Normally when one hears of haunted locations, the state of Ohio
does not make the list. Ohio truly has its
share of spooky buildings, odd destinations
and ghostly towns. Many years ago Ohio was
considered the great Northwest Territory,
an unknown land of rolling fields, meandering
rivers, and dense forests. Many settlers had
not pushed west of the boundary lines imposed
by our young growing country. Those that did
were often met with Native America Indian
resistance, frontier slayings, massacres and
vicious diseases that crippled the growing
population.
Ohio has been home to 7 Presidents,
the Wright Brothers, and Thomas Edison. The
Buckeye state is also home of the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and The Pro Football Hall
of Fame . Ohio has supplied the nation with
cars, steel, rubber, various crops and dairy
products. Ohio has also supplied us with whispered
legends of Cry Baby Bridges, vacant orphanages
where children are still heard and seen, headless
horses and horsemen, haunted cemeteries ,UFO
sightings and even Bigfoot. The Buckeye State
also boats the highest concentration of Pagans
in the nation. It’s a state full of
oddities, ghosts, and things that go bump
in the night!
Ohio boasts 24 Cry Baby Bridges
where the legends are basically the same.
Stand on a bridge late at night and listen
for the baby to cry. Most of the legends mention
a woman, usually a local witch, who drowns
her baby on purpose. Some legends state you
must stand on the bridge at night on the stroke
of midnight- others are not so precise and
any time of the night suffices but it must
be a full moon.
Bigfoot sightings and UFO report
also grace the buckeye state by the hundreds.
Ohio is mentioned in many Top 10 lists as
one of the most active UFO states and Bigfoot
sightings in America. As a matter of fact
Director Stephen Spielberg used an Ohio UFO
sighting report as a scene in the movie “Close
Encounters”. Remember the scene where
the cop car followed the UFO and drive off
a cliff in a curve?
Any curious person is probably
asking the question “Why is Ohio so
odd and haunted?”. The answer can probably
be attributed to the fact that Ohio has many
Ley Lines which are invisible lines of earth
energy. The Native Americans could feel this
energy allegedly and therefore put burial
grounds, villages and the main trails upon
these areas of energy. It’s a popular
theory in the paranormal field that energy
enhances paranormal activity. If so would
Ohio’s multiple Ley Lines help paranormal
events to occur and influence haunting in
may areas?
Next time that you travel across
Ohio, take time to get off the well traveled
paths of the concrete highways. Jump on a
back road and head into the outskirts of any
town. Pull off the road and wait till the
sun sinks and shadows deepen. You never know
what you might experience! Ohio, the HAUNT
of it all!
Sherri Brake-Recco
Sherri Brake-Recco owner of
Haunted Heartland Tours in NE Ohio, leads
a yearly average of 110 haunted tours. Haunted
Heartland Tours is Ohio's only year round
haunted tour company. Events offered are Haunted
History Walks of Canal Fulton Ohio, haunted
dinners, paranormal classes, nighttime cemetery
walks, and haunted bus tours. She is the official
instructor of Ghost Hunting classes at the
West Virginia Pen in Moundsville West Virginia
as well as instructing classes in various
Ohio locations. Sherri's events and tours
take people thru Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky
and Pennsylvania. Sherri is featured in John
Kachuba's Ghosthunters book by New Page Books
and Haunted Ohio by Emmis Books. She has filmed
with PBS and the Travel Channel and is currently
working on 2 paranormal themed books while
living in an unhaunted house. (Too bad!)
Haunted
Heartland Tours www.HauntedHistory.net
Rated in the Top 10 Best
Ghost Tours of America 2007 and 2008 By Haunted
America Tours
Little is known about why
or how haunting's occur. Thousands of haunting's
have been systematically investigated by researchers
and parapsychologists since the late 19th century.
Many explanations have been proposed, but there
is no conclusive evidence to support one more
strongly than another. Federic W. H. Myers,
one of the founders of the Society For Psychical
Research (SPR), London, who did extensive research
of apparitions in the late 19th century, believed
that most hauntings are fragmentary and meaningless,
the bits and pieces of an energy residue left
by the living after their death. Others who
have built on Myers' theory propose that hauntings
do not involve ghostly personalities, but are
those recordings of energy that take on personalities
to percipients who are psychically sensitive.
Psychic sensitivity may account for diverse
experiences phenomena and another does not.
