Anderson Cemetery- "Grave Yard X"

(Graveyard X is the name that some prefer to call Anderson Cemetery, located in rural Christian County, near Palmer, Illinois.)

Excerpt form Chasing Shadows

That October, I returned to Graveyard X with a local central Illinois paranormal investigator named Ed Osborne. Ed is very knowledgeable when it comes to the paranormal. He is also a good friend who I have a great deal of respect for.

It was the Wednesday night before Halloween, and it was a cool but not cold evening.

Ed and I had been in the cemetery for close to an hour taking pictures and checking EMF and temperature readings. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. The time was about 7:30 p.m.

The curfew for the cemetery is 8:00pm, and it is sometimes patrolled by the county sheriff’s department, so Ed and I decided to make a final pass through the cemetery and then leave by curfew.

 I scanned the cemetery for temperature using my laser-pointed digital thermometer. The average temperature that night was 44 degrees. Everywhere I scanned, the temperature read the same, forty-four degrees Fahrenheit, that is, until I passed by the concrete bench under the large oak tree.

As I passed by the bench, I noticed that the temperature began to drop. It first dropped below forty degrees Fahrenheit, then it dropped below thirty degrees, then it dropped below twenty degrees. The temperature continued to drop steadily until it finally reached a low of minus 16 degrees below zero.

Ed and I could not believe what we were seeing, so to make sure that there was not some type of malfunction, and to make sure that the thermometer was set to Fahrenheit and not Celsius, I shut it off and then turned it back on and checked the settings. It was definitely set to Fahrenheit.

I started scanning the cemetery again. The average temperature was still 44 degrees everywhere, everywhere that is, except the spot next to the concrete bench. Again, the temperature dropped to below zero. My hands were freezing and my nose felt like it was becoming frostbitten.

Every time I would move the thermometer more than four or five inches, the temperature would go back up to 44 degrees, but as soon as I would move it back to the cold spot, it would go below zero. At approximately 8:15 p.m, Ed and I decided we had better leave since it was after curfew and we were trying to be respectful of the cemetery rules.

When we left the cemetery, the temperature was still showing minus eleven degrees Fahrenheit. When we got in my vehicle, I turned the heat on to warm up my fingers and nose because they felt frozen.
So, at one point, we had experienced a 62 degree temperature drop, without explanation. I have been back to the cemetery many times since, but have never recorded such an extreme temperature fluctuation again.

I cannot place my finger on it, but each time that I return to Graveyard X things seem different than the last time I was there. I was starting to think I was imagining this, until one day Ed Osborne raised the issue with me. He said, “Larry, have you ever noticed, or is it just me, but every time I come back to this place, something seems different. I don’t know what it is but things seem to change.”

I explained to Ed that this was exactly the way I felt each time that I returned to Anderson. I have been there many times now and several times it seemed like tombstones had moved, or there were gravestones that had not been there before, even though I had walked past a particular spot many times. I am not talking about new stones, but very old stones. It seemed like the physical environment of the cemetery had been altered.

Read this and more in "Chasing Shadows" by Larry Wilson