Do you believe in ghosts? It’s a question often asked on Halloween, and the answer usually depends on whether or not someone has actually seen one.

Those who’ve witnessed something strange go bump in the night would probably say yes; those who haven’t tend to be skeptical.

But the question almost always lends itself to the start of a great ghost story.

Selma, with its rich history and colorful residents, is a breeding ground for scary tales of haunts and unexplained phenomenon.

In fact, there are so many ghost stories that the Chamber of Commerce keeps files on known haunts and created a self-guided ghost tour around the city.

Some of these stories, like the Parkman ghosts at Sturdivant Hall and the strange glowing light at Old Cahawba, have been made famous by the work of our own Kathryn Tucker Windham.

With so many ghost stories or strange sightings around Selma, it’s hard not to wonder if something more than the living call Selma home.

Old Cahawba

Linda Derry is not quite sure she believes in ghosts, but she did experience something strange a few months ago.

The director of Old Cahawba Archaeological Park gave a guided tour to members of an Alabama paranormal society through the “New” Cemetery at the park. The group used all sorts of equipment to detect unusual activity, including a tape recorder.

“They went to the graves and asked questions, like ‘are you there?’ then waited in silence while the tape recorded,” Derry said. “When they played the tape back, you could hear a low hissing sound that sounded like ‘yessssss’.”

One of the “spirits” recorded on tape might have even been offering Derry a helpful hint about one of her staff.

“At one of the graves, the group recorded the something that sounded like ‘donkey’,” she said. “It didn’t make any sense, but then I thought it might be saying ‘Don’s keys’ and my maintenance supervisor is named Don. Later on, I found out that Don had lost his keys and some people riding through the park on horseback found them for him.”

The strange noises on a tape were not exactly concrete evidence for Derry that Old Cahawba is haunted, but she has heard plenty of tales from her staff and other visitors about hearing children’s laughter in the graveyard.

Hunters and fisherman passing through the area also still claim to see Pegues’ Ghost, a strange glowing sphere that floats through an area that was once a maze of cedars and popular place for young lovers to go courting.

Though the graveyard laughter and glowing sphere have not been witnessed by Derry, she says she wouldn’t be so quick to doubt the validity of the stories.

“The past is still here, if you look close,” Derry said. “You don’t have to believe in ghosts to have the past speak to you.”

Sturdivant Hall

Birmingham resident Kevin Cane was using his digital camera to take pictures outside the antebellum mansion in early August when he thought he caught a glimpse of a little girl passing through an upstairs window.

In a letter to the Sturdivant Hall staff, Cane wrote that he thought it was his imagination and continued on with his tour.

“It didn’t cross my mind again until I finally downloaded these photos to my computer and found the image of the figures in the window,” Cane wrote in his letter.

In the photograph of Sturdivant Hall, three strange, distorted images are clearly visible from the first floor, right-side window next to the front door.

Is it the ghosts of John Parkman and his two daughters, the famous haunts of Sturdivant Hall? It’s too hard to tell, but the photograph proves that something was there.

Sturdivant Director Mary Jo Van Zandt said the stories of Parkman’s ghost always attract plenty of visitors to the stately home this time of year.

A Mobile news television crew recently visited Sturdivant Hall to try to capture their own images of Parkman.

“I’m not sure if they found anything, but they did say the felt some movement,” Van Zandt said.

Selma’s Ghost Tour

Lauri Cothran, executive vice president of tourism for the Selma and Dallas County Chamber of Commerce, said the city’s ghost tour was created several years ago after so many out-of-towners began requesting to see some of Selma’s haunted places.

“We had several ghost stories on file here at the Chamber,” Cothran said. “So, we just went through our files and created a self-guided ghost tour.”

The tour takes visitors to several Selma sites where strange things have been known to occur.

“These stories are pretty well known,” Cothran said. “Selma has had so many significant events, and so many of our buildings were around during those times, so there is no telling what secrets they hold. I just heard two new ghost stories this week.”

Cothran added that numerous film and television crews have filmed some of these places, and she has received “tons of requests from people wanting to know about the tour.”

Cothran said next year she is hoping to have an organized ghost tour event that would bring a lot of ghost fans to Selma for Halloween.

“I’ve never seen anything myself, but it is not that I don’t believe,” she said. “There are too many things in this town that are unexplained.”

The chamber’s ghost tour is available online at www.selmaalabama.com or by calling the Chamber at 875-7241.