Do Ghosts Walk at Whitefish Point? Paranormal Experts Investigate

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“I’ve never experienced anything like it before! I felt it walk right past me! I could hear the swooshing of the clothing!”

It was shortly after 2 a.m. when I found Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society researcher Jason Fegan standing in front of the main museum building for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society at Whitefish Point in Michigan.

He wasn’t scared, but clearly he had encountered “something” beyond his normal understanding.

UPPRS requested to investigate at Whitefish Point to prove – or disprove – tales of ghostly activity.

I was here in the wee hours because Lake Superior Magazine, owned by the publisher of my four books on Great Lakes hauntings, asked me to accompany UPPRS. For decades, I’ve researched Great Lakes maritime history and have more than a few times stumbled across tales of spirit encounters and other-worldly happenings. I’ve remained skeptical, but open, to reports of ghosts, phantom ships and strange occurrences.

If there are such manifestations as ghosts, Whitefish Point is a logical place for them. It sits forlornly at the east end of Lake Superior’s infamous “Shipwreck Coast,” a 40-mile stretch littered with the hulls of long-dead ships and drowned bodies of nameless sailors.

A lighthouse was built here in 1849, making it either the first or the second one established on Lake Superior. Copper Harbor went into operation the same year and records are murky enough so that determining which was first isn’t possible.

One visiting psychic claims perhaps 50 lost spirits haunt the point, on the grounds and beach and in the buildings. Visitors and staff report a plethora of ghost sightings.

An Indian girl from times gone by has been seen inside and outside the main museum building as well as in the gift shop-office building and old fog house. Another young girl in old-time clothing has been reported wandering the grounds. A woman in 1890s dress has been spotted standing on the gallery, just outside the light tower lamp room. She stares intently out to the cold lake. Of course there are also yarns about a mysterious ghost ship, a gray schooner with all sails full and drawing, gliding silently past the beach only to disappear into nothing.

Mariners in wind-wagon days believed that wrecks with loss of life repeat in ghostly image, a continuous loop of disaster. They would see a wreck replayed and hear the desperate cries of dying comrades above the howling wind and crashing surf.

Life-Saving Service patrols at the point found bodies rolling in the wave wash after every big storm and more were chopped out of translucent winter ice. The government men dutifully carried the bodies to unrecorded graves behind the dunes to bury them in the cold sand. Do these forlorn souls wander the desolate beach, searching for shipmates or for a way home?

That was the question for the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society, and I was here to watch the work. UPPRS is the epitome of professionalism – steady, unperturbed by events and dedicated to investigating “things that go bump in the night.”

By day the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society museum complex is very welcoming. Freshly painted buildings, well-trimmed lawns, clear signage, all provide an atmosphere of pleasantness and security. Blue skies only add to the feeling of delight.

But at nightfall, things change. Cloaked by overwhelming darkness, with only the sharp flash of the beam rotating in the tower, the atmosphere becomes decidedly gloomy and sinister, and in early spring, quite brisk. It’s a good setting for an axe murder movie. You half expect to see a wild-eyed lightkeeper, bloody axe in hand, running out of the tower.

All this said, it isn’t nearly as bad as at Stannard’s Rock Light, that remote lighthouse about 44 miles north of Marquette on a rock outcrop barely large enough for the lighthouse, where a tragic 1961 explosion killed one of four Coast Guardsmen. It’s really creepy there, especially at night when the wind begins to blow hard from the north, whistling through the stone tower. It conjures tales of ghosts and lake demons. But that is, perhaps, another investigation.

Whether such spirits exist is no longer just the study for the table-raising “psychics” of yore. There is a new breed of “ghost hunters” and an increased interest in the paranormal, as evidenced by the popularity of TV shows like the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” with TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society), “Most Haunted” on the Travel Channel and the likes of “Medium” and “Ghost Whisperer” (and even by the success of my own Haunted Lakes books).

Results of one opinion polling firm are remarkable, with 68 percent of U.S. respondents saying that they had “felt the presence of a dead person” and 56 percent “experienced paranormal activity.”

After several decades of researching lighthouse history, both Great Lakes and salt water, I have concluded that every one of the beacons is haunted … or at least someone believes a ghost or two is floating about. Whitefish Point is no exception.

UPPRS is clearly open to the idea of paranormal activity; members try to document proof of it.

But first, they look for rational explanations, willing to disprove a haunting rather than letting false assumptions propel it into local folklore. “We just always find the natural cause before saying, ‘Oh my god, you’ve got a ghost,’” says UPPRS President Tim Ellis.

UPPRS started seven years ago by several friends fascinated by stories of haunted houses. Their strong analytical approach drew others, resulting in the team’s current 10 members. Most are from the Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, area, but one is a “troll” (living “below” the Mackinac Bridge). Their “day jobs” are varied: a radio station program director, a mechanic, an engineer, a physical therapist, a casino worker, a business owner, to name a few.

Members know that most paranormal activity can be explained by very normal causes. Is that strange moaning actually from a nearby air conditioner or are voices in the air just coming from the apartment next door? Many folks who call the team to investigate don’t appreciate such simple solutions to their personal ghost. UPPRS never charges for its services.

The team uses common sense, a healthy dose of skepticism and sophisticated, high-tech equipment. Infrared video cameras, recording thermometers, digital audio recorders and electromagnetic field detectors are all in their toolbox. Ouija boards, psychics and mediums are not. None claims the least sensitivity to “the other world.”

These investigators try to ambush the phenomenon by setting equipment in various hotspots, as they do this night around the light station. After assessing the job, literally exploring every building to find the best locations for instruments and focusing on areas of reported “activity,” the team held a quick conference to establish a plan of action.

It took an hour or so to get equipment in place, and then it was sit back and wait. To a point, it’s like waiting for paint to dry with the difference of then seeing what strange things got caught in it. Periodically tapes and batteries are changed and the traps are reset for unwary spirits. Meanwhile two-person teams explore other areas. One member literally speaks aloud to the spirits, imploring them to come forward and make contact, while the other records with an infrared video camera.

More than a month of planning and research goes on before the team arrives on site. The real work begins after the on-site investigation. Then every minute of video and audio tape is carefully reviewed. Given the number of recorders used at the Whitefish Point investigation, this equals roughly 200 hours of video and audio recording, a daunting task.

This massive effort limits the team to four to five investigations each year. Sometimes nothing happens; sometimes something does. Near Gulliver at Seul Choix Lighthouse, a well-known haunt, the team arrived on the anniversary of the demise of keeper Capt. Joseph Willie Townsend, who died in the upstairs bedroom in 1910. It is said that the ghostly good captain still smokes his favorite cigars there, the odor wafting in the keeper’s home.

Tim says the team, outside after setting up, brought cigars to smoke in Townsend’s honor. Just as they settled outside, “a shadow goes past the (dining room) window and the curtains pulled back.” Most of them saw the movement. Tim’s first thought was, “We’ve got to get back in there.” His second thought as they rushed to the door: “I asked myself, ‘Is this a good idea?’”

So what did the teams come up with at Whitefish Point? No full ghost manifestations occurred – the Indian girl didn’t sit down for a powwow and the rotting bones of dead sailors didn’t rise out of forgotten graves – so the jury is still out.

But a few things are not easily explained.

About 1 a.m., an independent videographer, there to document the team’s work and shooting infrared in the museum, was startled by the low voice of a woman. Barely audible, it lasted 10 seconds.

Another recorder captured what seems to be a conversation between a man and woman; it is too faint to be deciphered, even by special amplification. Other weird audio was also recorded in the museum.

And, of course, there was that previously mentioned “swoosh by” that startled Jason Fegan and another team member. “It sounded like someone was walking behind us, like walking through tall grass in the fall,” Jason says. “It sends a chill down your spine.”

One building left the most impression. All team members working in the keeper’s quarters reported feeling intense apprehension. No one suggested an outright malevolence, but they expressed a definite feeling of something less than welcoming. “It’s really weird because of all the places, that one seemed to be, as far as hearing stuff, getting stuff, it seemed to be the quietest. … (But) the longer you sat there, you just felt like you wanted to get up and leave,” says Tim.

Longtime keeper Robert Carlson was known as a very difficult man to get along with. Could it be his spirit is so unwelcoming to strangers?

Even without enough evidence to declare ghosts or no ghosts, UPPRS members felt the long night was worth the effort.

“When we left, we were pleasantly surprised. We were drained. … It was the biggest investigation that we’ve ever done,” Tim says. The crew started at about 9 p.m. and wasn’t home to the Sault until 6 a.m.

“There certainly is unexplained activity at Whitefish Point. We would love to take another crack at solving the mystery.”

Author Fred Stonehouse of Marquette, Michigan, recently was named the Marine Historical Society of Detroit’s 2007 Historian of the Year.