From Chasing Shadows by Larry Wilson.
That October, I returned to “Graveyard X” with a local central Illinois paranormal investigator named Ed Osborne. Ed is very knowledgeable and a good friend who I have a great deal of respect for. It was the Wednesday night before Halloween, and it was a cool (but not cold) evening. Ed and I had been in the cemetery for close to an hour taking pictures and checking EMF and temperature readings. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and it was about 7:30pm.
The curfew for the cemetery is 8:00pm, and it is patrolled by the county sheriff’s department, so Ed and I decided to make a final pass through the cemetery and then leave by curfew. I scanned the cemetery for temperature using my laser-pointed digital thermometer. The average temperature that night was 44 degrees. Everywhere I scanned, the temperature read 44 degrees Fahrenheit, that is, until I passed by the cement bench.
As I passed by the bench, the temperature began to drop. First the temperature dropped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, then it dropped below 30 degrees, then it dropped below 20 degrees. The temperature continued to drop steadily until it finally reached a low of minus 16 degrees below zero. Ed and I could not believe what we were seeing, so to make sure that there was not some type of malfunction, and to make sure that the thermometer was set to Fahrenheit and not Celsius, I shut it off and then turned it back on. It was definitely set to Fahrenheit.
“Carl’s directions were very accurate and Chris and I found the cemetery without any problem. However, because we came straight from the college, we did not have our paranormal investigating equipment with us. More importantly, we did not have a flashlight either. The moon that night was a waning crescent, which is only about one sixth of a moon. The sky was clear for the most part but the cemetery was very dark. We arrived a few minutes before 10:00pm. Once we got out of the car and walked a short distance, our eyes seemed to adjust to the darkness and we could make out objects or obstacles such as tombstones that were in our paths without difficulty.
Haunted “Caves” are 
“Cemetery X,” or “Graveyard X,” as it is known, is actually Thomas Anderson Cemetery, located south of Taylorville near the tiny town of Clarksdale. It was founded in 1867 by Tavner and Polly Anderson. This cemetery’s claim to fame seems to be its inclusion in a documentary called “America’s Most Haunted,” which Troy Taylor highly dramatized in Beyond the Grave as well as Confessions of a Ghost Hunter. Dozens of amateur pictures of mists and orbs taken here have circulated the Internet. According to local legend, there is a phantom wolf that guards the cemetery, and an old section that is only reachable at night after “the trees part.” Attempts to keep this graveyard’s identity a secret may have inadvertently attracted more attention to this location.
A cornucopia of urban legends have attached themselves to this aptly-named rural avenue and its neighboring cemetery. Visitors have reported seeing phantom vehicles and a dog with glowing red eyes. According to legend, the railroad bridge was the scene of a deadly school bus accident, as well as more than one hanging. These hangings have also been attributed to a bridge along nearby Sweeny Road.
Aux Sable is a quaint, garden-like cemetery tucked in the woods near Aux Sable Creek in Grundy County. Despite an otherwise mundane existence, it continues to be a point of contention between local youth and law enforcement. The legends associated with the cemetery are of the usual stock: strange car trouble, the ghost of a young child, and rumors of a gate to Hell.
Greenwood Cemetery is rumored to be one of the most haunted locations in central Illinois. According to Troy Taylor, the land that would become Greenwood was originally an Amerindian burial ground, and then was later used by the first white settlers to bury their dead until the late 1830s. These graves have since disappeared. The oldest visible marker on the grounds dates back to 1840, and Greenwood Cemetery was officially established in 1857.
The Massock Mausoleum in tiny Lithuanian Liberty Cemetery has long been the focus of local curiosity. Visitors have brought back stories of a “hatchet man” that guards the graveyard. The mausoleum itself is said to be warm to the touch and the scene of animal sacrifice. Red paint is spattered on the door, which has been sealed with concrete ever since the late 1960s when two vandals stole a skull from one of the Massock brothers. The Massock brothers’ mansion was located in the woods nearby, but was torn down in the late 1980s. Local teenagers used to refer to it as the “Hatchet Man’s House.”
Bachelor’s Grove has been a south side enigma for over three decades and is one of the most famous haunted cemeteries in America. One of the most controversial sightings around Bachelor’s Grove involves a phantom house. In the 1970s, Richard T. Crowe collected stories from dozens of eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen a white farmhouse at various places in the woods alongside the trail, complete with a glowing light in the window. There are several foundations and old brick wells tucked away in the woods—evidence that there were homes nearby sometime in the past.
Emmer: “Graveyard X,” or Thomas-Anderson Cemetery in Christian County, is a hoax. Aside from a few blurry pictures and photographs of moisture or dust in the air (orbs), all we have is the testimony of some dubious characters. Testimony is not evidence.
Mike: Those are all decent points, but you are forgetting that more than one person has been to “Cemetery X” and reported similar phenomenon. These visitors came independently and didn’t discuss their experiences with each other, so one wasn’t influenced by the other. Surely that lends some credibility to their stories? And who is to judge whether a person’s character is dubious, you?
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