Key West Cemetery

Another spot that we visited while in Key West was the The Key West Cemetery, a 19 acre cemetery that is home to the graves of more than 100,000 people, including Robert Eugene Otto, owner of Robert the Doll.  There are thousands or ornate tombstones and monuments throughout, many eerily decorated with mementos left on the gravestones.  One area that we found of interest was a plot of land surrounded by an iron fence whose gates are decorated with spear points and battle axes.  This particular spot houses graves of US servicemen and a memorial to the 260 US sailors who perished on the USS Maine after it was blown up in Havana Harbor in February of 1898, an act that led to the US declaring war on Spain. 

     Walking through the iron gates, I felt a strong emotion that I can only describe as eerie.  I didn’t immediately say anything but the longer we walked and perused the monument and the graves, the stronger the feeling became, settling heavy in my chest.  Once we exited through the gates to visit other parts of the cemetery, the feeling lifted, prompting me to mention it to my wife.  Uncannily, she expressed the exact same feelings while inside the gates, and as with me, those feelings abated once we exited through the gates.  We did not see anything that appeared supernatural and none of our photos turned up any strange anomalies, but the uneasy feeling was strong and simultaneous, and what’s more, neither knew the other was experiencing anything odd until we talked about it afterward.  Were the soldiers buried there trying to get our attention or thank us for visiting them?  Who knows, but the fact that we felt the same feelings at the same time and didn’t verbalize it to one another until after the fact is strong evidence that something extraordinary occurred.