The strange sightings and sounds at the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse

Some of us may or may not believe in ghosts, spirits, or visions, but everyone loves a good scary story, or a tale of a haunt. What better place for these sightings, footsteps, strange lights, or even things that go ?bump in the night?, than a lighthouse? Ghosts and old lighthouses seem to go together. The haunting at the old Presque Isle Lighthouse is legendary. It has been said to be haunted by former lighthouse keeper George Parris. After he died, people believe a mysterious light started to appear from the tower. According to one story, a little girl touring the lighthouse with her family had climbed to the top of the tower and returned giggling. When asked who she had been talking to up there, she said, “To the man in the tower.” She later identified the man as George Parris from a portrait of him in the cottage.

MANY LIGHTHO– USES have tales of strange happenings that usually revolve around a lonely lighthouse keeper or shipwrecks caused by some failure to keep the tower light burning. Is that is what is happening at the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse? Could it be a lost soul from the wooden steamer, Joseph Faye, which washed ashore after a violent October storm in 1905, aimlessly walking the grounds of the lighthouse. Believers and skeptics have captured numerous orb lights with digital and 35 mm cameras. Orbs are white balls of light caught on film. Nobody is sure what they are, but it is believed they may be some form of energy. Several photographs of orb lights have been documented, including a blue orb light near a basement window of a darkened lighthouse. Halloween time brings about stories of the unexplained, and the 110-year old county landmark, has its share.

ONE VOLUNTEER, who is a member of the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse Society from Rogers City, who did not want to be identified, says she is sensitive to visions, and believes there are four ?happy? spirits at the lighthouse and a ghost that is haunting the building. ?Not everyone is a ghost, and not everyone is a spirit,? she said. The volunteer, who works at a downtown Rogers City business, and has been involved in the restoration work for a few years, has seen a vision of a woman sitting in a bedroom. She said the spirit told her that she was pleased with the work going on in the building. ?It was not spooky to me, I would say that most people probably would be spooked, because we are always afraid of what we don?t understand.? The volunteer also captured what she believes is audio evidence of unexplained static and feet shuffling through the leaves. Her husband was standing right next to her when the footsteps approached from behind her. ?I am not frightened. I am more afraid of the living than I am of the dead. The dead can?t hurt you, but the living can,? she said. Another volunteer was reportedly rattled after some type of sighting in the basement. The volunteer saw what he thought was a human figure as he walked down the stairs.

TOM AND BARB STONE, who have been members of the Lighthouse Society for several years, and have spent a considerable amount of time at the century old structure, have not experienced anything unusual. Barb said some people seem to be more sensitive than others. ?My daughter for one?can walk upstairs here and get as far as the first landing and feel something.? There is an area to the left of the top of the stai

rs that bothers her, as well as an upstairs bedroom.? Stone jokingly said, ?Lighthouses are supposed to be full of ghosts, and ghost stories.? She also added, though, that a first mate on the Faye drowned in 1905 and washed up onshore, a skeleton was found with its head bashed in 10 years ago, and the first lighthouse keeper?s mother died in the lighthouse of natural causes. The Stones did say that the current lighthouse keepers, who live there fulltime, have never reported anything unusual. That is not the case for Josie Peltz of Rogers City, who lived in the keeper?s quarters in the late 1980s for four years.

She heard footsteps outside, had doors slam behind her, and noticed a presence in an upstairs bathroom near the attic. She said the basement door slammed the most, and that it occurred only when she was alone in the house. Peltz said believes it is the ghost of the sailor lost on the Faye. He was nicknamed ?George.? There have been orb lights captured on film, as well as strange sounds and sightings, but is the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse haunted? You decide!

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