminum and fiberglass composite. Each individual car weighs just under 25 tons. The train transports approximately 80,000 passengers every day and the entire route only takes about 30 minutes to travel from end to end gliding a distance of 8.3 miles. The route itself offers beautiful views of the Wupper River for 6 of those miles at a mere 39 ft above the water's surface. There are 20 stations along the course, some of which display Art Nouveau architecture. It is a very  popular mode of transportation for both locals as well as tourists.  For those without a fear of falling, the Schwebebahn provides an awesome adventure albeit admittedly alarming for some, and this manner of transportation, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Sinking of the HMS Formidable

In the month of January, on the 1st, in 1915, the British battleship HMS Formidable was sunk. The ship was out on exercises about 37 miles off the Devon coast. When suddenly the first of two torpedoes from German U-boat 24 hit the Formidable's number one boiler on the port side. The second torpedo hit the starboard side, near the bow. The explosions caused the ship to list heavily to its starboard side while large thirty foot waves crashed over the damaged ship. The captain, his second in command and a signaler stayed at their posts as the ship began taking on water. They sent flares and rockets off at regular intervals hoping to alert other ships for rescue. It is said that nobody panicked. While lifeboats were being lowered, someone played a ragtime song on the piano and others sang. Without warning, the ship gave an enormous lurch. With that, the Captain exclaimed, "Lads, this is the last, all hands for themselves, and may God bless you and guide you to safety". The captain then walked to the foreship with his dog and waited for the inevitable. Many lifeboats were destroyed as they were lowered while still others sank due to the size of the waves.  One of the lifeboats known as a pinnace, or small boat with sails or oars, was spotted from land by a girl and her parents. The alarm was raised and thus rescue efforts began. Of the nearly 750 men, only 199 were saved.

Aiken Rhett House (Suggested by: Savannah Marchione)

The Aiken Rhett House is located in Charleston, South Carolina. This is a partially restored house museum that can be toured and was a home that remained in the Aiken family for 142 years. Some of their furnishings remain as do some of their spirits. Our listener Savannah Marchione suggested this location to us and she joins us to share about the history of the house and her own paranormal experiences that she has had while touring the house. 

For us, Charleston is synonymous with great old mansions. The city is very similar to Natchez, Mississippi in that respect. This is a place you come to see these beautiful and distinctive mansions. They are all very different. We'll sprinkle in a few here and there throughout this episode. The Aiken Rhett Mansion isn't opulent anymore. It isn't even completely refurbished, but it has it's own distinct beauty in its unfinished state. One can imagine what it had been like at its prime in the early 1800s when grand parties were thrown here. This mansion captured our listener Savannah's heart. (Savannah 1 - Savannah shares with us the history of the house and how she got interested in it to begin with. The Aiken Rhett House is located at 48 Elizabeth Street in Charleston, South Carolina. The house was originally built by Charleston merchant John Robinson in 1820 as a typical Charleston double house. The Aiken Rhett House stands three-stories and has 23 rooms and was built from brick.)

Six years before John Robinson built what became the Aiken Rhett House, he built the house that still carries his name at 10 Judith Street. Savannah will share that this merchant ran into financial issues, but through it all, he held onto this house, which is considerably smaller than the Aiken Rhett House at just 6,000 square feet and two and a half stories with a raised basement. It features double piazzas and an iron staircase leading to the front door. This home was later owned by Commander Peter Stevens who led the Citadel cadets at Fort Johnson against the Union at Fort Sumter. It was Stevens who ordered the shots at the Star of the West, a resupply ship sent by President Lincoln to Fort Sumter. This act is considered by some to be the first shot of the Civil War.  

In 1825, Robinson lost 5 ships at sea and he was forced to sell the house to meet his financial obligations. So in 1827, Willkam Aiken Sr. bought the house. Aiken was an Irish immigrants who had gained a large fortune as one of the cities leading merchants and used the house as a rental property. When Aiken sr died in a sudden carriage accident, his holdings were split between Henrietta Wyatt Aiken ( Williams wife) and his son William Aiken JR. In 1833 when William Sr and Henrietta decided to officially moved in and started to renovate the home and creates one of the most impressive residences in the 19th century Charleston. William Jr was a business man, Rice planter, and distinguished politician, and governor of South Carolina. William Jr was one of the states wealthiest citizens. Will Jr and his wife would vacation in Germany and come home with fine art and furnishings for their home. In 1858 Aiken Jr commissioned his cousin Joseph Daniel Aiken to design and oversee the construction of an art gallery, the only one of its kind in the city. Alot if the object acquired by the Aikens on their travels remain in the art gallery room.

When William Jr. and his wife Harriet obtained the house, they began to make several alterations to the property. The main entry moved from Judith Street to Elizabeth Street and a new foyer was created. An eastern wing was added, as was a large dining room on the first floor with a ballroom added above it. The central hallway was closed. Several outbuildings were added with Gothic Revival styling and these imcluded a cow shed, chicken coop and matching corner privies because why have only one when you can have two and matching, I mean, come on, this is the south! of course, another slave quarters was added and this is the bad part of the Aiken history as William Jr. was one of the largest slaveholders in South Carolina. He had a plantation on Jehosee Island with 700 slaves. The house kept nineteen slaves. While Aiken supported the Confederacy, he was not in favor of secession.

William Jr died in 1887 in Flat Rick N. Carolina. William Jr left his property to his wife Harriet. She continued to live in the house until her death in 1892. Their daughter Henrietta ( william jr named his daughted after his mother) and son in law Major AB Rhett raised 4 sons and one daughter in the house. Upon Henriettas death, the house was divided between her children and their heirs.    Your able to take tours in the home. You can tour the basement, the first floor and second floor but the third floor is blocked off. You are also able to tour the grounds, the horse barn with the horse caregiver living above the horses and cars. And there's a slave quarters and kitchen, the kitchen was located on the first floor and the bedrooms were located above the kitchen. The Aikens had 20 enslaved African Americans living on property. Like most large houses in the south, this house had a bell system to call for help when they needed. When Henrietta wanted a bath, one of the head female slaves would have to get up to 10 gallons of waters from the well, boil it and carry each bucket of water from outside kitchen and up 2 flights of stairs to the porcelain claw bath tub. Two of the slaves who were at the house were able to become emancipated, but do to lack of the funds they decided to stay at the home and passed away in the house not to long after. The Aikens always had up to 3 horses at the house, even after the children had bought 2 Duryea Motor Carriage, and one still sits in the barn. There was one man who would take care of the horses and he was an older white gentleman who was a family friend, i wasn't able to find his name. You are unable to tour the upstairs of the horse barn due to it being unstable. The library held up to 275 books and William Sr kept the books in constant rotation with new books. 

Two of the sons I'on Rhett and Andrew Burnet Rhett Jr continued to lived in the house until the mid twentieth century. Frances Dill Rhett, whose husband was a direct descendant of Gov. William Rhett, donated the house to the Charleston Museum in 1975 and it opened as a museum.[6] The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.[1] Since 1995, Historic Charleston Foundation has owned and operated the Aiken-Rhett House as a historic house museum. I want to break in here to talk a little about the Nathaniel Russell House. If you are in Charleston, you have to tour this mansion. The free-flying, three-story staircase that is inside is an architectural marvel. The staircase supports itself as it winds up in a cantilevered way, meaning it is fixed at only one end. And it has lasted all these years. It is truly mind-blowing. The mansion is at 51 Meeting Street and was built by its namesake who owned 18 slaves. The rest of the mansion is very unique with geometrically shaped rooms and elaborate plasterwork ornamentation.

The Aiken Rhett house is to be considered a very haunted house. Some visitors think it's haunted by the spirits if the family members that once lived there. There have been some experience of people hearing footsteps coming from above them and in front of them. Doors have been heard and seen opening and closing on their own, their is no central air or heating in the house, so whatever the temperature it is outside it's going to be inside, the only room that has air and heat is the art gallery room, and the basement where you check in for the tours and the gift shop. Some people have seen a women crying in a mirror in the ballroom. People have taken pictures and have had ghostly figures standing on the room. There have been loud noises and echos from the upper floors and sometimes there's been a string wind and a loud commotion after feeling the wind and a lot of the times the noises come from the ballroom. There were 2 architects working in he the house in the late 80s, say they saw a women crying when they looked into a mirror in the ballroom. If you walk through the slave quarters you feel a heavy feeling of anger and unease as you walk around the bedrooms. People have said they seen dark and black figures walk past them or behind them and get a shiver down their back. A few people have said they have heard singing but can't make out what is being sung and it sounds like old gullah.

Savannah shared her unexplained experiences at the house, "Now I've had 2 experience while I was in the slave quarters, I felt as if a dark figure had been falling me as I walked from one end to the other end, so I kinda stopped and started talking and saying I just wanted to learn about the history and didn't want any trouble and didn't want to case any harm, and it felt like the figure backed off and seemed to go and into one of the other rooms. There are 3 rooms in the slave quarters. And one room seems very dark and like something bad happened or there was al ot of hate in that one room. So you can do a self guided tour, you get an email and you open the link and you get a voice recording of what route to take and of the history of the house and the family and what your looking at. So i had gone inside and upstairs into the bathroom where the tub is, i felt a woman's presence in the bathroom, I had my head phones in and I was listening about the tub and there was a pause in the recording to give you a minute to walk around, well there was nothing playing for about a minute and I heard humming and I figured it came from the recording, I had one headphone in, so the recording came back on and said something about the sink being from France and their was another minute or so pause and I heard the same humming again. I was by my self with no one else around me or near me, I was the only one in that part of second floor. I have asked some of the staff and of course most of them deny any Hauntings of the house or the area and a few of them get upset if you ask. There are 3 or 4 cousins of the Aiken family who are in the board of the house to make sure it stays at is. There has been very very minimal work to the house and it looks like it had when the original family had lived in it. And one of those cousins works in the house to help answer any questions people have about the family. And I got lucky one day when I had asked a lady who was probably in her mid 30s if she thought the house was haunted, and she 100% thought it was. She went on to tell me she had a few experience in the house. She had 2 different shutters slam on her as she was opening them for the day and there was no wind that day. And one experience that absolutely horrified her was when she was upstairs in the bathroom with the tub she heard the same humming I did and had a feeling it was Henrietta because that was her bathroom, so she walked out of the bathroom she was a blonde women walk out the doorway of the bathroom and into the hallway and she say the balcony door open and then saw the back of the women walk down the stairs and into the ballroom, so the lady tried to get half way down the stairs to look into the mirror to only see the a dark figure run across the bottom of the stairs and out the back double doors that led to the back yard and as she looked into the ball room she say the blonde women with no face and heard screaming coming from behind her, the lady said she rain out the front door so fast she forgot to like the door and went and sat across the street and waited for the other lady who was opening with her to arrive, she said as she sat across the street she could hear the doors opening and closing, she could hear it all since she had opened all the shutters on the second floor."

The Aiken Rhett House was a place of opulence and parties, but also one deeply connected to one family. Perhaps that is why there are spirits still here. Is the Aiken Rhett House haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Halloween Special 2021

Happy Halloween! When one thinks of Halloween and Trick or Treating, more than just pillow cases full of candy come to mind. There's always that one creepy house in the neighborhood. The abandoned one. The one everyone claims is haunted. Maybe one with 999 ghosts and room for one more? Join us as we explore the history of the most famous haunted house in America, Disney's Haunted Mansion! Kindly watch your step as you board, please, and heed this warning - the spirits will only appear if you remain quietly seated at all times. Oh yes, and no flash pictures. Now, as they say, look alive and we'll start our little tour. There's no turning back now...

Every neighborhood has one, the haunted house. Walt Disney understood this and he knew eventually his main street would have one as well. The original concept was developed when Disneyland was being conceptualized. Marvin Davis at WED Enterprises drew a layout with a crumbling house on a hill overlooking Main Street. This idea was further expanded with Harper Goff, who is credited with being the very first Imagineer. Goff drew a panoramic view that he named "Church, Graveyard and Haunted House." These ideas were scrapped when a residential area was dropped from the plan for something better, a series of lands to visit. Imagine a time when Disneyland didn't have the Haunted Mansion. Gasp! But that was the case when it opened in 1955. 

The Haunted House idea was brought back in 1957 as Disney was looking for ways to expand his park. He put top animator Ken Anderson in charge of design. Anderson drew inspiration from the Shipley-Lydecker House in Baltimore as well as the Evergreen House there. Stanton Hall in Natchez, Mississippi also gave some inspiration. Anderson's creation looked much as one would expect, a dilapidated house that was dirty and old. Rather than putting the mansion on a hill in a residential area, the haunted house would be the centerpiece of a new land called New Orleans Square. This land was a way to embrace the influence of the south. Disney teased the idea with the BBC in London in 1958. He mentioned that he felt bad for all the ghosts that were probably displaced during World War II and announced that he was creating a retirement home for the world's homeless spirits at Disneyland.

The plan was presented to Disney who wasn't thrilled. Disneyland was a pristine park. He couldn't have a blighted plantation house in the middle of all of that. So the outside design was put aside as the team worked on the interior and it's not surprising that Anderson drew inspiration from a trip he made to the Winchester Mystery House. He also developed a good ghost story for the house that featured an old sea captain named Captain Gore who had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. (We can't help but wonder if Captain Culpepper Clyne who is featured in the WDW Haunted Mansion queque is a tribute to this concept.) The mansion was his house and guests would be guided through it by either a maid or butler. The tour would start on a moving platform that would take them down to the basement. The maid or butler tour guide would then take the group of guests around and point out secret passages, inanimate objects that would move and changing portraits. Special effects and illusions would be used to pull off the haunting activity. 

Guests started their tour in a picture gallery. The Captain had a bride named Priscilla and she would be in the next room. Guests would see her break into a treasure chest only to discover her husband was actually a notorious pirate named Black Bart. The tour guide would relate that Priscilla disappeared and it was believed that Captain Gore killed her. An ominous bubbling well would hint at her final resting place. Walt thought this was too much and Anderson came up with a second story about the Blood Family and their home Bloodmere Manor. This was an antebellum home moved from New Orleans and during its installation, a construction worker was accidentally walled up in the house. A third story was asked for and this one featured Walt Disney welcoming guests and then the tour guide known as the Lonesome Ghost would take over and share that a wedding celebration was underway until the bride, who could be seen at the end of a long hall, lost her head. Disney again shook his head as he thought that the tone wasn't right. 

Anderson then drew inspiration from Disney's version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He decided that the tour would end in a graveyard with the Headless Horseman. He would appear riding through the bushes with only his cape visible above them. There would be lightning, the sound of hoof beats and the howl of a werewolf. A wedding party would start after the horseman arrived and guests featured Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and other boogeymen. Sounds pretty cool and everybody decided they would go forward with this. Now it was time to start designing all the scenes. And so WED started making mock-ups of various scenes. And Disney brought over two other artists from the studio, Rolly Crump and Yale Gracey.

Crump was a master of illusion and he loved to build mobiles he called kinetic sculptures. Gracey was a mechanical genius and master model builder. These two men would bring the magic to our favorite attraction. They were inspired by the illusions of nineteenth century magicians and things like spirit cabinets. The men would read ghost stories to each other and built model after model of special effects. Jason Surrell in his book "The Haunted Mansion, Imagineering a Disney Classic" shares a story Rolly told him, "Yale had all his ghosts and magic strewn throughout the room. Once, we got a call from Personnel, asking us to leave the lights on because the janitors didn't want to come in if it was dark. Well, we did, but we rigged the room. We put in an infrared beam, and when it was tripped, the room went to black light and all the ghost effects came on. When we came in the next morning, all the effects were running and there was a broom lying in the center of the floor. Personnel called and said, 'You'll have to clean up your own room because the janitors won't go in there anymore.'"

Gracey and Crump finally got a chance to stage a full mock-up scene to present to Disney and the Suits and it was a magnificent scene featuring the angry captain and his dead wife and ghosts that disappeared and water that dried up. The only problem was that the scene ran three minutes. Not only was this too long for the suits, but this meant the mansion would have to be a walk-through attraction. Disney was really disappointed. He didn't want to to be a walk-through. He wanted it to be a ride. And he didn't want a run down manor, which is what the plan was still embracing. The Haunted Mansion was stalled until 1961. There were attempts to get the Haunted House Project back off the ground, but it was tabled again as the team of Imagineers started working on the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. 

After the World's Fair was done, the Haunted Mansion got back on track with Marc Davis joining the team. Davis' focus became creating various gags and scenes and characters. He is the one who came up with the official host to replace the Lonesome Ghost, our disembodied "Ghost Host." The team developed the Stretching Room, which was originally called the The Elongating Room, the Portrait Gallery with a menacing character that crawled out of a picture, the Seance room with a full-bodied medium known as Madame Z, a Ghost Club Room and a room where a bride and her fiance were murdered. Claude Coats joined the team with a focus on designing the interior environments for Davis' characters to live within. X Atencio joined the team as a scriptwriter. He had just finished writing the script for The Pirates of the Caribbean ride. He would write our beloved Grim Grinning Ghosts song. 

In December of 1966, Walt Disney died and the creative leader for the mansion was gone. Marc Davis and Claude Coats were both placed in charge of the Mansion and creative differences cropped up as one thought the Mansion should be scary and the other thought it should be funny. And as we now know, the two camps collided. The first half of the Mansion has a spooky ambiance, while the second half is filled with whimsical characters. Although we know things have changed up a bit with the scary Hatbox Ghost making into the attic scene at Disneyland and the murderous bride Constance making it into the attic at WDW. Another conflict was whether this would be a walk-through or a ride-through attraction. The PeopleMover had a system called the Omnimover and this would be perfect for moving people through the Mansion quickly. These would become the Doombuggies we ride on through the attraction. This forced the Imagineers to change up some of their tricks and sight gags since people would be passing by very quickly. 

After all the ideas were combined with Davis' characters and Coat's backgrounds, it was left to X to write the story and it comes across as three acts. Act One features the foyer where we see some paranormal things going on, but no ghosts. We meet up with Madame Leota in the Seance Room who let's us know that the spirits are going to materialize and in Act Two, they do during our swinging wake in the Dining Room and our visit to the attic. In Act Three, the Doombuggy falls out of the attic window and into the graveyard for a wild ghost party and we meet our three hitchhiking ghosts at the end with the greatest gag of all. The ghost joins the guests in their Doombuggies. As we know, this got even better as technology got better and the ghosts pull all kinds of gags on the riders. Paul Frees became the voice of the Ghost Host and joins riders through most of the ride. Not many people know that a raven was supposed to be the first guide, but turned out to be too small. There are various ravens spotted throughout the ride that are a tribute to that original idea.

The Haunted Mansion officially opened its doors to the public on August 9, 1969 and with this came a record-breaking day for Disneyland. They broke their single-day attendance record with 82,516 people entering the park. Building on the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World had already begun and it was decided that the Haunted Mansion would be a part of this park as well, so two of everything was made when the Haunted Mansion was being constructed. The house for this one would have to be different because rather than having a New Orleans Square, the Magic Kingdom would have Liberty Square set up like colonial America. This mansion would be designed as a Dutch Gothic manor house. This mansion looks scarier than the one at Disneyland and that was on purpose. The ride was ready to go by April 1971, before the Magic Kingdom even opened, which wouldn't happen for six more months.

Tokyo Disneyland also was developed with a Haunted Mansion. This one was placed in Fantasyland to build a bridge to Westernland and is the same Dutch Gothic design as the one in the Magic Kingdom. Everything inside is the same as well. This opened on April 15, 1983. Disneyland Paris would host their Haunted Mansion in Frontierland and the name would change to Phantom Manor. The design was as a Victorian manor that was dilapidated and is the most sinister looking of the Haunted Mansions. A ghostly version of Thunder Mesa, which is the town found in Frontierland, replaces the Graveyard scene. Vincent Price's trademark laugh from Thriller plays throughout the mansion and he voiced the ghost host for this one until the park decided they wanted a French version of the narration. This attraction opened on April 12, 1992. 

Hong Kong Disneyland would have a version of the Haunted Mansion as well, this one is named Mystic Manor and has a really cool design. It was inspired by the Carson Mansion in Eureka, California. There is a Russian onion dome, Gothic arches and Cambodian temple features. Lord Henry Mystic would build this mansion and it holds his collection of artifacts he collected while exploring the world. Guests board his Mystic Magneto-Electric Carriage cars for a tour, which are not on a track like the Doombuggies and follow a path embedded in the floor. Mystic's monkey sidekick Albert leads guests through a wild ride through the mansion when a haunted artifact causes crazy stuff to happen. Mystic Manor features an Egyptian room, a Nordic room and a tribal arts room and music orchestrated by Danny Elfman fills the haunted house. This mansion opened on May 17, 2013. 

So what is your favorite part of the Haunted Mansion? When was the first time you climbed aboard a Doombuggy? Did anything scare you in the mansion? What is your opinion on the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland? 

Some other little known facts about the Haunted Mansion. Pet cemeteries are a part of all the mansions and got their start at Disneyland in an enclosed garden at the side of the mansion. This was created in the early 1980s by Kim Irvine, who was a senior concept designer in Imagineering. She also was the daughter of Leota Toombs who was the model for Madame Leota. Irvine had bought a bunch of statuary from local nurseries and had a writer create humorous epitaphs for them. Stay in the Stretching Room as long as possible and you will hear the gargoyles whispering to each other and you. In Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, the floor of the Stretching Room actually does go down taking guests fifteen feet underground. At WDW, the Stretching Room's ceiling goes up, while the guests remain on the same level in which they entered. The candelabra in the Endless Hallway is painted completely black on the back to keep it from reflecting in the mirror that is at the end of the hallway. There is a thin black scrim across the hallway to obscure any reflection as well and to give the hallway a misty look. The chair that is here has a face purposefully sewn into the design. In the mid-1980s, cast members wandered inside the mansion at Disneyland and popped out at various times, but this proved to be too scary and also dangerous for the cast members. 

The spell book in the Seance Room has a picture of the Hatbox Ghost dressed a scythe-wielding death figure on one page and the spell Peter Ustinov uses to call forth Blackbeard's Ghost in the 1967 film is on the other page. One of the pistol-wielding duelists in the Dining Room has a familiar face. He is the Auctioneer from Pirates of the Caribbean. The name of the ghost swinging from the top of the chandelier is named Pickwick. The organ is from the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the SEa. People may recall that Captain Nemo played this pipe organ. Constance's husbands were Frank, Reginald, Ambrose, The Marquis and George. The Hatbox Ghost was always supposed to be part of the Attic scene. Marc Davis designed him and he was actually installed right across from the bride. But the illusion that was part of him never worked and he was removed before opening day. He would return to the attic in 2015 with technology that wasn't around until recently and it makes his illusion work perfectly. There is a tribute to him in the WDW Mansion in the form of a hat rack. And if the hatbox ghost's face looks familiar its because he and Ezra share a mold. The ghost that tells you to hurry back at the end of the ride is called Little Leota because Leota Toombs is also the model for this one.

HGB Ep. 404 - Walt Disney World

Moment in Oddity - Honey Bee Reproduction (Suggested by: Scott Booker) Warning for little ears.

Many times people refer to reproduction as "the birds and the bees." After learning about honey bee reproduction, we're not sure we should actually do that, especially when it comes to males. When it comes to bees, the only ones getting action are the drones and the Queen Bee. Around seven days after the incubation of a Queen Bee, she will fly outside of the hive and have a little party with around 12 drone bees. This little party takes place mid-air in moderate temperatures around 68 degrees fahrenheit or 20 degrees celsius. The drone reverses his equipment, so that it sticks out of his body and he contracts his abdominal muscles to send out his message to the Queen Bee. Then that part of his body gets cut off and remains inside the Queen Bee and he, well, dies. See, we said this wasn't pleasant for the guys. The next drone comes along and does the same thing after removing the remnants of the previous drone. This mating ritual lasts around 20 minutes and the Queen stores all that spermatozoa in her body, which is around 7 million. We're not sure who counted all that. She stores that for her entire life, deciding which eggs she will fertilize. The fertilized ones become female while the unfertilized become drones. The females become either queens or worker bees. And that determination comes through the feeding of royal jelly, which helps a Queen Bee to grow. While bee reproduction is fascinating if not a tad dangerous, it also certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Fannie Farmer Opens Her Cooking School

In the month of September, on the 24th, in 1902, Fannie Farmer opens a cooking school. Farmer was born in 1857 to a family who believed in women being educated. Unfortunately, her education was delayed by a stroke that left her disabled. In her early 30s, she attended the Boston Cooking School. This was a school that aimed to teach women how to teach cooking so they could become teachers and Farmer eventually became its principal. She published her first cookbook in 1896. This book would revolutionize American cooking through a number of topics like sanitation techniques, nutrition and using precise measurements, which was a novel culinary concept at the time. Farmer left the Boston school in 1902 and opened Farmer's School of Cookery. She had such an expertise in nutrition that she lectured at Harvard Medical School about nutrition for specific diseases and nutrition for children. Farmer died in 1915 at the age of 57, but The Fannie Farmer Cookbook is still in print today.

Walt Disney World (Suggested by Josi from Germany)

Walt Disney World is celebrating its 50th anniversary in October of 2021. This incomparable theme park is exactly what its name describes, a complete world that was the ultimate vision of Walt Disney. Walt Disney World covers a full 27,000 acres and features four theme parks, two water parks, a shopping district and 31 resorts, plus its own public works district. There is so much to see and do here, but even better, there are many legends and ghosts on this property. Join us as we share the history and haunts of Walt Disney World.

Disney has been a big part of both of our lives. Both of us were born in California and grew up with the original theme park of Disneyland. The Wonderful World of Disney was a staple in our homes. And as adults, we have enjoyed Walt Disney World. In episode 44, we featured haunted Disneyland and covered the biography of Walt Disney, so we won't be repeating that information here. Walt was a visionary and while he loved Disneyland, he was deeply unsatisfied. His vision of a theme park was so much bigger. He needed a space where he could stretch out his creative genius. He found that space in Bay Lake, Florida, which is today Lake Buena Vista. There were huge swaths of land available on the cheap because much of it was considered swamp land. With his popularity, Walt knew that if anyone knew he was the one purchasing the land, the price would go up, so a cover name was used, Robert Price, and several dummy corporations were started as well. In 1964, 12,400 acres were purchased from three Orlando home builders for $145 per acre. When Disney was done buying, they had spent $5 million on 27,443 acres.

Speculation began throughout the Florida press that the mysterious industry coming to Orlando was headed by the Disney Company and that possibly there was going to be an East Coast Disneyland. By November of 1965, it was no longer speculation because Walt and Roy Disney announced their plans for a new theme park near Orlando. Walt dubbed this the Florida Project and he shared his vision in a film he made shortly before his death. The core of this project was to be the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCOT, which was a utopian community.

Tragedy struck in December 1966 when Walt died. Roy announced that plans were still going forward and that now the new park would carry his brother's name, but plans to run a city of tomorrow were abandoned. The Reedy Creek Improvement District approved by Florida legislature in May of 1967 and this gives Disney something unique, their own independent municipality. WDW even has its own post office and zip code. On May 30, 1967, ground was broken on the new park and the plans were ambitious. Many of the restaurants and rides that are at the Magic Kingdom have been there for the past fifty years and were the same rides as the ones at Disneyland: It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Space Mountain and the Railroad to name a few. The castle that anchors the wheel with spokes leading to various lands was called Cinderella's Castle and is much bigger than Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. A bigger monorail system was incorporated into this park and parking was set up at a separate area, so that the Magic Kingdom was set back and needed to be traveled to via other means, the monorail or ferry.

The Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971 and charged $3.50 admission for adults. Today, it costs around $120 for a day pass to one park. Over 10,000 people were in attendance on that first day to enjoy the seven themed areas which were Main Street, Adventureland, Bear Country, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, and Tomorrowland. Bear Country no longer exists. Along with the Magic Kingdom opening that day, the Contemporary Resort and Polynesian Village Resort both also opened. Not all rides were ready to go that first day. Peter Pan's Flight wouldn't open until October 3rd and as if perfectly planned just for me, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea opened on October 14th. Unfortunately, it no longer exists. A grand opening special ran on NBC at the end of the month and had 52 million people tune in to show. An end of an era would come when Roy Disney died less than three months after the opening.

Plans to expand the world continued with EPCOT Center being the next focus. This was a unique theme part split into two sections. The first was Future World and focused on technology, education and human achievement, while the second was called World Showcase and had various pavilions representing countries from around the world. Many people don't know that the reason there are two radically different parts to EPCOT is that Imagineers couldn't agree on what the park should focus on, so they combined them. This park was anchored by a giant geodesic sphere that holds the Spaceship Earth ride and there were six pavilions that grew to nine. EPCOT opened on October 1, 1982. One of the difficulties for EPCOT would prove to be that innovation moved too fast for it to keep up and many concepts have changed over the years with a major current revamp going on right now. The park will literally be transformed into something fairly new on the Future World side with it being divided into three worlds. Various festivals have been introduced over the years to keep the park popular like the International Flower and Garden Festival and the International Food and Wine Festival. Diane will be doing the 10k for that festival in November.

The third park to open at the world was Disney's MGM Studios that later changed its name to Disney's Hollywood Studios. This park was the brainchild of Marty Sklar and Randy Bright. The park opened on May 1, 1989 and has gone through many changes through the years with the biggest update being Star Wars: Galaxy Edge. The part I love about the park is its nod to old Hollywood from the Golden Age. Originally, this was a working production facility with a backlot, but sections of this closed over the years and no longer exist. The anchor to this park had been the Earffel Tower and then the Sorcerer's Hat, which was removed a few years ago thankfully, as it obstructed the view of the Grauman's Chinese Theater replica. Only two rides were running when this park first opened, but many have been added through the years and there were seven themed areas. The Streets Of America was a replica of a New York Street, but was demolished to make way for Star Wars. This also killed the Osbourne Festival of Lights that ran during the Christmas season. Toy Story Land has also been added. 

The fourth park would be Disney's Animal Kingdom that opened on April 22, 1998. This is like a large zoo with rides and takes up the most acreage of all the parks. This was the brainchild of Imagineer Joe Rohde. Over twenty six hundred workers constructed the areas for the animals from shelters to planting trees and Zulu crafters from South Africa made the thatched roofs for buildings. Disney hired staff from 69 different zoos to oversee care of their animals. There is a safari guests can ride on to see animals in their natural habitat and several trails to hike to see animals as well. Discovery Island is the central part of the park and feeds into Asia, Africa, DinoLand and Pandora: The World of Avatar that was added in 2017. 

Disney obviously doesn't like to talk about deaths at any of their parks, but they have happened over the years. Some employees have been killed while working rides. Once upon a time, there was a skyway that took guests from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland aboard colorful Skyway cars. This ride was a part of the Magic Kingdom from opening day until 1999. The Tangled restrooms now sit where the ride used to board in Fantasyland. Raymond Barlow was a sixty-five-year-old custodian cast member at the Magic Kingdom and one morning before opening, he was cleaning the skyway when it started up and a car pulled him from the platform. He clung to the car until he was over a flower bed, but the forty foot fall still killed him. This happened in 1999 and Disney was fined $4,500 for the “serious” violation of safety standards. The Skyway closed several months later. I remember in 2009 when cast member Austin Wuennenberg was killed in the early morning hours driving the monorail. Two of the trains collided with each other. Two cast members have died at the Primieval Whirl ride at Animal Kingdom, one in 2007 (Karen Price) and another in 2011 (Russell Sherry Roscoe).

And some guests have passed away, like a great grandmother who had a heart attack when a snake dropped out of a tree onto her grandson and bit him. And many people probably recall the tragic loss of a toddler at the Polynesian Village Resort who was attacked by an alligator resulting in big changes with signage and access to water all around the parks and resorts. Other guests have had medical conditions aggravated by rides that caused them to have heart attacks. Some of these deaths have led to hauntings. We need to emphasize that when it comes to ghosts at Walt Disney World, there are many legends with not much evidence. But they are still fun to share.

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios opened in 1994. This is an accelerated drop tower dark ride with great theming based on Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. This is the second tallest attraction at Walt Disney World. A ghost has been seen walking around the attraction during off hours and does not respond to cast members calling out to him and eventually vanishes. Some stories claim that he is wearing a bell hop costume, so perhaps a former cast member. There are many interesting artifacts and props as a part of the theming giving the hotel a really creepy feel. There is the devil fortune telling machine from the episode "Nick of Time" starring William Shatner. One of the teeny tiny attackers from the episode "The Invaders" starring Agnes Moorhead is on a shelf. This episode had a great twist in the end when we discover that the tiny invaders are actually humans visiting a planet of giants and Agnes is one of those giants. But one of these props is really creepy. Caesar is a ventriloquist doll from the Twilight Zone episode entitled "Caesar and Me." In the episode, Caesar manipulates his owner Jonathan West. The actual Caesar now sits among the dusty collection of oddities in the basement and he carries some bad luck with him. If cast members working the ride do not say hello and good night to Caesar every day, they have trouble with the attraction.

And speaking of creepy dolls, Liberty Square has an old doll that occasionally peeks out from the window of one of the stores. Now some people may be unaware that Liberty Square is meant to model a real colonial square complete with a river of poo running through it. This doll is a nod to another tradition of colonial times in which dolls were placed in windows to let firefighters know that a child was inside the house. There is also a firemen’s brigade crest on the building that contains the doll that let firemen know that the family donated to their cause. This doll is said to move about on its own according to cast members. She may appear in a different window or be found sitting somewhere that is not where she is normally kept. 

Across from Liberty Square is Tom Sawyer's Island and it definitely has some creepy caves over there to explore. There are those who claim to see shadow figures in those caves that are not coming from humans. 

The man who made sure that his brother's vision came to fruition, Roy Disney, has been spotted hanging out on Main Street, particularly when it is time for fireworks and he looks like he is watching the show in the sky. 

EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth takes riders through time and the history of communication with lots of animatronics. There are two spirits that are thought to haunt this ride. These are a little boy and a little blonde girl and they are seen both outside of the ride near the entrance and riding on the ride. In either case, they disappear which is how people know that they are not human.

One of our favorite rides is Pirates of the Caribbean. POTC first opened at Disneyland on March 18, 1967. This was originally meant to be a walk-through ride that featured wax figures. When the rides It's A Small World and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln turned out to be huge hits, it was decided to use Audio-Animatronics for the pirates rather than wax figures. It's a special ride not just because it has these glorious animatronic pirates, but this was the last attraction that Walt had his hands all over. He never got to see the final product on this side of life, but Imagineers did push him through the ride on a chair rigged to a dolly. Imagineers who worked on the creation of the ride were Marc Davis, Francis Xavier Atencio (known as "X"), Claude Coats, Yale Gracey and Blaine Gibson. X wrote the lyrics for "Yo Ho (A Pirates' Life for Me)." He also wrote Grim Grinning Ghosts. The POTC ride at the Magic Kingdom opened in 1973. The reason it was not there for the opening was because the company thought that the mystique of the ride would not be there since Florida is so close to the Caribbean, but visitors were vocal about their disapproval of that decision. Guests enter the ride through a Spanish style fort named Castillo Del Morro inspired by a fort in Puerto Rico.

The one at Disneyland is haunted and so is this one at WDW. There are several ghosts here. The first two seem more of a legend because the story connected to them claims that these are two women who died on the ride when the boat derailed during the drop. This accident never happened, but people do claim to see them on the ride and cast members sometimes see them on the security monitors. One lady is described as being wire-haired. George is the most famous ghost at the ride. Legend claims that this is the spirit of a construction worker who fell and died while building the ride. Now whenever the ride has any mechanical issues, George is blamed. To appease George, Cast Members always make sure to say "Good morning" and "Good night" to George. If someone says that they don't believe in George, he will stop the ride. Most Cast Members agree that George hasn't interacted with anyone since 2005

Our favorite ride at the Magic Kingdom is, of course, the Haunted Mansion. We are not going to talk about the history of this attraction on this episode. Rather, we are going to cover that as part of our Halloween episode this year. Just as the Disneyland mansion has real spirits, this one does as well. For some reason, this is a favorite spot for family members to dump ashes of their deceased loved ones and as we said in the Haunted Disneyland episode, this is not a good idea for a number of reasons. This is illegal and unhealthy. The ride will be stopped and shut down for clean-up and your loved one is going to get vacuumed up and thrown away. You are also going to be permanently banned from the park. This may be why we have some spirits here. Or maybe they just had planned to spend the afterlife here. A legend claims that the original spell book in the seance room was a real tome of witchcraft from the 14th century. Cast Members claim they have trouble keeping it upright and that it occasionally disappears.

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion has a little boy ghost and so does the Magic Kingdom's mansion. A photo made it up on Twitter in 2004 that showed a boy peeking his head out of a doombuggy. The person who took the picture said, "As you'll see in the photo after clicking the link, it appears as though a child is peeking his head out of the doombuggy and looking directly at me. Not only was he not there when I took the pic, there wasn't a child of this age within 20 people in front of me in line, and as you can see, he's only a few doombuggies in front of me. Not only that, what's he doing looking at me? There is NO flash, and NO visible light coming from me. It's all infrared, and invisible to the naked eye."

The most seen spirit on the ride is the Man with the Cane. The first time he was ever encountered was on a particularly slow night. There were few people boarding the doombuggies at the loading station. The empty doombuggies come through from the unloading station and on this particular night a Cast Member saw a man with a cane sitting in one of the doombuggies as it came through. The Cast Member was shocked and told the man that he should have gotten out of the doombuggy at the loading station. The man gave no indication that he heard the worker and he continued to sit and went back into the ride. The Cast Member called his fellow worker at the unload station and told him to watch for a man with a cane and make sure that he got off the ride this time. The other Cast Member said he would take care of it and then he proceeded to wait and wait and wait and the man with the cane never showed up. The ride was checked after this to make sure he had not gotten out of the doombuggy and they found no one on the ride. We couldn't find any information on security cameras and what they picked up.He has been spotted multiple times through the years and people think he was a pilot who crashed into Bay Lake before the park was built.

We watched a video on YouTube featuring Kris Star from the Travel Channel and she did some ghost hunting at the Magic Kingdom. She was sitting next to a bush outside the Haunted Mansion where a cast member had told her some asses had been dumped one time and she set up a Mel Meter and used a Spirit Box app on her phone, Necrophonic. She asked how many ghosts were there and it said "ten." That number came up two more times when asked how many people's ashes had been spread there. There were definietly children's voices coming through, particularly laughter, and the Mel Meter indicated temperature changes and the EMF went off. Her camera also turned itself off. Kris asked a spirit to touch the Mel Meter and it started going off like crazy right after that. She asked if they were happy there and a voice said, "I'm excited."

We love visiting the Walt Disney World property. It's always a good time. We never realized that it might be a good place to do a little ghost hunting. Is Walt Disney World haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
Link to Kris Star video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iyJP4xD2c