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The Amityville House

The house on 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, N.Y., an upscale Long Island suburb, was the site of a brutal family murder in which 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed his parents and four younger siblings on November 14, 1974. But much of the legend surrounding the home stems from the family who moved in a little over year after the murders. George and Kathy Lutz and their four children, knowing about the tragic events that had taken place, agreed to see the property — including a 4,000 square foot house, waterfront access, a boathouse, heated swimming pool, garage and full basement — and eventually bought it.

"As soon As Kathy had walked into the house, she had a smile on her face that just beamed. That hadn't happened in all the previous homes we looked at," George Lutz recalled later, describing the events at Amityville at a paranormal convention. "I knew from the look on her face, that this was to be our dream home." Soon after moving in, though, things changed dramatically. Even after having the place blessed by a priest at the urging of a friend, George and Kathy said they began experiencing strange things: banging noises, footsteps untraceable to any family member's movements, mysterious and pervasive odors, green jello-like substances leaking from walls, toilet water turning back, swarms of houseflies and eyes peering in from outside the windows. Even the family's behavior began to change: George was often sick, went days without bathing and lost weight while Kathy had constant nightmares. The children began to fight with each other.
After the disturbances worsened, the Lutzes decided to leave the house temporarily. But the night in which they were to depart turned out to be their last night there. Although George Lutz is reluctant to explain the full details of that night, he once said that "the hardest thing for those people [who experience a haunting] is the loss of being able to communicate with anyone else about it...It's not talked about, it's not understood...and when it happens to you, you become an alien to everyone else." The Lutzes' entire account was later dismissed as a fabrication by a paranormal investigator, the late Dr. Stephen Kaplan. Ultimately, Kaplan said, George's stories of haunting were "too wide-ranging" and probably stemmed from a pre-existing obsession with the paranormal.

The Amityville murders's Official web site

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Gettysburg Battlefield

The battle of Gettysburg lasted for three days and was one of the bloodiest in American history; some 50,000 young men died in the conflict. With so many young men killed so violently, many believe the site is haunted by fallen soldiers unable to accept their untimely fate. These restless souls wander the Pennsylvania field, searching for their rifles and comrades, unaware that the battle is over.

In July of 1863 it's living population was outnumbered twenty to one by thedead, with so much blood spilled on the floors of some churches that drain holes had to be drilled in them.
Not surprisingly Gettysburg has long been the setting for strange tales of supernatural acitivity. Everything from phantom apparitions of battlefield ghosts to strange disembodied screams. Many people claim that the constant influx of visitors from the south tends to trigger off a flurry of paranormal activity in the summer months, sometimes resulting in mysterious backward glimpses in time to the summer of 1863.

There is the case of the mysterious ghost known as the Sentry who still guards the cupola at the top of Pennsylavania Hall at Gettysburg College.. The apparation of this rebel soldier has been on duty for the past 145 years. In some ways he behaves like a normal residual haunting, pacing back and fourth on the Cupola as though the college is still in southern hands, yet every now and then he aims his rifle at students on the ground. This behavior fascinates parapsychologists because it is part of a trend of Intelligent (communicative) hauntings in Gettysburg, which goes back hundreds of years. Everywhere else in the paranormal world intelligent hauntings are extremely rare, even when compared to the ghostlore of other battle grounds like Shiloh or Antietem, and no one knows why Gettysburg has so many of them..
One of the earliest hauntings in Gettysburg Pa happened as the battle was still unfolding. The soldiers of the 20th Maine, (famous for the heroic bayonette charge under general Joshua Chamberlain) claimed to have encountered a ghost while they were marching toward Gettysburg..As the story goes, they came to a fork in the road and stopped, not sure which way to go.. when a man on horseback appeared and led them on toward Gettysburg.. At first they thought the man was a Union General. He looked like one, but soon they began to notice a strange glow emenating from both him and his horse. They also noticed the man had an eerie resemblence to portraits of the late George Washington. He even wore a tri cornered hat that had not been in style for over a hundred years.

The ghostly man led to the top of little round top where they would later repel a Confederate attack on the Union flank, and then he disappeared without ever being identified. Could it have been the ghost of George Washington, trying to aid the Union army in one of it's most important battles? Enough people beleived so that the Secretary of war, Edwin Stanton did a formal investigation into the matter. When asked Colonel Chamberlain, responded, "We know not what mystic power may be possessed by those who are now bivouacking with the dead. I only know the effect, but I dare not explain or deny the cause. Who shall say that Washington was not among the number of those who aided the country that he founded?"
It was just the first in a long series of ghost sightings that have made Gettysburg known as the most haunted city in north america.

Some of the earliest reports of paranormal actvitiy in Gettysburg came from farm workers on the Forney farm who complained of strange experiences in the area called Iversons Pit. This is the location where a brigade of North carolinians were buried in four shallow mass graves after being wiped out by a union ambush. The graves sank causing a depression in the road where nothing would grow, and people began reporting seeing strange lights there and a ghostly milk colored mist which rose from the ground at night.

Such ghost sightings on the battlefield have continued to the current day of course, along with more modern paranormal phenomena such as camera batteries becoming drained and electronic equipment malfunctioning for no apparent reason.

Ghost hunters interested in visiting this spot should park at the observation tower on Doubleday Avenue near Mummasburg Road, and walk down Doubleday to the 88th Pennsylvania Monument, making a right turn into the woods, and continuing until you come upon a secluded clearing. There you will find a small marker where the massacre took place.