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Speaker 1: a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio

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Speaker 1: and welcome back to Coast to Coast, Rich Newman back

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Speaker 1: with us. Rich was on with me a year ago

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Speaker 1: as we talked about his work Haunted Bridges, Great Story Tonight,

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Speaker 1: Ghosts of the Civil War. Rich, as an author filmmaker,

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Speaker 1: lives in Memphis, Tennessee. He's been a lifelong enthusiast of

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Speaker 1: the paranormal and in his group Paranormal Link, has been

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Speaker 1: involved with research and investigations for at least now more

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Speaker 1: than a decade. Articles have appeared in Haunted Times and

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Speaker 1: Paranormal Underground and welcome back to Coast to coast Rich Newman,

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Speaker 1: Rich Look came forward to this, Hey George, how's it

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Speaker 1: going all as well? Thank you so much. And by

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Speaker 1: the way, your Haunted Bridges book and the show we

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Speaker 1: did was just fantastic. I'm still getting emails about it. Fantastic.

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Speaker 1: I loved it. People are still afraid to go over

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Speaker 1: certain bridges, by the way. So this one here tell

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Speaker 1: us about the work that you put in to write

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Speaker 1: the book Ghost of the Civil War. Well, this kind

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Speaker 1: of started with me a few years ago. I actually

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Speaker 1: shot a documentary called Ghosts of War where we traveled

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Speaker 1: to about five different battlefields and about ten different homes

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Speaker 1: that sort of have a history associated with the Civil

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Speaker 1: War and ghost stories, and we did a lot of

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Speaker 1: interviews and talked to people who had experiences and also

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Speaker 1: try to get as much of the history, of course

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Speaker 1: as we could into the documentaries. Um, and that just

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Speaker 1: sort of led to, you know, me doing some of

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Speaker 1: the ghost books. And then in the back of my

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Speaker 1: mind kind of all these years I've been thinking, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'd really like to get to the Civil War. There's

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Speaker 1: just so much there. And when I when I pitched

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Speaker 1: Llewell and they were they were. They were great. They

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Speaker 1: were like, yeah, let's do it. You know, the the

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Speaker 1: war was our deadliest war was It was just horrible.

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Speaker 1: And there was a time I really thought that people,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're going to just destroy the United States.

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Speaker 1: It was going to fall apart. But they pulled it

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Speaker 1: back together. And of course the the the ills of

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Speaker 1: what was going on then are still being filled to

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Speaker 1: fill today. But I get stories all the time, rich

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Speaker 1: from people who call about Gettysburg and other locations that

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Speaker 1: really seemed to have ghostly apparitions. There. Are you finding

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Speaker 1: that to be the case too? Absolutely? Um? I would say,

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Speaker 1: particularly Gettysburg, it feels almost a mecca for ghost hunters. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the paranormal stories that come out of there on

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Speaker 1: a month to month basis are just staggering. Um. It

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Speaker 1: does seem that all of these major battlefields in particular

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Speaker 1: have so much activity going on that I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: not just ghost owners. I mean it's people who who

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Speaker 1: even professed to not have any belief in ghosts whatsoever.

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Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, they're they're walking over

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Speaker 1: a hill with their little cannon camera in their hand

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Speaker 1: and snapping photos and there what is what looks like

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Speaker 1: a phantom army standing there at the tree line looking

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Speaker 1: at them, or they suddenly start hearing the sounds of

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Speaker 1: cannon fire and guns firing around them, you know, obviously

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Speaker 1: no battle or anything going on. So yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: the stories coming out of these places are just almost

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Speaker 1: just a daily activity. Do you find that when someone

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Speaker 1: dies tragically that they are more apt to end up

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Speaker 1: being a ghost than somebody who dies in a natural way?

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Speaker 1: You know, I mean it does seem like that's the case. Um,

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Speaker 1: So many times, it does seem like there seems to

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Speaker 1: be a combination between emotional traumatic events that are happening,

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Speaker 1: but also they seem to also happen in certain places

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Speaker 1: where the environment just seems conducive to sort of storing

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Speaker 1: the energy of that moment um, which kind of gives

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Speaker 1: us two or three different versions of ghosts, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: you know, depending on the exact situation and the exact

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Speaker 1: way that, um, the spirit seems to interact with those

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Speaker 1: who run into it. How did you go about researching

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Speaker 1: this book? Man? It wasn't easy. Oh, It's just the

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Speaker 1: Civil War is just so big, it's um, you know,

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Speaker 1: we have hundreds of national sites and state you know,

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Speaker 1: locally state operated sites dedicated to the Civil War. So

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Speaker 1: rounding up as many of these stories and talking to

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Speaker 1: people at all these different sites and visiting as many

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Speaker 1: as I could, UM was quite a delightful chure. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I had a great time researching it and writing it

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Speaker 1: and going to all these different places and learning so

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Speaker 1: much about American history process um on top of the

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Speaker 1: parable things. UM. It was a lot of work, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Specifically rich What specific areas did

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Speaker 1: you go to that you think other other than Gettysburg

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Speaker 1: that have the most haunted areas well? It's interesting if

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Speaker 1: you actually look at the top ten Deadliest Battlefields list,

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Speaker 1: those ten battlefields actually make up the chapter in my

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Speaker 1: book that I talked about battlefields because they have the

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Speaker 1: most activity. UM. For me, the closest spot would be Shiloh,

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Speaker 1: and I grew up, you know, hearing stories about Shilo

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Speaker 1: and the ghosts at Shilo particularly um. If you go

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Speaker 1: and talk to any of the park rangers there or

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Speaker 1: even just some of the locals, they're pretty quick to

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Speaker 1: tell you about the ghost of a young boy that

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Speaker 1: was you know, a drummer um during the Battle of Shilo. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There have been sightings of an apparition of a nurse

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Speaker 1: next to a spot there called Bloody Pond where they

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Speaker 1: actually made sort of a makeshift field hospital, and you know,

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Speaker 1: hundreds you know, we had you know, legs and arms

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Speaker 1: amputated there, died from wounds. Um. It's you know, so

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Speaker 1: many stories come out of these places. For me, Shiloh

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Speaker 1: was sort of the beginning of all of it. But

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Speaker 1: I've definitely heard great stories out of all of the

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Speaker 1: major battlefields, you know, Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Teedom, you name them.

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Speaker 1: They have their own versions of these stories and they're

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Speaker 1: all very fascinating. Is every place that has an apparition

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Speaker 1: considered a haunted place? To me, haunted has like a

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Speaker 1: scary connotation. I think. I think it comes in the

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a situational thing. Um for sure, if

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Speaker 1: they're seeing an apparition, I would probably call that haunted.

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Speaker 1: But there does seem to be a great divide between

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Speaker 1: what we sort of think of as scary ghosts, um

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Speaker 1: that would come to us and speak to us and

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Speaker 1: interact with us. In the paranormal field, of course, we

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Speaker 1: kind of call that an intelligent spirit because it seems

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Speaker 1: to be you know, responding to us or approaching us

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Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. But it does also there's

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Speaker 1: a huge another sort of type of ghosts that we

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Speaker 1: think of as being residual, which more ends up being

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Speaker 1: just sort of a moment in trying captured an environment

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Speaker 1: that replays for for certain people. Not everyone sees it, um,

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Speaker 1: and we that's the part that's kind of hard to understand.

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Speaker 1: Whether it's the person that's you know, if it's if

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Speaker 1: it's like I can see it but this person cannot,

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Speaker 1: or is it more of an environmental thing where just

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Speaker 1: if everything is just happening just right, that residual ghost appears.

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Speaker 1: And these type of ghosts actually seem more to be

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Speaker 1: just locked in that moment of time, repeating something that happened,

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Speaker 1: and they're just and they're oblivious to us. Do do

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Speaker 1: people rich tend to go to these locations because they're

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Speaker 1: haunted tourists for example? Absolutely? I mean, um, I hate

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Speaker 1: to coin the phrase haunted tourism, but I mean it's

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Speaker 1: out there. I mean a lot of these sites are

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Speaker 1: are well aware of it and even market marketed. Um. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that go to the Civil

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Speaker 1: War sites for the history of course, but especially places

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Speaker 1: like Gettysburg that have such a notorious reputation for having

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Speaker 1: so many haunted spots there and around it. Um. I

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Speaker 1: mean you go to Gettysburg, not only can you take

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Speaker 1: you know, a ghost tour of all the spots on

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Speaker 1: the battlefield, but you know, you can stand any one

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Speaker 1: of five or six different haunted ends. You know that

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Speaker 1: we're all historic homes that were there during the battle.

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Speaker 1: Um and stay in a different one each night, you know,

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Speaker 1: and each of them have their own ghost stories. You

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Speaker 1: can go visit the Haunted Museum, you know, for something

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Speaker 1: to do in the NW, go and have a beer

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Speaker 1: at the Haunted Tavern. I mean, you could have an

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Speaker 1: entire haunted vacation, you know, just around the battlefield of Gettysburg.

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Speaker 1: And this sort of tourism is really blown up. What

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Speaker 1: is it about these things, rich that people like to

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Speaker 1: get scared? I think for some of them it's thrilled thinking.

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Speaker 1: For others, I think it's wanting to just understand it. Um.

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Speaker 1: I know for me, you know, one of the draws

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Speaker 1: for ghosts and ghost stories has always been, you know,

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Speaker 1: just understanding this process of the human soul. You know,

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Speaker 1: what makes some of us stick around and some of

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Speaker 1: us not. And you know, is there some sort of

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Speaker 1: scientific explanation for how the soul works with our body?

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Speaker 1: And is this just part of the natural process of dying?

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Speaker 1: And if so, can we explain that? Can we figure

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Speaker 1: that out in some way? I think, you know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people are just fascinated with the idea of

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Speaker 1: death the afterlife, and and you're right, some people just

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Speaker 1: like to be scared. What would you say that these

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Speaker 1: apparitions are what? Why? Why are they there? I think

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Speaker 1: it's probably um the soul of a person that's stuck

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Speaker 1: around for their own reasons. They didn't have closure, As

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Speaker 1: you mentioned before, they died um at, you know, in

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Speaker 1: a horrible moment, and they're trapped in that moment and

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Speaker 1: they're looking for release. And I think it is just

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Speaker 1: energy that was just so strong. I mean that the emotion,

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Speaker 1: the death, everything that happened around the Civil Wars just

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Speaker 1: so powerful that there's just so many of those people,

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Speaker 1: um that it left behind such a strong energy that

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Speaker 1: it's just there for those who can feel and see it.

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Speaker 1: And we're talking about a number of ghosts in any

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Speaker 1: particular place, right, not just one. Oh absolutely, I mean

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Speaker 1: there's you know, like take Getty's bird for instance. I

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Speaker 1: mean there's people who say that they, you know, are

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Speaker 1: standing there in an empty field snapping photos and then

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Speaker 1: they look up and there's an entire phantom army standing

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Speaker 1: in front of them. Now, are these entities do they

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Speaker 1: know they're dead? Well, I mean in the case of

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Speaker 1: the residual type ghosts, no, And in fact, they don't

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Speaker 1: even notice the people who are watching them are taking photos.

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Speaker 1: They're still like their thing. Oh, just absolutely, They're just

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Speaker 1: locked in that moment of time. But there are those

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Speaker 1: spirits that you run into that do seem to be

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Speaker 1: aware of the people that are around them, and that

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Speaker 1: they don't you know, belong there, that the you know,

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Speaker 1: time has moved on, and those seems to be sort

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Speaker 1: of the saddest stories. Why haven't they moved on? Rich Well,

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Speaker 1: that's the grand question. I wish I had an answer

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Speaker 1: for that. I mean, I don't know if the missing

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Speaker 1: ingredient is just perhaps resolution. I mean that seems to

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Speaker 1: be the best guests from investigators, but I mean the

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Speaker 1: reality is, I mean, it's a mystery as much to

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Speaker 1: me as anyone. Uh, it's it's sad um. It does

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Speaker 1: seem that the majority of the spirits that are intelligent

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Speaker 1: and that they seem to be reacting with people are

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Speaker 1: not in a pleasant place. They died in horrible situation

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Speaker 1: and horrible circumstances, and they're not happy, and they probably

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Speaker 1: would like to move on. Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast a m. Every weeknight at one a m. Eastern

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Speaker 1: more