Is It Non-Offensively Worthwhile to Examine the Historical Context and Cultural Perspectives Surrounding the 2013 YH Fire and the Granite Mountain Hot Shots Tragedy That Occurred in the Death Bowl?"
- 2 days ago
- 117 min read
Authors Fred J. Schoeffler and contributing others
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Views expressed to "the public at large” and "of public concern."
Consider now the Ninth Circuit ruling on a First Amendment issue concerning the Crystal Cox vs. Obsidian Finance Group case on the rights of free speech in a "matter of public concern," a key component. The justices' holding vindicated Ms. Cox and allowed her the same free speech protections as journalists (i.e., when truth survives free speech).
Obsidian Finance Group vs. Crystal Cox (US Courts.gov Opinions)
DISCLAIMER — READ FIRST (Posted February 24, 2026)
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This entire post, including all text, images, figures, links, opinions, historical interpretations, and conclusions, is authored solely by Fred J. Schoeffler and any contributing others named therein. The blog owner/administrator has had zero involvement in its research, writing, editing, approval, or endorsement. Due to illness, the administrator did not read the post at all and only ran the raw provided text through Grok (xAI) once — strictly to generate a neutral, factual recap of its content and a high-level “what can be learned” summary (see below). The administrator expresses no opinion on the accuracy, completeness, or viewpoints expressed. This is not legal advice. Consult your own attorney. All content is presented as the personal views and research of the author(s) on matters of public concern (wildland firefighter safety, historical context of public lands and tragedies, free speech). Per the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox (2014), such speech on public concerns receives full First Amendment protections for bloggers and non-journalists alike.
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Abbreviations: Wildland Firefighters (WFs), Firefighters (FFs), Escape Routes (ER). Safety Zones (SZ), Yarnell Hill Fire (YH Fire), Prescott Fire Dept. (PFD), Granite Mountain Hot Shots, Granite Mountain, Granite (GMHS, GMIHC), Hot Shots (HS), Serious Accident Team (SAIT) & Serious Accident Team Report (SAIR), Facebook (FB).
All emphasis is added unless otherwise noted.
"His spirit departs, he returns to his earth;
In that very day his plans perish.”
Psalm 146:4, NKJV
“However much you deny the truth,
the truth goes on existing.”
George Orwell
This post may be a very controversial one to some readers due to its content. To hopefully gain the skeptical readers' trust in this author's credibility regarding this seemingly controversial subject matter, and to settle any apparent "Crisis of Conscience" issues defined as "(1) A time when a person faces severe difficulty in deciding if his or her action is ethically correct. (2) Apart from this speculation, while choosing between right and wrong, the crisis can work in retrospect. It is when a person is undergoing some punitive feelings because of the thought of doing something morally unfair or wrong previously. (3) This situation of moral dilemma can also turn into a more substantial feeling. It is when a person fears to end up doing an action that is ethically wrong by not following the voice of conscience. (4) It also often becomes hard to act in accordance with self-value and principles. People end up refusing their voice of conscience for some materialistic demand or greed and behave contrarily. This course of action, due to worldly need and desire, starts eroding the voice of conscience and human nature. (5) Nevertheless, humans, for some uncontrollable reasons or circumstances, often end up going against their beliefs. Such situations can also create a sense of guilt and regret." (BYJU, 2026). It is important to declare these facts regarding this controversial YHFR post title and subject matter. First off, this author learned to speak, understand, read, and write the Navajo language while attending Northern Arizona University (NAU) in 1972 in Flagstaff, AZ, from an amazing retired LDS Missionary named Irvy Goosen (Fig. 4a. below). "Navajo made easier; a course in conversational Navajo, Irvy W. Goossen" (Smithsonian Museums and Archives, 1977) and cassette tapes, because that was how we all initially learned to hear - as we learn any language - and speak Navajo in the classroom. And most importantly, he also encouraged us to venture onto the Navajo Reservation to speak it and hear it at the Trading Posts and such, even though "The People (Diné)" might laugh at us. This author, during his Seasonal USFS time, off-season times, accepted Mr. Goosen's sage advice and eventually met and was somewhat adopted by a former US Marine Corps (USMC) Navajo Code Talker and Hataałii or "Singer", herding sheep and goats, cutting and hauling wood, gathering coal, attending occasional ceremonies, hearing stories, and listening to and witnessing some of the most amazing life-changing matters that conventionally defied logic. including such entities as the so-called Navajo Skinwalkers – Witches of the Southwest (Legends of America), also called "yee naaldlooshii” ("with it, he goes on all fours"), also called and spelled chʼįį́dii in Navajo, a “chindi” is the spirit of a dead person. Navajos are taught to avoid contact with the dead or enclosed places, like a hogan, where someone has passed to avoid coming into contact with chindi and contracting ghost sickness. Navajos believe that when a person dies, everything that is bad or out of harmony with the person will be left behind as a kind of malevolent spirit that has power to harm the living. For this reason, any hogan or structure inside which a person has died potentially contains chindi and must be abandoned. If a Navajo contracts ghost sickness by coming into contact with a site to which a chindi is still attached, the proper ceremonies must be performed in order to restore balance to the living., and also depicted in the few book and television series titled: "Skinwalkers - The Navajo Mysteries" and within the "Tony Hillerman" portal all of which should be considered to be part of the dark side of "The Navajo Way."
For your edification and insight, just below the Bible Scripture are two of our YH Fire and GMHS debacle website posts germane to the issue at hand, well worth reading, and always best viewed on a laptop or PC. And a professional warning regarding the fact that some of this content is likely to offend some readers, based on some of the graphic content, images and certainly the historical descriptions of what occurred, continues to occur, and may likely occur in the future. By logical extension, what historically occured long before the June 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in its Death Bowl (Figs. 1., 2., & 3.) and its manifestations addressed applies to all the subsequent World War battlefields detailed within and in their extensive literature as well, and will likely continue to occur on all future wildland fire fatalities.
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather expose them."
(Ephesians 5:11 (NKJV)
(1) Speaking Ill of the Dead By Lying About Them? Or Honoring the Dead By Searching For The Truth If They're Considered as Public Figures? Part 1 (yarnellhillfirerevelati…). Part 2 (yarnellhillfirerevelati…)
Sooner or later ... one has to take sides – if one is to remain human.
Graham Greene (novelist, short story writer, travel writer, and critic
Figure 1. Ground-level view of the GMHS deployment site. The fence and flagpole are visible in the death bowl. March 14, 2014. Source: Holly Neill.
What you say about yourself is forgotten.
What you do for others compounds.
Serve people well, and their word about you will
travel further than yours ever could.
Farnam Street
Figure 2. Prescott FD Wildland BC Willis at YH Fire just in front of the GMHS Fatality Site bowl. Source: David Wallace, AZ Republic
Figure 3. June 2013, YH Fire - GMHS Fatality Site State Park Source: Fox 10
Figure 4. A 1960 Yavapai County. Special Warranty Deed reflecting prior LDS (Corp. of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Utah corporation. Source: Yavapai Cty. Dev. Services, FJS
Figure 4a. NAU Navajo Instructor Goosen Source: NAU Digital Collections
Certainly, if we want to learn from the past and honor those who have been harmed by people now deceased, we must speak honestly of the dead, even if being honest means speaking ill.
Sydney Eileen (The Balancing Path, 2021)
Figure 5. Creepy human history is littered with the bad deeds of countless individuals. Source: PD Photos, Eileen
To establish this author's personal and professional credibility. It is a fairly well-documented and well-known fact that an LDS - Yavapai Apache massacre, with massacre defined as "an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people" that occurred in the YH Fire & GMHS deployment/fatality site bowl many moons ago, based on conversations and interviews with the two YH Fire "local area" residents and their discussions with Yavapai Apache elders that contacted them, a few years after the YH Fire & GMHS fatalities, this author's Yarnell property Warranty Deed clearly reflects LDS prior ownership (Fig. 4.), and the Yarnell realtor openly vouched for the fact there were several other prior LDS & Yavapai Apache massacres in the Yavapai County area. What follows will clearly indicate that there are well-documented cases of LDS and Native American massacres throughout the United States. Moreover, the infamous 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in Southern UT that was carried out by many of their own sect, dressing up as Indians and killing their own!
Several years ago, while on one of the June 26, 1990, Dude Fire fatalities anniversary, this author, the Lassen Hot Shots, one of the YH Fire hikers, and Back to the Black movie producer Scott Briggs hiked and visited the Dude Fire Walkmoore Cyn. fatality site at the same time as their deaths many years prior. Minus the Lassen Hot Shots, we then visited and hiked the YH Fire and GMHS Fatalities Site bowl at the same time as their deaths many years prior. This author vividly recalls the palpably real, intense emotions, unease surge, vowing never to do anything like that ever again!
Another time, a former Prescott, AZ resident and early childhood friend of the former GMHS HS Ass't. Foreman Jesse Steed, and later a former USFS Los Padres Hot Shot, and finally a USFS El Dorado NF Engine Captain, was returning home from a Southwest Region wildfire assignment and stopped by and hiked the AZ State Park GMHS Memorial Trail. He recounted to this author and one of the June 30, 2013, YH Fire hikers that when he eventually got home, he had experienced - while asleep - a vivid dream of being in a fire shelter with the GMHS during their fatal YH Fire burnover, feeling the heat, smelling the smoke, etc.
This author did an AI inquiry asking: "Is it a fair statement to claim that the validated Civil War battlefield paranormal experiences are an extension of the validated LDS and Yavapai Apache massacre in the Yarnell Hill Fire bowl?" And this was the AI response: "While Civil War battlefields and the Yarnell Hill area both have histories involving significant loss of life, there is no documented evidence or "validated" historical record linking Civil War paranormal experiences to an LDS-involved Yavapai Apache massacre in the Yarnell Hill "fire bowl." The following breakdown examines the historical and cultural context of these separate events. Civil War Battlefield Paranormal Claims, Civil War sites, particularly Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Franklin, are frequently cited in folklore for paranormal activity. Eyewitness accounts often describe spectral figures, strange blue balls of light, and the sounds of phantom drummers or battle noises. These reports are often attributed to the high volume of casualties and the intense trauma experienced at these locations. ... The Yarnell Hill Fire and Massacres in Arizona. The Yarnell Hill area is most historically defined by the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, where 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed after being trapped in a canyon by rapidly shifting winds. While this tragedy is often described in haunting terms—such as the lone survivor being "haunted" by questions of why he survived—these are typically metaphors for grief and trauma rather than paranormal claims. ... Regarding historical massacres in the region involving the Yavapai and Apache: (1) Skeleton Cave Massacre (1872): This was a significant event in the Tonto War where approximately 76 to 100 Yavapai and Apache people were killed by the U.S. Army. The site is located in Salt River Canyon, north of Apache Lake, which is a different geographic location from Yarnell. (2) Camp Grant Massacre (1871): Over 100 Aravaipa and Pinal Apaches were killed by a vigilante posse near Tucson. This event is described as a "phantom history" that continues to live on in collective memory, but it is not linked to Yarnell. (3) Bloody Tanks Massacre (1864): Occurred in the Superstition Mountains, involving the killing of over 30 Natives by civilian "rangers". ...
Consider now the AI-generated Comparison and Connection Table
Feature | Civil War Battlefields | Yarnell Hill / Arizona Massacres |
Primary Events | Large-scale military battles (1861–1865). | 2013 wildfire; 1870s Indian Wars massacres. |
Paranormal Context | Extensive folklore regarding "ghostly figures" and battle sounds. | Focus on tangible grief, historical trauma, and "lessons learned" for safety. |
LDS Involvement | Minimal direct involvement in major eastern battles. | No historical record cited linking LDS members to a massacre in the Yarnell "fire bowl." |
Geographic Link | ||
Central and Southern Arizona. | ||
Figure 6. Comparison and Connection Table Source: Google AI
AI response continues: "While some individuals draw emotional parallels between the "last full measure of devotion" given by soldiers at Gettysburg and the sacrifice of the [GMHS], these connections are made to honor the dead rather than to suggest a shared paranormal origin. There is no historical validation for a specific "LDS and Yavapai Apache massacre" occurring within the [YH] Fire bowl itself; most notable massacres of that era occurred in the Tonto Basin, Salt River Canyon, or near Tucson. ... Would you like me to look for more specific historical records regarding LDS settlements and their interactions with the Yavapai in the Yarnell area during the 19th century?" [End of AI response].
Despite the AI response, based on this author's fairly extensive emotional and traumatic personal and professional experiences and subsequent credible verifying evidence and research posted below, this author will provide numerous documentations and linked sources that include validating evidences from numerous horrific, non-LDS & Native American attrocities that occured during the infamous Civil War battles at Antietam, Gettysburg, and Shiloh, as well as numerous alleged and validated Native American atrocities at the hands of LDS elders and individuals resulting in killings, massacres, and other nefarious deeds, etc., ultimately all of them resulting in and revealing "ghosts, apparitions, 'hauntings,' 'restless spirits,' strange unexplained occurrences, voices, smells, and sounds, people dressed in era-clothing, including Civil War soldiers, "yelling and running in the fields. The bloody pond always gave me chills; the whole place felt like sacred ground, especially the Hornets Nest and Bloody Pond. The cabin was another odd place. I always felt like someone was watching me there, granted, the field in front of it was a battleground,' paranormal experiences,' appearing and disappearing blood stains, disembodied voices, and singing. 'Guests who visit these sites describe feeling cold drafts despite the air around them being warm. At other times, a sensation of heat is experienced despite the air surrounding them being cold. Orbs have also been seen suspended above the mounds or flitting in and out of the earth.' There is Spook Hill, where cars are pulled up hill while in neutral, battle sounds, smell of gunpowder, commands, and battle cries are often heard." Holy f**king Shizer!
Consider now what the alleged Kool-Aid Drinking WLF, LLC, Fire Operations Specialist Erik Apland (Why Has the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center Lost Its Ethical Compass Defending The Federal USFS-Funded June 30, 2013, SAIT-SAIR Conclusion of No Wrongdoing? - from the post, "So then, how is it that the WLF LLC Reading, Reflecting, and Changing Behavior" PodCast professionals responsible for "gathering, verifying, and analyzing observations and information from a variety of sources to produce accurate knowledge products containing lessons learned and effective practices" fails to mention anything at all about the June 30, 2013, YH Fire and GMHS debacle? Because there is an alleged clear intent to deceive. They did, in fact, cover both the "gathering" and analyzing portions; however, they completely missed the boat on the most important one - "verifying" - the truth and acknowledging the YH Fire and GMHS debacle, which is completely absent from their WLF LLC PodCast. Listen to it yourself to validate this fact. (WLF, LLC, June 2021). And also seriously consider delving into the (June 1, 2022, YHFR) post by this author and other contributing authors have to say about Apland's recent germane happenstance article titled: Fatal Attraction: “What’s the Number?” (Feb. 12, 2026): "The dead cannot speak; they cannot advocate for themselves; they cannot explain what they thought or did. Can they warn us? ... The Number - Every year, people want to know “The Number”—How many wildland firefighters have we lost so far this year? And every year, The Number is compared to last year’s Number, and the years before that. What is the trend? Are we worse or better at getting each other home at the end of the day? ... The desire to know The Number usually comes from a good and legitimate place. But I believe there are many ways in which The Number is misinterpreted, particularly when we don’t understand who is and isn’t included, or when we use it as a weapon. ... At the [WLF, LLC], we seek to reveal the complexity and risk in the wildland fire environment – two things that can’t be summed up meaningfully in a single number. ... Fatal Attraction - Before the revolutionary change in accident investigations that began to occur in the mid-2000s, fatality investigations often blamed firefighters for their own deaths, pointing to standard operating procedures or guidelines that they “broke.” Discontent among the federal wildland fire workforce over what was perceived as scapegoating made a new kind of investigation possible. These new investigations were focused on understanding and learning, not blaming. ... As we began to acknowledge that firefighters who lost their lives were just like us (humans with imperfect knowledge trying their best), we also began to look seriously at near misses and incidents with minor consequences.
Looking at the little bad things that happen (that could have easily been big bad things), we complete the dichotomy. If firefighters we lost are just like us, so we are just like them. If we are just like them, then we can all learn from each other. And because we can ask each other “What were you thinking at this point? Why did you decide to go up that road?” we don’t have to speculate and resort to broad statements like “They lost situational awareness,” which is just another way of admitting we don’t know what happened. Perfect situational awareness will never exist. How do we know which gap in our awareness is the one that might bite us? ... Even so, we have in our community an attraction to fatal incidents, to studying tragedy fires. There is nothing wrong with this. And I stress that we must honor through learning. But it is absolutely true that we can learn more from incidents where our brothers and sisters are still with us to tell their stories than ones where they have passed away. As students of fire, we do ourselves and everyone with us on the fireline a disservice if we aren’t studying and sharing reports where a less serious outcome occurred, or even where “nothing” happened. ... I would argue that the dead cannot warn us, because we can’t ever understand what they were thinking or what they would do differently. But the dead can remind us. When we look at The Number, we need to click through the follow-up reports and read the accounts, and think about what they reveal about the state of wildland fire today. In 2024, we lost a firefighter with the New York Office of Parks on a wildland fire in November. In June 2025, three firefighters were shot by an armed assailant in an ambush, two were killed. What do these incidents say about the risk profile in 2026 and beyond? The dead remind us to take each other’s safety seriously by learning from everything on offer to us. They deserve better than to just be a number, moving a trendline up or down." [End of WLF, LLC]
What immediately follows is this author's response, even though posted as "Anonymous" to the WLF, LLC post above. Feb. 20, 2026, at 5:11 pm
"Thank you for the opportunity to reply. You are correct that the dead are literally unable to speak, advocate for themselves, and explain what they thought or did. Yet,we can clearly learn from their mistakes. And, yes, they can warn us with factual, truthful lessons learned. .. Every year, curious non-experienced individuals and especially experienced and knowledgeable FFs engaged in wildland fires and WFs want to know how many WFs have we lost each and every year, compared to last year, and the years before that. What the trend is, were we worse or better at getting each other home at the end of the day or night, and much more.
The desire to know how many usually comes from a curious, mostly good, and legitimate place. And I also believe and know for a fact that there are many nefarious and unethical ways in which “The Number” is intentionally misinterpreted, and particularly when we fail to understand who is and who is excluded. However, using it as a weapon is fine with me from a positive sense because those unethical, untruthful entities and individuals will willingly utilize it as a weapon to conceal the facts and and oft times uncomfortable truths of the matter. ... The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WFLLC) alleges to accurately promote a learning culture to enhance and sustain safe and effective work practices using past and present lessons to improve for the future, safe work practices, advance organizational learning, and share lessons learned and knowledge within the entire wildland fire community, while promoting organizational change toward safer, more effective practices. Why are these alleged WFLLC-sponsored Honor The Fallen Group labeled as so-called “leaders” so disingenuously and perilously attempting to persuade us otherwise, all while claiming “Sense-making” and “Learning” on “Hallowed Ground”? Check out our YHFR website post titled: “Who Are the Underground Honor the Fallen Group, Couple Dozen Current and Former Federal WFs and FFs, and Others; and What Are Their Underlying Goals and Ulterior Motives for Defending the GMHS Flawed and Ultimately Fatal Decisions and Actions on June 30, 2013?” An October 30, 2018, Outside magazine article titled: What We Learned from the Yarnell Hill Fire Deaths, and in it, author Kyle Dickman exposes a lot about this Honor the Fallen Group: “In January 2014, 11 veteran firefighters from the nation’s biggest fire agencies—the vanguard of fire, as they were described to me—met in Yarnell. They hiked along the route the hotshots had likely taken from the ridge into the canyon where the 19 died seven months earlier. They arrived at a startling conclusion. ‘We could see ourselves making the same decision they’d made,’ said Travis Dotson, a member of the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, a federally funded organization that helps firefighters improve their performance. Around the time of the field trip, Dotson and others formed an underground group called Honor the Fallen (HTF) Group.” This is what is called the “Definition of Insanity,” when they make the following startling conclusion: “We could see ourselves making the same decision they’d made” means that the Honor the Fallen is clearly justifying and supporting the bogus SAIT-SAIR conclusion of “no indications of negligence, reckless actions, policy, or procedure.” And why the GMHS really died, even though each and every one of the HTF Group consisting of “a collection of roughly 30 “seekers” within the wildland fire community. Hose‐draggers, fire directors, dirt diggers, academics, “Ollies”, agency administrators, ICs, FMOs … a diverse cross section is an understatement … tried to spark an age of enlightenment.” All of these HTF Group men know for a fact that is patently false and yet they are allegedly openly disengenuous. ... Your WLF, LLC ostensibly “seeks to reveal the complexity and risk in the wildland fire environment” and you seem to do a fairly good job of that. ... Check out our YHFR website post titled: “Why Has the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center Lost Its Ethical Compass Defending The Federal USFS-Funded June 30, 2013, SAIT-SAIR Conclusion of No Wrongdoing?” which entails you and WLF, LLC Woods doing an hour-and-a-half podcast titled: “Reading, Reflecting, and Changing Behavior” as alleged professionals responsible for “gathering, verifying, and analyzing observations and information from a variety of sources to produce accurate knowledge products containing lessons learned and effective practices” while blatantly failing to mention anything at all about the June 30, 2013, YH Fire and GMHS debacle! Because there is an alleged clear intent to deceive. You did, in fact, cover both your intended “gathering” and “analyzing” portions, however, you completely missed the boat on the most important one, “verifying” the truth and acknowledging the YH Fire and GMHS debacle which is completely absent from the WLF LLC Pod Cast! ... I’m somewhat confused about your “in an earlier era, wildland firefighters only existed on wildland fires, when they ceased to be whatever they did 95 percent of the time and were firefighters for a few days or weeks” assertion. As well as this one: “Back then, firefighters were killed by trees, rocks, vehicle accidents, entrapments, and medical emergencies on the line” because that is still very much an ongoing challenge and dilemma that is guaranteed to continue. In 1985, after the July Los Padres NF Wheeler Fire and the August 1985 Salmon NF Butte Fire, the Payson Hot Shots developed Watch Out No. 19 to include Overhead, all the gravity issues, e.g. Trees, Hazards Trees, Snags, Rocks, Aircraft, Aerial Ignition, Powerlines, etc. FFs and WFs died during fitness tests because they were woefully out of shape and/or plagued by heart issues. Our fitness test was the Step Test and/or PTs, including realistic training, e.g. long distance running like “Indian Runs,” hiking and biking, etc. in steep terrain. And FFs and WFs rarely died at the station because we all had a Work Center, Base, or Station. And yes, I agree that nobody had ever heard of “presumptive illness.”
The Number as a Weapon - I agree that “like all statistics, The Number can increase understanding if put in context and discussed. But used bluntly without context, The Number can be ammunition used to make an argument that glosses over the complexities of our work and the risks we face” for those FFs and WFs and inexperienced and/or uneducated others that have little to no clue what they are reading. I mostly agree with your “To think, for instance, that a smaller number means better performance or greater safety, ignores the fact that as we acknowledge more hazards as intrinsically related to how we handle wildland fire – and therefore worthy of counting – The Number will go up, not down.” Who determines what is allegedly “worthy” of counting and why is it worthy based on what criterion? Of course,”The Number will go up as we include more people within the realm of who is counted.” I too believe that either one of of these is a sign that we are, in fact, worse than we were. Our understanding of risk should be improved, but is it really?. That nuance is erased if all you look at is “how many” and whether the fatality trendline is up or down. ... Fatal Attraction - This gem is worthy of debating: “Before the revolutionary change in accident investigations that began to occur in the mid-2000s, fatality investigations often blamed firefighters for their own deaths, pointing to standard operating procedures or guidelines that they “broke.” Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are firm and should be strictly adhered to and followed whereas “Guidelines” are just that. In 2002, Jerry William’s Fire Management Today [FMT, 2002] article addressed the value of the Fire Orders. What follows is based on his presentation at the Natl. Fire and Aviation Mgmt. Meeting (2002), in Scottsdale, AZ. “Firm Rules of Engagement – The Ten Standard Firefighting Orders … cannot be simple guidelines, and they cannot be ‘bargained.’ They are the result of hard-learned lessons. Compromising one or more of them is a common denominator of all tragedy fires. On the Dude, South Canyon, and Thirtymile Fires, Fire Orders were ignored, overlooked, or otherwise compromised. … [They] mean little after we are in trouble. That is why we must routinely observe them and rely on them before we get into trouble. We know that no fire shelter can ensure survival all of the time under all circumstances. Entrapment avoidance must be our primary emphasis and our measure of professional operational success. … We must embrace [them] because we owe it to one another. … [they] must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. … We must embrace [them] because we owe it to one another. … [they] must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. Borrowing from the aviation … model of Cockpit/Crew Resource Management [CRM], we must focus fireline operations more on what is right than on who is right.” ... And another quote worthy of debate includes this one: “Discontent among the federal wildland fire workforce over what was perceived as scapegoating made a new kind of investigation possible. These new investigations were focused on understanding and learning, not blaming.” The only alleged “scapegoating” were those of us that wee earnestly seeking and then exposing the facts and truth of what had really occurred. ... Really? “As we began to acknowledge that firefighters who lost their lives were just like us (humans with imperfect knowledge trying their best), we also began to look seriously at near misses and incidents with minor consequences.” If they had “imperfect knowledge” it was likely because of many factors, e.g., poor supervisors, poor reading and comprehensions skills, alleged intentionally false predetermined “conclusions” supported by alleged “facts” to fit them. The USFS Federally-funded YH Fire and GMHS alleged “Factual” SAIT-SAIR is the all-time classic example! ... Another gem worthy of critique! “Looking at the little bad things that happen (that could have easily been big bad things), we complete the dichotomy. If firefighters we lost are just like us, so we are just like them. If we are just like them, then we can all learn from each other.” And how and why do you illogically and fallaciously lump this “If firefighters we lost are just like us, so we are just like them” assertion into a serious question? We can and should ask each other questions such as: “What were you thinking at this point? Why did you decide to go up that road?” On the contrary, we must “speculate and resort to broad statements like ‘They lost situational awareness’ which in your view “is just another way of admitting we don’t know what happened.” So then, dig deep and find out, ask those hard questions! I agree that “Perfect situational awareness will never exist” and that is another illogical and fallacious assertion because “perfect SA” is far less than what is required and virtually impossible based on a plethora of credible psychological and human factors research. How do we know which gap in our awareness is the one that might bite us? We utilize the tried-and-trued Rules of Engagement while recognizing and mitigating the likewise Entrapment Avoidance Principles. And utilizing the proven Israeli Defense Force (IDF) “Tenth Man Rule.” ... Agreed that “Even so, we have in our community an attraction to fatal incidents, to studying tragedy fires. There is nothing wrong with this. And I stress that we must honor through learning” except for the fact that we are failing to learn the true and factual “lessons learned.” Of course, you are correct and “… it is absolutely true that we can learn more from incidents where our brothers and sisters are still with us to tell their stories than ones where they have passed away. As students of fire, we do ourselves and everyone with us on the fireline a disservice if we aren’t studying and sharing reports where a less serious outcome occurred, or even where ‘nothing’ happened” as long as they are accurate, truthful, and based upon non-preconceived conclusions. ... The Dead Remind Us - Another possible translation of that monument I saw while traveling abroad in 2024 would be “The Dead Remind Us.” I would argue that the dead cannot warn us, because we can’t ever understand what they were thinking or what they would do differently. But the dead can remind us. When we look at The Number, we need to click through the follow-up reports and read the accounts, and think about what they reveal about the state of wildland fire today. In 2024 we lost a firefighter with the New York Office of Parks on a wildland fire in November. In June 2025, three firefighters were shot by an armed assailant in an ambush, two were killed. What do these incidents say about the risk profile in 2026 and beyond? They say, get it together, and learn and pass along to others the factual, truthful lessons learned. ... “The dead remind us to take each other’s safety seriously by learning from everything on offer to us. They deserve better than to just be a number, moving a trendline up or down.” ... And so then, go to our YHFR website for these two posts titled: “Speaking Ill of the Dead By Lying About Them? Or Honoring the Dead By Searching For The Truth If They’re Considered as Public Figures? Parts 1 & 2” best viewed on a laptop or PC. ... Thank you for the opportunity to participate. Fred Schoeffler Payson HS Supt. 1981-2007. Project 10 & 18 International"
Figure 6a. Mormonism Beliefs Source: Christianity vs Mormonism, FB
Figure 7. Sacred Buckskin of the Apache Source: Legends of America
The Yavapai – Fierce Warriors of the Colorado River (Legends of America)
"The Yavapai are an Apache tribe of the Yuman Family, popularly known as Apache Mohave and Mohave Apache, meaning “hostile or warlike Mohave.” Before their removal to the Rio Verde Agency in May 1873, the Yavapai claimed as their range the Rio Verde Valley and the Black Mesa, from the Salt River to the Bill Williams Mountains in western Arizona. They then numbered about 1,000. Earlier, they ranged much farther west, as far west as the Colorado River, but they were chiefly an interior tribe, living south of Bill Williams Fork, as far as the Castle Dome Mountains above the Gila River. In the spring of 1875, they were placed under the San Carlos Apache Agency, where, in the following year, they numbered 618.
Writings of the time described the Yavapai men as tall, erect, muscular, and well-proportioned, and the women as stouter and more handsome than the Yuma. In 1900, most of the tribe drifted from the San Carlos Reservation. They settled at their old home on the Rio Verde, including the abandoned Camp McDowell Military Reservation, assigned to their use on November 27, 1901. By 1903, they were said to number between 500 and 600 (but this number probably included some Yuma and Apache), scattered in small bands from Camp McDowell to the head of the Rio Verde. ... An executive order of September 15, 1903, set aside the old reservation for their use. However, in 1905, the ravages of tuberculosis were reported to be largely responsible for a great number of deaths, and by the following year, their numbers had been reduced. In 1906, 465 'Mohave Apache' were officially reported at Camp McDowell and in the Upper Verde Valley of Arizona, and 55 at San Carlos, for a total of 520."
Apache Death Cave - "Beware all those who dare venture into the caves. It’s been said that the Chindiis haunt this area and the spirits of the dead curse the place". – (Apache Death Cave). ... In 1878, a group of Apache raiders attacked a Navajo encampment near the Little Colorado River. Almost every Navajo man, woman, and child was killed in the raid. When the Apache finished looting the encampment, only three girls remained, and they were swiftly taken prisoner by the Apache. ... When the Navajo leaders got word of this attack, they sent out a team of 25 men to avenge the fallen encampment. They tracked the Apache across the land and blocked the borders to the region. However, their efforts failed, and the trails went cold, disappearing into the river and volcanic cinder. ... From that point on, it is said that no Apache has used that cave for any reason. Local tribes warned would-be pioneers about the cave, saying that the land around it was cursed, but settlers often passed off the stories as silly superstition. The pioneers who lived there would later report hearing disembodied groans and ghostly footsteps outside their cabins, the horrendous stories of the massacre at the cave finally burrowing their way into their imaginations."
"In 1864, Arizona Territory Governor John Goodwin advised the territorial legislature that all tribes be subdued and sent to reservations.[8] The same year, a dispatch from the US Army stated: "All Apache [Yavapai were routinely lumped in with their neighboring Apache] Indians in that territory are hostile, and all Apache men large enough to bear arms who may be encountered in Arizona will be slain whenever met, unless they give themselves up as prisoners."[9]"
"[Author] John A. Peterson describes his point of view of the time: Latter-day Saints considered themselves in a state of open warfare. They built scores of forts [such as Willden Fort] and deserted dozens of settlements while hundreds of Mormon militiamen chased their illusive [sic] adversaries through the wilderness with little success. Requests for a (sic) federal troops went unheeded for eight years. Unable to distinguish differences between tribesmen, frustrated Mormons indiscriminately killed Indians, including women and children".[3]
Apache – The Fiercest Warriors in the Southwest - "The Western Apache and their Yavapai allies were subdued in the U.S. military’s Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872-1873. ... The Camp Apache agency was established in 1872, and the following year, 1,675 Indians were placed there. But, in 1875, this agency was discontinued, and the Indians, much to their discontent, were transferred to San Carlos, where their enemies, the Yavapai, had also been removed." (Legends of America)
The atrocious event of the Circleville Massacre
is rarely taught and is hardly known
Innocent, friendly Paiutes lost their lives
at the hands of the local Mormon settlers.
The local settlers and LDS Church Leaders of Circleville took it upon themselves to decide the fate of roughly 30 Paiute Men, Women, and Children
Consider now the "The Circleville Massacre, April 21, 1866, will forever be a sorrowful event for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Koosharem Band, in what is known as the Circleville Massacre. Innocent, friendly Paiutes lost their lives at the hands of the local Mormon settlers. During this time, the Black Hawk War was raging between Native Americans and white settlers over western land expansion and invasion. ... In 1865, Ute Indians went to war with settlers in central Utah. In 1866, the Parowan Militia Officer decided to round up all Indians, including the Paiutes, who at the time remained peaceful, and demand they appear in Fort Sanford to be questioned. The Militia distrusted the Paiutes because they felt the Paiutes and Utes were in alliance with each other, but historically this was never proven. ... On April 21, 1866, an Express Rider was sent from Fort Sanford to Circleville and Panguitch, stating two formerly friendly Paiutes had shot and wounded members of the Utah Militia. The Express Rider was sent with the intent to disarm the Paiutes who lived close to both communities. Another Express Rider was sent, providing an erroneous report that a Paiute shot and killed a Utah Militia Member, though no militiamen were killed. ... The local settlers and LDS Church Leaders of Circleville took it upon themselves to decide the fate of roughly 30 Paiute, Men, Women, and Children. They tricked the Paiutes into coming to Circleville by imploring them that Bishop Allred had a letter to read to them from Brigham Young. A portion of the Paiutes had willingly gone into the log church house to hear this letter. The settlers forcefully disarmed the Paiutes and forced them into a cellar. The other Paiutes that chose not to attend on their own accord were forcefully taken from their village and imprisoned with the other captive Paiutes in the cellar. The entire Paiute Village was forced into a cellar to await their fate that was decided on by the Mormon Settlers of Circleville. The settlers sent word to the LDS Apostle Erastus Snow about what they decided to do, and ultimately decided the Paiute needed to be killed. In the dark of the night, the settlers lead the Paiutes one by one out of the cellar, struck them on their heads from behind to stun them, and slit their throats. ... LDS Church Apostle Erastus Snow received word about the forceful imprisonment of the Paiute Village in the unused cellar in Circleville, Utah. Trying to intervene, he sent word that the Paiutes should be treated kindly and let go unless hostile. By the time the runner reached Circleville, it was too late. The settlers massacred an entire Paiute Village, with the exception of two adult prisoners and four young children too young to bear witness of the event. The murdered bodies were buried in an unmarked mass grave in a cellar of an unbuilt mill, but the remains have never been located. ... According to our Paiute history, three Paiute children were able to escape. A mother told her three children to run when they opened the door to take the next person out. By the dark of the night the three siblings had escaped with bullets whizzing past them. The fate of the escaped was victorious at the time, but as fate would have it, they were discovered in a nearby cave the following day. The now orphaned children were taken to the nearby town of Marysvale, where they were sold. No one wanted the little girl and she was murdered by being taken by her heels and was swung against a wagon wheel until she was lifeless. ... The atrocious event of the Circleville Massacre is rarely taught and is hardly known, but on April 21, we choose to remember our ancestors that were peaceful and lost their lives due to paranoia and unfounded suspicion by the local settlers. Written by Tamra Borchardt-Slayton. Edited by Shane Parashonts. Pictures provided by Dorena Martineau, Picture of two survivors of the Circleville Massacre, and Monument placed in 2016. Bibliography: Dr. Jed Rogers, Utah Historical Quarterly, Al Hartman, Salt Lake Tribune, PITU Elders, Oral History." (Utah Paiute Indian Tribe - April 2021 website)
Figure 8. Mormon Settlers - Koosharom Band - Utah Paiute Indian Tribe - Blackhawk War massacre (1866) monument Source: Paiute Indian (UT)
Figure 8a. Grave memorial dedicated to the Yavapai Apaches massacred by US Army soldiers in Skeleton Cave. Source: Wikimedia Commons
15 Creepiest Native American Sites and Their Haunted Histories
Parowan haunted by 'restless spirits.' The Spectrum. Haven Scott. Updated Oct. 8, 2016, 6:19 p.m. MT.
Parowan is home to some of Utah’s oldest ghost stories.
Parowan is an Indian word meaning ‘evil waters’
"Before there was an Iron County, and before there was a Cedar City, there was “The Little Salt Lake Valley.' ... And Parowan was aptly labeled the “Mother Town” of Southern Utah, according to historians. While being one the first southern settlements during the Mormon expansion of Utah, Parowan is also home to some of Utah’s oldest ghost stories. According to the book “Restless Spirits: Utah’s Small Town Ghosts,” by Linda Dunning, Parowan gets its name from a legend born long before Western settlers ever entered the Parowan Valley. ... “A story is told that when the ancient Lake Bonneville covered the entire area, an Indian maiden drowned in its waters,” Dunning wrote. “The site of her drowning is where Parowan is today. Parowan is an Indian word meaning ‘evil waters.’ "Ghostly 'guests' at the Grind Coffeehouse," (Spectrum). Although A.J. Baruffi had what he described as “a couple ghost encounters” as a youth in Las Vegas, it had been decades since he had seen anything that could be called paranormal. ... That all ended more than five years ago when he took over as the owner of The Grind Coffeehouse on Main Street in Cedar City, Utah. ... Now spotting ghosts, or other unexplained phenomena, happens a couple times a month, Baruffi said. At first, he thought the creaks and moans of the floor from his basement office at night could be attributed to the “100-year-old hardwood floor.” ... Then he met Nicole. “I was the first to see her,” he said. “She stands over in the corner by the Pepsi machine and watches us. She has blonde hair, a blue dress, and is dressed like a young pioneer girl.” ... While the ghostly girl never moved much when spotted by the staff, she was notorious for spending hours watching them work behind the counter of the coffee shop. ... Southern Utah Paranormal (SUP), a local paranormal group, actually communicated with Nicole, Baruffi said. In addition to finding out her name, they discovered that the young girl “came over on the wagon train.” ... “They use what is called a ghost box that picks up radio signals and all kinds of other equipment,” Baruffi said. “They were talking to her with flashlights, too.” ... According to the SUP Facebook page, on Feb. 2, 2013, “At The Grind, Tina, Alysha, and Shannon used flashlights to communicate with what said was a young girl named Nicole,” according to the post. “Nicole turned off and turned on flashlights when asked and was able to turn on the flashlights by color.” ... According to the (SUP Facebook page), on Feb. 2, 2013, “At The Grind, Tina, Alysha and Shannon used flashlights to communicate with what said was a young girl named Nicole,” according to the post. “Nicole turned off and turned on flashlights when asked and was able to turn on the flashlights by color.” ... Baruffi said the “ghost hunters” were originally looking for paranormal activity in the Main Street Book's store and came by The Grind due to proximity. “We actually never mentioned the pioneer girl to SUP,” he said. “So when they came up with the Nicole story I thought, ‘That is the girl by the Pepsi machine.’” ... Todd Prince, of SUP, said his group has encountered many paranormal related phenomena at several Main Street businesses. ... “The Grind, Main Street Books, the old Post Office (now Cedar City Hall), the now-closed historic Cedar Theater, Bulloch Drug, the Leigh Building, The Park Building (the old Lunt Hotel) - we caught good evidence at each of them,” Prince said. ... While sitting alone in his downstairs office a few weeks ago, Baruffi heard what he thought was someone in the women's restroom. ... He went upstairs to check and saw nothing, but, just as he was leaving the restroom, somebody banged on the wall from the other side. Although nobody else was in the restaurant, Baruffi suspects “the little boy.” ... “We also have a little boy who runs back and forth between the hallway that has been witnessed by several people. I can tell when it’s him because his footsteps are lighter,” he said. ... Baruffi has also seen signs of a lingering tourist who apparently just didn’t want to leave. ... “There is a guy that is wearing 1950s-style vacation clothing that has been seen in the back room a couple times.” ... Although none of the ghosts knock books off shelves or are attempting to harm customers, a man who appears in the doorway separating the bookstore from the coffeehouse is not the friendliest. ... “He is a stubborn old guy dressed like a cowboy,” Baruffi said. “You get the impression that he doesn’t like what is going on – like things are different and he doesn’t like it.” ... Now, after several years, Baruffi and his employees are used to the “guests.” ... “They don’t hurt anybody. They might startle you a bit, but that is the extent of it,” he said. “The last two times the ghost hunters were here, they didn’t pick up anything. But we still see them.”Baruffi said the “ghost hunters” were originally looking for paranormal activity in Main Street Book’s and came by The Grind due to proximity.... Residents in Paragonah will tell you the headstones in their cemetery glow at night, although that might be explained by the headlights of oncoming cars, according to Nancy Dalton of the Parowan Heritage Foundation. ... And there are stories of the “old rock church” that also served as a schoolhouse. ... “They would hold classes on the first and second floors, but nobody would ever go up to the third floor,” Dalton said. “It was said to be haunted.” (Daily Briefing ) ... And since Dalton spends many hours giving presentations at the “spiritually rich” Parowan Gap, surely she might have seen a ghost or two at the ancient Native American petroglyph site. ... But the alleged paranormal story people remember most, and quite possibly one of Utah’s oldest, is the story of Edward Meeks Dalton, a far distant cousin to Nancy Dalton’s husband, Tony. ... In the book “The John Dalton Book of Genealogy,” by Mark Ardath Dalton, Edward Dalton “married Emily Stevens, 10 April, 1871, and later Helen Delila Clark. He was the father of ten children.” ... The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on July 8, 1862, according to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. ... United States Marshals tried several times to arrest Dalton for having two wives, according to both stories, and even caught him once, only to see Dalton escape. ... “... Marshal William Thompson,” Harrison said. “He vowed to get Edward dead or alive.” ... On Dec. 16, 1886, Thompson shot and killed Edward Dalton near the home of Daniel Page in Parowan, according to Mark Dalton in his book. ... In the Harrison story, that’s when strange things started happening. ... “Later, after Thompson had shot and killed Edward Meeks Dalton, he felt as though he was always being watched by an unseen presence,” said Harrison. “The blood that was on the porch where Dalton had lain at the Page home was scrubbed away, but it returned. The porch was painted over and over several times, but the blood always came back.” ... In Mark Dalton’s version of the story, Thompson was arrested but later acquitted of wrongdoing in Edward Dalton’s death, although, what he had to live with might have been worse. ... “Residents in Beaver often remarked that William Thompson acted like a hunted man all his life,” he wrote. “He would never walk on the sidewalks, but always in the middle of the street. If he had to take water on his lot at night he took his lantern, after he had opened the head gate for the water, and would run for dear life until he got back into his house.” ... Steve Decker, great-grandson to Edward Meeks Dalton, said he grew up across the street from the Page house and cannot verify the bloodstains. ..." Reporter Haven Scott.
History Through a Native Lens. Explore this chronological timeline written by Dr. Karina Walters, (Investing in Native Communities).
The Walker War Reconsidered. Ryan Elwood Wimmer. (BYU, 2010).
Abstract: "In July of 1853, Chief Wakara's band of Utes clashed in a series of violent confrontations with the Mormon settlers. This conflict is known as the Walker War. Many complex factors contributed to this war. After some earlier violence between Mormons and different bands of Utes between 1847 and 1851, the Mormons continued their quick expansion, settling on Ute lands. From 1851 to 1853, Mormon and Ute relations continued to decline as Mormons expanded their settlements, occupying Ute hunting grounds. In addition to these land encroachments, new laws were enacted regulating trade between the Spanish and Utes by Brigham Young. The most notable regulation on trade prohibited the Spanish and Ute slave trade. All these trade regulations hurt the Ute economy, particularly the most powerful equestrian Ute band, the Cheverets, led by Chief Wakara. In the spring of 1853, Governor Brigham Young ordered out the state militia to arrest Mexican traders and to capture Wakara for engaging in the slave trade. Wakara had previously established a friendly relationship with Young and had invited the Mormons to settle his lands in Sanpete. Wakara had become committed to peaceful relations and cooperation with Young and the Mormon people. Wakara remained true to his desire for friendly relations even after seeing his economic status undermined by Mormon settlers. Young as well, was committed to staying on peaceful terms with the Utes. Their followers, on the other hand, had difficulties overcoming the cultural divide. After the murder of a member of Wakara's band in July of 1853 by settler James Ivie, Wakara's band waged a series of raids against Mormon settlements. Wakara himself, however, was not involved in the war and continually tried to sue for peace. The war has been mislabeled with Wakara's name; he was not really involved in the violence. Yet it was indeed a war. The war had a great impact on the Mormon settlers. Settlers abandoned their homes and had to move into forts. For the Mormons involved, this conflict was neither small nor inconsequential; it was a major disruption involving a great portion of the Utah Territory."
Utah, Battle Creek Massacre, 1849. (Wikipedia)
Utah, Battle at Fort Utah, 1850. (Wikipedia)
Utah, Nephi massacre, 1853. (Wikipedia)
Utah, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, 1857. (Turley, CJCLDS, 2007)
Figure 8b. Mountain Meadows Massacre - What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? Source: Salt Lake Tribune, Youtube
"The infamous and inexcusable Mountain Meadows Massacre lives on as the bloodiest stain on the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The 2008 book “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” offered modern readers the most complete look to date at the atrocity, when, on Sept. 11, 1857, Mormon settlers deceived a wagon train of emigrants on their way to California through southern Utah and then slaughtered about a hundred men, women and children. Now comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up volume, titled “Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath.” On this week’s show, co-authors Richard E. Turley and Barbara Jones Brown explain how church leaders in southern Utah tried to cover up the crime, how investigations were thwarted, and how justice was delayed and denied. (In then end, only one perpetrator, John D. Lee, was executed.) They also explore a key Watergate-like question: What did church prophet-president Brigham Young know and when did he know it?"
Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!! The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse. (Univ. of Nebraska, 2006)
One of the dread mysteries of Mormondom which the United States Judges in Utah are endeavoring to unravel, greatly to the consternation of the "Saints," is the horrible massacre at the Mountain Meadows, of one hundred emigrants on their way from Arkansas and California. At the time we were told that the unfortunate victims fell under the weapons of the Kanosh band of Pravant Indians: but various subsequent developments have established the conviction that these were merely tools in the hands of the Mormons themselves. An eyewitness of the transaction has been found at last, and from an official source at Salt Lake, a statement of his accounts of the affair has been sent to the San Francisco Bulletin. He says the massacre was designed and carried into execution for mere purposes of plunder, to get possession of thirty wagons and of seven or eight hundred cattle belonging to the emigrants. ... The witness says:"While I was residing at Cedar City, I was called upon by Messrs. Isaac Haight, John D. Lee and John Higbee—all three Mormon military officers—to go a few miles out south of the city, which I did. There I found thirty or forty others, selected from different settlements. We were addressed by the above officers, who told us that they had sent out Kanosh, the Pravant Chief, and his warriors, to destroy the Arkansas company, and that if he had not done it, we must; and that if any of them refused, or betrayed them to the Americans, they would take good care of him hereafter. Here we were all ordered on the quick march to the Mountain Meadows, where we found the emigrants, with their wagons formed in two circles, with their families in the midst, trying to defend themselves against the merciless and blood-thirsty savages, who lay around in ambush, killing them as opportunity presented. ... Haight and Lee formed their men into two companies, and made a precipitate rush at the poor defenceless victims. The men inside of the circle rose up, but instantly fell dead and were mortally wounded, under the fire of the wretches who so cruelly sought their lives. Nothing remained to be done, except to kill the frightened females and their innocent children clasped in their arms. Others clung with desperation to their bleeding, dying husbands, pleading in vain for mercy at the hands of the "Christians" who controlled the now more savage Indian assailants. John D. Lee now sent to the Indian chief and men in ambush to come out and finish the survivors, directing him to spare only the little children who could not talk. The savages came instantly with knives drawn, and speedily finished the bloody work. The scene beggars description. The demonic yells of the savage monsters, mingled with the shrieks and prayers of helpless mothers and daughters, while the death blows were dealing with unflinching hands, and scalps were torn from heads which bloomed with beauty and innocence but a few hours before. Now the work of butchering ended. The murderers threw the dead into two heaps, covered them slightly with earth, and left them to 'feed the wolves and birds of prey.' And returned home with their blood booty of battle and wagons, and a great quantity of goods, &c." The narrator of the above facts also furnishes the following statement of crimes within his knowledge. He says: "G. D. Porters, William Parrish and Beetson Parrish, were all murdered on the road to Springville, in the month of March, 1847. All that is requisite to bring the murders to justice, is a thorough investigation by the United States Courts. Henry Forbes came into Springville, last winter, from California, and put up with Mr. T. Jerry, one of our bishop's policemen. A short time after he was missing, and has never returned. His horse, saddle and revolver were sold by Terry, and put to his own use."
The Mountain Meadows Massacre. (PBS, American Experience, 1996-2026)
Although Joseph Smith was no pacifist—he preached an aggressive self-defense against the Mormon Church's many enemies—prior to September 1857, the Mormons had more often been the victims of violence than its perpetrators. That all changed with the darkest incident of the Mormon War, a series of attacks known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
The Mormon War. The massacre came about in the context of a rising conflict between Mormon leader Brigham Young and the federal government. When the Mormons had first arrived in the Salt Lake area in 1847, it was Mexican territory, but the U.S. soon claimed the land after the Mexican-American War. The Compromise of 1850 made Utah a U.S. territory. Brigham Young was appointed its first territorial governor in 1850 and re-appointed in 1854, but conflict soon developed between his theocracy and several non-Mormon officials who had been sent to the territory by the federal government. Those officials levied accusations of intimidation and the destruction of government documents against Young. From the beginnings of his presidency, James Buchanan judged it necessary to use force to assert federal supremacy in Utah. In the spring of 1857 he declared the territory in "rebellion," and soldiers amounting to 20 percent of the entire American army began to march west that summer. For the Mormons, this approaching force raised the specter of past "extermination orders" and state-sanctioned violence against them, and Young's followers prepared for war. In August, the Mormon leader declared himself in defiance of all "Governments, but especially ours ... I will fight them and I will fight all hell."
Preparing for War. Young had a strategy for the coming war; rather than fight the federal army directly, he would attack its supply trains. As a show of his control over the territory, he would close the trails used by emigrants when they passed through Utah on their way to California. One way of achieving this was to forbid Mormons from selling any supplies to emigrants; another was to allow friendly Indian tribes, whom the Mormons had held in check to harass wagon trains that passed through, specifically permitting the Indians to take the cattle that so often accompanied the wagon trains. Although it is unclear whether Young explicitly ordered specific attacks on individual groups of migrants, the evidence suggests that in August, he did authorize local Indians to essentially "have at" the wagon trains. Furthermore, Young's inflammatory rhetoric may have pushed local Mormons over the precipice from hostility to overt violence.
The Fancher Party. Into this maelstrom came an emigrant group from Arkansas, the Fancher party, slowly making its way along a route some 200 miles south of Salt Lake. A popular Mormon missionary, Parley Pratt, had recently been murdered in the emigrants' home state, and as they moved through the Utah town of Cedar City, rumors spread of insulting behavior by the migrants. In the supercharged atmosphere of war, this was enough; local Mormon militia decided to attack the emigrants with the assistance of Paiute Indians. They struck at dawn on September 7, 1857, attacking the Fancher party as it was encamped in the beautiful Alpine valley of Mountain Meadows.
The Massacre. To the surprise of militia leader John Lee and the men he commanded, the Fancher party proved itself a formidable foe, circling wagons and fending off assaults for the next few days. Even more worrisome, the emigrants had seen that Mormons were involved in the assault, and this would undercut any later claims that the attack had been solely the work of Indians. Lee and his followers decided to kill anyone old enough to testify, and then they set a trap. Lee's men offered the surrounded settlers safe passage out, then when the Arkansans agreed, the Mormons slaughtered every man, woman, and child over the age of seven, some 120 in all. The militiamen then took a vow of silence, and the cover-up began. The assault would be blamed entirely on the Paiutes, and the truth would be concealed throughout the church hierarchy. Brigham Young himself would play a part.
The Aftermath. As it turned out, the Mormon War ended quickly; U.S. soldiers marched unopposed through Salt Lake City in June 1858, Young accepted a new governor for Utah, and President Buchanan pardoned the Mormons for their "rebellion." But the stain of the Mountain Meadows massacre was not so easily erased; Lee remained a fugitive until November 1874 and went on trial for murder the next year. The trial ended in a hung jury, but then Young struck a deal with the U.S. Attorney. In exchange for receiving evidence that would confirm Lee's guilt, the prosecutor agreed not to go after any other Mormons, nor seek to implicate the church hierarchy in the massacre. Lee felt betrayed, but, in Young's words, "The time has come when they will try John D. Lee and not the Mormon Church, and that is all we have ever wanted." The militia leader was convicted in 1876 and executed in March 1877 at Mountain Meadows."
Haunted in Desolation: The Murder of Captain John Gunnison, Reconsidered. Todd Shallat. History Department, Boise State Univ., Boise, ID; tshalla@boisestate.edu
Abstract: Deserts confuse, fogging memory and electrifying the imagination. In 1853, on Utah’s Sevier River, a ritualized killing spawned a folklore of deserts that lives on to this day. Captain John W. Gunnison, an engineer, had detoured into an ambush. Dismembered, decapitated, his heart torn from his chest, he had died, it was said, by order of the Mormon prophet and Utah’s Latter-day Saints. Fabulized over the decades, the tale was contorted with an evil king in a desert kingdom,
with ghoulish assassins and restless corpses, undead. Folklore saw what historians have been slow to perceive about hauntings in desolation. Memories of trauma run deep in disquieting strangeness. Places presumed to be empty set dark expectations for horror. Keywords: exploration; deserts; hauntings; Native Americans; Latter-day Saints; U.S. topographical engineers."
The Fort Utah Massacre, 175 years later: Murder, execution and decapitation. Arian Alberty. (Axios, Salt Lake City, 2025)
Figure 9. Special Order No. 2 by Gen. Daniel Wells of the Nauvoo Legion, ordering a militia to "exterminate" any Indigenous person in the Utah Valley who shows any hostility to Mormon settlers. Source: Utah State Archives, via FamilySearch.org
Mormon ghosts. The Christian Century. Book Review (M. Sutton, associate professor of history at WA State Univ., 2008). "On September 11, 1857, over 120 migrants on their way from Arkansas to California hid in a haphazardly constructed wagon fort in southern Utah. They feared that local Paiutes were going to renew attacks against them. Having spent four days under siege, they were relieved by the sight of Mormon leader John D. Lee, the “spiritual son” of Brigham Young, and four dozen local militiamen approaching their fort. Waving a white flag of truce, Lee promised the migrants safe passage out of Utah. Salvation seemed close, at least until they heard Lee’s terms. In return for the militia’s help, Lee asked the migrants to leave behind their cattle and other belongings, pile all of their weapons into a wagon and march out with the women and children in the lead and the men following behind. Although the migrants feared a trap, they had little choice. ... The militiamen marched the migrants about a mile up the road to where they had arranged for Paiute warriors to hide in the brush. On the signal of a Mormon leader, the Indians attacked the women and children at the front of the procession while the militia killed every one of the unarmed men at the rear. Guns, knives, stones and clubs were all used to carry out the devilish deed. Only 17 children were spared; it was believed that they were too young to remember what happened. ... In recent years the story of the massacre has received a lot of attention from authors, filmmakers, journalists and even the descendants of the migrants, forcing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to address the event. After years of silence and evasion, three Mormon scholars with close links to the church (one is an assistant church historian and another is a former director of the LDS Museum of Church History and Art) have tackled the story in Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley and Glen M. Leonard faced a number of challenges from the outset. How do you tell a story of mass murder when it involves your own religious community? How do you speak after a century and a half of silence? And most important, can you honestly deal with the fact that your church’s own prophet may have been an accessory to murder—or at the very least likely covered up a violent crime? ... According to the authors, the events leading to the massacre began long before September 1857. Walker, Turley and Leonard’s story opens with a history of the violence that dogged the Mormons from their earliest days. Indicative of the authors’ approach, just a few pages into the book they include an illustration of Mormon prophet and founder Joseph Smith being murdered. This allows the authors to paint the Saints as a persecuted minority, often confronted with violence, who sought little more than the freedom to live their lives in peace as God dictated. After Smith’s death the Saints faced further persecution until Brigham Young led them on an exodus to their new Zion, the Great Salt Lake Basin. ... In Utah, Young used his role as territorial governor to build a powerful church hierarchy that controlled just about every aspect of life in the region, from the militia to local law enforcement to the courts. But by the mid-1850s, the Saints’ dreams of a peaceful and separate existence were beginning to crumble. More and more gentiles (non-Mormons) were settling in and near Utah, thousands of migrants were moving through Mormon country on their way west, and the new Republican Party had made eradicating the Mormon practice of polygamy one of its major goals, along with ending slavery. In the summer of 1857, President James Buchanan dispatched the army to Utah with orders to end the Mormon “rebellion” and to replace Young with a territorial governor who would enforce American laws. Young began preparing the Mormon people for war. “Woe, woe to those men who come here to unlawfully meddle with me,” he declared. He instructed the Saints to stockpile weapons and cease trading with migrants, and he warned that Indians would be free to attack wagon trains. ... Meanwhile, a wagon train from Arkansas was making its way west through southern Utah. According to massacre participants, among the migrants were a number of rough characters who had insulted and threatened the Mormons. Church leaders in Cedar City decided that the wagon train had to be stopped (though their motives are still a point of heated debate). First they dispatched their Paiute allies to kill the male migrants and to steal their cattle, hoping that no whites would be implicated in the action. Although caught off guard, the migrants repelled their attackers, circled their wagons and prepared for a siege. From there things unraveled quickly for the Mormons. A few migrant men had escaped, and the Saints feared that their role would be discovered. So they hatched a plan to finish the job. The result was the Mountain Meadows Massacre. ... Ever since, scholars and laypeople alike, both Mormon and gentile, have sought to understand how this horrific event could have happened and who was responsible. Some point to evidence suggesting that Young may have ordered the massacre; others believe that he was an accessory after the fact who shielded the killers. Although dozens of people were involved in the tragic event, only a few faced grand jury indictments, and only John D. Lee was punished. He was tried and found guilty almost 20 years after the massacre and was executed by the U.S. Army in 1877 at Mountain Meadows. ... Lee was the scapegoat in 1877, and he has reprised that role in Walker, Turley and Leonard’s telling of the story. They conclude their book with the line: “At exactly 11:00 a.m., five balls tore through Lee and left a skipping pattern on the grass behind.” These scholars left their own skipping pattern behind as well. I had hoped that they would take on some of the recent scholarship on the massacre. Two fairly new books, by Will Bagley and Sally Denton, place the blame for the massacre squarely at the feet of Brigham Young, and both studies are critical of the Mormon hierarchy and the way that it has dealt with its complicated past. Walker, Turley and Leonard ignore one of the major issues that Bagley and Denton raise: Brigham Young’s response to and cover-up of the massacre. ... “We concluded, reluctantly,” Walker, Turley and Leonard write, “that too much information existed for a single book. Besides, two narrative themes emerged. One dealt with the story of the massacre and the other with its aftermath—one with crime and the other with punishment.” They deal solely with the crime, ignoring what they call the punishment, which was in fact a horrifying lack of justice in Young’s Mormon-dominated Utah and gravely inadequate efforts by the church in most of the decades since to deal forthrightly with the controversy.
Massacre at Mountain Meadows provides a good narrative of the events leading up to September 11, 1857, and makes a compelling case that Young did not order the massacre. But it does not delve into the Mormon response to the massacre and how that response should impact our understanding of Young, Mormon leaders or the Saints’ understanding of their own difficult history. ... Despite my disappointment, I do sympathize with the authors. Like most scholars of religion who study their own traditions, they found themselves in an impossible situation. They are certainly good historians, but they are also faithful Mormons. They probably could not find any way to tell the rest of the story without sacrificing one of these two commitments—either they would compromise historical integrity or they would anger their church. ... Scholars of religion constantly have to make difficult choices. They are often drawn to studying their own faiths, and they often write much better histories than do outsiders since they understand their own traditions better than anyone else. Yet they also have to struggle far more than outsiders with the most negative aspects of their religion, especially since church leaders never make it easy for such scholars to explore the dark sides of faith. Massacre at Mountain Meadows had the potential to chart a new path in Mormon history by dealing honestly with the past—all of it—but it did not. This is unfortunate for readers and for Mormons themselves, because if Walker, Turley and Leonard cannot tell us the entire story, we are forced to rely on the scathing accounts written by skeptics. As a result, everybody loses."
Peace and Violence among 19th-Century Latter-day Saints. (CJC LDS, accessed 2026)
"Conclusion. The Mormons were understandably puzzled about the eschatological meaning of this Messiah movement at the same time other people expressed their bewilderment, but close examination of the evidence shows that the Mormons did not conspire with the Indians in promoting the Ghost Dance. Nor did Mormon temple robes likely underlie the famous Ghost Shirts. Mormon elders did not mark their bodies with scars, impersonate the Messiah, and participate in the Ghost Dance ceremonies. Nor is it any more likely that Mormon doctrines were any more influential in shaping the ideas of the Messiah movement than the idealogy of other Christian denominations. Mormon ideas about preparing the Indians for their scriptural and prophetic destiny of found ing a New Jerusalem in Jackson County, Missouri, and building a majestic temple for ushering in Christ’s millennial reign were not in harmony with most of the doctrines of the Messiah movement of the 1890s. The Ghost Dancers, while feeling the psychological stress of losing their tribal domain, were not dreaming about a Mormon millennial era with cities, towns, factories, farms, and ranches. Instead, they yearned for a return to a primitive version of the Garden of Eden where their dead ancestors would share in their ancient Utopian life."
Talking Heads and Other Specters of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Shannon Novack. (Cambridge Univ.) Press: 26 January 2017
"From the prayerful utterances of an obscure boy in the Sacred Grove near Palmyra, New York, in 1820 to today’s worldwide Church of several million members, the Mormon experience has embraced many peoples and cultures. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized on April 6, 1830. From that time until now, the Church has encouraged its members to keep a record of their life’s activities and accomplishments. ... In tandem with a record-keeping and “remembering” people, 19th-Century Western and Mormon Manuscripts seeks to document the experiences and accomplishments of Latter-day Saints from all walks of life by collecting as many of their written records as possible. Hence, the collection of 19th-century manuscripts is composed of virtually every kind of written record, including journals, diaries, letters, minute books, speeches, photographs, drawings, and scrapbooks. ... In addition to collecting the records of individuals and families, another major goal embraced by this collection is to enhance our understanding of the beginnings and early development of Mormonism and its interactions with the world. With this goal in mind, we especially seek to document the Mormon role in the settlement of the American West. These materials provide an important context for the Mormon experience in the world of 19th- century America, with a specific focus on the history of the American West. Our collections include such topics as westward migration, American Indian history, mining and related activities, the environment, religion, literature, and other topics that help establish the Mormons in the larger history of the region and nation." (BYU - 19th Century website)
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"Don't look too closely, You know I might disappear, It's not that I don't mind, In fact I do it's a fear, I came in through the outdoor, ... Against the masses I enter the light, My mind is up in the clouds, Seasons come and go, Seasons come and go, My mind is up in the clouds, Seasons come and go, Seasons come and go, In the sun I come undone, Spinning circles we have fun, In the sun I come undone, Spinning circles we have fun, If I go wrong, please, please just give me time, (I might come back), Ripples and shakes, Ripples and shakes, Blank Eyes, Overdrive, I came in through the outdoor, Against the masses I enter the light, My grey world, My grey world." My Grey World- Drew Harris
“These are not things that need or should be discussed by outsiders. At all. I’m sorry if that seems ‘unfair,’ but that’s how our cultures survive.”
Dr. Adrienne Keene, Native American academic, writer, and activist
Figure 10. Haunted by Battlefield Ghost Stories Source: History Squad
Real Ghost Stories from the Battlefield. Filmed at the Saskatoon Museum of Military Artifacts, historian - storyteller Kevin Hicks shares eerie tales of soldiers, hauntings, and real supernatural encounters from war, including his own chilling experiences as a young soldier. From haunted castles and ghostly Roman legions to the restless spirits of the Somme, this will make you question what lingers when the battle ends.
"History isn’t some dusty book on a shelf. It’s alive, and it changes based on who gets to tell it. There are hidden figures that prove that innovation, courage, and creativity came from every corner of American society, not just the well-lit ones." Hidden Figures of American History: Untold Stories from Across the States - Jesse Galanis
Figure 11. Ghosts of Gettysburg - Restless Spirits Emerge From Bloody Battle Source: History Channel, YouTube
"Ever since that bloody battle, some say the spirits have been restless ..."
Figure 12. Gettysburg Park - Civil War Ghosts Source: Grapevine Documentaries, YouTube
"Explore Gettysburg's haunting history through eyewitness accounts and dramatic reenactments. This documentary investigates unexplained phenomena, from ghostly soldiers to startling discoveries. The film delves into the park's geological secrets and their potential connection to paranormal activity."
A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself,
but the simple pass on and are punished.
Proverbs 22:3 (NKJV)
“And the bottom line is this: speak up. A question, even a simple question, is more forgivable than a mistake that can result in a tragedy. And each of us has a responsibility to cultivate a work environment where every member of the NASA family feels empowered to voice doubt.
Make your concerns heard.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
Consider delving into the linked Spiritual Treasure Trove website, dealing with "energy ..."
Consider now one of several YouTube videos with several germane comments specific to the YHFR post title.
Figure 13. Lost Souls of Shiloh Source: Hometown Ghost Stories, YouTube
The word Shiloh, deriving from Hebrew roots meaning "tranquility" or "place of peace," was an ancient city in Ephraim, not Jerusalem, that served as Israel's central sanctuary for ~300 years. Some capitalizations, editorial, punctuation, and spelling of the Commenters' edits follow without [bracketing] them as such.
From the Fig. 13. "Lost Souls of Shiloh" YouTube video are these germane comments and quotes putting many things in a much better perspective: (andrealane363) "My uncle is the head park ranger of Shiloh! Very curious about the activity out there. When we would visit out there late at night, we'd hear yelling and running in the fields. The bloody pond always gave me chills." and (corduroyo). "My history class and I went to Shiloh for the weekend. I never experienced any haunting, but the whole place felt like sacred ground, especially the Hornets Nest and Bloody Pond. The cabin was another odd place. I always felt like someone was watching me there, granted, the field in front of it was a battleground."
Figure 14. Shiloh | Civil War Historian Guided Tour Source: American Battlefield Trust, YouTube
From the Fig. 14. "Shiloh | Civil War Historian Guided Tour" YouTube video, are these germane comments and quotes putting many things in a much better perspective: (dtacklind) "My Great-great-granddad William Toney was there with the Seventeenth Iowa Infantry Volunteers. He was 40 years old when he enlisted. Another man paid my Great-great grand dad $500 to take his place. He served the entire war until the Seventeenth was disbanded, and he went home to our family." ... (nickroberts-xf7oq) "About 20 minutes into it, all of the sudden "BAM!" I heard a tree fall, naturally! It seemed to come from an area behind the pond in this video. No one had been chopping, or sawing, etc. Just a surreal moment." Coincidence? Happenstance? Wind gust? Specter?
Figure 15. Exploring One of America's Most Haunted Battlefields Source: Sydnie, YouTube
Here is the "Exploring One of America's Most Haunted Battlefields" video by Sydnie, visiting "the famous ... or infamous ... battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland." Several outstandingly germane comments include (neilwood615) "As a resident of Boomsboro, I am just a few miles from all this history. General Reno's monument to the South Mountain Inn, to Bloody Lane, the cornfield, and Burnside Bridge are just a few locations known for unusual occurrences. There is Spook Hill, where cars are pulled up hill while in neutral, battle sounds, smell of gunpowder, commands, and battle cries are often heard. Most of the stone farmhouses in the surrounding valley were used as aid stations and hospitals. One farmer's well was used as an expedient tomb for several dead southern soldiers. Almost the entire bordering town of Sharpsburg became one big hospital." Homes neighboring all the Civil War battlefields became makeshift hospitals and are commonly publicized as being "haunted." ... (AnthonyDiPalma) "I will tell you that every time I go there, I see paranormal activity." ... (jamesdee759) "You don't always need equipment for a ghost hunt. Especially if you're just out to explore someplace. Besides, you have your camera, your gut feeling/intuition, and your natural senses to help you. Sometimes the craziest stuff can be experienced when you're just sitting quietly in one spot for a while."
Figure 16. Haunted Travels - Antietam Battlefield and National Museum of Civil War Medicine Source: BlackRavenParanormal, YouTube
Consider now the Fig. 16. video Otter.ai 90-95% accurate written transcript of the Haunted Travels - Antietam Battlefield and Natl/ Museum of Civil War Medicine. The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern VG & Union General Georgia B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac. "This battle was fought near Sharpsburg, MD, and Antietam Creek. ... It was the bloodiest day in American history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. The Hauntings ... One of the biggest questions asked is, why are battlefields so haunted? Why are they such a great source of paranormal activity? Well, the American Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars ever fought, since it was waged totally on American soil. It pitted Brother against Brother, family against family, and nearly split the country in two. Approximately 1 million men were killed or wounded. It is, therefore, no wonder that some of these battlefields are the most haunted in the world. You have to remember, battlefields were places of violence, trauma, intense emotion, and adrenaline, often associated with haunted phenomena. Few places have seen more violence than battlefields. Some battlefield soldiers may be trapped Spirits of the Dead, the suddenness and violence of their deaths may have prevented their full departure from the earthly plane, or they may not be aware that they're dead. Over the years, the sunken road called Bloody Lane has become known as one of the most eerie places on the battlefield. Reports over the years tell of sounds of phantom gunfire echoing along the Sunken Road, and the smell of smoke and gunpowder, which seems to come from nowhere. Many people have sighted Confederate soldiers in the area, thinking they are reenactors, only to discover that they would abruptly vanish, and these ghostly apparitions are not only anything experienced here, there's absolutely no doubt, no doubt at all, that the Civil War was one of the most tragic chapters in American history. 620,000 Americans lost their lives during the Civil War, lost in battle, from illness, and awful circumstances ... They were lost in battle from illness and awful circumstances that the Civil War brought is no surprise that there are countless haunted reported around areas where the battles took place. With so much turbulence, violence, grief, and loss, it left a literal scar on the earth. If you visit any battlefield today, you'll see bullets implanted in trees. There are holes in the ground from cannon fire and even blood stains that Mother Nature has carefully preserved. With this in mind, it is no surprise that these areas are riddled with ghost stories, absolutely riddled. The Civil War violated the 'Good death,' old men, young men, and children; they were all swept up and recruited to fight. Most of these soldiers died on the site of their battle; depending on where they passed, their remains were handled differently. Take for example, Confederate soldiers who died during Gettysburg were left in ditches, river banks, or shallow graves. Many of these remains were destroyed when the rains came in after the battle. Union soldiers who had died at Gettysburg were collected and eventually placed in the Soldiers' National Cemetery. This is where Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. There are countless stories of Southern boys dying up North, so their families never heard what happened until long after. Families often traveled to battlefields to find their lost loved ones. Many were successful, but many weren't. The closure that was stripped away from these families and the lack of closure most likely translated into the afterlife. And then there are those who have spent time at Burnside Bridge on the battlefield, especially Park Rangers and Civil War reenactors who have been to the location many times after dark. They say there are strange things going on here all the time as well. Historians and Experts report that the fighting which took place here in 1862 of the number of dead, fallen soldiers left behind, and many of them were hastily buried in unknown locations near and around the bridge. Visitors to the bridge at night have reported visions of blue balls of light moving in the darkness and the sound of a phantom thumb that beats out of cadence and then fades away. It appears some of the soldiers who perished during the Antietam battle are more than just a memory, if you remember as well. The Spiritualism movement began before the events of the Civil War, but it was the war that caused it to reach incredible proportions, with Mediums rising up every day because these families didn't have closure, and the soldiers had no way to tell their loved ones they were okay. Spiritualism filled in the gaps. There's a moral dilemma in Spiritualism, since it gave closure to so many people, but eventually, it was realized that many of these self-proclaimed psychics were faking it. Let's just talk in general about energy. Have you ever been or entered a room after two people have had a fight? Have you ever been someplace where there's a lot of tension, but no one told you what was happening? There are theories that this feeling translates into the paranormal as well. Since there was so much energy with the events of the Civil War, all the devastation, heartache, and loss can still be felt around these places. Perhaps it isn't paranormal at all. Instead, it's the energy left behind and the feelings we experience when we recount the tragedy of the bloodiest battle to ever take place on American soil. ... Another medical advance that came out of the Civil War was mass embalming, and the museum actually has a life sized diorama of Dr Richard Burr, who abandoned sawing limbs from live soldiers to a more lucrative profession of pumping chemicals into dead ones, and incredibly, the museum building and Dr. Burr had an intimate connection, because the museum building was the notorious doctors and embalming station. A lot of dead people come through the museum building, unrestful souls, so to speak; this claim that it's definitely the most haunted building in Frederick, Maryland. Incredibly, museum management have claimed that there's been more than one apparition that's been captured on the museum's CCTV cameras. Amazingly, there have been some that have been able to walk through walls. The museum is so haunted that it offers special October tours where staff simply describe their personal ghost experiences in every room. Many visitors have claimed there have been phantom specters that have tapped them on the shoulder or finger flicked their ear. It's happened on more than several occasions." [End of Fig. 16. Otter.ai transcript]
Figure 17. Haunted Antietam - Some Soldiers Never Left Source: Curious History, YouTube
Fig. 17. YouTube closed caption transcription: "What happens when the dead refuse to rest on America’s bloodiest battlefield? Antietam, the site of 22,720 casualties in a single day, is more than just history—it’s a place where whispers, shadows, and ghostly figures still linger among the rolling fields of Maryland. In this episode of Curious History, we explore the haunted legends of Antietam National Battlefield. From the eerie silence of Bloody Lane, where phantom gunfire and spectral soldiers still march, to the haunting presence at Burnside Bridge, where orbs, shadows, and the lonely drum of a ghostly boy echo across the creek. We step inside the chilling stories of the Dunker Church, where the cries of the wounded once filled the air, and the mysterious Pry House, a Civil War field hospital where generals met their end—and restless spirits may remain."
Figure 18. Ghost Stories from the Natl. Museum of Civil War Medicine #1 Source: NMCWM
Using the mostly accurate YouTube "closed caption" option for Fig. 18. "So, this is James [as she places her hand on the skull], and I'm Katie Reichard. The Reservations Coordinator at the Museum, and uh, my story is one time a coworker and I were waiting for a bus to arrive. We had a group tour coming in, and we were just sitting in my office talking, and suddenly, I guess whatever was in there with us found us very exasperating because we heard this very distinct sigh, and uh, we both turned around, and it sounded like it came from behind me, and no one was there Sharpsburg, Maryland, is the site of the Battle of Antietam that took place on September 17th, 1862, and is known as the bloodiest day in American history. And the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland."
Antietam National Battlefield - (Annapolis Ghosts, 2025) "On Sept. 17, 1862, the bloodiest day of the entire Civil War took place on what would come to be known as the Antietam National Battlefield. In total, 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or declared missing-in-action over a 12-hour period. That equates to a casualty every two seconds. This unfathomable level of death has left the battleground forever changed. To this day, visitors to the national historic site have witnessed all kinds of unearthly phenomena, from the phantoms of fallen soldiers to their heartbroken widows. ... While Antietam is a must-see stop for any spooky Maryland road trip, Annapolis is also at the top of that list. From a former governor’s house that has a resident demon to a haunted 300-year-old tavern, there are plenty of locations that will put a tingle down your spine.
Is Antietam National Battlefield haunted? Antietam is legendary for its ghostly activity. Day or night, visitors to the battlefield experience chilling encounters with the spirits of the soldiers who lost their lives 150 years ago. ... What Have Visitors Experienced at Antietam? While there have been many reports of unexplainable experiences, some of the most witnessed sights include:
Soldiers walking around dressed in their uniforms
Smell of gunpowder
Sounds of canons/gunfire
Blue balls of light floating around graves
What Happened at Antietam? There were a few things going on behind the scenes that may have contributed to the intense desire to be victorious at the Battle of Antietam. On the Confederate side, this was General Robert E. Lee’s first attempt to push his troops north. A win would show that the Confederates had the men and means to move into Union territory. On the Union side, President Abraham Lincoln was waiting for the right moment to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, which would free all enslaved people in the South. A victory at a major battle would be the perfect time to issue the decree. The two sides met at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862. The battlefield itself was quite small: less than 3 miles north to south and about three-quarters of a mile wide. Perhaps the close-range nature of the battle is what led to the astronomical number of casualties. Over 100,000 soldiers participated in the single-day battle. Almost a quarter—23,000—were wounded or killed. Both sides experienced heavy casualties.
The next day, Lee turned his troops back toward the South, marking the battle as a strategic victory for the North. This gave Lincoln the opportunity to give his Emancipation Proclamation speech, which is widely regarded as a turning point in the war. Visiting Antietam National Battlefield Today, Civil War enthusiasts and history buffs flock to the grounds of the pivotal battle. One of the main areas to see is the Sunken Road, now known as Bloody Lane. Lee had chosen a road that was sunken down between two farms to provide some protection for his troops. However, the heavy fighting led to bodies piling on top of each other in the ditch-like road, becoming more of a living nightmare than a strategic outpost. On Bloody Lane alone, over 5,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were killed, making this stretch of land one of the deadliest in the entire battlefield. It’s also one of the most haunted.
Hauntings at Antietam Battlefield
While walking along Bloody Lane, visitors will often smell a strong scent of gunpowder. They’ll also hear loud gunshots but see no source for the sound. Sometimes, however, the spirits do make their presence known. One man was walking near Bloody Lane when he saw a pair of Civil War enactors in full costume. As he approached them, the two men suddenly disappeared into thin air.
The Battle Chant
One of the truly surreal experiences came from a group of schoolchildren who were visiting the grounds on a trip. After walking around Bloody Lane, they told their teacher they had heard a Christmas song playing near them. Confused, the teacher asked them to hum some of the song. They sang, “Fa-la-la-la.” After doing some digging, the teacher realized they had heard the song near the observation tower, which is where a brigade from Ireland was stationed. As they charged toward the Confederates, the Irish troops sang their Gaelic battle cry, which sounds nearly identical to the Christmas song the children had sung.
The Cemeteries
A popular stop on the grounds is Antietam National Cemetery, which contains the remains of 4,776 Union soldiers. Yet, this wasn’t the only cemetery in the days of the Civil War. After the battle, with thousands of men to bury, both sides took to burying men where they fell in battle.
After the war, the bodies were exhumed and moved to proper cemeteries, but today, many of the original burial grounds continue to have ghostly presences. Blue floating orbs have been seen around these makeshift graves, and the sound of a beating drum can be heard in the distance.
The Pry Barn
Visitors can walk around Pry Barn, which acted as Union Commander General George B. McClellan’s headquarters during the battle. If you listen closely enough, you may hear the sound of footsteps. Some have even seen a woman in Civil War-era clothing, thought to be the wife of one of the fallen officers.
The Churches
After the battle, several nearby churches, including Dunker Church and St. Paul Episcopal Church, were turned into hospitals and morgues. The churches are also known to harbor lost spirits, some of whom can be heard wailing and screaming—forever reliving their painful wounds from the war.
The Blood-Stained Floorboards
Some of the original houses close to the battlegrounds are also haunted. One house was used to shelter injured soldiers. To this day, an area of floorboards is stained red from blood. No matter how much they’re sanded or repainted, the red tinge returns.
Haunted Annapolis
In a battle, soldiers’ lives are taken from them in a moment. Sometimes, their spirits don’t feel ready to move on. They may feel cheated, or perhaps they want to watch over their still-living comrades. Whatever the reason, many troops’ ghosts remain tied to the battleground where they died. Annapolis is no stranger to fallen troops and unfulfilled spirits. America’s Sailing Capital has seen its fair share of heartache and tragedy for both troops and civilians alike.
The Shiplap House, for example, used to be a tavern for all to drink at in the late 1700s. However, one night, a woman was beaten to death in one of the rooms. Now her spirit will put a cold hand on those who stay at the house in the late hours of the night."
Figure 19. Haunted Antietam Source: Middle Country Public Library, YouTube
Fig. 19. closed caption: "There have been many incidents of paranormal activity by visitors who stop at the sunken road. Gunfire and the smell of gunpowder have been reported when no one is on the road or even nearby. One visitor to the battlefield saw several men in Confederate uniforms walking within Bloody Lane. He thought they were reenactors until they vanished. The most convincing of reports is one from some Baltimore school boys who walked Bloody Lane and heard singing out in the fields. They said it sounded like a chant or the Christmas song 'Deck the Halls.' They heard a chant similar to 'fa lalala' sound repeatedly. The area was near the observation tower where the Irish Brigade charged the Confederates with a battle cry in Gaelic, which sounded like the Christmas Carol Burnside Bridge. The Burnside Bridge, known at the time of the battle as the Roanoke Bridge or Lower Bridge for more than three hours on September 17, 1862. Confederate General Robert Tombs and fewer than 500 Georgia soldiers manned this imposing position against three Federal assaults made by General Ambrose Burnside's much larger Ninth Corps about 1 PM, with Union soldiers crossing downstream, and another attack made on the bridge. Tombs and his men had to retreat after taking the bridge. Burnside reorganized for two hours before moving forward across the arduous terrain, a critical delay. Finally, the advance started only to be turned back by Confederate General Aphill's reinforcements that arrived in the late afternoon from Harpers Ferry. Many soldiers were buried quickly in and around the bridge in unmarked graves. Visitors at night have reported seeing balls of blue light moving around the sound of drum playing cadence as it fades into the night, apparitions of Civil War soldiers are seen, and unexplained noises have also been experienced here. Perhaps the Battle of Antietam is not over for some wrestle spirits at Pry House. Finally, we come to the Pry House, located overlooking the battlefield is the Philip Pry House, a brick farmhouse that was commandeered by General George McClellan to use as his headquarters during the battle. Shortly after the battle began, General Joseph Hooker was brought to the house with wounds that he received during the fighting. He was followed by General Israel B. Richardson, who died of painful abdominal wounds at the Pry House more than six weeks after the battle ended. The house today is owned by the National Park Service and is not open to visitors, although this has not stopped strange stories from being told about the place for many years. The house was simply used for storage, then in 1976, the Pry House caught fire, and about one-third of it was gutted. It was during the restoration of the house that many strange events were recorded. One day, during a meeting of Park personnel, the wife of one of the men in the meeting met a woman in old-fashioned clothing coming down the staircase. She asked her husband who the lady in the long dress was, but he had no idea who she was talking about. A short time later, workers arrived at the house to see a woman standing in the upper window, the same room where General Richardson had died. They searched the house, and after going upstairs, they realized the room where the woman had been standing had no floor. Could the apparition have been that of Richardson's wife, Francis, who cared for him on his deathbed? It would not be the last time the ghost was seen, and on one occasion, a new contracting crew had to be hired when the one working in the house caught a glimpse of the spectral figure and abandoned the project. Another piece of reported phenomena is that of phantom footsteps that have been heard going up and down the staircase; could they have belonged to worried Generals facing up and down in anticipation of battle, or perhaps to Fannie Richardson as she climbed the stairs to check on her dying husband? No one knows for sure, but those who have heard them are convinced they are not just the sounds of an old house settling. Thank you for joining us for the spooky look at Antietam, and remember, if you go to visit the battlefield, keep your eyes and your ears open, and make sure to bring your camera."
Figure 20. Ghosts of the Civil War: Antietam. Source: Hometown Ghost Stories, YouTube
"Hometown Ghost Stories contains serious and often distressing events and is not intended for all audiences. Viewer discretion is advised. Sharpsburg is a small town in the central panhandle of Maryland. It would otherwise be known as a quiet innocuous town had it not been for one of the deadliest days in American history. In 1862, the Confederate Army marched into Sharpsburg and engaged Union forces in the bloodiest single day of the entire Civil War. Now the town is haunted by the events of that fateful day; and ghosts of some of the soldiers who lost their lives there still linger behind. ... 1862. She sat there at the foot of the undisturbed bed. The empty room was exactly as he left it, but the atmosphere was different. The furniture seemed foreign now that the person who had lived there was gone. ... A chair at a desk suddenly looked so empty, as if it had never been sat in. The bed where she used to tuck in her little boy now seemed so unfamiliar, as if it had never been slept in. The deep lines in her face illustrated her despair, which was punctuated by a frown that looked as if it were carved from wood. ... In her hand was a crinkled piece of paper clutched so tightly that the knuckles turned white and trembled. The words on the paper cut through her like a razor. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. The letter had arrived less than an hour ago, and she knew what it said before she opened it. A mother's intuition. Although a mother, she was no more. Robbed of the one thing that made her who she was. The only thing in her life that she considered to be of intrinsic value. Gone. Ripped away. Her only son. And ?? young man at the age of 22, lying dead in a cornfield in Maryland among thousands of his brothers in arms. And the words on this paper were supposed to ease the pain. ... I pray that our Heavenly Father leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. She couldn't physically squeeze the letter any tighter. So in a gesture of frustration, she threw it to the floor, where it landed softly and harmlessly in a most unsatisfying manner. Just then, she felt a small hand on her shoulder, accompanied by a small voice, saying, "Don't cry, mama. I'm with God now." She turned and saw her son, but he wasn't the man he was when he went off to fight for the Union. He was a little boy again, his skin pale and his hair waving as if in a breeze, although there was none to speak of. He looked at her with sorrowful eyes and offered a solemn, thin air. ... The town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, was established in 1763 and was the first town in Washington County. The early residents of Sharpsburg in the 1760s were primarily of English and German extraction. Settlers continued to locate there throughout the remainder of the 18th century, establishing a flourishing commercial community. The town continued to grow throughout the 19th century with the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. But in 1862, the town of Sharpsburg would go ??e of the Civil War was fought by Antietam Creek. ... The two armies led by Generals George McLelen of the Union and Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy met on September 17th, 1862. Despite having many tactical advantages, General McLellen's overly cautious battle strategy led to the battle being a tactical draw, and both sides suffered mass casualties. ... Nearly 23,000 soldiers left the battlefield dead, wounded, or missing in what was by far the bloodiest day ever on American soil. ... The unprecedented loss of human life on that day has led to the area having a heavy feeling of melancholy and despair. ... And many visitors to the area have claimed paranormal experiences, some of which claiming to see the ghosts of the ... brave men who lost their lives on that fateful day. ... As Union soldiers stepped out onto the cornfield at dawn, September 17th, 1862, Confederate troops unleashed a horrific volley. The single bloodiest day in American history had begun in earnest. For the next 4 hours, the cornfield was the center of a storm of lead, iron, and flame as Federal soldiers from the First and 12th Corps clashed with Lee's men. ... The cornfield changed hands again and again as both sides attacked and counterattacked. ... One soldier remembered, "The air seems full of leaden missiles. Rifles are shot to pieces in the hands of soldiers. ...
Canteens and hersacks ?? are riddled with bullets, and the dead and wounded go down in scores. More than 25,000 soldiers fought in and around the cornfield. By 9:30 in the morning, thousands of them lay dead and dying. Confederate General John Bell Hood wrote, "It was here that I witnessed the most terrible clash of arms by far that has occurred during the war." Union General Joseph Hooker remembered that every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows
precisely as they stood in their ranks a few moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield. Recently, a class of boys from a private school took a field trip to the Antietam Battlefield, and they experienced something strange. The teacher, a Civil War expert, was perplexed by the boy's claim of hearing the chanting of a phantom Christmas Carol when they were near the watchtower at Bloody Lane. The teacher asked what Christmas Carol exactly, and the boys said it was Deck the Halls, specifically the Fal Laala part. The teacher's confusion turned to shock when he pieced together exactly what they were hearing. Bloody Lane is probably the most infamous site of the Antietam Battlefield. An estimated 5,500 men were killed or wounded in a three-and-a-half-hour midday battle for Snken Farm Road. ... It's a place known for courage, bravery, suffering, and death. Today, the dirt path with high banks is flanked by split rail fences and a few mounted markers. The banks are three to six ft higher than the dirt lane. The road was defended by 2200 Confederates from Alabama and North Carolina under General D.H. Hill, who held off approaching Union troops for nearly four hours. It was a heavyweight shootout at close range. ... The Union approach was 700 yards wide, and many troops were in combat for the first time. The Confederates had a strong defensive position in and around the Sunken Road. Union reinforcements arrived, including the Irish Brigade ?n in the attack. ...
This Brigade of Irishmen were volunteers who enlisted to fight for their adopted country in hopes to learn some battlefield skill to use later to liberate their own homeland. That day at Antietam, they were called on
to make a frontal assault on a strongly held Sunken Road bordered by a stout wooden fence. It was a naturally strong and defensive position fronting on an open field. It was over this open country without any protection and any support that the men of the Irish brigade were called on to attack. They charged forward, chanting a Gaelic Battle Cry, 'Faala,' meaning clear the way. Across an open field towards their enemies, hidden in the sunken road behind a zigzagging fence. They suffered terrible losses, and although the charge was unsuccessful, it gave other Federal units enough time to flank the Confederate position. Today, Bloody Lane is said to be haunted by the many soldiers who died there. Phantom gunshots accompanied by the smell of gunpowder have been reported despite no actual gunfire occurring. Several visitors to the battlefield have seen groups of men in Confederate uniforms, assuming they were reenactors, only to have them vanish into thin air. Most famously, however, are the reports of phantom Gaelic chanting from the ghosts of the 69th New York Brigade of Irishmen. Burnside Bridge was the spot of another bloody encounter during the battle. Union troops tried to force a crossing over Antietam Creek at the bridge and paid dearly for it. The troops could have easily forded the stream, but for some reason, General Burnside insisted on taking the bridge. The troops tried to funnel onto the bridge, but were mowed down by Confederate gunfire as they bottlenecked towards the entrance. Since then, there have been numerous visitors who have given eyewitness accounts of paranormal encounters. Many reports of seeing ghostly figures, others seeing strange blue balls of light, and still more have heard the sounds of a phantom drummer and other battle sounds there. The location of the Dunker Church on the Antietam Battlefield made it an important landmark because it was high on the ground in the center of the Confederate line. The Dunker Church was a visual reference point for both Confederates and Federals during the Battle of Antietam because its distinctive whitewashed walls stood out well in the geographical center of the battlefield. ... It was a foggy, rainy morning, and the smoke from the battle made it hard to identify the landmarks. Thomas Stonewal
Jackson's men were encamped behind the Dunker Church and along the Confederate line north and south of the church. ... Being at the center of the battle, the church was surrounded by violent death for the entire day. During and after the battle, it was used as a field hospital and for a time was the scene of a ghastly mass of the wounded and dying. Soldiers' limbs were hacked off by the score without anesthesia, and many were the men who died in agony there. Many visitors to the church have claimed to see phantom soldiers appearing and disappearing. Others have reported hearing the disembodied screams of dying men. And there are phantom blood stains on the floorboards that will appear and disappear at random. 1976. The Pry House. The night sky glowed orange as the flames raging from the blown-out windows licked the night air, transforming the black sky to a vibrant shade of purple. ... Sergeant McDana and his team were first on the scene, and he instructed his firefighters to hook up the hoses. Smoke was billowing out from beneath the roofing shingles, suggesting that the fire had reached all levels of the
house. "We need to clear the house to make sure nobody's inside," he barked at his team. McDana and three other firefighters approached the front door and attempted to open it, but it was stuck shut. They broke out the axes and chopped their way in. They could smell the smoke and burning wood through their masks, but couldn't see anything due to the thick black smoke that enveloped the entire interior of the house. As the team approached the stairs, McDana put his hand up and shouted for them to stop. A loud creaking emanated from the ceiling as McDana screamed to get out. The four firefighters scrambled for the front door as the second floor collapsed. Beams and chunks of plaster came crashing to the floor, but all four firefighters safely escaped the disaster. Deeming the structure too dangerous to send anyone in, the team of firefighters battled the conflagration with fire hoses from outside. ...
A young firefighter from a neighboring town approached McDana in a panic and pointed to the second-floor window. The window was glowing orange, but no flames were coming from it. There's a woman in that room. She just walked by the window, the young man excitedly explained. McDana focused on the window with a look of confusion. That's impossible, he explained. I was just in there. There's no floor in that room. The Pry House served as Union General George Mclellen's headquarters during the September 17th, 1862, Battle of Antietam. As casualties mounted on the bloodiest day in American history, the Pry Farmhouse and barn became a field hospital. Union General Israel
Richardson was gravely wounded and taken to an upstairs room of the house. He lingered near death for over a month. His wife, Francis, made the trip down from Michigan to help care for her husband, but with her by his side, Richardson expired in November. Both General Richardson as well as his wife, Francis, are said to haunt the Pry House. During the fire of 1976, Firefighters witnessed her apparition walking past a window. Initially, concerned it was a person trapped in the fire, they were shocked to realize that there was no floor in that room, and a person simply could not, have been walking around in there. A few weeks later, during renovations to repair the fire damage, passersby also
witnessed a woman walking around on the second floor. To their surprise, they also learned that there was still no second floor, and it was impossible for someone to have been walking by that window. Some visitors to the house, which is now a museum, have complained of an inexplicable feeling of panic and anxiety. ... Paranormal enthusiasts believe this could be the disembodied emotions of Union soldiers who occupied the house in the days leading up to the battle. The Battle of Antietam will forever be remembered by its sheer brutality, a tactical draw that left both armies decimated. Although both sides attempted
to spin it as a victory, Lee and his army were able to escape back into Virginia without being pursued, and Lincoln used the battle as the catalyst to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, sealing the fate of the Confederacy by d????ng European countries to come to their aid. The loss of life on that rainy September day was unprecedented, and the subsequent despair that followed has lingered for over 160 years now. The blood-soaked ground where thousands lost their lives remains haunted by the ghosts of Antietam. ... the bloodiest single-day battle. So, Gettysburg went on for three days, and Antietam went on for one day. And there wasn't one single day in Gettysburg that saw as much death as Antietam saw. So, that's why you get the uh the two um figures there that can be kind of confusing. ... And Antietam was the first battle that took place on Union ground. So, that's why there was a much larger missing person figure. ... So the other part of that missing person's figure, we also mentioned this in the Gettysburg episode, was from Canister Shot. And this is incredibly disturbing. So, Canister Shot was something ... that they would load into the cannons instead of cannonballs, and it would basically act like a shotgun blast, a bunch of small, little marbles that would come out, and if it hit a person, it would completely liquefy them. So there would be no remains, there would be nothing left. ... So, there's a few locations on this battlefield that are pretty haunted, and I liked all of them. I think my favorite one was the favorite story was the Irishmen, right? And uh, they had the it was the New York Brigade from Ireland. Well, they weren't from Ireland, they were from New York, but most of them were most of them were from Ireland. And I think there was like 600 or 700 altogether. And I think 500 of them end up dying on Bloody Lane. And they went in, they went into battle crying their battle cry, which was 'Fa-abala.' And that's one of the hauntings that you can experience if you go to this area. And I thought that story with the school kids was pretty cool because you get a trip full of kids, and they're just hanging out in the area. And they all start complaining or just start mentioning that they heard like a phantom Christmas Carol. And the teacher's like, "What are you talking about? Christmas Carol?" They're like, "Yeah, 'Fa-abala." And he's like, "That's so weird." He's like, "That's really weird." And then he thought about it, and he's like, "Oh my God, that's the Battle Cry of the New York Regiment of Irishmen that was singing 'Fa-abala." And turns out that's actually a common haunting in that area. Think people hear the disembodied voices of those Irish men calling out 'Fa-abala." That's got to be terrifying as a child. Well, I guess it sounds like they didn't even think it was a haunting, right? They just thought they heard somebody singing. They weren't sure where it was coming from. And then to uncover that, you're not sleeping for the next six to eight years, and you're going to therapy. No, I know. Seriously. But in fairness, I mean, if it's the kids and they think they hear a Christmas carol, then that's not nearly as scary. It all depends on, again, we've talked about this before. It all depends on how it's being sung. Moving on. So, Bloody Lane is haunted by this uh 'Fa-abala." ghost. And also, this is another So, a lot of the hauntings at Antietam are pretty similar to the hauntings at Gettysburg. You get disembodied gunshots. You have disembodied cannon fire, the smell of gunpowder, and gunsmoke. When reenactments aren't going on. So, obviously, if there's a reenactment going on, you're going to expect to experience those things. But when people are there at night, and none of that stuff's going on, you would not
expect to experience those things. So that is true. It stresses me out a little bit that you keep seeing, saying disembodied when there was cannons that were liquefying people. Yeah. No, seriously. And another haunting that happens on Bloody Lane is several men in Confederate uniforms will just appear, and they walk the Bloody Lane, and then they disappear, and people will see that, and they just start handing out Christmas gifts. ... I wonder if ... like just because you've had that experience there, it's always in your mind if you, if you're actually brought back there to haunt the area, even though you survived that specific situation. I don't think it's relegated to just the people that died. I think it could be anyone that was was there, you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. And there was a couple of hauntings in Antietam that were not from soldiers who died. It was from people who died later on, and we'll get to that when we talk about the Pry House. But first, I want to talk about Burnside Bridge, aka Roarback Bridge. ... But that's actually a great point was the real reason a lot of the Union soldiers were Irish, was because as soon as mass migration from Ireland happened at the same time the Civil War was happening and then he also brought up that they were basically getting Shanghaied and this is true. Basically Ireland, they would get no, not necessarily, but they would come over while migrating, and as soon as they get off the boat, they were just signing them right up to be, to fight for the Union. I think you saw this in Gangs of New York. ... Yeah. They had that exact scene in there where they're just off the boat and all right by family, I got to go fight for the Union, and some of them, you know, a lot of them never saw their families again. That was just it for them. So kind of reverse Shanghai, ... also known as Roarback Bridge. It was called Roarback before this battle, and then ever since the battle has been referred to as Burnside Bridge. ... So, General Ambrose Burnside pushed the Confederates back eventually after many defeated attempts. And the reason that he ended up being successful was the 51st Pennsylvania Regiment. And the reason for them fighting was really entertaining. So, previously, this regiment had their whiskey rations taken away for abusing it, and they weren't pumped about that. So meanwhile, they're now they're now they're at this battle, and they're trying to push back the Confederate forces. And just a side note, this was so lopsided. This was like the battle of the movie "300," where you had like an army of like a million go against 300, but "The 300" were in this little area. So the big army had to bottleneck to get to them, and they just picked them off in small amounts, which is pretty much exactly what happened here. The Confederates had about 400 people defending this bridge, and Burnside had thousands of guys trying to capture the bridge. So they had sharpshooters that were perched out back, and they just had a couple of cannons, and they were just wiping people out as they tried to get across the bridge. ... So, um, at the battle of or at the Burnside Bridge, there was so much death that many of the soldiers were just buried really quickly and they were buried in unmarked graves around the bridge. And it's presumed that a lot of those bodies are still probably buried there cuz like although after the fact they did exume a whole bunch and bury them in cemeteries, you have to assume they probably didn't get to all of them. ... There's no way. So that's there's no way. So that's why people assume that this bridge is haunted. And visitors at night have reported seeing these balls of blue light moving around, and the sound of a phantom drum, a phantom drum playing the cadence as it fades into the night. Yeah, you can definitely assume that, that I mean obviously with this amount of death in one spot, there's plenty of reasons for this whole area to be haunted, and whenever you have situations like that, it can actually absolutely happen. .., so uh Burnside Bridge, that's the that's that haunting there. And then we have the Dunker Church, which was pretty much at the center of the battlefield. So this, this church building, which stood throughout the battle, saw all of the death that occurred at this battle, basically because it all happened around this church. It's all pretty close proximity. You had the cornfield on one side, you had Sunken Road ... on another side, then you had the Antietam Creek, and everything kind of just happened with this church being the center point, and it was also a hospital. So you also had plenty of death that happened inside as well, right? Yep. So during the battle, and after the battle ended up being a field hospital. Somebody in chat said that pretty much anything with a roof ended up being a field hospital, which is 100% true because there was so much, so many casualties at this battle at every battle at the Civil War that they just had to make use of every single building and structure and turn them into hospitals. And a lot of time, both sides ... of the armies would be in those field hospitals. It wouldn't always exclusively be for the Union or the Confederacy. They would just kind of get whoever they could get in, get them in there just to do what they could for them, which was not much. ... Yah, absolutely. And now the ... Civil War is so unique in that sense because these guys were all members of the Army together ... before ... they divided into separate factions, right? So you got Generals who were just Generals of the United States Army, that some went off to fight for the South, some went off to fight for the North. These, a lot of these guys probably knew each other and knew each other pretty well. So it's not like any other war where you're fighting against a foreign enemy. You're fighting with your Brothers, right? Yeah. So that's kind of, you know, you wonder if it were the other way around and they were fighting a foreign enemy, if they would have shared hospitals like that. Possibly not. Yeah, that's a good, that's a valid point. I would assume not. Although there are other instances of that happening, too. So, it's not a completely foreign concept, but it just happened much more during this particular war. Yeah, for sure. But one of the hauntings at this church now are the Phantom Blood Stains that appear on the floor. And I always find this so interesting because it's not the first time we've heard of a haunting like this. I'm sure it won't be the last, but it's so different from other hauntings, right? If you subscribe to theories that ghosts are energy that's left behind, and whatever, whether you think it's ... an intelligent Spirit or if you think it's a uh just a repeat thing. Yeah. Residual haunting. What is this? What are ... Phantom Blood Stains? Is it paranormal, or is it just something else? Yeah. Along ... with the Phantom Blood Stains, you know, other Ghost Debris. I guess you would call it, like Ectoplasm and stuff like that. ... I like the idea of just calling it Ghost Debris. That's a fun, fun fact, little term that you just came up with there. I like that. There's Ghost Debris all over the house. I got to clean up before we go. Yeah. So, I didn't know what else to call it because you ... think of Ectoplasm, you think of the blood that we've seen, um, some other, you know, things. It's we'll lump it together as Ghost Debris. Yeah. Well, in like in demonic hauntings, right? And this obviously I don't think is one of those, but in certain demonic hauntings that we've seen in the past, you might get visuals of blood dripping from a statue or ... walls like we saw that in uh Jess, an episode you covered recently, Jesse, with the blood dripping down the walls from the attic. The um was it the entity house? No, the other one. No, it was the ... one that I did that was really similar to the entity house. Forget. But uh yeah. Yeah, that was weird because it was photos of him as well. Yeah. Which is crazy. But this ... seems more like blood stains from that era that just either never went away or they just reappear for whatever reason. I think it's pretty strange. But the church also sees apparitions of soldiers that appear and disappear, freak people out, and all sorts of scary things like that. So this is one of the most haunted areas of the battlefield. ... But that will take back too because it's ... just saw so much. Yeah. Not even so like it saw all the death right from the battle. And it also saw all of the negative energy from the trauma after the battle. All of the just the amputations and everything. Just a must have been a ton of negative energy in that building. And it's a pretty small building, too. So, as far as hauntings go, I assume that one's a pretty serious one. Pretty concentrated. Oh, Tess brings it up. It was the San Pedro house. Absolutely. Oh, yep. Exactly. Yep. Thank you for the assisted, Tess. So, that takes us to the Pry House. Now the Pry House was where General McClullen had his headquarters, and that's where he sat
for pretty much the entire war, where he observed from the attic. There was a little hatch door that he's able to pop his head out of ... and you could ... make the argument that he was a coward cuz he didn't, he sat there with a large bulk of the Army. The entire Union Army didn't even fight in this battle. A lot of them hung back at the Pry House, and he just refused to send reinforcements when they were requested. He had General Hooker asking for ... reinforcements when he was getting mowed down in the cornfields. And the cornfields are so scary to think about because you can't see your enemy. You can't see where the bullets are coming from. You got to shoot at the sound of the gunshots and hope you're not shooting at your own people, which happened. ... Which happened. Yeah, it was just bullets flying everywhere. And then there was that one quote where one of the Generals said that all the corn husks just got cut as if they were cut with a knife, and the whole field was mowed down. Someone said there was so much blood in the cornfield they were afraid the next crop was going to be red corn. So horrifying situation. Meanwhile, McClellan's sitting up at Pry House, and the ... his Generals are asking for reinforcements, and he says no, I don't think that would be prudent, and didn't send them. So what was he then? ... What was he doing the whole time? He was ... so, he was this is how he ... was a Defensive General. He was overly cautious. He refused to send reinforcements, ... but always requested reinforcements. He just didn't want to ever get ... I think he was just afraid of just getting smoked. So he was just, he just played super defensive. This battle should have been a blowout win for the Union, and it wasn't. But this is another house, the Pry House, which ended up being a field hospital. And when General Israel Richardson was mortally wounded, they took him back there, and they called his wife, who was out in Michigan, and she ended up making the trek down to Antietam to help nurse her husband back to health after the battle, obviously, but he didn't end up making it, and he died. So
now this house sat for a century, and it was abandoned for a long time until there was a mysterious fire in 1976, and that's when the hauntings started. There weren't really any hauntings that were reported from this house before then, like between the battle, and maybe that was because the house was abandoned. Nobody was abandoned. No one's there to report it, or the fire stirred up the energy in the house and stirred up the hauntings. So those are two theories there. So after the fire, what happened? Did they renovate and turn it into a museum after that? Exactly. So, it took a fire for them to be like, you know, this should be a museum. Well, I think it took the fire for them to be like, oh, this is a historic house. We should restore it rather than knocking it down. And then I think that's probably what they did. But you think they just now, I agree. I think all buildings historical should be preserved. Keep those buildings. Mhm. Don't knock them down. But you think the fire would have done the opposite, right? Where they're before the fire, they're like, "Oh, we hate this building." After the fire. Like, actually, that reminds me, let's put a lot of money into this thing. Like, it's gonna cost way more to do it. It's a call of action that happens with all of these buildings. The house right across the street from me right now, it's been sitting there decaying. It's a nightmare. And all of a sudden, they finally have set these plans up to ... knock it down. And now, the entire town is rallying. We have to save this house. Someone has to buy it. Someone has to restore it. You had 30 years to do it. ... They really wanted to save it. They would obviously light it on fire. Yeah, you got to light it on fire first. But you have to ... fine. Please, for the love of God, Rob, go to a Town Meeting and present that idea. ... If we want to save it, we have to set it on fire first. This happened. I just, I just let the document ?? So, uh, so this fire in
1976, which led to the hauntings, led to a pretty eerie haunting. Now, there's no evidence or anything that suggests that it's a malevolent haunting or a negative one, but it's eerie nonetheless. And it
started during the fire when that Crew of Firefighters was trying to put out the flames, and they thought they saw somebody walking around on the second floor, and they were like, "Oh my God, there's somebody up there. We got to get them out." But the FF who was just in there said, "No, no, there is no second floor. You did not see anybody walking around up there. That is impossible. Eerie. Right now, you could write that off as saying, "Okay, he just saw like the there's flames. There's shadows. Who knows what he saw? It could have been nothing." But you fast-forward
to the renovation, and multiple people saw the same apparition on different occasions. There were passers-by who were walking by the house that said they saw somebody walking around up there. ... And the Crew who was renovating the house also said that they saw somebody walking around on the second floor and then found out that there was no [second] floor and it was impossible. That Crew quit. ... Yeah, I can imagine. And they didn't go back into the house cuz they were so freaked out. ... because you see these things when there's renovations inside the house. It's just so crazy that there wasn't a [second] floor. Also, if the building is engulfed in flames, no one's just strolling by the window. They're jumping out that window, just walking around the house on fire. Well, I also think this goes back to some of the other hauntings we've covered in the past that we ... think sound funny, but we've talked about seeing apparitions and only half their body, right? Like in certain spots. And I think it could be sort of something like this. Just because the building doesn't exist there anymore doesn't mean or parts of the building doesn't mean that's not where the residual haunting is happening, right? Because that's where the floor was, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago. So, sometimes it comes out looking a little funny or sounding funny. Actually, would be terrifying to see or it's as terrifying as this one, where a house is on fire, there's no [second] floor, and yet someone is still standing in the window staring out at you. Yeah. It's the same idea as when you see a ghost walk through a wall in a house,
right? And you say, you say, "Well, that's weird. The ghosts can walk through the wall. Ghosts must be since they're see-through and transparent, must mean they can walk through walls, maybe." But another theory is that when houses get renovated, you might put up a
wall where there wasn't a wall before, and now that ghost is just going through its repetition, and where there used to be a doorway, now there isn't, and it walks through the wall. Yep. Yep. Same thing with uh Elvis Presley's car situation, right? That was something. Mhm. Yeah. It used to just looked like it was driving into ... like a wall or something, but there used to be a garage there. So, good call. I think it's ... Sorry for the Elvis Truthers. Obviously, he's still alive. He's doing fine, and we apologize for mentioning it again. He's going to live another hundred years, actually, from what I understand. Yep. He's doing fine. But yeah, that's Antietam. The battle was uh brutal, bloody, and I think it was actually the most, the most Americans lost in one battle ever to this day. I believe in one day, right? In one day. ... Yes. In one day. ... We've already pissed off the
Elvis people. I know. You really want to piss off the Civil War um, people because I think you've actually done ... a great job with the Civil War. ...
Unfortunately, I don't think there's any side. I don't think there's any Civil War people left. I think they all aged out. ... Elvis long. The only one. Elvis the only one. Elvis was in the Civil War. Yeah, that's ... that's what we need right now. He's alive, and he's a Civil War Truther. ... So many of those. ... "Now, where's Gettysburg?" Oh God. If we didn't piss off the ...
Civil War folks, they're pissed off now. All right. That's not what I meant. ..." End of video Transcripts. This author skipped their "Fire Star Reviews."
Could it have been the action bias - a cognitive bias that causes people to favor action over inaction without properly considering the potential consequences of this?
Figure 21. The Ghosts of Gettysburg Volumes I - VIII: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefieldbook cover. Source: Mark Nesbitt.
"The first volume in the 'Ghosts of Gettysburg' book series was released in October 1991. Mr. Nesbitt started collecting ghost stories from Gettysburg in the early 1960s. In the 1970s, he worked as a Park Ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park and was assigned to live in some of the historic houses on the Park. His collection of ghost stories grew. As long as visitors to the Gettysburg area continue to share their 'ghostly' experiences, Mr. Nesbitt will continue to add to the 'Ghosts of Gettysburg' book series." (Gettysburg Heritage Center and Museum)
Figure 22. More Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefieldbook cover. Source: Mark Nesbitt.
Oct. 2005, book reviewer comment: "Since my first trip to Gettysburg, I have always been drawn back to that hallowed ground. There is indeed a spirit about the place, and whether it is ghostly spirits, awe born of the sacrifices made there, or a combination of the two, Gettysburg is a mystical place. Mark Nesbitt is a former Park Service employee who was stationed at Gettysburg and had several odd experiences during his tenure. His experiences, along with those of his fellow Park employees, convinced the Ohio native that Gettysburg was a very haunted place. With that in mind, Nesbitt started to collect ghost stories, and his collection soon led to this book and its predecessor. There seems to be no lack of material to be found in this place where so many died such horrible deaths in July of 1863. Mr. Nesbitt does an excellent job of providing his readers with eyewitness accounts, the single most important facet of a book like this. All of the accounts given are backed up by at least one other person's experiences, and all of the accounts are of a recent nature. He also hits a good balance between exploring the history and possible origin of the haunt and telling the story of the people who have recently experienced the ghost. ..."
Figure 23. Ghosts of Gettysburg & Other Hauntings of the East book cover. Source: Suzanne Garbe, Edge Books
Wikipedia sources: "Tales of ghosts from the American Civil War have been popularly shared since its end. Among the locales that have become known for Civil War ghost stories are the Sharpsburg battlefield near Sharpsburg, Maryland; the Chickamauga battlefield in Georgia; Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; Buras, Louisiana; and Warren, Arkansas.[1] ... Gettysburg Main article: Reportedly haunted locations in Pennsylvania
The Battle of Gettysburg was the largest battle in North America. It has many ghost stories. The Soldiers' Orphanage cellar is said to make psychics too afraid to enter the house, due to its legend.[2] The Herr Tavern was built in 1815, but during the battle it was used as the first Confederate hospital at Gettysburg, where amputations often resulted in limbs being thrown out through the window to be collected later, only for many of the soldiers to die afterward. As a result, four of the guest rooms are said to be haunted, and the rooms are numbered so that there is no room 13.[3] ... The interest in ghosts and Gettysburg remains to the present day. In recent times, people have claimed to have seen ghost soldiers, and sometimes even ghost battles, in many places around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, [4] Eight separate companies offer ghost tours in Gettysburg—some seasonally, and some all year.[5] ... A book, Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefield,[6] by Mark Nesbitt, detailed the reports of ghostly apparitions in the area where the Battle of Gettysburg took place in July 1863. ... Other battlefields - A battle did not need to be major for ghosts stories to be made about it. A farmhouse in northern Georgia is claimed to be haunted by a ghost associated with The Battle of Kolb Farm.[citation needed]
One of the bloodiest battles was the Battle of Sharpsburg. Tales of Union and Confederate ghost sightings exist, that are reportedly seen placing and firing at each other with artillery on the battlefield. ... The Beauregard-Keyes House in New Orleans is said to be haunted by the ghost of Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard and an entire regiment of ghost soldiers reenacting the Battle of Shiloh, perhaps Beauregard's worst defeat and a battle that took place 415 miles away in southwest Tennessee.[12]
Fort Davidson Battlefield in Pilot Knob, Missouri is said to have some activity such as hearing cannons going off in the middle of the night, and spirits and shadows of soldiers walking or running by. This has been confirmed by multiple Civil War reenactors.[citation needed] ... The Rossborough Inn on the University of Maryland campus is said to be haunted by a Confederate soldier who camped on the college grounds, a man who lost a duel in front of the Inn, and most famously, Miss Bettie, who managed the Inn during the Civil War.[13] The Inn served as the headquarters of Confederate Army General Bradley Tyler Johnson and his cavalry brigade in 1864, while the nearby campus was occupied by both Union and Confederate soldiers.[14]"
Notes
Ogden p.228
Hertzog p. 97
Hertzog pp. 43,44
Ogden p. 228,229
Hertzog p. 98
Nesbitt, Mark (January 1991). Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions and Haunted Places of the Battlefield. Thomas Publications. ISBN 978-0-939631-41-4.
Scott p. 70
Ogden p. 181, Scott p. 70,71
Ogden pp. 181,182,227
Belanger, Jeff. The World's Most Haunted Places: From the Secret Files of Ghostvillage.com. New York: Career Press, 2004. ISBN 1-56414-764-9
Scott p. 70
Scott pp.116, 117
Reporter, Freelance (2019-10-31). "Fearless ideas and fearful locations: How ghost stories explain campus history - The Diamondback". dbknews.com. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
Varhola, Michael J.; Varhola, Michael H. (2009). Ghosthunting Maryland. Cincinnati, Ohio: Clerisy Press. pp. 140–143. ISBN 978-1-57860-414-2.
Literature
Coleman, Christopher K. Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War (Nashville: Routledge Hill Press, 1998).
Coleman, Christopher K. The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2012).
Nesbitt, Mark Ghosts of Gettysburg Vols. I-VIII (Gettysburg: self published).
Roberts, Nancy Civil War Ghosts and Legends (Columbia, SC: Univ. SC Press, 1992).
References
Hertzog, Kate (2006). Insiders' Guide to Gettysburg. Globe Pequot. ISBN 0-7627-3786-7.
Ogden, Tom (1999). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings. Alpha Books. ISBN 0-02-863659-7.
Okonowicz, Ed (2007). Haunted Maryland: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Old Line State. Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-3409-7.
Scott, Beth (2007). Haunted America. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7653-1967-8.
Figure 24. Frightful Realities of the Civil War image Source: American Battlefield Trust
"October is the season for ghost stories, but sometimes reality is even more chilling. There are grim truths and gory details from the Civil War that may sound like the stuff of horror films, but for many Americans during our nation’s defining conflict, they were reality. ... When the Cure Is Worse than the Disease. ... Fortunately for the wounded and sick, the “heroic era” of bloodletting, purging, and blistering to rebalance the humors of the body was on its way out by the time of the Civil War. Still, toxic "remedies" like mercury, lead acetate, and turpentine were commonly used to treat illness. In 1863, Union Surgeon General William Hammond attempted to remove calomel, a mercury-based compound, from standard military medical kits but lost his position instead. The approximately 50,000 amputations performed during the Civil War might seem like another extreme cure, but medical historians agree that, in fact, (amputations are something Civil War medicine got right). ... The Invisible Assassin. The deadliest killers in the Civil War wouldn’t be identified until after the fighting was over. While germ theory was in the works at the time, it was in its early stages and virtually unknown to medical practitioners in the field. Poor sanitation and hygiene in camps and hospitals meant that (illnesses like dysentery, typhoid fever, pneumonia, mumps, measles and tuberculosis) were more dangerous to soldiers than their human foes. For every three soldiers killed in battle, five died of disease. ... Agony in the Aftermath. Many soldiers who survived battle faced a host of horrors in the aftermath. Hypothermia. Hunger. A night spent alone among the dead (or fighting off wild hogs as in one account from Gettysburg) on newly hallowed ground while officers negotiated arrangements for recovering their casualties. Capture and imprisonment in (overcrowded, disease-ridden prison camps). Bones shattered by Minie ball bullets. Phantom limb syndrome. Many wounded Civil War soldiers succumbed to their injuries well after the fighting was over – and those who didn't often faced a long and painful recovery process. ... The Sheer Magnitude. It's hard to overstate (the devastation of the Civil War). About 2% of all Americans alive at the time, (an estimated 620,000 soldiers), lost their lives in the line of duty. That figure is more than the combined total of Americans who died in WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam and Korean Wars. One in four soldiers who left home to fight in the war never returned. The young nation lacked the institutions and infrastructure to cope with so much death and destruction. Both North and South would struggle (to honor and bury the dead), take care of the wounded, locate the missing, and comprehend so much loss." Source: American Battlefield Trust - Frightful Realities of the Civil War. Head-Tilting History. (American Battlefield Trust) Sept. 7, 2023.
"To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things, From those who leave the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice in doing evil,
And delight in the perversity of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, And who are devious in their paths."
Proverbs 2:12-15 (NKJV)
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
David Hume
"In Stasis" refers to a state of equilibrium or balance where opposing forces are equal and cancel each other out, resulting in motionlessness or stagnation. Consider this linked UK Christianity Premier Christian Magazine website post by Arnold, M., Sept. 2021 titled "Ghosts, haunted houses and bumps in the night,": What the Bible really says about all things spooky. "Scripture sometimes uses the metaphor ‘sleep’ for death (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). Some claim this shows the dead are inactive. However, this ignores the power of the metaphor. Sleepers still exist in the same way that someone in the grave still exists; they have a state of awareness, but one that the awake are unable to access. Modern technology reveals our brain’s incredible activity, even while asleep. Rather than unconscious existence, this metaphor opens the idea that the dead are conscious in a way that was not obvious to previous generations. ... Having shown that there is a biblical case for a conscious intermediate state for the departed, where could it be? Science now reveals that we exist in 3D – three spatial dimensions – plus one time dimension. And many believe that this is only part of further dimensions that exist within the universe. ... The thousands of reports of near-death experiences (NDEs), where those experiencing them see the everyday world from an unseen vantage point, suggest that our consciousness may provide a ‘telescope’ into at least one dimension outside of our normal, everyday existence. Rather than dismissing NDEs because they do not fit our preconceived interpretations of the afterlife, could we use them as an interpretive lens for scriptures such as Elijah’s servant seeing the heavenly army (2 Kings 6:17), Stephen’s vision of the open heaven (Acts 7:55), Paul’s “third heaven” visit (2 Corinthians 12) and the great “cloud of witnesses” referenced in Hebrews 12:1? ... The thousands of reports of near-death experiences (NDEs), where those experiencing them see the everyday world from an unseen vantage point, suggest that our consciousness may provide a ‘telescope’ into at least one dimension outside of our normal, everyday existence. Rather than dismissing NDEs because they do not fit our preconceived interpretations of the afterlife, could we use them as an interpretive lens for scriptures such as Elijah’s servant seeing the heavenly army (2 Kings 6:17), Stephen’s vision of the open heaven (Acts 7:55), Paul’s “third heaven” visit (2 Corinthians 12) and the great “cloud of witnesses” referenced in Hebrews 12:1? ... JESUS DID NOT CHALLENGE THE CULTURAL BELIEFS THE DISCIPLES HAD REGARDING GHOSTS AS SPIRITS OF THE DEAD All of these reasons are found in the cultures in which the New Testament was birthed and in which the disciples lived. Twice Jesus could have informed us that ghosts do not exist: first in Matthew 14:22-33, where the disciples see Jesus walking on the water and think he’s a ghost and again in Luke 24:36-43, where Jesus appears to the disciples and says that he is not a ghost. On neither occasion does he take the opportunity to challenge the cultural beliefs the disciples had regarding ghosts as spirits of the dead. ... Apparitions may appear for a variety of reasons, and although scripture forbids initiating contact with the dead, it endorses testing communications received from them, and their fruit. ... With a fresh look at the biblical evidence suggesting that ghosts may exist, taken alongside the thousands of reports of claimed encounters with them, and today’s science suggesting the existence of other dimensions, it seems that the world really could be much stranger than we thought."
Another relevant website, Bibleinfo, titled "Ghosts: Are they real?" notes: "The Bible refers to ghosts or spirits of the dead as “familiar spirits” and warns us against having anything to do with them. (see Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:11; 2 Kings 21:6; Isaiah 8:19). ... If people die with unfinished business to care for, do they become ghosts and haunt the places and people they knew in life? It’s in the Bible, Psalm 146:4, ESV. "When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.” ... Can the dead talk with the living? ... “For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6, NKJV.) ... What does the Bible say about communicating with "familiar spirits", or ghosts? It’s in the Bible, Isaiah 8:19, NASB. “And when they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter.’ Should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?” In verse 20 of the King James Version the Bible goes on to say, “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” What does the Bible say about those who communicate with familiar spirits? It's in the Bible, Leviticus 19:31, NKJV. "Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God." ... Are ghosts real? Ghosts are real, but they are not angels from God or our dead loved ones. They are fallen angels trying to deceive us. It’s in the Bible, Ephesians 6:11-12, KJV. "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." ... It’s in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, NIV. "And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve." ... Do good people become angels when they die? God’s angels are heavenly beings, not spirits of dead humans. Angels have existed before humans were created. It’s in the Bible, Psalm 8:4-5, NKJV. “What is man that You [Lord] are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.” ... There are evil spirits in this world that are the fallen angels who followed Satan in rebellion against God. It’s in the Bible, Revelation 12:9, NKJV. "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." ... Should we be afraid of ghosts? We do not have to be afraid of Satan and his impersonations of the living and the dead, if we give our hearts to Jesus and stay away from all satanic activities such as séances, ouija boards, and other activities of spiritism. It’s in the Bible, 1 John 4:1,4, NKJV. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God. . . You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” It's in the Bible, James 4:7-8, NKJV. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” ... God’s angels guide and protect us; they do not hurt us, play tricks on us, or lie to us. It's in the Bible, Psalm 91:9-11, NKJV. “For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” ... If we are true to Jesus and obey Him by faith, we do not need to be afraid of Satan’s power. It's in the Bible, Luke 10:19, NKJV. “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." ... It's in the Bible, Romans 8:31, NKJV. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” It's in the Bible, Romans 8:38-39, NIV. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Ariz. firefighters changing locations when they died. Dennis Wagner, USA Today, Updated July 24, 2013, 11:48 a.m. ET "YARNELL, Ariz. — The small plot of scorched earth lies amid a fire-blackened moonscape, yet visiting this death site transforms an abstract statistic — 19 firefighter deaths — into an image of agony. ... Here, in a box canyon about 65 miles northwest of Phoenix, the Granite Mountain Hotshots realized that flames had trapped them. Here, in a tangle of scrub oak, bear grass and agave, they tried to escape beneath emergency blankets. ... Here, within view of the community, the heat and smoke became too much. A firestorm melted protective shelters, cracked granite boulders and incinerated every living thing. ... During a tour Tuesday of the Yarnell Hill Fire fatality scene, the first public viewing since the June 30 tragedy, authorities offered new revelations about how the Prescott, Ariz.-based crew became trapped. They said questions about key safety protocols were irrelevant because the hotshots had been changing locations, rather than attacking the wildfire, when they were overcome. Thus, the men had no lookout, no planned escape route or safety zone. ... But beyond details of what may have happened and why, this hallowed ground is a place of pain and honor, planned as a future memorial. ... "The horror is incredible," Jerry Payne, Arizona's deputy state forester, said as another firefighter knelt beside a hotshot's shirt draped over the charred remains of a prickly-pear cactus. "I'm sickened. And I'm saddened for 10 widows," said Darrell Willis, division chief with the Prescott Fire Department. "I don't want them to have died in vain." ... Jim Paxon, a spokesman for the Arizona State Forestry Division, shook his head slowly. ... "There are a number of whys and whats and what-ifs that you just have to realize we cannot answer," he said. "Those answers died with the crew." Nevertheless, authorities offered the first clear, public account of what they believe transpired that Sunday. They said the Granite Mountain Hotshots had been cutting fire lines along a ridge more than a mile to the north, attempting to flank a relatively calm blaze, when winds picked up. Willis, who helped found the nation's only municipal hotshot team, said the Granite Mountain members fought and died as one. ... The crew's spotter, Brendan McDonough, was forced to leave his lookout post and use an escape route, joining the nearby Blue Ridge Hotshots before reaching safety in Yarnell. ... Meanwhile, the Granite Mountain team led by Eric Marsh, a veteran superintendent, abandoned efforts to cut a fire line and climbed along a ridge road to a point where Yarnell was visible to the east. Willis and Payne said the hotshots at that point could have safely hiked to an area that the fire previously blackened, but instead began descending a saddle into what would become the valley of death. ... Although weather alerts had been issued and received, Willis said he is convinced that the men were not yet scrambling for safety. Instead, he believes they were moving down to save a ranch house and other buildings at the base of the bowl-shaped valley. ... "Their goal is life and property — to protect that," Willis said. "There's a lot of talk about risk management. (But) the job of wildland firefighting is inherently dangerous. ... It was a judgment that they made." ... As the men struggled down a steep, chaparral-choked slope — probably around 4 p.m. MST — prevailing winds kicked up and reversed direction. A thunderstorm generated severe gusts. The fire's flank became its head. Flames surged 4 miles in just 20 minutes. ... The hotshots had no lookout at that point, and they could not see the blowup because surrounding hills obstructed the view. ... Willis and Payne said they believe flames hooked around the men via nearby canyons while sky-borne embers were blown overhead and to the east, igniting spot fires. In a matter of minutes, their only escape was cut off. The men faced a wall of flame moving at 12 mph.
... "This was the most extreme fire behavior I'd ever witnessed," Willis said. "They had fire on both sides of them. They had fire behind them. And they had fire ahead of them." ... Payne and Willis said evidence shows the men began cutting brush and small trees with chain saws, trying to create a safe clearing for themselves. In a radio transmission, they announced plans to set a backfire — a defensive blaze that would be sucked toward the main fire, creating a buffer of safety. ... Then came a final communication: Hotshots were deploying emergency shelters. Willis, who helped found the nation's only municipal hotshot team, said the Granite Mountain members fought and died as one.
"The voice of what actually happened, we'll never know," he said. "I can tell you they died with honor. They stuck together."
The bodies were found in a slight swale amid a scattering of blackened stones and charred plants — an area now surrounded with fence.
Willis rejected any second-guessing about decisions or safety procedures. As wildfires evolve, he said hotshots adjust their locations and tactics. It is not unusual during those transitions to move without a lookout, and it is impossible to have established escape routes or safety zones." ... "I would have gone with that crew blindfolded," Willis said. "It's a risky business, but they don't take undue risks. You can call it an accident. I just think God had a different plan for those men." ... An investigative team is expected to complete a detailed report on the fire fatalities in late August or early September. ... In the meantime, Payne said, "The hardest part about all of this for me is what can we learn? Can we help other firefighters in the future?" ...The report detailed meticulous steps taken to protect the firefighters' bodies until they could be moved to Phoenix for autopsies the next day and the efforts to preserve and collect evidence for use in reconstructing how and why the men died. ... Among other things, the report noted that "all or most of the shelters appeared to have been deployed," but that some men were found outside shelters. It is likely that the violent firestorm tore some shelters from their occupants. ... A Phoenix Fire Department chaplain said prayers over each of the fallen firefighters as their bodies were carried away from the scene in pairs to waiting medical examiners' vans, according to the report. ... "Throughout the process all the remains of the firefighters were treated professionally, and with the care, dignity and honor that each of these heroes deserved," it said."
Figure 25. Univ. of VA psychiatrist Dr. Ian Stevenson Source: FB History page
"In 1961, a respected psychiatrist at the University of Virginia began a quest that would span forty years and over 2,500 documented cases. He wasn't looking for ghosts or folklore, but for evidence of something much more controversial. ... Dr. Ian Stevenson became the world’s leading authority on children who spontaneously remembered lives that were not their own. He traveled across the globe, from the rural villages of India to the suburbs of North America, seeking data. ... He wanted to witness the mystery for himself. He wanted to know if the human soul survived the grave. ... But this was not just about stories. Dr. Ian Stevenson noticed something peculiar that numbers alone could not explain. ... He noticed that many children bore strange birthmarks or physical defects on their tiny frames. He noticed that these marks often matched the fatal wounds of the deceased people they claimed to have been. ... He saw their conviction. He saw their parents' confusion. He saw the cold, hard medical records that seemed to back them up. ... In about 35% of these cases, the child had a birthmark or defect that corresponded exactly to a wound on a deceased person. These were not just vague marks, but specific shapes and locations documented in autopsy reports of strangers. ... He found cases where toddlers spoke languages they were never taught. He found children who knew the intimate secrets of families they had never met.
But the academic world was not ready for his findings. Critics argued that cultural influence and parental leading were the true causes of these memories. ... Despite the pushback, the psychiatrist never wavered in his methodical approach. He insisted on thorough documentation and face-to-face interviews with every witness. ... His research forced people to consider that the world is far more complex than a laboratory can measure. It suggested that a spiritual reality exists beyond the reach of secular science. ... Dr. Ian Stevenson passed away in 2007, leaving behind a legacy of thousands of case files. These files remain at the University of Virginia, still challenging our understanding of life and death. ... Today, his work serves as a massive archive of human experience that science cannot quite dismiss. It reminds us that there are still mysteries that defy simple explanation. ... He looked for the truth. He looked for the evidence. He looked for the soul. ... His research into the unknown remains the most comprehensive study of its kind in human history." Source: Univ. of VA Div. of Perceptual Studies / WA Post. See also Knowledge is Power website.
Civil War Ghosts of Shiloh National Military Park. Is Shiloh National Military Park Haunted? Source: Gattlinburg Haunts. (2024-2026) "In southwestern Tennessee rests a varied expanse of fields and densely wooded areas. Yet, the Shiloh location is a placid landscape that belies a bloody past. Without the monuments and placards to denote what once befell this historic site, one might never know this was once a place of immense pain and death. Within the boundaries of the Shiloh National Military Park lies the battlefield of Shiloh and the battlefield of Corinth, as well as the Shiloh National Cemetery, holding within its soil thousands of men. Many of these souls are thought to haunt the park, some perpetually caught in battle while others wander as if lost and caught between realms. The Battle of Shiloh was a bloody one, and its abundance of violence likely tied many spirits to the location in a bond that is difficult to sever."
Within the expansive 5,000 acres of the Shiloh National Military Park, many tales of unearthly occurrences lurk. Considered one of the most chilling locations in Tennessee, the park is largely believed to be haunted due to the massive number of casualties it saw during the Civil War. Over 3,000 men lay buried within the park’s cemetery, many of whom were unable to be identified. ... Such circumstances are opportune for hauntings. As such, visitors to the site report strange sensations, distant voices, and the sounds of battle far off, as if the violence that occurred here so long ago continues to reverberate throughout our earthly plane.
The Specters of Ghost Soldiers
Within the Shiloh Military Park, you can visit a myriad of haunting sites, from the Bloody Pond to the Shiloh National Cemetery, which holds over 3,500 of the Civil War dead — about 2,300 whose identities remain unknown. Many were buried in mass graves in unhallowed ground, creating an environment ripe for unsettled souls to remain restless. Visitors to the Shiloh battlefield have revealed experiencing strange feelings and hearing unusual sounds. A special few have claimed otherworldly sightings. One commonly told tale is that of the phantom drummer. Several park guests have reported hearing a drum pounding in the distance, although no reenactment is underway. Others report hearing the echoes of gunfire and men yelling, especially around the Hornet’s Nest.
Those who walk by this bloody site, where bullets once whizzed like angry insects, have reported encountering disembodied moans and cries for help, yet no one in need can be found. Another haunted site is the Bloody Pond, so named as it was rumored to have turned a shade of crimson from the many men who washed the blood from their wounds after the battle. Every so often, the pond occasionally adopts the same red hue it had over 160 years ago, as if echoing the past traumas of the land. Multiple specters have been sighted by the Peach Orchard, including a little boy in grey and white clothing seen climbing down a ladder and fleeing into the woods. Another figure has been described wandering about slowly as if wounded. When approached, he disappears, reappearing again further away. Other structures are said to be haunted on the site as well, including the replica of the Shiloh Church. Guests here have described being touched, sensing they are being watched, or to have photographed strange mists inside.
Figure 26. Spectral soldier figure Source: U.S. Ghost Adventures
Eight Centuries Old: The Shiloh Indian Mounds
A site much older than that of the Civil War is also located within the Shiloh National Military Park. Several prehistoric Indian mounds are listed as historic landmarks within the park. ... Around 800 years ago, a town once resided in the high Tennessee River bluff, although its exact residents remain unknown. All that remains are the Shiloh Indian Mounds, telling us little about the former occupants who lived on this land long before battles were waged upon its soil. ... These mysterious Indian mounds are also said to be a source of haunted activity. The rectangle-shaped mounds once served as platforms for the town’s central structures, likely including a council house, homes for town leaders, and various religious dwellings. ... Yet one mound appears slightly unlike the others. The southernmost mound differs from the rest, being oval and round-topped. This mound is believed to be where the town leaders and other important figures were buried. ... Guests who visit these sites describe feeling cold drafts despite the air around them being warm. At other times, a sensation of heat is experienced despite the air surrounding them being cold. Orbs have also been seen suspended above the mounds or flitting in and out of the earth. ... "While there are many places in Tennessee that are considered “haunted,” Old South Pittsburg Hospital (OSPH), which opened in 1959, consistently ranks as one of the “most haunted” locations. Once a functioning hospital, which means the everyday life-and-death dramas of its community often played out inside the walls, the building’s location itself is interesting. It is built over a suspected underground spring, common in this part of Tennessee. Legends say that, during the Civil War, the land was a base for Union soldiers who participated in the Battle of Chickamauga - an intense, nearly 2 days of bloody fighting with over 34,000 estimated total casualties." (Facebook - North Georgia Mnt. Life- Wes Holland's post)
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic.
It is a hard truth to grab hold of and accept the fact that wildland fire deaths are inevitable due to human factors (e.g., because people do dumb s**t, things break, and others get lost!). And therefore, it's impossible to have a "Zero Perfect - no fatality wildland fire season." So then, given that, all we can do is our level best to reduce those fatalities based on honest and truthful lessons learned and competent, safe supervisors doing the right things and making safe, sound decisions.
Figure 27. AOC vs. Thomas Sowell quotes Source: Facebook
Figure 28. Mormon Wars Source: Book of Mormon
And as to be expected, it has obviously continued. Consider now just a few of literally scores of articles, books, YouTube videos, etc. regarding the more recent World Wars including Viet Nam apparitions, and ghosts, etc.
Paranormal 'Encounters' from World War I (YouTube, 2022)
World War II's 10 Weirdest Paranormal Mysteries (Llewellyn, online)
"I'm not exactly breaking new ground when I say that military history and haunted history are intimately connected. Ghosts of entire armies still trudge through the fields and forests of Europe, according to paranormal buffs and folklorists. There are so many ghost stories lingering around American Civil War battlefields that a cottage industry of ghost tours and haunted hotspot guidebooks have blossomed around those sites. ... Experts on these hauntings say the connection between conflict and haunted activity is no mystery. The equation goes something like this: Death + High Emotional Intensity = Ghosts. My question before writing Haunted World War II was: Would the world's greatest conflict create the world's greatest collection of stories about spirits and tales of the supernatural? I'll let the readers judge from themselves, but I found that World War II, arguably history's most violent conflict, serves as the source of a considerable amount of ghostlore, as well as accounts of paranormal activity and high strangeness. Here are Haunted World War II's top ten weirdest tales that help stake the war's claim as history's most haunted conflict.
Warbirds Still Fly UK's Haunted Skies - During World War II, the skies above the United Kingdom buzzed with every make and model of warbird that the Allied—and often, the Axis—powers could produce. Bombers, fighters, and transports made England the world's biggest aircraft carrier. After the war, you would expect the skies of the UK to quiet down a little. But, dozens of witnesses claimed to have seen World War II-era planes cruising the blue yonder above England. When the witnesses raise the alarm, authorities often can't explain the appearance of these ghost planes. There are no air shows scheduled, nor do air traffic controllers have any record of these planes.
Apparition Invasion - After writing a bunch of books about ghosts and ghostlore, I thought I had written about it all—ghost mules, haunted Mexican restaurant restrooms, and possessed tour buses—but I could not imagine an entire beach being haunted by legions of ghosts. But, that's exactly what a group of holiday vacationers said they encountered while on holiday at the beaches of Dieppe, site of a bloodily botched raid in World War II. During the early morning hours of August 4, a few weeks before the anniversary of the Dieppe Raid, or Operation Jubilee, the group said they heard the bark of cannons and the shouts and screams of soldiers. This band of spirit brothers even had air cover, the witnesses said, adding that they heard the scream of dive bombers. When the vacationers went out to investigate the next morning, they found no sign of a real armed incursion and promptly reported their experiences to paranormal authorities.
A German General's Ghost in the US? - You might expect the ghost of German General Erwin Rommel to be gliding through the sands of North Africa, or staring out onto the English Channel from the cliffs over Omaha Beach, or even appearing in his homeland of Germany. But, believe it or not, your best chance of running into the spectral version of the Desert Fox is in the American South. People claim they saw Rommel's ghost in graveyards and in a hotel in Virginia. The bit of ghostlore is based on Rommel's supposed secret visit before the war to America to study Civil War battlefields and tactics. Historians say there's no evidence of that secret mission. Believers say the ghost is evidence enough for them.
The Not-So Passive Pacific - The Pacific Theater was the scene of World War II's most violent battles. In Okinawa, a Pacific island about 1,000 miles from Tokyo, that battle became personal. Japanese strategists knew that if the Americans seized Okinawa they would have a base suitable to stage an invasion of Japan's mainland. They filled the imaginations of the island's civilians with tales of supposed American atrocities. When the US did invade, thousands of Okinawans reportedly jumped off cliffs to their deaths. Visitors to the island say that they have heard the beat of footsteps rush by them to the cliffs and heard screams. Some have even said when they heard the footsteps and simultaneously felt a breeze blow by them. Others believe the presence of spirits passed directly through them as the ghosts re-enact their last, desperate leap.
Haunted Harbors - America's battleships played key offensive and defensive roles during World War II. Many of these ships were brought back to the states, where they became both museums to preserve history and floating tributes to the sailors who served on board these floating fortresses. Some of those sailors are still around, according to legends. Moored in the appropriately named Cape Fear River, the USS North Carolina, for instance, is supposedly haunted with several ghosts. Witnesses have seen, felt, and heard the ghostly presences while touring, working, and investigating on board the ship.
Signs and Synchronicities - Famed Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung coined the term "synchronicity" for events that seem related but aren't causally connected. Others might call this phenomena "signs." Jung must have had a field day during World War II when synchronicities became part of the headlines in war coverage. In one case, an advertisement, which featured a graphic with dice sporting a 12 and 7, seemed to predict Japan's pending attack on Pearl Harbor. In another bizarre case, code names for aspects of the D-Day invasion cropped up in crossword puzzles. Now, people wonder whether these were just coincidences, or the manifestation of unknown forces.
Freaky Foo Fighters - Everyone knows that the modern UFO era began with Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting of a formation of unidentified craft flying, "like a saucer if you skipped it across water" over Mount Rainier in Washington. Or did it? During World War II, several pilots claimed to see objects fly near, or even at, their formations. Descriptions of the crafts resembled what Arnold saw during his jaunt over the Cascades. The pilots dubbed these weird flying machines "foo fighters," and many UFOlogists say these sightings ushered in the first credible reports of UFOs in modern history.
Ghost Tank - We've heard of ghosts, ghost ships, ghost planes, and even ghost trains, but, at least according to one group of witnesses, a ghost tank may still be patrolling the former battlefields of the Eastern Front. Witnesses told a newspaper that one night, while scouring the fields for artifacts from the war, a team of war trophy hunters say they distinctly heard the unmistakable clanking of steel treads and the roar of an engine cutting through the otherwise silent darkness. Too scared to investigate at the moment—I mean, who wants to take on a vaunted Soviet T-34 tank, let alone the ghost of one?—they did report finding what looked like the twin tracks of some type of vehicle in the ground. And the tracks were fresh!
The Churchill-Lincoln Spirit Summit - Abraham Lincoln's ghost. Winston Churchill in the nude. OK, now that I implanted those images into your mind for the rest of your life, let's go on with the ghost story. Throughout the war, Churchill visited the White House several times. According to several sources, during one such visit, the prime minister stayed in what is now called the Lincoln Bedroom. He had just popped out of a bath, went into the bedroom—completely unclad—and saw, leaning against the fireplace, Abraham Lincoln. The unflappable prime minister simply said, "Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage." Lincoln, Churchill said, acknowledged the prime minister with a knowing look and then, like all good former heads of state who are, technically, dead, slowly faded away.
007 Meets 666 - Secret agents during World War II came from all walks of life. Some were military, some were civilian. Only one claimed to be the anti-Christ, however. According to historians and paranormal theorists, Aleister Crowley, a magician, occult legend, and master provocateur, served as a secret agent—or secret agent provocateur—during the war. These experts even suggest that future James Bond creator Ian Fleming, an intelligence officer during World War II, enlisted Crowley's magical talents to cast a spell that eventually lured Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's head henchman, to secretly fly to England on a so-called peace mission. Another story says that Prime Minister Winston Churchill's "V for Victory" sign was actually an occult gesture proposed by agent 666 himself, Aleister Crowley.
Korean War history told by survivors. Ghost Flames: Life and Death in a Hidden War, Korea 1950-1953 - Charles J. Hanley. Review by Bill Drucker (Winter 2025) (Korean Quarterly)
Creepy Ghost Stories From the Vietnam War (military.com, 2019)
Consider this open-access article by Mani-Puy Sally Chan et al (2017) titled: Debunking: A Meta-Analysis of the Psychological Efficacy of Messages Countering Misinformation. "The primary objective of this meta-analysis was to understand the factors underlying effective messages to counter attitudes and beliefs based on misinformation. ... The effects of misinformation are of interest to many areas of psychology, from cognitive science, to social approaches, to the emerging discipline that prescribes the best reporting and publication practices for all psychologists. Misinformation on consequential subjects is of special concern and includes claims that could affect health behaviors and voting decisions." (American Psychological Society) And this author especially includes all fatal and near-fatal wildland fire accidents, burnovers, entrapments, fire shelter deployments, thermal injuries, and/or fatalities. And unless you're a certified and bona fide Nerd in the psychological, scientific realm - as in all comprehensively nerdy research papers - only focus on these four sections to better grasp the overall gist of their work: Abstract, Discussion, Conclusion, and References, ignoring the Methods and Results.
And finally, to answer the post title question: Was the Fatal, Final Yarnell Hill Fire & Prescott FD GMHS Death Bowl, the Scene of a Historic LDS & Yavapai Apache Massacre Influenced by Evil, Demonic Forces?
(1) Speaking Ill of the Dead By Lying About Them? Or Honoring the Dead By Searching For The Truth If They're Considered as Public Figures? Part 1 (yarnellhillfirerevelati…). Part 2 (yarnellhillfirerevelati…)
Figure 4. A 1960 Yavapai County. Special Warranty Deed reflecting prior LDS (Corp. of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Utah corporation. Source: Yavapai Cty. Dev. Services, FJS
It is a fairly well-documented and well-known fact that an LDS - Yavapai Apache massacre, with massacre defined as "an indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people" that occurred in the YH Fire & GMHS deployment/fatality site bowl many moons ago, based on conversations and interviews with the two YH Fire "local area" residents and their discussions with Yavapai Apache elders that contacted them, a few years after the YH Fire & GMHS fatalities, this author's Yarnell property Warranty Deed clearly reflects LDS prior ownership (Fig. 4.), and the Yarnell realtor openly vouched for the fact there were several other prior LDS & Yavapai Apache massacres in the Yavapai County area. What follows will clearly indicate that there are well-documented cases of LDS and Native American massacres throughout the United States. Moreover, the infamous 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in Southern UT that was carried out by many of their own sect, dressing up as Indians and killing their own!
Several years ago, while on one of the June 26, 1990, Dude Fire fatalities anniversary, this author, the Lassen Hot Shots, one of the YH Fire hikers, and Back to the Black movie producer Scott Briggs hiked and visited the Dude Fire Walkmoore Cyn. fatality site at the same time as their deaths many years prior. Minus the Lassen Hot Shots, we then visited and hiked the YH Fire and GMHS Fatalities Site bowl at the same time as their deaths many years prior. This author vividly recalls the palpably real, intense emotions, unease surge, vowing never to do anything like that ever again!
Another time, a former Prescott, AZ resident and early childhood friend of the former GMHS HS Ass't. Foreman Jesse Steed, and later a former USFS Los Padres Hot Shot, and finally a USFS El Dorado NF Engine Captain, was returning home from a Southwest Region wildfire assignment and stopped by and hiked the AZ State Park GMHS Memorial Trail. He recounted to this author and one of the June 30, 2013, YH Fire hikers that when he eventually got home, he had experienced - while asleep - a vivid dream of being in a fire shelter with the GMHS during their fatal YH Fire burnover, feeling the heat, smelling the smoke, etc.
Apache Death Cave - "Beware all those who dare venture into the caves. It’s been said that the Chindiis haunt this area and the spirits of the dead curse the place". – (Apache Death Cave).
15 Creepiest Native American Sites and Their Haunted Histories
Parowan haunted by 'restless spirits.' The Spectrum. Haven Scott. Updated Oct. 8, 2016, 6:19 p.m. MT.
Parowan is home to some of Utah’s oldest ghost stories.
Parowan is an Indian word meaning ‘evil waters.’
Figure 4. Lost Souls of Shiloh Source: Hometown Ghost Stories, YouTube
Figure 8b. Mountain Meadows Massacre
Figure 11. Ghosts of Gettysburg
Figure 12. Gettysburg Park - Civil War Ghosts
Figure 13. Lost Souls of Shiloh
Figure 14. Shiloh | Civil War Historian Guided Tour
Figure 15. Exploring One of America's Most Haunted Battlefields
Figure 16. Haunted Travels - Antietam Battlefield and National Museum of Civil War Medicine
Figure 17. Haunted Antietam - Some Soldiers Never Left
Figure 18. Ghost Stories from the Natl. Museum of Civil War Medicine
Figure 19. Haunted Antietam
And as to be expected, it has obviously continued. Consider now just a few of literally scores of articles, books, YouTube videos, etc. regarding the more recent World Wars including Viet Nam apparitions, and ghosts, etc.
