Lighthouses are rays of light in the night for those at sea. They provide safe entry for boats into the harbor and serve as markers for dangerous coastlines. However, life at a lighthouse can be very lonely - ask any lighthouse keeper. Maybe that's why eerie legends and ghost stories have surrounded lighthouses around the world for many years.
10. Seguin Island Lighthouse
The Seguin Island Lighthouse, built in 1857, is the tallest lighthouse in Maine. One of his earliest caretakers lived there only with his wife for many years. She was very lonely and became addicted to playing the piano at night to break the silence, but her husband seemed to give no vent to his own feelings of isolation and loneliness. Apparently driven to insanity, he took an ax and hacked his wife to death before committing suicide.
Many people claim to have heard the ghostly sounds of piano music coming from the lighthouse at night, despite the fact that there has been no piano in the lighthouse for years. In 1985, a decision was made to decommission the lighthouse, and the midshipman stayed overnight at the lighthouse to make sure that all furniture and other valuable items were packed and loaded onto the boat. During the night the officer shuddered and woke up. The bed he slept on shook violently and a voice screamed at him to get out of the building. However, the brave officer was not too alarmed by this incident, he stayed at the lighthouse until the next day to pack all the items he came for and send the boat to its destination.
An absurd incident caused the sinking of the boat, which never reached the addressee.
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9. Heceta Head Lighthouse
Tragic female figures in airy pale dresses have roamed hundreds of locations around the world for centuries, and lighthouses are one such location. The ghost of a mother, whose newborn daughter fell to death from the cliff on which he stands, presumably dwells on Kheseta-Head. The ghost has already been dubbed "The Gray Lady" as she reportedly wears a long gray skirt while wandering around the attic of a lighthouse that has been converted into a hotel.
Visitors reported flickering lights when no one else was in the lighthouse, doors that seemed to lock on their own, and objects that disappear and reappear in another room. A worker tasked with replacing a broken window in the attic got scared in earnest when he saw the Gray Lady just strolling alongside him while he was working. Naturally, he started to run. Returning the next day, he found shards of glass from a broken window in the attic, swept and neatly piled up.
The most creepy incident happened with a photographer named Steve Terrill, who decided to capture a ghost at a lighthouse. He noticed the transparent figure of the Gray Lady staring at him from the attic. He thought it was his imagination, since he and his friend were the only people living at the lighthouse at the time, but he soon realized that they weren't the only guests when he found the lighthouse guestbook in his room. The book was opened to a page that recorded a previous visitor's account of meeting a ghost at the lighthouse.
8. Lighthouse on the New London reef (New London Ledge Lighthouse)
The US Coast Guard began guarding the lighthouse on New London Reef in 1939. Soon after, eerie things began to happen there. Legend has it that a lighthouse keeper named Ernie jumped off the roof of the lighthouse into the ocean below him, and his body never surfaced. Many people do not believe that he committed suicide, but according to the official version, he cut his throat with a fishing knife.
However, according to rumors, Ernie refused to leave the lighthouse. His spirit frightened and annoyed the Coast Guard shifts, making loud knocking noises at night, pulling blankets off them when they slept, and turning the television on and off. Some of the caretakers left the lighthouse without even waiting for dawn, calling the mainland with a request to immediately pick them up from this place.
After the lighthouse was automated in 1987, several tugboat crews reported that a figure at the lighthouse was signaling or attempting to lure them into the dock. However, whenever an investigation was conducted on the basis of these reports, not a single living soul was found in the lighthouse.
7. Boon Island Lighthouse
The most eerie and tragic story surrounding the Boone Island lighthouse, which has witnessed numerous shipwrecks and other tragedies, revolves around a woman named Kathleen Bright. In the mid-1800s, Kathleen became the shy fiancee of a lighthouse keeper on Boone Island. She moved to the lighthouse with her new husband shortly after their wedding in anticipation of what she thought would be a long and happy life.
After that, history has many ups and downs. According to one version of the legendary story, the lighthouse keeper became very ill after a few short months. His wife tended him tirelessly even when the terrifying storm struck, but he passed away while the storm raged. In her state of shock, Kathleen climbed the 168 steps of the lighthouse almost continuously over the course of five days to monitor its light. During this time, she did not eat and hardly slept. On the sixth day, the lights went out. The locals rushed to the island to investigate the cause and found Kathleen wandering aimlessly. She was hungry, exhausted, and out of her mind with grief.
Another version says that the lighthouse keeper drowned after he fell off a cliff while trying to tie a boat on the island. Kathleen pulled him out of the water and dragged him back to the lighthouse, where she left his lifeless body at the base of the stairs. She continued to monitor the light for five days without food or sleep, and when the locals found her on the sixth day, she was sitting on the bottom step holding her husband's dead body. The locals took her away to take care of her, but she died soon after.
Kathleen Bright's spirit was allegedly seen by dozens of local fishermen and lighthouse visitors who reported the white ghost of a sad young woman. Many of them also reported hearing terrible crying from the lighthouse at night and during stormy weather. A lighthouse keeper from the Coast Guard stated that his dog was chasing a mysterious invisible object throughout the small island. Two more caretakers were shocked when they saw the light emanating from the lighthouse when they were both outside and there was no one on the island.
6. Souter Lighthouse
Souther Lighthouse was built in 1871 at Lizard Point, in the village of Marsden in the north of England. The visibility from Lizard Point was very good, as its cliffs are taller than those at nearby Souter Point. However, the lighthouse was named after Sauter to avoid confusion with the Lizard Lighthouse in Cornwall. It was built to prevent a spate of shipwrecks on reefs in shallow water, and while it was certainly a simple lighthouse, it is now known as one of the most haunted lighthouses in Britain.
Legend has it that the niece of the famous Grace Darling, Isobella Darling, appears every now and then at Sauter Lighthouse. She is best known for her heroic efforts to rescue crew members from the sinking ship Forfarshire during a storm in 1838. It is not clear why Isobella wanders the lighthouse, but census records do prove that she lived in the lighthouse in 1881.
Lighthouse staff reported spoons floating through the air, unexplained temperature swings, and even physical interaction with some staff who say they were pulled or grabbed by an invisible hand. Some visitors even heard their names pronounced in a female voice, while others heard crying and saw the ghost of a young girl believed to be Isobella.
Isobella is not the only ghost reported to inhabit Souther Lighthouse. Another story is of a lighthouse waitress walking down the kitchen hallway one evening when she stopped dead. At the end of the aisle stood a man dressed in a lighthouse keeper's uniform. It disappeared before her eyes, leaving only a faint smell of tobacco in the air.
5. South Stack Lighthouse
The South Stack Island lighthouse earned itself a spot in two books, Haunted Britain and South Stack: Anglesey's Famous Lighthouse, thanks to its ghostly caretaker, Jack Jones. According to South Stack author Ian Jones, the lighthouse was a fun place until the night of October 25, 1853, when one of the worst storms in history struck the South Stack coast. As many as 200 ships were wrecked that night, including the famous Royal Charter.
Jack hurried down to the lighthouse as the storm raged on that ill-fated evening. As soon as he reached the base of the steps, where the local bridge leads to the island, a giant rock fell off the cliff overlooking him and hit him on the head. He managed to cross the bridge, but he only got to the lighthouse door. He was in serious condition when he was found the next day and died two weeks later.
More than 100 years later, his ghost is often heard knocking on the door of a lighthouse in the dark of the night or desperately banging on windows to try to get inside. After visiting the lighthouse, Ian Jones described the noise as startling. TV show Most Haunted went to the lighthouse and got a little more than they hoped for when an object that looked like a tiny horseshoe was thrown at Yvette Fielding, who was the host of the show at the time. while she walked towards the outbuilding on the island. When Dave Stack visited the island, he was skeptical at first, but changed his mind when he saw someone looking out the window. The pursuit of the figure led nowhere, as she threw herself off a cliff and disappeared into the sea.
4. Pensacola Lighthouse
Pensacola Lighthouse sits on a tropical beach with breathtaking views, but its history includes an ominous history. Michaela Penalber married the man of her dreams, Jeremiah Ingraham, and happily moved to the lighthouse, shortly after it was completed in 1826. Their union seemed wonderful, but oddly enough, the marriage of the spouses deteriorated almost overnight. His sudden turbulence came to a head when Michaela stabbed her husband to death one evening in 1840 for seemingly no reason. She was not convicted of murder due to lack of evidence and lived the rest of her days at the lighthouse until she died in 1855.
Michaela's violent nature appears to continue to exist even in the afterlife. Visitors reported objects thrown at them as they walked through the living room where Michaela and her unfortunate husband lived, and large blood stains were still visible on the floor before the lighthouse was renovated. A local resident stated that he once tried to wash off the blood, but it just appeared over and over again. Worst of all, some visitors heard breathing behind them and felt a ghost following them as they climbed the stairs to the lighthouse tower.
3. Lighthouse at Cape Gibraltar (Gibraltar Point Lighthouse)
According to legend, the refusal of a lighthouse keeper at Cape Gibraltar named JP Radan Muller to share a second whiskey drink with a group of rowdy military personnel led to a fight. After the fight ended, Mueller disappeared, was presumed dead and was never seen again. However, according to several ghostly legends, Mueller can indeed still be seen at the lighthouse and the surrounding island.
Another version of the story is that the drink was beer. According to this version, Müller and two or three soldiers were sitting perfectly over glasses of beer when Müller suddenly decided that he had had enough. He refused to pour them more alcohol, which led to a fierce struggle, after which Mueller was buried by the water on the island.
Some people reported seeing a lonely transparent figure wandering aimlessly around the island and lighthouse, while others heard groans amid clouds of dense fog that envelop the entire island.
2. Lighthouse in Talacre (Talacre Lighthouse)
In a recent BBC article, several eyewitnesses detailed their encounters with the ghost at the Talacre lighthouse in the UK. Most of the tales involve encounters with the ghost of the lighthouse keeper walking the path leading to the lighthouse tower, which was decommissioned back in the 1840s. Several people also reported feeling sick after visiting the lower part of the lighthouse.
One visitor describes a trip with her husband to Talacre Beach several years ago. While there, the couple spotted a lighthouse keeper wearing an old-fashioned hat and uniform at the very top of a lighthouse in Talacre. However, she insists that the lighthouse was locked tightly. Therefore, no person could be inside the lighthouse. However, the husband and wife saw the human figure of the lighthouse keeper from different angles.
Another visitor on the beach was taking pictures with her children on the steps of the lighthouse when her six-year-old son suddenly complained that he was feeling bad. The next day he developed a high fever and developed severe tonsillitis. The scary thing about this story is that four out of five of her children soon began to experience the same symptoms. Fortunately, upon returning home, all the children recovered quickly. The woman must have been in shock when she learned that the lighthouse keeper had died of tonsillitis.
1. Point Lookout Lighthouse
The Point Lookout Park Lighthouse, built in 1830, is known as one of the most haunted places in Maryland. For more than 130 years, the lighthouse served the surrounding community and ships until it was decommissioned in 1981, after which numerous reports of supernatural activity began to surface. In response to these reports, parapsychologist Dr. Hans Holzer and a team of other experts visited the Point Lookout Lighthouse. They managed to record 24 different voices during their investigation.
These voices sang, spoke, and even cursed. On the recording, a voice can be clearly heard saying “Shoot if they get too close to you,” believed to be related to the Confederate soldiers who were captured on the island. Holzer also believes that he captured the voice of Point Lookout's first lighthouse keeper, Ann Davis, who spoke fondly of “my home” somewhere on the stairs. There have also been reports of the ghost of Anne Davis wearing a white blouse and blue skirt. As a fetid odor began to emanate from the room in the lighthouse, Holzer became convinced that it was the perfume of tortured souls who could not leave. Shortly after he uttered this statement, the horrible smell dissipated.