Demons...? At Vale End Cemetery...? I used to
laugh at this idea.
In November 1999, our research focused on haunted Gilson Road Cemetery in Nashua, New Hampshire.
One night when our team was there for an investigation, one of our photographers--and my closest personal friend--brought
her teenaged daughter with her.
We had a mixed group that night, including believers and skeptics, new researchers and experienced ghost hunters.
The investigation went fairly well, with many manifestations and psychic experiences. It wasn't especially scary.
However, some people became
frightened, including my friend's daughter.
A side trip to 'safe' Vale End Cemetery
On their way home, the mother and daughter stopped at Vale End Cemetery. According to my friend, her plan was to
take her daughter to a comfortable, familiar cemetery near their home, so she'd feel better about the evening. Besides,
my friend wanted more photos.
They parked the car near the middle of the cemetery, as most of us do when we're at Vale End. And, they strolled
towards The Blue Lady's headstone.
My friend mentioned being near an attorney's headstone (identified by the 'Esq.' notation on the marker), when
something dark seemed to come up out of the ground. She couldn't tell what it was.
Her daughter ran in terror back to the car. As my friend described the scene, she said that something
screamed through her daughter.
They drove away in such haste, a branch took their outside mirror right off the car.
Some time later, the daughter called me at home. Fortunately, I was still awake.
She was terrified, and asked if anything follows people home from cemeteries.
I assured her that no, nothing follows you home. If ghosts could leave where they were, they probably wouldn't be
haunting.
A victim of haunted Vale End?
Five days later, her mother was found dead as she sat in her car in a busy parking lot in Wilton. Her death had
to be sudden, or she'd have hit the horn on the car to get attention. But, she was a very physically fit woman, and
younger than me.
The hospital declared it a heart attack, and I thought nothing more about the odd circumstances. Mostly, I
missed my good friend.
A terrifying ghost vigil
The following spring, some of us began keeping vigil at Vale End Cemetery, hoping to see the Blue Lady.
One night, four of us were at the cemetery, chatting. Nothing dramatic was going on, although I'd measured some
significant EMF levels near the large evergreen just north of the Blue Lady grave.
We were about to call it a night as darkness fell, when I decided to stroll over to the Blue Lady's headstone
for some last-minute photos... just in case.
I was feet away from the attorney's stone that my friend had mentioned, when I spotted what I've since called 'a
little Grover guy' about two or three feet from me. I paused, startled, but decided to keep walking. After all, if
the Grover guy--who was a vivid shade of red--hadn't bothered me yet, he probably wouldn't. And, the figure
seemed more amusing than anything to inspire fear.
Then, I walked into something like a force field. It felt as if I'd hit a glass wall.
My story continues at Fear at Vale
End Cemetery.
