The Haunting of Abraham Lincoln

Jenna Bush, one of President George W. Bush's daughters, recently talked about how she had heard phantom opera music coming from the fireplace in her bedroom while she was living at the White House. In the same breath, she expressed her disappointment about never seeing the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

It's common knowledge that Lincoln's spirit still resides within the Executive Mansion, as the White House was called during the Civil War. In my opinion, Lincoln was psychic. He had premonitions about every major battle, and dreamt about his own death. His wife, Mary, held seances after his assassination, and in one photograph, an eerie manifestation of Lincoln appears in the background. It could have been a photographer's trick, but many other witnesses have seen his ghost as well.

Several heads of state have witnessed the ghost of Lincoln, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, President Coolidge's wife, Grace, President Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan's daughter, Maureen.

Sightings of Lincoln's ghost have occurred near his grave in Springfield, Illinois, and at his former home there. It has also been seen at the Loudon Cottage in Loudonville, New York, which belonged to one of the women who was sitting in the president's box at Ford's Theatre when Lincoln was shot. The President's spectral funeral train has been observed on the anniversary of its journey from Washington D.C. to Springfield, thundering through the darkness to its spooky destination.