South Carolina Ghost: August 2013

Moving is not easy. So many things to do, things going wrong, and just the general sense that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish what you want to do. I drove over three thousand miles in the last several weeks from South Carolina to Texas and back........ three trips over the last month! The last trip was with 3 shell shocked dogs that did not have a clue as to what was going on. Try spending two and a half hours on the swamp bridge in Louisiana in a traffic jam at 8 o'clock at night in a swarm of mosquitoes and you will know why people freak out while moving.

Piper and Blue on the road to South Carolina

Finally things are starting to settle down and now that things are kind of under control, it is time to go out and have some fun and start up with the investigations again.
Last Sunday at the spur of the moment, Mike and I decided to head out to the Cowpens National Battlefield. Fresh air, some exercise, and hopefully a few good photographic shots on the battle lines were our goal. We were just wanting a good day in the out of doors and we brought Blue along so he could stretch his little legs and get some fresh air too.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the Hardee's in Cowpens then headed out towards the battlefield. It has rained almost every day here in South Carolina for the past two months. Yes, you read that right......EVERY....SINGLE....DAY!!! It was cool, partly sunny with just enough cloud cover so that it was not blinding. Oh it felt good. Such high hopes for such a beautiful day! And then we get there and I realized that I had left the leash and harness for Blue on the kitchen counter. You ever have one of those moments where you can't believe that you have done something so incredibly stupid? Well this was one of them! I was so mad at myself!!!! Mike offered to turn around so we could go back and get it but at this point I was so frustrated with my apparent early onset dementia that I was determined to just make a quick trip around the track and I would just hold Blue. At only 6 pounds I figured how bad could it be?

Blue learning about battle lines.

We made a leisurely trip around the battlegrounds and stopped many times along the way to take some pictures and read the information boards. We came across a lot of families with kids and dogs. Every time we passed a happy dog on a leash I felt bad. Poor Blue was being denied a chance to run around like everyone else. Bad mom!!!
One thing that we always try to do when we are out taking pictures is to be aware of our surroundings and who we come across when taking photos.

Blue takes aim

We don't want to have someone unexpectedly come into one of our shots and mistake them for something else. The good thing about the Cowpens Battlefield is that it is basically a paved circle all around the grounds. You can see people in all directions coming toward you and past you and pedestrians are not allowed on the battlefield itself. Of all the groups we came across that day, all were families except for one couple, and an individual man and a woman that we made specific note of.
The first time we ever visited Cowpens Battlefield back in 2912, we got the incredible shot of a revolutionary soldier near a tree. Many of our followers from the original www.southcarolinaghost.com site may remember this amazing photo.

Original Cowpens photo from 2012

For those not familiar with this particular photo, we captured what appears to be a revolutionary soldier in full battle gear on the battlegrounds. He appeared in the center of the shot and was only there for a brief moment. Photos taken of the exact same spot just moments later do not have this image in it. Having captured such an amazing image on our last visit, we were hoping we would get something good again on this trip.
After a leisurely lap around the battlefield, we returned home to enjoy the last few hours of our weekend before it was time to return to work. A couple of days later when Mike was reviewing the photographs, he came across a series of photos that he had taken shortly after we started our walk around the grounds on Sunday. Amazingly enough they were taken almost in the same spot where we had taken the photo of the soldier last year. The photos show a time lapse of what appears to be a man who suddenly appears in the wood line, walks across the grass towards the path, then disappears once he gets to the paved walkway. Based on the timestamps of these photos, all this happened in less than a minute.

As I mentioned earlier, only twice during our walk did we come across single individuals. And never once were they off of the path and in the woods. When this series of pictures were taken, we had yet to come across anyone at that point. All was quiet in the woods.

Figure first appears at 2:36 pm.

In the first frame, what appears to be a man forms with movement of heading to the left. If you look closely you can see what appears to be arm very clearly moving in stride as if he was walking with a purpose. These photos were taken in quick succession and they were all taken from the same spot. Mike did not change his position while taking these individual photographs.