 |
A Bad Night at Fort Mifflin |
This is embarrassing - sort of.
My nephew, Jeff Anonymous, and I spent a Saturday Night within the Walls
of Fort Mifflin. That's not the embarrassing part. This is - we got the
Hell scared out of us.
A few months back Paul suggested that having me spend the night in Eastern
State Penitentiary would make for a great piece for his radio show and I
agreed. After all, a night out is a night out. A few weeks later Paul
called back to say that he had a better idea. Instead of Eastern State I
should spend the night in Ft. Mifflin, because he'd seen it listed
somewhere as "The second most haunted place in America". Which left me
wondering where the most haunted place in America is and who decides these
sorts of things. Anyway, I said "yeah, sure, whatever" and stared
researching the fort and putting together a plan for how the piece would
flow.
My plan was to spend the night in the part of the fort with the worst
reputation - the dreaded "Casemate Number 5". I would also bring my nephew
along because...well, because he's fun to hang out with. The flow of the
story would go like this: Jeff in I would sit up all night in Casemate
Number 5 and every hour or so, I'd turn on the tape recorder and we'd say
"Nope, nothing yet." When I put the piece together, I would edit in Wayne
the caretaker and President of the Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance
talking about the various ghosts that supposedly haunt the fort along with
clips of a few other people who'd stayed (or attempted to stay) the night
in Casement Number 5.
And it was a good plan, too. The only problem was that Jeff and I lasted
about an hour-and-a-half in Casemate Number 5. Understand we had every
intention of spending the night there - I built a huge fire and we carried
heavy pallets down there to use as beds. Hell, the Casemate looked better
than most of the apartments I've lived in after we got through setting it
up.
Around 11:30 at night, after Paul had left and Wayne had retired to another
part of the fort, Jeff and I plopped ourselves down on a bench in front of
the fire. We'd planned to talk all night, but the Casemate just wasn't
conducive to conversation. Around 1:00 am the hair on the back of my neck
stood up. It eventually went back down again - about four hours later.
Coincidentally, it was exactly at this point in our adventure that we
decide it might be a good time to go stretch our legs.
We spent about a half-an-hour walking around the upper part of the fort
"interviewing" the ghosts (This involved asking wise-assed questions
followed by silence) before we settled into one of the upper building that
housed the restrooms. It was here that we came up with a new-and-improved
plan. Jeff and I would hang out in this area (returning to Casemate 5 every
hour or so to toss a few logs on the fire and get warm). This plan worked
until about 3am when the general atmosphere in the fort started to get so
creepy that we decided to return to the Casemate one last time, grab our
sleeping bags and camp out on the ramparts - facing the comforting lights
of the city.
I should probably point out that Paul wasn't helping to improve our
feelings about the fort. Starting around 2:30 he began calling me on my
cell phone to impart fun facts that he'd picked up on the internet about
the ghosts that supposedly haunt the fort.
Around 3:30 in the morning, while stretched out on the northeast rampart,
we began to hear things. Nothing more than the occasional popping sound at
first. Initially we made jokes about the sounds "Maybe it's Wayne, the
caretaker? He heard about the plans to build a hotel nearby and he's
pretending to be a ghost in order scare people off so he can get the land
cheap. 'Yeah, and I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for
you meddling kids'". And then we head a loud thud that sounded like a bass
drum.
I called Paul and told him that we would be very appreciative of him
hauling his ass down to the fort ASAP so that he could hear all of the fun
too. A certain degree of urgency was added to this call when I discovered
that, despite having just charged the battery the night before, my cell
phone was about to lose power.
In other words, we wanted out of there.
Before you judge me too harshly for abandoning my rational, objective
outlook I'd just like to say that up until the battery in my cell phone
started to die, I was totally OK with spending what little remained of the
night in that fort. My problem was that if an intruder caused those sounds
- and if that intruder came across Jeff and I - I'd have no way of calling
for help.
Finally, Paul agreed to come to the fort and stick it out with us until the
sun came up. About forty minutes later, Paul pulled into the parking lot of
the fort and Jeff and I let him. We ran into Wayne a little later and the
three of us spent the rest of the night sitting around bullshitting.
Oh, there is one more thing.
Shortly after Paul arrived, he Jeff and I set up my tape recorder on the
windowsill in a room that's rumored to be haunted by Elizabeth Pratt (AKA
"The Screaming Lady"). Wayne said that someone had left a tape recorder
running in there before and had gotten some interesting results (the sound
of a "gunshot"). When we were getting ready to leave we swung by the room
to pick up the tape player. The tape player was were we left it and it was
still running.
Only, now, it was upside-down.
 |  |
 |  |
|
|
|