I've always been open minded when it comes to this. Never discounted it, but wasn't one to show that every bump in the night is a ghost. But, I've also always wanted to have an experience. I had mine in April.
My wife and I went to St. Augustine for our aniversary and we scheduled the Ripley's Ghost Train tour. It wasn't my first choice, but the package wasn't much and it included the train that we could take all over town.
We get there for out tour and they hand us a disposable and an "EMF Meter". It was a stud finder, so I'm thinking "....great....". The two guides come out and they exude supernatural from every pore, so at least it looks like we have someone that can at least tell a good story. They explained that the "EMF Meters were actually stud finders (no s***...), but they do detect other types of interference and "can" track supernatural activity. We'll see.
So, we hit the tour and at each stop they divide train in half and each guide takes a group, tells stories and lets each person play around the area. Each stop I was the first off the train and poking around. It's my insatiable intellectual curiosity.
We get to this one place. It's like an old park. There are a few trees, some sparse landscaping and a statue. It's right next to an old house that monks used to live in but is vacant now. Oh, it's also pitch black because there is little to no light back there.
I start walking around the statue with my meter and my camera. My wife is slowly coming up from behind me and the rest of the group is just making into the lot. Good place to make this interjection. At NO time during the entire trip did I get goosebumps or that "ooooooooooooo" feeling as they told the stories. Not trying to be a tough guy or nuttin', just sayin'.
I take three steps around the statue and it hits me. I get chills and every hair stands on end. I stop hit the meter and it maxxes. Look above...nope, no wires or anything that can cause interference. I start walking around the status snapping pictures and hitting the meter Nothing. Even when I get back to the exact same spot. Nothing. I tell my wife what happened and she starts walking around snapping pics with the digital camera.
Look at the orange haze in the first pic. It goes up past the fence between the palmetto and the tree trunk and has no real form. The second pic was taken seconds later. Look at the haze now (right by my left shoulder in the palmetto). It looks like it took the form of a face. I looked for everything to discount this, but can't find a logical explanation. There was no light for relfections, it was clear so no fog and the thing changed shapes so it wasn't something on the lens.
After we rallied up with the guide, she told us that the children in the area would come to the monks, play in the park and eat. There have been recent sightings of a 5 foot tall cloaked figure walking the streets near the house.
Usually our cat welcomes me with open arms (paws?) but this time we walked in and she just arched her back, got that gutteral meow and avoided us all night.