Six Flags Over Georgia

Georgia's largest theme park, open since 1967, has ghost stories that predate Fright Fest by decades. A blonde nine-year-old killed in the 1970s parking lot approaches guests crying for her mother before vanishing, an actor named Joe watches Crystal Pistol performances from the balcony after dying in a car crash on his way to his first show, and figures in 1800s clothing cross the Lickskillet railroad bridge at dusk.

A blonde nine-year-old in a floral sundress runs up to guests near the parking lot, crying for her mother, begging them to help her find her. They walk with her for maybe ten yards. Then she's gone.

That's the most unsettling story at Six Flags Over Georgia, and it has nothing to do with any haunted ride or Fright Fest set piece. The girl was hit by a car in the 1970s near what was then the old Amoco gas station by the park entrance. Visitors describe her as frantic, searching the tree line, and then simply not there anymore. Security staff got used to it. Kenneth R White, who worked security at the park in the late 1990s, described hearing a little girl scream from inside the park at 2 a.m. when only staff were on the grounds. At Martha's Ville station, a girl screamed from the women's restroom, but when they checked, nobody was inside.

Six Flags Over Georgia opened on June 16, 1967 in Austell, about 20 minutes west of downtown Atlanta. Adults paid $3.95 admission. It was the second Six Flags park ever built, created by Angus G. Wynne. The ghost stories started in the park's opening year.

The most documented involves a man named Joe, an actor cast in the opening number at the Crystal Pistol Music Hall. Joe was killed in a car accident on his way to work in 1967, before he ever performed. His ghost has been seen sitting at the edge of the Crystal Pistol balcony, watching the shows he missed. Staff have heard a man singing inside the hall after it's been locked for the night. Joe also has a thing for props: items from the stage end up on the railroad tracks beside the building, moved there by no one anyone can identify.

The Lickskillet section of the park has its own reputation. Multiple witnesses have spotted figures dressed in 1800s clothing crossing the railroad bridge around dusk. The going theory is that they're echoes of performers from an early Six Flags show that recreated a period train robbery. That raises an odd question: why would theme park actors from a scripted show leave impressions behind?

The dark rides carry their own history. The building that now houses Monster Mansion started in 1967 as Tales of the Okefenokee, themed after Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories. It became Monster Plantation in 1981, then Monster Mansion in 2009 after a renovation by Gary Goddard of Legacy Entertainment. Through every version, riders have described things that aren't part of the show. Movement in peripheral vision where no animatronic sits. Cold drafts in sections without air conditioning. The sense that the figures on the boats aren't the only things watching you float by.

An amusement park is a strange place for ghost stories. No old house, no battlefield, no centuries of accumulated sorrow. Just a parking lot where a nine-year-old was hit by a car, a music hall where an actor died before his first performance, and a railroad bridge where figures in period clothing cross at dusk without anyone putting them there. The employees who've worked at Six Flags the longest tend to have their own stories. They don't always share them with guests.