Death Has An Echo

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When talking about paranormal experiences, the average skeptic might say that a person's eyes can play tricks on them.

But is the same true for our ears?

Now, like many veterans who failed to wear proper hearing protection, every once in a while I get a strong and obnoxious, high-pitched sound in my head.

But I've never heard gunfire and explosions that weren't actually happening in front of me.

Some people have.

It doesn't seem coincidental that these people also happen to be standing in places where violent battles once took place.

So, what did they hear?

Was it their ears playing tricks on them?

Or is it possible that where there is much death and suffering, suffering, a mark is left on the environment?

Something unexplained that causes that place to continually replay those gruesome moments of time, projecting the sounds of violent battle into the future.

Personally, I'm not sure how I'd react to suddenly hearing a battle going on around me.

But I'd probably feel just as terrified as these people did.

These are just a handful of such stories, experiences by people who claim to have heard something that wasn't there.

As if death

has an echo.

I'm Luke Lamana, and this is Wartime Stories.

From the moment Charles I ascended to the English throne in 1625, it was only a matter of time before he plunged his homeland into war.

As a devout believer in the divine right of kings, the idea that royal power was bestowed upon him by God himself, Charles held nothing but contempt for the parliamentary government.

Parliament existed to moderate the monarchy's rule, ensuring ensuring that economic, military, and legal matters were overseen by a larger governing body that aided the king in his decision-making or blocked his infringements on certain policies.

Time and time again, King Charles attempted to usurp parliament, determined to rule England with absolute unrestricted power.

In January of 1642, the long-simmering tensions between the British crown and the parliamentary government erupted into all-out civil war.

Initially, King Charles hoped to squash the growing rebellion in one decisive battle, calling on his wealthy royalist allies to assemble their forces in order to meet those being raised by the parliament.

However, a significant clash wouldn't be seen for nearly a year, the armies wandering around the English countryside as their patrols and scouts engaged in small, inconsequential skirmishes.

Finally, on the 23rd of October 1642, The two sides would meet one another at a place known as Edge Hill.

The open green fields and rolling hills were of little strategic value to either side.

It was just coincidence that the two forces found one another nearby and converged on the spot, pounding drums, sharpening blades, and loading their muskets for the long-anticipated battle.

Shortly after dawn, the two forces massed on the battlefield, thousands strong and largely composed of young, barely trained soldiers.

Though well into the age of gunpowder, the fight was more reminiscent of a medieval brawl, the royalist and parliament troops charging to meet one another face to face.

Pistols and muskets fired at point-blank range.

When the men ran out of black powder, they used their swords, daggers, pikes, and bayonets.

And when those broke, they turned to rocks and even their own fists.

From sunrise to sunset, commanders on both sides watched as their men engaged in an unrelenting slaughter, the air filled with the thunder of guns, the clash of blades, and screams of the dying.

By the time the sun dipped below the western horizon, few soldiers remained standing, those left wandering aimlessly about the sea of corpses, the air thick with a haze of gunpowder smoke.

Finally, both sides sounded their retreat, leaving Edgehill soaked in the blood of 4,000 dead and wounded men.

Neither side could claim victory.

Early the next morning, October 24th, men on both sides gathered once more, preparing to resume the melee.

Mercifully, however, a second day's fighting would never happen at Edgehill.

Instead, the two sides wandered around the battlefield, collecting wounded men and weapons before leaving the field altogether.

King Charles had hoped to end the war at Edgehill, but instead, this bloodbath was only the beginning, the battle setting a gruesome tone that would carry on for the rest of the English Civil War.

As the war moved on to other parts of England, it didn't take long for normal life to resume for Edgehill and its nearby residents.

The bodies of the dead were collected for burial in a nearby cemetery, and soon shepherds were once again bringing their flocks to graze on the gentle hills.

For anyone not aware of what had transpired there mere months before, it was almost as if war had never once touched this sleepy corner of the country.

However, according to historical testimony, the spirits of the men killed at Edge Hill were keen to keep their memory alive.

Master George, dost thou yet see how yon moon doth pale her light this eerie night?

Yes, and this place methinks holds such dark remembrances as no man would wish to bear.

Aye, it will.

Thou speakest true.

T'was on this very ground, but three months hence, men met their deaths in the most unholy dinner war.

The king's men in parliaments both.

There was no pity in their blades.

Thou knowest well.

Indeed, George.

My mind declare, though I I had best to forget it to find me sleep.

I did hear tell that more than a thousand souls were lost ere the day's end.

Oh, yes.

And yet, what he gives the earth to man's dying, grasses grow bold and green o'er their ruin, as though they never was.

True words, some yet cruel words, Will.

The hillside keeps its secret sure enough, but

my heart lies heavy to step here, knowing their blood doth lie beneath.

My cousin, poor lad, was but twenty years.

Now his bones lie scattered as if he was naught but a beast.

Hold now.

Dost thou hear aught, George?

Hey?

As God be my witness, I thought the air did stir with strange murmurings.

Hey!

Look thee there, real in the heavens.

Do my eyes betray me?

Or stand we but shadows to a world not ours?

By all the saints, those are men, men fighting and dying as they sing before.

In January of 1643, historian John Arrowsmith wrote a paper titled, A Great Wonder in Heaven, in which he describes the tale of some local shepherds who, while tending to their flocks on the Edgehill battleground, witnessed something as unnerving as it was remarkable.

While the shepherds sat watching beneath the stars, they were alarmed when the stillness of the night was broken by the echoing calls of horns and drums, similar to those of a mustering army.

The shepherds listened as the drums grew louder, and soon the sounds of battle followed.

Guns thundered, men and horses screaming in terrible agony.

It was as if the ongoing war had once again returned to Edge Hill.

And yet, the countryside for miles around them was completely empty.

Something then drew the shepherds' attention to the night sky above them.

John Arrowsmith described what the shepherds saw.

It came that the travelers, astonished and fearful, beheld in the air the same incorporeal soldiers that made these clamors.

And one army was of the king's colors.

and the other carrying those of the parliaments at their head.

The struggle lasted till two or three in the morning.

This dreadful fight, the clattering of arms, noises of cannon, cries of soldiers, both amazing and terrifying the poor men on the road, who saw all this at the doorstep to the heavens.

In the stars and clouds over Edge Hill, the men apparently bore witness to the ghostly forms of soldiers.

still engaged in the battle that had ended months before.

Alarmed, the shepherds quickly gathered their flocks and then retreated to the nearby town, where they alerted local officials about what they had just seen.

Said officials, understandably, thought the men to be drunk or were simply making the whole thing up, probably both.

But the shepherds insisted.

Eventually, it was enough to convince the officials, including the town's justice of the peace and clergyman, along with a group of curious citizens, to at least visit the battleground the following night, hoping to see the phenomena.

They were not disappointed.

Again, the distant sounds of battle signaled the arrival of the ghostly armies, who once more clashed in the dark skies over Edgehill.

The shepherds had been telling the truth.

As the weeks went by, tales of Edgehill's ghostly sounds and apparitions began to spread all over England, eventually coming to the attention of King Charles.

Having been present at the battle, the king had witnessed the bloodshed firsthand.

Being somewhat superstitious himself, he took a keen interest in the stories, immediately sending out some of his trusted officers to the area to see if the claims were actually true.

The men he sent had fought in the Battle of Edge Hill.

They were among the few survivors to leave the field.

It's not surprising then that when they visited the battle site and later returned to the king, their report sent a cold chill down his spine.

Everything that the king had heard was true.

What was more, his soldiers even said they had recognized some of the faces of the ghostly soldiers fighting in the sky.

It was clearly a traumatic experience for them.

Some of the faces they saw were those of close friends who were killed during the battle.

Maybe these are just stories.

Since these historical records were made, there aren't many other more contemporary reports of paranormal happenings at Edge Hill to speak of.

But still, the story lives on as a local legend.

If someone were to pass by the area on the anniversary of the battle, and if they listened closely, like King Charles, all of their doubts would disappear.

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There's an inherent sense of tragedy that comes with civil war, regardless of how noble the cause is.

Neighbors become enemies.

Fellow countrymen turn on each other as the battle lines are drawn between states, towns, communities, and even family households.

Maybe these kinds of tragic sentiments are what fuel the paranormal activity at places places like Edge Hill, where many Englishmen shed each other's blood.

Scattered across the eastern and central states, the battlefields of the American Civil War are an iconic testament to the brutality of civil conflicts, and most of them are said to be haunted.

But of all those where ghosts and specters have been reported, the battlefield at Gettysburg is top of the list.

Nestled in southern Pennsylvania, the quiet little town would find itself at the heart of one of the Civil War's most decisive battles.

Interestingly, how the battle started isn't all that different from the battle at Edge Hill two centuries earlier.

In the summer of 1863, Confederate General Robert E.

Lee's Army of Northern Virginia launched its second invasion of the North, intending to threaten the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and even the nation's capital city of Washington, D.C.

A Confederate force of over 70,000 men was therefore tasked with pushing into the state of Pennsylvania.

The Union force tasked with stopping them was General George Meade's Army of the Potomac, which outnumbered the Confederates at 100,000 strong.

For the better part of June, the Union troops searched for the Confederates, encountering only Confederate scouts and recon elements scattered around the Pennsylvania hills.

However, a chance run-in on July 1, 1863 between small elements of Union and Confederate cavalry in the town of Gettysburg would light the fuse on what would quickly become the bloodiest battle in American history.

The two armies converged on the town, clashing in its streets and surrounding woods.

The slaughter carried on for the next three days.

By the time the guns stopped firing, it was the Union who stood victorious.

But although the tides of the war were now turned firmly against the South, The cost of the battle was hard for all Americans to stomach.

People were already accustomed to the war's unparalleled death and destruction, but the Battle of Gettysburg would claim a staggering 50,000 casualties in just 72 hours of fighting.

As the war moved elsewhere, the citizens of Gettysburg were left exhausted, having to bury the fallen soldiers in shallow pits or mass graves, only for torrential downpours to later dislodge the decomposing corpses.

It was a grisly scene.

It wasn't long after the battle ended that strange stories began to circulate around the town and surrounding areas.

Stories suggesting that the spirits of countless Confederates and Union soldiers weren't really gone.

To this very day, Gettysburg is a hub for both history lovers and paranormal enthusiasts, the small town routinely welcoming over a million visitors each year.

One of these visitors in 2015 was an anonymous woman we will call Kate.

Sharing her story online using the handle Running Horse 94, Kate recalled a family vacation in which her family set out to explore the Gettysburg battlefield.

While wandering the area, half their time was spent knocking the ticks off their clothing as they waded through the thick grass of the battlefield.

But otherwise, she was enjoying the immersion in Civil War history.

And then something strange happened.

It was so weird, wasn't it, Mom?

Like,

he just sat straight up saying he heard cannons firing when it was dead silent.

Kind of freaks me out.

Well, the fellow on the ghost walk told us yesterday that

people are always hearing ghost cannons and gunshots and whatnot.

I don't know if I buy it.

Sounds like a bunch of hooey they make up to get tourists.

Where is that coming from?

Huh.

But it's so late in the evening.

Did y'all hear any mention about there being a reenactment today?

No.

Well, I reckon we should be going.

Don't want to be stuck out here after dark, you know.

Nice talking to you folks.

Come on, Brightus.

Being a big history lover, I was stoked to see the battlefield.

The weather was amazing, and the atmosphere was somber and peaceful.

The first day was mostly spent at the museum and walking parts of the battlefield.

Nothing really happened until we were getting ready for bed in the hotel room.

My brother sat up suddenly in bed and ran to the door, opening it and stepping into the hallway.

We asked him if he was okay.

And then he asked us if we had heard men yelling orders and cannon fire.

We had four people in the room and no one else had heard anything.

Over the next few days of their vacation, Kate and her family visited a number of sites around the town that had each played a key role in the historic battle.

and were also rife with paranormal legends.

One of these was a hill called Little Roundtop.

While exploring the hill's peak, Kate said she got down on her stomach between some rocks, sighting down the barrel of a make-believe rifle, trying to put herself in the shoes of the many Union soldiers who died holding the hill against the Confederate assault.

While looking downrange, she suddenly felt a hand gently on her shoulder before a voice whispered in her ear, I see him.

Startled, Kate turned, ready to cuss out her brother, who was clearly pulling a prank.

But he was standing by a small monument several feet away.

While not terrifying, the incident unnerved Kate, who then began to feel as if someone was lurking behind every rock and tree atop the infamous hill.

After her brother and father opted to return to the hotel, Kate continued to explore the battlefield with her mother, the two women then approaching an older couple parked alongside a stretch of road.

As they chatted together for a while, their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a distinctly ominous sound.

It was coming from the direction of the empty battlefield.

All of them now staring out over the valleys and tree lines, they wondered if there was some kind of Civil War reenactment happening.

Echoing over the fields were the sounds of fife and drum music, commonly played by Civil War soldiers on the march.

But there was no one in sight, and the sounds were clearly not coming from a distance.

The older couple were clearly unnerved.

Kate said they quickly excused themselves before hopping into their car and driving off.

Now alone on the edge of the field, Kate and her mother continued to listen to the strange marching tunes, wondering where on earth they were coming from.

The sun was going down.

It seemed unlikely that anyone would still be out roaming around the area this late, let alone performing some kind of reenactment.

Kate was then reminded of the ghostly voice she had heard on Little Roundtop.

She didn't mention it to her mother, but Kate couldn't help but wonder if the eerie music was yet another scar left by all the bloodshed.

On the final day of their vacation, Kate and her mother ventured out to explore the hill directly adjacent to Little Roundtop, appropriately dubbed Big Roundtop.

It was here that the Confederates mounted their fierce assaults on the Federal positions on the opposite smaller peak.

With With their legs feeling tired from days of constant hiking, Kate and her mother stepped off the trail, taking a seat on one of the many small boulders to rest.

That's when another strange thing happened.

It suddenly got quiet to the point there were no crickets, birds, or any other forest sounds.

Then, all at once, we heard horses snorting and trotting, galloping past us.

It full-on sounded like we were in the middle of a battle.

Bugle sounding, clashing of swords, muskets firing, and lots of men yelling.

We were in complete shock, and it lasted for maybe a couple of minutes, then it all stopped.

We started talking about what we had just witnessed, and then we heard several men calling out for help.

Help!

Help me!

I don't want to die.

And cry.

With all thought of their aching legs now forgotten, Kate and her mother wasted no time running back to the nearby parking lot.

They happened to run into a park ranger.

The man stared at the two women, now sweaty and out of breath, but their faces completely pale.

The ranger didn't seem surprised.

Apparently, it was an expression he had seen on the faces of a lot of visitors to Gettysburg over the years.

Much like the United States and Great Britain, the history of France is frequently marked by periods of war.

The European country has played host to some of history's bloodiest and most significant battles, being one of the primary stages of the First and Second World Wars.

That being said, it is no surprise that the country's many battlefields, from the Normandy beaches to the grasslands of the Somme,

are said to be haunted.

Located on the French coastline, the picturesque town of Dieppe was one such battleground.

While often swept under the rug in the wake of World War II's many great battles, the tragic events that played out on August 19, 1942 still loom large over the seaside community.

Hoping to test the strength of German defenses along the French coast, Allied commanders devised a plan for a lightning-fast raid on Dieppe and its small port.

The strategy itself was daring.

A raid force comprised of 237 small Royal Navy ships and landing craft would cross the English Channel undetected before disembarking.

Leading this assault would be 5,000 Canadian soldiers, spearheading their first major action of the war alongside 1,000 British commandos and 50 U.S.

Army Rangers.

The raid, codenamed Operation Jubilee, fell apart as the raiding party approached the French coast.

After being discovered by German patrol boats, an engagement broke out, alerting the German garrison stationed in Dieppe.

Shortly after dawn on August 19, 1942, the lead waves of Canadian troops, expecting to catch the enemy troops by surprise, found the Germans ready and waiting behind a well-coordinated defense.

Disembarking from their landing craft, the Canadians stumbled into a kill zone.

Machine gun and rifle fire tore into them from both the town ahead and from the towering cliffs flanking both ends of the landing beach.

Meanwhile, artillery and mortars rained down from above, disabling the tanks bogged down in the loose gravel of the beach.

Though the Allied troops fought well, the raid would be a costly failure.

Of the 5,000 Canadians that landed, 907 would be killed, along with a further 2,460 wounded and another 2,000 captured.

While Operation Jubilee did provide the Allies with valuable insight for the coming D-Day landings, the human toll was hard for Canada to stomach.

then a relatively small nation of only 11 million people.

Redemption for the Canadian forces would at least come on September 1st, 1944, when their soldiers triumphantly marched into Dieppe as liberators.

However, the war did leave a mark on the quaint seaside town.

Dorothy,

what are you doing up at this hour?

It's 4 a.m.

Agnes, you hear that?

Are those gunshots?

No, it can't be.

I thought the bloody war had started again.

It sounds like it's coming from

the beach.

Yes,

where all those poor Canadian boys died a decade ago.

I heard it was terrible.

By August 4th, 1951, Dieppe had become a favorite haunt for tourists like Dorothy Naughton and her sister-in-law Agnes.

Resting up after a day of swimming and sunbathing, Dorothy was woken up in the early morning hours by odd noises coming from the nearby beach.

Carried on the winds were the sounds of gunfire, explosions, roaring aircraft, and the shouts of men.

About 20 minutes later, Agnes came to join her on the hotel balcony, the two listening to what appeared to be a pitched battle for three hours before the sounds faded with the coming dawn.

The two women would record their experience, offering detailed notes for both the timing and progression of the phantom noises.

Eerily enough, according to the Society of Psychical Research, their account aligns eerily well with how the Dieppe raid had actually happened.

As it turned out, the hotel that the two women were staying at was close to what planners of Operation Jubilee dubbed Blue Beach.

It was here, nine years earlier, that around 556 men of the Royal Regiment of Canada made land after a 20-minute delay, resulting in the loss of the protective smokescreen.

By the time the last troops were evacuated off the beach around 2 p.m., 200 of their men had been killed, with another 264 being captured.

Today, it's hard to believe that Dieppe was the scene of one of the Second World War's greatest tragedies, its sunny beaches now playing host to thousands of cheerful visitors.

However, odd tales continue to persist.

Human beings rely heavily on the five senses of touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound in order to interpret and understand the world around us.

However, despite how finely tuned these senses might be, it's not all that hard to trick them.

Much like how light and shadows can fool our eyes into seeing things that aren't there, various environmental factors can also confuse our ears.

Acoustic shadows are defined as regions where sound waves are significantly reduced or absent due to the obstruction of the sonic path by an object or barrier.

These sound barriers can come in many forms, such as variations in geography, buildings, atmospheric temperature changes, or even wind currents, all capable of manipulating how noise is received by the human ear.

When, in effect, this phenomenon has a profound impact on how multiple people, sometimes mere feet apart, can detect and interpret sound waves.

A well-known example of this was recorded during the Battle of Gettysburg.

At the battle's climactic stage, over 150 Confederate artillery guns shelled the Union center in the largest bombardment of the Civil War.

So tremendous was the barrage that citizens in Pittsburgh reported hearing the distant rumble of guns from 150 miles away.

Curiously, soldiers and civilians a mere 10 miles from the battle's epicenter were left completely unaware of the shelling.

The rolling hills, valleys, and dense forests of the region nullified the sound waves in some areas, while elsewhere they were allowed to travel, uninhibited, for hundreds of miles.

While the science behind acoustic shadows is well-grounded, it doesn't seem to account for the more visceral aspects of these stories about people hearing the sounds of previous battles, as if, according to the acoustic shadow theory, they did hear an actual battle of some kind that was taking place at the same time they heard it.

but just very far away.

It also doesn't come close to accounting for the Englishmen who saw ghostly figures in the sky, voices being whispered in ears, and the other apparitions seen wandering over places like Gettysburg.

There is another theory.

Within the world of paranormal study, there was something known as stone tape theory.

The concept suggests that emotional or traumatic experiences can leave an imprint on the physical, natural environment.

At the center of this theory, as indicated by the name, are stones and various rocks that some believe possess the ability to record memories.

Acting like a tape recorder, these rocks are supposedly able, at certain intervals, to project these memories back into the world, thus resulting in ghostly apparitions or sounds.

Whatever the true reason for these experiences, and whether they continue to happen at those locations today,

One thing remains true.

There was at least one point in history when these strange sounds were heard by many people.

And that would be the men who lived the experience and whose lives were being ended on the battlefield.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidhum.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel.

Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden.

Artwork by Jessica Kloxen-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.