So, you’ve decided to run for president. You haven’t been scared off by the intense media scrutiny. You’ve made peace with the fact that a significant portion of the population will hate you no matter what. You’re prepared for the possibility that one or more of your constituents may try to shoot and kill you. But are you prepared for the ghosts? Do you have a plan in place in case Maryland is invaded by dragons? What if a literal angel shows up with a straight-up Biblical prophecy for you to decipher? Because these are the things that American presidents have had to deal with. Or at least, that’s how the stories go.
What you’re about to read are six tales of the supernatural starring U.S. presidents. They span the history of the United States, as well as the gamut of the strange and unusual. Commanders-in-chief have supposedly found themselves contending with everything from mundane household ghosts to grand cryptozoological quests. These tales also vary pretty wildly in their spuriousness, but I’ll do my best to separate myth from truth. You can picture me with a beret and a walrus mustache if it helps.
George Washington’s American Apocalypse
Legend has it that during the interminable, Westerosi winter at Valley Forge, a despondent George Washington was visited by a mysterious, angelic spirit. The future president then had a series of prophetic dreams which supposedly predicted the future of the nation he was trying to establish. According to the visions supplied by this being, Washington’s country would be embroiled in three great wars: one with Europe, one with itself, and one against Europe, Africa, and Asia. Energized by seeing America triumphant, Washington redoubled his efforts and the rest is history. As you might expect, Washington made note of this admittedly unusual occurrence in his private letters, which is how we know of it today.
Status: Nothing but Gilded Age propaganda. This supposed prophecy is actually a jingoistic short story by Charles Wesley Alexander, AKA Wesley Bradshaw. Alexander actually specialized in this very narrow genre: American icons having Revelation-style visions of the future. In the hundred years since its publication, the original context has gotten lost in the retellings, and now there are folks out there who actually think a fargin’ angel showed up to tell G-Wash about how America’s going to conquer all of Europe, Africa, and Asia simultaneously.
The Bell Witch vs. Andrew Jackson
The Bell Witch wasn’t really a witch, it was more of an all-purpose frontier bogey that tormented Tennessee’s Bell family. Supposedly, the being called itself Kate, and could manifest as a disembodied voice or as a strange, half-rabbit/half-dog creature. The entertainment scene in 19th century rural Tennessee being what it was, people began to travel from miles around to check out the phenomenon. One prominent investigator was then-Major General Andrew Jackson, who arrived with a military escort to challenge the spirit. Kate is supposed to have verbally greeted the future president, spooked his horses, and roughed up one of his companions. Although Jackson resolved to stay the night at the Bell farm, he was next seen in Nashville early the next morning, indicating that something had convinced him to depart in the dead of night.
Status: Implausible. Andrew Jackson owned property in the area of Tennessee haunted by the Witch, and may have even known John Bell personally. However, during the most intense years of the haunting, he was rather occupied fighting the First Seminole War. Also, the presidential election of 1824 was one of the nastiest ever. Jackson’s wife was driven to nervous breakdown and early death by a campaign accusing her of bigamy and infidelity, so if his opponents could have painted him as a superstitious coward who fled from a backwoods witch, they would have.
The Various Adventures of Lincoln’s Ghost
Conventional wisdom states that ghosts are spirits tethered to the earthly plane by unfinished business. Abraham Lincoln was just about to begin healing a nation literally and figuratively torn apart when he was killed, so if any of our presidents were going to haunt the White House, it’d be him. His shade has been spotted by visitors for nearly two centuries, while guests staying in the Lincoln Bedroom often hear his spectral footsteps or knocks at the door. The most spectacular story involves a WWII-era encounter between the ghost of Lincoln and a naked, slightly drunk Winston Churchill. Exiting the bath to find the president’s specter standing by the fire, the unflappable Prime Minister lit a cigar and quipped, “Good evening, Mr. President. You appear to have me at a disadvantage.” Lincoln then chuckled in embarrassment and faded away.
Status: Of all the things that never happened, a naked Churchill banishing Lincoln’s ghost with his John Bull never happened the most. Lincoln’s widow was a spiritualist devotee and conducted countless séances to contact both her husband and her departed sons. She even went as far as having crooked “spirit photographers” produce a portrait of her and her spectral husband. Thanks to his wife’s proclivities and his own iconic visage, Lincoln’s Ghost was a meme as soon as he died. Basically, people expect to see Abe, and they do. No one expects to see the also-assassinated J.A. Garfield, and they don’t.
Theodore Roosevelt, Monster Hunter
Unlike many presidents, Theodore Roosevelt killed lots of fierce creatures. During his time as a cowboy in the Dakota badlands, he battled cougars and bears. Later in life, he killed a charging rhinoceros. During the Spanish-American War, he bagged some Spaniards. According to legend, he hunted for much worse. America’s greatest big game hunter is said to have mounted (or planned to mount) expeditions in search of countless cryptids, to wit: a Bigfoot-like creature called Old Slippyfoot in the mountains of Vermont; the snollygaster, a draconic flying reptile from Maryland; a Nessie-esque lake monster in Patagonia; and thirty-foot long, Jon Voight-killing snakes in the Amazon jungle.
Status: True in spirit. TR kept journals and wrote an exhaustive autobiography as well as numerous hunting-specific memoirs, none of which record any direct monster encounters. One of Roosevelt’s volumes of hunting stories does contain a breathless tale of a confrontation with a Sasquatch-like beast, but it’s a secondhand account. What is undeniably true is that TR offered a $10,000 bounty for an anaconda longer than 30 feet, and attempted to capture one himself during an Amazonian expedition in 1913. The bounty is still unclaimed today, but it has increased fivefold; even monstrous serpents can’t fight inflation.
The Thing About Taft
Don’t get excited; it’s not whichever The Thing you’re thinking of. John Carpenter’s not involved. No one got zapped by cosmic rays and turned into a rock monster. W.H. Taft didn’t throw hands with Mothra on the White House lawn. In this case, The Thing was the ghost of a teenage boy that started following around White House staff in 1911. We only know about The Thing thanks to the private letters of Taft’s military aide, Major Archibald Butt. Yes, his name was Major Butt, I swear. Anyway, all we know about The Thing is that he was history’s gentlest poltergeist, and you’d know he was around when you felt a hand lightly resting on your shoulder.
Status: Indeterminate. Literally all we know about The Thing comes from Major Butt’s letter, in which he also states that Taft was not happy about the situation. The president felt that even discussing The Thing was an embarrassment to himself, all former presidents, and to the United States, and swore to fire anyone mentioning the ghost. Luckily for posterity, Butt’s cheeky letter slipped through the cracks, his ass of a boss be damned.
Jimmy Carter’s Close Encounter
In 1969, Jimmy Carter was preparing to give a speech at a Lion’s Club in Leary, Georgia, when something peculiar happened. A mysterious, luminescent object appeared in the night sky, grew steadily closer, and then began to change color. Over a period of ten to twelve minutes, the light changed from white to blue to red and back to white before receding into the distance. All present then went inside to pretend to listen to the nice man’s speech while actually thinking WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT THING. Carter would go on to file an official report with the International UFO Bureau.
Status: Mysterious but not supernatural. On the campaign trail in 1976, Carter pledged complete government transparency on UFO research. Once elected, however, he changed his tune, citing defense concerns. Carter stated in his 1973 report that he believed the phenomenon to be related to experimental activity at a nearby military base. Perhaps his initial suspicion turned out to be correct. Or maybe when you get elected they tell you about the Shadow Government, composed of moon men, shapeshifting witches, and Old Slippyfoot. It’s still up for debate, really.
