Okay, with all apologies to Stephen King, it had to happen. There are apparently serious reports about a haunted pet cemetery in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas. However, unlike the famous book and movie, in THIS pet cemetery, when you bury your beloved pet, it returns as a ghost. I am sure that I am thankful for that, as should be anyone familiar with the Stephen King version! Hey, Gravel Ridge needed SOMETHING to put them on the map!

Apparently, whatever or whomever is behind the haunted activity on this road isn’t too particular about what kind of haunting they do. In most places, activity is limited to a single recurring event. But on this road, near the old cemetery, people should be prepared for anything. Otherwise normally acting car hoods have been known to fly open for no apparent reason as the cemetery is passed, orbs have been seen in and out of the cemetery, and flashlight or radio batteries have been reported to go instantly dead as people carry them into the cemetery. Ghosts of many descriptions have been reported as well. There appears to be no specific time of year or month for these happening… apparently anytime is good. Might be worth checking out!

Under normal circumstances, new footage from recognized media sources just doesn’t provide much that works here, but in this case, I decided to include this AP news footage. It has a pretty good view of the thing that was floating around in the gas station, better than most available paranormal footage. You be the judge.

On this one, I am speaking from personal experience. This was one of three haunted homes I lived in over the years. The legend that goes with this house varies. In one story, the house used to be a barn, and a drunk barnhand killed his son there, then hung himself. In another version, the house was built on the site of the old barn. Well, the house didn’t look like a barn. It looked like a house that had been split down the middle to make a duplex, so I tend to go with the latter story, though I could never find actual backing for either.

That the house was haunted, there is no doubt. The house is divided in such a way that there is no way to pass anything between the two sides without GOING outside and entering through either the front or back doors. Yet toys and articles of clothing from one side would mysteriously wind up on the other side. Once, the other side’s six pack of beer wound up in MY fridge, with no explanation. But the only place that FELT haunted in the house was the basement (and since barns do not HAVE basements, there goes that theory). The dogs wouldn’t go near the basement. They would just stand and bark at the basement door. The only thing IN the basement back then was my washing machine and dryer. They sat on level ground. However, my washing machine flipped on it’s side one day, as I turned to take my laundry upstairs. No one was near it when it happened, and the machine was turned off. Killed off all of MY doubts, let me tell you.

I can no longer remember the exact address of the house. If you were to go to the Bettendorf police department, stand with your back to the front door and turn left. you will be looking straight at the duplex, just down the street. The street T’s off there. It’s the only duplex on the block… provided it’s still there. his was fifteen or so years ago.

Just a quick note to let you know that our local news channel, KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas, is running a story on the White River Monster on tonight’s news at ten. For those of you who are interested but can’t tune in, the URL is www.kait8.com. The website is, unfortunately, VERY ad heavy and hard to navigate, and I would NOT normally recomend that people go there, but they probably will have the story on the web site by tomorrow. They aren’t very up to the minute about anything, but it should be there eventually.

The Allen house was built in 1900. It was occupied by the Allen family until sometime in the fifties, at which time it was converted into a set of apartments and rented out. Most of the renters were students from a nearby university who appreciated the low rent and ether didn’t know about or didn’t care about the house’s haunted reputation, which had been a problem since the mid forties, when one of the Allen daughters committed suicide there by drinking cyanide, or an arsenic concoction… reports differ. The hauntings were fairly tame over the years, just a sighting here, a noise there, until the mid eighties when a gift shop was opened on the lower floor of the house, apparently infuriating the ghostly Miss Allen, who apparently didn’t like the shop being in her home. Things began to be destroyed or turn up missing at that point.

Please note that this haunted house is a private propery.

This one is just up the road from where I live. If you drive the ridge road at night, you are supposed to be able to see the light from an old fashioned lantern bobbing alongside the road. It is said that the lantern is being carried by an old pre-civil war miner, who is still waiting for his son to return victoriously from the battle.

The Toltec Mounds, which cover about a hundred acres, lie about twenty minutes from Arkansas’ State Capitol, Little Rock. The mounds were an ancient indian worship place, and a lot of the “magic” mounds still are in existence. This was apparently an extremely holy place to the indians, because they want to stay. Apparitions can be seen on any given day, or so rumor has it, and there are unexplained noises all the time.

Sheridan’s Courthouse Square is an old one, and so are the legends about it. The square was, at one time, used for public hangings. People say that if you look at the courthouse at just the right time, people who aren’t there will be seen peeking back at you. And footsteps without owners can be heard at ANY time, in or out of the courthouse.

This civil war type haunted spot, located at the intersection of Hwy. 8 and Hwy. 97 near Warren Arkansas, is rumored to be the playground of departed civil war soldiers. A civil war battlefield is nearby, and so is a state park, and that probably doesn’t hurt the story any. The legend is an old one, and any real details have been lost to time. Might be worth the look, though… but only if you are already in the neighborhood.