History buff takes up ghost hunting

TUSCUMBIA - John McWilliams immediately knew he had discovered a hobby.

McWilliams, a local historian who lives at a Civil War battle site off Old Lee Highway, agreed last October to allow a local ghost-hunting group to monitor activity on his land.

The results: photographs of unexplained orbs and figures.

The historian in McWilliams was intrigued. He has had unexplained sights and sounds on his property for years.

"I saw a couple of people with guns, and as they got about halfway to the house, they disappeared," he said. "That's one that ran chills all over me."

People call him and tell him about seeing strange figures in military uniforms when they drive by his place.

Even a Tuscumbia police officer recently reported seeing an image resembling two short, uniformed people.

In the past year, the ghost-hunting bug has hit McWilliams. He goes to local historic spots and shoots photos.

He scans them and tries to bring out images with a desaturation device using a Photoshop option. He uses the computer's mouse to wave the arrow over the image. The results often are shadowy images that resemble soldiers or Native Americans. Some are on horses, others around campfires.

"People who know me and my lack of artistic ability know I'm not drawing this into it," McWilliams joked. "I can't."

Robert Simone, who founded Ghost Hunters of Southern Territories - GHOST, for short - said he and his group have taken some 50,000 photos in the Shoals and other areas and analyze each carefully. They also have equipment that produces audio and video recordings.

GHOST is the group that studied McWilliams' residence a year ago after hearing about unexplained occurrences. They spent much of this October at the Sweetwater mansion in Florence.

"We got quite a bit of stuff at Sweetwater," Simone said. "Apparitions, lots of voices, some noises - you name it, we've got it."

They plan to return to the mansion this evening and go on other searches after midnight.

"I'm waiting to see what happens," Simone said. He said the more he delves into the hobby, the more interesting it becomes.

"We're still into it, even more so than last year," he said. "We're not going to stop."

Tuscumbia police officer George Sharp said he didn't have to go hunting to come upon an interesting sight while traveling near McWilliams' winding, gravel driveway some three or four months ago.

"I saw two little guys, about this tall," Sharp said, setting his hand at chest level.

"They were walking at an angle across his driveway. You could tell they were soldiers."

Sharp turned the vehicle to head in their direction, but they were gone.

He later told McWilliams, who said it's just another in a long line of stories people share with him.

His property is part of a battle involving some 10,000 Union and 4,000 Confederate soldiers.

"We don't know how many were killed," he said. "It was not that many, because once they opened artillery, both sides hunkered down and stayed down."

People who know McWilliams have called him at night, telling him about cannon noises. McWilliams has heard the sounds as well. He recently heard one and thought a campfire was just outside his bedroom window. He saw the fire's glow just a few feet away, but when he ran outside, nothing was there.

Neighbors later told him they heard a loud cannon blast that night.

Groups ask to tour the area at times. McWilliams recalls a handful of people who didn't stay long.

"They said something walked parallel with them the whole time," McWilliams said. "They got in their car and left.

"I don't try to say too much about all this, because people come out here enough as it is."

Someone working on McWilliams' house once ran from it in terror and refused to return because something touched him and nobody was there when he turned around.

McWilliams said there are plenty of areas in town with strange sightings and sounds.

Police Chief Tony Logan doesn't know what to make of his officer's sighting. The chief doesn't call himself a believer in ghosts, but admits something strange recently occurred to him.

He took photographs of the old Cave Street School to use for a city presentation on the school's condition.

A large orb is in one photo. An unexplained figure is at a door in another photo.

"I'm not really into the whole ghost thing, but I just thought that was weird," Logan said.

There also are reports of at least one person who took photos alone in the school and found himself, holding the camera, in two shots. The camera wasn't in use at the time.

Some may be spooked to live at an area like McWilliams' home. But, the avid historian he is, McWilliams loves the notion of history surrounding him.

"History is supporting what we're seeing in the photos," he said. "For me, this isn't so much about ghosts as history.

"If this all turns out to be true, it would be a completely different way to study history."

Bernie Delinski can be reached at 740-5739 or bernie.delinski@TimesDaily.com.