Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Background Info
If you haven't already, please be sure to read the link in the sidebar to the page titled "Balsam Basics." This helps explain some of the history of the area as well as my personal links to the town. I'm also working on a page explaining my personal beliefs about ghosts, the paranormal and our realtionship to it. That should appear in the sidebar in a few days as well, so keep your eyes open. Lastly, please feel free to contact me with any personal experiences, family legends or just random comments.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Balsam Mountain Inn guest experiences
I'm going to try to collect here some of the experiences that have been reported by guests at the Balsam Mountain Inn. Most of these are culled from various websites so I can't really vouch for the veracity of any of them. I think it's still a helpful exercise to simply compare stories and try to get an idea of any "hot spots" within the Inn and to look for patterns within the experiences.
A guest in room 109 was awakened by the senstation of someone grabbing her foot.
Two guests in room 332 were on the porch looking up at the building when a shadow crossed by the window to their (supposedly unoccupied) room. Both guests reported seeing shadows in the room later that night, as well as hearing whispering voices. They were roused from their sleep at around 5 am by the sound of knocking, followed by more anomalous whispering.
A female guest woke to see a man in overalls looking though a suitcase at the foot of the bed. She assumed it to be her husband, but quickly realized that he was still in bed with her. She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, the strange figure was gone.
Above reports collected from Ghosts of America.
Haunted Places notes that two rooms in the Inn seem to be haunted: 205 and 207. Unexplained footsteps, jiggling doorknobs and other unexplained noises are reported. No personal experiences are noted.
Haunted Places
In a 2009 interview with The State, the former innkeepers specified room 205 as the focal point of the haunting, and even give a name to the spirit that lingers there: Henry. It's also noted in the brief interview that a crew from The Travel Channel had been at the In, filming a segment of the paranormal happenings1. One guests' experiences are related: A woman sleeping in the room awoke to find her husband rubbing her back. She turned to thank him, and then realized that he was sound asleep in the bed beside her.
The State: Rooms with a Boo
Sheila Turnage notes room 205 again in her book Haunted Inns of the Southeast. A jiggled doorknob is again mentioned, as is a window being opened as guests slept in the room.
Haunted Inns of the Southeast on Amazon
So this brief look at some publicly available experiences give us some interesting things to think about. Room 205 is an obvious starting point, and the name Henry is also an interesting tidbit. Without sounding mean, some of the stories on-line seem to be written by ninth graders. It's tempting to just dismiss some of this offhand, but I want to examine them as fully as I can. Some things (footsteps, whispering) are pretty easy to explain in a 100 year old Inn with paper thin walls. Some things are more mysterious. Hopefully this overview of reports can get us moving in the right direction, and provide a starting point for more serious research.
Notes:
1: The Travel Channel spot mentioned in the interview is episode 8 of a show called Weird Travels, which ended its run in 2006. The episode is called "Haunted Hotels: Where Darkness Dwells." I've yet to find a copy of this, but when I do, I'll review it here.
A guest in room 109 was awakened by the senstation of someone grabbing her foot.
Two guests in room 332 were on the porch looking up at the building when a shadow crossed by the window to their (supposedly unoccupied) room. Both guests reported seeing shadows in the room later that night, as well as hearing whispering voices. They were roused from their sleep at around 5 am by the sound of knocking, followed by more anomalous whispering.
A female guest woke to see a man in overalls looking though a suitcase at the foot of the bed. She assumed it to be her husband, but quickly realized that he was still in bed with her. She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, the strange figure was gone.
Above reports collected from Ghosts of America.
Haunted Places notes that two rooms in the Inn seem to be haunted: 205 and 207. Unexplained footsteps, jiggling doorknobs and other unexplained noises are reported. No personal experiences are noted.
Haunted Places
In a 2009 interview with The State, the former innkeepers specified room 205 as the focal point of the haunting, and even give a name to the spirit that lingers there: Henry. It's also noted in the brief interview that a crew from The Travel Channel had been at the In, filming a segment of the paranormal happenings1. One guests' experiences are related: A woman sleeping in the room awoke to find her husband rubbing her back. She turned to thank him, and then realized that he was sound asleep in the bed beside her.
The State: Rooms with a Boo
Sheila Turnage notes room 205 again in her book Haunted Inns of the Southeast. A jiggled doorknob is again mentioned, as is a window being opened as guests slept in the room.
Haunted Inns of the Southeast on Amazon
So this brief look at some publicly available experiences give us some interesting things to think about. Room 205 is an obvious starting point, and the name Henry is also an interesting tidbit. Without sounding mean, some of the stories on-line seem to be written by ninth graders. It's tempting to just dismiss some of this offhand, but I want to examine them as fully as I can. Some things (footsteps, whispering) are pretty easy to explain in a 100 year old Inn with paper thin walls. Some things are more mysterious. Hopefully this overview of reports can get us moving in the right direction, and provide a starting point for more serious research.
Notes:
1: The Travel Channel spot mentioned in the interview is episode 8 of a show called Weird Travels, which ended its run in 2006. The episode is called "Haunted Hotels: Where Darkness Dwells." I've yet to find a copy of this, but when I do, I'll review it here.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Alone in the forest
This is another tale collected from my friends grandfather.
As the tale goes, some years ago, before cars were readily available in Appalachia, a young man we'll call Carl was courting a young lady that lived on the other side of the ridge from Carl's home. Carl, being young and poor, would walk the long dirt road around the mountain to see his girlfriend, and on occasion her parents would invite him to stay for dinner. On one such evening, after a large and hearty meal, Carl began to set out for home in the dark. Now, this was long before flashlights or streetlights (Balsam, in fact, is still without that modern convenience) and so Carl found himself facing an oppressive darkness made even worse by the thick canopy of trees overhead. But Carl was a brave young country boy, and more importantly, he was tired. He made the decision that he would avoid the long walk on the dirt road and simply cross through the forest, over the ridge, and back down to his house.
Within a few yards, Carl found himself in a darkness that was so complete he felt as if he were walking with a blanket over his head. He was forced to wave his hands around blindly to prevent himself from walking directly into a tree. When he reached the top of the ridge, he decided to rest, as the climb up had been more strenuous than he had expected. He reached out a hand in that inky blackness to support himself on a sturdy oak. But quite to his surprise, his hand came to rest not upon bark but upon another hand. Someone was there, within arms reach in that impenetrable darkness. Carl gave up all pretense of caution and ran, stumbling and blind through the forest, all the way back home.
As the tale goes, some years ago, before cars were readily available in Appalachia, a young man we'll call Carl was courting a young lady that lived on the other side of the ridge from Carl's home. Carl, being young and poor, would walk the long dirt road around the mountain to see his girlfriend, and on occasion her parents would invite him to stay for dinner. On one such evening, after a large and hearty meal, Carl began to set out for home in the dark. Now, this was long before flashlights or streetlights (Balsam, in fact, is still without that modern convenience) and so Carl found himself facing an oppressive darkness made even worse by the thick canopy of trees overhead. But Carl was a brave young country boy, and more importantly, he was tired. He made the decision that he would avoid the long walk on the dirt road and simply cross through the forest, over the ridge, and back down to his house.
Within a few yards, Carl found himself in a darkness that was so complete he felt as if he were walking with a blanket over his head. He was forced to wave his hands around blindly to prevent himself from walking directly into a tree. When he reached the top of the ridge, he decided to rest, as the climb up had been more strenuous than he had expected. He reached out a hand in that inky blackness to support himself on a sturdy oak. But quite to his surprise, his hand came to rest not upon bark but upon another hand. Someone was there, within arms reach in that impenetrable darkness. Carl gave up all pretense of caution and ran, stumbling and blind through the forest, all the way back home.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Balsam Images
These are the railroad tracks that bisect Balsam, and run directly in front of my old home. These tracks delivered upper class tourists to the Balsam Mountain Inn for years, now the tracks sit mostly idle.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Personal Experience: Balsam Community Center
A close friend and longtime resident of Balsam provides the following account:
Several years ago, probably in the mid-90's, a friend and I had taken a late night walk out to the Balsam Community Center. At the time, the building was almost completely unused, and plywood covered the doors and windows. It was not unusual to find ourselves there at night, sitting on the steep concrete steps around back, looking out over the basketball courts and maybe sneaking a cigarette or a can of beer. Balsam was quiet at night, with almost no traffic, and very few houses nearby.
This particular night the two of us sat there in the darkness, leaning against the boarded up door at the side of the building. As we talked and laughed, loud, heavy footsteps sounded out inside the building. Someone was running to the boarded up door! Before we could react, a huge thud sounded out as the person inside slammed their foot into the door. Without even thinking, we were both up, scrambling down the stairs and away from that horrible noise. We had to skirt the building to get back to the road, and those 50 feet were probably the hardest I have ever run.
Was it someone inside? Probably. Maybe some drunk who found a warm place to spend the night and didn't like us making noise outside his door. But years of living here and experiencing several other unexplainable events has made me wary. This also ignores the fact that the place was very well boarded up. We had tried on several occasions to sneak in and had found no weakness. Whoever or whatever was in there wanted us gone, and I was happy to oblige.
 |
| The old Balsam School, now used as a community center. |
Several years ago, probably in the mid-90's, a friend and I had taken a late night walk out to the Balsam Community Center. At the time, the building was almost completely unused, and plywood covered the doors and windows. It was not unusual to find ourselves there at night, sitting on the steep concrete steps around back, looking out over the basketball courts and maybe sneaking a cigarette or a can of beer. Balsam was quiet at night, with almost no traffic, and very few houses nearby.
This particular night the two of us sat there in the darkness, leaning against the boarded up door at the side of the building. As we talked and laughed, loud, heavy footsteps sounded out inside the building. Someone was running to the boarded up door! Before we could react, a huge thud sounded out as the person inside slammed their foot into the door. Without even thinking, we were both up, scrambling down the stairs and away from that horrible noise. We had to skirt the building to get back to the road, and those 50 feet were probably the hardest I have ever run.
 |
| The door, boarded up at the time, where we heard the noise. |
Was it someone inside? Probably. Maybe some drunk who found a warm place to spend the night and didn't like us making noise outside his door. But years of living here and experiencing several other unexplainable events has made me wary. This also ignores the fact that the place was very well boarded up. We had tried on several occasions to sneak in and had found no weakness. Whoever or whatever was in there wanted us gone, and I was happy to oblige.
My Balsam Mountain Inn experience
I worked as a cook at the Balsam Mountain Inn for a couple of years, and I heard all of the stories from the other employees of strange occurrences, unexplained footsteps, all of the typical hallmarks of a haunted space. I hope to delve into some of those in the future, but for now I want to talk about my own experiences. Most are fairly low key and I assume all of them could be explained away easily enough. There are a few instances that I simply can't rationalize away, but I understand if you, dear reader, disagree with me.
Firstly, I'd like to address a big issue: The Inn has a history, a certain gloss of the supernatural attached to it, and that is bound to color the perceptions of anyone who is aware of it. It also looks the part; like a miniature Overlook Hotel from The Shining, with creaky wooden floors, wavy glass in the windows and an overabundance of shadows. My own personal experience with the Inn also alters my perception of it; my first time in the building was an illegal entry through an unlocked window with friends and a Ouija board when the Inn was boarded up and unused. (I'll talk about that when I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired.) All of these things modulate the way that I react to and interact with the space, and I understand that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the building itself might make one believe in ghosts.
So, here's the easy to explain stuff: Footsteps. Sometimes near, sometimes far away and loud, but footsteps were very common. Many mornings as I sat the kitchen up alone in preparation for breakfast, I would hear someone crossing the large dining room. I would pop my head out to explain our breakfast hours only to be greeted by an empty room. The entrance to the dining room had an infrared door alarm that sounded a chime in the kitchen. This was tripped on many occasions without an obvious source, and many footsteps were heard in the dining room without the alarm being triggered.
There was also that odd feeling of being watched, which undoubtedly has many potential causes. The odd thing about the Inn was that the feeling would come and go. Some nights, the place felt light and airy, like any other building. But other times there was an oppressiveness to it, a sense of foreboding that made the place see darker than it really was. And this feeling wasn't dependent on the staff; some nights I would work alone and feel just fine. Other nights with a full staff present and the whole building seemed to be watching you.
More difficult to explain was the situation with the gas stoves. One more than one occasion, a cook would walk to the stove only to find an eye turned on, but not lit. I assume that some rational explanation could be found for this, but it seems unlikely. The control knobs were old and difficult to turn, and this normally happened quickly. My experience was this: I walked from the stove to the sink to dump out some water. When I returned to the stove seconds later, one eye had been turned on fully; the smell of gas was immediately evident. Could I have somehow bumped the knob and turned the gas on? Perhaps. But in two years of cooking, I had never done that before and I never did it again. Similar experiences happened to the other cooks, and frequently in situations where no one was using the stove.
The last experience that I will mention is probably the most perplexing. To understand the story, I'll need to explain the layout, and that's probably easiest with a diagram. When the incident occurred, I was standing in the kitchen, talking to the head chef. It was early in the evening on a fairly slow night. The chef had his back to the walk-in cooler, I was facing him and could see over his shoulder and had a clear view of the short hall that connects the laundry room to our dry storage room.
As we talked, I saw a person cross in front of the cooler door, as if they were walking from the laundry room into dry storage. There is an exterior entrance into the laundry room, but dry storage has only windows and is several feet off the ground. My initial thought was not of the paranormal. I assumed that someone had simply walked in the laundry room and slipped into storage. I interrupted the chef to explain that someone was in dry storage. Again, there was no thought of anything paranormal, no weird vibes or anything. There was a person, and they weren't supposed to be there. The chef and I walked into storage quickly to find an empty room. No windows were open, nothing was out of place. Whoever I had seen had simply walked into the room and vanished. I tried to explain what the person looked like to the chef and other cooks, but there was nothing that really distinguished him. It was a man, but beyond that I had nothing. The whole sighting had lasted maybe two seconds, but it was absolutely real to me. Can that be explained? Sure. I had some sort of hallucination, maybe a visual disturbance. Does that seem probable? I suppose it's just as likely as me having seen a ghost, but the clarity and absolute realness of what I saw still makes me wonder.
Firstly, I'd like to address a big issue: The Inn has a history, a certain gloss of the supernatural attached to it, and that is bound to color the perceptions of anyone who is aware of it. It also looks the part; like a miniature Overlook Hotel from The Shining, with creaky wooden floors, wavy glass in the windows and an overabundance of shadows. My own personal experience with the Inn also alters my perception of it; my first time in the building was an illegal entry through an unlocked window with friends and a Ouija board when the Inn was boarded up and unused. (I'll talk about that when I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired.) All of these things modulate the way that I react to and interact with the space, and I understand that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the building itself might make one believe in ghosts.
So, here's the easy to explain stuff: Footsteps. Sometimes near, sometimes far away and loud, but footsteps were very common. Many mornings as I sat the kitchen up alone in preparation for breakfast, I would hear someone crossing the large dining room. I would pop my head out to explain our breakfast hours only to be greeted by an empty room. The entrance to the dining room had an infrared door alarm that sounded a chime in the kitchen. This was tripped on many occasions without an obvious source, and many footsteps were heard in the dining room without the alarm being triggered.
There was also that odd feeling of being watched, which undoubtedly has many potential causes. The odd thing about the Inn was that the feeling would come and go. Some nights, the place felt light and airy, like any other building. But other times there was an oppressiveness to it, a sense of foreboding that made the place see darker than it really was. And this feeling wasn't dependent on the staff; some nights I would work alone and feel just fine. Other nights with a full staff present and the whole building seemed to be watching you.
More difficult to explain was the situation with the gas stoves. One more than one occasion, a cook would walk to the stove only to find an eye turned on, but not lit. I assume that some rational explanation could be found for this, but it seems unlikely. The control knobs were old and difficult to turn, and this normally happened quickly. My experience was this: I walked from the stove to the sink to dump out some water. When I returned to the stove seconds later, one eye had been turned on fully; the smell of gas was immediately evident. Could I have somehow bumped the knob and turned the gas on? Perhaps. But in two years of cooking, I had never done that before and I never did it again. Similar experiences happened to the other cooks, and frequently in situations where no one was using the stove.
The last experience that I will mention is probably the most perplexing. To understand the story, I'll need to explain the layout, and that's probably easiest with a diagram. When the incident occurred, I was standing in the kitchen, talking to the head chef. It was early in the evening on a fairly slow night. The chef had his back to the walk-in cooler, I was facing him and could see over his shoulder and had a clear view of the short hall that connects the laundry room to our dry storage room.
As we talked, I saw a person cross in front of the cooler door, as if they were walking from the laundry room into dry storage. There is an exterior entrance into the laundry room, but dry storage has only windows and is several feet off the ground. My initial thought was not of the paranormal. I assumed that someone had simply walked in the laundry room and slipped into storage. I interrupted the chef to explain that someone was in dry storage. Again, there was no thought of anything paranormal, no weird vibes or anything. There was a person, and they weren't supposed to be there. The chef and I walked into storage quickly to find an empty room. No windows were open, nothing was out of place. Whoever I had seen had simply walked into the room and vanished. I tried to explain what the person looked like to the chef and other cooks, but there was nothing that really distinguished him. It was a man, but beyond that I had nothing. The whole sighting had lasted maybe two seconds, but it was absolutely real to me. Can that be explained? Sure. I had some sort of hallucination, maybe a visual disturbance. Does that seem probable? I suppose it's just as likely as me having seen a ghost, but the clarity and absolute realness of what I saw still makes me wonder.
The Light
I moved to Balsam in the fall of 2003, finding myself alone in a small house. I was only a few yards from the house of my best friend from childhood, and just down the hill from his brother, another close friend. This situation allowed us to see one another fairly regularly, and it wasn't unusual for everyone to congregate in one house for poker or video games or a movie. One summer evening in probably 2005, my friend, his wife and his brother and I were all sitting on my front porch.
The sun was going down to the west, and the horizon was a beautiful palette of oranges and yellows. I looked to the southwestern horizon, and saw a large red-orange ball. It was probably the diameter of a pencil eraser held at arms length. I caught the attention of the rest of the group, and everyone stopped to look at this unusual light in the sky. The sun had slipped a little further down, so the bright light was in stark contrast to the darkening sky behind it. We watched it intently for about ten minutes.
At this point, I had begun to think that it was possibly just a very bright planet on the horizon, maybe Venus. I slipped inside to grab my telescope, a cheap Meade that I had picked up a year or so prior. Just as I began to adjust the scope to try to look at this supposed planet, the light began to move rapidly across the sky towards the north. It grew in size until it appeared to be about the size of a dime in the sky. It's margin was ragged, giving the appearance that it was on fire. Within a few seconds it had moved far enough north that it was out of sight behind the tree line. It was completely silent for the duration of the sighting.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to work out what I had seen. The planet hypothesis was clearly out, as planets don't tend to move rapidly across the sky. The duration of the sighting rules out a meteor. It's possible that it was a plane, as odd as that seems. If it had been heading directly for us, it would have appeared as a point of light, especially with the sun illuminating it from behind. Once it changed headings, it would have moved rapidly from our field of view. The flaming effect could have been simply a mirage as the light traveled through the atmosphere, and the lack of sound can be explained by the distance. This is the explanation that I've settled on. While it doesn't fully satisfy me, it does seem to fit the circumstances of the sighting. This is important for me; to understand that as much as I want it to be something odd, it may well not be. Or maybe that's what the aliens implanted in my brain during my abduction. Who knows?
The sun was going down to the west, and the horizon was a beautiful palette of oranges and yellows. I looked to the southwestern horizon, and saw a large red-orange ball. It was probably the diameter of a pencil eraser held at arms length. I caught the attention of the rest of the group, and everyone stopped to look at this unusual light in the sky. The sun had slipped a little further down, so the bright light was in stark contrast to the darkening sky behind it. We watched it intently for about ten minutes.
At this point, I had begun to think that it was possibly just a very bright planet on the horizon, maybe Venus. I slipped inside to grab my telescope, a cheap Meade that I had picked up a year or so prior. Just as I began to adjust the scope to try to look at this supposed planet, the light began to move rapidly across the sky towards the north. It grew in size until it appeared to be about the size of a dime in the sky. It's margin was ragged, giving the appearance that it was on fire. Within a few seconds it had moved far enough north that it was out of sight behind the tree line. It was completely silent for the duration of the sighting.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to work out what I had seen. The planet hypothesis was clearly out, as planets don't tend to move rapidly across the sky. The duration of the sighting rules out a meteor. It's possible that it was a plane, as odd as that seems. If it had been heading directly for us, it would have appeared as a point of light, especially with the sun illuminating it from behind. Once it changed headings, it would have moved rapidly from our field of view. The flaming effect could have been simply a mirage as the light traveled through the atmosphere, and the lack of sound can be explained by the distance. This is the explanation that I've settled on. While it doesn't fully satisfy me, it does seem to fit the circumstances of the sighting. This is important for me; to understand that as much as I want it to be something odd, it may well not be. Or maybe that's what the aliens implanted in my brain during my abduction. Who knows?
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