The Famous Ghost Of The Myrtles Plantation
Mr. Jason Hayes/FlickrThe Myrtles Plantation by night.
In 1992, when the proprietress of Louisiana’s Myrtles Plantation photographed the property as part of an insurance company requirement, something remarkable happened.
In between two of the buildings, a figure appeared. A dark, female shape stood upright in the corner.
The St. Francisville site naturally had a cruel history of slavery and today it is considered one of the most haunted places in America.
According to The Myrtles Plantation website, even a film crew for the National Geographic Explorer agreed that the photo contained what looked like the ghost of a slave girl. They recommended using it as a postcard, which the plantation did.
Though her shape is clearly silhouetted between The General’s Store and the Butler’s Pantry of the property, the exterior boards of the house are just as visible. She was partly translucent, partly opaque, and entirely, glaringly present in the photograph.
Fortean Slip/ YoutubePhoto of the alleged ghost of “Chloe” at Myrtles Plantation. The figure is circled.
In May 1995, a patent researcher named Norman Benoit visited the site to do some rigorous analysis of the potentially paranormal incident.
He found that this was, indeed, the image of a person who was simply not present at the time the photograph was taken. He enlarged it, increased the contrasts, and found that the dimensions and proportions of the figure were entirely in line with human measurements.
The postcard has since been dubbed the Chloe Postcard — named after the young slave girl who was said to have caught the attention of the plantation’s owner, Clarke Woodruff.
As the story goes, Chloe was propositioned by Woodruff into a sexual relationship. Seeing as she was a slave, Chloe had little choice in the matter and was deathly afraid Mrs. Woodruff would find out. So she began eavesdropping on Mrs. Woodruff. She was caught one day and had her ear cut off as punishment.
For revenge, she slipped poison into the family’s food. Mrs. Woodruff and two of her kids promptly died.
The other slaves, afraid they’d be seen as co-conspirators by the surviving Mr. Woodruff, hanged Chloe from a tree. They then cut her down and threw her body into the river. Some believe her spirit lived on, stalking the grounds.
Shanna Riley/FlickrMyrtles Plantation certainly gives off an eerie vibe.
In the 1970s, the plantation was purchased by the Meyers family and turned into a bed and breakfast. Ghostly apparitions and noises have been reported there ever since.
Even before American slavery, though, the property was built on top of an Indian burial ground — which purportedly led to sightings of a Native American woman’s ghost on the gazebo centuries later. William Winter, a man killed at Myrtles Plantation, has also been seen.
Of course, there’s no scientifically accredited way of confirming whether or not a ghost has been captured on film. Thus, only the stories from one highly ominous photograph remain.
