This ghost was another idea we came up with after a failed attempt at a flying ghost track. We initinaly started off with a grand plan to have a ghost fly through the graveyard, up to the roof, around the top of the house and back down into the graveyard. After months of planning and building, we set up the track for Halloween 1999 only to find out that our plan was too ambitious. The track failed and the ghost kept falling off the track. So, for 2000 we regrouped and built this project using most of the same materials.
We built a 6 foot tall stand out of wood that sat on top of our roof over the garage. A motor that I bought from ebay was attached to the stand. Attached to the motor was a four foot piece of angled steel. We hung a length of close line from the end of the angled steel to the peak of the roof above our bathroom (the room with the rotating body parts). The ghost was hung on the close line with a pulley. With the motor off, and the angled steel arm parallel to the gound, the close line was level with the center shaft of the motor and the peak of the roof above our bathroom. As the motor rotates the arm, the close line is lowerd on the motor side by four feet (the length of the angled steel arm) when it gets to the bottom and vice versa when the arm rotates to the top. The ghost moves side to side along the close line on the pulley, as well as back and forth as the arm rotates toward the front of the house and then back towards the back yard. It is pretty cool!
Behind the Scenes: The ghost is made from cheese cloth, coat hangers, and a foam head. The hands are made out of cardboard. I also put two red LEDs in the foam head for eyes. I sprayed the whole thing with glow in the dark hair spray, then I set up a black light on the roof so the the ghost would glow. We used a clothes line to hang the ghost on, but since it was white, you could see it at night. Next year we are going to use some black rope.
Written by Michael S. Atwood