By the time this posts, Halloween will either be upon us or just past. This is the craziest stretch of our year at Freaky Foot Tours. The nights are dark, the weather is chilly and yes, the spirits are out. If reports from our guides and local guests are true, and I believe them, some eerie phenomena has been showing up around historic Flagstaff. I keep a ghost vision app on my phone, hardly a definitive ghost hunting tool, and it has picked up activity around the downtown library. Interestingly, I have also seen images in our own neighborhood on nighttime corgi walks. All of which is to say: October is historically our busiest month across all three cities, and the spirits' most active.
Does spooky season end after Halloween?
In my experience, no. I think of October as the portal into spooky season, not the whole of it. The nights grow longer into November and December, the air turns cold in our mountain town, and if we are lucky there is snow on the ground and on the ski runs to complete the transition. As for the spirits, my experience is that paranormal reports keep increasing until sometime around February. That is anecdotal, and it may have something to do with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Families and friends gather, loved ones who have passed are remembered, their stories told with laughter and tears. Those are the times I have felt that unmistakable mix of heaviness and lightness that says a spirit has joined the party. I think they like to be remembered, and to see how we earthlings are progressing.
Our guides log plenty of strange encounters this time of year. We collected a few in more hauntings from the season, and if you are wondering whether the cold months are worth braving, why winter is the best time to explore Flagstaff's dark side makes the case.
Halloween was the Celtic New Year
The ancient Celts had no Christmas, and our Halloween was their New Year with a dash of our Thanksgiving mixed in. Theirs was an agricultural society, so the turn of the year meant the end of harvest and time to prepare for the dark months. Rituals were aimed at appeasing, appealing to and thanking the gods, and celebrations were thrown to unite the community and drive away evil spirits.
I was not aware of all the Yuletide monsters attached to Christmas until I began reading Celtic literature. The evil spirits and cryptids existed in ancient folklore, blended with St. Nicholas as Christianity took hold, and now play the demons on our screens. There is Krampus, the Yule Cat, the Kit-Bag and Belsnickel, to name a few. Those might make a good December entry, so I will not spoil them here, but the carry-over is fascinating.
Come walk with the spirits
As the days shorten and the nights grow long, keep an eye out, or your ESP tuned, for spirits of loved ones who may want to pop in. And if you want to meet the ghosts of historic Flagstaff in person, the Flagstaff Haunted History Tour runs nightly at 7 PM, with an 8 PM walk added Fridays and Saturdays, $29 for adults and 75 minutes through downtown. Our guides love showing guests the spookiest corners of town, along with the true stories behind them, and our Tucson and Prescott ghost tours run through the season as well.
BOO
