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Editor's note: During the month of October, four DN arts reporters -- Tessa Jeffers, Neal Obermeyer, Josh Harrison and Andrea Heisinger -- went ghost hunting. In this week leading up to Halloween, these reporters will recount their experiences and any ghostly encounters that may have occurred.
We've had many strange nights hunting down the vestiges of the unknown, voices from beyond that long to echo among the living.
We also haven't found diddly.
But our search continues. The fine squad of Daily Nebraskan paranormal enthusiasts will find answers ... if they're out there.
The search eventually led to Hummel Park in northern Omaha near the Missouri River. It is the most well-known haunt in Omaha, possibly Nebraska.
I'd been skeptical of all the rumors circulating about the park, but I had the strangest feeling while approaching the entrance. Later on I asked my colleagues if they experienced the same feeling.
Quoth the other DN ghost hunters extraordinaire, "Uhhhm, we weren't even there."
They weren't even there ...
Something was definitely off-center that day, and I couldn't put my finger on it. I was getting the shivers. It was right then I realized I was driving with my windows down and it was only 40 degrees outside.
So I gathered my emotions, rolled up the windows, blasted the heat and then began my ascent into the park ... alone.
Upon entering the park most people usually notice one thing. The trees on both sides bend in toward the road, creating a tunnel-like entrance.
There is a myth that accompanies this phenomenon.
The myth goes that because there was many a lynching back in the day, the souls of the unjustly killed still swing from the Hummel Park trees, causing their distorted shape.
Harl Dalstrom, professor emeritus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Nebraska history connoisseur, said there hadn't been a lynching in that area since the territorial period of the 1850s.
"It was a period of lawlessness ... typical frontier stuff," Dalstrom said.
He even checked some of his sources for me, and the lynching, which was of two white prisoners, didn't even occur in the actual park area.
Nevertheless, the trees were giving me a strange vibe until I stopped thinking about spirits and realized how beautiful this sight actually was. All the maroons, golds and browns of autumn hanging from the warped branches made the entrance that much more mystifying.
But I couldn't let myself get enchanted. My mind had to be clear if I was going to search for the truth alone.
The next myth I would confront is that of Hummel Park being a place of satanic worship. So I followed the signs that led to the picnic areas.
Eventually, I arrived at what looked like a worshiping altar.
You see, the park is more or less on a bluff, and at the top of the bluff you have your not-so-common hangout area. There is a stone pathway that ends just before the edge of the bluff. On both sides of the pathway are two stone constructions of equal height.
This had to be the place of evil worship of which people speak, I thought to myself.
I got out of my car and definitely felt something strange. Evil spirits? Perhaps. Not wearing any underwear in 40 degree weather? Perhaps.
There were empty cases of Bud Light and broken bottles of liquor everywhere. It seems that the evil spirits and Satanists could have a moderate to heavy drinking problem.
I was beginning to become suspicious.
I walked over to a picnic table with more empty beer cases and a couple crumbled up bags of cheese popcorn. I sat at the table and saw a shabbily carved engraving. "Hummer Park," it said. Next to it was another one that said, "Larry likes big dong."
My suspicions were confirmed: damned teenagers.
Now all I had to do was disprove a couple more Hummel Park legends.
One legend concerns the steps that can't be counted. You see, there's this valley in the middle of the bluff that encloses another picnic area. There is a particularly long staircase that leads back to the top where there is a playground area. Rumor has it if you walk up and down the strange staircase you will count a different number of steps each trip.
I gave it a try; I counted nearly 200 steps each time but didn't get the same number.
I'm not sure if this anomaly was caused by some strange temporal phenomenon or by the fact that I really wasn't paying attention.
Both are possibilities, but what wasn't possible at the time was me walking up those steps again so I could walk back down them sucking wind.
So I moved on to the final myth: the tree-dwelling albinos.
Legend has it Hummel Park is home to a clan of albinos who can't stand normal people. And they live in trees.
My observations led me to the conclusion that this is true, if by albinos you mean Caucasians after summer time, and by living in trees you mean hanging out with their families at the picnic areas.
All these displays of affection and family values were beginning to make me fear for my life.
Strange, very strange.
So I left. My enigmatic voyage through Hummel Park had come to an end. Findings: diddly.
I conferred with my colleagues on this.
"Uhhh, we already told you, we weren't there," they said.
They weren't there ...
So I consulted Dalstrom again, who happens to live only a half hour away from Hummel Park. He said he never actually had heard the stories of evil spirits, Satanists or tree-dwelling albinos but wasn't surprised they exist.
"When you look at the countryside, it leads itself to those rumors," he said. "It just has that mystery."
There's a stone monument next to the Hummel Park sign that talks of various adjacent landmarks. At the top of the engravings it says "Fort Lisa" and has what appears to be a pentagram with the inscription "U.S.D." in the middle. Dr. Dalstrom wasn't sure what this emblem stood for.
Maybe I'll never find the answer to this and other questions such as "Just where were my ghost-hunting partners that day?" Maybe I really just dreamt this whole thing. Maybe I'm the spirit. Who knows?
But the answers are out there ... somewhere.
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