My father and I took a trip up the historic east coast of the U.S. in the summer of 1998. And one of the souvenirs I brought back, was a book on famous D.C. ghost stories.
Anyways, according to the book, every New Years Eve, the statues in Statuary Hall dance, to celebrate another year of the republic. There purportedly have been witnesses to this event (although one was apparently drunk when he witnessed it).
I still have the book, but it obviously would be hard provide a cite from it. So I will just get down to business: Were there any reports of it happening this year [2015]?
Personally, I would love to be there just to see and find out. But that would be difficult. Also, I believe in God and being good, but I presently don’t believe in an afterlife. But I still find ghost stories (esp. slightly frightening ones, like the one above) fascinating. What causes them? And why do people still see them?
Anyways, any reports this year of this phenomenon?
A quick Google news search doesn’t reveal anything, but I’m sure if you plumbed the depths of the stranger parts of the internet you could find something about statues dancing.
As for why people believe in ghosts, there’s a lot of theories. This article does a decent job of summing up some of the possibilities (humans tend to look for meaning even when there isn’t any, are particularly good at seeing human faces where no such thing exists).
Why would stories of dancing ghost statues be frightening? Sounds like they are just having a wholesome frolicking good time. Ghosts just wanna have fun too.
No reports in the local papers, but if it did happen, it probably wouldn’t be a very good party. Of the 36 statutes left in the hall, there are only two women. What a sausage fest!
(Since you got that book, most statutes have been distributed around the Capitol, including to the new visitor center which opened a few years ago.)
If only there were a service you could call with trained personnel on call and ready to muster at a moment’s notice and deal with ghosts. Sort of a “Ghostmusters” that you could call.
That’s the thing. After about 2000 (ramped up after 9/11), the Capitol went through some major renovations. Among security increases were regularly patrolling and stationary members of the Capitol Police. As a result, there is no time when the statues are not under observation by a human or each other. Another ghost story falls in the blink of an eye.
The reason they are called ghost stories and not ghost facts is because they are not true. There were, are, and will not be dancing statues at Statuary Hall. Statues don’t dance. The fact that there are no newspaper headlines this morning screaming “OH MY FUCKING GOD! DANCING STATUES!” pretty much confirms this.
