Saturday, March 28, 2009

Wright-Patterson's Spirits In The Sky

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The Arnold House

Hey, military dudes are usually pretty solid citizens. Their training precludes them from flights of fancy, lest they let loose the dogs of war on the wrong target.

But Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio, claims to be home to a handful of wraiths, reported and confirmed by base personnel.

Spook Central is the old base hospital and pediatric clinic, known as Building 219. The three brick story structure, now offices, has a famous boy spirit, a blond lad that looks like he's maybe 10 years old. He's both been seen and heard playing in the premises, sometimes creating quite a disturbance in his youthful exuberance.

Other Building 219 spook stories go back to the 1990's, when the shadows of some older gents were spotted roaming the halls.

The staff even nicknamed one of the mists Harvey, after a doctor that committed suicide in the building. He was said to visit his old haunt every day. The tale was covered in a 1996 piece carried by the Wright-Patterson AFB's Skywrighter magazine.

The sightings are usually made on the third floor, which was once home to the OR, or in the cellar, which had been used as a morgue.

The workers say that you can see through the spirits, but they're solid enough that you can determine their sex and age. Man, those military reports are thorough!

Yet others claim to have seen the spook of an elderly woman in Building 70, a warehouse and shipping facility. She's described as average build and weight, wearing a white shirt with a ruffle at the neck, and a blue polyester dress. She was said to look like a three-D hologram by one of the folk that saw her.

Also reported were the sounds of crates being dragged across the floor and metal objects falling off of shelves. There have been stories told of voices calling out employees' names, along with footsteps, shadow figures, and soft glowing lights.

And then there's the Arnold House (Building 8, if you're keeping score), the oldest structure on the base. It's the former home of General Henry "Hap" Arnold, built in 1841 as a farm family's homestead. Rumors abound of strange voices and footsteps heard from within when it's deserted, along with the sound of children giggling.

Some claim that the ghost of the former General has been seen in his old digs. Investigators say there may be five spooks haunting Hap's house.

Let's not forget that there have also been stories of alien corpses being kept on base along with their trashed saucers in the infamous Hangar 18, but we'll leave that tale for the UFO bloggers.

The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) checked out the reports of unexplained phenomena at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for the Sci Fi Channel show Ghost Hunters, and called it one of their most successful investigations ever. The program aired last year, and had some great paranormal action in it.

And if you're wondering why the prim and proper Air Force would let a gang of spook hunters on base, the reasoning was simple. The show has an audience of 3 million people between the ages of 18 and 34, “which is the Air Force’s target recruiting audience,” according to a spokesman. At least that's one mystery solved.

After all, who better to recruit for the fly boys than a spirit in the sky?

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