More White House Ghosts: Presidential Pets Regan's "Rex" and Obama's "Beau"

Ever since the White House was first occupied in 1800, there have been rumors of hauntings, but this story direct from the President’s mouth. No, not President Obama.  This story is directly from the lips of Ronald Reagan.

 It was March 18, 1986, when the President entertained the dinner table throughout the meal and the story I remember best was about his encounters with the White House ghostly spirits.    According to the President, Rex, the King Charles Cavalier spaniel who had recently replaced Lucky as First Dog, had twice barked frantically in the Lincoln Bedroom and then backed out and refused to set foot over the threshold.  Another evening, while the Reagans were watching TV in their room, Rex stood up on his hind legs, pointed his nose at the ceiling and began barking at something invisible overhead.  To their amazement, the dog walked around the room, barking at the ceiling.

 “I started thinking about it,” the President continued, “And I began to wonder if the dog was responding to an electric signal too high-pitched for human ears, perhaps beamed toward the White House by a foreign embassy.  I asked my staff to look into it.”

 The President laughed and said, “I might as well tell you the rest.  A member of our family [he meant his daughter Maureen] and her husband always stay in the Lincoln Bedroom when they visit the White House.  Some time ago the husband woke up and saw a transparent figure standing at the bedroom window looking out.  Then it turned and disappeared.  His wife teased him mercilessly about it for a month.  Then, when they were here recently, she woke up one morning and saw the same figure standing at the window looking out.  She could see the trees right through it.  Again it turned and disappeared.”

The Lincoln bedroom was not a bedroom when Lincoln was President—it was his Cabinet Room where he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  It’s well known that Abraham Lincoln and his wife held séances in the White House, attempting to contact the spirit of their son Willie, who died there and who has been seen walking the halls.

I wonder if the Obamas have encountered any ghostly knockings yet, or if their dog Beau has suffered the same anxiety attacks as Reagan’s dog Rex...  it wouldn't surprise me if they have.  Tvcc