Seminole Spirits

In the mid-1990s, a young audio engineer visited Palm Beach Island to gather field recordings of the ocean breezes for a CD compilation of Floridian nature sounds. He experienced some abnormal technical difficulties. Although the breezes that day were mild, his hat continually blew off as though snagged by a hurricane gust.

When the audio engineer played back what he recorded, unexpected scratchings and thwappings, the din of natural materials gathered under the direction of human hands, greeted him instead of the gentle breezes. He became unnerved when he even heard chanting and the racing of heavy footsteps that played back in his recording.

In need of a stiff drink, the audio engineer retreated to his hotel bar. When the bar tender heard a clip, he paled. The bartender explained that the ghosts were Seminole Indians likely thatching palmetto roofs for their huts and preparing for the Green Corn Festival, which takes place at the beginning of the summer to usher in the start of the corn growing season and is also the celebration the Seminole New Year. “Stick around until the festival begins and you might get to see a few of them.”

Ghosts of Palm Beach Blog 14 Seminole Spirits © 2018 by Dr. Philip Ernest Schoenberg, Ghost with a Blog #ghost