It has been a month of extraordinary events at Austin Ghost Tours.

Our most recent chapter began on Christmas Night when someone on our Annual Christmas Tour took a photograph that captured much interest. We call him “Peacoat Man” since we don’t know the identity of this full-body apparition. What we know is this: The founder and owner of Austin Ghost Tours, Jeanine Plumer saw the photographer at the moment this photo was taken. I was the tour guide. We can both attest to the fact that no one was visible on the stairs at the time the photo was taken. When “manipulation” was suggested, the memory card for the camera was readily offered up by the couple from Waco who sent the photo to us.

The photo generated interest from a new A&E Program called, “My Ghost Story.” The show had a pilot airing last October, was well-received, and more episodes were ordered. The producers spoke with Jeanine and me regarding the photo, but in doing so, discovered what we already knew: The Driskill Hotel has more than one story to tell!  So they flew Jeanine and myself out to California to tell our story about that night and other experiences Austin Ghost Tours has had and heard about through guests and staff.

We provided multiple photographs, audio recordings and video evidence that this building is thee Austin haunted hotspot, as well as our theories as to why.  Jeanine and I also answered a multitude of questions about the hotel, its history and our spectral interactions.

Next came B-Roll. Their lead cameraman, Barry Conrad - who was a videographer on the malevolent San Pedro haunting, for you aficionados - came to Austin to shoot some footage at the hotel and of the city. I arrived at The Driskill early and enjoyed tea and a danish before donning my tour guide jacket and Victorian hat. I noticed a gentleman come down the stairs from the Mezzanine Level and do a double take when he saw me. My 21st. century “Austin Ghost Tours” name badge seemed to comfort him some. Nonetheless, he looked a little shaken and I sensed a shift in energy. “Ahh!” I thought, “Either that frontal system is moving in, or we’re going to get to experience something extraordinary.”

Barry and his assistant Daniel arrived and Jeanine joined us. As we set up a shot on the staircase, the gentleman that I had seen before approached and asked if we’d be interested in hearing about the experience he had in the hotel the night before AND that very morning! We quickly shot what we needed on the stairs and he led us up to what may be the finest suite in the hotel: The Cattle Baron’s Suite. This set of lushly appointed rooms has welcomed Presidents, Governors, famous actors, prolific authors and many well-to-do families.

The first oddity that the guest noticed when he entered the suite was the scent of cigar smoke - a common occurrence when Col. Driskill is said to be nearby. During his first night in the suite, he awoke to feel a strong pressure on his body, making it difficult, if not impossible to move. It eventually passed and he fell back asleep. But the night before our shoot, he reported that he got up around 4:30AM to use the bathroom. As he came back to bed, he tried to glance at the clock on the other side of the bed on the nightstand. Bed curtains hang on either side of the headboard, wrapped by a cord. The executive was astonished as something or someone lifted the bed curtain, pulling it forward to playfully block his view of the clock!  Then it lowered it again, moving it back. I tugged on the bedspread, lifting one knee to the mattress to see if either movement would disturb the bed curtains. They did not.

There was more. And we were about to collectively have that extraordinary experience!

"I don't want to freak you out," the man in the black shirt began. (This might not be the best way to begin an average conversation, but Austin Ghost Tour Guides rarely have those.) "I'm a psychic medium," he continued, "and there's a dark form - a man - standing just over there. He's been watching you and listening to you tell your stories." He pointed over my left shoulder where the spillway steps empty down into a pond beside Waller Creek.

Oddly enough, while common sense might have dictated that I was more likely to be approached between arrivals of tours by transients from Palm Park to my right, I caught myself throughout the night glancing uneasily over my left shoulder at nothing and no one. Some part of me must have known he was there.

As this gent shared this with me, a strange and tremendous surge swept over me. I cannot be certain if it came from the medium or the specter, but it was not chilling nor ominous …just interesting. I can best describe it as "a dimensional shift" of some sort. The medium's group was leaving. "I just thought you should know," he said before following his guide to the next storyteller. When they had moved on, I grabbed my digital camera and addressed my eavesdropper. "Come on, show yourself! You've been watching me, now I want to see you." I was able to shoot four pictures before the camera signaled that my fresh batteries were dead.

Upon arriving home, I released the memory card from the camera (which, oddly enough, was operative again) and reviewed the photos. Two of the four pictures contained orbs that may or may not have been my onlooker. It was too cold by then for insects, but they may have been moisture droplets that close to the creek.

A strange encounter with inconclusive evidence, to be sure, but I will bring fresh batteries and digital recorder to my vigil between tours on the off-chance that my "Mystery Man" may want to introduce himself and wish me a Happy Halloween!

On most Ghosts of the Capitol District Tours lots of spiritual activity occurs at the old surgical hospital on 10th Street that was once run

by Dr. Thomas Dudley Wooten. On almost every tour

someone captures photos of orbs or other paranormal activity at this location. It is one of my most favorite stops because I never know when or where some sort of spiritual phenomena will manifest it self.  Recently, I was giving a tour that included some students from the Texas School for the Blind.  I was barely into my tale of the history and the hauntings associated with this building, when one of the students spoke up and said, “I smell something”.   “What do you smell?” I asked. The student replied that she smelled, “shots…a medical smell….like a doctor’s office”. Odd, since we were standing on the stoop of an old historic building that hadn’t been a surgical hospital in at least over 50 years.  What the student didn’t yet know is that an unusual smell that is totally out of place is one of the most common forms of a haunting.  “How clever” thought I. In the past all the spiritual activity at this location had been visual—full bodied manifestations, images in the frosted glass window panes of the sturdy wood door, orbs on the stoop or by the windows—but now the spirit had chosen to make their presence known in a different way… the spirit adapted itself in order to reveal its presence to those who were visually impaired. You see there is more than one way to experience a haunting!

This photo was taken on an Austin Ghost Tour on Saturday, May 23, 2009 by Pam who was taking the tour