The Huntington Rural Cemetery on New York Avenue in Huntington, N.Y. is an extremely beautiful, well kept, quiet cemetery where a person can really go to relax, forever! The feeling here is one of peace and tranquility, a living, breathing person can go there to unwind and leave feeling refreshed and full of life. I don’t think there are too may restless spirits at Huntington Rural, but sometimes the most well groomed, quiet cemetery can transform into a much different place after dark. We have yet to return to Huntington Rural at night so until we go back and discover something different I will continue to hold it in high regard as a nice place to visit and maybe a nice place to visit again (in a box) someday.
Union Cemetery on Middle Country Road (Route 25) in Middle Island, N.Y. is somewhere on the other side of the scale. It is well kept and holds a lot of history but the feeling there is not quite so blissful. The twisted trees reach out in an eerie way and sometimes you would swear that one moved towards you. The headstones are old and weather beaten and many of them are broken. Some of them are so far gone that it’s impossible to tell who was buried there and when they were laid to rest. Local urban legend tells of a “woman in white” (who is actually naked but appears as a white apparition). The woman is normally seen hitchhiking along the road between the hours of two and three AM (the witching hour) but only to drivers who are alone and while there is no one else on the road. If the driver actually stops to assist the helpless woman, they soon realize that she disappeared and that they have just seen a ghost! Many legitimate paranormal investigators considered this story nothing more than folklore; that is until one night when TWO well respected ghost hunters from ESP (Eastern Suffolk Paranormal) both saw a ghost that looked very much like the elusive lady in white. They described their sighting as a woman wearing a long skirt. They both witnessed this woman standing by a tree (AKA: The Haunted Tree) as their camera flash lit up the night sky revealing the ghostly apparition. The first time Jimmy and I decided to go on a night trip we went to Union Cemetery. The night was damp and foggy, the air was thick and the feeling in the cemetery was one of restlessness. We entered the cemetery on the eastern side, closest to the older, historic part of the cemetery. We both had an anxious, uneasy feeling; besides possible spirits, we were also concerned about possible security. We walked quickly through the shadows snapping pictures as we walked. We weren’t thinking about how are pictures were going to turn out, we were thinking about running as fast as we could back to the car! The fog was thick in some parts of the cemetery and non-existent in others. We captured many unusual images that night but there was a heavy mist in the air which would ultimately make it difficult to differentiate between true anomalies and moisture effects in the air. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t capture anything interesting, the pics from that night speak for themselves. According to some paranormal investigators, the conditions were actually perfect for a sighting of the “Lady in White.” (You can view these pictures in my Facebook Profile, in the “April 23, 2011-Union/Midnight” album).
The cemetery that made us feel uneasy more than any other was definitely Lake Ronkonkoma Cemetery. This cemetery is located on the west side of Hawkins Avenue, about a quarter mile north of the “five corners,” across the street from “Joe’s.” When we first walked into Ronkonkoma Cemetery we didn’t think much of it because it’s on a very busy corner. At first glance it’s not what you would picture when you think of a haunted cemetery, but there are some very interesting stories of paranormal activity surrounding this cemetery so we were anxious to get in and start taking some pictures. Once I got to the back area I felt a little apprehensive. Even though the church and cemetery is on a relatively busy road, when I went into the back area I might as well have been in the middle of the woods. After a few clicks of the camera I glanced at the LCD screen and realized right away that I was capturing orbs and that this was an active location. Jimmy went off to explore the other side of the cemetery and to keep an eye out for any security guards who might not appreciate us taking pictures in the cemetery late at night. As I walked further into the back of the cemetery I started having camera problems, my pictures were coming out dark or completely black. I figured I must have inadvertently reset one of the settings or something but everything was set correctly. I tried turning the flash on high and re-adjusted the camera to allow more light in but it hardly made a difference. Objects that were very close to me were showing in the pictures but the darkness quickly engulfs everything else. I struggled with it for a few minutes and then decided to go back to the area where I originally started. I took another picture and noticed that the pictures were now coming out much too bright. I knew then that the camera was working properly and that the back lot of the cemetery had an unusual darkness that the camera’s flash could barely pierce. I didn’t like the feeling that I felt back there but overall it is what we were there for. I was curious and wanted to proceed, so I reluctantly walked back into the darkness. I can’t exactly explain the feeling I had back there but it was similar to feelings of loneliness and isolation. I continued to take pictures with limited success until my cell phone rang out and I nearly jumped out of my socks! I looked at my phone and saw that it was Jimmy calling? “Where are you?” he asked. I assumed that he was going to say something like, ‘stop taking so many pictures, the flash is drawing attention to you.’ In reality my flash wasn’t penetrating the darkness at all, he couldn’t even see it! He was calling because he didn’t know where I was! I thought to myself, "it’s time to get out of this place." I wanted to go back out to the front of the cemetery and discuss some of the things we were experiencing. We decided that it was time to move on. It was getting late and we still wanted to get over to the First Congregational Church, also in Ronkonkoma. As we pulled away I realized I had not taken a picture of the church. I pointed the camera out of the open car window and snapped a photo. Looking at the LCD I immediately realized I captured something odd. There was a hazy mist hovering over the church! I took another pic or two and off we went. I couldn’t wait to get home to see what I captured on that photo. The photo indeed had a large, ghostly swirl of mist that literally wrapped around the church. Other photos from this night show peculiar red mist, assorted orbs of different sizes and densities and even the unexplained dark mass.
Some people might think that it’s easy to capture orbs in pictures but in reality it’s not quite that simple. I spend almost as much time debunking photos as I do taking them. One night I took over two hundred pictures around my house and in the neighborhood and did not capture any orbs or anomalies. I take some pictures in cemeteries during the day and I’ll use the flash sometimes just to see if I will find an orb on the picture due to the flash or something like that. So far I have not been able to capture a daytime orb with or without the flash although professional paranormal investigators have captured orbs in daylight. When we capture an unusual anomaly we will note it and go back to the area where the picture was taken to see if we can determine what caused it. We have actually debunked quite a few anomalies. It’s important to always remain skeptical. Only when all other possibilities have been dismissed is there a true POSSIBILITY that an anomaly is genuine. A follow up to this post will be coming soon and will feature stories about some of our other interesting cemetery and haunted location visits, including The First Congregational Church.
Please feel free to visit any of the cemetery albums in my Facebook Profile.
Thanks for reading.
