Phew, that was a long, yet rewarding week. Last week, Ghost City Tours held our overnight ghost hunt at Bobby Mackey’s Music World in Wilder Kentucky. This was our first time at Bobby Mackey’s. We didn’t really know what to expect. So, we packed the cars and left Savannah a few days early. We wanted to get to Kentucky and try to get a feel for this infamous haunted location.
On every road trip problems are bound to happen. Hopefully it is something small, like my room key quite working. With me, it is always something that makes me want to manhandle a baby. About 5 hours after taking off, 4 in the morning, I got a flat tire. Go figure. So, there I was, in the middle of nowhere South Carolina with a flat tire…and my jack didn’t work. I called about 7 “24/7” roadside assistance companies and got 7 voicemails. Are you freaking kidding me?! After about an hour Chris and Skippy finally caught up (Chris drives a little on the more conservative side). They kept me company until the tow truck got there.
So, at 6:30am I had a new tire and we were off to Wilder Kentucky. Thankfully not one of my other tires decided to unceremoniously take a shit . . .
We knew that we were going to be at Bobby Mackey’s hunting ghosts for 3 nights. We always like to try and investigate the locations we are holding ghost hunts before we do them with our guests. Unfortunately we couldn’t do that at Bobby Mackey’s. Chris Skippy and I decided a good plan B would be to head to this country music hotspot to take in the scenery on Saturday night. We were in for an eye opening experience. These Savannah boys were in for quite the surprise.
The parking lot to Bobby Mackey’s was filled with jacked up pickup trucks and beat up 1992 Ford Tauruses. We didn’t think we would find a spot. The gravel parking lot doesn’t have designated parking spots so it was more of a ‘park where you can but don’t block anyone in’ situation. We finally found a spot, the last one, seriously. I don’t think I was supposed to park there, but I didn’t get keyed so I guess I was fine.
When you walk into Bobby Mackey’s for the first time it is a little intimidating. The hallway to the booth where you pay was crowded with guys who look like they’ve been tossing hay bales for 20 years. As you get closer to the bar area you can hear the country music playing louder and louder. On this night, as with other Fridays and Saturdays, Bobby Mackey himself was on stage singing cover songs and a few originals. After a few minutes of weaving between flannel shirts and cowboy hats we finally found an empty table near the back on the seating area. Did I mention you could smoke inside of the bar…ugh.
We were busy scanning the room, checking out the women in their short dresses and cowboys boots, the wannabe cowboys pursuing them. Our waitress came up to the table and asked us what we want to drink. Skippy doesn’t drink alcohol so he just grabbed a coke. I asked if they had Guinness. Nope. Newcastle? Nope. Black and tan? Nope…Okay, so what do you have I asked the waitress, who was getting frustrated with my line of questioning. Well, she said, we have Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light. I kept waiting her to finish, but I could tell that was it. A Budweiser it is. I haven’t had a Budweiser since I was probably 24. It tasted just like I remember, like piss. So, I had another….ha.
After watching the show for awhile we decided to call it an early night. After all, we were spending the night at the Sedamsville Rectory the next night. That will be a whole different blog post. Stayed tuned ; )
Our first night at Bobby Mackey’s found me feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness. I have never investigated Bobby Mackey’s before. I have heard all of the same stories you probably have. I wanted our guests to have a great time on the ghost hunt, but I wasn’t sure what to expect.
We met all of our guests at Wanda’s Ghost Shop, a little shop about 1/2 of a mile from Bobby Mackey’s. Wanda has worked at Bobby Mackey’s for 10 years. She runs all of their tours, she does their DJ’ing…and it one heck of a sweet lady. I really enjoyed meeting her. After checking in and signing waivers which cleared Bobby Mackey’s from being liable for tripping, hitting your head or demonic possession (seriously) we hopped in the car and headed down to the place where we would be spending three nights looking for some ghosts.
The first night was actually pretty quiet. We recorded some good EVPs during our ghost hunt. Numerous people watched shadow figures make their way through the seating area.
After 2 and a half hours we made our way to the infamous basement. If you’ve watched any of the ghost hunting shows on TV you could have understood our excitement. The basement is supposedly inhabited by more than a few nasty ghosts, some people even think they are demonic. I personally do not think there is anything demonic there, and neither do people who have spent years there…regardless.. After the first night we were not soo sure if there was much of anything there. In the ‘Room of Faces’ we had some neat interaction with the ghosts. They would move plastic balls around the table, even pushing them out of our guests’ hands. Okay, this ghost hunt is starting to get a little better.
At 3am we wrapped up, took group photos and said our goodbyes. It was back to the hotel to recharge our cameras and dump the memory cards onto the hard drives to prepare for night two.
On night two it was more of the same. On the main floor we had a lot of shadow activity. While sitting at the bar I watched a shadow person walk along the south wall of the seating area. The guy sitting next to me got really excited. He had never seen a shadow person before. If you’re ever doing a ghost hunt at Bobby Mackey’s you want to keep on eye on that main floor for shadow figures. They were everywhere…and frequent. We got a few interesting EVPs upstairs as well. At one point two of our guests were in the safe room and the door slammed closed on them, without reason.
I was sitting in the northern corner of the Bull Riding room doing an EVP session by myself. I felt a hand being placed on my thigh, right above my knee, and squeeze the whole way to my crotch. I jumped a little, ha. If you watch the footage, well, it becomes Blair Witch shaky when that happens. I immediately tried to debunk this as something else. Maybe the cord from my headphones brushed my leg. No way, this was something gently squeezing my leg and quickly running its’ hand up my thigh…as long as it wasn’t that ghost Paul…
After we got down to the basement I could tell that there was a different energy in the air. Not bad, just different. More of the same night continued. Ghosts playing with our guests in the Room of Faces, an occasional voice or shadow…
At one point during the ghost hunt Chris and I joined a few guests in the well room. This is the room where the well to the Licking River can be found. Three times in the span of 10 minutes we had things thrown at us! Whatever was being thrown remained a mystery until we found coins on the floor where there were no coins before.
Just like night one, we said goodbye to everyone and packed it in for the night.
The third night of our ghost hunt at Bobby Mackey’s was nothing like the first two. If ghostly activity stayed on the level on night two we would have been happy. But nothing could have prepared us for the amount of activity that happened on night three of our ghost hunt at Bobby Mackey’s.
On the main floor of Bobby Mackey’s we were getting more of the same…just much more. At least 10 times in the 2 hours we spent up stairs we had seen shadow figures. I personally witnessed three of these sneaky spirits making their way through the seating area and bar area of Bobby Mackey’s.
Multiple times throughout the night we would get that infamous smell of roses following us around. Footsteps, bangs on the wall and more abnormal sounds could be heard when nobody was around. We thought this would prepare us for the ghosts in the basement of Bobby Mackey’s. We didn’t know at the time, but the basement would present Chris and I with some of the most intense minutes of our ghost hunting ‘careers.’
With what happened the previous night in the well room, Chris and I staked our claim to that room. Throughout the night different guests rotated in with us as we tried to get some more coins thrown in our direction. I could always use some parking change. I decided to try and instigate some activity. I threw a Quarter down the well. We all encouraged whatever ghost was there to throw it back to us. Not even three minutes late you heard the sound of something breaking through the air and something metal hitting the metal chair to the left of me. It was our Quarter. Something had actually throw it back at us! Holy shit!
Two more times in the next ten minutes we had our change being thrown back to us. The final time it happened one of our guests, Steve, said he felt something playing with his hair. Not 5 seconds later a coin flew through the air, hit his chair and came to rest by his feet. Most of this is on video!
Every time a coin would hit one of the chairs the metallic clang would echo throughout the basement. Wanda would keep asking us if it was us making that noise. Each time we said it wasn’t us. Things were picking up!
A few minutes later I decided to open a line of questioning about the afterlife. I asked if the ghost that we thought was with us was a Christian when they were alive. I wanted to know what they thought about being stuck in the basement of Bobby Mackey’s. Just a few minutes later Chris told us that his arm was burning badly. You could hear the pain in his voice. We went over and shined a flashlight on his arm. When he said his arm was burning I already had a gut feeling of what we would find. This wasn’t my first rodeo. Sure enough there were three deep scratches going down his forearm. We got everyone out of that room right away. We didn’t want anything negative to happen to our guests.
Everyone went outside to get a few breaths of fresh air. This ghost hunt was picking up quickly! I went outside to talk with the guests, calm anyone down. Many people immediately began thinking this was a Bobby Mackey’s issue. I cannot emphasize enough, it isn’t. This type of activity can occur on any ghost hunt at any haunted location. It isn’t even ‘evil’ as most people claim. If you are walking in the woods and a bear attacked you, that doesn’t mean the bear is evil. That is a sub-par analogy, but you get my point. Everything has risks, getting scratched is one of the risks of ghost hunting. While I was finishing up talking to them I could feel my back start to burn badly. I kept it to myself for the rest of the ghost hunt. At one point when no guests were around I had Chris shine a light on my back. Sure enough there I was scratched from my shoulder blades all the way down to my waistline.
There was only about 20 more minutes left in our Bobby Mackey’s ghost hunt by this point. We finished the night without any more activity. It seems like whatever ghost was in the well room simply wanted us out. Once everyone vacated that room nothing else happened. And before anyone starts throwing out the ‘D’ word, I do not think this was Demonic activity. First off, I do not believe in Demons. I think it was just a particularly nasty spirit that we caught at the wrong time. Bobby Mackey’s is not a dangerous location to visit. These events can happen to you at ANY haunted location.
Ghost City Tours had such a great time at Bobby Mackey’s that we have already started talking to Wanda about bringing some groups back. It is a done deal. It was such a great location for our guests to go on a ghost hunt that we cannot skip Bobby Mackey’s for future events.
If you want to join us at Bobby Mackey’s, just keep on eye open on our Facebook page. We always announce all of our new ghost hunts on Facebook.
I want to thank each and everyone of our guests who joined us at Bobby Mackey’s for the ghost hunt. It was a pleasure meeting all of you. I hope to see each of you at future Ghost City Ghost Hunts. I also want to thank Wanda Kay for her invaluable experience at Bobby Mackey’s. I doubt there are many people who know more about the ghosts at Bobby Mackey’s than her. Last, but not least, thank you to Bobby Mackey’s Music World for opening your location up for these ghost hunts. You really have something special going on there. We cannot wait to come back!