Ever had electronics go funky on a battlefield?

Gary Morgan

First Sergeant
Forum Host
Joined
Aug 2, 2019
Not exactly a ghost story, but I was wondering if any of you have ever had you electronic devices act strangely on a battlefield?

Many years ago, I was following in one particular individual's wartime travels, and when I got to one particular site, ALL of my electronic devices went weird. The phone would go from fully charged to no power in about 20 minutes, so I'd recharge it at my car and turn it off, only to have it turn itself on again a few minutes later. I could see the books on my kindle, but couldn't get any of them to open (I'd click on the picture of the book cover, the picture would get big and then get small again and go back on the "shelf"). And the most unnerving part was that, very early one morning, I was on the field near a location that I know my guy was at, and suddenly my phone rang. I thought it was a very strange time to be getting a phone call, since it was not yet 6:00 on a Sunday morning, but when I pulled my phone out of my pocket, I discovered that, even though it was ringing, the phone itself was turned off.

Have any of you ever had similar experiences?
 
Forgot to mention my camera, a digital camera that was separate from my phone and Kindle. I noticed during this same visit that I was getting way more "pocket pics" than usual (pictures that are completely black, usually because the button got pushed while the camera was in your pocket). I mentioned it to one of the park rangers, and was told that it wasn't just me; apparently it was a "thing" that happened there a lot.

I am intentionally not saying where I was, because they were afraid ghost hunters might go in there at night and cause some damage.

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It sounds like a ghost story to me. Ghosts and the like can play haywire with electronic devices. I have seen that before. I have also never seen many ghost hunters who damaged a site on purpose for any reason. That is not who they are as people or researchers. It sort of sounds like a battlefield on the road to Atlanta, several bad sites ones along the way.
 
I have also never seen many ghost hunters who damaged a site on purpose for any reason. That is not who they are as people or researchers.

The ghost hunters that you see on TV that go in with cameras and electronic equipment are very different from the kids I teach who - occasionally under the influence of alcohol - will get the "brilliant" idea to go to a place that is supposedly haunted and "look for ghosts." I can easily imagine those knuckleheads breaking into an empty building or driving across a field or a cemetery and tearing things up.
 
I worked with a group of amateurs who worked in a professional manner, the same way I and others did when I was in college, when I first did my ghost hunting. It was how I was taught by my parents, to have respect for other people's property. I never mixed alcohol or drugs and ghost hunting.

I probably should have come up with a different noun in my post about why I was not going to say where this happened, and intended no insult to you or the folks you go investigating with.

Do you have any stories from your time ghost hunting? I just noticed when I was scrolling up on the page that the top of the black picture I posted is lighter than the bottom part. Maybe it's because it's now dark in the room where I'm writing and I have the lights down in the room I'm in, plus the "picture" is now blown up to be fairly large, but I never noticed that before.
 
I have some odd stories that happened, and they are weird because they happened with a large number of people present. Some others I experienced happened with only a couple of us present. A few happened while I was by myself. Where I went to college was in an old town, it was also a small town. Several of the events happened in and around the old town cemetery. There was also a Civil War battle in town. Some of the hauntings involved some incidents after the battle. Civil War battles in Missouri tended to be vicious and often times resulted in reprisals against one side or the other. Parole violations were taken quite serious by the commanders of some Federal units, and did result in executions of the violators. Even if they carried papers of parole or not. I really need to address this one in a separate thread. I would like to see your picture though Gary.
 
This was several years ago, only had a flip phone, no problems. The camera with a fully charged battery went suddenly dead. I was taking pictures of the Dunker Church and the artillery battery nearby. Spare battery was in my car near the visitors center, went to get the spare and the camera was fine just as I reached my car. Just strange, It was an older DSLR, that I've since passed on to my son, but that problem never returned.
 
I was in the National Cemetery at Antietam in 2019 and at Turner's Gap and lost all my electronics. It was late afternoon and my niece and I had spent the whole day at Antietam and climbing South Mountain. The cemetery and the gap were pretty much our last stops. All I can say is things just started to feel cold - not freezing cold or anything like that - but just flat, dead, the energy of the day was gone and suddenly all the energy in our cameras was gone. Oddly, I felt at the cemetery a feeling of not being welcomed and I from the North and while I was trying to take pictures of the NH boys, that's when the camera completely died and it shouldn't have.

I was back there last year for the 157th anniversary, spent the whole half of the first day in ranger walks, the second half at the Pry house and then finished up at the National Cemetery and a complete change of atmosphere! Nothing like the year before. Go figure. So, @mofederal, what do you think was going on in 2019 there?
 
Well from what I have experienced the dead can mess with your electronics or they can ignore you. I guess it depends on their mood. I mean that too. When they feel like playing they will play. When they do not, it is just a day to leave them alone. There are places where they are never in the mood for anything. I know of a mass grave site and they are always bad. The funny thing is I do not believe anyone is buried there now, probably since 1863.
 
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