THE GHOSTS OF BACHELORS GROVE

The Shields stone, one of the largest of the few still remaining at Bachelors Grove Cemetery, was toppled long ago. (Author’s photo)

One night, just before Halloween during my sophomore year at college, I and several others were gathered in a friend’s room in the underclassmen’s dormitory.  Matt, a chemistry major with a personality and voice reminiscent of comedian Jim Carrey’s, was telling ghost stories. The lights in the room were off, and he held a lit Zippo lighter under his face as he told tales of his native Oak Lawn, one of many villages that make up Chicago’s south suburbs, and of the richly storied surrounding towns.  It was on this night that I first heard of “Monk’s Castle,” the limestone church of St. James at Sag Bridge and its haunted burial ground; the first time I heard of the phantom hearse of Archer Woods, a black carriage driven by a team of mad horses. And it was the first time I heard of Bachelors Grove. 

Matt told what I would come to discover is a classic tale of what he and others called “The Grove.”  One night in high school, he and some friends had driven to Bachelors Grove to hike through the woods to the cemetery, which was a popular place for drinking, “making out,” and general teenaged shenanigans. 

The night was cold.  Fall had come early and they shuddered as they sat on crumbling tombstones, talking and sharing the cans of beer they had carried in in their coat pockets.  After some time, an eerie feeling came over them, as if they were being watched.  Suddenly, a flashing blue light appeared through the trees.  Expecting that the local police had discovered them in the preserve—off limits after sundown—the three friends bolted down the path toward the adjacent creek, as the bridge that once spanned it was long gone: they could easily cross it on foot and find freedom in the woods beyond—and the path through to Ridgeland Avenue. 

But as the young men sprinted across the creek bed, they were stunned to find that the flashing light had also crossed the creek bed—easily three feet below the road and along a path too narrow for a car--and was pursuing them into the forest.  This was no police car.  This was one of the many mysterious lights that had been reported at the Grove for at least 30 years. 

Matt told us other stories of the Grove.  The story of the Madonna in white who traversed the woods endlessly, in search of her baby.  The story of the “magic house” that appeared and disappeared along the path to the cemetery. The story of the black cars and phantom dogs that silently stalked trespassers on the fabled cemetery grounds.  With each word, I fell deeper under the spell that many well know. 

Like so many have come to find, Bachelors Grove had me at hello. 

Truly, I could not get Bachelors Grove out of my head after that night.  But though I had access to millions of books through our college interlibrary loan system, references to this compelling place in this pre-Internet word were scarce at best.  I found a clipping of a yellowed Chicago Tribune article which interviewed Chicago’s “original ghost hunter,” the late Richard Crowe, who talked about a “dream house” that would appear and disappear in the woods around the cemetery.  I found the wonderful book, Psychic City: Chicago: Doorway to Another Dimension by the great Brad Steiger, and the classic, Haunted Heartland by Beth Scott and Michael Norman.  But that was all.  As for going to the source? Without a car, and before suburban bus systems, Bachelors Grove might as well have been on the Moon. 

Amazingly, that same year I met the man who introduced me to the science of Parapsychology. Jim Houran was a student in psychology at IBC, and the department was allowing him to focus much of his studies on psi or parapsychological research.  It was through our friendship that I became a research assistant in parapsychological field work, and that I came to work on my first investigations into the paranormal. Some of these first investigations were at Bachelors Grove.

The first investigation was part of a series of experiments focused on the Grove: Are more anomalous photographs actually taken there than at other cemeteries?  Are visitors predisposed to having anomalous experiences there because of the site’s notoriety?  Are the electrical and magnetic fields at the site regulated by paranormal factors?

Me at Bachelors Grove in the summer of 1989.

I will never forget my first visit to this place, walking the path through the woods to this lost little burial ground.  Just inside the gate, which at the time was padlocked but with a human-size rip down it serving as an entry,  in front of the stone marking the Moss family burials, a plastic doll’s hand had been stuck in the dirt, a cigarette held between its fingers, as if some long-dead resident was reaching up for an afternoon smoke.  

The sight should have chilled me, and certainly I was appalled by this sacrilege.  But there was something else, too, that came through. 

“Hello!” this token seemed to say.  “We’re here. We’re hanging out on this beautiful day.  Come on in and get to know us.”

It was a gloriously sunny summer afternoon, and I saw myself what many still describe upon a first visit: an astoundingly magical place. I saw that the play of light in the cemetery is unusual, and could certainly trick the eye and cause rampant simulacra to be created: everywhere I looked, it seemed, there was a face on a tombstone, a pair of eyes in the bark of a tree, a child stepping through the grass.  I was overwhelmed by the feeling of peace which many visitors experience. There was no way to reconcile my emotional response with the dreadful reputation of this site.  That was my first experience of the “moods” of Bachelors Grove that frequent visitors know very well.  Like any living, breathing entity, the Grove is sometimes happy and sometimes decidedly not.  It sometimes shows itself and wants to play, and sometimes pulls the covers over its head until you leave. Sometimes, too, Bachelors Grove makes you leave.

During those first visits, nothing out of the ordinary happened to back up the extraordinary international fame of the site, though our photography experiments did suggest that more blacked out or whited out photographs did, in fact, seem to be produced there.  The results of those experiments were eventually published in the Journal of Perceptual and Motor Skills and, to my knowledge, this remains some of the only academic research ever published about Bachelors Grove.

The Schmidt family at their homestead in Bachelors Grove. Remains of the homestead may still be seen in the woods surrounding the cemetery. The Schmidts purchased their land from the Everdons, and that land included the cemetery. (Tinley Park Historical Society)

By the time of publication, Jim and I had long before graduated and parted ways, he into the world of academic clinical psychology and I into graduate studies in history.  But I had not seen the last of Bachelors Grove.   Over the next thirty years I would come to witness the many moods of this complex, elusive place, from kind to cutthroat,  Though, thirty years later, I have –realizing its unpredictable power--sworn a hundred times to never go back,  I expect I never will stop.

Variously called the “Most Haunted Cemetery in Chicago,” “The Most Haunted Place in Chicago,” and even “The Most Haunted Cemetery on Earth,” Bachelors Grove has been both a mecca for ghost hunters and a thorn in the side of the county for generations. For investigators like me, it’s become a second home from which we can’t long stay away.

                                                                      

LEGENDS OF BACHELORS GROVE

Bachelors Grove is probably most famous for the grim legends which have been localized here for generations, as they have in places like this around the world. These “urban legends” have often been shrugged off by major folklorists like Jan Harold Brunvand as nothing but tall tales, but other folklorists are realizing that there is always a grain of truth in these tales—and that these tales are periodically recharged by local true events that line up nicely with the age-old stories.   I have found many elements of Bachelors Grove’s famous horror myths in true events that have happened at the Grove or in neighboring areas, but it is these, the Grove’s notorious legends which have secretly held the clues for so long, and which provided these when I went in search of what really happened.

The Boyfriend’s Death

One of the most famous legends of Bachelors Grove is a popular urban legend around the United States and the United Kingdom.  Known typically as “The Boyfriend’s Death,” the story tells of a teen couple who parks in a “lovers’ lane” in the woods.  When the boy becomes too passionate, the girl asks to be taken home, but the car won’t start.  After several tries, the boy leaves the girl to walk to the road and flag down help.  After he departs, the wind stirs up as a storm comes in.  The trees are creaking and bending in the wind and the girl hears the branches scraping the top of the car.  She’s uneasy but stays put until she gratefully sees flashing blue lights coming down the road. When the girl gets out of the car, she’s surprised to see that her boyfriend is not with the police officers in the car.  They say to her, “Just walk towards us, and don’t turn around.”  Of course, the girl turns around, and when she does she sees her boyfriend hanging upside down over their car, his throat slit from ear to ear, and his fingernails scraping the top of the car. 

This story has been “localized” in many parts of the U.S. and U.K. for generations, meaning that local teens will claim that this universal tale “really happened” in their own town or area.  For generations, too, folklorists dismissed these stories as just stories: urban legends meant to teach warning lessons to young people.  But as we shall see, the truth may be truer than we want to believe.  Indeed, numerous locals—including police officers—have claimed that this incident actually happened at Bachelors Grove, some testifying that they even saw the police report and the crime scene photos. 

The Hook

Another immensely popular tale at Bachelors Grove is that of “The Hook” or “The Hooked Maniac.”  In this tale, another couple is parked along a dark forest road one night, kissing, the radio playing softly.  Suddenly, the music is interrupted by an emergency announcement: A killer has escaped the nearby asylum and is on the loose in the area.  He is identifiable by a hook he wears in place of a missing hand.  The girl is terrified and begs to be taken home immediately.  The young man grudgingly obliges, but when they arrive at her house and he goes around to open her door, the young man finds a rusted hook swinging from the door handle: The killer had been ready to open the girl’s car door as he pulled out of the woods.  Interestingly, there is a so-called “one armed sniper” or “one-armed caretaker” who has been tied to Bachelors Grove, often as part of a phantom Caretaker legend.  Could a local resident have lost a hand in a farming or factory accident and worn one of the primitive, hook-like prosthetics of the day?  Or perhaps a World War I or even Civil War veteran, of which there were many living in Bremen Township during the purging of the settlers from their land? Did this settler perhaps confront young couples who were parking in the “lovers’ lane” or in the cemetery, startling them with his unusual appearance? With the widespread circulation of the story of The Hook in the 1930s and ‘40s, it would not be surprising if local teenagers transformed an unfortunate and well-meaning neighbor into a “Hooked Maniac.” 

The Caretaker

For generations most held a deeply skewed idea of what Bachelors Grove was and is.  The general thought was that this had always been natural forest, that the cemetery had been established in this strangely isolated area, and that there were no property records for any houses or other buildings in its vicinity. These beliefs helped encourage the creation or spread of stories which grew up around the “mysterious” house foundations in the woods, buoyed up by sightings of a ghost house which seem to have begun in the 1960s.  As we will see, there may be at least some true life events which led to one of the Grove’s most widespread tales: the story of the Caretaker.

According to the legend, there was once an official caretaker of Bachelors Grove Cemetery, and he and his family lived in a modest house in the woods nearby.  All was well until, one night, voices from the cemetery told him to take an axe and kill his family.  As if transfixed, he completed the gruesome deed.  At its completion, he snapped out of his trance and realized what he had done and, in horror, hanged himself in a tree outside the cemetery gates.  When the townspeople discovered what he had done, they burned down the house and burned the property records, hoping to eradicate all trace and memory of what had happened.  As we will see, real caretakers did exist in the history of the Grove, as did elements of all of these tales of horror.

GRAINS OF TRUTH

In all of the forest preserves, from time to time, accidents happen.  Bachelors Grove is no different. 

Until the time of the Turnpike’s closing a bridge spanned the tributary of Tinley Creek-originally called Bachelors Grove Creek-- which flows through the preserve and past the cemetery, which travelers had to cross, but when the bridge was removed, only foot traffic could still traverse the creek, and only then when the water was not too high to cross it.  In 1951, the recent removal of the bridge led to a tragic accident when a carload of travelers took the old Turnpike road as a shortcut, unaware that the bridge had been removed. The water was about six feet deep at the time and one of the passengers perished.   This was not the only car to end up in the creek, apparently, as local resident Bill Swinford in 2013 found the fuel pump from a Model A Ford in the creek near the quarry pond. 

As previously mentioned, Clarence Fulton, a prominent member of the community and the last cemetery trustee, went on record about the drownings of children that occurred in the quarry pond when he was a child growing up in the area, presumably by those unaware of the dangers of quarry swimming when this was the area fishing and swimming hole.

These woods are no stranger to purposeful death, either, and documented stories of murder and suicide exist here as well, dating much further back than anyone might imagine. 

A well-known and documented story of murder here was a 1966 incident in which a local man hunting mushrooms discovered the slain body of Audry Ellis in the woods near Ridgeland Avenue and 145th street.  The girl, an African American wearing only a gold bracelet and a shamrock necklace, was discovered to have been from Gary, Indiana, and had been on her way to a job interview.  She is one of three young woman found murdered in the forest preserves of Cook County that year, and her murder remains unsolved.

Less well known, though much more recent, was a strange incident that occurred in 1989, in which a local unemployed truck driver, Martin Myers, while awaiting trial for first degree murder, was found dead outside the entrance to Bachelors Grove Cemetery.  He had been shot in the head by his girlfriend, who had lured Myers to the cemetery to kill him after he beat her and held a gun to her head.  In January, Myers had hit an associate head-on with his pickup truck and killed him because he had vied for the attentions of this same woman.  Meyers’ own murder occurred days before he was to stand trial for the deed.

By the 1970s, vandalism and the digging up of graves, along with frequent “partying” by teens were common at Bachelors Grove. (Chicago Tribune)

These rather “straightforward” incidents are typical of the kinds of tragedies that have occurred in the forest preserves of Cook County.  But there are incidents concerning Bachelors Grove which are more complicated and less easily filed away. 

Folklorist Michael Wilson demonstrates that urban legends, whatever their origin, may be recharged by current events that spark new interest in and local memory of the original stories.  When I was first starting out as a young author in the 1990s, making the circuit of local libraries with my lectures, I was frequently astounded by the many firsthand accounts brought forth by audience members of stories about Bachelors Grove I’d assumed were urban legends.  Time and again, patrons would remain behind after my speaking to tell me these stories were, in fact real.

But while all links to truth have been intriguing, there has been one story which has haunted me for nearly two decades: the story that was told to me as true in the autumn of 1997, at one of my very first lectures.

After my talk, I was literally speechless when a middle aged man came up to me and said he was intrigued by my telling of “The Boyfriend’s Death” legend at Bachelors Grove because he’d gone to high school with the boy who was killed.  In the tale, a local high schooler is supposedly found hanging upside down in a tree outside the cemetery with his throat slit.  I did not know what to say, so I stupidly said, “That’s just a story!” No, he insisted. The young man had attended the local public high school with him and had his throat slit and his body hung from a tree outside the cemetery entrance.  His date, who had been waiting for him in the car, was institutionalized afterwards for a time from the shock, he said.

I gave him my number and asked him to please call me so I could interview him and get the details for further research.  I never heard from him again.

For the next fifteen years I asked everyone I met who had grown up in the area if they knew anything about this.  When I met a retired policeman or sheriff’s deputy, I begged them to comb their memories and ask their colleagues if they knew of any incident like this.  But no one did.  I spent endless hours running search terms through databases of newspaper articles: “oak forest” and “slain”…”oak forest” and “woods” and “dead”…”Midlothian” and “preserve” and “slain”…. Every combination I could think of that might lead to story I was looking for; that is, if it had really happened.

On Halloween in 2012, I was at Bachelors Grove Cemetery with a number of friends, having a picnic and meeting other visitors, when I met a retired police officer and his wife from the area.  Amazingly, he told me that he had been at a neighboring police station the night this incident happened, and that he had seen the police report and the crime scene photos.  Like the man who had first told me of the incident years before, he also said that the young woman had been institutionalized after the incident.  This time I got the contact information for the witness, who urged me to call him, to come over to their home some night, have a campfire and some cocktails and hear the many local tales they knew. 

The next day, I sent an email telling the couple what a pleasure it was to talk with them and that I hoped we could soon arrange our storytelling session. To my surprise, the man returned my email with a curt response:  He really didn’t know much else about the story.  There was really nothing else he could tell me.  He wished me good luck and signed off.  No further response could be coaxed out of him.

The grave of Marci May Fulton is a point of pilgrimage for hundreds each year, who leave toys, coins and flowers at the little girls burial site.(Author’s photo)

Baffled, all I could do was return to my own search.  And one night, in late 2013, I found what I had been looking for—or so I thought. The article was entitled “Man guilty in killing of teen couple” and dated August of 1988. The story was about a man named John Ber, a local loner who had been thrown out of his family’s home for stealing.  Ber had taken up residence in an abandoned farmhouse owned by his father which stood around 181st and Laramie, about four miles from Bachelors Grove.  The local teens knew him to be a bit off and generally avoided his company.  But one evening a local couple from nearby Country Club Hills was cruising the area and saw Ber out on the porch of the old house. 

Hoping to buy some beer from the older man, they left the car and approached the house.  After a few words on the porch, the two went inside as the girl waited. After a few minutes, Ber came out and motioned the girl inside. Inside, she discovered that Ber had stabbed and slit the throat of her friend.  Ber then stabbed the girl multiple times. Her body was found later in a car trunk in the area with help from a passerby who saw blood outside the car. 

The following day some friends of the dead couple set fire to the house in anger.  They were exonerated of all charges, and soon after the Hickory Hills fire department finished burning down the house in a firefighting exercise.  At trial, Ber offered no rational motive for the killings, claiming that “a huge, red devil” had appeared to him and told him to kill. 

In this story we find numerous pieces from the legends of Bachelors Grove: the young man with his throat slit. The girl waiting in the car.  The mentally deranged man living in a house in the woods.  A malevolent spirit telling him to kill.  And lastly, the house being burnt down by bitter survivors.   Could this story be the source of the gruesome legends at Bachelors Grove?

More likely, this story “refueled” the existing stories at the Grove, which seem to be much older than the 1988 Ber incident, and incorporated aspects of the new incident into the old story.

Fewer than twenty tombstone remain, though some two hundred burials exist at Bachelors Grove. (Author’s photo)

Indeed, both the witnesses I met and the late ghost hunter Richard Crowe all claimed that the “man hung upside down” incident really happened, and at Bachelors Grove Cemetery specifically.  Along with the witnesses who insisted to me that it is, Crowe also claimed that he had credible sources who swore it had actually happened at Bachelors Grove just as the story says: the young man being hanged upside down in a tree just outside the cemetery; the girlfriend waiting in the car.  He told radio host Eddie Schwartz in July of 1977 that “hopefully a certain file which is said to exist will come into my hands in the near future.”  Crowe said a law enforcement officer had seen the file and told him about it, promising to get him a copy.  Crowe claimed that the incident had probably occurred “in the late 1940s… about ’48 or ’49, however, while my witness claimed it was the early 1980s. 

Now, one would think that if such an incident really did happen, that local residents would remember it a mere twenty years later, but in the case of the John Ber killings, not one person remembered a gruesome incident involving the tragic murders of two local teens, a house being burnt down, or this notorious local loner—even after I found the newspaper story and tried to jog their memories with names, dates and specifics. And as for the fact that there has been no record of this hanging man story uncovered in any news archives?  Keep in mind that it took me more than twenty years to find the articles about John Ber, which had appeared prominently in the Chicago Tribune. 

If this incident really did happen, and at that period in time, this might help to explain the fact that the vandalism at Bachelors Grove began in the early 1950s, possibly as a result of the intrigue created by the murder.  One day, I believe, the case will be brought to light.

What do we know now about hangings at Bachelors Grove?   Richie is known to all frequent visitors to Bachelors Grove.  Calling himself the “Ghost of the Grove,” this lifelong resident makes daily visits to the area to pick up garbage and monitor vandalism.  He’s a beloved fixture at the Grove and has shared his extensive knowledge of area history with hundreds of visitors over the years.  One of the many facts about the Grove that few know, shares Richie, is that many deaths have occurred there.  Some of these were the deaths of patients at nearby Oak Forest Hospital, now shuttered.  According to Richie, patients given passes for the weekend who had nowhere to go would often live in the woods during their leave, preferring two days in the elements to forfeiting their freedom.  Sadly, some of these patients ended up dying of exposure or, rarely, by violence.  Stories are also told of one or two patients who took their own lives in the woods surrounding Bachelors Grove Cemetery, choosing death over more hospitalization.  In fact, the Cook County Forest Preserves are full of such stories, and suicides—most often by hanging-- are a sad fact of these beautiful retreats.  

Shockingly, however, the earliest suicide by hanging here dates back to 1913, when Christ Abbe, a local farmer, discovered the body of a young woman lashed to a neighbor’s fence by a cloth tied around her neck.  The verdict was suicide.  The young woman had left the Rock Island train somewhere along the local route and wandered into the farming community of Bachelors Grove.  Neighbors said she was claiming that the “Black Hand” organization was after her, and a local farmer directed her to the Oak Forest Asylum for help.  She never made it.

 THE WITNESSED ACTIVITY

In all my years of paranormal research and investigation there is no single place at which I have documented more ostensibly paranormal activity and collected more reports of such than at Bachelors Grove.  The activity spans literally every type of experience that people have in the realm of the Other Side, from apparitions to physical effects on their bodies to encounters with strange lights and even cryptids.  Those recorded here are literally only a fraction of those which I—just one person--have experienced or been told of.  The true breadth and scope of the Grove’s manifestations must be, I think, unfathomable.  I’m offering to readers here a representation of the most prevalent phenomena only: those manifestations for which the Grove is famous.  I hope readers will consider these as only a stepping off point for discovery and nowhere near a complete collection.

The Lights of Bachelors Grove

The ghost lights of Bachelors Grove are some of the most prolific phenomena experienced here or anywhere.  In fact, countless visitors and investigators have photographed or filmed these lights, which are seen often in the daytime as at night, and which include blue, white, red, green and yellow versions. Many of the apparitions and other phenomena at Bachelors Grove have been accompanied at times by the appearance of inexplicable lights as well.

My own first paranormal experience at Bachelors Grove was of a mysterious, seemingly intelligent white light which many, many visitors have experienced.   It was during one of my first visits there, as a research assistant to my colleague, Jim Houran, in the late 1980s.  During an evening investigation, a white ball of light—no bigger than a tennis ball-- appeared off the path in a clump of trees.  It moved with incredible speed, darting back and forth or winking off and appearing a split second later a hundred feet away.  More than twenty years later I was amazed to see that this exact same phenomenon had been filmed by the crew of the television show, Ghost Adventures, during a visit to Chicago in the summer of 2012.

A red light has also been seen by visitors to the cemetery, sometimes described as rocket-like or as a shooting or streaking light, suggesting that this light is not circular or spherical but comet-like, with a tail of some sort. This light has been seen both on the old Turnpike path, east and west of the cemetery, as well as in the burying ground itself.  Apparently the appearances of this light were at first mistaken as fireworks being shot off, having the appearance of roman candles or other such amusements.  But a strange behavior ruled out the prospect; several witnesses were startled to see that, after the initial “shooting” or “streaking” or even a “shower of sparks” the light was still there, but floating or bobbing among the tombstones.

As chronicled in the introduction to this volume, the first tale I heard of the Grove was of the most famous of its lights: a blue flashing light which had “chased” my classmate across the creek and into the woods in the early 1980s.  Such incidents are prolific in local oral accounts dating back into the early 1960s.   Time and again, witnesses describe a “flashing” or “flickering” blue light, ranging in size from a softball to a balloon and larger, which seems intelligent to the point of pursuing them through the cemetery or down the Turnpike path into the woods or towards the Creek.  Some visitors have actually been close enough to “touch” the blue light; most notably a local woman named Denise Travis, who famously told ghost hunter Richard Crowe that she had passed a hand through the light, feeling no difference in temperature or other strange sensations.  One of the first anomalous photographs I took at the cemetery (c.1988) showed an arc of blue light partially eclipsing the frame of the image. 

A smattering of locals remembers a chilling but as yet unsubstantiated incident which reportedly occurred in 1963, the first year I have been able to verify a sighting of the blue light.  According to the tale, three local boys had gone into the woods surrounding the cemetery and went missing for several weeks.  When they finally wandered out of the woods, unharmed, they could not remember anything about the weeks they had vanished except that they had followed a mysterious blue light. 

1963 would bring other brushes with the blue light, including an incident which occurred around Halloween when a group of five young men visiting the cemetery all witnessed the light in unison, in the wee hours of the morning.  They had gathered on the old overlook next to the quarry pond—now gone--when they saw a blue light moving on the water towards them.  In fear, the men retreated to their cars and claimed to have been chased by the light down the new Turnpike road (143rd street) as they fled.

Also in that year, a couple who had “parked” on the south side of the cemetery along the old Turnpike road claims to have seen a blue light, the size of a basketball, meander up the path from the creek area, turn sharply into the cemetery gates and head out past the Fulton stone toward the quarry pond. 

Like the stories of the Magic House, many witnesses of the blue light have claimed that the light shrinks or moves father away as it is approached, or even tries to lead them into confusion, as it did for three young women who tried to follow the light across the creek in the summer of 1989, only to find themselves turned around and quite lost when the light suddenly “switched off” like a light bulb. 

Though many years passed after my first encounters with the lights of Bachelors Grove, the lights would visit me again, and this time with malice.  In late June of 2012, I was in the woods at night with a steward of the cemetery and experienced one of the most extraordinary visual manifestations I have ever seen. It was an exceptionally hot, humid night, and as we walked through the woods towards the cemetery there was an increasing sense of that impression that visitors here often describe as “enchanted” or “magical.”  I don’t know where we were when we saw this. At first I thought we must be overlooking the quarry, as there seemed to be a large expanse of emptiness before us, but I realize now that this could not have been the case as we walked for a good ten minutes more before arriving at the cemetery. 

It is still difficult for me to describe what I saw, but it was a light show of sorts, consisting of thousands of tiny blinking or flashing lights that mimicked flash bulbs going off.  The only thing I can compare it to is the image of dozens of paparazzi cameras going off, one after another, at a celebrity gala.  I was absolutely mesmerized by this experience, and when I say it seemed to be happening with an intelligence behind it, other experiencers will understand that.  It was as if it was happening for us.

That experience threw my perceptions off, perhaps also on purpose, for I felt incredibly welcome in our explorations, as if some unseen host were very happy to find us there.  We continued to the cemetery and spent about an hour quietly recording in the cemetery for EVP and chatting about the history of the site. Then, at about 10:30 in the evening, we left to make our way back to our cars.

It was a very long time before I realized my associate and I had gotten lost.  We walked for many long minutes through the brambles and fallen trees that were everywhere.  I was wearing a sundress, as I had not expected to walk in the woods, and my legs were slashed repeatedly by various thorns and brush.  It was dark with no moon, we had no flashlight.  We both had the idea to use the GPS applications on our cell phones to find which way we were headed but they had both lost their signals.  The possibility of this happening had never crossed my mind. As a 15 year veteran researcher of the place, my colleague had personally marked and mapped all of the trails through the woods and estimated that he’d visited these woods some two thousand times or more.  We could have been no more than two blocks from a suburban road, from houses and businesses.   We continued to walk and my phone drained of power and died.  My colleague used the flashlight application on his phone to help us see where we were walking, but we could see that the light was becoming weaker.

After some time, we began to see a faint light up ahead and thought we had finally neared a road or a subdivision that surrounded the preserve.  We could see lights of houses and even see and hear cars passing on the road and, gratefully and with much relief, walked towards them.  But the lights seemed to get farther away as we walked, and I thought we must be somehow walking at a diagonal, even though that really made no sense.  After some walking, the lights actually disappeared, and it was as if someone had switched off a television: where one moment there were images and sounds, the next moment we were in a vacuum.

This experience repeated over and over, every fifteen or twenty minutes, and it was then that a chilling realization came over us: this was happening on purpose. Something was manipulating the environment to trick us, to tire us and confuse us.  With no way to call anyone, find a way out, and thinking of my little girls at home with the babysitter, having no idea where I was, it was a tremendous feeling of panic and despair.

Four and a half hours after we went into the woods, we found our way out through the “back door” entrance that runs along 143rd street at Central.  We were so far away from where we thought we were, and there was really no way we could have been so lost in such a small area for such a long time.  I have never forgotten the feeling of that experience, and I have never ventured into those woods again, night or day, off the path.  Of course, I was alarmed and amazed to discover, a few years later, the alleged incident in the early 1960s in which a group of boys were lost in the woods at Bachelors Grove for several weeks and, when found—unharmed—could not remember anything that had happened except for seeing mysterious lights that had “led them into the woods.”

Just what the Bachelors Grove lights are has been a much-discussed subject, as has the subject of ghost lights in general.  Medieval observers called such lights “will-o’-the-wisps” or ignis fatuus.  This term is Latin for “foolish fire” and referred to the belief that these lights lured travelers over marshes and swamps at night, away from the road, sometimes to their demise, not unlike some of the Bachelors Grove lights.  Interestingly, at Bachelors Grove, numerous witnesses to these lights have claimed that the lights “transfixed” or “hypnotized” them, leading them off the main path and into the woods or the high creek, causing them to become lost or even nearly drowned, or that they appeared above the quarry pond, similarly “leading” them to a dangerous place.

I captured this photo on the old log outside the main gate. I call it my “fairy photo,” as it seems to show a small, glowing humanoid figure. What do you think? (Author’s photo)

Ancient folk beliefs claimed these lights were elementals or fairies, and the term “jack o’ lantern” has its origins in the ghost light phenomenon.  According to an ancient story, a man named Jack, too bad for Heaven but turned away by the Devil, stole a piece of coal from Hell’s furnace on his way out, which he used as a lantern to light his way, eternally, through the world of the living.  Hence, ghost lights seen in cemeteries in particular were called “ghost candles” or “ghost lanterns.”  Followers of the manifestations of Bachelors Grove will find this fascinating, as a “lantern man” or “candle man” has often been seen at the cemetery entrance, where many of the famed lights also make an appearance. Of this, more later.

Sometimes in folklore ghost lights are believed to be the spirits of unbaptized or stillborn children, flitting between heaven and hell.  With the many tragic burials of babies and children at Bachelors Grove, it would not be difficult to connect this bit of folklore to the sightings at the Grove.  One paranormal investigator, a medium named David Wismer, claims that a baby was thrown down the well which can still be seen today—though now filled in—on the property across the creek on the old Turnpike road.  Numerous witnesses have seen various lights coming from this direction or headed towards it.

An obscure legend of Bachelors Grove tells of a treasure buried in the quarry pond or under the forest floor. Compelling, as Irish and other European folk traditions believed that a ghost light indicated treasure under the ground or water where it appeared. Fascinatingly, rumors have been told at Bachelors Grove of underground tunnels in the woods or of sunken loot under the surface of the pond—perhaps even suitcases full of bootlegging cash in the sunken cars of gangsters.

Frederich Schmidt’s wife and their children lived on the land until forced to sell it to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. (Tinley Park Historical Society)

In Scottish folklore, ghost lights often appeared over lochs or cemetery roads.  Once again, quite interesting in view of appearance of the Bachelors Grove lights over the quarry pond and the old Turnpike road—the path traveled for generations by funeral corteges to the cemetery gates. 

Of course, numerous modern researchers have attempted to explain the natural origins of these lights.  The first known serious research into ignis fatuus was by the physicist Alessandro Volta, who discovered methane gas.  Working in the eighteenth century, Volta wondered if ghost lights might be caused by natural electricity interacting with swamp gases or the gases given off by decomposing bodies.   Though several prominent peers supported his hypothesis, Volta also had numerous detractors, who pointed to the odd behavior of ignis fatuus, which seems to interact with or respond to the movements of the observer. 

In recent years, British biologist Alan A. Mills attempted several experiments to replicate ignis fatuus in the laboratory.  In one such study, Mills proposed that ignis fatuus may be cold flames; that is, luminescent arcs of light that appear when compounds are heated nearly to ignition point.  They are bluish and without any discernible heat, suggestive of the 1971 incident in which a local woman claimed to put her hand through the blue light at Bachelors Grove.  As of today, it is unclear whether such cold flames are found in nature. However, some substances which are known to produce them are, in fact, the product of organic decomposition, so there may be a possibility that decomposing matter on the grounds could be the source.

One of the most important contemporary researchers into ignis fatuus is Dr. Michael Persinger, whose Tectonic Strain Theory holds potentially massive import for the study of paranormal phenomena of every kind, from apparitional sightings to ghost lights to UFOS.   Essentially, Persinger’s theory suggests that the EM fields produced by strained bedrock—tectonic strain-- can produce lights in the sky, ball lightning and “earth lights” or ghost lights, and that these fields could also cause unstable conditions in the brain, leading to hallucinations which experiencers tend to interpret in terms of their cultural and learned knowledge and expectations. 

Persinger suggests, then, that some ignis fatuus may be geologic in origin, piezoelectrically created by these strains, which also heat up rock and vaporize the water they contain.  Rock or soil containing something piezoelectric, like quartz, may also produce electricity, which could appear as something luminescent or interfere with the brain function of the witness, causing hallucinations.   That is, experiencers could interpret both actual radiant effects and hallucinations as ghosts, religious apparitions or UFOs, depending on what they believe or expect.  

For students of Bachelors Grove, Persinger’s research is a lot to think about, especially by investigators who have wondered if something about the very land itself is the dynamo behind the myriad, extraordinary phenomena of this site.  The mysterious lights of Bachelors Grove, then, may be the most prolific of its phenomena because they may be the very foundation of them. 

Some believe the “Madonna of Bachelors Grove” may be Lulu Fulton Rogers, Top right. (Tinley Park Historical Society)

The Madonna of Bachelors Grove

Without question, one of the most famous of paranormal manifestations at Bachelors Grove is that of the White Lady or Madonna of the Grove, a female figure in white, sometimes called “Mrs. Rogers” in local tellings of her story.  The Madonna is described as a woman with dark hair, dressed in a long white dress or dressing gown. She has been reported walking through the cemetery, putting flowers on the graves, carrying a baby, or as “looking for her baby.”  One of the most controversial “spirit photographs” ever taken anywhere is of a woman in white sitting on the “quilted stone” or “checkered stone” at Bachelors Grove.

Origins of reports of this White Lady at Bachelors Grove are unknown. The earliest mention I have found which refers to a woman searching for a baby or holding a baby was in a 1977 radio broadcast hosted by the late Eddie Schwartz, during which a caller talked about capturing a photo of a “shrouded figure . . . carrying a baby.”  In the same segment, the caller refers to the image as “a nun . . . carrying a baby in white swaddling.”   The caller says she first thought she had captured a photo of the Virgin Mary, as the figure was dressed as “in a blue habitat (sic) . . . with white trim.”  I believe this is the origin of references to a “Madonna” of Bachelors Grove.

On August 10, 1991, Judy Huff-Felz On August 10, 1991, Judy Huff-Felz was visiting Bachelors Grove Cemetery with the Ghost Research Society, one of the oldest local ghost hunting groups in the nation.  During that visit, she took one of the most controversial and infamous paranormal photos of all time, first published in the Chicago Sun-Times and the National Examiner: the incredible capture of the so-called “Madonna of Bachelors Grove.”   The image of a “White Lady” or the “Woman on the Stone” has been circulated in all corners of the globe, and regularly appears on lists of the top paranormal photographs of all time.  It is a ritual for visitors to Bachelors Grove to re-enact that renowned scene. 

Judy Huff-Felz first contacted me in the late 1990s to tell me about the day she took her famous photo, and I asked her to retell it her

In the late 80's my sister and I convinced our mom to start a group which gave lessons on how to teach people how to find, enhance and safely use their abilities. After all of the sessions were over with each group my sister (Mari Abba) and I organized and ran an interactive ghost tour. This was for our mom's students to experiment and practice their abilities at several known haunted locations throughout Chicago and the suburbs.

My sister and I met Dale Kaczmarek, founder of the Ghost Research Society. He invited us to his meetings and we then became members of his group. In 1991 GRS had planned an investigation for Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. The team members brought their equipment, my mom, sister and I were coming only with our gifts. Someone from the group suggested I bring some infrared film and take pictures of where I sensed activity.
The investigation was done where each member was given a clipboard, a pen and a map of the cemetery. Then everyone except for one person would wait outside of the fenced area. Then one person at a time we would walk through Bachelor's with our clipboard and whatever equipment they brought with them. As they walked around, they would note where and what the saw, heard and/or felt. Then would use their equipment to see if they could detect something.

So as I walked through, I'd take pictures where I felt something. My camera was an Olympus automatic 35mm telephoto. As soon as you would take a picture the camera would automatically wind the film to the next frame. The design of this camera made it impossible to double expose film. After developing my pictures I found a woman or girl sitting on a broken piece of headstone. I did not see her with my naked eye the day of the investigation. Although I believe I may have come across her on a few other occasions later. 

The rest is history.

Who is the Madonna of Bachelors Grove?  There are many theories surrounding the identity of this mysterious woman in white.

In light of the many stories told about the old Turnpike road and the days of joyriding and drinking parties, could she have been an ill-fated teenager who possibly drowned in the quarry pond or was killed in a car accident along the road?  No news stories have surfaced regarding such an accident or death, but the possibility remains.  Often, stories of “women in white” have begun after such “partying” accidents—as cautionary tales—but the truth of the matter here is up for debate.

Two sisters-in-law both emerge as candidates:  Kathryn Vogt Fulton and Luella Fulton Rogers, pictured below (top two center, left to right).  Kathryn, who married Luella’s brother, Burt Fulton, was heartbroken by the loss of her child, little Marcia May—who died in infancy.  The young couple’s baby was buried at the Fulton family lot in Bachelors Grove—under the famous Fulton Stone, identified with the “Infant Daughter” marker. 

Local historians pass on the local knowledge that, at the time of Marcia May’s death, the Fultons and the Vogts did not get along.  Though the Vogt family owned cemetery space at Zion Cemetery in Tinley Park, apparently the burial of a Fulton there was not an option, so John and Hulda offered burial at their family plot at Bachelors Grove.  Years later, the child’s parents were laid to rest in town, at Zion Cemetery, with Kathryn Vogt’s kin. Could an otherworldly Kathryn be searching for her baby, buried so far away, and under such exceptionally tragic circumstances?

In folklore, a White Lady (also known as a Mulher de Branco) is a type of female ghost reportedly seen in rural areas and associated with some local legend of tragedy. Often, these women are supposed to have been killed in car accidents, such as Chicago’s own “Resurrection Mary” or England’s “Ghost of Blue Bell Hill.”  I strongly believe the best candidate for the Madonna to be Luella (or Lulu) Fulton Rogers, who was killed by a hit and run driver the week after her 60th birthday and who is buried at her family's lot at Bachelors Grove: the lot of John, Jr. and Hulda Turney Fulton.   Some believe that a resemblance seems to exist between Luella and the image in Judy Huff-Felz’s famous photo.  Moreover, Luella’s baby sister—Emma—is also buried with her at the Fulton stone, but her marker was stolen long ago.  When it was recovered, it was not returned to the Grove but, rather, placed into the care of the Tinley Park Historical Society.  Could Luella be upset that her sister’s stone is missing? Is that was the spirit is looking for? 

Old, local references refer to the Madonna as “Mrs. Rogers,” surely pointing to some connection to Luella.   This would mean that it was contemporaries of Luella who started the story of the Woman in White at Bachelors Grove, making this the oldest ghost story at Bachelors Grove.  Were sightings of her--or at least reports of them--what first drew young people to Bachelors Grove at night to look for ghosts?  In light of all we now know, it seems likely. 

another candidate for the Madonna is one of two women named Mary Rick.  We don't know much about Rick, but from what we can discern, the famed "quilted stone" or "checkered stone" where Judy Huff-Felz's famous figure was captured is likely the base stone of the marker of the Rick family, including two Marys.  If you’re going to haunt the cemetery, after all, why not hang out at your own grave?

A final candidate for the Madonna is Amelia Patrick—the first wife of Senator John Humphrey.  Another sad infant death, the couple’s child, little Libby Mae, was laid to rest with Amelia’s family at Bachelors Grove, though Amelia was later interred elsewhere.  Could Amelia, like Kathryn, be making nightly visits to the Grove in search of her separated child? 

The Magic House

Experiences of “vanishing houses” –usually believed to be evidence of time slips or “wrinkles in time”--have been told in many parts of the world and in many eras. Probably the most well-known of these incidents became known as the Moberly–Jourdain incident, otherwise known as the Ghosts of Petit Trianon, which supposedly were experienced by Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain in Versailles, France, in the early 20th century.  During a visit to the Petit Trianon, a small house on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, the two women claimed to have been transported to the site the way it had looked in the 18th century, and to have even seen a bridge and other structures that they could not have known about, but which had been demolished years before.  They also claimed to have seen the ghosts of Marie Antoinette and other prominent 18th century characters.  During the experience, the women said they felt an overpowering sense of oppression and a sinister feeling from the people they encountered.  They also described the scenery and its inhabitants as “flat and lifeless.” 

The pair became interested in the history of Versailles after their experience, and they soon returned to visit the Trianon gardens again, but they could not find the path they had walked.  Nor could they locate the bridge they’d seen.  Further, while the gardens had been nearly empty on their earlier visit, populated with just a few antiquely- attired people, now they were filled with modern tourists.  In 1911, the two women published their experiences in a book called An Adventure.  Though the book was widely popular, the pair was roundly shamed by critics, including the illustrious Society for Psychical Research, who believed the two women had simply been mistaken about the preternatural nature of what they had seen.

Rougham Green, in the English region of Suffolk, has for a century and a half hosted a phantom house.  In 1860, a local farmer, Robert Palfrey, was baling hay on a summer evening when he felt a sudden chill on the warm night.  He looked up to see a large, red brick house with lush gardens surrounding it, though no house existed in the area.  Some years later, in 1912, Palfrey’s grandson, James Cobbold, was driving a pony trap with the village butcher, George Waylett, when again the temperature plummeted and they heard a whooshing noise.  The animal reared, throwing Waylett to the ground.  There, in front of the men and the pony, had appeared a massive Georgian house, surrounded beautiful blooming gardens, though a moment before there had been only a farm field and no structures of any kind.  Seconds later, the house became enshrouded in mist—and then vanished again.  The house would be seen again in 1926 when a young teacher and her pupil were walking through the area and came upon a huge house with a wall surrounding it and huge iron gates at the entrance.  Returning home, the teacher—new to the area—inquired as to the residents of the grand home.  She was informed that there was no such house in existence.  Sure enough, when the pair returned to the site on another walk, they found the spot empty. 

Even the Chicago area has vanishing houses outside of Bachelors Grove.  In the northwest suburbs, Cuba Road is known as an extremely haunted tract which runs through old farms and country houses.  A “vanishing house” has been reported by travelers, which reportedly seems as real as can be but disappears in the rearview mirror or is gone upon a return visit. 

Perhaps no vanishing house, however, is more well-known in the annals of ghostlore than the “Magic House” of Bachelors Grove.

There are many common motifs among experiences of the house of Bachelors Grove which has been seen by what can only be estimated to be hundreds of visitors, based on the nearly 60 eyewitness accounts I myself have gathered the past thirty years without really even soliciting them.

One is the style of the house. Every single account of the house describes it as a white farmhouse or ‘farm style house,’ of something like one and a half stories tall—a simple frame house with a dormer or attic. 

A second aspect is that of the cross-paned window, which is what almost each visitor describes. The window is the focal point, and many witnesses have seen only a window and no house, or have photographed only a window and no house.  Particular to the window is a light burning inside.  Witnesses insist this light is “glowing” or “flickering.” And some describe it as soft, golden, and that it is a natural firelight, not electric, although one woman who saw the house in the 1960s told Richard Crowe she’d thought it might have been light from a television set and remembered looking for cables that might have explained electricity in these isolated woods.

A map of 19th century Bremen Township shows the Everdon property with a cross marking the cemetery. (Tinley Park Historical Society)

The porch swing too, is almost always mentioned in descriptions of the house, and some accounts even talk about it “swinging gently.” 

The feeling that the house is “leading” one somewhere, “attracting” one to it is also almost universally prevalent in accounts.  Walking towards it only to have it “shrink” or “get smaller and smaller” before disappearing is, similarly, overwhelmingly experienced.

Lastly, and most chillingly, the feeling of menace or malevolence from the house, and the impression that some intelligence is taking pleasure in frightening or unnerving the witness are emotional affects shared by a majority of experiencers, and reminiscent of the experiences of the women at Versailles so many years ago.

It was commonly believed that no one had ever entered this Magic House (or at least returned to tell about it).  However, in 1997, soon after the publication of my first book, I gave a lecture at a library in the Bachelors Grove area and spoke to numerous patrons who had had experiences at the Grove earlier in their lives, including a man in his late seventies who had grown up exploring the woods surrounding Crestwood, his hometown. 

My late friend, Linda Romano, snapped this photo. She was taking a photo inside the cemetery and later found an image of a man walking with a child outside the fence. There was no one else present at the time.

He told me that when he was a boy, he was playing in the woods near the Cemetery with his friend sometime after 1940. This was a time by which the homes in the area had all been torn down.  This particular afternoon, they had passed along the old Turnpike and seen a house where a woman was waving to them from the porch. She was a grandmotherly woman, elderly but healthy looking, and she motioned for them to come closer. They walked up the front path and, when they got close enough to hear her, she said, “I just baked cookies. Come and have some!” Times being what they were, they went in and followed the woman through the modest farmhouse to the kitchen, where the smell of cinnamon filled the cozy space. They sat with the woman and ate their fill of freshly baked cookies, drank coffee diluted with lots of milk and sugar. He did not recall what she talked about, if anything.  When they finished it was beginning to be sunset, so the boys said they had to go. 

The next day, thinking of cookies, the boys headed back to the house, hoping for another invitation, but the house was gone. 

Another story was told to me by a woman who had grown up in the area in the 1970s. She and two friends were walking down the old Turnpike path near the Creek one afternoon when they were startled to see a great gathering of people outside an old white farmhouse in a clearing in the woods.  As she described it, there was a “long line of people, many of them dressed in long robe-like garments, standing quietly outside the door, as if queuing up for some event.”  They thought maybe it was some sort of independent church or “some kind of hippie thing,” as it was the early ‘70s.  Readers may note that this was around the same time that reports of ritual activity began to circulate regarding the cemetery and surrounding woods, and robed figures—both preternatural and flesh and blood—were being seen with increasing frequency.  When the young woman returned with friends a few weeks later, the house they had seen was gone.

The late Richard T. Crowe, who grew up on the southwest side of Chicago, claimed to have collected dozens of drawings which had been made by witnesses to the Magic House, all showing a similar structure and style. A documentary he made interviewed two witnesses of the house who as part of the program showed similar drawings they had made of the house, allegedly with no previous knowledge of one another. Crowe also talked on the Eddie Schwartz radio show in 1976 about one witness who had seen the house and tried to get closer to it, knowing there was no house in the woods and realizing how unusual the situation was.   He was running and had to go through some brambles and bushes, and suddenly “found himself falling through the air.  He had come upon the house, but it disappeared, and he ended up falling into the stone foundation of the house.” 

Some researchers have wondered if the house is the “ghost” of a house which once stood in the Grove; possibly even the phantom residue of one of the Schmidt family houses which stood off the Turnpike road until the 1920s, when Margaretha Schmidt sold the property to the county.  Certainly, the photographs of the Schmidt home or homes which have surfaced in recent years have fueled that theory, since witnesses have tended to describe a somewhat similar house.  However, rarely is the Magic House seen in this area.  Most often the house is seen either just past the cemetery and west of the old Turnpike road, or on the ravine of the creek by visitors walking between the cemetery and the creek near the quarry pond. 

As recently as 2015 the house was seen inside the cemetery itself, by a driver passing over the quarry along 143rd street, the new Turnpike road.   A working wife in her late ‘50s, she was driving home from work just before sundown and, as she always did, glanced over to catch a look at the cemetery, which can be seen from the road, across the quarry.   Though she had made this gesture probably hundreds of times, this time she saw a white frame house standing inside the cemetery.  When she made a U-turn, however, to come back around and verify what she had seen, the house was gone. 

In 2014 the house was actually photographed standing just past the treeline outside the cemetery gates, just south of the Path. Appearing to be a white frame house built on posts, the photograph also captured the image of what appears to be a male figure walking across the path.

In the 1960s, several witnesses saw the house in this same area.  One such witness said she and her date were driving down the Path towards the cemetery one stormy night and saw the house to the south of the Path and a man with a lantern talking to the people in the car ahead of them, motioning for them to turn back and leave the area.   When they returned some weeks later, the house was gone.

There were other houses here in the area, as we shall see, including two others whose inhabitants are now known, and both had strong ties to the cemetery.  Of this, more later. 

Astonishingly, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had his own “vanishing” incident during the 1930s, when he traveled to the town of Ravenna, the former capital of the Western Roman Empire.  Jung was quite taken with the history of a certain Roman princess, and was very excited about visiting her tomb in town. After the visit, he and his travel companion went on to the Neonian Baptistery, an open building illuminated by four large clear paned windows.  Finishing their visit, the pair returned to Switzerland. 

Twenty years later, Jung returned to Ravenna and had what he would describe as ‘among the most curious events of my life.’  His impressions of the visit were described in Aniela Jaffe’s Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.  Jung remembered the ‘strange mood’ he fell under during his second visit to the tomb, and, amazingly, recounts a “mild blue light” which filled the room of the Baptistery when he again entered.  He later reflected that, for some reason, he was not troubled by the fact of this light, though it had no apparent source. What was startling, however, was the fact that—where the four great windows had been—there were now four enormous mosaics depicting aquatic events in the life of the Church, including the parting of the Red Sea, the baptism of Jesus on the Jordan, and others. Jung and his companion viewed these wondrous mosaics for some time before departing. 

During his time in Ravenna and later, Jung attempted to purchase photographs of the mosaics from firms who specialized in architectural photographs of prominent buildings, but discovered, to his shock, that the mosaics did not exist, and never had.

Fewer and fewer families owned the land around the cemetery after the coming of the railroads, when most went further west to farm—or back to Chicago to seek their fortunes. is map shows the Schmidts now owning the BG land, and the cemetery marked with crosses. Th(Tinley Park Historical Society)

Jung’s travel companion was equally astounded to discover that what they had both seen was not really real¸ and for years insisted that there must be some mistake, but there was not.  There were, in fact, four clear windows in the Baptistery, and no mosaics of any kind.  Nor had there ever been.

Incredibly, Jung did discover that his revered princess, during a treacherous ocean crossing, had made a vow that if she survived she would build a church at Ravenna in thanksgiving and decorate it with artwork showing God’s power over the sea.  Safely home, she kept her vow and built the Basilica of San Giovanni, adorned in mosaics, which was eventually obliterated by fire. 

Deeply puzzled and fascinated by his experience, Jung attempted to understand what had happened. After many considerations, he could only conclude that his unconscious mind may have created a vision, based on his “very strong kinship, culturally and spiritually, with the princess,” and his “immersion in the total identification with the princess.”

Could this be what happens at Bachelors Grove? Certainly, many visitors feel a “very strong kinship, culturally and spiritually” with the history and people of the Grove.  Are these appearances merely creative expressions of the viewer, powered by this strong kinship?  Or are visitors tapping the psyches and realities of those long gone and actually seeing the world through their eyes?

And what about the blue light that accompanied Jung’s vision?  Considering the famed blue lights that often preface apparitions of Bachelors Grove’s Magic House, there may be much here to consider.

The Caretaker

One of the most troubling legends of Bachelors Grove may be related to the enigma of the Magic House---and the lights of the Grove.  Since numerous witnesses have seen the Magic House with a caretaker or “lantern man” out front—sometimes also bearing a rifle and chasing visitors away, could it be that  the house and the Caretaker—and perhaps even the lights-- are part of the same phenomenon?

One witness, driving toward the cemetery on the Path with her date in 1960s, saw a man with a lantern at the cemetery entrance motioning for them to turn back and leave the area.   She remembers that they drove past a house standing in the woods just south of the path, right near the cemetery. 

The woods loom outside the cemetery fence, luring many to explore their mysteries. (Author’s photo)

A similar man was seen by three young women visiting the cemetery one afternoon many years later, in the first decade of the 2000s. They had traveled the old Turnpike road on foot back to the cemetery one afternoon and, as they passed the bend in the road, they saw ahead of them, at the cemetery gate, an elderly man holding an oil lantern and motioning for them to come more quickly, as if they should hurry. The women thought there was a tour starting and quickened their pace as the man went ahead into the gate and passed out of their sight.  When they reached the cemetery, however, the man had vanished. No one at all was in the burying ground or anywhere nearby. 

Others tell of experiences in the 1970s during which they encountered a man with a gun on the ravine or at the cemetery gate, who told them in no uncertain terms to get out.  However, when reassured that they meant no harm, that they were only there in search of the “disappearing house,” the man told them that it was very real and that he would show it to them.  Walking behind them and pointing the way, he would vanish en route.

Sometimes this Caretaker is described as a “one-armed sniper” or a “one-armed man.”  Interesting, since the legend of the “Hooked Maniac” is one that has been told of this spot for years. 

Cemetery trustee Clarence Fulton insisted there never was a true “caretaker” of the cemetery in the traditional sense. He claimed that the cemetery, as a local settlers’ burying ground, was cared for by landowners in the area during the time of farming there and by trustees of the cemetery throughout the larger part of the 20th century, until the cemetery’s condemnation in 1976.    In fact, however, there were several “caretakers” of the cemetery, as unofficial as they might have been.

Certainly, Fulton himself could be described as nothing but a caretaker.  He was a member of the private Board of Trustees of the Cemetery, the “go-to” person for reporters and others when the cemetery was in the news, and also was the one to suggest the creation of a Bachelors Grove “shrine.”   If Fulton didn’t think of himself as the caretaker of the cemetery, he was likely alone in that thought.  Don’t forget, too, that Fulton would talk about hiding in the cemetery to scare away would-be vandals, and that he plainly told reporters that his companion in these night watches carried a gun.  

It also seems fair to argue that the mysterious Huburt Geist was a self-appointed caretaker of the cemetery, taking it upon himself to chase away young ne’er do wells and their shenanigans by any means necessary.

In recent years, another possibility for a caretaker’s identity has come to light.  In 1996, Brad Bettenhausen of the Tinley Park Historical Society published a letter he had received from Jan Doan of Claremont, Illinois, about her family, the Hardys, a prominent Bachelors Grove name. 

By the 1960s, vandalism was rampant at the Grove, and it continued for decades. (

Doan’s father had lived at the corner of 147th and Ridgeland as a child.  Her grandfather was Fred Hardy, who emigrated from Lincolnshire, England, in 1886, with his brother, Albert. Two of their sisters also migrated to the area later.  Edna Wright Hardy was Fred and Albert’s mother.  She lived in Lincolnshire, England her whole life and had seventeen children with her husband, Henry Hardy.  After his death, Edna visited her children in America in 1893 to attend the World’s Fair in Chicago.  Upon her return to England she married William Sanderson.  After his death, she again visited with her children in America in the fall of 1906 but became too ill to return to England. She died in Bremen Township and was buried at Bachelors Grove.  Her mother was originally interred there as well but was reinterred to town, to Zion Lutheran, where the rest of the family reposes. Edna remains at Bachelors Grove alone, in a grave originally owned by her son, Albert.

A map showing the homesteaders of 1900 held by the Tinley Park Historical Society shows that the southwest end of cemetery marked the edge of the Schmidt land and the beginning of the land owned occupied (but not necessarily owned) by Albert Hardy.  In Doan’s letter she speaks fondly of the Hardy house “across the crick” where her uncle, Albert Hardy, lived.  She says that as a child she visited Bachelors Grove cemetery “at least twice a month from spring to fall for many years.  My dad and grandpa would cut the grass around the graves, trim the hedge, plant and water flowers and, in general, take care of the area.”   Though his house actually stood across the creek, could Albert Hardy’s house somehow be the “phantom house” seen by numerous witnesses along the old road? 

Yet another interesting caretaker candidate possibility dwells on the ravine, where many visitors have encountered the phantom house and caretaker.  This, we have seen, is where Christ Boehm lived and operated his quarry.  Now, from the court transcripts over the Boehm property, it seems hardly likely that Boehm had any passionate attachment to this land. The quarry seems to have been a catch as catch can operation, with witnesses saying it was often closed. Boehm had no wife or children and seems to have been something of a drifter, ending up in Knox, Indiana during the time of the Forest Preserve upheaval.  None of his family lived at the Grove, living and working in Worth and Chicago. Though he fought the sale of the land in court—extensively and at great expense to the county—his interest was in getting more money, not in any apparent love for the land.  Interestingly, however, the court hearing regarding his land, Boehm’s house was described as being “built on posts,” much like the house captured in a photo in recent years.  And many visitors have seen the house in the area of the quarry, both on the ravine and in the cemetery itself.

Certainly, there were numerous run-ins by visitors with flesh and blood caretakers at Bachelors Grove over the years.   Hubert Geist, Clarence Fulton, and the Hardys: we know these men and possibly others were highly involved in the care of security of the cemetery.  Surely some of these “apparitions” were actual run-ins with one or more of these very real guardians.  Of course, this doesn’t dismiss the possibility that one or another of these men remained here after death to keep up the watch.  One particularly thinks of Albert Hardy, with his mom, Edna, all alone in her grave here, so far from home and family in England and in town.  Did he stay here after death to look out for her?

Bailey, the official mascot of Bachelors Grove, and the famous “moving tombstone of BG. The stone mysteriously makes it way around te cemetery grounds, though it’s nearly impossible to budge, even by the strongest. No drag marks are ever found. (Photo by Bill Swinford)

An intriguing aspect of the Caretaker sightings is that there have been numerous occasions when the Caretaker beckoned to visitors or invited them to come into the woods or the cemetery, rather than shooing them away.  Once again, the apparition “lures” the visitor in, just as the Magic House and the lights reportedly do.  Like the house, some wonder if these Caretaker apparitions are malevolent entities in disguise, tricking visitors to come inside, and more deeply under their spell.

The Dogs

Phantom dogs are found throughout the folklore of both the British Isles and Germany, so it is not surprising that they have trotted their way into the reports of Bachelors Grove, settled first by English migrants from New England and then by German immigrants.  Throughout international lore, these dogs are almost always associated with death and, usually, evil. Often, sightings occur in tandem with electrical storms, and they are said to be seen most often at crossroads or along ancient spiritual roads. That the black dogs of Bachelors Grove are usually seen at the cemetery entrance is interesting, given the local folklore that says a portal opening exists there, or at the roped off entrance to the Path, since the old Turnpike road was a Native American trail.  Often Native Americans would lay down trails over lines in the landscape they believed to be of spiritual significance.  Also interesting is the fact that the nearby cell towers—and possibly high EM fields-- on the new turnpike are often pointed to as a possible source of the manifestations at the Grove.  Could electricity really have something to do with these manifestations?  Also important for Grove lore is that fact that phantom dogs have often been tied in folklore to instances where humans sold their souls to the Devil. That the phantom dog tales began during the height of reports of ritual activity at the Grove is worth pointing out.

The earliest reports of phantom dogs at Bachelors Grove date from the 1980s, when the first published accounts appeared in books of American ghostlore.  According to an early account, two men visiting the cemetery first saw strange lights in the bushes of the cemetery grounds and then what appeared to be the backside of  dog, which then faded away.  Other similar sightings have been reported to me, which occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  One young woman was visiting Bachelors Grove for the first time with two companions on a spring afternoon in 2002.  As they walked south on the Path and neared the cemetery, they saw a black Doberman standing near the gate, facing them.  All three women saw the dog clearly at first, but as they got closer, the dog began to become blurry and transparent, until they could actually see the road on the other side of the animal. No one spoke until the dog had vanished entirely, and afterwards all three said they had felt a strange calm or malaise come over them, as if they were temporarily drugged or hypnotized. Interestingly, they also reported that the hair on their arms stood on end for several minutes after the incident.

Most sightings seem to center on this cemetery entrance or on the roped off entrance to the old Turnpike road—the Path—at 143rd street.  Visitors will sometimes see the dog standing at the roped entry as they cross the street towards it. Others have claimed that a dog blocked their way or followed them out as they walked up the Path towards 143rd street.  Longtime paranormal researcher Jim Gracyzk is one witness who experienced a phantom dog in this way:

It was late just a little past midnight on a warm summer night back in the late 80’s. I was with one of my old school buddies and two of his co-workers whom had just got off work. We were out driving around and looking for something to do. None of us had even been to Bachelors Grove at night so I drove on out there.

We parked the car a block or so down the Turnpike by the houses on the side street. The streets were quiet but we knew we had to keep a watchful eye out for the local police making their rounds. As we parked the car, we all agreed we go in together; we come out together no matter what. This was a small verbal pact amongst four teenage guys. As the four of us kept a watchful out for cars, we ran and made it to the path down to Bachelors Grove.

Now this being the first time at night to Bachelors Grove, the other three guys relied on me to lead and get them back to the cemetery. As we walked through the woods down the trail, it seemed like the trail kept getting longer and longer. After a few minutes, we could see off on the right, the outline of the fence to the cemetery.

Once we walked into the cemetery, it seemed peaceful and pretty quiet. We walked together within eyesight of one another and kept our voices down as we prowled around the cemetery. Everyone was amazed that we made it there and the moonlight lit the cemetery rather well.  After a few minutes of wandering around and nothing happening, we decided we better get back to the car before the cops showed up.

As I was leading everyone out the cemetery, we were sort of bunched up and then started to stagger down the road, as each kept an eye out for anyone and of course the police.  While I was leading I saw up in front of me in the distance, some of shape pacing back and forth on the trail and back into the woods. I asked, “Did anyone else see that?” and of course everyone else was trying to figure it out. We stopped and came up with a plan, to grab something like a good size stick or a rock to protect oneself with in case needed. We had all kept an eye out for people and cars and now we have something in front of us. Slowly, we proceeded forward toward the cabled off entrance.  As we got closer, we could see it was a dog. Now our minds started to race: was this a wild dog or something.

Each step closer to the entrance we could see this dog more clearly. It was rather fat, like an adult size black and brown looking Rottweiler. This isn’t good, we need to get out of here and alive too. The dog was pacing back and forth, from about the middle of the trail to the side into the woods. The dog would walk out sniff and turn back and go back into the woods. Ok I thought, if we stick to the left side of the trail, keep an eye out and maybe the dog will just let us out. As we got close to the cable entranced, the dog was standing off into the woods as if letting us proceed. We bunched up and slowly walked past the dog. I remember, I glanced at the dog to see where it was and I clearly could see it was black and tan almost like a junk yard guard dog. The dog’s eyes were dark and amazingly it just kept watching us walk by. All four of us kept watching back checking to see where this dog was, still in the woods off the trail. We made it to the street on the pavement and then saw the dog step out of the woods and walk behind us to the edge of the trail to the pavement. We were already walking super-fast, almost running, not to draw the dog to chase us.  Someone said the dog is still by the trail near the pavement, and said run to the car. All of us dropped our sticks and rocks and ran to the car.  Once we got to the car and were safe inside, everyone started talking.

We started the car up and of course had to go back down the turnpike to see where this dog was at now. Amazingly, we couldn’t find the dog. The dog was nowhere to be seen by the road or entrance to the trail. We all laughed and were talking about how it was a close call on the way out. We couldn’t figure out why we weren’t chased by the dog and why it let us like out of the trail.

Nobody brought up that night ever again and I haven’t seen any of those guys in years. None of them know I am into the paranormal and if I ever cross paths with them, I would ask them about Bachelors Grove at night and that dog by the trail. I am sure each one would tell you the story on how we got let out and just watched by a dog,

Over the years, as I got into the paranormal in the late 90’s and started doing research, I learned about a phantom dog, These phantom dogs are known to guard sacred places and keep an eye on things. I know what I saw that night and it seemed real to all of us, but was it one of these dogs. None of us disrespected Bachelors Grove Cemetery that night and we just there out of curiosity. Was it the respect we paid to the departed ones and sacred site that we also were granted respect and able to leave in one piece out of the area?   

Local resident Bill Swinford was walking on the Path towards the cemetery in April of 2013 when he saw a black dog walking ahead and turning into the cemetery.  He pulled back, keeping his own dog on a short leash (though his animal did not seem to react to the stranger), but when he reached the cemetery gates, the dog was gone.  There was a mother in the cemetery with her children, and when he asked the woman where the dog went, she and the children assured her that they had seen no dog. 

Curiously, the sighting of one or another phantom dog is one of the rare phenomena at the Grove which tends to not be witnessed by everyone present.  Typically, only one person or a fraction of those present see the dog while their companions do not.  Also, in about half of the experiences, the dog vanishes or becomes fainter before vanishing.  In the other incidents, the dog disappears while witnesses are not looking in its direction, or walks into the cemetery and vanishes while out of eyesight.  These details seem evocative of the Magic House experiences, in which witnesses have either seen the house “fade away” or find that the house has disappeared since they earlier passed the site of it.

Common to numerous experiences are the appearance of small, “dancing” lights at the time of the dog’s appearance.  Numerous phenomena at the Grove seem to occur in the presence of such lights, and it makes me wonder if, indeed, there is a portal or dimensional doorway here: whether there is some sort of static charge being emitted at the moment of transference between worlds. 

The Cars

Robert Patterson is a lifelong resident of Chicago’s southwest side and has been visiting Bachelors Grove since his youth.  He’s a great documentarian of the Grove and took some of the oldest known photographs of the site.  Though he says he has been here innumerable times, he has not had many paranormal experiences in the cemetery, but that the road outside it is a different story:

Really, I’ve been at B.G. hundreds of times since 1976...never seen or heard anything. But I have witnessed things outside of the cemetery just driving by.  On one occasion my brother Mike and I were driving on 143rd street from Ridgeland Avenue.  It was on Friday just after Thanksgiving around ten years ago.  It was dusk, still light out, cloudy.  We observed a dark minivan parked at the entrance (to the old Turnpike road). I was on the passenger side looking at the minivan and there was no one inside.  I said, “Boy they’re going to get a ticket!”  After we passed, a few seconds later I looked in the passenger side rear mirror and the minivan was gone, and there were no cars on the road at all. 

Possibly the most prolific of all Bachelors Grove phenomena is that of these phantom cars or ghost cars which have been seen near the cemetery since at least the 1970s. 

The late Chicago ghost hunter Richard Crowe himself saw one of the cars on two separate occasions, as he shared with listeners on the Eddie Schwartz Show in the 1970s.

Veteran broadcaster Ronald Smith recalls an incident which occurred in the early 1970s concerning the cars, which featured numerous vehicles at once:

In the fall of 1972 I was a student at North Central College in Naperville. As Program Director of the campus radio station, WONC-FM, I thought it would be a good idea to create a short radio program concerning local legends to air on Halloween evening. The show ended up being called "Journey to the Macabre," which was admittedly rather sensationalistic. As part of the program a group of three of us from the station traveled to some of the sites, including Resurrection Cemetery, St. Rita Church and Bachelors Grove. Though we brought audio equipment, the tape consisted of us describing the sites and our "feelings". Since electronic voice phenomena was virtually unheard of, most of the audio went unused and even unexamined, replaced by a later phone conversation with Chicago ghost hunter Richard Crowe. I do remember Richard asking if we had seen the cabin in the woods-- a relatively new phenomenon. We had not. But talk of it was the highlight of the show.

Having never been to the cemetery before, we approached from the east on Midlothian Turnpike. In those days, the road to the cemetery was open to cars (even at night) and ended in a large turnaround at its entrance. I remember the spooky sensation the overhanging trees gave to the short drive but mostly was concerned with the idea that the path was too narrow for two cars to safely pass. When we arrived at the turnaround, we were not even sure we were in the right place-- the small cemetery was so decrepit and overgrown. A decision was made to exit and travel further down the road in case we had made a wrong turn. When we got back to Midlothian Turnpike and continued heading west, I glanced out the back window (I was alone in the back seat) and saw around six cars turning down the path we had just left. I wish I could say there was something memorable about the cars but it was dark and I certainly had no need to remember what they looked like-- so I thought. Announcing to my friends that we must have been in the right place, we continued on to Ridgeland Avenue and headed back.

Turning back down the path towards the cemetery, I was now even more concerned about its narrowness. What if the cars that had preceded us decided to turn around and come back out? There would be no way to get around them.  I wasn't sure there would even be enough room for all the cars to park in the turnaround. My fears were allayed, however, when we got to the entrance. We were alone.

Of course I wondered where the line of cars had gone. There shouldn't have been enough time for them to travel to the cemetery and leave again. But logic dictated that must have been the case and I put it out of my mind. We did the investigation, created the program and life moved on.

However, in the mid-'90s I had an opportunity to speak again with Richard Crowe, who mentioned the existence of ghost cars on Midlothian Turnpike. Almost offhandedly, he also spoke of ghost cars and even a ghostly funeral procession seen on the old road that once ran past the cemetery, which rang a bell with me. I'm not saying what I saw that night in 1972 was a funeral cortege, but it might have been an explanation to the mystery that I remembered still twenty-plus years later.

Phantom cars are not exclusive to Bachelors Grove.  In Lanikai, Hawaii, motorists have reported seeing a mysterious black car which disappears and reappears again a seconds later.  In the early 1980s, a British driver literally crashed his car on the side of the road to avoid making contact with a truck barreling towards him, which suddenly vanished.  Also in Britain, at St. Marks Road and Cambridge Garden in Ladborke Grove, locals have long told of a ghost bus which caused numerous accidents over many years, included one that proved fatal.  Even in the Chicago area, there are other reports of phantom cars, including on notorious Bloods Point Road, Cherry Valley Road and Cuba Road in the Northwest suburbs, and even at Rosehill Cemetery, where a phantom SUV has been seen by numerous visitors in recent years.

Some researchers have claimed that these phantom cars at Bachelors Grove may be tied to the alleged dumping of bodies by gangland criminals in the 1920s and ‘30s, but I have never found an incident where the automobiles seen were of that vintage.  The vehicles have ranged from 1960s and ‘70s style vans to ‘70s sedans to a 1980s “low rider” outfitted with detailing and fancy rims, while one woman reported seeing a horse and buggy turn out into the road ahead of her on 143rd street.

The Farmer

One of the most well-known ghost stories of Bachelors Grove is also one with few documented witnesses.  Since the late 1970s or early 1980s the story has circulated of a phantom farmer and plow horse seen on or near the new Midlothian Turnpike (143rd street).  According to the story, this is the apparition of a local farmer who was plowing his land near the quarry in the 1870s when the horse either became frightened and bolted or simply got to close the quarry edge, pulling in both farmer and plow and drowning them.  According to local legend, because of the depth of the quarry, the bodies and plow were never recovered.

Two incidents have been publicly shared by witnesses to this apparition, including one dating to the 1970s in which two local law enforcement officers so a farmer driving his plow and horse up out of the quarry pond and across 143rd street, disappearing into Rubio Woods across the road.

Local researchers claimed to have found newspaper accounts of the rumored accident, but none ever became public.  I myself combed every newspaper archive and search engine for years to try to track down the story, but with no success whatsoever.  Even the origins of the quarry and all trace of it in the public record remained a mystery.  Not even the local historical societies knew anything about it.

Then, in winter of early 2016 I came upon that extraordinary document in the archives of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County: a 115 page court hearing transcript concerning none other than the quarry at Bachelors Grove.  The hearing was held in 1928 over a dispute regarding the land on which the quarry is housed.  Christian Boehm, the owner of the land, had been offered $1000 for the land as part of the massive development of the Forest Preserves in the mid to late 1920s.  A series of handwritten notes were included in the Boehm file, in which he contended the price was much too low, considering the improvements he had made on the land—improvements which included a house and a stone quarry.  The dispute arose because, at the time of the survey of the land by the Forest Preserve District, the quarry was filled with water, having been out of service for an unspecified number of years.  Boehm had moved to Knox, Indiana, and was renting out the Bachelors Grove house to a local resident.  A hearing was thus held, calling in witnesses to determine whether, in fact, the water-filled hole was a quarry and, if so, what sort of value it held.

During the testimony, Boehm said he had started the quarry around 1909, which was the year before the land was deeded by the Schmidts to Frederich Boehm, his father, according to the Warranty Deed drawn up for the sale of the Schmidt land to the Forest Preserve District in 1927.  Thus, the quarry did not even exist until at least that 1909, so it’s impossible that any farmer or horse could have drowned in it decades earlier. 

Now it remains possible that these drownings occurred after the quarry opened, during the later years when it was often filled with water.  Certainly, local resident Clarence Fulton told an area reporter that children had drowned in the quarry in his youth.  There were horses still used in the area, up through the 1930s, so it’s possible that a person and their horse or horse-driven cart or trap may have drowned here.  If an incident like this did occur after the purchase of the land by the Forest Preserve District, it may very well not have been published in local papers and may instead be sealed in the Incident files of the FPD.  

If any of these drownings occurred before the 1928 hearing, however, it certainly seems likely that any such accident would have been mentioned in the court hearing, during which the Forest Preserve District attorneys attempted to emphasize the undesirability of the land and the quarry in order to keep the sale price at a minimum.  Drownings would have helped their case, presumably.  But no such stories were told, though witnesses did make a point of mentioning the “undesirable” location of the quarry land because of its proximity to the cemetery.  On the other hand, the locals who testified didn’t seem to know much about the land or the area at all.  Even Boehm didn’t know the name of his own tenants who lived there in his final years of ownership. 

The fact remains that at least three witnesses—including two law enforcement officers at that—have testified to the apparition of a phantom farmer, horse and plow or buggy in the vicinity of the quarry pond.   

Another odd dimension of this story—possibly connected—came to light in the late winter of 2016 when another researcher shared with me a strange incident she’d been told regarding this same area of the Grove.  Most longtime visitors to the Grove have seen or heard about the so-called “Holy Tree” or “Keebler Tree” at Bachelors Grove” a hollow tree on the Creek bank which is home to a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  One afternoon she and her friends quite accidentally met the woman who had placed the statue there long ago.  The woman was riding a horse through the woods surrounding the cemetery and stopped to chat.  During this time, the rider shared a curious story. 

Some years earlier she had been riding through the creek bed just west of the cemetery when her horse was spooked by something and bolted suddenly. The horse was so frightened it lost its footing and ended up breaking a leg, having to be put down where it fell. Though it must have been a major undertaking to remove this animal from the isolated and difficult-to-access area, no report of the incident turned up in local papers, and the “incident reports” of the Forest Preserve District are sealed for many years to come, so its’ been impossible to find any more details about this event, but it’s interesting to note that this horse was inexplicably frightened in the same area as the legendary plow horse of local lore.  Also interesting is that this rider shared her memories of “Satanic” objects that she had seen tied up on the west fence of the cemetery in the months preceding the incident with her horse. 

The Little People

In recent years, I became aware of a most peculiar type of photographic anomaly at Bachelors Grove, when I began doing more rigorous investigation of the area and serious genealogical and historical research of its history.  At this time it was not uncommon for me to spend entire days at Bachelors Grove, investigating, talking with visitors and other researchers, and I discovered that the more time we spent there, the more photographs seemed to contain images of “little people” would appear in our photographs.  The combination of these photographs along with the presence of intelligent lights and “orbs,” a “lantern man” or “ghost candle” at the cemetery gate and the rumors of treasure buried beneath the cemetery or pond: all have led myself and other researchers to wonder if whatever paranormal or preternatural circumstances make up what folklore calls “fairies” are present here at Bachelors Grove.

The little people have taken many forms, from monochromatic faces of babies and children in the grass to full-color forms of children and small adults, anywhere from a few inches to around a foot and a half tall.  A few appear to be soldiers in uniform, possibly from the Civil War or World War I era, or women from the 19th century, in long gowns.  Some appear to be Native Americans. Others look like Hippies or more modern day young people, with beards and backwards baseball hats.

Native American Cherokee Indians tell stories of their own Little People.  According to legend, these beings are only about two feet tall but resemble Native Americans. They are said to behave very similarly to the fairies of European lore.  .At times they can be helpful—doing chores and bringing prosperity—but if you cross them, there is no telling what wrath they will bring upon you.  According to the Cherokee, the Little People love music, and it’s not uncommon for places they frequent to be “haunted” by “singing” or “chanting” as reported by visitors in their woods.  Interestingly for Bachelors Grovelorists, they will throw spells upon strangers who disturb their peace, causing them to become lost and dazed—a condition which can last literally for the rest of the person’s life, evocative of those who say they went home from Bachelors Grove “never quite right again.”   The Cherokee Little People are particularly angered by people getting drunk—compelling since many “partiers” at Bachelors Grove have been chased off by strange lights, which are believed by some to be manifestations of fairies or elementals.

According to the Cherokee, if a visitor finds something in the woods and wants to take it, he must first ask the Little People, to make sure it is not theirs.  If this is not done, they will throw stones, sticks or other objects at him as he tries to leave with the object. Interestingly many visitors to Bachelors Grove have reported being pelted with rocks, sticks or hickory nuts while leaving the Grove. Almost every time, they were taking something with them: sometimes trying to steal a headstone and other times something as simple as taking seeds to grow Bachelors Grove wildflowers at home, or taking glass or china fragments from one of the old home sites as souvenirs or to make crafts.  I myself experienced this on two occasions.  The first time, I had collected some dried tree bark with which I wanted to make some picture frames.  The material fit in a brown paper lunch bag. The second time I had taken a vial of water from the old quarry pond as a souvenir for a friend.  It couldn’t have been more than an ounce of dirty water.  Both times, on the way out, I was pelted with hickory nuts which hit me as if thrown at the level of my knees. And hard.  Needless to say, I have never again removed anything from Bachelors Grove.

One afternoon in the summer of 2013, I snapped a series of photographs of the Big Log outside the cemetery gate, which many clairvoyants believe to mark the opening of a portal or interdimensional doorway.  When I looked at the photos at home, I saw that there seemed to be a bright spot of light on the log. When I zoomed in, I found what appeared to be a small, luminescent, humanoid figure, standing on tiptoe, with some sort of protrusion from its back or shoulders.  For obvious reasons, I call the image my “fairy photo.” 

A Blue Island resident was at the cemetery one summer afternoon in 1998 with his family when he saw what he described as a “fairy” briefly land on his daughter’s shoulder and immediately fly off.  The figure, he said, was about four inches high, with transparent wings that looked like a dragonfly’s.  It was definitely humanoid in appearance but the whole body was of a “luminescent golden color, as if it was made of light instead of substance. “

A similar incident occurred during a recent visit by a researcher and local resident Bill Swinford, during which Swinford “saw a fairy fly off” his companion while they were chatting in the cemetery.

In the late 1970s a scout leader was hiking through the Grove area with his scout troop along the old Big Foot Trail to the cemetery when they stopped to rest in a clearing not far from the creek.  Several large butterflies were flitting around some wildflowers, and the boys were trying to get a closer look at the specimens.  The scout leader walked over to his backpack to get out his binoculars for the scouts and said he saw, perched on the edge of his canteen, a “glowing figure about five inches tall, with deeply veined wings but definite human shape, dart at lightning speed away and disappear.”  He mentioned nothing to the boys or to the other leaders.

The Little Girl

During a visit to the cemetery by the venerable Ghost Research Society in 1982, a psychic who accompanied the group shared some impressions of the cemetery which have been passed on through oral history and through several books. I would say that this was one of the most famous investigations in Bachelors Grove’s history.  It was during this visit that this psychic told Dale Kaczmarek that numerous entities in the cemetery are bound there for a certain amount of time. As far as I can find, this was the first mention of the entity of a little girl at Bachelors Grove, as the psychic identified a little girl near the Fulton Stone, bound to a man she believed might be her father, who could not move on because she could not leave him behind.

Nicholas Sarlo is the lead investigator of the Shadow Hunters, an Illinois investigation group based in Lake County, who are part of a television program called True Ghost Stories.

When we went down there to film an episode for True Ghost Stories, we were down by the pond and we had our motion detection system and our REM pod down there. As we were down there we felt that we had a connection with a little girl down there in a white dress. As we were talking to her and asking her questions the REM pod would light up. We had asked her to also go past the motion detector and that had also gone off. But what's weird is in my mind I could see that little girl. And she was wearing a white dress.

I received a letter from a woman a few years back who had taken a fascinating photograph at Bachelors Grove of a little girl in a blue dress.  And numerous visitors have claimed to have a mental image of a little girl in an old fashioned dress near the Newman stone in the cemetery’s southwest quadrant. 

In addition to these photographs and psychic images, the sound of a little girl laughing has been experienced by visitors as well, especially near the Fulton stone and along the banks of the quarry pond.

The Voices

One summer afternoon in 2012, after I had spent an entire Sunday at the Grove talking with visitors, sunset approached.  There had been a nearly endless stream of visitors that day, but now a lull had set in, and I said, “It looks like that’s the end of visitors for today.”  I said goodbye to my friends and headed out to the path to walk to my car in the Rubio Woods parking lot. When I left the cemetery and stepped onto the Path, a woman’s voice spoke directly behind me: “Still more coming!”

I whirled around, assuming that a visitor I hadn’t seen had come up behind me, but there was no one there.  I looked back into the cemetery and saw my three friends—all male, by the way--, chatting across the burial ground at the Fulton Stone, so far away I couldn’t hear their voices.  I continued down the path to where it bends a little, allowing one to see through to the new Turnpike road.  As I rounded the bend I came face to face with a group of six women who were celebrating a birthday and visiting haunted locations as a treat.  They said to me, “We wanted to get in and out before sundown!”  When I told them I had been told of their coming by an unseen presence, they were as spooked as I was. 

Very common in the annals of Bachelors Grove experience is the manifestation of audible “voices” to visitors, especially while walking the Path to and from the cemetery.   Often these voices will have messages to the living: sometimes warning messages, other times simply statements of something docile that is about to happen.  More than one visitor has been warned to watch out for booby traps along the path to the creek: wires or fishing line stretched, ankle height, between trees to trip hikers.   Law enforcement officers point out that sometimes practitioners of ritual activities will set these wire traps to keep uninvited guests away from their ritual sites.   

Other visitors have been warned about incoming storms or the onset of sundown, the time the preserve closes.  One young woman was visiting with her boyfriend several hours before a devastating tornado swept through neighboring Tinley Park.  As they lingered at the cemetery gate before getting in their car, they both clearly heard a woman’s voice say, “Get home now!”   In 1992, a group of friends was gathering up their ghost hunting equipment when a voice whispered audibly to one of them, “He’s waiting for you!” as the last bit of sun dipped over the tree line west of the burying ground.  Upon reaching their car a law enforcement officer told them to get out earlier next time, that he was about to lock their car in the parking lot.

The Two-Headed Man

One of the more bizarre and infrequent phenomena reported at Bachelors Grove has been the apparition of a so-called “two headed man” or “monster” of Bachelors Grove. 

According to legend, there was a local Bremen couple who gave birth to a terribly deformed infant.  In the days of the birth, deformed children were believed to have spiritual defects or even diabolical origins, and so in order to avoid the scorn of neighbors the baby was hidden in the woods and raised there, where he grew up and grew older, finally making his home among the trees as an adult. On moonlit nights, they say, you could see the grotesque creature wandering through the trees and among the tombstones of the Grove.  Even today, after his death and burial at the Grove, his phantom reportedly walks the grounds he trod in life. 

e are some locals who claim that a severely deformed man did live in the area at one time, so the possibility exists that this was an inflation of a very real and unfortunate situation, though the behavior of this figure when seen seems to challenge that possibility.

Sightings of the two-headed man are extremely rare in the annals of Bachelors Grove lore. It would appear that the story originated in the 1990s in an account by W. Haden Blackman (Field Guide to North American Hauntings), who claimed that the apparition had been seen walking through the cemetery at night.  Curiously, like reports of the vanishing house or phantom dogs, Blackman writes that the apparition is typically accompanied by mysterious lights, in this case “dancing blue lights.”

According to a report published in the 1989 book True Tales of the Unknown: The Uninvited, a couple was driving late one night on the new road and neared the bridge spanning the quarry pond.  At that point, they saw what they claimed was a two headed figure coming up from under the bridge and making its way across the road towards Rubio Woods.

Fellow paranormal researcher Scott Markus interviewed a witness in the 1990s who had been visiting the cemetery when he saw what looked like a disfigured man walking over the surface of the pond. The witness said the man had a large growth or hunchback type protrusion on his shoulder.  He had never heard the stories of a two headed man or monster of the Grove and stated that this was not the impression the figure made upon him.  It is unclear whether the pond was frozen at the time of the sighting.

Another local resident—now middle aged—remembered a night in the early 1990s when he was in the cemetery near midnight one warm April night.  Sitting in the woods just beyond the tree line, south of the Path, the group was waiting to “scare” a group of friends they knew were on their way in.  While waiting, they saw a “disabled man with a hunchback” come from the creek area and enter the cemetery, stopping briefly and then walking toward the Pines (an area where there is no other exit). It was a moonlit night and they could see all the way to the opposite fence, but the man never reappeared.   

Looking for instances of two headed men in folklore as a possible tie-in for the Bachelors Grove stories, I discovered that in English myth the famed Green Man sometimes manifests as a two-headed figure.  In such instances, the folklore shows a clear connection to the Roman god, Janus: the god or doorways or gateways.   Though it seems unlikely that sightings of a two-headed man at the Grove stretch back to the folklore of the earliest English settlers here, it’s an interesting dimension to consider in light of the frequent mention of “caretakers,” “guardians,” ‘portals” and “doorways” in the ghostlore of Bachelors Grove.  Maybe, just maybe, we are seeing here the influence of the neo Pagan visitors to the Grove in the latter part of the twentieth century.

The Robed Figures

One of the almost forgotten paranormal manifestations at Bachelors Grove is a phenomenon that was prevalent in the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s: the sighting of hooded or robed figures inside the cemetery or in the surrounding woods.  I have come to believe that these sightings were a combination of actual, flesh and blood humans who were at the Grove to participate in ritual activities—and possibly negative or malevolent entities which were conjured up by these rituals.   Strangely, there exist tales of apparitions of robed figures which have appeared to non-sensitives, impressions of robed figures which appeared to sensitives, and actual robed persons who have been seen in and around the cemetery. 

One again, at least some of the origins of this story were revealed in 1977 when a local woman talked to radio announcer Eddie Schwartz about photographs she took earlier in the year of a “shrouded figure” in the cemetery, which may have led other visitors to “expect” to see similar figures. 

Also on the Eddie Schwartz Show in 1977, Richard Crowe shared with audiences the fact that a local legend had been circulating of a seven-foot giant at Bachelors Grove.  In fact, he revealed:

There is a seven foot guy who frequents the area, quite often, and if it’s a full moon he’s quite possibly out there tonight.  He’s a real human being from the Lemont area who dresses in his robes for his different rituals and is seen out there by a number of police who patrol the area as well as unsuspecting teenagers who go out there, who are driving down the road and are confronted by this seven foot tall individual in his ceremonial robes.

But all of these sightings cannot be explained away.  Recall the earlier tale told to me by a witness of the Magic House, in which two young women saw a literal line of robed figures queued up outside of a white farmhouse in the 1970s. When they returned on the path a short time later, both figures and house were gone.

One of the most intriguing incidents involving robed figures took place during a visit to the cemetery in 1982 By Dale Kaczmarek and the Ghost Research Society.  Joining the group on this visit was a psychic medium, who told Kaczmarek what she saw and felt about the cemetery, including receiving impressions of a group of people who “tend to wear robes” and of a monk-like figure with a dog’s face.

One visitor, Shirley Sticht, actually captured a photograph of a hooded, white-robed figure inside the cemetery, in daylight hours, standing near the Fulton stone.  There was no one else in the cemetery at the time.

The Yellow Man, the Suit Man, the Hat Man & the Tall Man 

In the mid-1980s, local paranormal researcher Norman Basile was visiting Bachelors Grove Cemetery overnight with a colleague when he saw, standing near a tree, a man in a suit and hat, with a yellowish cast to his figure.  As Basile attempted to take a photograph, the man vanished.  Earlier the same year, Basile had been investigating with a fellow researcher when his colleague claimed to have seen a figure lit up by a yellow glow, wearing a suit and hat.  As they both stared at the site, a nearby tree began to shake frantically, and streaking red lights shot through the air.  The two hightailed it out, both deeply shaken.

Years later, in the early 2000s, Nina Jankowski was investigating near the Shields lot in the Northeast quadrant of the cemetery when she felt faint.  In her peripheral vision she saw a shadowy figure run past her and quickly snapped a photograph.  It was then that Nina noticed the camera had turned itself on and set itself to a different setting than the one she’d been using.  The photo shown here, depicting what seems to be a humanoid figure with a bright yellow glow, was the result.

During one of my first years investigating the Grove, I encountered a woman who had visited the cemetery in 1982 at night and glimpsed a man in a “golden suit” standing near this same stone, who disappeared “in a shower of sparkly red lights” a moment later.  She recalled that, just before the incident, she had felt a “prickly wave” over her skin and, and that the hair on her arms stood on end for about a minute after the incident. 

Joining this rather ethereal “yellow man” or “yellow suit man” is a very real looking man in a vintage-style suit who has been seen by and even interacted with visitors.   In the very early spring of 2015 the great Chicago crime historian Richard Lindberg invited me to assist as a cohost on a bus tour sponsored by the Chicago History Museum.   After a wonderful afternoon, we said our good byes and headed to the parking lot. I was stopped by one of the tour guests, who asked if I was, in fact, the lady who specialized in Bachelors Grove.  I said that, yes, it is a special interest of mine, and he began his story.  I assumed this would be the usual: “My friends and I were out there one night drinking in the “60s or ‘70s ….”  But this was a very different story. 

The gentleman told me that he had served in the Gulf War in the 1980s and had come home very distraught and depressed.  PTSD set in and he felt no way out of the prison of his thoughts.  He had gone into Bachelors Grove one afternoon with a length of rope to hang himself, reasoning in his despair that a cemetery would be a good place for this act.  He rigged up a noose in one of the older oak trees near the old Turnpike path and climbed up, slipping off the bough to finish the deed.  The next thing he knew he was quite awake, lying on the ground beneath the tree.  The rope he’d used had been cut by a knife, and standing over him was a man wearing a brown suit and fedora, “like from another time,” asking, “Are you okay?”  The man on the ground was stunned but nodded, after which the stranger pointed toward the path and said, “They’re looking for you!” 

The man got up and stumbled towards the path, where he found police officers who had been dispatched after receiving a mysterious phone call about trouble near the cemetery.  When he turned to thank the man, he found that he had disappeared without a trace, without a sound, and with no possible way of leaving unseen.  Reflecting on the time later, he realized that there was no way the man who found him could have cut him down, left the cemetery, found a house, called 911 and returned to the cemetery in the short time he would have been unconscious.  Further, no one in the area had allowed anyone to use their phone to make a call.  The incident was written off as “a guardian angel,” half-jokingly, but the man to this day wonders if it was just that. 

Two researchers were there on a muddy day in April and watched a well-dressed man, carrying a briefcase and a cell phone, walk toward the creek and never come back. And in late fall of 2015 a group of bird watchers was taking photographs of migrating birds near the pond on a brisk afternoon when they saw a man dressed in a tropic weight suit, straw hat and white patent shoes come ambling along the pond bank, cross the cemetery and turn down the Path toward the creek, never to return. 

On a blustery, Saturday March morning in the early 1990s, a local man was walking through the creek bed with a metal detector when he saw a young woman walk across the stony bed and into the woods about fifty feet ahead, dressed in a knee length dark business suit and stepping carefully, wearing high heeled shoes, with no coat or jacket except the suitcoat, no purse or bag, and no one accompanying her.  She did not acknowledge him, and though he spent about another hour and a half in the area, he never saw her again. 

Strangest of all, in the early 2000s a young local woman named Maggie Swinford was hiking along a trail near the Path when she saw a pair of black men’s shoes (only shoes) walk across the path ahead of her, disappearing into the woods beyond. 

This experience of seeing well-dressed men—and sometimes women, and sometimes only shoes—walk into the woods at Bachelors Grove—overgrown trails covered in brambles and thorns, often impassibly muddy or even covered in snow, never to return-- is a common and baffling one.  A demonologist once told me that a common guise of demons in North America is to take the form of “corporate” type apparitions: men or women in well-cut business attire, pristinely groomed. Whenever I hear a story about a well-dressed person at the Grove who vanishes, I think about this, and about the many researchers who believe that evil spirits were conjured at the Grove during ritual activity dating to the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

Modern paranormal investigators have isolated a type of entity or energy called “The Hat Man” who is believed to be one specific type of Shadow Person.  Often these apparitions are descripted as dark humanoids who appear to be wearing a fedora or top hap and usually a suit or trench coat.  The Hat Man is generally thought to be associated with evil or negative events or energies.

Heidi Hollis, a researcher who coined the terms “Shadow People” and “Hat Man,” reports that this dark entity tends to follow bloodlines through generations and to love places full of tragedy and, especially, ritual activity:

The Hat Man can follow bloodlines or anyone at all… He's known to romp in certain areas and known among native people to harass for generations, around the globe.  But he is as pure evil as they come, so just when you think he follows rules, he doesn't. In areas where lots of bloodshed has happened, he can be more likely to appear...tragedy, pain, depression, dark magic...he loves it. Speak of him too much and he will be near, too.  He's quite dangerous and always listening.

Hollis has also documented many instances of Hat Man sightings in which witnesses describe the man as having glowing eyes.  In an investigation by author Scott Markus and his team, the group was intrigued to find pairs of glowing lights which showed up on their infrared cameras, but not to the naked eye.

The modern-day “meme” of “Slender Man” is one that has had a massive impact on storytelling and folk belief in our Internet age.  The chilling tale of a tall, slender humanoid who stalks children has even driven several people to violence and murder, such as in the 2015 case of two Wisconsin girls who planned to kill a classmate and then walk to the Nicolet National Forest, where they believed Slender Man lived, to let him know of their act.  But while Slender Man himself is a modern creation, the character does have some origins in numerous actual folk traditions. 

In ancient folklore, some fairies were portrayed as gangly giants who would lead travelers off their paths to their doom.  Often, they were known to be able to hypnotize people for this purpose.  These creatures were known to punish humans who got too close to their business or spent too much time in their lairs.  In Germany the legend of the Erlking tod of a tall man living in the forest whose aim was to lure children away from their parents, and in Scotland, Fear Dubh (“The Black Man”) was known to haunt forest paths at night, preying on children who wandered off alone.  Northern Englanders lived in fear of the Clutchbone: a seven-foot monster who would dismember and burn victims he found alone in the woods.  Like many of these phenomena, the Clutchbone was said to appear during electrical storms and to be accompanied by ball lightning or ghost lights. 

Around the same time the Slender Man meme became popular, reports of a “Tall Man” returned to Bachelors Grove. Recall that in the 1970s, visitors to the Grove were coming out of the woods with the first reports of a “seven foot giant,” and that there was, in fact, a seven foot tall living man who would frequent the grove, dressed in ceremonial robes, which either spawned or supported the ghost story.   In recent years, however, actual photographs of what appears to be a very tall—eight or nine foot--man in a suit and sometimes a hat have been captured, usually in the northeast quadrant of the cemetery, near The Pines. 

Temperature Fluctuations in the Environment and the Human Body

Investigators often point to “cold spots” or temperature dips as evidence of possible anomalous activity. Like battery drain, many believe that the entities present are literally sucking up all the energy or heat in the area as they move through it—transient cold spots—or “haunt” a specific place: static cold spots. 

At Bachelors Grove, seemingly countless visitors have experienced cold spots along the Path to the Cemetery and inside the cemetery itself.  Unlike a lot of ostensibly haunted places, where these cold pockets don’t register on thermometers, numerous investigators have succeeded in measuring these anomalies at Bachelors Grove. 

During one of my own visits to the cemetery, I was able to record temperature drops from the mid-70s F to the low 30s F and from the mid -30s F to 0 F on a basic digital thermometer and momentary drops of twenty degrees or more using a thermal scanner or “gun,” suggesting that something was passing through the laser and registering at a much lower temperature than the target object (in this case, a tree trunk). 

Dr. Chuck Kennedy visited Bachelors Grove with his wif in the 1990s when he actually measured temperature fluctuations on the outside of his wife’s body using a thermal scanner:

It was a hot August afternoon. As we walked around, she stopped in her tracks and said something ice cold was on her back. I hit her torso with the thermal gun and all over her body I was reading in the 90s till I got to her back and I was getting 38-39 degrees.  She said it was going right through her, so I focused on her abdomen, and it read 95 degrees. Then it dropped to the upper 80s then the 70s, 60s 50s until” finally her abdomen was 37 degrees. As she said “I think it’s gone, her abdomen returned to 95 degrees.

Camera and other electronics malfunctions

It would be truly impossible to attempt to document the extent of electronics malfunctioning at Bachelors Grove Cemetery over these many decades.  Battery drain is an epidemic for researchers, who well know that they need to bring literally dozens of backup or replacement batteries when investigating the Grove.  Attempting to conduct any sort of sustained, coordinated investigation is an extremely difficult task due to these drains.  Generally, researchers believe that these drains occur because of surges in the EM field—or because entities are absorbing the energy from everything around them.  But what makes many of these malfunctions different is that fact that they seem to be purposeful; that is, electronics function on their own in order to capture evidence that investigators might otherwise miss.

One of the earliest known occurrences of this was on an afternoon in 1975, when a local man was driving on the Turnpike toward the cemetery to take some photographs.  As he neared the enclosure, his SX-70 camera began taking pictures on its own.  On each of the resulting photos was a white mist, which was a commonly captured type of image in the earliest days of investigations at the Grove.  He sent the camera to Kodak, believing it was broken or flawed, but they informed him that it was in perfect shape and that the images had been made by something outside of the camera.  

When Nina Jankowski took her photo of the “Yellow Man” at the Shields stone years ago, she found that her camera had turned itself on and reset itself to a different setting from the one she’d been using (clearly, the ideal setting for capturing her extraordinary image). 

The sultry night in 2012 when my colleague and I got lost in the woods, my small, digital voice recorder picked up a voice saying, “Here they come!” just as we approached the burying ground from the Path.  Strangely, when I played back the recording from that night, the recorder had re-set itself to play at half speed.  It was right after I first bought it, and I thought the batteries which came in it were old and dying down, but no.  It was only at this speed that the voice was clearly audible.  If it had been set at normal speed, I would never have heard it.

Outside of these odd manipulations of equipment, photographers have captured a huge variety of anomalous images at Bachelors Grove, including figures, shadowy masses, white and blue mists, darting or static balls of white, blue and red light.  Our 1980s and ‘90s era experiments verified that an inordinate number of “whities” or “blackies”  tended to result from photography at the Grove: photos that were completely overexposed or appeared not exposed at all.

Still other investigators or visitors has claimed that their photographs “changed” over time: that with age images of people or faces had “developed” in their snapshots or, conversely, that anomalies they once held had later disappeared.

Physical and Psychological Effects

I always tell people that the first thing to look for in a paranormal investigation is how your body and mind react to the location.  Much more common than seeing or hearing ghosts is the interaction of the unseen with our more subtle systems and psyches.  After all, whatever these phenomena are, they are made of energy. 

One of the most extraordinary things I’ve experienced at Bachelors Grove happened on a beautiful spring day in 2013.  That past winter had brought awful fallout from my involvement with Bachelors Grove.  There were rifts between researchers. I had lost friends and worse, I was struggling to make sense of it all and had almost abandoned my research in frustration.  One of these friends and I had finally sat down and talked about what had happened.  We could not think of any other explanation for the mess that had happened than to say that something at the Grove had “gotten between us.”  When we returned to Bachelors Grove after being away many months, we were standing at the front gate, sunlight beaming down, feeling incredible happiness and content, when I sensed something passing forcefully through my body, causing me to literally fall against my friend.  The phrase about having the “wind knocked out of me” is what came to mind.

The euphoria we felt before my physical incident is a theme for visitors to Bachelors Grove. Again, this sort of euphoria is a mainstay of Bachelors Grove experience.  So many have reported this feeling over many years, certainly in direct contract to the “spooky” or “dark” or “depressing” atmosphere one is “supposed” to feel at an abandoned, isolated cemetery.   Indeed, this feeling is one of the most peculiar things about the Grove. In fact, some might wonder if it’s the result of some kind of very real drug.

In 2001, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist confirmed what ancient history has long suggested: That ancient Greece’s famed oracle at Delphi was, in fact, under the influence of petrochemical fumes which were produced by hidden faults in the oily limestone under the Delphi temple.  These fumes, they say, induced the visions which prompted the oracle’s pronunciations—and the euphoria or even hypomania with which the oracle spoke. Notably, the researchers found that the oracle was likely under the influence of ethylene—a sweet smelling gas once used as an anesthetic.  In lighter doses, the gas produces feelings of euphoria and carefree ease.

When we observe how happy were are at Bachelors Grove, and how seemingly devoid of care—despite being in a cemetery, among the dead, and well informed of the tales of horror in its history--, is there some influence here from the ground itself? Are we actually getting “high” from vapors produced by faults in the bedrock under Bachelors Grove? 

The “moods” of Bachelors Grove become easier to discern the more one visits—and the more one learns to be aware of them after bad experiences.  On a beautiful summer afternoon in 2014, a colleague and I had spent an hour or so at Bachelors Grove Cemetery making some recordings.  It was a particularly “happy” day at the Grove, with that familiar undercurrent of pleasant contentment absolutely present. 

After leaving the Cemetery on this particular day, we were headed along the Path to the parking lot at Rubio woods when we passed the entrance to the little footpath off the main Path that leads into the woods and the home site there.  Just after we cleared it, a forceful wind blew out of the entrance, so loudly that we spun around.  We actually saw the tree leaves and branches blowing outward from this one single opening in the tree line.  We looked at each other and, intrigued, went back and followed into the woods.  Though we saw nothing, we felt as if we were in a trance, quite outside of time, enchanted.  When the feeling left after several minutes, we headed back out to the Path to find our cars and go home, my colleague to Indiana and me to Chicago.  After our good-byes, I headed to the highway, but though I had enjoyed a great night’s sleep and a lazy afternoon, I was overcome with exhaustion.  Eventually, with my eyes literally closing, I had to pull off the highway to rest and find coffee before continuing my drive. Later that night, I found that my colleague had been stricken with severe nausea and vomiting on the way to his own home, having to pull over several times in his illness.

Over the years, I have met numerous people who have had similar experiences, including one young man who said he was “never the same” after visiting Bachelors Grove. That he felt—even fifteen years later--that half of his natural energy had been “zapped forever, like an appliance that has a power surge and never works right again.” 

Indeed.

Along with these physical effects, one of the most intriguing effects of Bachelors Grove is the way it seems to implant the desire to return, often again and again: The “need” to go backthree Bachelors Grove websites estimated that he had visited Bachelors Grove some two thousand times over the course of fifteen years. 

Another spent years researching the burials at Bachelors Grove from her home—in Florida. 

Disorientation is another physical or psychological effect that is hard to explain at Bachelors Grove.  Of course, as naturalist Joe Cavataio reminds us, the massive presence of buckthorn is exceptionally good at hiding roads, trails and landmarks from view, even from a short distance away, but there seems to be more to the phenomenon than this.  Many who have experienced disorientation in the woods at Bachelors Grove have had the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) on their phones stop working, as they did for my colleague and I in the summer of 2012, despite being in the middle of a populous suburb and right near cell towers.  Once back on the main path, functioning returns. 

Local resident Bill Swinford, who has walked every inch of these woods, insists that there is one area of the reforestation where it is impossible to not walk in circles.  Every time he enters this area, alone or with a group, he ends up lost for a good while. 

The creation of animosity between or among investigators or researchers is another strange effect that has been noticed so many times and by so many people as to be considered an anomalous aspect of the Bachelors Grove phenomenon.  Timothy Harte is a longtime investigator and one of the creators of the MESA project.  MESA stands for Multi Energy Sensor Array, a revolutionary custom investigation device comprised of simultaneous feeding into a laptop computer of a variety of environmental sensors, including infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light; vibration, electromagnetic fields, static geomagnetic fields, and gamma ray background radiation; and later including galvanic skin response sensors, EKG, EEG, and respiration sensors. MESA has been utilized in investigations at Bachelors Grove, where it recorded no light, energy or vibration anomalies, but its designers recorded many experiential incidents over several visits, including seeing mists, lights and even apparitions and feeling physical and emotional changes.  Harte made a point of mentioning another aspect of their investigations which stood out to him:

With the unusual communications between the MESA team, I would like to put forward a theory that the communication and subsequent misdirection of certain members was in and of itself anomalous and caused great derision within the MESA team.

As mentioned earlier, I myself experienced this effect numerous times over the years, with other investigators claiming I said things I did not say, did things I did not do or otherwise misinterpreting situations.  This was more than just “he said, she said.”  Over time it seemed that there was something else at work, and that something outside of us was manipulating the situation and was pleased to be the cause of strife.

THE SECRET OF BACHELORS GROVE

Even after nearly forty years of studying Bachelors Grove Cemetery and its surrounding area it’s impossible for me to pinpoint the source of what has gained it the title as one of the most haunted places on Earth. This was a one-acre burying ground like ten thousand others which sprung up around myriad settlements during one of the most dynamic times in American history. It’s the cemetery by the side of the road that we see in thousands of farm communities across the United States. 

So why? 

Despite a number of unfortunate events occurring here, there was apparently no real massacre, no brutal destruction.  No interment of prisoners or mass grave. There was no serial killer or warlock’s spell.  There are other forest preserves in Cook County with far more documented crimes, deaths and murders than Bachelors Grove.

Skeptics will tell you that it’s a typical story of a “haunting”: Death happens and desecration happens, and the ghost stories begin. Certainly that is a classic sequence of events in the majority of haunted places. But these Bachelors Grove stories are far from mere “ghost stories.”  This place manifests an unheard-of spectrum of truly bizarre activity: Images or manifestations of buildings and vehicles:

Unexplained lights visible day and night and often accompanying the manifestation of other phenomena. Countless apparitions or forms—of people and animals-- who have been seen walking through the cemetery gates or over the creek into the woods and vanishing.  Objects weighing up to five hundred pounds disappearing without a trace and without detection.  Visitors falling under “trances” and wandering into the words to become lost.  Physical illness ranging from gastrointestinal distress to fainting, scratches and bites to psychological effects such as depression or euphoria, unexplained rage, lasting malaise and more.  Effects on electronics from the simple draining of batteries to the manipulation of camera and recording settings, apparently in order to capture specific evidence offered which would not have been caught if the witnesses were left to their own choices.

, perhaps the longest standing researcher of the Grove, firmly believes that the desecration of the graves remains the most significant factor in the paranormal reality of Bachelors Grove, but that the ritual activity in the cemetery and woods, beginning in the 1960s, introduced something other than mere human spirits into the mix.  Indeed, many researchers into the paranormal will affirm that ritual acts as well as violent deaths and even sexual acts—all part of the Grove’s unique history--can create energy forms that sometimes remain for a long while, and which can affect the living.  

It has also been long held that many of the spirits at Bachelors Grove cannot or will not leave for some reason.  This contention emerged during that first investigation of the Grove by the Ghost Research Society on May 1, 1982.  This was the day psychic Pat Shenberg, picked up on a wide variety of entities at Bachelors Grove, and when she suggested that some of them were stuck there, but that many others chose to stay, that it was “a kind of sickness…” --that they wanted to stay in a cemetery.  She said there was a large gathering of as many as thirty people along the western fence line, including a baker holding a rolling pin and people dressed in 1920s and ‘30s style clothing.   She also saw a group of people who ‘tend to wear robes,” including a monk-like figure with a dog’s face. 

Of course, skeptics have chosen to look for something other than ghosts as the explanation for the extraordinary phenomenon that is Bachelors Grove.  More than one researcher has wondered if there is some anomaly in the electromagnetic fields at Bachelors Grove, produced by the water of the quarry pond or creek or by the cell towers on the new Turnpike road. Could these elements be interfering with the EM field or even causing hallucinations and physical illness?  Bachelors Grove researcher Dr. Chuck Kennedy points out that the frequencies produced by the cell towers are not the same frequencies that produce hallucinations.  However, it is commonly held by researchers that running water serves as a great conduit for paranormal phenomena, certainly related to the EM field.  A disproportionate amount of activity at the Grove seems tied to the Creek in some way, and it has been observed that during high rains, when it flows more freely, activity increases.

The presence of limestone, too, at an ostensibly haunted site sends up the antennae of most modern paranormal researchers who seem to be constantly looking for limestone as a culprit in reports of the paranormal, believing that its presence can ‘explain’ everything from apparitions to footsteps and cold spots. Therefore, the presence of a quarry at Bachelors Grove has been a consideration for numerous investigators, who wonder if the quarry stone is influencing the EM field, “holding onto” energy from the past (as popularized in the “Stone Tape Theory”)*, causing ghost lights and cold spots, and otherwise interacting with visitors’ experiences.  True, visitors often report euphoric feelings, physical illness such as disorientation, malaise, gastrointestinal issues, hallucinations and other symptoms which can be the result of high EM levels, but how to explain the failure of these skewed levels to register on investigators’ equipment at Bachelors Grove?

Along the same thought, despite the fact that they don’t live here, are visitors experiencing a “close spiritual affinity” with Bachelors Grove, reminiscent of Jung’s theory of his own experience in Ravenna so long ago?  When people visit here, do they become opened to an unconscious, shared experience of Bachelors Grove which includes the sights, sounds and smells of eras gone by: of the people, homes, animals and even vehicles which were tied to this land long ago?

This “close spiritual affinity” might be interpreted by scientists quite differently. Timothy Harte reminds us of what parapsychologists call environmental cues, which speaks to our tendency to interpret experiences or even hallucinate based on what we expect to happen.    If you bring someone into a location who is expecting or hoping to see phantom houses, dogs, cars and women in white, and that location is physically wired somehow—a la Persinger’s Tectonic Strain Theory--to affect brain functioning or even the manifestation of lights or other energies—well, that—as Dr.Persinger has so rigorously researched--is a recipe for a haunting. 

Is there a portal or interdimensional doorway here at Bachelors Grove? Some Native Americans tell us that, during the time of encroachment by Europeans on Native lands, their ancestors would sometimes “curse” the land by opening up these portals, ensuring that the white settlers would be constantly tormented by interdimensional visitors, coming in and out of these doorways.  Visiting clairvoyants tell us that, yes, there is a portal at Bachelors Grove, located right outside the cemetery gate.   They tell us the old Turnpike road is a “ley line,” or spiritual energy line—one of many such lines in the landscape which are said to host rampant paranormal phenomena.  Is it a coincidence that these lands were first inhabited by settlers during the very last days of Native American habitation—1832--, right before the end of the Black Hawk War banished these proud people forever?  

Is this evidenced by the many accounts of human looking figures and animals who have been seen walking through that gate and vanishing?  By the “popping” sounds heard and the strange lights seen at the gate?  By the feelings of lightheadedness and nausea experienced by visitors when they walk through that gate?   By the “dancing lights” and “sparks” that are often seen accompanying apparitions? Are these actually the visual effects of static charges emitted when entities enter or depart through this doorway? Or are they, again, EM effects causing us to hallucinate?  The questions, it seems, are endless.

Still, it cannot be denied that there is something at least preternatural at work here, and much older than the settlement of the 1830s, despite the apparent unawareness of it by the European community which briefly lived here.  Native American influences or conflicts, the presence of an earlier burial site here, the mysterious origins and vague records of the cemetery, possible EM distortions originating in the bedrock or the water features, the presence of an ancient road, fraught with controversy: Even if the farmers and families who lived here were too preoccupied with the hard business of life to notice it, did the enigmatic nature of the land show in their lives? Did it show on their faces? 

Does it show on ours?

The most confounding thing, to me, about Bachelors Grove is that nowhere before 1930, when everyone left and the isolation and its effects began, did there seem to be any clue to its astonishing paranormality.  Combing through court documents of the Forest Preserve district encroachment, the early records of settlers and pioneers, newspaper articles about the burials, nostalgic stories of old timers who often visited as children, journals of the area, burial records, diaries, local folklore, and after scores of interviews with those whose families stretch back to its earliest days, there is utterly no mention anywhere of any strangeness, weird activity, cursedness, no mention anywhere of anyone who thought there was anything bad about this place or anything haunted about a cemetery that, by the first moments of vandalism, had already stood through more than a century.  Not one.

But there was, indeed, something highly unusual about Bachelors Grove from the beginning: Its power of attraction.

Even in its operative days Bachelors Grove was a place of refuge from the hard business of pioneer and, later, industrialized life.  The youngest of children loved going to Bachelors Grove Cemetery, visiting the pond and playing in the creek. This strange little place was, for many, one of their favorite places to be. From the beginning, numerous people were drawn to lovingly tend it, passionately protect it and go to bat for it.  For so many people, Bachelors Grove is still this.  In thirty years of research, interviewing hundreds of people, the three words most used to describe it have been “peaceful,” “beautiful” and “magical.”  Until, of course, it gets you where it wants you.

George Lutz, who lived in the famed Amityville house (of Amityville Horror fame) on Long Island for less than a month before fleeing with his family, gave a final interview before his death in 2006.  In it, he admitted that the events in the notorious house did not unfold as the book and movie portrayed them, but that the events were more subtle, more cunning, and more purposeful. 

Lutz summed up the family’s experience with the interesting comment that the house was “charming.” When they moved in, he said, he and the family gradually retreated into it from the outside world.  George’s wife, Kathy, quit classes she was taking.  George stopped going to work.  Even their children preferred, more and more, to stay home rather than being with friends.  The house wanted them there, and whenever they would leave, they felt it pulling, pulling….

Perhaps after everything, this is the only clue we have to the paranormal secret of Bachelors Grove. That for all its negative connotations and all the fallout from its notoriety--and whether the effect is caused by petrochemical fumes, electromagnetic anomalies, evil spirits or the lure of the liminal--, one reality shines through the centuries, for better or for worse, and for whatever it may mean.

Bachelors Grove is charming.

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ONE MORE THING

Thanks for stopping by! Please join me in praying for the souls of Bachelors Grove . . .

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lor. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Amen.

And for the protection of the Grove from the powers of evil . . .

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, o prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

See you next time, and until then, God bless you and yours,

Ursula

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MORE ON BACHELORS GROVE

Below is an online lecture I did on the history and mystery of Bachelors Grove. I hope you enjoy it!

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For the WHOLE story of Bachelors Grove, plus lots of great pics, check out my book on this exceptionally enigmatic locale, below!

Haunted Bachelors Grove (Haunted America)

By Bielski, Ursula

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