Now, more than ever, ghost stories can take our minds off the truly scary things happening in the world.
“People want to be scared, but not in danger,” says Michael Norman, the 70-year-old emeritus professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and author of the recently published second edition of Haunted Heartland (University of Wisconsin Press). “The stories I tell pose the question of what happens after we die. Is there some element of survival?”
The new version of Haunted Heartland recounts almost 80 tales of ghosts and hauntings; possessions and exorcisms; and phantom animals, mystery lights and parapsychology from 10 Midwestern states, including Wisconsin. Many of the stories from 1985’s first edition are included and updated, while others are new.
“I tried to focus on stories that were the most solid, which is kind of funny to say when you’re talking about ghosts,” Norman says, laughing.
Nine stories take place in Wisconsin, and one of the author’s favorites is titled “Return of the Hanged Man,” about the historic Walker House in Mineral Point. That’s where murderer William Caffee was hanged in front of an estimated crowd of 4,000 in November 1842. More than 120 years later, reports began circulating of Caffee making his presence known in a variety of odd ways.
But does Norman believe in ghosts himself? “People believe what they’ve seen, and I believe what they believe,” he says. “I haven’t seen a ghost, but I have talked to plenty of people — law enforcement officials, doctors, lawyers — who claim they have. Did they have a supernatural experience? I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
Norman was present, however, when a ukulele began strumming itself backstage in a UW-River Falls theater, a story he recounts in the preface to 2011’s third edition of Haunted Wisconsin — the first book of ghost stories he wrote in 1980 with Beth Scott, who passed away in 1994. After Haunted Wisconsin, Norman (sometimes with Scott) went on to write several other Haunted books, including Haunted Homeland, Haunted America, Haunted Heritage and Historic Haunted America.
“I’m an open-minded skeptic and I try to be careful about passing on rumor,” Norman says, calling what he writes somewhere between journalism and fiction, adding that he often relies on archival research, newspaper reports and first-hand accounts. “I do the best I can with these stories, and I think readers know that. They don’t bring the same skepticism to my books as they would a book about foreign policy.”
