Billy Jackson opened the door to the entrance bay of Opelika Fire Station No. 2 like he did many summer nights while working for the Opelika fire department in the late 1980s.
Alone and awake in the common room after the rest of the crew had gone to bed, Jackson heard a clang of metal on concrete coming from the entrance bay feet away. The sound was best compared to the sound of a metal folding chair being slammed onto the floor, Jackson said.
He walked out to investigate himself, but there were no metal folding chairs, no fallen pieces of equipment, nothing. Yet Jackson says to this day the sound was as concrete as the ground in the entrance bay.
Jackson had heard stories about unexplainable sounds and sightings before he began working with the fire department in 1985. He swapped stories with the people he worked with until he changed jobs in 1990, and he is still a familiar face around fire department headquarters 24 years later. And 24 years later, the number of stories about paranormal activity at the station has grown.
Fire Station No. 2's double-engine garage and living quarters have sat next to the East Alabama Medical Center on Pepperell Parkway since the 1960s. The red-brick building tucked behind a long driveway and manicured lawn is easy to miss next to the large hospital next door on the road serving as an artery connecting Auburn and Opelika.
In his black work boots, navy pants and black fire department t-shirt with a pink breast cancer awareness month emblem, Capt. Brent Stephens recalled his own paranormal stories about Fire Station No. 2.
"I don't believe in ghosts, but it's something strange," Stephens said. "I've seen something that looked just like a person."
Stephens has personally witnessed lights and TVs turning on or off and doors being opened, but it was a figure he saw more than 10 years ago that confirmed his suspicions about the old fire station.
Watching TV after the other men on duty had gone to bed, Stephens saw what he described as a man who looked "like Abraham Lincoln," in period clothes of a top hat and a tailed coat.
Since then Stephens has heard stories about men seeing a girl in the fetal position on the farthest bed from the door, and men waking up to briefly catch a glimpse of people watching the fire fighters sleep.
Stephens has also seen a paranormal team of ghost hunters set up their tent and equipment at the station and write a report confirming paranormal activity coming from a little girl. Fire Chief Terry Adkins still has the report.
After Jackson left the Opelika fire department, he stayed in the city he was born and raised in. He worked for the hospital, was the Spring Villa caretaker with Parks and Recreation, did photography for Opelika-Auburn News, earned a degree in public relations at 40-years-old from Auburn University in 2004 and currently works as membership director at the Opelika Sportsplex.
His office is covered with Auburn University memorabilia ranging from bobble heads to a four-colored Aubie painting in the style of Andy Warhol's pop art. Through all of his jobs in the city he has grown an understanding of the people and places that local haunted lore celebrates.
Jackson's description on the validity of ghost stories in the area echoes that of Alabama paranormal researcher Faith Serafin in that it is something you need to see to believe, and his beliefs follow what many of the people in local haunts have said over The Plainsman's month-long exploration of allegedly haunted places.
"I think there is something there, but I don't know what," Jackson said. "I'll say I have a healthy respect."
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