Ghost Hunting Tour at Spanish Point

Osprey, Florida: Our October tour of haunted sites continued with a stop at Historic Spanish Point for their Ghost Hunting Tour. Historic Spanish Point is reported to be one of the most haunted locations in Sarasota County and its reputation did not disappoint us on our tour.

Located along the bay in Osprey, the 30 acre Spanish Point has a rich history. It was the site of a native American village as well as the pioneer homestead of the Webb family and eventually the vacation home of socialite Bertha Palmer. With burial mounds, a pioneer cemetery and original homesteads there was sure to be plenty of paranormal activity to witness at Spanish Point. 

Our tour started at 8pm at the white gazebo. Here we were introduced to two of our guides Ryan (an archaeologist with Sarasota County) and Bill (a historical actor at Spanish Point). Then our group of twenty ghost hunters headed out to explore to property.

On this tour, we came a little better prepared. The staff at Spanish Point sent out an e-mail to all guests indicating some great ghost hunting apps for smartphones. However my wife found one that she really liked called "Ghost Hunter M2" by Jedasoft. For just $0.99, you can arm yourself with an app that can detect EMF, decifer EVP's and monitor the environment for sudden changes in energy, Unlike most apps in which you can only do one thing at a time, this particular one has a dashboard that allows you to monitor all activity from one location.

It didn't take long to get activity on the app or through pictures. Our first stop was at the Burial Mound near the entrance. Here the detectors began reading an elevated energy level and then it indicated the name "Conrad". Our guide Ryan had indicated at that time that there were members of the Conrad actually buried on the site.

Our next stop was the Guptill House. As we were walking up to the house, my wife noticed the shadow of a figure in the first floor front window as you looked at the side of the house. At the time, the house was still secured and our entire group was outside listening to Ryan giving the history of the house.

Inside the house, we were introduced to the spirit of Frank, a boat builder who lived on the property. Bill was able to communicate with Frank using his K2 meter and Frank was active in communicating for most of the night.

We then walked across the property to our final stop, the Pioneer Cemetery. It is here where we learned about the rest of the pioneers who were laid to rest at Spanish Point. Bill continued to communicate with many of the spirits here and most of them were responding positively to the K2 meter.

When I went home to go through the almost 200 photos taken during the tour, I was shocked by how many of them contained orbs. There were even a few other anomalies on some of the photos including a red mist on a couple of them and strange light flash patterns. The tour was a great mix between history and ghost stories which made it very interesting. While my wife is more focused on the paranormal history, I enjoyed the historical overview and stories of the pioneers who lived at Spanish Point. Ryan did a great job at telling the history of Spanish Point and everyone that works here has had some type of paranormal experience.

The Ghost Hunting Tour is offered just one night a year to correspond with Halloween. With the amount of experiences noted during this tour, it would be nice if they offered the tour more often. I know we would go back and see what we can get on another visit. Just have to wait another year to do it. This has been our third tour this month and by far the best and most active.

While I am still not a 100% believer in ghosts, I can say there were things on this tour that you just can't explain. Maybe in time, I will become a believer, but until then the hunts and story telling have been worth every penny.

Be sure to check out all the photos from the tour by clicking on any of the photos in the article to view the Ghost Hunting Tour photo gallery.