Ghost Stories!

[Marzz]

I know there is controversy over whether or not to tell ghost stories at camp, but this thread isn't about that. This is the place to share your stories. I know that alot of you already post on the ACA board and that many of your stories are posted there, but I haven't seen a thread on this subject here yet, so let's get it started!

Who haunts your camp? :eek:

[Marzz]

I'll get it started with some stories from my camps.

Haunted Bordertrail:
At my camp there is a unit called Bordertrail. It’s the lowest unit in the camp and sits next to a kind of lush swampy area. Now this camp is over 70 years old and does not currently have horses although it may have had them when it first opened. It’s been said that sometimes late at night you can hear horses trotting through the forest in Bordertail. Also, there have been reports of hearing a weeping child, but upon investigation, no such child exists.

When I was a camper, several strange things happened there. It was one of the last year’s that men were allowed to be unit staff. Our counselor’s name was "Jo". We had to walk past his tent to get to the Biffy, and one night as we walked past we saw his tent glowing as though lit by candles (a no-no at my camp) and we could hear him having an animated argument with another person. We didn’t recognize the voice, so we peeked in the tent. There was no one inside but Jo, and although it was brightly lit, there were no candles lit as far as we could see.

One day during rest time, I was teaching one of my tent mates the camp song in sign language and the others were playing cards. I thought one of them had tossed a candy onto my sleeping bag as I and my tent mate had both felt the “plop,” but no candy was found. The girl’s playing cards said they didn’t throw anything at us. A few minutes later, a canteen rolled across the floor on its own (all feet were on the beds, so no one could have accidentally kicked it. Another girl said she saw an orange and black blur following the canteen. We all freaked out and started screaming and left the tent. The counselors, of course, did not believe us.

Later in the week, we had a cookout dinner before the All-Camp party. Before we headed to the party, we cleaned up the dinner and our counselors put the fire out. During the course of the party, another camper and I went back to the unit to get a tape. When we got there, the fire was raging, as though it had not been extinguished at all, but rather fueled. My buddy and I put the fire out again by soaking it with a bucketful of water and stirring it until the fire pit was good and muddy. We went back to the party and told our counselor about the fire. When the party ended and our group returned to the unit, the fire was burning again.

When I became a counselor at that camp, I refused to stay in Bordertrail. Strange things continued to happen there such as flashlights going out no matter how fresh the batteries are, and one counselor reported losing her left contact lens every time she entered the unit. No one tells the story of Haunted Bordertrail anymore, but I bet people still hear the weeping child and the horses! Who knows what else goes on.

The Girl With the Long Red Hair:
There is a story about a girl with long red hair who is often seen in alone one of our tent units and if you call out to her, she walks (or runs) off and disappears. They say she is a pioneer girl who died in the area long ago. Her hair is long because she can never cut it.

[CampFreak]

We have three common ones along with others

Lily Pad Brothers
Once upon a time there were two twin brothers who went to camp for a week. Throughout this week they mastered everything and felt that they were getting bored and needed a challenge. So they snuck out at night and took a canoe out into the lake. They stumbled into some lily pads, and one of the brothers fell in. The lily pads began to pull the brother down so the other brother quickly grabs him and ends up falling in too. Both brothers drowned and to this day if you hear scratching on the bottom of the canoes its the brothers trying to get out. (Meant to tell kids if they hit the sand dunes then its the brothers coming to get them)

The Little Girl
At my camp some of the staff claim to have seen a little girl wonder the boys' village, health lodge and leadership lodge. Ironically 14 years ago the boys' village was the girls. And well the little girl chooses to show up in a certain cabin. A really freaky thing was, there were a group of staff members talking about the little girl at the bottom of the mountain and 2 others at the top talking about the little girl as well. One of the staff members at the base of the mountain decided to flick the little girl off and out of no where there was a crack of lightning and 5 seconds later the loudest thunder crack ever. After that no more thunder lightning showed up. It never even rained so its just wierd.

Lefty - an old camp director
Lefty was a great man who was believed to have touched anyones life that came into contact with him. One day he rewarded camp with a fantastic pool party all day long, when all of a sudden a bear came to the pool. Lefty immediatly fought off the bear to give everyone else a chance to run away. A day later when the staff went to see the pool, the only thing that was left was a left hand.

[SWTexan]

one camp that I worked at had a great story about 4 Indian chiefs that had been buried around the flag pole in the center of camp. They didn't really "haunt" the camp, but a big part of the story was that you would get sick if you walked on the grass between the graves. (They were buried at each end of a + shaped sidewalk that also had a cirle around it.)

There was another area outside of the program directors' office that had a plaque in memory of all of the campers and staff who had been there before and honoring those who would come afterwards. It also had the camp logo and the logos of the two ranches (teams) in concrete in it. This was the "sacred grass" and the same penalty applied to walking on it.

A few years ago, they built a new dining hall complex, which shifted the center of the camp away from where these two areas are, and the traditions died away fairly quickly. Two years ago, they moved the flag pole to the new center of camp, and left the Indian chiefs where they were, trying to bring back the tradition.