A lot of people wonder if ghosts really do exist, but for Mercedes Yaeger there's no question about it because she's seen them.
And the Queen Anne resident offers others the chance to experience other-worldly encounters on a ghost tour she runs at the Pike Place Market, which is purportedly a hot bed of paranormal activity in Seattle.
A talent and documentary producer at KCTS-TV, Yaeger got an early start experiencing the world of spirits. "At 12, I'd seen a ghost, but it didn't quite register," she said.
The ghost was an elderly Japanese woman who appeared inside an old farmhouse the Yaeger's family was living in on Bainbridge Island, she said. Her father - now the self-proclaimed Pike Place Market Mayor Michael Yaeger - had also seen the apparition, she said. "Our belief was she died in the house during the (World War II) internment."
Years later, Yeager saw another ghost in her Pike Place Market apartment. It was an angry Swedish man she figured must have been a baker because he was covered in flour, Yaeger said. "I actually reported him to security; I thought he was real," she said. "He wasn't."
Yaeger demonstrated paranormal abilities as she was growing up, she said.
"When I was a kid, I was convinced I could leave my body." Yaeger even tried to teach other neighborhood kids how to do astral projection, she added. "My father encouraged these pursuits."
Yaeger started the ghost-tour business with the help of a family connection. Her father had been running the tours just on Halloween since 1985, and he needed help in 2002, she said.
"I'd already heard the stories growing up," said Yaeger, so she helped with the tour that night.
Yaeger is surprised at the over-the-top success of the ghost tours. "I always thought it would be this quirky thing in the market," she said. "Now on Halloween night we get 400 people."
But like life, all things come to an end. Yaeger now says she'd like to step away and let the ghost-tour business run itself so she can concentrate on production work at KCTS. "I'm deeply committed to Channel 9," she said. "I've been there so many years."
For more information about the ghost tours, visit www.seattleghost.com or call 322-1218.[[In-content Ad]]
