NjShoreGuide.com Original Feature
By John Stanowski

Perched on the southernmost tip of New Jersey lies the famous city of Cape May. Surrounded by water on three sides, this unique resort provides a pleasant small-town feeling and creates the sensation of going back in time to the 19th century with a quaint grid of beautiful streets lined with over 600 examples of prime Victorian architecture.

Of particular delight for vacationers are Cape May's gothic-style inns and stately mansions. But as visitors sidestep horse-drawn carriages to lovingly gaze up at the ornate steeples and old-paned windows, unseen shadows of the past glide out from dark corners and peer back. You see... Cape May also has it's share of ghosts.

An large number of inns, which serve as the bulk of Cape May's accommodations, may provide you with a moan in the night, a disembodied whisper by your pillow or even a glimpse of a transparent figure gliding past your door. One particular building comes with a bed that will occasionally shake seemingly on its own power.

What's an innkeeper to do?
 

Call paranomal investigator Al Rauber. Since 1973 he's been exploring the darker side of Cape May. With a passion for the paranormal, he attempts to make sense of all the mysterious bumps in the night. And he doesn't do it by pulling out an ouija board or starting up a séance—he uses science.

A noted parapsychologist, Al Rauber utilizes items such as high-tech thermometers, cameras, night vision equipment and electro-magnetic field detectors.

"There seems to be a relationship between electromagnetic fields and ghosts. I can go into a house and take EMF readings and be able to tell the owner where the activity takes place before I even interview him. Eighty-five percent of the time I hit the nail right on the head." According to Al, these fields give ghosts the energy they need to interact with the real world.

But the most convincing proof Al's collected is a series of ethereal voices captured on audiotape. He reports that his recordings do not represent stray noises or intercepted radio transmissions. He knows this because the voices often respond to direct questions or make reference to situations at the time of the recording. "When the voices respond to my questions, that's all the proof I need."

Al Rauber has since visited over a hundred locations in Cape May County reputed to be haunted. He's sat down with the owners and gathered their comments and impressions. He's contacted the guests. He's interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people about what they've experienced in the enchanted homes. And he's performed numerous investigations into what happens after the last beams of sunlight slide off their weathered panels.

"Cape May does have a high frequency of hauntings compared to other towns," says Al Rauber. "But in the overall scope of things, the whole east coast has more hauntings. The most common reason is this is the first area of settlement. You've got more history. It's the most concentrated with population, especially New Jersey, Philly and New York. And there's an awful lot of reasons, just geometrically, why there should be more hauntings."

"But there are other factors. If you were to look at the history of Cape May—it has a very violent history. A violent history full of tragedy."

The enchanted seaside resort wasn't always the beautiful place it is today. Having been comprised mostly of marshes, creeks and bogs, it was frequented by privateers and wreckers. It was visited by pirates who would anchor their ships off shore and spill out in search of fresh water bringing with them plight and plunder. A significant amount of grief was caused from prohibition and from a huge drop in tourism during the civil war. There were floods and there were fires. According to Al Rauber, it is this unpleasant history that had spawned the plethora of 'haunted houses.'

Having his ghostly register filled with such a large number of hauntings, Al Rauber decided that he would like to share it with others. So, in 1995 he formed the Haunted Cape May Tour. Al would gather curious and adventurous vacationers for a dark stroll along a route which intersected with homes and inns in which he had performed investigations. Al related the mysterious events that occurred at each stop to the awe and enthusiasm of the crowd.

The strange, new tour enjoyed great success and quickly rose in popularity. It's often been featured in local papers as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times. Most recently, it was highlighted as a 'must see' in a Newsweek travel piece.

What makes the Haunted Cape May Tour so unique from any other ghost tours is that Rauber takes great care not to glamorize. He feels strongly about, instead, relating how parapsychology allows us to study the ghost phenomena. "There are no legends in my tour. No folklore, no Jersey Devil. No one is going to leap from behind a bush and scare you." Instead, everyone gets an introductory course in parapsychology. "I want people to walk away from my tour saying, 'I've learned something tonight.'"

But it is the stories that are the real charm of the tour. Should you elect to roam the dark streets of Cape May and listen to tales of ghostly goings-on you will discover what really happens when the sky turns black over this quaint Victorian town.
 

You will hear the story of a waitress who died long ago but has somehow returned to roam the kitchen and dining room of the Union Park Restaurant at the Hotel Macomber at 727 Beach Avenue. Dubbed 'Lily' by the wait staff, she's been known to make her presence known. One of the bizarre events taking place include the mysterious and sudden disappearance of kitchen knives moments after they were placed down. On one disturbing day the entire kitchen staff witnessed heavy iron pots being flung off their hooks by an unseen force.

Lily's been known to get rougher than that. On one strange day a worker entered a walk-in refrigerator to retrieve supplies when she felt a cold hand touch her back and shove her forward into a row of shelves. When the frightened woman turned, there was no one to be seen.

You'll hear of the of a spectral lady of the night still working the third floor of a Columbia Avenue hotel. You'll hear of a ghostly pair of sisters who mischievously rearrange shelf items at a popular shop in the Washington Street Mall. And you will weave down Jackson Street, the most haunted street in Cape May, with a total of 6 hauntings on one block!

It's fantastic tales like these that have made Al Rauber's tour grow in popularity. Other tours had sprung up and tried to duplicate its success. At one time there were as many as four ghost tours in Cape May!

"We're the first, the original, and the best," says Diane Bixler, partner to Al Rauber in the tour venture. She began as a guide at one of the other tours. Disenchanted, she snuck out and went on one of Al's tours and was immediately impressed. "I thought, 'this is it'. This is the tour I want to be a part of."

Seemingly destined to work in this unusual field-she was born on Halloween-Diane now helms most of the tour outings herself which can sometimes be a daunting task. But Rauber is sure to make it back to Cape May several times each summer to head the tour himself. And he makes a point to be present during the Halloween season where the numbers of tour-goers can easily exceed a hundred.

"Sometimes we have to break them up into groups of two," says Diane. "One group will go out and then the other will follow five minutes later. It can be quite overwhelming at times."

And why not? Who can resist a good ghost story in the fall in a town that can resemble something out of a Stephen King movie? It also helps to know the stories are implied to be true and lovingly collected by a man—highly respected in his field—with the full cooperation and support of the homes owners.

"I've been all over the world in my job and Cape May is certainly one of the prettiest cities. There are wonderful, wonderful inn owners down there. I'm fortunate to call them friends. Most of them will send you to my tour. And that's wonderful. They know I'm not going to make up stories about their place, they know I'm going to give an honest interpretation of what's going on. And they like that."

The Haunted Cape May Tour runs from May through November. For ticket prices, schedules and more information, visit the official site at www.hauntednewjersey.com. Coming soon: NjShoreGuide.com's online guide to the Haunted Cape May Tour.

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