Ghosts of
Gilson Road Cemetery

part five

by Fiona Broome and the Hollow Hill staff ©2005


GILSON ROAD CEMETERY, NASHUA, NH - PART FIVE OF FIVE

I climbed back over the wall and tossed another roll of film into my camera. I didn't want Nancy to feel as if we were waiting for her, so I started taking more pictures.

About a dozen photos later, Nancy was also ready to leave. She and Alice headed north in their car. Alan, Jane, James and I went back to my house.

All of the way home, I kept hearing Jane's shaky voice. She promised that she'd never joke in a cemetery again. She was very apologetic, and repeated that she hadn't expected anything like this.

Alan slowly emerged from the technicolor haze he'd been in during his first lengthy and intense encounter with the paranormal. He said over and over again that it was like a movie, but better... and worse.

James thought the whole thing was pretty cool and didn't say much.

I kept babbling, hoping to put it in a context for Alan so he'd understand the experience better. I was still annoyed with Jane's daytime joking in the cemetery, because I know that a flippant attitude or a vocal skeptic in the group can dash all hopes of getting good anomalies on film.

Once we got home, Alan and Jane stayed to talk for awhile. About an hour later, Alice called from her mother's cell phone. Alice and Nancy had gone to yet another, more famous haunted cemetery, and Alice had been chased by something dark and terrifying. She was okay, but rattled. We agreed to talk about it later in the week.

The evening was finally over.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND ANOMALIES

Three days later, my film was back from the developer: Over a third of the photos had anomalies in them.

During the time when I felt an intense energy rushing past me, like a train (but the air didn't move), I had taken two photos with startling purple energy in them.

One of these photos--now famous--is below.

purple-streaked cemetery photo

The roll of film that had jammed (not the one with the purple photo, above) had a perfectly reasonable explanation: Somehow, sand had gotten into my camera. A few images on that roll were scarred where the sand had dragged along the film. I'll be more careful in the future.

None of Nancy's photos had anomalies in them. She wasn't surprised. She said that people who experience paranormal phenomena probably pick up things on film that others don't.

She had studied my earlier photos and the negatives from them, and had said that they were exactly what they appeared to be: Anomalies. Things that "couldn't be," as she put it. But they were not developing or printing mistakes, double-exposures, or anything like that.

Nancy had hoped to capture similar anomalies herself, but she seemed content to have a few great photos from an eerie cemetery. I'll use at least one of her photos in my upcoming book on ghost hunting.

Since then, I've tried scanning my Gilson Road photos from November 5th, to show the anomalies. One photo has six anomalies in it, including a black orb. (Black orbs are very rare.) However, they're very dim, even with 800 ASA film.

I've abandoned my scanning efforts with most of those photos. Even looking at the originals, it's like "Where's Waldo?" trying to find the orbs. They're easy to spot when you know where to look, but otherwise, you'd never notice them in most of the photos.

But the purple-streaked photos are my trophies from that evening, along with the chilling memories of what we witnessed.

Alan and I went back to the cemetery one sunny afternoon the following week, so I could compare my anomalies with the surroundings. I was looking for things to explain the odd lights and orbs in my photos.

We climbed over several stone walls, and studied every corner of the cemetery. The anomalies in my photos remain unexplained.

Alan and I left after about an hour at the cemetery. I could feel the energy building up again. Although it was many hours before dusk, I could feel the "people" gathering again. The massacre probably happens again most nights, whether the living are there to witness it or not.

Gilson Road Cemetery is the most intensely haunted place I have ever visited. Whatever lives and dies there each night, is still a very powerful force.

The ridiculous thing is, soon after our visit, a developer began building Tanglewood, an upscale community across the street from Gilson Road Cemetery.

NANCY'S DEATH, SOON AFTER

One personal note about this story: My friend Nancy died of an apparent heart attack in the middle of November 1999, about a week after our visit to Gilson Road Cemetery.

A reader asked if there was any link between Nancy's death and the Gilson visit. I don't think so, although Nancy also went to Vale End Cemetery in Wilton, that same night. I don't know what to think about that visit; in time, I may post the whole story here.

Right now, I prefer to think that Nancy's intense interest in ghost photography was due to a premonition she may have had, about her own time drawing short.

Also, I've talked with many people who've been at Gilson in recent months, after dark. I know nearly a dozen people who've visited that cemetery in the past month, ghost hunting. Not one story, from recent or distant past, has tragedy linked to it.

I will miss Nancy very much. She was a dear friend and we had a great time together. But I think that her time had come to a close, and that's what happened.



Read summaries of later visits to Gilson


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