PORT TOWNSEND, WA -- It's a place that's had many lives.
Apparently, so have some of its residents.
Fort Worden began as an army base at the turn of the last century. Fifty years later, it became a youth detention center, and since 1973, it's been Washington's most ghoulishly gorgeous state park.
From a ghostly sight...
To a bump in the night...
...tales of the unexplained are common around here.
It's enough to attract the attention of genuine ghost hunter Darren Thompson of Washington State Paranormal Investigations and Research. "Just listening to the stories is the first step."
Alexander's Castle is the park's oldest structure... Built by a Scottish suitor for his lady love... Who ended up marrying another man. Some say he still haunts the place.
An old basement boiler is said to have held the body of a murdered soldier on the base nearly a century ago.
"The morning guy came in to stoke the boiler, and as soon as he opened it up, a human arm fell out of the boiler. And so there are still stories that downstairs that boiler area is still haunted." – Brian Haggeman
Reservation supervisor Susan Thomas says Fort Worden's ghosts are sometimes "dead funny". "I have an adding machine in my office, and for the last 5 years it's been possessed. I won't be doing anything and then all of a sudden it'll just start spitting off red numbers and symbols. I think it's talking to me, but I'm not sure exactly what its saying."
As for Darren Thompson... His investigation has just begun. "Could be totally explainable. But it may not be."
FOR MORE INFO: http://fortworden.org
