The Horrifying Ghost Stories at the White House

Careful, Trump! The most famous US address is full of stories about spirits of former presidents, their relatives and employees and even visitors

GO LIGHT, LINCOLN!

Shot, the most famous spirit of the presidential residence is that of Abraham Lincoln. Dozens of people have reported having had some contact with the president assassinated in 1865. Among them are presidents Ted Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Queen Wilhelmina of Holland and Ronald Reagan's daughter Maureen.



INDISCRETE FLAG


In World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill came out of a bath in the old Lincoln suite. He was naked, with a cigar in his hand, when he found Lincoln himself by the fireplace. The Englishman just had time to say, "Good evening, Mr. President. It seems that you have taken me at a disadvantage. " The spirit smiled and disappeared. Churchill asked to change rooms.

CHILD FOREVER


Abraham Lincoln's third child, Willie, passed away at the White House, at the age of 11, during his father's term. Possibly a victim of typhoid fever. Death was grievously felt-Lincoln even feared that his wife, Mary, would go mad in mourning. Maybe that's why Willie never "walked away": according to reports, he usually appears walking down the aisles.



THE DONOR OF EARTH


A large area of Washington D.C. was part of the David Burns farm. But he was pressured by then-President George Washington to sell a piece, where the White House was built. Maybe Burns has held a grudge: an aide to Franklin Roosevelt and a security guard of Harry Truman have heard a voice in the Yellow Oval Office saying "I am David Burns."



CLEMENCE, PRESIDENT!

Some spirits visit with "date marked". On the nights of July 7, it is Anne Surratt's turn, usually sighted outside the gates of the residence by security officials or visitors. Shouting, she apologizes for her mother, Mary, who was hanged on July 7, 1865, on charges of participating in the plot that murdered Lincoln at the Ford Theater.



SOLDIER UNKNOWN


Also at the entrance of the residence were two other ghosts: an old porter, who worked for more than three decades at the scene, and a young British soldier who participated in the battle of 1812, when the city of Washington was razed and the White House, burned. The officer would have started the fire and, minutes later, died of a heart attack.

UNLOADABLE FLOWERS


Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison, would have designed the Rose Garden. She left the estate in 1817 and died in 1849, but continues in the area: in 1913, First Lady Ellen Wilson wanted to move the flowers, but the gardeners could not. They said Dolley appeared to them, furious. The plants were never transferred again.



PUPPY OF COMADRES

A consolation for Hillary Clinton defeated by Trump in the election of 2016: she will not have to deal with any soul punished! The former First Lady said that during Bill Clinton's tenure she was accustomed to talking to Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived in the house between 1933 and 1945. Eleanor herself, when alive, said she felt a strange presence in Lincoln's old office .


- It is always good to stress: there has not yet been an uncontested record of the existence of ghosts. Evidence offered by paranormal hunters, psychics, or seers is always met with skepticism by the scientific community.

"In the specific case of the White House, for every person who claims to have found some spirit, there are hundreds of others who lived there and never saw anything.

- The White House is an environment of extreme stress and pressure. Weak or exhausted people are more prone to auditory or optical illusions.

"The" visions "may have been stimulated by the ghost stories themselves, in an endless cycle. First Lady Claudia Johnson, for example, admitted that the day she felt Lincoln's presence, she had watched a documentary about him.

- Narratives can also be motivated by some personal marketing. Churchill, for example, was an accomplished storyteller. It seems natural that he, a notorious egocentric, has seen himself speaking "on an equal footing" with the one who is considered the most beloved president in US history.

- And more: some cases are simply not real. The Rose Garden was not even created by Dolley Madison, but rather by Ellen Wilson herself - the one who, according to legend, would have tried to mess up the original design.


 SOURCES Ghosts: Washington's Most Famous Ghost Stories by John Alexander and Historic Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott