The Tour’s Mission Statement
The Tour’s Mission
Believe it or not, there is a purpose to this whole shebang! Actually quite a few. So if you will indulge me with your time for a few short minutes as I explain the concept of the Urban Legends Tour. I would be most grateful and a few e-mails will be sparred the task of being sent.
So last year while I worked on collecting stories for my book about Southern Indiana’s ghosts and legends, I took a cross-county tour of many popular “haunted” locations. At these locations I was greeted with some interesting artifacts: the shells of cigarette containers in various phases of decay, the remains of many sad beer bottles, recently broken headstones which measure a few feet to yards away from their bases, and fresh candle wax. Any ghost hunter has run into this mess at a local cemetery and nothing makes you feel warmer inside than seeing headstones used as bra holders.
Jeebus! This is cemetery desecration at its finest folks. After visiting so many cemeteries that I actually lost count, one trend seemed to be clear: urban legends = more visits. Duh. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that obvious trait out, but I’ve seen little done to try to stop the vandals and paranormal enthusiasts besides authorities going on local news stations and saying “now give us our headstones back!”
Curious to see how people are getting informed about “haunted” locations I Google searched various locations that I knew history of intimately since they were locations covered in my book. To no ones surprise I found pages upon pages of misinformation, speculative history, and of course fantastic ghost tales. Yes Stepp Cemetery, I’m referring to you. Obviously curious budding ghost hunters were visiting these places in hopes of seeing a ghost, others were going for a cheap thrill because it’s fun, while yet others were trying to summon the demonic remains of past occult workings in the cemetery. People openly admitted to urinating on specific headstones because they thought it was cool and somehow proving they were better than the dead, lighting candles around a dead tree stump to summon the power of the Crabbites cult, or just looking for the infamous “Lady in Black,” the resident spook that budding ghost hunters are always looking for. Don’t even get me started on the monument destruction in Stepp Cemetery, none of the original family headstones exist anymore spare for one and no one knows where it belongs.
The funny thing is that what people honestly believe have happened there is a wonderful work of fiction. The cemetery may be haunted, but it isn’t from any of the above stated legends. Sadly you find this situation over and over again across the Midwest and the United States.
By promoting responsible investigation techniques and demonstrating how proper fieldwork and library research is done by an experienced researcher I hope to enlighten the public to the history behind their notorious urban legends. The task of preserving local folklore while simultaneously “debunking” these detrimental myths is quite a delicate challenge. I’m also bringing to the limelight those who deal with the visiting paranormal enthusiasts on a weekly basis: caretakers, law enforcement, and property owners, so they can get their side of the story out. I’m also working with local paranormal groups and local residents to bring out their perspectives on the hauntings, both positive and negative.
So there you have it, a documentary series in production. Outside the videos I will be putting up lists of sources, so those of you who are interested in following my research can see just what I’m doing. Peer review is an excellent way of finding overlooked ideas and holes in hypotheses. Making history entertaining will always be a challenge, but I’m up to it! And now you’ve made it to the end of my statement, congrats!
Cheers,
Kat
katklockow@gmail.com
