WEBVTT - Even After All These Years, It Still Smells Like Blood 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:14.640 and Mild from Aaron Minky listener, discretion is advised. Of 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.840 all the places I investigate, believe it or not, lighthouses 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.759 may be one of the saddest I think of the 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.560 lighthouse keepers. They're very living to provide a guiding light, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.960 to keep people from danger. Their job was built in 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:34.360 routine and discipline, for to fail meant failing those at 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.159 sea who so desperately depended on them for safety. Is 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:43.160 it any wonder lighthouses are notoriously haunted that in death 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.400 those who once manned them still feel enough of a 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.599 sense of duty to return and diligently walk hundreds of steps, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.760 forever manning a beacon in the darkness. And how sad 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.360 that something once so noble and important has long been 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.680 replaced with technology, superpowered lights and lenses. How do these 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.280 spirits feel now? What are they trying to tell us? 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.720 Is time and time again they don't leave their posts, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.759 even after they have long passed away. Perhaps the Pensacola 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:20.000 Lighthouse can guide us to an understanding. I'm Amy Brune, 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:29.080 and this is Haunted Road. If you were to hike 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.000 along San Carlos Beach near the Pensacola Naval Air Station, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.200 and you glanced up on a dark night, you might 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.440 see a brilliant beam of light in the sky. It 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.840 would pulse on for twenty seconds, then flicker off again, 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.479 only to light up once more after another twenty seconds. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.680 The beam comes from the one thousand watt bulb mounted 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.960 in the Pensacola Lighthouse, a beacon that's amplified by the 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.800 historic over one hundred and seventy year old fresnel lens. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.200 It's so you can spot it from twenty seven miles away. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.680 Unlike many haunted places, the Pensacle Lighthouse is still in 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.639 operation today. It's not abandoned or in a state of disrepair. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.280 It also doesn't have an on site keeper operating its 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:20.720 machinery anymore. Its processes are all automated. The roughly one 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.720 hundred and fifty foot tall tower looms over the two 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.280 story keepers quarters. The residence, now home to historic exhibits 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:31.720 for the public, is surrounded by balconies on each floor. 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.519 It has a cheerful red roof, while the lighthouse itself 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.519 is brown and white. The narrow base is a mere 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.960 thirty feet in diameter, but the higher it goes, the 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.160 narrower it becomes to a scant fifteen feet at the top. 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.120 If you were to ascend the one hundred seventy seven 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.280 steps up the winding spiral staircase, as I have done 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.880 in the past, and I do not necessarily recommend it, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.760 you'd find an automated light system. It's completely surrounded by 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.760 swirled glass that redirects and amplifies the beam. As reported 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.120 by the National Park Services website. On the fresnel lens 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.079 outside sixteen gargoyles ring a catwalk around the lighthouse exterior. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.080 These are spouts meant to redirect rainwater from the building, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.959 but the Pensacola Lighthouse and Maritime Museum claims they also 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:25.440 keep evil spirits at bay. Given the lighthouse as history, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.560 it's no wonder the builders were worried about malicious energies. 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.720 The city of Pensacola, nestled right on the boundary between 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.560 Florida and Alabama, is named after the indigenous people of 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.400 the area. The town was founded in August fifteen fifty 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:46.040 nine and almost immediately destroyed like a bad omen. According 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.840 to the Pensacola Lighthouse and Maritime Museum's history page, a 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.400 hurricane thrashed the community just weeks after it was founded, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.520 beginning on September nineteenth. The death toll hit the hundreds, 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.840 and the devastation destroyed the supplies the sour virus needed 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.880 to ensure their town's success. After that settlement failed, nearly 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.800 a century and a half passed until Spanish colonists erected 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.920 Fort San Carlos State Astoria in the same place. Once again, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.040 the community only had a short time to flourish before 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:20.719 disaster struck. Armed conflict broke out between the Spanish and 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.520 the French, and later the British entered the mix to Finally, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.839 General Andrew Jackson, who later become president, seized the city 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:32.960 now known as Pensacola for the United States in eighteen eighteen. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.840 When construction on the lighthouse began six years later, there 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.200 were more bizarre disasters. The Pensacola News Journal reported that 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.719 early in the building process, large numbers of highly venomous 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.680 water moccasins migrated from the Gulf coast to the construction site. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.280 The snakes would lurk in piles of bricks, attacking any 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.200 worker unfortunate enough to cross their path. The servants were 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.080 even occasionally spotted on high scaffolding, and no one could 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.719 explain how the snakes had climbed so high. In spite 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.760 of these concerning harbingers, the lighthouse was completed and opened 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.840 its doors in December of eighteen twenty four. The first keeper, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:24.839 Jeremiah Ingraham, moved into the on site accommodations. For two years, 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.400 he lived there alone. Every other hour he'd have to 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.560 climb to the top of the lighthouse to operate the 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.680 mechanism that kept it lit. Luckily, Jeremiah didn't remain in 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.280 solitude for long. He was married in eighteen twenty four, 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.320 and he and his wife, Mikhaela, had three children together. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.880 She took over his keeper's work when he died, and 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.960 when she passed, her son in law inherited the job. 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:52.640 He also oversaw numerous renovations, including the significant improvements that 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.880 were made to the lens at the top of the tower. 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.000 He resigned around the time of the Civil War, and 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.800 operation of the lighthouse transferred to new keepers, many of 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.760 whom continued to improve the facilities and upgrade the technology. 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.279 They also rebuilt the lighthouse keeper's quarters in the midst 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.560 of these improvements. The next few decades were marked by 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:19.000 more strange natural disasters. The lighthouse was hit by lightning twice. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.080 A faulty lightning rod allowed one of these jolts to 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.880 damage it during a thunderstorm, according to the lighthouse website. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.359 A few years later, a tornado further wrecked the building, 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.160 and an earthquake shook the lighthouse so hard it made 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.200 the bottom floor's pendulum clock stop at nine oh seven pm. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.680 All the while, occasional hurricanes raged in the Gulf of Mexico, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.040 wearing down the facilities further. But these years were marked 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:50.400 by heartwarming good fortune too. On January twenty first, eighteen 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.520 eighty four, the lighthouse keeper's wife gave birth and the 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.800 on site residence. In the Pensacola News Journal, reporter Dot 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.960 Brown noted that this was the first dock documented instance 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.640 in which anyone was born within the keeper's quarters. About 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.000 twenty years later, it seems the first recorded death on 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.080 the property occurred. At that time. The keeper was a 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.520 man named George T. Clifford. His daughter, Ellen, who went 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.840 by Ella, apparently had a lot of affection for the property. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.720 She was married in the lighthouse in nineteen o three, 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.160 and she returned to the quarters when she became seriously 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.520 ill in late January nineteen o five. It's not clear 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.360 what was making her sick, but many believes she suffered 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.680 from complications after giving birth five months earlier. The twenty 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.720 three year old passed on the evening of January twentieth, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.520 and it's believed she breathed her last in the keeper's residence. 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.920 There don't seem to have been any other deaths on 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.040 the property, but the lighthouse's history is full of more 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:52.040 eerie occurrences, like the time a flock of wild ducks 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.040 passed through the lens room, damaging the equipment, and the 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:00.760 lighthouse was the site of grave injustices too. In nineteen 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.200 oh nine, the US federal government forced several families to 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.400 relocate off the land surrounding the lighthouse. The officials claimed 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.240 this was federal territory and the families there had no 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:13.640 right to stay, in spite of the fact that many 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.400 had dwelled and paid property taxes there for decades. The 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:22.320 displaced residents included a widow named Winnie Hart. Her husband, Charles, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:26.840 was an escaped, formerly enslaved person. According to a nonprofit 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.960 called Impact one hundred Pensacola, he worked on construction for 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.160 the lighthouse and other structures on the surrounding naval base. 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.600 How ironic that his family was no longer welcome on 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.480 the land he'd helped develop. In the nineteen thirties, the 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.920 Hatton family moved onto the property after the patriarch accepted 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.800 a job as lighthouse keeper. Winnie Who of the Pensacola 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.200 News Journal reports that when they surveyed the keeper's quarters, 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.000 they noticed a strange red stain on the floor in 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.000 the second story southeast bedroom. According to Who, the mark 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.360 was about a foot long, just beside the fireplace. Additionally, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.760 there were circular red dribbles throughout the room, some up 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.640 to a quarter in diameter. No one in the hat 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.160 and family knew how it got there, but they recognized 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:14.920 what the stain was blood. The keeper's young son, Emmett Hatton, 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.319 watched his mother spend who knows how much time scrubbing 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.840 the floor to remove the disturbing splotches, but her efforts 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:26.719 were fruitless. The rusty discoloration was permanent. Who reported that 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.439 at some point in the nineteen fifties, one of the 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.920 lighthouse's residents must have installed vinyl tiles to cover the 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:37.160 blood stains. From then, the spots went undiscovered until nineteen 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.440 ninety four, when renovators pulled up the tiles and revealed 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.760 the old marks, still visible and unnerving roughly forty years later. 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.720 This kicked off a period of research in which countless 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.160 people tried to determine how so much blood could have 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.640 spilled on the floor. Two theories emerged, both of which 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:59.319 are unsupported by the historic record. Some say the spots 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.560 are the last remaining evidence of a homicide that took 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.080 place in the pensacle A lighthouse. Specifically, rumour says that 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.600 the very first lighthouse keeper, Jeremiah Ingraham, was killed by 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.960 his wife, Mikayla. Depending on the story, she may have 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.240 attacked him in a murderous frenzy because the isolation at 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.199 the remote lighthouse had driven her mad, or perhaps Jeremiah 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.720 attacked her first and Mikayla killed him in self defense. Ultimately, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:29.760 those rumors are almost certainly idle speculation. Mikayla and Jeremiah 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.040 both died before the current lighthouse keeper's quarters were even built. 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.280 Other murderous gossip suggests the victim was one of the 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:42.280 keeper's anonymous assistants, but these stories date to the nineteen nineties, 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.199 well after the alleged homicide would have happened. Some argue 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.960 these discolourations are from when Ella Clifford Miller, the lighthouse 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.840 keeper's daughter who died in the quarter's, gave birth. However, 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.840 the baby wasn't born in the lighthouse, but in a hospital, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.080 so the mystery remains unsolved today. That said, when people 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.440 visit the blood stained bedroom, many report that even after 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:10.280 all these years, it still smells like blood. Besides that, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.520 visitors to the lighthouse have reported that doors open and 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.360 close by themselves, lights flicker, and bursts of cold air 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.839 rush through the building even on warm days. Guests may 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.479 hear disembodied voices or footsteps or knocking on the windows. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.600 It's said that numerous people have been groped while ascending 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.520 the stairs, and at least one visitor felt someone pull 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.040 her hair. You hear similar accounts about the keeper's quarters, 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.240 plus stories about figures appearing in windows and a lingering 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.200 scent of tobacco even when no one is smoking. Alan 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.600 Brown's Ghosts of Florida's Gulf Coast says when tour guides 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:49.120 are alone in the residence, they hear disembodied voices calling 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.480 their names. One of the lighthouse's tour coordinators, Rob Booth, 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.400 says there are six ghosts who haunt the Pensacol Lighthouse, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.280 but only two have a verifiable history with the building. 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.000 These are Ella, the keeper's daughter, and another lighthouse keeper 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.800 named Samuel Lawrence. He's said to lurk in the stairwell 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.439 and at the top of the tower, grabbing visitors who 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:14.240 ascend the steps. Local lore suggests two enslaved people named 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:18.480 Thomas and Reynald also haunt the lighthouse grounds. Booth claims 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.560 they ran away, only to be recaptured and hanged near 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.679 the lighthouse, but there's no record of such an execution 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.520 in the area. Of course, that doesn't rule out the 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.400 possibility of an unrecorded lynching. If Thomas and Reynold's story 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.920 is true, one of them may be the figure who 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.360 has been spotted in the basement of the keeper's quarters. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.319 The specter, who may be a child or an adult, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.840 looks like an enslaved person and is sometimes seen hiding 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.640 behind the stairs. The last two spirits Booth identified were 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.040 both children, a girl named Lizzie and a boy named Joey. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.680 They both supposedly died of yellow fever in nineteen twenty two, 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.520 but there's no documented yellow fever outbreak that year. There 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.600 was one in eighteen twenty two, but this redated the 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.720 construction of the lighthouse, so once more, it's challenging to 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.520 verify how much of this story is real. We may 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.080 never know the names of all these ghosts or how 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.080 they came to be at the Pensacola Lighthouse, but that 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.120 hasn't stopped the building from earning a reputation as one 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.160 of the most haunted lighthouses in the United States. In 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.640 his book Ghosts of Florida's Gulf Coast, Alan Brown described 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.560 a woman who's been seen walking along the catwalk at 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.920 the top. When the beacon turns its brilliant light on her, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.280 it shines straight through as though she's transparent. Guests have 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.040 also seen a child and a kind elderly woman roaming 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.160 through the tower, and some visitors say they've spotted the 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.559 original lighthouse keeper and his wife, Jeremiah and Mikayla Ingraham, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.520 And concerningly, some spectral encounters have a threatening edge to them. Earlier, 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.600 I mentioned a renovation that happened in the early nineteen nineties, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.400 which resulted in the bloodstains on the bedroom floor being uncovered. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.920 During that same project, a pair of workers found a 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.000 coil of rope encircling some water pipes. As Alan Brown 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.280 wrote in Ghosts of Florida's Gulf Coast, the workers tried 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.559 to remove the rope, but hadn't finished. When their shift ended. 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.280 They left a job partially done, presumably intending to resume 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.160 the next day. Instead, they returned in the morning to 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.120 find the rope wasn't on the pipes anymore. It had 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.160 been suspended from a light fixture in the shape of 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.200 a noose. Now as to whether this was intended as 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.560 a warning, a threat, or a spectral prank is hard 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.320 to say, but we can learn more about the spirits 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.200 of the Pensacola Lighthouse by talking to people who have 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.600 investigated it. I'm one of those folks, and so is 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:46.640 my next guest, mister Adam Berry. All right, so I 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.160 am now joined by almost a series regular here on 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.880 Haunted Road, mister Adam Berry. Welcome to the program, mister Berry. 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.920 Right, and you're the best to interview, so Amy, tell 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.640 me about your experiences at Lightouse. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:05.200 It's so funny because when I was looking for someone 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.800 to interview about the Pensacola Lighthouse. I actually had a 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.120 lot of trouble because it's on a military base, and 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.800 so it's not really a place that people get to 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.280 investigate very often. Like it was actually a really big 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.880 deal that we got to investigate there, and so like 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.480 I found one person who had investigated, but it had 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.880 been like, you know, fifteen years ago, and I was like, wow, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.960 I know Adam and I investigated it together fairly recently 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.200 in twenty twenty two, and I had investigated it even 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.520 before that in two thousand and nine with ghost Hunters. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.000 So it turns out I'm the person who I know 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:45.560 who's investigated it more than anyone. Actually, what's really fun. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.000 So I remember when we went back in twenty twenty two, 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:50.160 I thought this was all going to happen again. But 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.000 the first time we went there to investigate with ghost Hunters, 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.680 it was a way more secure of a location when 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.880 we investigated it in two thousand and nine with Ghosts. 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:02.960 I don't know what happened to the base since then, 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.560 but I remember like telling everybody when we went back, 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:07.360 when we go back now, I just want you to 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.840 know they're going to go through everything. They're very like 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:12.840 security is tight, because in two thousand and nine they 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:14.880 literally went through all of our gear that we had 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.760 to open all of our cases. They took dogs that 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.680 went through all, like all the cars, they had mirrors 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.960 where they looked under the vehicles. And when we went 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.440 back in twenty twenty two, none of that happened. Like, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.400 I don't even think they checked our ID when we 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:28.720 went in. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:35.080 Yeah, I do remember like driving into it and being like, oh, 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.400 we're on a military base. But then it was much 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.240 It was definitely not as secure as I would have 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.120 thought it was going to be. But I and I 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.480 don't know if there's I think there's a reason. It's 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:46.120 got to be a reason. 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.680 I think maybe it's just more open now or something. 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.800 It's more open to the public. But yeah, it was 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.760 just way more secure when we first went there. But regardless, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.200 it's a really cool place. You and I have investigated 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.560 many lighthouses together. The one thing about this lighthouse that 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.119 I talked about in the history a little bit is 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:09.320 that there's really not a lot of verifiable history. There's 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:10.720 a lot of like lore. 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:11.359 You know. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.800 We're like when we went to Saint Augustine, you know, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.400 there were in fact, children who died there and there's 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.560 a record of that, and like here they see the 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.760 ghosts of children, but there's zero record of that happening. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.080 So but that doesn't mean people aren't experiencing it, of course. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.959 Yeah, I mean it looks like what's crazy to me 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.840 is it looks a lot like Saint Augustine Lighthouse. You know, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.359 it's almost like a sister or a cousin, And so 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.879 when you pull up to it, you're like, oh, this 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:41.800 is going to be really creepy, Like there's got to 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.800 be something to it. And of course, you know, lighthouses 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:50.640 in general have really great history, a lot have spooky history, 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:52.439 but it was the only thing I could compare it 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.120 to when driving up and seeing it for the first time. Well. 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.359 I don't know about you, but because we have done 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.359 so many lighthouses, sometimes they kind of like meld into 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.480 my memory and I'm like, was that at this lighthouse 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.919 or was that at light this lighthouse? But I do 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.800 remember distinctly some of the things I experienced at Pensacola 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:17.040 in particular, were definitely footsteps that lighthouse keeper had to 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.680 go up and down those stairs every two hours, twenty 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.200 four hours a day, right, so the original keeper there, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:27.600 and so I feel like he is still very much there, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.000 like I just yeah, or at least that that presence, 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.400 Like I can't imagine he just never got a full 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.960 night's sleep, like I could not, Like he just had 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:37.879 to get up every two hours and walk all the 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.440 way up those stairs, yeah, and check on that light 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:41.560 and come all the way back down. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.040 Yeah. It makes sense with buckets of oil, like buckets 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.520 of heavy oil. And here's what's here's the craziest thing. 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.080 And those of you who have never investigated a lighthous before, 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:59.040 wear really good sturdy shoes, especially if it's like wet 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:05.280 outside and like humid inside the lighthouse. Because this lighthouse, y'all, 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.439 I've never, like I've climbed to the top of a 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.760 lot of things. But when I tried to climb to 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:15.320 the top of this lighthouse with Dave or with you specifically, 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:20.040 and with Dave, I was wearing converse and these metal 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:22.880 stairs go all the way up and there's like a handle, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.040 but like it was slippery. So the higher that I got, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.359 the more nervous I got, and on my foot kept slipping, 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.320 and I was like, this is an absolute no for me, 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.040 Like I I had to. I sat down. It was like, Nope, 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.560 not going any further. I'm just not going to go. 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:44.680 I felt like a terrible friend because you were so mortified, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.560 Like you were legitimately just probably the most terrified I've 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:49.199 ever seen you. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:50.360 Yeah, it's heights. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.919 You were so afraid of flying, flying, you were so 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:58.080 afraid of falling down those stairs, and like it was slippery, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.240 like it was just the condensation and everything, like it 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.280 was dangerously slippery. And it's so it's one hundred and 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.119 seventy seven steps if I remember correct, yes, So like 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.080 it was like if you fall, it's certain death or 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:11.400 at least, and. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.880 It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because the stairs are metal, 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.760 so you might like you'll start to roll, but like 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.919 it is going to hurt. And I had just I 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:23.960 think it was my birthday too, and I was like 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.199 I want to live to another year. Okay, So I 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.160 was like I am all set with going any higher 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.679 in this lighthouse. But I do remember like once we 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.560 got settled right, and once I like wrapped my arm 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:42.760 around the railing so that I would not fall. I 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:47.840 remember like Dave and I were investigating and we hurt. Oh, Cheato. 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.840 See now see Cheetoh's going to talk about it. He's 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:50.760 barking in the background. 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:52.160 Okay. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.400 Dave and I were investigating once we got settled, and 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.920 we heard a very strange sound coming from the bottom 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.600 of the lighthouse and I couldn't it was like a 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.920 voice or something. It sounded mechanical, you know sometimes dissembodied 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:17.000 voices have that weird like have that weird like mechanical sound. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.960 it's like a weird thing. And that's what it sounded like. 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.400 And we were both like that, it's very weird. And 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.360 you know, it took a soft guard, but it did 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.360 sound like a man, like it could have been a man, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:28.280 maybe the light keeper. 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:31.000 I actually remember that happening. I don't know if they 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:32.480 showed it on the show, but I know you guys, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.880 you guys radioed over like what is happening? Is someone outside? 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:39.360 And like, I want to check there was no one 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:40.920 out there. The door was closed. 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:42.080 Yeah. 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:46.240 And Tango's very hard on experiences too, Like he's one 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.440 of those people where like he's you know, he's very 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.040 very hard on evidence. And he was completely like, I 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.360 don't know what's going on here, and that's always weird 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.040 because when you're in the lighthouse, it's just you and 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.520 the like your camera operator whoever, you know, there's three 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:02.480 of you, like, and it's very clear to tell like 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.720 a sound is coming from somewhere else because the way 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.400 like it's like literally one big hollow tube and so, 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:11.840 which it can play tricks on you, but not in 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:16.159 that sense at all. And so and then there's also 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.040 like the keepers quarters are supposedly haunted, and so I 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.400 know that, like Britt and I Brit Griffith who used 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.040 to be on GH. So the first time I investigated there, 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:29.240 that was when Steve and Dave were doing Ghost Hunters Academy. 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:33.239 I think it was the first season, and so it 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.000 was me and Britt investigating, and I know we had 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:40.879 separated in the keeper's quarters and we were like really 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:42.800 far away from each other, basically trying to see if 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:44.760 we could see shadows between us because that's one of 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.919 the most kind of famous things that happened there. And 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.040 I know we heard a lot of unexplained noises in 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.800 that area. I just feel like it's just not investigated 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.320 that often, Like it's one of those spots that whatever 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.080 spirits are there, they're not having investigators coming in talking 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:04.040 to them very often, which makes me wonder like if 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:06.359 that affects the activity at all. 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.200 You know, I think so, because if you think about 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:12.119 a lightkeeper, like any lightkeeper, and you know, the ghost 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:14.240 associated with keeping a light, like they have a job 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.280 to do. It's almost like we I find that sometimes 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:20.920 you interact with spirits there that are still doing that job, 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.480 and so you come in and start asking them questions 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:28.000 and they can get really annoyed. They're like, look, I'm busy, 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:30.399