Have you ever had one of those moments in life where the most bizarre and unexplainable thing happened?
The kind of thing that if you told people, they wouldn’t believe you?
The kind of thing where you wish Scooby and the gang were real?
Where are you Scooby Doo? (Photo courtesy of austinot.com)Well, I think we may have picked up a Confederate soldier ghost somewhere along our journey, and I’ve got him recorded! That’s right folks. We’ve got evidence.
The Meriwether Ghost Makes His Presence Known
This really happened is happening to us.
The first time it happened was in Charleston. It was July 21st. (And THIS is why I keep the Captain’s Log, so I don’t lose track of dates.)
I was checking the mileage for the Captain’s log, and when I turned the key so the digital odometer would show up…
Out of nowhere the song “I Wish I Was In Dixie” started playing.
Seriously strangeThe sound seemed to be coming from the massive cockpit area of Meriwether. It wasn’t a clear sound like you would hear over a radio with good reception.
Instead, it sounded like it was being played on an old phonograph over a scratchy and slightly static-like AM radio station.
This is what it sounds like the Meriwether Ghost is playing his music through.The song came on completely at randomly. And then, just as randomly, it disappeared. Meriwether had never done this prior to our arrival in Charleston.
I was bewildered.
Being a Skeptic, I Started Troubleshooting
Truth: Ok before I started troubleshooting, I started laughing. I figured that perhaps I was losing my mind. Maybe this wasn’t really happening.
But it was.
So the troubleshooting began. First step, call the wife over.
I needed two things. 1. A Witness, and 2. A problem solver.
This is Brittany’s problem solving look. Doesn’t she look like a spy or something?Over the course of our relationship, I’ve learned that Brittany can solve 99.9% of all problems. Unfortunately this was the 0.1% that she couldn’t figure out. As for me, well.. I was completely clueless (what else is new).
So we began troubleshooting together:
- Radio off: check
- CB off: check
- Phone off: check
- All random electrical devices capable of making any kind of noise, sound, or music off: check
Acting like I knew what I was doing, I broke out a flashlight and crawled under the steering column.
Nothing.
Turned Meriwether on and off, and it didn’t play again. Heck, I couldn’t get it to play again.
So, I messaged my friend Mark at Tiffin (Meriwether’s manufacturer), he just laughed and said he had no idea, that he was at a total loss.
Then I messaged my friend Steve (Meriwether’s previous owner) and he was just as dumbfounded as we were.
What the what?
But hey, Dixie had stopped playing, it was a one-time occurrence, and as awkward as it was we kind of just let it go.
The Meriwether ghost wasn’t bothering us, and we weren’t about to bother him.
The Meriwether Ghost Returns
But the Meriwether Ghost wasn’t done yet. Not just once, but multiple times since the 21st of July, Dixie has once again played from the great beyond.
The most bizarre of these instances being on the trip from Charleston, SC to Fayetteville, NC. On this leg of the journey, the Meriwether Ghost started playing “I Wish I Was In Dixie” on repeat. Over and over and over. For nearly an hour. Sometimes it would take a one to 5 minute break and then start up again!
What makes this even stranger is that there is no noticeable thing that causes it. It randomly starts and randomly stops.
This time however, determined to figure this out, I recorded it. I wanted to make sure that I had it. I’m not sure if it will work, but I’m going to try and add the sound file here:
On the trip from Fayetteville, NC to Virginia Beach, VA Brittany was driving Meriwether, and the ghost played Dixie four times for her.
On four separate occasions.
Not in succession and with no rhyme or reason.
A Clue In the Mystery of The Meriwether Ghost
Where the heck is Scooby and the gang when ya need ’em? Heck I’d even take the Hardy Boys or even Nancy Drew at this point.
But the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to us in our full-time RV journey, happened right after we parked at the military campground in Little Creek, VA.
We had just put out the slides, I went to drop the jacks and sure enough, Dixie plays again. But not like before. This time it was loud read: BLARING.
The neighbors in the campground were looking right at me disapprovingly.
I opened the drivers side window to apologize while Dixie was still playing. If I thought it was blaring before, now that the window was open, I realized that it wasn’t just blaring, it was just obnoxious!
Eventually it stopped. I went outside to apologize to my neighbors and explain that I had no idea where it was coming from.
The neighbor gave me the first clue. He said it was coming from our horns. You know those massive trucker-like horns we have on top of Meriwether.
We have 2 of these Bad Boy Hadley Air Horns on top of Meriwether. This time the sound was coming from them!The problem with this clue is that the horn switch on the cockpit console was set to a position that wouldn’t have allowed our horn to do anything but blow our trucker horn.
So again we’re clueless… and still haunted.
If you have any thoughts or wisdom, a direct line to Scooby and the gang, or perhaps your are an RV exorcist… please leave a comment and let us know.
So weird! And probably less and less smiled upon the farther north you go! Hope you figure it out soon… or maybe it’s more fun as a mystery. Let’s just hope your ghost doesn’t try to take up driving too.
So, I have now listened to the recording 7 times. It seems that supernaturally you have a ghost from around 1861 or so as the version he seems to be playing is the exact version played at the inauguration of Jefferson Davis; a full band quickstep. But then the record ends with the Dixie air horn made popular by ‘ol Bo and Luke Duke; the first 12 notes of Dixie. The more likely though is that your air horn is actually not air from a compressor but rather an electronic air horn. The music is a default or a sound effect that was added at some point. It is being set off by certain radio frequencies (typically on an AM band) from perhaps a HAM radio or just regular antenna. You hear it most predominantly when sitting still because the signal is static and therefore stronger.
I am saying all of this because of the Dixie horn at the end of the recording and because of the hum I hear in the recording. That hum (or old phonograph sound) is from the radio frequency. I think you should disconnect those horns altogether and then possibly the fuse that runs the regular horn.
Anyway, just my thoughts. Keep me posted.
Oh, and for what it is worth, if they don’t have respect for DIXIE when you head further North it is because many don’t realize that the dixieland referred to in the lyrics is actually a farm in Long Island, New York owned by John Dixie who was an abolitionist and friend of African-American’s. Because of his generosity a number of freed slaves, runaway slaves, and African-Americans in general looked at “dixie’s land” as a sort of paradise.
BTW – This problem has been written about before by another motorhome owner. Different song, same events though.
https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/23321882/print/true.cfm
Since we have been on the road for the past two years, I can safely say we have not picked up any ghosts, except for the ones the kids hear in the middle of the night, which usually end up being the wind blowing hard enough to make something bump or whip on the RV like the awning.
Misty and I are usually in the middle of a movie when it happens and one or two of our six kids come bursting into the bedroom with the news.
The one night though when police were chasing a driver who ditched his car in the RV park we were staying in, my 10 year old daughter was looking out the window watching 7 or 8 policemen searching all around the park with their flashlights, she decided that she should not bother us with that bit of information, because it was not as important as a bump in the night.
You have to love a kids logic sometimes.
Don & Misty Lively
LivelyRV
OK folks this was weird! I read your story and listened to the recording on my tablet last night. When I turned it off and set it down…it played Dixie! Was this a joke and got me. Needless to say scared the crap out of me. Lol
Another weird story…….A couple of years ago we were on our 1st week long trip with our new camper in Gettysburg. We stayed at the Gettysburg Campground on Fairfield Road (Rt. 116) west of Gettysburg. This is the route along which the Confederate Army made it’s retreat after their defeat. The morning after our first night in camp, my wife said that she was awakened by the strong smell of pipe tobacco. While she was laying there the floor of the camper creaked several times as if someone was walking around. When she sat up the pipe smell went away along with the noise. I sat there dumbfounded and explained to her that I had an apparent corresponding dream that I was smoking a pipe that night. Very strange! Could we have been visited by a Confederate soldier that night???