Rate this encounter: Angel Cehen - Edisto Island, South Carolina - November 1, 2008

I have always loved to walk through old graveyards reading grave markers. I feel that we can learn a lot about history in grave yards, and I have always kept an open mind regarding ghostly encounters. While I had never personally had an encounter, I could not deny or confirm that ghosts walked among us.

On November 1, 2008, while visiting my son in the Charleston, South Carolina-area, we took a ride to Edisto Island. We went by a beautiful old church which caught my attention. After riding another three miles I convinced my husband to turn around and go back to the church so that I could read the grave markers. My family and I spent about one and a half hours reading the grave markers at Edisto Presbyterian Church. Then we came upon a mausoleum that had no door. While approaching the mausoleum I felt a chill run down my back bone. My daughter in-law, grandson, and I looked inside through the open doorway but did not enter. From the corner of my left eye I thought I saw something move on the left, outside of the mausoleum.

I kept telling myself that I had been watching too many horror movies and was freaking myself out. I regained my self control as not to scare my daughter in-law or grandchildren. We continued our walk through the graveyard until we had finished reading all the grave markers. My seven-year-old granddaughter asks why all the concrete tops on the above-ground graves were sitting slightly sideways. I looked back over the graveyard and saw that she was right. Every concrete top on all of the above-ground graves were slightly sideways. I explained that this was Halloween weekend and that some young people must have been playing jokes. I explained that it was disrespectful to the dead and their families to mess with someone's grave. I told her this was something that we should never do. We returned to our car and were starting to leave when I ask my daughter in-law if she would like to go back and take some pictures to send to my other son. I was going to send my son a picture stating that the zombies had escaped. Zombies have always been his nightmare. We took pictures of the graveyard and mausoleum. I then wanted to look through the windows of the church and take pictures of the inside because of the beautiful architecture inside the church. On the last picture, a light inside the church door were we stood began to go off and on. This light had not been on the entire time that we had been at the church. My daughter in-law was ready to go at this point; she was starting to freak out a little.

As we started riding toward home I decided to look at the pictures on the digital camera display. The first picture that I saw looking through the church window unnerved me. I could see what appeared to be the image of what we believe the devil looks like. I showed the picture to my daughter in-law. She was not sure what she saw. My granddaughter asked to look at the pictures. She stated that she saw a little girl in the window with a long, lacey dress and her hair pulled backed. I took the camera from her. Sure enough that what was in the next picture on the camera. By this point I have cold chills all over my body. I am thinking to myself, what have we just seen and what have I got my family into. We go back to my son's house were my daughter in-law does an Internet search about Edisto Presbyterian Church. We learn that a female child Julia Legare was thought to have died of fever in 1847 while visiting a family plantation on Edisto Island. Little Julia was buried in her favorite dress in the mausoleum the afternoon of her death. It is said that family members thought that they heard a child's cry, but did not act on it. Years later the mausoleum was opened to bury another family member when it was discover that Julia's coffin was opened and her remains were at the door. She had been buried alive. Following the discovery, the door to the mausoleum would not stay closed.

Today the door has been cemented in the center of the mausoleum floor. Looking farther at the pictures that we had taken we discovered more unexplainable appearances. In one picture you can see at the top left what appears to be a female in a long, lacey dress. In the bottom right corner you see what appears to be a demon with pointy ears, large eyes, and facial hair, and in the bottom right there appears to be an old fashion baby carriage. In the second picture top left appears to be a female angel. In the lower right there appears to be many demons. In picture three of the mausoleum, there appears to be a bright glowing coffin inside the mausoleum. I still wonder if Julia Legare was protecting my family from some evil spirit that day. Did she know that we were not there to cause any harm? Was that her reason for protecting us? Was she trying to protect us from the same thing that she had faced? Was she protecting us because we had respect for the dead? These are questions that I will never know the answers to. These questions will forever be in my mind.

All of my twelve family members can see spirits or some unexplainable thing in these pictures except for my husband. He refuses to believe in ghost. He can see everything inside of the church that I was trying to capture on film. However I can see nothing inside the church. Does my husband not see these things because he refuses to have an open mind? I can now say that I truly believe in spirits among us, good and evil. I have experienced firsthand, a ghostly encounter. To this very day, each time I look at these pictures the hair stands on the back of my neck and I get goose-bumps all over my body for I know that this is real. I went to the grave yard only to read the grave markers, not looking for a ghostly encounter, but that is what my family and I received.