The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Bathroom Reader.
They may be gone, but they’re not forgotten. Come to think of it, are they really even gone? Ghost lovers claim that many of the famous dead are still among us …in spirit.
KURT COBAIN (1967-94)
In the days after Cobain committed suicide at his Seattle home, a handful of fans who gathered there for a vigil claimed to have seen the spirit of the Nirvana frontman in the window and on the roof of the house. In August 2000, a bartender in Essex, England, told reporters that Cobain’s ghost had taken up residence in her laptop. She claimed Cobain’s face materialized on the screen one night, begged for her help, and then asked her to kiss him. She kissed the screen, and the image vanished. The laptop crashed and never worked again.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706-90)
Franklin helped established the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in the 1740s. His papers are housed there, along with, according to some staff members, his ghost. Employees claim that Franklin hangs out in the library and likes to peruse its shelves. Aside from one nasty encounter with a cleaning lady, who claims he attacked her after hours, he’s usually in high spirits.
BUGSY SIEGEL (1906-47)
Mobster Siegel helped build Las Vegas …and he seemed determined to stay there. Guests and staff at the Flamingo Hotel, which he’d opened in 1946, reported seeing Siegel’s ghost, dressed in a smoking jacket, lingering in the Presidential Suite. He was also spotted loitering around the hotel’s pool late at night, and a maid reportedly quit after seeing Siegel’s ghost on the fifth floor. The last of the old Flamingo Hotel was torn down in 1993 to make room for the present-day Flamingo Hilton; today his ghost is said to haunt the memorial plaque that marks the spot where the old hotel once stood.
RUDOLPH VALENTINO (1895-1926)
A nasty case of peritonitis sent the silent screen star to his grave at just 31 years of age. An excerpt from his diary revealed that he didn’t fear death: “I believe it to be merely the beginning of Life itself,” he wrote. It shouldn’t have been a surprise then, when a stable hand at Valentino’s Beverly Hills mansion claimed he saw the “Latin Lover’s” spirit petting a horse. (The stable hand quit on the spot.) Sightings have also been reported both at Valentino’s former beach house in Oxnard, California, and in the costume department at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles.
CASS ELLIOT (1941-74)
Actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd lives in a Los Angeles home once owned by Elliot, of the Mamas and the Papas. Aykroyd claims Elliot’s ghost has snuggled up with him in bed, turned on his Stairmaster, and messes around in a jewelry box.
MICHAEL JACKSON (1958-2009)
Shortly after Jackson’s death, a TV crew from Larry King Live shot footage around Jackson’s Neverland Ranch estate. When the show aired, some fans noticed something eerie: A shadowy figure seems to be walking from left to right across a hallway. CNN claimed the image was a shadow caused by a crew member walking past an off-camera light fixture, but viewers had a spookier explanation: It was Jackson’s ghost. Since then, Jackson’s image has been sighted dozens of time -everywhere from a Catholic school in Harare, Zimbabwe, to a reflection on the hood of a car in Stafford, Virginia.
JOHN LENNON (1940-80)
In 1995 the surviving members of the Beatles convened in a London studio to record a new song called “Free As A Bird,” built on a vocal demo that Lennon had recorded in the ‘70s. According to Paul McCartney, Lennon’s ghost attended the reunion, too. “There were a lot of strange goings-on in the studio -noises that shouldn’t have been there and equipment doing all manner of weird things.” Another sighting: Lennon once told his son Julian that should he ever die, he would visit him as “a white feather floating evenly across the room.” About a year after Lennon’s death, Julian Lennon reported that his father kept his word.
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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's 24-Karat Bathroom Reader.
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