Active Spirits Haunt the Stops on Madison Ghost Walks' Tour, Say Psychics
(Image credit: Emily Wayland)
Madison Ghost Walks has been providing tours of famous haunted locales in Madison's downtown for years, and now two women have come forward to say that perhaps the tour offers more than simply entertaining ghost stories.
The Singular Fortean Society (TSFS) met Jena and Wendy at last Saturday's tour, and both women say they've experienced ghostly phenomena while in attendance--although that may be because of their psychic abilities. Jena told TSFS that she is a psychic medium, while Wendy explained that she herself is a psychic intuitive.
“I am a medium, and...encounter spirits and talk to dead people all the time," said Jena.
“When I see things I don’t physically see it. I know it’s there, it’s in my mind. I don’t typically physically see things, but it does on occasion happen," she explained. “It’s a combination of senses. It’s an image that will play out like a movie, but it will be accompanied by physical sensations—you’ll feel the touch or the actual emotions of the spirit, sometimes there’s a smell. Occasionally I will physically see something, but not very often, that’s something I’ve tried to turn off because it's frightening.”
“I’m not a medium, I’m an intuitive," Wendy said. "They don’t necessarily talk to me, but I get touched quite a bit. I get physical sensations that I can’t explain.”
The Majestic Theatre marquis. (Image credit: Emily Wayland)
One of the most popular stops on the Madison Ghost Walks tour is the Majestic Theatre, said to be haunted by at least one shadowy spirit. Ghost Host Lisa, the tour's guide, said that the Majestic's employees routinely refer to their resident ghost as Joe, although a medium present on a different tour suggested his name is instead James.
But Jena and Wendy think he might go by Jimmy.
"When we were [at the Majestic Theatre] we encountered him and he was rather--grumpy is a nice way of putting it--and he said he did not like to be called that, he liked to be called Jimmy," said Jena.
Madison's capitol building. (Image credit: Emily Wayland)
Also included in the walking tour is the centerpiece of Madison's downtown district--its capitol building. The fourth floor of this historic landmark is reputedly haunted, and reports of strange activity have come from government staff who, naturally, wish to remain anonymous.
It was here that Jena and Wendy had a disturbing encounter with an unusually aggressive ghost.
“It was right by the capitol that there was some entity, I’m not entirely sure who it was," said Jena. "So this entity I started feeling on my back, and it actually started getting kind of right in [Wendy's] business, and he was smelling her neck."
“He was smelling my neck, licking my arm," added Wendy.
“It was very creepy, and then he started licking her arm and he was just very, there’s no nice way to say it, very sexually aggressive towards her," Jena continued. "So I was kind of just like ‘Are you okay? Are you feeling okay?’ She's just like ‘Ugh.’ So she eventually had to be kind of firm and tell him to get the hell out of here."
“The physical sensations that I was feeling was my whole left arm and neck was kind of prickly. It was just like weird nerves; somebody touching and pricking all over," said Wendy.
“My left arm was doing the same thing," Jena said. "And then I could feel the sensation of being grabbed on my wrist and pushed on my shoulder blade. He wasn’t sexual towards me but he was aggressive. He was pushing and pulling and touching me.”
That wasn't the only paranormal experience they had outside of the capitol, although it was certainly the most unpleasant.
“I saw [a spirit] at the capitol, in the window...it was towards the middle, on the fourth floor. I couldn’t tell you who it was, they didn’t identify themselves or talk to me, they were just there," said Jena.
“I felt a presence up there as well, just looking up there," corroborated Wendy.
The two women laughed uncomfortably at the experience, but said it won't stop them from taking the tour again.
Anyone interested in tickets for the haunted tour can purchase them in advance through the Madison Ghost Walks' website, but don't be surprised if the chill creeping up your spine turns out to be more than just the wind off the lakes.