For whatever reason, stories of ghosts or anything involving supernatural phenomena are scarce in Williams Lake, B.C. This doesn't mean, however, that there aren't any valid stories. I've heard bits and pieces here and there, but have never had the opportunity to listen in full. That's where you come in. I'd like to hear stories from you, the reader, on personal experiences with the supernatural in Williams Lake B.C. I would also gladly welcome stories from anywhere else for that matter.
Until then, I will keep passing on stories I've read from a few researchers, especially the great Brad Steiger. Now lets get to the story.
Brad Steiger 'Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places
In 1964, a museum in New Mexico assigned a pair of young archeologists to undertake what had been planned as a very ordinary examination of one of the countless early Pueblo villages that dotted the flat lands of New Mexico. No extraordinary finds were expected, but investigation at the site was overdue. The two young archeologists would be working side by side with Navajo diggers hired to aid in the project.
Work was proceeding as anticipated when a Navajo workman doing rough excavation on a refuse pit at the edge of the village hurriedly approached the team leaders with news of a curious discovery. His shovel had partly uncovered a piece of bone among the rubble that had been deposited there nearly 1000 years earlier by the inhabitants of the ancient village. Unwilling to touch the bone for fear it might be human and bear a curse, the digger alerted the archeologists to the find and stood back at a respectful distance as they took up the digging. What emerged, to the archeologists' surprise, was the skull of a Native American man whose body had apparently been thrown without ceremony into the garbage pits. It was a strange find considering the reverence with which the New Mexican tribes were know to bury their dead.
After the two archeologists had searched for hours without finding the rest of the skeletal remains, they returned their attentions to the skull and came up with a gruesome explanation. Death had probably come to the man from a blow to the back of the skull. The shape of the head suggested that it was not a Pueblo tribesman, but probably the skull of one of many Apache invaders who had filtered into the area during a wave of migration in about 900 A.D. A piece of cervical vertebra still clinging to the skull showed marks having been hacked through by some early weapon similar to an axe.
The aged bones that lay in the refuse heap had belonged to a captive Apache who had been killed and beheaded by the Pueblo, then consigned to the garbage as a further degradation. No further attempts were immediately made to unearth any remaining skeletal bones after the first search of the nearby area had proved fruitless. They were of no great archeological importance, and more urgent work in the heart of the old village required all of the hours that the summer dig would still permit.
But then strange events began occurring at the old Pueblo ruin. What appeared to be the work of vandals suddenly began causing havoc at the dig site. When the archeologists and Navajo workmen slept, someone entered the village and smashed unearthed pottery and kicked in carefully excavated trenches. Events took on an even more macabre turn in the week that followed. Frightened worker swore that they saw the glowing head of a man appear before them in their bunkhouse at night. Utter nonsense, the archeologists laughed, until they slept with the workmen one night and saw the faintly phosphorescent glow of what might have been the head of a man. There was no rational explanation for the sight.
Panic at the site reached its peak when the workers became certain they were hearing words in a tribal dialect that they did not understand carried on the winds of the inky desert nights. As a last resort the young archeologists turned to an age-creased shaman at a nearby Navajo reservation to explain what was taking place at the dig and restore progress to the work at the village. The shaman said that the head of the long dead Apache was seeking his body because he could not enter the spirit world without it. The ghost would haunt the excavation until head and body were joined together in burial. Native superstition, the archeologists agreed, but in order to calm the nerves of the jittery workmen, they would see what could be done about finding the rest of the restless Apache's bones.
Because the Navajo workers reasoned that the vandalism had been a sign to help the diggers, the search for the missing remains centered on the area of the village where the vandalism had occurred. As digging proceeded in the area over several days, the team could not help noticing that the vandalism had stopped. Was it a sign the ghost was pleased? As workmen softly prodded the earth from an old ceremonial circle, a wall of dirt fell away and revealed a set of bones protruding from the soil. When the bones were laid out, they were found to be of a young male missing his head. When the skull that had been discovered earlier was brought out for comparison, the severed vertebra were an exact match. The bones of the doomed Apache brave reposed together once more.
With the aid of the shaman, the young archeologists gave a reverential burial to the yellowed skeletal remains, and the troubles that had plagued the summer expedition ended at once. When the final report of the diggings at the site was made to the museum, the scientific background of the young arheologists did not permit inclusion of the strange events that had taken place at the site. But they were willing to share those experiences with friends, who puzzled as earnestly as they did over the curious happenings that led them to help a long dead Apache find peace in the next world. Not a scientific achievement, but a very human one of which they were proud.
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