The man was never found.Īnother story, told by an experienced tour guide named Joy Lyons, tells of a tour that was taken a few years ago in the company of a large group and two guides. There was no one else in the tour group who matched the description of this man, so she sent another guide back a little way to look for him.
After her discussion, the group moved further along the passage and she looked for the man again, but he was gone. He was wearing a striped shirt, denim pants and suspenders, but that was all she remembered. She paused to wait for everyone to catch up and noticed a man in the back who was lingering behind the rest. One day, she had been leading a tour group into the cave and had stopped to point out a site along the passage. She told me that weird things often happen along the route leading from the historic entrance to the cave. One such ranger has served as a guide in the cave for a number of years. In my own experience, I have found most of the park rangers reluctant to talk about ghost stories, although I have found a few who don’t laugh off the odd tales and who will share their own strange experiences. I have also been able to find other accounts from those who have gone on the record about the resident haunts in years past. I have visited Mammoth Cave many times in years past and while collecting ghost stories, I have had the opportunity to talk with many of the people who work here. I will allow the reader to judge for himself. The long history of the place includes accidents from the days of the saltpeter operations, Native Americans who wandered into the cave and never found their way out, stranded travelers, missing cave explorers, tragic tuberculosis victims and even those who loved the place so much that they have never left -or so the stories go. Many of the tales are experiences shared by park rangers, cave explorers, spelunkers and even geologists who are fully aware of what strange things a cave can do.īelievers in the resident ghosts can cite a number of reasons why the cave might be haunted. While many of the stories are indeed accounts told by visitors to the cave, others are not so easy to explain away. But there are others who would say that this isn’t true. They also state that stories of encounters with ghosts in Mammoth Cave are told by tourists and visitors who have no previous experience with caves and with the natural phenomena that accompanies them. A person’s imagination can play tricks on them in the dark and footsteps and voices can seem ghostly when there are echoes from other parts of the cave.
However skeptics maintain there are explanations for these things. These eerie stories tell of unexplained sounds, strange lights, bizarre noises, disembodied footsteps and of course, apparitions and spirits. But are the stories of Mammoth Cave merely figments of overactive imaginations? That remains to be seen, although we should take into account that ghostly tales have been told about the place almost from the time when the first cave tours roamed the darkened corridors with only a small lantern to guide the way. This isn’t surprising considering that caves can be very spooky places, filled with dark corners, shadowed crevices and odd noises.
There have been many stories of ghosts at Mammoth Cave, spanning several generations of visitors, guides and service personnel.
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