Absecon Lighthouse

A 1905 keeper fired a shotgun at the Jersey Devil atop Absecon's 171-foot tower. Phantom cigar smoke and a disembodied-legs photo followed.

A keeper at Absecon Lighthouse grabbed his shotgun in 1905 and fired at something perched on the iron lantern room 171 feet above Atlantic City. Whatever it was let out a howl and flew off into the dark. The keeper swore it was the Jersey Devil.

It was the first ghost story at what's now the oldest surviving building in Atlantic City and New Jersey's tallest lighthouse. The tower went up because Absecon Inlet had an ugly reputation. Sixty-four ships wrecked in these waters between 1847 and 1856, and the tragedy that finally moved Congress was the April 1854 loss of the packet ship Powhatan, which broke apart in an April gale and sent bodies washing onto Atlantic City beaches for days. Dr. Jonathan Pitney pushed the project through. Lieutenant George Meade, the same officer who'd later command the Union army at Gettysburg, drew up the plans. First lit January 15, 1857.

Six head keepers lived and worked here before automation. Abraham Wolf, who served from 1873 to 1896, wrote up an 1886 earthquake in the station logbook. Most of the ghost reports at Absecon seem to point back to keepers like him, men who spent decades on one piece of ground and never really left it.

The most common experience is smell. Pipe tobacco, cigar smoke, drifting through rooms where no one has lit a match in a hundred years. The old oil house, the outbuilding where keepers gathered to smoke and drink once the beam was trimmed for the night, is the hotspot. One staff member walked in and came face to face with a bearded man in coveralls who disappeared in front of him. Another employee reported watching a disembodied hand on the staircase, at the same landing where soft voices have been picked up that sound like work instructions being passed down.

Then there are the footsteps. Visitors and staff both describe the same thing: deliberate climbing and descending on the 228 steps to the watchroom, when the tower is locked and empty. One visitor in August 2023 recorded heavy breathing behind him on the climb and rapid taps on the masonry that one local theorized sounded like Morse. The main door has a habit of opening and closing on its own. A cash register in the gift shop is known to flash the word 'GHOST' on its digital display for no reason anyone has been able to explain.

The photograph most people ask about was taken in the stairwell, and it shows a pair of legs descending from the landing above. Nothing attached. Nobody else in the tower. It isn't a fair test of anything on its own, but sits there as another data point in a pile that's gotten hard to dismiss.

Syfy's Ghost Hunters team investigated on March 24, 2010, for an episode called 'Phantoms of Jersey.' The weather was a problem. A nor'easter hit during the shoot, which turned any audio review into a fight against wind. They still got a few things worth showing. A female voice answering one of their questions with 'I like you.' A camera at the top of the staircase moving on its own. A dark shape moving across a wall. Investigators reported seeing legs descend the stairs, then no one. Amy Bruni floated the theory that paranormal activity scales with water, and that lighthouse keepers, who tended to die in harness, might have unfinished business that keeps them attached to a post they spent their whole working life staring out from.

Whatever lingers at Absecon doesn't feel angry. It feels like someone still on shift, checking the lamp.