The spirits of Macon, Georgia, are turning the town into a paranormal tourist hub.
While staying at the 1842 Inn in Macon, Georgia, I woke up in the middle of the night and sat up. Someone had touched me on my upper arm. Once, twice, three times. My friend was asleep next to me. There was no one else in the room. Or was there?
That was my first – though not my last – ghostly experience in a historic building in Macon. The day before I left Macon, I met a paranormal investigation team called Macon Beyond who acknowledged that they too had endured a lot of eerie experiences at the 1842 Inn. In fact, I could watch their paranormal investigation of the property, and others, in their investigative video series focused on Macon’s haunted history.
The idea for the Macon Beyond video series came from host and Hollywood actress, Carrie Genzel, known for her roles in Supernatural, Jennifer’s Body, and Smallville.
“I had pitched the idea to Visit Macon about showcasing these incredible historical places that we have here but telling it from a paranormal lens and jumping into the ghosts, legends, and lore of the city,” Genzel says.
Although Genzel had ghostly experiences since she was five, she isn’t a paranormal investigator and needed a team to help her explore Macon’s haunted spaces. Ten years ago, Genzel met Morrighan Lynne, a psychic empath and spiritual medium, in Dallas, Texas, on another paranormal project. Lynne and her husband Jonathan Morgan, a paranormal investigator, reached out to Genzel the week of her pitch with news that they were moving to Macon.
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“She goes in the next meeting [with Visit Macon] and is like, ‘I have my team.’ We didn’t know anything about it,” Lynne explains. “Then she’s like [to us], ‘Funny thing, I’ve got this project, so when get here, we’re going to get to work.’ I’m like, this is the weirdest, most synchronistic moment. Spirits were calling us in.”
In 2024, Lynne, Morgan, and Genzel joined a camera crew and began investigating some of Macon’s historic locations, with the intent to be mindful and respectful of their community.
“Unfortunately, Hollywood and some TV shows have a reputation of antagonizing, going for like the high sensation. We don’t do that. We really want to respect the people living, the family, and whoever now owns the historic building,” Morgan explains.
The team has investigated the Macon City Auditorium, Hay House, Burke Mansion, 1842 Inn, and the Big House Museum – home of the Allman Brothers Band – in the last two years, sharing their investigations on the Macon Beyond page and social media. As the host of Macon Beyond, Genzel opens each video with historical information and lore, as well as interviews with the owner or employees of the location.
“I’m the audience’s voice, asking the questions,” she says. “I try to do the research so that I have an idea of who may be there or who we might be talking to [in terms of spirits, to] sort of fill in what [Lynne and Morgan] may be picking up,” she says.
As the lead investigator, Morgan brings paranormal equipment like ghost boxes that scan frequencies, thermal cameras that note changes in temperature, and Rem pods, electromagnetic tools that light up and beep if an otherworldly presence is near. In the Macon City Auditorium episode, Morgan catches a figure sitting in a conference room chair with a 3D mapping device.
“I love the Auditorium because I got a lot of great evidence out of that,” Morgan shares.
Lynne, a psychic empath and spiritual medium, takes on the role of communicating between the dead and living. Sometimes this presents itself as Lynne seeing spirits, like in the Hay House when she sees a male figure standing at the fireplace mantel in the same position where William Butler Johnston, who built the house in the mid-1800s, would have received guests. Other times she may hear music from the past or physically feel something the spirits want her to feel.
“The spirits were a little apprehensive because I don’t think people investigate in this area. They weren’t sure what to do with us at first,” Lynne explains. “Now, I feel like they’re more eager, like, ‘Oh, we can connect.’”
Lynne’s gifts appeared when she was seven years old, but remained dormant until she was about 26, when she stopped ignoring her guides and angels. She first used her skills with a paranormal investigation team in Dallas and has been honing them ever since. Lynne’s approach to each historic location is different than the rest of her team.
“I ask for no information. I don’t even want to know where we’re going until we’re pulling up into the driveway,” she explains.
Once at a location, Lynne speaks to the spirits present, learning their names or what happened to them, often sifting through Macon’s long history to better understand what spirits are communicating. This isn’t easy considering Macon has been inhabited for over 17,000 years, is the ancestral home of the Muscogee Nation, and was an active region during slavery and the Civil War.
“I have to spend time figuring out which era is reaching out to me. Is it the most recent, the builders of the home? Is it the Indigenous people?” Lynne explains.
The most exciting moments in the Macon Beyond video series occur when team members have ghostly experiences that overlap.
“In our Hay House episode, I visually saw a dark orb come at me, break off to Morrighan, and she got dizzy. We never told Jonathan about that. He was in another part of the house at that time,” Genzel explains. “But he caught on his equipment on that same floor, a dark orb that looked exactly like what I saw. That was the greatest piece of evidence because I experienced it, Morrigan experienced it, and Jonathan caught it on camera.”
For Genzel, Morgan, and Lynne, the Macon Beyond project has allowed them to explore Macon’s history and learn more about the other side.
“Nobody wants to be forgotten and those that have passed on, they don’t want to be forgotten either, so it’s a great way to continue to tell their stories and share them with another generation of people,” says Genzel.
Most excitingly, the Macon Beyond videos are attracting paranormal tourists to a virtually untapped paranormal destination on par with Savannah and New Orleans in terms of activity.
Marisa Rodgers, VP & Chief Marketing Officer of Visit Macon shares that “the Macon Beyond video series and its approach to blending the paranormal with history has already seen such strong streaming numbers and impressions. Sites that have been explored have seen an increase in interest from visitors.”
This doesn’t surprise Morgan who encourages paranormal tourists intrigued by the video series to make a trip: “Macon is very active, especially from some other cities that I’ve lived in or visited.”
“It would be such an easy place to stretch and grow and practice your skills,” adds Lynne. “You’re going to get something. It feels so concentrated.”
Macon Beyond will be sharing more paranormal investigations in 2026 and will likely offer travelers the chance to join them for an investigation, too (they hosted an incredibly successful investigation event that I attended in October 2025 at the Burke Mansion). Till then, take a trip out to Macon for your own paranormal experience.
“For those that have a little bit of investigative nature to them, Macon is a fun place to come and explore and learn some new stories, haunts, and lore,” says Genzel.
