Post by Joanna on Oct 17, 2013 0:18:36 GMT -5
Haunted Montgomery: The Ghost of Hank Williams and other Haunts
When things go bump in the night, it’s easy to blame the creaking of an old house, noisy pipes or the wind. For Faith Serafin, author of the recently published Haunted Montgomery, however, it’s not so simple.
Serafin began her career in the supernatural by founding the Alabama Paranormal Research Team, which has been investigating tales of hauntings since 2007. The team averages around 60 investigations a year, and the locations include residential homes, commercial property and other buildings in which spirits of the dead are rumored to lurk. “Initially, I had a lot of experiences when I was growing up,” the ghost hunter said. “That prompted me to organize a team. After a lifetime of experiences, you really got to find some answers. You name it, we’ll investigate it. We have investigated all over the Gulf Coast, all the way up to the East Coast. We’ve been researching all over the United States.”
It was her extensive research that led her to contribute to the Haunted America series by writing two collections of ghostly tales, Haunted Montgomery and Haunted Auburn and Opelika, based on the supernatural experiences of her team and the history they uncovered through research. “A lot of the back stories that you’ll find in all of my books are something historical,” she explained, “This region is kinda connected in a lot of ways. It takes a lot of time and a lot of researching to make these books really valuable because there are many people who pick up this book and don't care about the haunted part. They want to know about the history of the stories.”
Haunted Montgomery, which was released in August, includes 14 stores from the capital city as well as three tales from Prattville. While most of the accounts in the book were discovered through historical research, Serafin said the inspiration to share the tale of Montgomery’s own country legend Hank Williams came from beyond the grave. “Before I wrote the book, I had an ongoing, recurring dream that went on for more than a year about Hank Williams. In the dream, I’m walking to the grave of Hank Williams, and I see his apparition come towards me. He asked me this question, ‘Are you the lady writing these books? When you get ready to write on Montgomery, I want you to write my ghost story.’”
Serafin of Salem admitted years of investigating the supernatural has given her a thick skin and skeptical eye. While it might take a lot to scare her, the author said she can recall one instance that had her putting on the brakes out of fear. She was conducting an investigation for A&E’s show My Ghost Story: Caught on Camera when she saw a set of glowing eyes staring her down. “Over the years, we have been able to document so many things and had so many experiences that it’s almost unreal,” she said. “I’ve seen shadows and seen things move, but I’ve never seen anything like that before. I literally had to stop, and I’m not normally one of those people that gets spooked. I was literally so upset by what I saw I had to excuse myself from that investigation.”
While saying said she didn’t want to say too much or plan too far ahead, she is encouraged by how popular Haunted Montgomery has become and hopes to continue sharing the scary stories she unearths in the future. “I’ve been more successful with this book so far than I have with my other two. It may not be too far out there for me to say that a second Haunted Montgomery book might be on shelves next year.”
Serafin will be sharing her ghost stories at the Josephine Hotel in Union Springs at 1 p.m., Sunday, October 20. Haunted Montgomery and Haunted Auburn and Opelika are available from Amazon.
Source: Amber Sutton, AllAlabama, October 16, 2013.