Down On The Graveyard

For anyone who has followed my stories, you might remember me mentioning an old graveyard on the farm I live on.  Recently, I paid a visit in order to clean up some of the graves, record the names, dates, and any genealogically valuable information, and to take some pictures of the cemetery.  The graves range from 1861-1927, and the cemetery has been very poorly maintained for many years.  I go down to clear out vines and wipe off any dirt from the stones.

After recording all the text from the seven graves present, the sun had just set, and the lighting seemed perfect for pictures of headstones.  I managed to take several good, and chilling pictures, but they were all normal.  After I had taken about seven pictures, however, my camera began to misbehave.  I would spend ten-thirty seconds focusing on the perfect shot, and, after taking the picture, it would come out blurry and unfocused.  I have never had any sort of trouble like this with my camera before, and I was, at first, merely frustrated that my perfect lighting was fading away and that I was getting few good pictures.  Next, the picture showing on the screen would seem to "lag," and failed to move smoothly with my movements, jumping around and refusing to get a good focus even on the screen.  Finally, the screen would simply black out for minutes at a time and then randomly turn back on, still unfocused.  At this point, a chill ran down my back and I decided to bid adieu to my sleeping neighbors and go home.  

After getting back home, I thoroughly checked my camera.  The batteries were not dead, but were in fact new, and fully charged.  So I ruled this out as a cause.  My mother suggested that the light level might have something to do with it, but there was still plenty of light when the photos were taken and I have taken good pictures in the middle of the night with the same camera, so it wouldn't have posed a problem anyway.  I was left with no explanation, and what I can't explain, I put on this site so it may be interpreted by others.

Important to note is that the cemetery holds two men who would have been of reasonable service age at the end of the Civil War.  One died in 1864, before the war ended, and the other died early in 1907.  I have searched Civil War soldier databases for records of these men in service of either side of the war (though it would have been more likely that they were confederates), and have come up empty.  These databases almost certainly don't have every man that served in the Civil War recorded, however, so it is still a possibility that they served.  Also buried there is a mother who died while giving birth to her daughter, who died just over two months later.  They are buried side by side. 

I plan to make a return trip to the cemetery later in the year, when the chiggers and mosquitos (which got me worse than any ghost did), are gone, and try taking more pictures to see if the phenomenon happens again.  I'd also like to try to capture some EVP there, but I need to buy a good recorder first.  

If anyone has a scientific explanation for what I experienced, I would be happy to hear it.