ghosts

Chris Knight's avatar

It was August of 2000.  I had been living in Asheville for just over two weeks.  With abandon I had thrown myself into the ways and customs of that curious city in the North Carolina mountains.  And not just for sake of my new job as investigative reporter.


No, it was more personal than that.  Asheville was finally a crack at life on my own, now 26 and a year after an extended season of college.  I wanted to make the most of it.  To make an escape from previous disappointments with the breaking of new ground.


Part and parcel of that was meeting new people.  And being a reporter gave me an edge.  Especially in Asheville.  A town my landlady had described as “a mixed bowl of nuts”.  Thirty percent rock-ribbed Christian conservative, thirty percent very liberal, and forty percent anything and everything in between.  Being ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Hurricane Irene should be thrashing the coast pretty hard come this time tomorrow. As of this writing it’s a Category 2 storm: weaker than it had been a day ago but still capable of tremendous devastation. Thoughts and prayers going out to those in the eastern part of North Carolina and the rest of Irene’s projected path.

A hurricane is never something to take lightly. But given the current situation, I thought it might be neat to all the same share with this blog’s readers something that I’ve always thought was an intriguing story from the already rich culture of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. And it is perhaps the most unusual (some say the most accurate) hurricane warning system anywhere…

The Gray Man of Hatteras is a ghost reputed to haunt the beaches in the vicinity of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. If beaches are haunted then I suppose there are ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Annie Penn Hospital is the main medical facility in my hometown of Reidsville, North Carolina. It was founded in 1930. There’s the original building and then a few additions that have been constructed over the years. Today it is part of the Moses Cone Health System based in nearby Greensboro.

And it was at Annie Penn Hospital where this photo was recently taken…

The photo comes courtesy of James Hodges, a good friend, writer and pastor of Burton Memorial Missionary Baptist Church in Reidsville. The photo did not originate with James but it was made by someone that he knows.

Feel free to leave whatever comment you are led to make about this image. Could it be that this is photo documentation of a ghost at Annie Penn Hospital: a place that has a long history of reputedly being haunted?

EDIT 3:35 p.m. EST: Okay, the mystery has been solved! ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Asheville High School is not just a great school, it’s a beautiful building. I know ‘cuz some years ago I did a lot of substitute teaching there. So I’m pretty familiar with the layout of the place and the kind of people there. Which makes this story all the more interesting for me personally…

A video surveillance camera at Asheville High has purportedly captured the moving image of a ghost. Some are saying that it looks to be the size and shape of a child as it darts around the atrium in the early morning hours of August 1st.

Could it be? When I heard about a “haunted” high school in Asheville, the first thing that popped into my mind was Erwin High School, which you would expect to be haunted since they build the place on top of Buncombe County’s old “potter’s field” (you can still see ...

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