Nearly everyone in this nation remembers where they were on September 11th 2001. We remember because it was the most horrendous act of hatred and violence against this nation that has ever occurred. We remember where we stood when we saw the Twin Towers struck and where we were when we heard about the downing of Flight 93 in an open area near the little Pennsylvania town of Shanksville. We have since learned more about fear and anger and frustration than we ever wanted to know. We have learned to distrust even more than we once did. There were so many terrible lessons taught to us by those acts of extreme violence. However, a couple weeks after the initial events, whispers began to come out of Shanksville about many things. We began to hear that people on that flight had made cell phone calls to loved ones. They had said good-bye, offered reassurance and told of their determination to try and take back the flight from the hijackers. Those people with such determination were not quitters. They were willing to fight against any odds. And I began to hear whispers that there was something strange going on at the crash site.
Within hours of the crash, the FBI and other federal agencies converged upon Shanksville where a crater 50-foot deep showed the impact area. There was a great deal of debris to be sifted through as they sought clues about this horrible disaster. A trailer was brought to Shanksville and parked not far from the impact site. The trailer was used to store evidence and personal effects from the crash site. The crater was filled in weeks after the crash. The site is known locally as “the mass grave.”
After the initial days of investigation, the area was kept secured by a local security firm. The firm hired was the RAC Rent-A-Cop company from Johnstown, PA. This firm was run by a former police officer and teacher at the local police academy and his partner. For a couple months no one from this firm spoke up, but then at least one security guard, Robert Wagstaff, began to talk about what had been happening to him at the crash site. The story was briefly told on Fox TV-8 by anchor and reporter Renee Kluck in Johnstown, PA. Ms. Kluck interviewed Mr. Wagstaff at the trailer near the crash site for her television report. Mr. Wagstaff claimed to have seen apparitions at the site--and he had seen at least one of them clearly enough to identify who she was. (However, to this day, Mr. Wagstaff, will not offer up the identity of the woman he saw because he fears that it would hurt her family.)
I was fortunate enough to have been granted an interview with Mr. Wagstaff, and his story of the hauntings was compelling. Perhaps it was even more compelling because the reporter who had interviewed him had experienced phenomena while she had been at the trailer on the site, and because the response by the local government was to hush up the story and dismiss anyone who talked.
I met with Mr. Wagstaff at a pizzeria in the area after the interview had been arranged by a mutual acquaintance. Mr. Wagstaff was a mountain of a man who seemed more interested in physical pursuits than in paranormal ones. He was a plain speaking, honest man with no time for nonsense, and he seemed determined to tell his story so that the families would know that their loved ones were not truly gone.
I had prepared for the interview by talking with a local paranormal investigator in the Cambria County area who had brought the story to my attention. She had spoken to Mr. Wagstaff on the phone and had relayed what he had told her to me. She also knew the television reporter who had witnessed events there and had confirmed that for me as well. I also listened to a radio interview on Whitley Strieber’s radio show, Dreamland. The interview was with Linda Moulten Howe, considered radio’s leading science journalist. Ms. Moulten Howe offered a report based upon information provided by Mr. Wagstaff as well as Ms. Kluck’s television report.
That night in the pizzeria, Mr. Wagstaff was concerned that no one think that he was making up stories or trying to hurt anyone. We spoke and agreed that all we would do was tell the simple truth. He would describe the actual events and I would report them and nothing else.
Interview:
Patty: I don’t know much about this story... Do you want to start me out with a little bit of background?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “I had started working out there at the Crash Site--actually I had started working for Rent-A-Cop Services on November 9th. ...Not too long after September 11th. My first day on the job he (his boss Lou) asked me to go to the crash site to get broke in on how to be a security guard and all that. So I was out there hanging out and one of the overnight guards was talking about ‘have you ever heard anyone knocking on the door yet?’
“I kinda looked at him cockeyed and I was like ‘what are you talking about?’ “Oh, our little ghost friends come and visit,’ real nonchalantly like that. And I just kinda blew it off like a joke you know.
“And me and the guy who was showing me around went into the trailer and we was in there getting a cup of coffee. Now the area where the coffee maker was was no bigger than this. Okay? And you know them red pop-up chairs that you buy like at Wal-Mart and stuff like that for little league games. I swear that it was no bigger than this (about the size of a restaurant table) as far as the counter. I heard somebody knock on the door; so did the partner that I had. Okay? We both go to the door and I’m standing in the doorway. Now you can see the size of me... If I’m standing in a little trailer doorway there’s nobody going to get by me. He (Mr. Wagstaff’s partner) walks around the trailer. There’s no footprints, nobody’s out there nothing like that. We go to turn around to go back into the trailer and there was that pop-up chair right in front of the coffee machine--right where I was no more than two seconds before that. And where did it come from? I don’t know; it just sort of showed up. Somebody knocking on the door, and then all of a sudden, there’s a chair.
“Me and the guy look at each other and he says, ‘probably kids playing a joke.’ I said, “What? How could there be kids playing jokes? Nobody went past me?
“He just kinda blew it off then. That’s like basically how it got started.
Patty: “This was on November 9th? The day you got started?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “Yeah, somewhere around the first day. It was like the first, maybe the second day on the job.”
Mr. Wagstaff: “But at any rate, before too long what had happened--towards the end of November the guy who was working the over night shifts had got into a car accident on Rt. 219--he’s okay. He didn’t get hurt or anything. ... But he had called Lou and quit. So Lou gave me the over night job out there. So I was out there from like the 25th or 26th of November all of the way through to December 31st--all except for one day.
“So I was out there quite often at night. And what out happen was as I was working there would be times where I was just sitting there just minding my business. Now keep in mind, that the door and the chair in the trailer had scared me to where I didn’t want to hang out in the trailer. Okay? So I didn’t go to the trailer very often.
“Anyway, so I was sitting up there at the main gate--okay-- which was probably three or four tenths of a mile away from the trailer and the trailer was probably no more than probably a 100 feet away from the crash site itself. So I really wasn’t too far from the crash site. Still I was up there at the main gate most of the time. And I’d be sitting up there doing crossword puzzles and stuff like that to help pass the time. And I’d catch glimpses of little shadows running all over the place. You know, you’d try to catch them with your eye. A lot of times they were way too fast. One time I caught one with a spotlight and it like totally vanished. It was like 3 o’clock in the morning; what’s gonna make shadows--unless the moon’s out--you know what I mean? Most of the time the moon wasn’t out and I would still see shadows.
“Then there was another time that I was out there, let me think... One time I went out there and I went into the trailer with a friend of mine. And he was out there just to keep me company for over night. And we go into the trailer and we’re hanging out making coffee, you know getting ready to play some cards; to try to pass a little time, to take a break. And the next thing you know, out of nowhere we hear someone knocking on the door. Okay! I had already told him before not to be surprised if it happens. Well it happened. So he went and he answered the door, and I was standing in the trailer doorway. Nobody came in. Now there was a chair set up by the phone that we didn’t notice before that. Now whether or not it was up before that, I’m not saying because I am really not certain...I didn’t really notice before.
“I kinda blew that off, you know, figured nothing to it. Me and my partner sat down; you know got another chair, sat down and started playing cards. Then we heard somebody walk through the trailer. We heard about 5 or 6 steps go through the trailer, and there was nobody there--just me and him. Then all of a sudden we started hearing mumbled voices outside of the trailer. So we kind of looked at each other and said, ’you know what, f.... this.’ We got back in my car; went back up to the main gate. That trailer--for some reason I was always nervous in the trailer.
Patty: You said mumbled voices, um, more than one person?
Mr. Wagstaff: You couldn’t make out what they were saying. It sounded like there was probably a group of like 3 or 4. Just guessing on the number of people, but it was definitely more than one voice and you couldn’t make out anything that they was saying.... Now we still didn’t see anybody when we back to the car.
Patty: “Now at this time was there snow on the ground?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “There’s been many times there’s been snow on the ground and I’d hear somebody knocking on the door or something. There’d never be anybody there and no footsteps in the snow.
“There was one time when I was sitting out in my car, which is that black Cougar sitting out back, I don’t if you noticed it...and it doesn’t have like automatic shocks on the back or anything like that, one time I was sitting there doing crossword puzzles, you know just minding my business, keeping an eye on everything. And then I kinda sat back. All of a sudden it felt like somebody sat on the back of my car and I couldn’t understand, you know, what the hell’s going on? I’m looking and there’s nobody out there, you know. So I get out of the car with my flashlight. It was like 3 o’clock in the morning... and I walked around to the back of my car. Now keep in mind that there was all kinds of snow and mud and everything else back there; my car was filthy because it was a dirty area out there as far as dirt and stuff on the roads. Anyway I’m at the back of my car and I’m looking around on the ground trying to see if there’s any tracks that go up to my car cause something had to make my car move like that and it wasn’t windy out. And right there in front of my eyes the back end of my car came back up, and then that was it for the rest of that night other than sitting there looking around like well what’s going on. The next day, in the daytime, I made it a point to look at the back of my car again to make sure that I didn’t miss anything as far as like any kind of footprints or any animal prints or anything... Nada... Nothing in the mud, nothing in the snow, nothing on my car, nothing anywhere.
“And then there was the time that I was sitting in my car doing crossword puzzles. okay? And keep in mind, there was about 21/2 3 inches of snow out. And I’m sitting there laying back like this, cause my neck was starting to hurt, and out of the clear blue, sitting in my car, I heard a voice say, ‘So now what?’ So I’m looking around, but there is nobody in my car.
Patty: “Male or female voice?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “It was a male voice. It was definitely a male voice and they said, ‘So now what?’ I didn’t know what to think. But I was just kinda--well I don’t know. Then there was nothing else that night. The things that happened, they were like quick--do you know what I mean? There was like nothing that was real major, that lasted for very long at a time. It was just a little shot here... a little thing here.”
“Like, ah, the very last thing that I seen out there was like a lady walking towards my car...”
Patty: “Do you want to tell me what was going on that night?”
Mr. Wagstaff: It was snowing out, but as far as the date goes it was the night of the 29th the morning of the 30th of December--it was 4 o’clock in the morning and I was sitting in my car admiring the snow. And I looked over this way a little bit and there was a lady walking towards my car. And I could see her as clearly as I could see anyone of you. Only she had on a blue like a baseball jersey with a button down front, and it was trimmed in white. She had blue jeans on and she had like brown hair down to about here she had on glasses. She looked like she was--well like she was in her mid-to late forties. I seen her walking toward my car and my first thought was, ‘what the hell’s this lady doing out here in the winter with no coat on.’ I put my on door handle to open up my car door and she just totally disappeared. Just vanished into thin air.”
Patty: “About how long were you observing her before she disappeared?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “I saw her long enough to take seven steps.”
Patty: “For her to take seven steps?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “For her to take seven steps. She was walking kinda briskly--and walking towards the car...looking me dead in my face--like she was coming to talk to me...”
Patty: Now you said that there was about 3 inches of snow, did you check in the snow to see if her footprints were in the snow?”
Mr. Wagstaff: There was not one footprint in that snow.
Patty: You did check then?
Mr. Wagstaff: “Oh, yeah. Anytime anything happened I made the attempt to look?”
Other Person at the interview: “How close to your car did get?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “I would probably say no more than about 20 feet--no more than 20 feet?”
Patty: “Now you had said that was the last thing you saw, you saw the shadow people or the shadows...”
Mr. Wagstaff: “Those were the most frequent, them shadows-they were the most frequent.”
Patty: You saw them how often, most of the time, every night?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “The shadows, it was like on average there was probably only two or three days of the week went by that I didn’t catch shadows running around...”
Patty: Was there an area that was more prevalent for this like down near the crash site, up near the gate...”
Mr. Wagstaff: “Actually the majority of the shadows that I seen was whenever I was parked up near the main gate which was like on the other end of the field from where the crash happened... I spent most of my time up there at that main gate, that’s only because like I said for some reason that trailer itself made me nerrrrrvous. Every time I had ever been in there I was nervous.”
Beyond the testimony of Mr. Wagstaff was the apparent belief in the happenings by the owners of ARC Rent-A-Cop Service. One of the owners checked on the story and the other owner was the one to first call the reporter Renee Kluck with the story. It would not be a big jump to say that they had believed the stories of their guards or else they would not have taken the extraordinary step of calling in the local media.
Ms. Kluck explained to Linda Molten Howe on the Whitley Strieber radio show, Dreamland, that she had her own experience while interviewing Mr. Wagstaff at the trailer on the site at about 3:30 a.m. “...That’s when we heard these--like the sound outside. It was like the sound of footsteps... I looked at him and he looked at me and we were both waiting for the knock on the door. And we were just kind of waiting and waiting because he had said you know you hear footsteps and sometimes you hear the knock on the door. And I’m sitting there and mentally I’m thinking please don’t knock. Please don’t knock, cause if you knock I’ll really freak out. And the knock didn’t come, but I do have the sound of the footsteps coming up the stairs on tape.”
The Somerset authorities took over the site at this point and RAC Rent-A-Cop Service did not get their contract renewed. The Somerset County Sheriff’s department took over security at the site. The local authorities quickly announced that the security firm had been fooled into thinking that the knocking and footsteps in the trailer had been ghosts. The authorities explained that the footsteps and the knocks were from the large flag that flew from the front of the trailer. The snapping of the flag and the ropes clanging against the metal of the post had been the sounds that those inside the trailer--including Ms. Kluck had heard.
Robert Wagstaff inadvertently addressed that issue during the interview. He and the other security guards were far from the gullible fools with wild imaginations that the officials insinuated had “imagined“ everything after hearing a few noises. Mr. Wagstaff explained that he had thought of that possibility, too.
Mr. Wagstaff: “The first time I heard that knock on the door, keep in mind that there was a flag that hung down the side of the trailer, and it was the height of the trailer, but they had all kinda cords and all kinds of other stuff weighing the bottom of it down, it would have taken a real good wind to blow that around. And the first time I heard that I thought that that was what it was, the flag beating off the side of the trailer or something. But the more I was there, the more I said, ‘no that’s not what it is.” Ya know? It was creepy inside the trailer... I’ve seen some pretty strong winds up there and that flag would just ripple a little bit, it wouldn‘t move, you know what I mean? And I heard then they took the flag off and I heard they‘re still hearing it.”
I could not help but wonder if Mr. Wagstaff had been the only one to have such experiences. He answered that question this way:
“Well most of the people who have reported it was there for either the late shift as far as 4 to 12 at night or from midnight to 8 in the morning. Now I’m the one was having--I had most of the midnight shifts. Okay? And a guy named AW had the midnight shift before I got it and he experienced a lot of the knocking on the door and stuff like that. He said he even took out a camcorder to the crash site to see if he could catch the shadows on film. Cause he was seeing those, too. He said he thought he was loosing his mind. He was glad to hear that somebody else saw it, too... He was talking to me about it and then I took a friend of mine out there with me, too, who also works for RAC And he wasn‘t on the clock but he was to just to keep me company, you know to reassure me that I wasn‘t loosing it. You know when you see stuff like that out there all the time; you tend to think you’re loosing it. ‘Cause you‘re by yourself... So I took him out there with me just to see, you know, to make sure he would see something... And he witnessed it, he saw shadows and he said he blew it off as just like animals. And as far as the trailer goes he didn’t want to go back down into that trailer anymore either.”
The other explanation that has been offered up for the experiences was that kids were pulling pranks. Mr. Wagstaff commented upon that. “I never caught any kids out there. I mean I would see people pull up to the gate and stop and gawk a little bit, but then I would get out of my car and they’d turn around and leave. But I never actually seen anybody else out there running around--ever...especially in the dead of winter. With there being a pond right there and everything else, it would be crazy to run around out there. They got pot holes out there that would suck up a Pinto.”
And so we are left with the testimony of Mr. Wagstaff, the lesser testimony of Renee Kluck, and inference that at least one of the RAC boss’s believed in the stories enough to call the television station.
It has always been said that when someone dies a traumatic, sudden death they are more likely to haunt than those who die peacefully. It has also been said that ghosts often return when they have unfinished business in this life. If that is true, then it should not be so difficult to believe that possibly, just possibly, at least some of those who died tragic deaths, where they were forced to leave this earth with matters unresolved, might still be lingering at the impact site and in the area.
Since I began working on this story, I’ve heard many theories and many ideas. I have deliberately kept them from this article. I promised Mr. Wagstaff and myself that I’d only report what he saw and nothing more. To that end, I’ll end with his own words. Mr. Wagstaff was asked if he had any ideas about who they may be and what might be going on out there?
Mr. Wagstaff: “...I was out there to protect them, not to protect the crash site, not to protect the trailer, I was out there to protect them. That’s the way I felt about it.”
Patty: “To protect their memory you mean?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “Yeah. And I mean that’s strongly the way I felt, you know. So I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe since they had enough gall to go ahead and take over the airplane after the hijackers took it over, I can’t help but think that they got the hijackers in the trailer and that the knocking on the door is to get your a... out of there. I can‘t help but think that.”
Patty: “Do you think they don’t realize that they’re dead?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “I don’t know. I really don’t. It happened so fast I’m sure that some of them don’t think they are.”
Patty: “...You’re gonna eventually hear somebody say to you, ‘Well don’t you think that it’s disrespectful to the dead that are out there’ and I was wondering what your response to that would be?”
Mr. Wagstaff: “I’m not disrespecting the dead. There’s a reason that they’re still running around out there. There’s a reason for them to be there. They obviously have not realized what has happened, or they wasn’t finished doing what they needed to do. Some reason or another they’re out there, and it’s my job I feel since I seen all that stuff out there and experienced some of that stuff out there, to let people know that they’re out there and maybe their family members can be able to put them to rest. That’s the way I feel about it.”
From the Writer: This story has been unlike any I have ever done in my 20 years as a writer. I have been stymied and turned away, rebuffed and refused, but still Robert’s last words have rung in my mind. It was his job to tell the story and he chose to tell it to me. He spoke to others whom he felt were honorable and they were, but they were unable to tell the story publicly. He refused television tabloids like Inside Edition because he wanted to tell the story honestly and feared that they might not do so. I have chosen to offer up his words and very little else. What more could I say? Robert told the story simply and well. Now I have fulfilled my part in this story--I have told people that the Spirits of Flight 93 are still out there--at least that is what the watchman said
( Originally published in FATE Magazine.)
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