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Unexplained Cases | Discovering the Mysterious Death of a Civil War Spy

Written by: Darren Dedo
Case Filed: 05/25/19 - Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Executive Producer: Rick Garner




6,000 acres - that’s how big Gettysburg National Military Park is. Massive, majestic, but sobering. Walking its grounds, you can feel the pain and suffering that Union and Confederate soldiers experienced during three grueling days of intense and bloody fighting in July 1863 during the Civil War. All that pain and suffering has made this hallowed ground a paranormal hotspot. While the park is haunted so are the houses and businesses that are just outside its gates.

The Unexplained Cases Team teamed up with Paranormal Investigator Dan Kulick from Gettysburg Paranormal Association / Gettysburg Ghost Tours and guest ghost hunters Brian and Jen Miller. We worked with them at the Battlefield Farmhouse. This time, we had the task of documenting paranormal activity in the South Washington Street home.

“The young lady who bought this house actually bought it to renovate it into a air b n b," says Dan. "She’s in the process of ripping out the kitchen ripping up the carpets that were here. But, for some weird reason renovations also stir up paranormal activity. You’re changing the environment everything around you, changing their home so it kind of stirs up activity.”

But, before we could figure out who those spirits were -- we needed a history lesson from Dan about the area.

“Here at this home, it is along the Elliott battlefield map - you’ll notice it is across from the National Military Park. This is the line where there was a stream and both armies were fighting over for that water on July 1-3. Guys fighting in 100 degrees July with wool and horses need a good supply of water. Over here on Cemetery Hill where the Union guys were...they didn’t have any water. The closest water is right here. Well, the Confederacy figures if we take their water they can’t keep fighting on that hill. They’re all going to start dying of dehydration, falling over, and getting sick. Why don’t we just run them off the hill and take their water supply. So, that’s what they did.”

A fight for water ends in death and despair. Soldiers killed and, for many of them, their final resting spot id underneath the homes of Gettysburg. How is that possible you might ask? Dan explains.

“They didn’t have regulations like they do today. Now, if you want to dig a foundation you have to do an archaeological dig site get permits. Back then, it’s put it up. And, if they found human remains they buried them quicker than they found them. So they just put the houses right over top. So, they got rid of the headstones and put the housing over the top of the gravesites. Gettysburg is lot like that because with still 10,000 soldiers unaccounted for there’s gravesites everywhere. Just put the house over top of them.”

Now, we had a pretty good idea why many Gettysburg neighborhoods are haunted.

So, Rick Garner and I started in the basement where we hoped to make a connection on the other side via our spirit box— the device allows ghosts to use the white noise from radio frequencies to connect with the living.

“Is there anybody here with us? My name is Darren and this is Rick.”

“We’re you a soldier in the civil war?”

“Are you a man or are you a woman?”

“Are we talking to the Gentleman who works down here?”

“Could you tell us your name sir?”

Unfortunately, we obtained no definitive proof of ghosts communicating with us. So, upstairs we went to seek out the unexplained. And, this time, we documented some remarkable evidence about the person who might have met a tragic end and is now haunting the South Washington Street house. The words from the Ovilus were chilling.

“Upside down. Pulverized. Chopped. Cutting. Chopped. Pulverized. Hung upside down.”

Brian Miller commented how he heard to word "informant" several times over the Ovilus. Jen Miller added, “I asked them if they were tortured? And, it sounded like he said 'tied up.'”

Additionally, during this session, our video caught a light anomaly near Dan's hat. At first, we thought it might be dust. After studying its pattern, we determined it was something unexplained.

It is just a hunch but, the person who is reaching out to us from the other side could have been a spy in the Civil War who was killed in a gruesome manner after being caught.

Brian says, “Definitely got some got some interesting things on the voice box. Definitely here at this location. Kept talking about some kind of informant. Said it about six times, I think. “You would think he is a spy.Yeah. that’s kinda what it came out to be.”

So, was the ghost a spy who gave secrets to the enemy? What about a mob informant who was whacked for ratting out the boss? Impossible to tell. But, you *can put the South Washington Street house on the list with other hotspots in Gettysburg that are definitely haunted.


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