Ryan Keith was both storyteller and photographer for the program about Wake Forest’s ghosts at the Wake Forest Historical Museum Sunday, Oct. 16.
He had carefully arranged the battery-powered video camera to catch both the video he had prerecorded and his narration at the front of the small auditorium.
The program went swimmingly, with additional tales about ghosts related by Ed Morris, the director at the museum, and Hugh Nourse, who maintains the gardens around the museum and the Calvin Jones House.
Keith took the camera and its flash drive home and, a couple days later, decided to review it and perhaps edit it. He was watching the sound volume along with the video.
The hiss started out as a background noise and then began swelling until Keith could not hear himself in the video. Then – suddenly – it stopped.
But almost immediately the hiss was back, just a whisper at first and growing to a loud growl. Then, again, it stopped.
This was repeated and repeated – and then the camera stopped filming 26 minutes into the program that lasted about 45 minutes.
How did this happen? What was the cause?
Keith said the battery was new and still had available power. It was not an equipment problem or failure.
Morris has an explanation – the resident ghost or spirit at the museum. It is someone who became angry when the local white lightning still was installed in an exhibit. It has flung the pictures that hang above the still across to the other wall. It turns on the movement-activated lights in the bathrooms and the movement security sensors.
Now, apparently, it is more than irritated by talk about ghosts.
