The Atlanta area and Georgia are awash in the supernatural — at least, in fictional movies and TV shows filmed here, such as “Vampire Diaries,” “The Walking Dead” and “Stranger Things.”
But, what about real paranormal activity? Professional frightener Ben Armstrong is noncommittal.
Armstrong is co-founder of Netherworld, one of the most terrifying (and successful) commercial haunted houses in the region. “I’m a bit of a skeptic,” Armstrong said, though he added that, “I’ve been to a lot of rumored-to-be-haunted places in the country.”
On the other hand, self-described “intuitive” Chip Coffey, an Atlantan and a cast member of the ghost-hunting show “Kindred Spirits,” would say there are plenty of phantoms to choose from around here. He has seen strange things at the Georgian Terrace, the Fox Theatre, Rhodes Hall and the Shakespeare Tavern, among other sites.
Coffey, who also has been host of episodes of A&E’s “Paranormal State,” takes these sightings in stride. What gets under his skin are the professional scare houses, like Netherworld. “I’m the guy that faces this stuff in real life, but Netherworld scares the bejesus out of me,” he said.
Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, there are places to visit in Atlanta (and farther afield) where the membrane between this world and the next legendarily is thin. Many of these historic sites offer evening tours that focus on the things that go bump in the night.
Credit: TIM HARMAN
Credit: TIM HARMAN
Rhodes Hall
In the 1990s, Rhodes Hall offered a sort of commercial haunted house as a fund-raiser, but the disembodied spirits who lived there probably were laughing about it behind their diaphanous hands.
By then, the structure, built as a private home by furniture magnate Amos Rhodes, was well-known as a gathering spot for wraiths and specters.
Traci Rothwell is senior director of communications at the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and a longtime member of the organization, which makes its headquarters in the creaky old Romanesque structure. One day, Rothwell was at work on the third floor when she heard a group of children laughing and getting rowdy. “I thought it was another field trip. I thought ‘well goodness, they’re having a really good time.’”
Later, she spoke with the director in charge of school groups and commented on the noisy kids from earlier in the day.
“She said ‘Traci, we didn’t have any kids today,’ and the hair on my arms stood up. It was in the middle of the day, too. It freaked me out.”
Paranormal investigators from the television show “Ghost Hunters” visited the hall about a decade ago. Deploying their phantasm-spotting equipment, they recorded a variety of telltale signs, including voices.
“Everyone who has spent some time there has stories,” Rothwell said.
That would include set designer Shane Garner, who lived in an apartment in the basement of Rhodes Hall during the late 1990s.
Garner served as an actor in those late-1990s spook houses at Rhodes, presaging a life filled with the macabre. One evening, Garner and a friend, taking a guerrilla midnight tour through the premises, both saw a little girl in a blue dress. Or, they think they did.
“I have found myself rich with experiences in the haunted and paranormal realm,” said Garner, who has created props for such Atlanta-based television shows as “The Vampire Diaries,” as well as for commercial haunted houses.
Credit: Marietta History Center
Credit: Marietta History Center
Marietta History Center/Kennesaw House
The Marietta Museum of History is housed in the Kennesaw House, which began its life in 1845 as a cotton warehouse, then was remodeled into a hotel in 1855. (During the Civil War, it played host to Andrews’ Raiders, the night before the Great Locomotive Chase.)
In 1996, the Marietta History Center moved into the second floor; it took over the entire building in 2010. Since then, Director Amy Reed said, the immaterial residents of the building have continued to be active.
One visitor to the gallery at the museum held “a full conversation with someone that we couldn’t see,” Reed said.
Her staff and outside ghost hunters have reported similar events, and she doesn’t doubt them. “There are plenty of things I believe in that I’ve never seen,” Reed said. “All I say is, I’m just not sensitive, or maybe open, to seeing those things.”
The Kennesaw House is capitalizing on its reputation this Halloween, with several do-it-yourself ghost hunting tours.
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Oakland Cemetery
On a sunny autumn day, Oakland Cemetery is the opposite of gloomy.
Richard Harker, executive director of the Historic Oakland Foundation, said Atlanta’s oldest cemetery comes alive when the weather turns cool.
Notable Atlantans are buried there, including golfer Bobby Jones, author Margaret Mitchell and singer Kenny Rogers. The cemetery also is the resting place for 6,900 Confederate soldiers (of whom 3,000 are unknown) and 27 former mayors of Atlanta.
Harker recently offered a golf-cart tour of the grounds, while workers hauled flooring and ran wiring at the Bell Tower, which is going through a $2 million renovation.
What once was administrative headquarters will become an event space, with a newly refreshed 250-pound bell hanging in the Romanesque tower.
“I’ve spent many a late night here, and I have not felt a bad presence,” said Harker, rolling between gothic grave markers, his accent betraying a childhood in south London. “I’ve felt comforted and safe out here.”
On the other hand, several tour companies (which must be approved by Oakland) conduct ghost tours on the cemetery grounds.
Mixing with those tourists are visitors to a host of other activities at the graveyard, sponsored by the foundation, including the Run Like Hell 5K, a pumpkin carving and the haunted scavenger hunt.
Over two weekends in October, Oakland sponsors Capturing the Spirit of Oakland Halloween tours, during which costumed actors, dressed up as departed Atlantans, stand by graves and mausoleums, to tell their characters’ stories. The tours are meant to enlighten, not frighten.
Credit: vino-wong
Credit: vino-wong
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
On June 27, 1864, Gen. William T. Sherman’s artillery began bombarding entrenched Confederate positions on Kennesaw Mountain, north of Atlanta, initiating a six-day battle in which 3,000 Union soldiers and 1,000 Confederate troops lost their lives.
Do the dead still wander the woods of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park?
Re-enactors who have camped out in the woods claim to have heard those spirits. U.S. Ghost Adventures named Kennesaw among the top 10 most haunted places in Atlanta, and visitors report hearing rifle fire and seeing soldiers in Confederate uniforms wandering the trails.
The rangers in charge of the park steer away from such spooky tales.
“We try to be very respectful of the fact that so many died here in defense of our freedom,” said Superintendent Patrick Gammon. “We don’t get into telling ghost stories. Somebody might ask that, but not that often. We don’t do any programs on it.”
But, the Kennesaw park is lively this time of year with ranger-led hikes, living history lessons and craft demonstrations, while visitors get their exercise hiking up and down the 1,808-foot mountain.
Credit: Fox Theatre
Credit: Fox Theatre
The Fox Theatre
The otherworldly Fox, with its surrealist decor and many corridors, seems like a good place for a scary happening. It is.
“I don’t know that I’m a firm believer,” said Jamie Vosmeier, vice president of sales and marketing at the theater, “but there was an indescribable presence that was picked up on a security camera.”
The video, which is on the Fox Facebook page, shows a shadowy blob traveling down a hallway and up a staircase. “Even me, with my own skeptic eyes, I can’t explain what it is,” Vosmeier said.
Other occurrences include unexplained lights and footsteps, and an apparent presence of someone behind a curtain who wasn’t there.
The Fox capitalizes on the reputation with ghost tours this time of year. The tours take visitors behind the scenes, to places like the “hospital room,” where ill audience members sought respite in the 1930s, and the screening room, where films were previewed before being shown to the public.
The tour includes actors playing the parts of ghosts, but, Vosmeier said, there are no jump scares. “It feels creepy, but we’re not trying to be a haunted house. You’ll be educated on Fox history.”
Credit: Hay House
Credit: Hay House
Hay House in Macon
It’s not an Atlanta location, but the Hay House in Macon deserves a special mention.
In the 1850s, William Butler Johnston, a banking and railroad tycoon, picked a spot near the Ocmulgee River and built a house for his family in the Italian Renaissance Revival style.
It was completed in 1859, and stocked with sculptures, paintings and porcelain purchased during the Johnstons’ trips abroad.
The house passed to the Johnstons’ daughters, then was sold to Parks Lee Hay, and finally transferred to the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in 1977.
Although the house had a spirited reputation, managers of the museum thought it was inappropriate to talk about ghosts when members of the Hay House families still were living in Macon. “The official policy of the time was that we didn’t discuss that,” said Telisa Asaro, manager of education. “They thought family members might not appreciate that sensationalism.”
But, attitudes about discussing an otherworldly presence have loosened, as audiences grow more interested in numinous encounters. The Hay House has been named one of the “13 Most Beautiful Haunted Destinations Around the World” by Architectural Digest. Legends and Lore tours focus on the house’s eerie history.
Last month, a docent at the Hay House was giving such a tour when a member of the touring party aimed his cellphone into an unoccupied room that was used mostly for storage.
“He was lagging behind, because he had a toddler,” Asaro said. Inside the room, amid the furniture and other objects, was a baby’s cradle. It was, Asaro said, “just rocking by itself. You can hear (the docent) talking, off camera, still giving the tour. He’s standing at the doorway looking into that room. Stuff like that continues to happen.”
While tours at the house emphasize its historic significance, “We also need to stay relevant to our audience,” Asaro said.
So, ghosts also are on the syllabus. “People are interested.”
IF YOU GO
Rhodes Hall
Legends and Lore at Rhodes Hall tours, focusing on ghostly tales. 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Oct. 25-27; $35; 21 and older. 1516 Peachtree St. NW, Atlanta. rhodeshall.org
Marietta History Center
Fright at the Museum tours, including a walking tour of downtown Marietta and a trip through the Kennesaw House, guided by self-professed psychic and medium Mary Jarroush. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28-30; $120. 1 Depot St., Marietta. 770-794-5710, mariettahistory.org
Oakland Cemetery
There are tours on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays ($12) telling the full story of Oakland Cemetery, and special-topic tours on Saturdays and Sundays covering such areas as Victorian symbolism and Atlanta’s African American history. 248 Oakland Ave., SE, Atlanta. oaklandcemetery.com
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
Visitors can visit the museum, climb the hiking trails and see other features of the park. $5 day pass. 900 Kennesaw Mountain Drive, Kennesaw. 770-427-4686, nps.gov/kemo
The Hay House
Legends and Lore tours are sold out, but tours of the house are held 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. $18. 934 Georgia Ave., Macon. 478-742-8155, hayhousemacon.org
The Fox Theatre
Ghost Tours are conducted every 15 minutes (beginning at 6 p.m.) through Oct. 27, with time out to accommodate other Fox events. $49-$79. 660 Peachtree St., NE, Atlanta. 855-285-8499, foxtheatre.org
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