Bachelor’s Grove: Ghosts, Gangsters, and a Phantom House Party

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Strange History podcast, where we explore

0:04 Speaker 1: the weird, the haunted, and the historically WTF. I'm your host, Amy,

0:10 Speaker 1: and today we're stepping into a crumbling cemetery tucked deep

0:14 Speaker 1: in the woods of Illinois that has more ghosts per

0:17 Speaker 1: square foot than a season of Ghost Adventures. That's right,

0:22 Speaker 1: We're talking about Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, located just outside of Chicago.

0:27 Speaker 1: Bachelor's Grove isn't just your average abandoned graveyard. It's a

0:31 Speaker 1: vortex of ghost sightings, gangster lore, mysterious lights, vanishing houses,

0:37 Speaker 1: and one very spectral woman who really needs to stop

0:40 Speaker 1: loitering on that damn bench. So grab your EMF detectors,

0:44 Speaker 1: hold onto your ectoplasm, and let's dig into the strange

0:48 Speaker 1: history of Bachelor's Grove.

0:50 Speaker 2: How to bury a mystery?

0:53 Speaker 1: So where is this place exactly? Bachelor's Grove Cemetery is

0:57 Speaker 1: nestled inside the Rubio Woods Forest Preserve in Midlothian, Illinois,

1:01 Speaker 1: a sleepy little spot with a not so sleepy supernatural reputation.

1:07 Speaker 1: The land was first settled in the eighteen thirties by

1:09 Speaker 1: German immigrants, and the cemetery was established shortly after, around

1:14 Speaker 1: eighteen forty four. Back then it was known as Everden Cemetery,

1:19 Speaker 1: but over time the name morphed into Bachelor's Grove, likely

1:24 Speaker 1: a nod to a group of unmarried men who were

1:26 Speaker 1: said to have lived nearby, Either that or early tender

1:30 Speaker 1: users who took things way too literally. The cemetery was

1:35 Speaker 1: active through the late nineteenth century, but by the nineteen

1:38 Speaker 1: sixties it had fallen into disrepair, overgrown, forgotten, and eventually

1:44 Speaker 1: closed to burials altogether. But while the living stopped coming,

1:49 Speaker 1: the dead apparently never left.

1:52 Speaker 2: The ghost hit parade.

1:54 Speaker 1: Let's start with the star of the spectral show, the

1:57 Speaker 1: Lady in White, sometimes called the Madonna of Bachelor's Grove.

2:01 Speaker 1: She's been spotted countless time since the nineteen seventies, often

2:05 Speaker 1: sitting on a crumbling bench near the edge of the cemetery.

2:09 Speaker 1: She wears a white dress because of course she does,

2:12 Speaker 1: and she's often carrying a baby. Who is she? No

2:16 Speaker 1: one knows. There are no records of a woman buried

2:19 Speaker 1: there with a baby, but she appears often enough to

2:21 Speaker 1: make local ghost hunters consider her a regular.

2:25 Speaker 2: Peekaboo Stephen King's style.

2:28 Speaker 1: Then there's the Phantom House no joke. This isn't just

2:32 Speaker 1: some shadow or flickering light. Multiple people have reported seeing

2:36 Speaker 1: an entire Victorian style farmhouse in the woods just off

2:39 Speaker 1: the trail. Visitors say it appears suddenly, fully intact with

2:43 Speaker 1: lights on, and then poof, it vanishes, like a weird

2:48 Speaker 1: game of haunted peekaboo. Some folks even claimed they tried

2:52 Speaker 1: to approach it, only for it to get smaller the

2:54 Speaker 1: closer they got. One guy in the nineties described it

2:58 Speaker 1: as like walking toward a mirage that didn't want you there.

3:02 Speaker 1: There was a local teacher named Marie from Oak Forest, Illinois,

3:06 Speaker 1: who had her own encounter with the phantom house in

3:08 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four.

3:10 Speaker 3: I was walking the trail just before dusk with my sister.

3:14 Speaker 3: We weren't ghost hunters, We just liked exploring old cemeteries.

3:18 Speaker 3: As we got closer to the edge of the woods

3:20 Speaker 3: near the lagoon, I saw what looked like a two

3:23 Speaker 3: story white farmhouse. It had a wrap around porch and

3:26 Speaker 3: a flickering light in the window. I remember thinking it

3:30 Speaker 3: looked weirdly out of place, too well kept for the area.

3:34 Speaker 1: Marie and her sister were so intrigued they decided to

3:37 Speaker 1: try and get a closer look.

3:39 Speaker 3: But as we walked toward it, it didn't stay the same.

3:42 Speaker 3: It shimmered like heat rising off pavement, and then it

3:46 Speaker 3: started to shrink, like it was getting smaller and smaller

3:50 Speaker 3: the closer we got. I turned to my sister and said,

3:53 Speaker 3: do you see that? And she said, it's getting smaller,

3:56 Speaker 3: isn't it. We were both frozen. Then it just vanished,

4:00 Speaker 3: like blinked out. I still get goosebumps when I talk

4:03 Speaker 3: about it. This type of story isn't unique. Similar phantom

4:07 Speaker 3: house sightings have been reported for over seventy years by

4:11 Speaker 3: dozens of unrelated people.

4:13 Speaker 2: Lights orbs action.

4:16 Speaker 1: But wait, there's more. Bachelor's Grove has become infamous for

4:20 Speaker 1: its floating lights and mysterious blue orbs. People have reported

4:24 Speaker 1: seeing glowing balls of light darting between trees, floating near tombstones,

4:29 Speaker 1: or sometimes hovering inches above the pond, which we'll talk

4:33 Speaker 1: about in a second, because who boy, it has stories.

4:36 Speaker 1: Ghost hunters have caught them on film. Skeptics have tried

4:39 Speaker 1: to explain them away as swamp gas, headlights or fireflies

4:43 Speaker 1: on steroids, but no natural explanation really covers the fact

4:47 Speaker 1: that some of these orbs seem to react to people.

4:50 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Rosa m, a hiker and nurse,

4:54 Speaker 1: met one of those orbs.

4:56 Speaker 4: It was just before sundown. I wasn't there for ghosts,

4:59 Speaker 4: just wh fucking off stress. After a long shift, I

5:02 Speaker 4: saw a bluish light hovering above one of the tombstones.

5:05 Speaker 4: I thought it was someone with a flashlight, but it

5:08 Speaker 4: wasn't moving like one. It was bobbing, drifting, like it

5:11 Speaker 4: was scanning the area.

5:14 Speaker 1: Rosa said the light floated toward her paused a few

5:17 Speaker 1: feet in front of her face, then made a sharp

5:20 Speaker 1: ninety degree turn and shot straight into the woods.

5:24 Speaker 4: I was frozen. I couldn't breathe. It didn't make a sound,

5:27 Speaker 4: and it moved like nothing I've ever seen. I told

5:29 Speaker 4: my brother about it later, and he said, congratulations, you

5:33 Speaker 4: just met the orb.

5:34 Speaker 1: This blue orb or will of the wisp phenomenon has

5:38 Speaker 1: been reported consistently since the nineteen seventies. No known atmospheric

5:43 Speaker 1: condition explains the directional intelligence these orbs seemed to display.

5:47 Speaker 1: One woman claimed an orb followed her for twenty minutes.

5:51 Speaker 1: Another swore the light winked at her. Is it a ghost,

5:55 Speaker 1: an alien or just the most flirty orb in the

5:58 Speaker 1: Midwest murder pond. Now, let's wade into the creepiest corner

6:03 Speaker 1: of the grove, the lagoon or pond just off the

6:06 Speaker 1: cemetery trail. This body of water has long been associated

6:10 Speaker 1: with death, possibly murder. According to legend, the mob used

6:15 Speaker 1: this pond as a dumping ground during Prohibition yep, Chicago

6:19 Speaker 1: gangsters like al Capone were rumored to have used the

6:22 Speaker 1: area to dispose of enemies who'd outlive their usefulness. And

6:26 Speaker 1: the creepy part. Divers have actually reported finding cars, bones,

6:32 Speaker 1: and even concrete shoes at the bottom of the pond.

6:35 Speaker 1: It's basically a watery mob graveyard. Add to that ghost

6:40 Speaker 1: sightings of a phantom horse and plow emerging from the

6:43 Speaker 1: water linked to a tragic accident where a farmer and

6:46 Speaker 1: his horse drowned in the eighteen seventies, and you've got

6:49 Speaker 1: a recipe for spectral chaos. In two thousand and five,

6:53 Speaker 1: Alvin R. Ghost hunter and veteran, had his very own

6:56 Speaker 1: encounter with what might have been one of those murderous gangsters.

7:00 Speaker 5: We were investigating the cemetery at night, me, my wife

7:05 Speaker 5: and two others. I had a digital recorder thermal camera

7:10 Speaker 5: an EMF reader. Around midnight, I walked near the lagoon

7:14 Speaker 5: alone to get audio without contamination. That's when it happened.

7:20 Speaker 1: Alvin reported that something unseen grabbed his arm and yanked

7:23 Speaker 1: him backward.

7:24 Speaker 5: It wasn't subtle. It felt like someone bigger than me, strong, angry.

7:31 Speaker 5: I hit the ground hard. My wife heard me yell

7:34 Speaker 5: and came running. There was no one around, but I

7:37 Speaker 5: had a red mark like a handprint on my forearm.

7:40 Speaker 5: Stayed there for two days.

7:42 Speaker 1: His EMF detector, which had been silent all night, spiked

7:46 Speaker 1: off the charts right before the incident. His recording captured

7:50 Speaker 1: a male voice whispering get out.

7:53 Speaker 2: Desecration and vandalism.

7:56 Speaker 1: Now a big part of why Bachelor's Grove is so

7:59 Speaker 1: active might have to do with how terribly it's been

8:02 Speaker 1: treated over the years. During the nineteen sixties through the nineties,

8:07 Speaker 1: the cemetery became a hangout for vandals, thrill seekers, and

8:11 Speaker 1: people with zero respect for the dead. Headstones were smashed

8:15 Speaker 1: or stolen, graves were opened, Satanic symbols were spray painted

8:19 Speaker 1: across the site. One guy even took home a stolen headstone.

8:24 Speaker 1: That teenager was none other than a man named Jerry,

8:27 Speaker 1: who was a former skeptic turned believer.

8:30 Speaker 6: When I was a dumb seventeen year old in nineteen

8:33 Speaker 6: seventy eight, me and my friend stole a small headstone

8:35 Speaker 6: from the cemetery. We thought it'd be funny to use

8:38 Speaker 6: it as a table for our weed sessions. Big mistake.

8:42 Speaker 1: What followed was a string of unexplained occurrences.

8:45 Speaker 6: We started hearing knocking sounds on the walls of the

8:48 Speaker 6: basement where we kept the stone, then cold spots, and

8:51 Speaker 6: the feeling like we were being watched. One night, the

8:54 Speaker 6: stereo turned on by itself, loud, and the stone had

8:58 Speaker 6: moved three feet across the room.

9:00 Speaker 1: They returned the headstone within a week.

9:03 Speaker 6: As soon as we put it back, everything stopped. Not

9:06 Speaker 6: a single weird thing After that, I learned a hard lesson.

9:10 Speaker 6: Never screw with the dead man. They have a long memory.

9:14 Speaker 6: The most famous photo.

9:16 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, the Ghost Research Society captured what

9:20 Speaker 1: is still considered one of the most famous paranormal photos

9:23 Speaker 1: ever taken. They were photographing an empty bench at the

9:26 Speaker 1: cemetery using infrared film, but when the photos were developed, bam.

9:32 Speaker 1: There it was a translucent figure of a woman in

9:35 Speaker 1: period clothing sitting casually on the bench, looking sad but

9:39 Speaker 1: oddly photogenic. There was no one in the area at

9:43 Speaker 1: the time, no one in costume, no double exposure. Just

9:47 Speaker 1: one ghost making her editorial debut. Someone get her an agent.

9:52 Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, Tom Navarro, an amateur photographer, had

9:57 Speaker 1: his own special meeting with Madonna. Tom was photographing the

10:02 Speaker 1: cemetery for a local college art project. He brought along

10:05 Speaker 1: infrared film to experiment with contrast in overgrown environments.

10:11 Speaker 7: It was late afternoon, kind of overcast. I was taking

10:15 Speaker 7: a shot of this empty bench near the west edge

10:17 Speaker 7: of the cemetery. I swear on my mother's grave there

10:21 Speaker 7: was no one there. I even waited for a few

10:24 Speaker 7: people to walk by so I could get a clean shot.

10:27 Speaker 7: I took the photo, didn't think twice about it.

10:30 Speaker 1: When Tom developed his film days later, something strange showed up.

10:35 Speaker 7: On the bench sat this woman, pale, wearing this long

10:39 Speaker 7: dress that looked like it belonged in a dageratype. You

10:42 Speaker 7: could see the ribs of her corset. Her hands were

10:45 Speaker 7: folded like she was waiting for someone. But the kicker

10:49 Speaker 7: you could see through her her legs faded into nothing

10:52 Speaker 7: below the knees. My professor thought I doctored it, but

10:56 Speaker 7: this was film, not digital. I had no way to

10:58 Speaker 7: fake that.

11:00 Speaker 1: This aligns eerily with the famous nineteen ninety one photo

11:03 Speaker 1: captured by the Ghost Research Society, also showing a transparent

11:08 Speaker 1: woman in old fashioned clothing seated on a headstone. Other

11:12 Speaker 1: creepy encounters include Elaine K, a park ranger in the

11:16 Speaker 1: area whose job it was to lock the gates at dusk.

11:20 Speaker 3: It was twenty ten.

11:21 Speaker 8: I was locking up the forest preserved trail gates for

11:23 Speaker 8: the night when I saw a black nineteen forties style

11:26 Speaker 8: car parked near the entrance to the cemetery path. It

11:30 Speaker 8: wasn't there earlier, and no one should have been on

11:32 Speaker 8: the trail after dark.

11:35 Speaker 1: Elaine walked over to tell the driver they needed to leave.

11:38 Speaker 8: As I approached, the car simply vanished, not sped off,

11:43 Speaker 8: not turned away. It was just gone. No tire marks,

11:47 Speaker 8: no noise, like it blinked out of existence. I radioed

11:51 Speaker 8: it in, but what do you even say, Hey, dispatch?

11:56 Speaker 8: A ghost buick just pieced out on me.

11:59 Speaker 1: This phantom car are often described as a black or

12:02 Speaker 1: dark green nineteen forties era vehicle has been spotted dozens

12:06 Speaker 1: of times by both casual visitors and law enforcement officers alike.

12:11 Speaker 2: Theories and final thoughts.

12:13 Speaker 1: So what's the deal with Bachelor's Grove? Is it a

12:16 Speaker 1: paranormal hot spot, a psychic sponge soaked with grief and violence?

12:22 Speaker 1: Or is it simply a case of overactive imaginations in

12:25 Speaker 1: a spooky setting. Maybe it's a little of everything, history, tragedy, desecration,

12:32 Speaker 1: urban legends, all stirred together in a moss covered cocktail

12:36 Speaker 1: of creepiness. But one thing's for sure if you ever visit,

12:41 Speaker 1: be respectful, don't take anything, don't knock over gravestones, and

12:46 Speaker 1: for the love of all things spectral, don't follow any

12:49 Speaker 1: ghostly women into the woods. That's it for today's tour

12:53 Speaker 1: through the haunted hedges of Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. If you

12:56 Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe

13:01 Speaker 1: so you never miss a drop of Strange history. I'm Amy,

13:05 Speaker 1: and this was the Strange History Podcast. Until next time,

13:09 Speaker 1: stay strange, and stay respectful of the dead. They're watching