Texas Graveyards

I’ve hunted ghosts in numerous cemeteries over the years, and following are some of the most interesting experiences:

Goshen Cemetery, Eustice, TX:

I’ve made several trips to this graveyard, three of them at night with my friends from NTPRS and once during the day with Belle. This cemetery seems to have a rather evil atmosphere. It’s a small cemetery, comprising maybe an acre of ground, with nearly white-sand soil and besides the tombstones, dozens of iron white crosses marking graves. It’s about five miles or so back on a county road, which is extremely dark at night, since there are huge trees lining most of it. But even during the day, the atmosphere there is chilling. Part of it, I believe, is because there are numerous residents from the same town buried there, victims of a yellow fever epidemic. We’ve gotten scads of orb shots at this cemetery, as well as talked to several entities there. However, my friends and I are used to this type of experience in a graveyard. At Goshen, though, each and every trip has also included some other sort of eerie occurrence.

In one area of the graveyard, I keep hearing a group of woman who are chatting together. The gravestones indicate they all died within the same periods, during the epidemic. They are somewhat snide gossips, and I don’t much care for them, so I don’t honor them with a listening ear. As to the eerier occurrences…

On one night trip with Billy and Lucy, a strange orange orb kept appearing to me. Once I saw it on the ground beneath a tree, but although I watched it for at least a minute and also took a picture of it, it didn’t show up on film. Then I saw it in top of a huge dead tree. This time, it showed up on film.

 It disappeared, then for some reason, I was drawn to take a picture of a nearby tombstone. The orb appeared in the picture on top of the tombstone.

The most scary event connected to this cemetery happened on another trip with Billy and Lucy. That night, there was a very strange sky overhead. The moon was on the wane, just a half moon, but there was what looked like a huge magnifying glass overhead. The round part was around the moon and the tail of it led off clear across the sky. There shouldn’t have been that much light that night, but it seemed that the magnifying light reflected the light off the white-sand soil, so we could see very well even without our flashlights. We heard many things that night, including someone screaming and footsteps, plus we saw and talked to several ghosts. But that scary event? That happened as we left.

The cemetery is on top of a rise. Just past the gate from where we arrived, the county road continues on, downhill and around a curve. We pulled out and headed back the way we’d come, opposite the downhill curve. But as we pulled out, we heard a truck engine down the road around the curve. It was extremely loud, and just after we got out on the road, the truck appeared behind us, bright headlights shining through our rear window. At first we didn’t pay much attention to it, since we were talking about what we’d experienced that night. But all three of us kept glancing back at that truck now and then. Suddenly Billy yelled, "It’s gone! That truck’s gone! It just disappeared!"

Lucy and I both swiveled around and the truck was indeed gone. There was no engine sound, no truck. The road behind us was straight and that strange magnified light shone down, so we could see everything clearly. There was no turnoff, and we hadn’t noticed the truck leave the road. It was just gone! Then Billy jammed on the brakes because there was a ninety-degree turn in front of us. He managed to slow down and get around the curve, but we were all still extremely agitated about the disappearing truck. Suddenly I got the thought that whoever was in that truck (I felt there were two people) had wrecked on that curve. Both of them had been killed, and they re-live the wreck on the anniversary of it each year. We went back during the daylight to confirm that there was no place that truck could have turned off the road. Indeed, it was close enough behind us that we would have seen the headlights turn off. Evidently, it was as I had felt: a ghost pickup.

Dry Creek Cemetery, Terrell, TX:

This is another small, historic cemetery out on a county road; and this one is even smaller than Goshen. I’ve always felt a sense of peace at Dry Creek, although we’ve talked to lots of ghosts in this cemetery. There is also what I believe is a portal in the far corner of the cemetery. You can actually trace the boundaries of the portal in a circle. Inside it, there is warmth; outside it, a cooler temperature.

One of the ghosts I talk to each time at Dry Creek is Billy the Cowboy. We call him that to differentiate him from my friend Billy York, who ghost hunts with me. I met Billy the Cowboy the first time I visited Dry Creek, and he’s always been there every other time. Billy the Cowboy "lives" beneath a huge old tree in the cemetery, and over time, he went from somewhat crotchety towards me to fairly friendly. Part of it, I believe, was because I believed him when he told me that he was "wrongfully hung as a horse thief." Also, he always asks me to leave him a cigarette, and I do.

One night Billy and Lucy York and I were at Dry Creek. We all felt that there was a party going on, and it centered beneath that huge tree. Something told us that they were celebrating Billy the Cowboy’s birthday! We got numerous orb shots, and eventually we wandered on across the cemetery to the portal and spent some time there. We came back to the tree, and evidently the party was over, since no orbs appeared in our pictures. So we started back toward the portal.

Suddenly I got a very sharp pain in my neck, as though a rope with a noose was around it. I turned and told Billy the Cowboy, "Now just because you were hung doesn’t mean you have to make my neck hurt." The pain disappeared. But then the temperature dropped drastically and we all three started shivering. Then a heavy cloud of mist formed right in front of us. We continued to shiver, but couldn’t take our eyes off that mist. It then formed an upside down, tornado-like shape. The funnel of the tornado mist headed for the portal area. My digital picture card was already full, so I told Billy York, "Hurry! Get a picture of that!" and he snapped a picture. The mist disappeared, funnel first, into the middle of the portal, almost as though it drilled right into the ground. Then the temperature warmed back up.

Later that night, Billy York e-mailed me a copy of the picture of mist.

Another time Dennis Weaver, of another ghosthunting organization, went to Dry Creek with us. He told me later that he was very skeptical about psychic abilities, but he didn’t say much while we were ghosthunting, even about the story I told him of Billy the Cowboy. However, after he got home and looked at his pictures, his skepticism vanished. He had caught Billy the Cowboy on his digital, and has generously allowed me to use the photos! The first one is Billy under the tree, with the area where he appears lightened. The second one is an enlargement of Billy outlined.