In 2008 Kim Johnston began noticing strange things. She would hear children’s voices that weren’t her own in her newly built house on County Road 51 in Chelsea. Her husband, Dan, didn’t believe her.
But when their babysitter starting hearing and seeing similar things, Johnston felt her suspicions were confirmed. One night she thought she heard her kids playing well after their bedtime and walked upstairs only to find them asleep in their beds. Neighbors reported similar experiences as well.
That’s when Johnston started digging into the history of the area around her and investigating the paranormal.
Nearby Union Cemetery, next to what is now Union The Church at Chelsea Park, has graves that date back to 1856 alongside more recent ones. People tend to see things when they drive past it at night, Johnston said.
Other old cemeteries off County Road 51 are now covered by woods, she learned, from an era when the area was the town of Weldon. A man whose house on the road was torn down after he died in the 1970s is suspected to haunt the area.
“People are suspicious of devilish rituals he practiced, or perhaps it’s just the old history of the area,” she said. “People who have just moved here don’t know the history.”
These curiosities led Johnston, a software developer, to start Spirit Communications and Research (S.C.A.R.E.), a paranormal research group that investigates haunted places, in 2011 and most recently to author Haunted Shelby County, Alabama, published by The History Press in August.
The book details Chelsea urban legends such a vampire that has scared several couples at a “lovers’ lane”-type spot and a hippie hitchhiker on Highway 47 — people think they have hit someone, and when they pull over, no one is there, she said.
Farther west on U.S. 280, legend surrounds a large air and land search from several decades ago for a woman named Ann Bragg who went missing from her home across from the EBSCO headquarters.
One story in the book came from a friend of Johnston’s who grew up on Highway 49 in Chelsea.
“There’s a lot of death and tragedy that has occurred on 49,” she said. “It’s one of the darker stories in the book — so much so that I try not to go down there.”
But there are heartwarming stories from places such as Old Baker Farm in Harpersville mixed in among the scarier ones, Johnston said.
The book contains more than 30 pictures, historical or taken by Johnston, including two of ghosts — one of which she captured on camera at Buck Creek Mill.
“When people watch TV and movies, they think all hauntings are demonic,” she said, “but in reality they are rare. I have never experienced a demonic case, and my teammate who has been doing this 20 years hasn’t either.”
Scary or not, the hobby for Johnston is not just about ghosts. For her it’s largely about studying history. In fact, about three quarters of the book is made of historical research, so Johnston encourages people who are skeptical of paranormal activity to read it to learn about the history of the places around them.
On investigations, Johnston and her S.C.A.R.E. team monitor changes in static and use voice recorders to try to capture electronic voice phenomena.
When they go in a house, they ask questions of the spirits they believe are there. Often they can’t hear anything in person, but the responses, such as comments on the investigators’ conversation or answers to yes or no questions, are evident when they listen to the recording afterward.
“We capture some things that scare me,” she said. “But it makes me more curious. It’s all about facing my fears. It’s been liberating to learn to not be afraid of what I heard in my house, and I want to help other people not be afraid of the things they hear. Fear itself can be worse than the actual haunting.”
Still, Johnston doesn’t tell her younger children, River and Chance, ages 5 and 3, about everything she does and sees. But her oldest son, 10-year-old Luke, heard voices initially along with his mom and has been on the journey with her all along the way. He’s now asking Johnston to come tell ghost stories to his classmates at Chelsea Park Elementary.
“I am at peace with what’s going on in my own home,” Johnston said. “I tell my kids it’s okay and that nothing will harm them.”
Haunted Shelby County, Alabama is available on Amazon.com and locally at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Little Professor and Alabama Booksmith.
