Investigation of a haunted plane crash site

From an email from Susan Crites (published with her kind permission):

I suppose it must feel the same way at the base of what was once the World Trade Center; dead, absolutely dead, perhaps, a place only for the dead. That’s what it felt like at the site of the TWA passenger aircraft crash in Clarke County, Va. It was unnerving! In the early 1970’s, more than 90 people were killed instantly when their passenger airliner crashed into a mountaintop in a very remote area of the Shenandoah Valley. When the smoke cleared, it was a grisly place. Only one body was recovered intact. The rest were scattered over a 200 x 900-foot arc that surrounded what remained of the fuselage. Hardened, experienced, first-time responders were nearly overcome by what they saw. The body parts, arms, legs, and gore, were hanging from the trees. People still talk about their experiences in the days that followed the crash in very hushed tones. Our Paranormal Investigation began at the large, limestone rock where the nose of the aircraft made contact, then exploded. When we got out of our cars, we immediately smelled gasoline. Perhaps, it was a remnant of a previously passing car with a leaking gas tank or could it have been the ghostly smell of long evaporated aviation fuel? As we spread ourselves out throughout the bright, moonlit site, we noticed the utter silence. It was like standing alone in the bottom of a grave. There was no wind, no forest sounds, no night birds, no normal sound at all. And, it was hot. The night was damp, a chilly fifty-five degrees, but we were sweating from the heat! In my previous visit to the site, at noon on a warm sunny day, it had been bitterly cold. This was a very peculiar place! Contact with the ghosts of the crash victims was slow to build. But, as the evening progressed, the ghosts reached out. One took the hand of an experienced Paranormal Investigator. Others touched members of the group at points throughout the site! We made several confirmed sightings of entities walking in the woods. It was surprisingly easy. The site is on a heavily-traveled road. Whenever one of the local super-macho, two-wheels-on-the-back-axle and no muffler pick-up trucks roared by, the brightly lit woods blackened instantly and glowing ghosts could be seen moving through the openings in the trees. Then, we could hear their murmuring and an occasional distant, muffled scream! For our Psychic Team members, the Investigation was heart-wrenching. They could “feel” the terror and loneliness that permeates the place. While none of us was comfortable at the crash site, the Psychic Team members suffered in the chaotic energy. An interesting side-bar to this story began during the Paranormal Investigation and came to a surprising end the following day. The Paranormal Investigator who felt the ghostly hand in hers, also felt something jostle her pocket as she made “Contact” with the ghost. In that adrenaline-pumping moment, she thought nothing of it. The next morning, this experienced Investigator awoke with an urgent need to return to the site. She didn’t know why, but she got in her car and made the long drive back to the crash site. She walked back into the deep woods where she encountered the ghostly child then walked back toward the road. She was utterly astounded to see her new, expensive audio recorder placed carefully on the “crash rock!” How it got there, she will never know. That she didn’t lose it anywhere nearby or place it there herself is a truth she will ponder for years to come. I don’t recommend this site for Ghost Hunting in a group of less than four. It has a strange, unsettling, and very disorienting energy. This isn’t a wild gunfire and screaming kind of a haunted site, but if you want to feel what it might be like, you can feel it everywhere you go. It feels like death! Author’s Note: Special thanks to Robin Brevard and Sheryl Reid for their kind help in making this Paranormal Investigation possible! Copyright Susan Crites 2005; all rights reserved