The Bell Witch: The Full Account (28 page)

and having a receding hairline, a short beard, and a

somewhat “long” face. Some say that the ghost of

John Bell himself haunts the old Bell cemetery, and

the description given by the man in the previous

account would have fit John Bell to a tee.

The Old Steel Bridge

For many years, the road between Adams,

Tennessee and Keysburg, Kentucky crossed the Red

River on an old, steel bridge that was removed in the

mid 1970s and replaced by the concrete span that is

used today, some 100 feet down the river.

Many people have reported seeing strange things

on and around the old bridge at night, such as a

light, human-shaped mist floating just above the

bridge’s surface. The mist usually began to fade

away or drift down into the Red River within a few

minutes of initially seeing it. No explanation has

been given to this phenomenon, and it has been seen

many times when the weather was such that no fog

could have possibly formed.

Another anomaly encountered on the old bridge

was car motors mysteriously dying and not starting

for several minutes, then finally restarting and

moving on. This phenomenon was also experienced

by earlier generations, long before the automobile

was invented, when horses mysteriously stopped in

the middle of the bridge and refused to move for

several minutes. The horses eventually started

moving again as though nothing had happened.

Double Shadows on Brown’s Ford Bluff

There is a particular spot along the old Nashville-

Clarksville roadbed on Brown’s Ford Bluff where it is

said that a person can stand and cast a double

shadow on certain nights.

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A clear, moonlit night obviously accounts for one

shadow; however, it is unknown what causes the

second shadow to be cast at times. In addition, one

only needs to walk a foot in any direction to “lose”

the second shadow. This spot is also a good distance

away from the glare of any nearby lights.

Like all other reported encounters with Kate, the

double shadows cast along the old roadbed is not a

consistent thing; i.e., some people experience it and

some don’t, standing in the same spot at the same

time. For example, two people walked up to this spot

late one night and only one could cast a double

shadow, despite the fact that both were wearing the

same color of clothing and stood on the same spot.

Also consistent with other reported encounters

with Kate is that there is no predictability of when

this phenomenon will occur. It could happen two or

three nights in a row, then not reoccur until several

months later and only on one night. To those who

are scientifically inclined, there obviously exists no

less than twenty different variables pertaining to this

scenario; however, to the author’s knowledge, a

correlation among those variables has yet to be made

by anyone in the scientific field.

The Kirby Family Buys the Cave

Bill “Bims” Eden died in the 1980s, and the Kirby

family purchased the farm in the spring of 1993 after

it had stood vacant for several years. The Kirbys

have experienced a number of strange occurrences in

and around the cave. One of the first such

experiences for the Kirbys took place around 1994,

when their daughter, Candy, was photographed

sitting on a rock outside the cave’s entrance.

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Strange Figure Appears in Photo

After the picture was developed, it was noted that

some “thing” that was not present when it was taken

appeared to be standing behind Candy. The entity

appeared as a human-like figure, resembling a man

in his mid-twenties with a dark, thick mustache and

very large muscles in his upper body.

The picture has been analyzed on different

occasions and it has been confirmed that the

human-like figure is not a “double,” but an entirely

separate entity. The shoes worn by this entity do not

match those worn by Candy, and part of the entity’s

body was actually in front of her at one place in the

picture.

A Serpent Crawls Up a Girl’s Leg

At the same rock on another occasion, a picture

was taken of two Girl Scouts. After being developed,

the picture no longer showed one of the girls and

showed a two-headed serpent crawling up the other

girl’s leg. Other strange pictures have been taken

near this rock, and for reasons unknown, getting a

good picture of the cave’s entrance is almost

unheard-of.

Another picture, taken in the 1970s when Bims

Eden lived at the farm, shows a group of people

standing in front of an old outbuilding that was still

on the property at the time near the top of Brown’s

Ford Bluff, where many strange things have

happened over the years. In this picture, a lady

casts a shadow different from what her own would

look like. Instead of a side-profile of her head and

body, the side-profile of a woman dressed in pioneer

clothing and holding a baby appears in the picture.

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Orbs and Mists Appear in Pictures

The three pictures mentioned above, in addition to

many other pictures that show mists, orbs and other

strange phenomena in and around the cave, are

owned by the Kirbys and shown to visitors who tour

the cave.

Many pictures that show unexplainable things

consistently reveal orbs in certain areas of the cave. u

The most common places where orbs are captured on

camera are at the cave’s entrance and inside a small,

dark hole in the back room. Whether digital media

or regular film is used, the pictures always turn out

the same.

One must be careful when analyzing pictures of

orbs, as the light from a flashbulb can reflect off a

falling drop of water and produce an image almost

identical to an orb. Generally, if an image is not a

complete circle, it is most likely not an orb. Most

orbs are circular whereas drops of water lose their

circular shape while falling through the air.

Many people with video cameras have captured

orbs moving randomly in and out of scenes. These

scenes must be analyzed in slow motion to determine

whether they contain real orbs or only drops of water

falling from the cave’s ceiling. If the image moves

across the scene in a horizontal pattern, it is not a

falling drop of water — this would defy the law of

gravity, and there is no wind inside the cave.

A picture that Chris Kirby took of the sinkhole

near her home one winter revealed a light mist rising

from the depths of the sinkhole. This is normal in

that the temperature outside was very cold and the

sinkhole’s base is in the cave, which is 57 degrees

year-round. It is the equivalent of warm water being

poured onto a cold surface — steam rises. What

makes this particular picture stand out is that the

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mist forms the image of an evil-looking face with

perfectly placed attributes — eyes, nose, and mouth.

In addition to pictures like those described above,

investigators have taken samples of unrecognizable

footprints and made tape recordings of sounds such

as children playing, women screaming, dogs

growling, and labored breathing at different places in

both the cave and around the old Bell farm in

general.

Technology has made it possible to digitally

photograph and electronically document unusual

occurrences that could not have been communicated

previously without aid of a pen and word-of-mouth,

as was the case in the days John Bell and his family

walked this land. Today, many of the unusual

occurrences on the old Bell farm are captured not

only in still picture and book form, but on videotapes

and audio recorders as well.

Some anomalies believed to be manifestations of

Kate are permanent in nature and can be seen at any

time. Perhaps the most astonishing of such

permanent manifestations is a rock formation near

the back of the cave that closely resembles the left

side of a “witch” head. v

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This natural rock formation on the ceiling of

“Bell Witch” Cave is known as the “Witch

Head.”

The “witch head” formation clearly shows a

forehead, eye, ear, nose, mouth, and chin that were

forged by nature onto the cave’s ceiling. In all

likelihood, this natural formation evolved over

thousands, and perhaps millions of years. Many

believe this eerie rock formation to be a

manifestation of Kate; however, many modern-day

stories suggest that she still manifests herself in

what was unmistakably her favorite form during the

days of John Bell – that being none other than the

form of a rabbit.

A Rabbit Leads to an Ancestor’s Grave

One morning several years ago, one of John Bell’s

direct descendants was rabbit hunting a few miles

from Springfield when he came upon a rabbit and

tried to shoot it. Unscathed, the rabbit quickly

darted across an old road and hopped into a patch of

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deep undergrowth. As the man walked through the

undergrowth trying to flush out the rabbit, he found

a lone, pointed rock near the center and decided to

investigate.

Upon removing the undergrowth from around the

rock, he discovered that it was the gravestone of Joel

Egbert Bell, one of his ancestors and the youngest

child of John and Lucy Bell. The rabbit was never

seen again; but because Kate often manifested

herself in the form of a rabbit, it was decided that

this incident was her doing. Despite Kate’s

seemingly bad reputation, this particular descendant

of John Bell was most likely glad to have found the

grave of his ancestor.

It has been the author’s experience on occasion to

jump large rabbits in the weeds near the old well on

the Bell property, about one hundred yards from

where the old house stood. The same can be said for

the Batts cemetery that is located about a mile south

of the old Bell farm.

When rabbits on the old Bell farm hop out of the

weeds adjacent to the old well and into the tobacco

field, they seemingly vanish. It should not have been

difficult to see a rabbit hopping across the field

because most of these incidents happened after the

tobacco harvest and when the field was clear. One

experience with the “rabbit phenomenon” took place

on a fall afternoon in 1999, when the author and

several others were on the farm (with permission, of

course) taking photographs for a book.

A Rabbit Throws Dirt Fifteen Feet

One of the people in the group, who was standing

some fifteen feet from the well, saw a large rabbit

spring out of the weeds and begin hopping in the

direction of an open field. In the process, the person

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was hit in the face by several large chunks of dirt

that flew through the air as the rabbit jumped.

The rabbit all of the sudden vanished and was

never seen again. The notion that a rabbit can kick

chunks of dirt fifteen feet at a 45-degree angle and

hit someone in the face is unheard of. What exactly

caused the dirt to fly so far remains a mystery;

however, the author and several other people

witnessed this remarkable occurrence with their own

eyes.

Rabbits Disappear from a Video Tape

In early June of 2000, the author was in

Robertson County making pictures for the book you

are now reading, when he was suddenly forced to

take cover from an approaching storm that consisted

of lightening, hail and funnel clouds. As his car

shook violently from the force of the high winds, he

made his way down an old road between two fields

where he came upon a shady, secluded area next to