So here is my over-due blog about my night at Ft. Mifflin. I posted several photos on my Tumblr blog, so some of these are repeats. Ft. Mifflin is considered by many historians as the fort which helped win the Revolutionary War and keep the British at bay. It was also used a prison during Civil War times. So there are a lot of ghosts there. Aside from the soldiers, some of the most famous are a pair of little girls who are believed to have died from yellow fever, and a woman known as “the screaming lady” who tends to scream and moan late at night.

Left: The house of the Commandant, which got burned down inside by the Boy Scouts in the 80s. Right: Barracks where the screaming lady and two little girls haunt.

We arrived around 6pm that night, and got started a little after 8pm. Heavy rains moved through that night, which we were constantly dodging as we moved from one area to the other. We had set groups and schedules until about midnight, insuring everyone got to all of the most active spots. After midnight it was a free for all, we could go anywhere we wanted to.

Toys left for the little girls in the barracks.

The barracks definitely seemed to be the center of activity all night long. Almost every groups had weird occurrences. Doors got open and shut, things got tossed across the room, and one group even heard giggles.

Casemates or jails. Both places had a cold presence, and we felt as if we were being watched. Orbs in both photos. Real? Or Dust? The only two photos of the night I got orbs aside from outside, and that was all moisture and rain.

Other places definitely had a presence, but not much in terms of activity. Now there are hours of recordings of EVPs that have to be listened to of course. But physical activity was scarce. Perhaps it was the weather which dampened the night in more than one way? In the Commandant’s quarters, we definitely heard a lot of sounds from what used to be the second floor. It was as if someone was pacing upstairs. The Boy Scouts burned the entire inside down years ago on one of their camping trips . . . . There is no second floor, so it was likely a residual haunting or impression left in the environment as opposed to an active haunting. Also in the casemates, which were the jails, we definitely had a lot of cold spots. At one point I whistled “Yankee Doodle” just to see if we could get a reaction, which is when it got cold.

By midnight we reached the point where we were free to do what we pleased. Many people began leaving about 1am, even though the point was to stay the whole night. A small group of us went back to a few places, including one of the casemates for a spirit box session. This is where you use a tampered with radio to scan white noise channels, with the idea that EVPs will be made audible in real time and not just on tape. We got a lot of responses, so many that it became confusing! The first question we asked was for the name of anyone with us. Almost immediately several names were rambled off. One man with a very deep voice constantly communicated, and a lot of what he was saying was vulgar curse words. I asked if anyone was murdered in the jail, and a very clear “Nope!” was answered. When asked how people died, we got answers such as “sick, stabbed, and shot.” Given the Revolutionary War Battles, all were very possible. I need to listen to this session again to try and pick out more answers. The spirit box is never as clear as it’s made out on some of those ghost hunting shows! Often you get garbled responses you just can’t understand.

By 3am, many of those who were left decided to turn in. I had not slept well the night before, and I knew I was going to get no sleep at this place. It just wasn’t going to happen. I also wasn’t going to investigate on my own! So I decided to head home for the night. All in all a fun night, I think without the weather interfering though we may have gotten a lot more. Plus I was not the only sleep deprived person, so that did many of us in early.

Speaking of weather, it has been wet and rainy here. I have not gotten much of Halloween out yet because of this and my busy schedule this month. Tomorrow will be a rare sunny day, so I’m hoping to get some more stuff out. Really all I’ve done is set up a side cemetery using this year’s birthday gift. It actually looks great at night with the blacklight and fog machines on. Eventually I’m going to add in a few more tombstones, and probably one more ghost I have downstairs.