Ghost Hunting by Grant Wilson Jason Hawes

autumn of 1846. Forty-five people perished that day.
    Finally, the government decided to erect a lighthouse on the rocks. One of the engineers who worked on the project, Francis Hopkinson Smith, also built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It took seven years and great courage on the parts of dozens of workers before Race Rock Lighthouse was completed in 1878.
    For years, the rocks were manned by a succession of hardy lighthouse keepers. But after a while a solar cell was installed, and the lighthouse no longer needed a human being to run it. Today the Coast Guard makes periodic maintenance visits, but no one lives there.
    Unless you believe the stories about the lighthouse keeper’s ghost. Then you would have to amend that statement.
    Six of us from T.A.P.S. were slated to hook up with the Coast Guard in New London, Connecticut, and get a ride to the lighthouse. Because the place is no longer furnished, we had asked Brian to pick up some folding chairs at my house. As far as I knew, he had that job covered.
    Unbeknownst to either Grant or myself, Brian had forgotten the chairs. “He’ll frickin’ kill me,” he muttered, referring to me. And I would have. It wasn’t as if we could just scoot on back to the mainland whenever we felt like it. Once we set up on Race Rock, we would be stuck there for the night.
    Fortunately Andy Andrews, a new investigator in the group, had backed Brian up and packed the chairs. Brian was relieved, to say the least. If I had known the chairs were missing, I would have been on his case all night.
    We had also brought along Heather Drolet. Heather was an expert in the use of divining rods—a pair of metal sticks that can detect ambient energy. Since ghosts draw on the energy around them in order to manifest themselves, Heather’s talents seemed likely to come in handy.
    When the Coast Guard arrived, we met Senior Chief Boatswain’s Mates Jennings, Osborne, and Nolda. Having heard the stories about the lighthouse keeper for so long, they were looking forward to the investigation. So were we, even though we would have to cover eight miles of choppy seas before we got to Race Rock.
    When we came in sight of the place, we realized why so many ships had run aground there. Two strong, savage currents were clashing at the rock, churning the water around it into a giant whirlpool. It was crazy.
    There was no way any of us could have made it to the dock. However, the Coast Guard guys made it look easy. We worked harder than usual unpacking our equipment, considering we had to hand it up from a rocking boat instead of simply carrying it out of a truck. Also, we had to bring our own generator, since there wasn’t any power available to us in the lighthouse.
    All in all, it promised to be the most difficult investigation we had ever undertaken. Not only were we dependent on our generator for power but we also had to be careful not to slip on the rocks and end up in the drink. Worst of all, the lighthouse didn’t have a single bathroom that still worked.
    Fortunately, we were all used to improvising.
    One of the Coast Guard’s claims was that they had heard the shower going one time they visited the lighthouse. Of course, when they went to check it out, it was turned off. To observe the shower, we trained a couple of cameras on it and set up an EMF detector, which measures energy fluctuations. Then we put others in the basement, where the spirit of the lighthouse keeper had been known to appear.
    One thing you need to know about me is that I have a playful side. Even in the middle of the most serious investigation, I might grab Grant’s leg or play a prank. I was in that kind of mood at the lighthouse.
    In fact, I had felt like that all day—which was why I had brought a fishing rod along with all our other equipment. While the rest of the team investigated the insides of the lighthouse, I was going to spend the night fishing.
    It wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. Ghosts