- NEW SMYRNA BEACH, FL -- On
the Rosenkes' first night in their new house off Faulkner Street, a little
boy came over to play.
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- The family never saw the child, just his shadow whizzing
across the living room.
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- "He was laughing," said Christi Rosenke, the
mother of two daughters. "Then he slammed the master bedroom door
shut."
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- The ghostly figure didn't mean any harm, surmised the
X-ray technician who acknowledges she has a keen psychic sense. The boy
probably just missed playing on the playground at Faulkner Street School,
which once entertained children on the same spot where the Rosenkes built
their home six years ago.
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- "He was just being mischievous," she said.
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- New Smyrna Beach may lack monstrous ghost stories like
the famously frightening tales told in cities such as St. Augustine, Savannah
and New Orleans.
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- But the spattering of scary experiences reported around
Southeast Volusia should not be overlooked, said Charlie Carlson, author
of "Strange Florida," a compilation of unusual sightings throughout
Florida.
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- "Some stories are hair-raising," the Edgewater
resident said.
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- For generations, New Smyrna Beach residents have swapped
stories about seeing the vision of a well-known city benefactor who still
walks in front of the old library he donated to the city in the late 1800s.
Others say they've witnessed apparitions in old homes, including a phantom
toddler who speaks to other children in the 100-year-old Flagler Tavern
restaurant on Flagler Avenue.
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- And the odd accounts go beyond ghosts.
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- Since 1955, fishermen camping on islands in the Mosquito
Lagoon have reported seeing flying saucers overhead.
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- And, as recently as 1991, Oak Hill residents have recorded
a hairy 7-foot-tall, 300-pound "skunk ape" that smelled like
rotten eggs, moldy cheese and dung.
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- "I believe there are things out there that can't
be explained," Carlson said. "We don't know everything about
the universe."
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- Before writing the book about ghosts in 1998, the retired
Army sergeant major researched strange phenomena for a year. It wasn't
easy to gather stories, he said, because many people don't want to come
forward.
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- Some dismiss their experiences as impossible, or question
their sanity, Carlson said. Others worry what people would think if they
heard the unbelievable tales.
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- New Smyrna Beach resident Karin Jenkins worried about
perceptions before she entered a scary ghost story contest with The Daytona
Beach News-Journal in 1997 -- and won.
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- "I thought it would come out making me look like
a lunatic," said the owner of a local hair salon. "But sometimes
the truth is scariest."
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- While serving as resident manager of Waverly Court, a
beachside condominium, Jenkins said, she and her family lived with two
phantom spirits for five years.
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- She first noticed it when her cat, Murphy, suddenly would
wake up and watch something walk across the room. Then faucets turned on
-- full force -- by themselves and the room stayed cold, even in the summer,
she said.
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- Some nights, she would flip over and feel the weight
of someone sitting on the edge of the bed as she slept.
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- "I just sensed we weren't alone," she said.
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- Old-timers around town said she was living with the original
resident managers, a couple who had loved New Smyrna Beach so much, they
vowed to stay forever.
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- The family got used to living alongside their invisible
roommates, until the present-day owners sold the building for renovation.
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- When the family moved out, Jenkins said, she felt sadness
in the apartment. And, from somewhere, foul odor was emitted.
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- "They were not happy about us leaving," she
said.
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- Some ghosts follow their eternal homes, regardless of
where it stands, said Harold Cardwell, longtime historian of Port Orange
and New Smyrna Beach.
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- Outside and inside the old Connor Library, the wealthy
financier who donated the building, Washington E. Connor, has been seen
often.
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- Many natives have seen him stroll around the building,
even though it moved from its original location on the corner of Faulkner
and Washington streets to Old Fort Park 10 years ago, Cardwell said.
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- During renovation, construction workers complained tools
had been moved and scattered around and some electrical gadgets turned
on without help, he said.
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- Some kind of spirit lives there, said Southeast Volusia
Historical Society member Richard Sturge. He stayed overnight one time
to guard some expensive equipment being stored there and he couldn't sleep
all night. Neither did his miniature schnauzer.
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- "We didn't see anything, but it was spooky,"
he said.
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- At Flagler Tavern, a popular restaurant on the beachside,
owner Kara Byers has witnessed several unexplained incidences at the former
home.
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- Many visitors believe a former ship captain who died
in a hurricane haunts the tavern, but that story was made up years ago,
said Byers' husband, Bobby.
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- The picture of the skipper that hangs above the fireplace
is actually Bobby's father.
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- Still, the toilet upstairs flushes randomly and faucets
turn on all the time, she said.
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- Waiters have reported sightings for years, most notably
of a little boy who may have died there in a fire.
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- One day Byers watched a customer's 3-year-old daughter
talk to herself, then ask her mother if she could play with the toddler
no one else could see.
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- In the early morning or late evening, many people have
said they still hear the rattling of the railroad tracks down Lytle Avenue
to the old wharf on Riverside Drive, Cardwell said.
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- And fishermen at the Angler's Club on Riverside Drive
still report the sound of the loud motors revving up -- from boats used
by the Navy in the 1940s.
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- It's hard to tell if these stories are made up, Carlson
said. But many are believable because they match tales told by others,
or because the narrator never changes the facts.
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- Most of the Oak Hill and Osteen residents who saw a skunk
ape on Maytown Road describe a similar animal. Unlike a bear, the Sasquatch-like
ape has white fur and gives off a disgusting smell, he said.
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- "Who's to say it's not getting squeezed out of its
hiding place by development?" Carlson said.
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- The fisherman who said he witnessed a flying saucer over
Mosquito Lagoon produced a Polaroid photo of an "alien" with
a large head and holding a silver blanket.
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- The stories may seem crazy and hard to believe, but people
love them, Cardwell said.
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- "It's entertainment," he said.
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- People enjoy the stories so much, Carlson has sold more
than 10,000 copies of "Strange Florida," many more than his factual,
and perhaps more historically significant, books about the Civil War. But
he hopes the truth about ghosts never comes out.
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- "If we explain it, it would take all the fun out
of it," he said.
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- Members of the Southeast Volusia Historical Society hope
to capitalize on the ghost fervor.
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- This winter, they plan to put together the best ghost
stories of New Smyrna Beach and offer a walking tour of the downtown area,
president Dave Borland said.
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- New maps found in Scotland recently could help unravel
some of the area's mysterious sightings, he said. In the late 1770s, more
than 200 people died of malaria and other diseases and were buried -- but
no one knows where the cemetery lies today, he said.
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- Their hidden spirits could be producing the disturbances
residents like the Rosenkes and the Jenkinses have felt over the years,
Borland said.
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- It's possible a violent incident embeds spirits into
the molecular structure of a building, Carlson said.
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- "Who knows what happens to people after they die?"
he said. "Couldn't an electrical part of a person continue to go on?"
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- Being in tune with spirits through tarot cards, Christi
Rosenke said she has seen many more ghosts than the little boy roaming
her home. And those visitors have offered her family many sleepless nights.
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- At 3 a.m. earlier last week, the Rosenkes woke up to
the sound of a candlestick being hurled across their bedroom. It broke
into three pieces.
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- Several nights each month, the family endures the simultaneous
beeping of five smoke alarms that always go off at the stroke of midnight
or at 2 a.m., she said
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- Her husband, Tyler, scares easily and has asked her to
let him sleep through the frequent visits of a little girl who sits Indian-style
on the edge of their bed trying to tell her something.
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- Christi refrains from telling him a man paces anxiously
behind the little girl, hoping to hurry her along.
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- "The spirits must know I'm open to this kind of
thing," she said.
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- <mailto:cindy.crawford@news-jrnl.com>cindy.crawford@news-jrnl.com
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