Southeast Paranormal Investigations co-founder Andrew Beckham has some scary stories to tell you.
Even if you don’t believe in things that go bump in the night, as we approach the Halloween season you’re sure to hear a lot about Spartanburg’s ghostly history. From home-spun tales of friends living in one of Hampton Heights spooky old houses, to more elaborate investigations of supernatural events here in Sparkle City, if you want to hear a good ghost story, you’re in the right town.
“Even though there is a lot of history in places like Charleston, Spartanburg is actually the most haunted county in the state,” says Andrew Beckham, co-founder of Southeast Paranormal Investigations. “There are a few locations I’ve run across that are extremely active. A few places have way overdone my expectations.”
Beckham first became interested in paranormal investigations when he tagged along with a friend’s investigations in the Chicago area in the early 1990s. His strange experiences piqued his curiousity, he says. “I wanted to explain what I had seen. When I moved to Spartanburg, I decided to start my own group. It was originally a hobby, but it has become a lot more than that. I can become very time consuming, because there’s so much to it.”
In 2005, Beckham and his friend Jon L. Wheldon founded S.P.I. The group has since documented quite a few unearthly events at various locations in the Upstate — perhaps as many as 40 sites, Beckham estimates. These ghost hunters know their subject well. They’ve collected photographs of Spartanburg’s specters, recorded chilling audio of what may be the voices from the void and gathered a significant amount of local lore about tragic events and documented the first-hand testimony of those whose paths have crossed with lingering Hub City spirits.
Three years ago, the group began sharing their passion for all things ghostly with like-minded customers by starting the Greenville and Spartanburg Ghost Tours. The tours take place in fall — just in time for Halloween — and serve as a kind of introduction to S.P.I.’s work. They’ve proven to be a popular attraction — even Spartanburg’s iconic Slobot has been on the tour.
Slobot had a hauntingly good time on the Spartanburg Ghost Tour.
“We have several different tours,” Beckham says. “We have a historic tour, which talks about some of the important events in the city, including some of the famous crimes that have happened in Spartanburg. We also do a behind-the-scenes tour on Thursdays, and I’ll bring some of our equipment so that people can get a little bit more of an idea of what we do on our investigations. Everyone gets to take a look at it, and we’ll take readings at some of the locations, like Oakwood Cemetery. We also have a plasma screen inside our tour trolley, so I can show people some of the photos and video we’ve gathered on our investigations.”
Beckham is quick to point out that, while the tours benefit from S.P.I.’s investigations, they’re not intended to be ghost hunts. Strange things can happen on the tours, but their main purpose is to be entertaining and informative, as well as to help offset S.P.I.’s expenses.
So, what exactly happens on one of the Ghost Tours?
According to Beckham, a walking tour might include a visit to some of downtown buildings that have a reputation for unexplained occurances. One frequent stop is Delaney’s Irish Pub, which has a long history of such tales. “I haven’t done an investigation of Delaney’s,” Beckham notes, “but we do discuss stories that the people who work there have told us about the place.”
Almost every part of downtown Spartanburg seems to have some kind of connection to the residents of the afterlife. There are stories of eerie encounters in historic buildings on the square, and even the creepy tales set at Wofford and Converse’s campuses. Some tales are merely curious anecdotes, their apparitions benign — even friendly — while other tales are downright unnerving to ponder.
The trolley tours, which take place in collaboration with Main Street Trolley, venture further away from downtown, including locations such as Oakwood Cemetery, known by some as “Hell’s Gate” because of long-held rumors of Satanic rituals on it’s grounds during — depending on which version you hear — the late 1960 or the early 1980s.
“Personally, I don’t buy it at all,” Beckham says of these rumors. “I don’t believe it, and I think it’s just a rumor that got passed on from person to person over the years. I don’t even like calling it Hell’s Gate, because I don’t think there are any facts to the story.”
Even if there’s nothing diabolical about Oakwood, Beckham hasn’t dismissed the idea that supernatural occurances may take place there. It’s a popular site for the Ghost Tour participants to learn a little about what goes on during a paranormal investigation, and he’ll gladly show off some of the tools of the trade — electromagnetic field (EMF) meters, voice recorders for capturing electronic voice phenomena (EVP) and digital cameras for various kinds of photographic evidence.
Beckham says he prefers working in more controlled conditions, and that outside recordings and experiences — although not necessarily invalid — are harder to verify, because there are so many factors at work. It is here that the experiences ghost tour and paranormal investigation most greatly differ.
“I don’t go into these locations expecting to find anything. I try to be skeptical, and to try to disprove things — not the other way around,” he says. “Really, there’s no weight to personal experiences. You really need other kinds of validation. We kind of have a protocol for our investigations. Without that, it’s easy for it to become disarrayed and clumsy. If you have any kind of activity going on, it’s easy to get disorganized very quickly.”
But what about Beckham’s own experiences? Surely, for someone to be as passionate about the subject as he is, he must have had a few brushes with the unexplained.
Not surprisingly he has.
“I’ve had some crazy stuff happen,” Beckham says. “I’ve been slapped in the face [by ghosts], I’ve been pushed, I’ve had my hair pulled, I’ve had things whispered in my ear.” He says he’s also been “face-flashed” on several occasions.
“That happens sometimes when you’re in an extremely dark room without windows, usually a basement or an attic,” he elaborates. “In doing EVP sessions — if I’m not getting any action, if you will — I’ll sometimes start provoking or taunting to establish communication. In the dark, your eyes can’t focus very well. Sometimes, just for a second, [the ghost] will make a bright flash of it’s face right in front of you. When that happens, it’s pretty creepy.”
Of course, patrons of the Spartanburg Ghost Tour aren’t likely to be slapped, pushed or face-flashed by the restless spirits of Sparkle City. Mostly, the ghost tours are a fun way to spend an evening as an amateur ghost detective, and to hear a few chilling tales about the spookier side of city’s history.
– Additional reporting by Bryan “chAng” Teague.
For more information about the Spartanburg Ghost Tours, including schedules and ticket prices, visit the Southeast Paranormal Investigations’s website at www.hauntedsc.com or call (864) 574-9876. Walking tours are $12 adults, $8 kids. Trolley tours are $15 adults, $10 kids. Tours run through Halloween night, Friday, Oct. 31.
Steve Shanafelt
