Amanda Blackman's Dark Place

Photo credit: Taelar Pollman · The Sentry

Ghost adventures

Do you believe in ghosts? My best friend does, my husband doesn’t, and I’m in the middle. But that’s not what matters here. What matters is that husband took my friend and I on a once in a lifetime trip to one of the most haunted mansions in America to prove to my best friend that ghosts aren’t real.

The three of us road tripped out to middle of nowhere Kansas to the McFerron Mansion last Spring Break. I started to feel sick and made sure we stopped a few times on the way to get cold medicine. Nothing was going to stop me from joining on this trip that would end the friend group ghost dispute.

In case you haven’t heard of it, the McFerron Mansion is a hauntings hotspot, as the entire family is buried in the family crypt in the basement. Together, the three of us were going to spend a night in the crypt.

As soon as we got to the mansion, we carried our ghost hunting supplies into the basement and pushed the old stone door out of the way to the crypt. The first thing you see in the crypt are the 8 coffins that line the perimeter of the creepy room. With the meters and sensors set across the room after sundown, our tests began. My husband yelled at the “ghosts,” my friend politely asked to not get haunted, and I sat there coughing, trying to remember the last time I took Sudafed so I could take more.

After hours of taunting, nothing happened until my husband stood and made one bold statement: “I don’t think you stupid family of ghosts could scare me even if you tried.” When he sat down, I looked at my friend to see the blood drain out of her face as she weakly raised her hand to point across the room at one of the coffins.

The coffin was slowly raising off the ground. We all stood, ready to run when the coffin began to levitate towards us. Faster. And faster! It was racing toward us! My husband and friend turned to make a break for it when I had an idea. Out of my bag, I grabbed a bottle of cough syrup, threw it at the coffin, and it immediately fell to the ground, shaking the entire crypt.

“Why did you do that?” asked my friend, catching her breath after running from a ghost.

To which I replied: “Because Robitussin stops the coughin’ fast.”