Witch's Grave

image from the William A. Renfrow Online Gallery
Annapolis, Maryland, has its share of haunted history. In Truxton Park, near the head of Spa Creek past the ballfields, there's a gnarled tree leaning over the bank; the immediate area is known as the Witch's Grave.

One version of the local story claims that three witches were executed - two were hung, one burned - and buried there in the 1800’s. It's said that their ghosts haunt the local woods and can be seen from the road.

The second and more publicized bit of lore says that the victims of a vengeful witch spook the place. The crone was reportedly hung and buried here, but rose from the dead and escaped her grave, never to be seen again.

That wasn't good news for her executioners; she got her payback, and it's been told that you can see their apparitions hanging from the same tree that claimed her.

Some say the legend holds true during any dark evening; others say it only holds sway on Halloween. Oh, and if you stay and gawk too long, according to the lore, you could end up being one of those swinging bodies.

The Witch's Grave is the stuff of urban legend; no local documentation or history to support a local witch hunt or trial can be found. Still, the story started somehow and is passed on to this day...and Halloween is fast approaching if you have the itch to find that tree.

Witch of Highland

Highland Cemetery image from Buscatube
Located in Marion County, the small community of Mannington is rich in history. But its best known bit of lore doesn't involve Indian battles, the Civil War, or the oil and gas boom: Mannington is the home of one of the state's most enduring urban legends, The Witch's Grave at Highland Cemetery.

Highland Cemetery and its chapel sit off a rural dirt road, high on a hilltop. Abandoned for years (although it's now being used again for services), the chapel was supposedly once the meeting place for satanists.

The chapel reportedly doesn't have a cross in it; in fact, its decor is said to feature ancient Greek woman in a kind of Bacchanal theme. On Halloween, its attendance board is rumored to equal the number of people in the chapel, and is updated with each new or departing visitor by an unseen census taker.

(Don't just bust in to find out, please; the once abandoned church is now used for services again, and the remote graveyard has been vandalized too many times.)

But the main claim to paranormal fame for Highland Cemetery is that the graveyard is reputed to be the final resting spot of West Virginia's most famous witch.

She goes by many first names in lore: Zelda, Sarah Jane, or Serlinda Jane Whetzel. Her tombstone reads "Serilda Jane Whetzel, date of death: May 29th, 1909"; we assume that answers that question.

Whetzel shares the graveyard with an alleged warlock, Tusca Roy Morris ("Born November 11, 1874 Died December 30, 1900.") Both graves face west, toward the setting sun; the cemetery's other markers face east. Both tombstones are in a corner of the graveyard, under a dogwood tree.

As ominously spooky as the headstones' placement may seem, the reason probably lies in Highland Cemetery vandals, who have knocked down the markers several times and replaced them backwards. It's said that whenever the workers set the stones straight, the midnight partiers quickly return and reverse them again.

But the desecration of the stones can't explain away the carvings etched on them so easily. Whetzel's obelisk shows a staircase descending down into the fiery mouth of a demonic dragon.

A staircase ascending into heaven is a common enough depiction on a monument. The question is whether Whetzel's artwork shows a fall into Lucifer's underworld or is a century-old etching that time has eroded just enough to blur and contort the original image.

Tusca's stone shows a face with horns. Again, whether that's just a result of the ravages of time or something more sinister isn't known.

Of course, there's always the inconvenient fact that they were buried in Christian plots; apparently the good reverend back in the day didn't think the pair were Satan's spawns at the time of their deaths if he allowed them to be interred on church grounds.

At any rate, the local tale is that if you visit Highland Cemetery late at night, you'll see glowing in the woods and hear strange noises. The witch and her warlock companion have been reportedly spotted in the vicinity of their graves, quickly disappearing when approached. And on Halloween, a trip to the chapel will include your gang in a netherworld census headcount.

Urban legend or something more...?

Satan's Hollow

We were checking out Ohio for some of its witchy past, and hey - we discovered that not many witches seemed to ply their craft there.

But we did find an urban legend concerning a storm sewer where some devil worshipers used to chant and sing, and figured "close enough." This is the tale of Satan's Hollow, a series of drainage channels located by a small creek in Blue Ash, a suburb of Cincinnati.

It's said a group of satanists used to meet in the pitch-black, cave-sized tunnels (you can easily walk upright through them) and conduct their rituals, including, of course, animal sacrifice. The followers of Beelzebub were said to have brought forth spirits and were visited by the kingpin, Satan himself, during their ceremonies.

They gathered in an altar room, and even opened a direct gateway to Hades, now marked in graffiti and tagged as "God's Chamber," a manhole with an impressive drop; it seems deep enough to reach China, if not the depths of hell. It doesn't appear that the coven is active anymore; teens with spray paint seem to have taken over the complex. But the cultists have left their reminders behind.

Female screams can be heard at night echoing through the concrete conduits. There have been reported sightings of various apparitions, including floating skulls and a demon, not to mention the usual assortment of earthly critters drawn to a nice dark cave.

The star spook is the "Shadow Man," one of Old Scratch's loyal demons, left to guard the tunnels. Kinda appropriate that one of the Devil's boys is keeping an eye on a sewer, hey? He gets his name because the imp has a human form, but it's completely blacked out, like a floating shadow.

One reader shared his experiences there: "We heard a girl's voice saying 'help me' and there was a black figure walking back and forth that just disappeared. We freaked out and started to run, and it felt like something grabbed me and my brother by the ankles when we were running out up the side hill, and we felt like we were being dragged."

There are a also couple of Satan's Hollow YouTube vids out, filmed by intrepid explorers of the occult. One group has seen and heard spooked-out things, the other just walked through with nary a sighting.

Urban legend or not, Satan's Hollow is the perfect place to spawn a scary tale; black as sin, echoes resonating, occult symbols (and no small amount of obscenities) covering its walls... a shadow man would be the ultimate finishing touch.

Barnum's Cannibals

P.T. Barnum from Wikipedia
This isn't a ghost story, but it is one of the weirder tales to come out of the fair town of York, a textbook example of Phineas Taylor Barnum's ability to generate - some say fabricate - a story.

First, a bit of history. The York Judicial Center now stands on the site of the old Penn Hotel, which was razed for the Pennsylvania House Hotel.

PT Barnum stayed in the Pennsy House in 1872 during a stop of his "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome", the self proclaimed "Greatest Show on Earth". His act included 4 purported genuine Fijian cannibals, allegedly ransomed from the King of Fiji before they became the special of the day from his kitchen.

One of them, a dwarf, took ill. He died uttering "Fiji" as his last word, and was laid out in a hotel room. The man watching over his remains locked the door and left for half an hour. When he returned, the two remaining male cannibals were merrily nibbling away on the corpse while being scolded by the lone female, who apparently was Christian and had renounced her man-eating ways.

At least, that's what the York Daily reported. The town's other paper, the True Democrat, called the story whole bunkum. And we'll never know which was right; was it just a clash of cultures or another ink-grabbing hoax by the master?

What was left of the poor cannibal was buried in the local Potter's Field with 700 other unmarked, unclaimed, and unknown bodies. 25 years later, the bodies were disinterred, and people were eager to open the Fijian's coffin and see if he was intact or was indeed served up as his showmate's entree.

Alas, the coffin was empty! It seems a local doctor hired a professional ghoul to snatch the body, which he proudly exhibited in his office as a showpiece skeleton. And he never told anyone if the corpse had any bites out of it. So we'll never know if Barnum pulled another fast one or if the cannibals indeed enjoyed one final nostalgic midnight snack.

The Philadelphia Experiment

Hey, we thought we'd start the New Year off by dusting off an old chestnut, the Philadelphia Experiment.

We've all seen the movie. The tale was based on alleged happenings in 1943, when the Navy did some electronic and Einsteinian unified force field tinkering with the USS Eldridge and ended up teleporting it (or sailing invisibly) to Norfolk and frying the crew upon arrival.

The vessel, as the plot-line goes, had all kinds of interesting and history-altering stops during its famous lost day of time-traveling. So what really happened?

Well, first the USS Eldridge wasn't involved; it was in the Carribean at the time on its shake-down cruise, according to log entries. But an experiment called Operation Rainbow was tried on the USS Engstrom, which was in dock then.

The Royal Navy came up with a degaussing system, like you use on your PC, that made ships undetectable to magnetic torpedoes and mines. The Americans were trying to achieve the same effect, and that was the grand experiment underway.

And the technique does work against magnetically controlled devices, based on readily available science, not Star Trek technology. It's still used today, though it doesn't deflect light or sound. The procedure doesn't affect the crew at all, and it definitely doesn't make the ship invisible or send it from Point A to Point B in the flash of an eye, as much as the Pentagon wished it would.

So how did they show up in Norfolk so soon, with that eerie lost day? Easy - they sailed the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. It took less than a day to cover the 200 miles or so of water. The route was hush-hush then to prevent the Germans from targeting it, and it was only open to naval vessels during the war.

Interestingly, three great science fiction authors - Isaac Azimov, Robert Heinlein, & L. Sprague deCamp - were supposed to be working at the shipyard at the time of the Philadelphia Experiment. It sure sounds like one of their tales.

At any rate, this is one story that seems to have nothing to do with multiverses and the gray zone between science and spookiness. Physics is stranger than fiction.

(Wikipedia has a comprehensive account of the whole Philadelphia Experiment affair. But hey, here's the alternate history as provided by the 1984 movie.)

Goatman

Goatman image from Monstropedia
Maryland's Goatman is a critter that paranormal bloggers just love. It's described as part man and part goat, maybe even a relative of Bigfoot.

But it's hard to get the description quite straight. Some report that the Goatman has a human body with a goat’s head, the spittin' image of Satan.

Others claim that it has a goat’s lower body with the torso of a human, like the satyr Pan of Greek mythology, the god of fields, groves, forested glens, and fertility, which plays right into the woodsy lovers' lane part of the legend.

Yet others say that it's a hairy humanoid creature roughly six feet in height, lookin' like an old-timey studio wrestler, deranged killer, or mini-Bigfoot. Geez, can't someone in Maryland buy a camera?

Anyway, Goatman likes to hang out in Prince Georges county, particularly the Bowie area. One of his favorite haunts is Cry-Baby Bridge on Governor’s Bridge Road. Its particular urban legend is that if you stop your car on the bridge and shut it off, you can hear the crying of an infant's ghost, tossed off the bridge by its unhinged young mother.

But Goatman devotees say it's not a baby's cries, but the braying of Goatman that's heard at Cry-Baby Bridge. It's a popular parking spot and lovers' lane, and it's said that Goatman likes to attack young couples doin' what comes natural, sometimes butting the car, and sometimes wielding a doubled-edged axe, depending, we suppose, on what form he's taken that night.

He's also associated with Hook lore, when a couple hear the dragging of something across their car, like a hook. The guy gets out to check on the noise, and the girl finds him a couple hours later, dead and dripping blood on the car. It's pretty similar to urban legends across the land, except for the Goatman part.

The Goatman is also known to frequent Lottsford and Fletchertown Roads, bracketing the Glenn Dale Hospital, the former site of a state tuberculosis sanatorium. There are tales of many an axe attack on parked cars in this area, some credited to Goatman and others to escaped inmates still roaming the woods. Some versions say experimental treatments turned the inmates into Goatmen.

But the most sinister stories regarding Goatman's origins concern the United States Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland.

One two-ending story concerns a scientist that was working on genetics, using a goat as a guinea pig. In one version, the doctor went mad, and escaped into the woods, where he became a fur-covered, deranged axe-murderer.

In another, he went the mad scientist route and mutated himself into Goatman, again fleeing into the woods and visiting havoc on the community at large.

In another, an experimental cancer drug being used on an unwitting test subject backfired, spawning Goatmen.

But for fans of the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) theory, Goatman is Satan incarnated, called to Maryland on occasion by his occult worshipers.

Hey, Goatman has it all: Cry-Baby Bridge, an axe, deranged scientists, genetic experiments gone wrong, Satan, Pan, Sasquatch...what more could you want from an urban legend?

Mothman

Mothman Plaque image from The Ashville Paranormal Society
For a thirteen month period beginning in November, 1966, a series of bizarre sightings took place around Point Pleasant, WV, at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers on the Ohio-West Virginia border. There were UFO sightings, poltergeist reports, but weirdest of all were the tales of Mothman.

The tale began on November 12, 1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five men were preparing a grave for a burial when something that looked like a “brown human being” flew over their heads. The men were baffled. It didn't appear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings.

A few days later, riding past a deserted Point Pleasant factory on the evening of November 15, two young couples spotted something that was "shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall with big wings folded against its back" and had glowing red eyes. The couples floored their car and fled in a panic.

Moments later, they saw the same creature on a hillside. It flew after their car, which by now was zooming along at over 100 MPH down the road. "That bird kept right up with us," they said.

Later that night, a resident watching TV saw his screen go dark, followed by high-pitched whining coming from his porch and warning growls from the family hound. He went out to see what was up, and saw a pair of glowing red eyes looking back.

He went back in the house to fetch his gun while his dog chased the critter, but couldn't screw up the courage to go back out to face the eerie eyes. When he went out at daybreak, both the creature and his pooch were gone.

The red-eyed beast was busy that night. Another group of four witnesses claimed to see the “bird” three different times.

The town held a press conference the next day, and the authorities said they took the sightings seriously because of the number of reports and the credibility of the witnesses. The press immediately dubbed the critter Mothman, after a Batman nemesis.

That night, a family saw red lights flying overhead, and a visitor found out what the lights were - Mothman. She got out her car, and the creature popped up near her, causing her to drop her baby. She gathered her child and got to her hosts' front door in Olympic time. The haunting sight would stay with her for months in the form of nightmares.

Paranormal researcher and author John Keel arrived in Point Pleasant in December and immediately began compiling reports of Mothman sightings. Before he was done, he would have 100 sightings in his files from November of 1966 to November, 1967.

Here is how they described Mothman:

* approximately seven feet tall
* a ten foot wingspan
* gray, scaly skin
* large, red, glowing, hypnotic eyes
* able to take off straight up in flight, traveling up to 100 miles an hour
* liked to mutilate or eat large dogs
* screeched like a rodent or electric motor
* caused radio and television interference
* had some mind control powers.

Keel believed the creature was real, although he realized that many of the reports he got were generated by folk who were influenced by the flood of lurid Mothman publicity. But he never did say what he though Mothman actually was (which didn't stop him from writing a couple of books anyway, "The Mothman Prophecies" and "The Eighth Tower.")

Instead, he claimed that Point Pleasant was a “window” area between dimensions, a place that was susceptible to odd sightings, monster reports, UFOs, poltergeist activities, and the coming and going of eerie beings.

Others blamed the events on the Cornstalk Curse that was placed on the Point Pleasant region in the 1770's, when the Shawnee chief, his son, and two other tribesmen were gunned down in prison by vengeful soldiers for a crime they didn't commit.

His dying words were "...may the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature. May it even be blighted in its hopes. May the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood." Hey, King Tut couldn't have said it better.

Other, somewhat cooler heads, theorize that the Mothman was a Sandhill Crane, which have a wingspan of 5-7 feet, a overall average length of 39 inches and an unusual shriek.

Owl theories also abound. The possibility of the Mothman being a Barn Owl, an albino owl, or perhaps a large Snowy Owl have been put forward. Skeptics suggest that the Mothman's glowing orbs are actually red-eye caused from the reflection of light, just like the ones caused by the flash of your Kodak.

But hey, whether Mothman was from the Twilight Zone or just a fat screech owl, it did spawn quite the cottage industry. We've found nine books, two movies, six TV shows, two role-playing games, two computer games, and a pair of dolls that feature the winged critter.

And Point Pleasant isn't shy about its native son. The Mothman Festival, an event held on the 3rd weekend of every September, combines a little folklore along with a lot of local tub-thumping. Hey, he even has a local museum.

Now Mothman has gone international. It is believed to be a harbinger of imminent disaster, reportedly being seen around the globe before great tragedies occur.

Not bad work for a thirteen month run in wild and wonderful West Virginia.

Creepy Crum Cemetery

Image from Witch Hunter Robin

Hey, cemeteries are supposed to be spooky places. But Crum Cemetery, in Ogle Township by Windber, takes the spectral cake.

The most popular tale is that of witch Rebecca Crum. She and her family were thought to be local hexes, and she was dragged from her home by the locals and killed. She was buried outside the cemetery proper, and her village of Crum was burned to the ground by the mob. Now, only the remains of three homes from the once thriving lumber community are still there.

With a rude send-off like that, it's no wonder her spirit is restless. It's said that you can hear her wails from the nearby woods, and the spirit of a lady in white can be seen floating through the grounds, thought to be Rebecca.

The urban legend goes on to claim that if you turn your car off on the second bridge of the path that leads to the cemetery, you won't be able to start it again. (although a reader told us that "it's the two trees at the cemetery you don't want to park your car between...") There's also been reports of folk spotting a black carriage that rides through the grounds at midnight.

Other versions say that the phenomena are related to a plague that hit the village of Crum, claiming most of its inhabitants. Their remains were buried in the cemetery, and the local government had the village torched to keep the disease from spreading. (A reader wrote us and said "The town of Crum was abandoned when the lumber mill closed in the early 1900's." Guess it was an economic plague that wiped out the town, and there are still a few buildings left intact.)

And hey, we're not done with local lore quite yet. Nearby is a “dead zone”, an area rumored to be haunted by a man that hung himself after killing his wife and children. It's supposed to be about two miles away along a blocked off back road that leads to their long deserted shack.

A reader by the handle of Hazzyrap wrote in about that area and said "As for the Dead Zone, I got that story from my sister and brother. They used to hang out there all the time. She took me to where it supposedly was, and it had long since been bulldozed down to keep kids from getting hurt. Reports included strange, red-eyed creatures and flying objects." Another reader wrote and said the house still stands, not that we'd be particularly fired up to visit.

Witches, burned-down villages, carriages, the plague, a crazed killer - who needs reality TV when you've got Crum Cemetery? But before remember that first and foremost, the spot is a place of repose for those gone before us. Many locals have told us of the mess and plain disrespect shown by various visitors and party crews.

Here's a little message from owners, victimized and vandalized by graveyard party people acting the fool over the years:

"Crum Cemetery is a privately owned cemetery by my family and trespassing is not permitted. There is no record of a Rebecca Crum. Most of my family, (including) my great grandfather and my parents are buried there, so lets not visit there to get scared or have parties; it causes more work for my uncle and grandparents to clean up your garbage. Leave the dead at rest."

And we say amen to that.

Mrs. Muller and Her Wooden Horse

Mullers Military Horse shot by Andrew 94 on Flickr
Muller’s Military Horse is a wooden merry-go-round unit that was carved in 1917 by Daniel C. Muller, and it circled the midwest, entertaining generations of riders. Its claim to fame? Hey, it's the only haunted carousel horse known to be in existence.

The carousel spent its first five decades making the rounds of county fairs, carnies, and small-town amusement parks, until it found a home at Cedar Point's Frontiertown in 1971.

The legend begins thus: Mrs. Muller fell in love with the horse that her hubby had carved. She loved that wooden horse so much that after she left this vale of tears, her spirit would return to Cedar Point to ride it.

In fact, her love was so strong that she wouldn't allow anyone to photograph the horse. Jealousy lives on, even in the afterlife...

Another bit of more grisly popular lore claims that Muller murdered his wife and stuffed her body into his creation.  (Kati wrote in and said "The Mullers were my great-grandparents. My great-grandmother certainly wasn't murdered by my great-grandfather and stuffed in the horse! But the urban legend is a fun one." When a story is too good to be true, it usually isn't.)

Either way, Mrs. Muller was connected to that horse. (One story claims that a woman on her honeymoon at Cedar Point had a jones for the horse and is the spook. We'll stick to Mrs. Muller; better drama.)

The tale continues that after midnight every evening, when the park was closed, the carousel would start up, lights, music, and the whole nine yards, while a ghostly apparition, assumed to be Mrs. Muller, could be seen riding the Military Horse.

But the amusement park biz being what it is, the entire Frontiertown carousel was sold and moved to Dorney Park in Allentown in 1995, with one notable exception: the Muller Military Horse. And here's where it gets confusing.

The original horse stayed put at Cedar Point. But a fiberglass replica of the famous steed was placed on display at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky. And of course, the ride itself was at Dorney Park, known there as the Antique carousel.

The result is that spook stories began at all three sites.

The original Military Horse is now a part of Cedar Point's Frontiertown Museum, tucked away off the beaten path in the back of the park. And since it was so rudely yanked from the carousel it spent so many years being a part of, the sightings of Mrs. Muller have come to a screeching halt, too.

First, the no-photo lore can be debunked, since there are pictures of Muller's Horse, from all three locations. This tale is probably a recent add-on to the legend, started because, well, no one could find the original to snap after it was sold. The story has switched focus some, now claiming that if you take its picture, some misfortune will befall you.

As for Mrs. Muller's ghost? She's not been seen in the museum. Maybe the truth is that she wasn't such a fan of the horse; could be that she just liked merry-go-rounds.

But if you're ever roaming around Cedar Point's Frontierland and stop by the museum, don't be surprised if you see a white mist protectively surrounding the wooden horse it houses or if your Nikon acts up.

Just say "hi" to Mrs. Muller.

The Uptown Leprechaun

Pixart
Hey, all spooks aren't scary ghouls trying to suck the life out of us poor mortals. Indeed, some are quite the opposite, watching over us while we inhabit the material plane. This is a piece of Pittsburgh lore told to H&H by Anabell K., a niece of the little lass in the tale.

During the late 1920's, there was an Irish family that lived on Watson Street in the City's Uptown section, just up the road from Mercy Hospital and Duquesne University. They had five girls and a boy jammed into a small house, and three of the sisters shared a bed in one of the rooms, common enough sleeping arrangements for the era.

While cleaning the bedroom one day, one of the girls moved the bed from its' usual place. Whenever she tried to push it back to its original spot, a little man dressed in green appeared from nowhere and would push it away again. The tug-of-war with the trundle went on for awhile, until the lass at last gave in and left the bed where the little man had put it.

The girl's father came up to check on the job and asked the girl why her bed was moved. She told him that the little man put it there and that's where she was going to leave it. The dad shrugged and let it be; you don't win many arguments with a colleen.

That night, while the three girls were sleeping, the heavy plaster and lathe ceiling collapsed in a heap – right where the bed used to be. Did a protective spirit from Eire watch over the girls, or was it just the luck of the Irish?

We think it was a wee bit of both.

Hall's Haunted Tower

Vid of the Tower and Mansion, posted by xjmoe83 on YouTube.

Just off of the intersection of I-81 and SR114 near Mechanicsburg in Cumberland County is a 16 story building, towering alone in the countryside. It's known as Hall Tower, or Carillon Tower (its original raison d'etre). Now it's a vandalized wreck, covered in graffiti and burned several times, best known as the home to teen parties - and a spooky presence.

The local urban legend is that the guy that built it, John Hall, embezzled money from his company to build the Tower and surrounding Mansion, complete with a moated building, b-ball court, and worker's house.

He went broke, had to sell the estate, and then set it on fire right after the signing the transfer papers in a fit of frustration over losing it. If he couldn't have his Tower, no one could.

Some accounts say that his family was still inside, while others claim he lived there alone. Most lore claims that he was inside the tower when he started the fire and perished in the flames.

Another tale says that he was sent to jail after his son blew the whistle on his embezzlement scheme, and had the house and property transferred to him. When Hall was released from prison, he went back and burned the property as revenge against his son. Hall died shortly after that, some say by suicide, other by natural means.

(One of our readers wrote in to debunk the family fire tales. She said that Hall had been arrested for fraud and arson, but was never connected officially with the Tower fire. He and his family are still alive. In fact, we understand that his son lived, or may still reside, on the property. Urban legends are a mess to sort through.)

What we do know is that Hall ran through his fortune and put his dream estate up for sale in 1993 as part of his bankruptcy settlement, but didn't draw a decent bid. It suffered major fire damage in 1995, and no one knows how that blaze started.

Anyway, that's the genesis of the Hall stories. And hey, if you want to buy a spooked out property, just contact Fred Essis, the current owner. For $1.25M, it's yours.

There's supposed to be an apparition that stares down at people from the top of the Tower, which is impossible to get to from the ground. Others have reported a voice inside that says "Get out."

A young man named Ernie Barr (a popular guy who's friends still recall him fondly) died there when he fell while climbing the ladder along the elevator shaft, and some posit that it wasn't the partying that got to him, but that an unseen spirit shoved him to his doom. There are also reports of fatal construction mishaps and drownings in the small lake across from the tower.

(Erin, a neighbor, told us that a diver who was hired to drain the moat died when he was caught in the suction of a drain pipe, and confirms the death of the teen, who was brought to her house to await the ambulance. So some of the Hall's ill-fated lore is based on actual events.)

The place has recently been fenced off, and if you want to visit, satisfy yourself with a gander from the road. It's a no-trespassing area, and the local gendarmes have been known to cruise by the old bones of the Tower.

It's a treacherous building to wander around in - some might say a lawsuit waiting to happen - and hey, you never know who, or what, you'll run into in the Tower.

Devil's Tower

Devil's Tower from Weird New Jersey Magazine
Alpine Borough in Bergen County is one of the least likely spook spots in New Jersey. It's tied with Miami Beach for the number one spot on Forbes Magazine's "Most Expensive ZIP Codes 2007" list, with a median home sale price of $3.4 million. Alpine was known for years as the "Hamptons of New Jersey," and has a well deserved reputation for ritz.

And Rio Vista, the home of Devil's Tower, is considered one of its upscale communities, located in the southern section of the neighborhood, overlooking the Hudson River, and including the Alpine Lookout. But ghosts don't adhere to the trickle-down theory.

Rio Vista started as the estate of Cuban sugar baron Manuel Rionda. It was the biggest property in the Palisades, with a mansion above the cliffs where the Alpine Outlook now sits.

In 1910, he began work on a tower that would allow his wife Harriet to see New York City from Rio Vista. Legend has it that Harriet was climbing the Tower to check out its progress, but instead of seeing the Big Apple, she spied Manny with another woman.

She took the steps to the top of the edifice and then leaped to her death, heartbroken over being a spurned woman.

It's said that after her death eerie things became everyday occurrences at the Tower. Manny stopped work on the Tower - after all, there wasn't any more Harriet to impress - and closed the underground tunnel that led to it, fearing that his wife had returned from the dead for revenge. But the locals claim the spookiness continues.

Passer-bys have reported that it feels like someone has taken control of their car while near the Tower, resulting in many accidents around the vicinity of the tower and even a death.

Yet another account states that the Tower was used as a temple for devil worship early in the 1900's. Supposedly after many unspecified horrific events plagued the town, the locals murdered and burned the satanists in their Gothic stone digs. But they were a tad late - the Beelzebub posse had already managed to conjure up a few spooks to haunt the Tower.

It became a popular destination for partying teens in the ’70s and kids who had been inside reported encountering gusts of icy wind on calm nights, and claimed that you can see shadows in the windows of the tower.

It's most enduring urban legend is that if you drive around the Tower three times backwards (or maybe six, depends on who's telling the tale), stop and turn off your headlights, the ghost of Harriet (or her misty form) is supposed to appear. If you walk around it backwards the same number of times, Old Scratch himself is supposed to appear. Toss a coin...

A place of that repute isn't very well tolerated in the posh 'burbs, but it's alleged that all attempts to raze the Tower have resulted in the inexplicable deaths of several of the workmen. So it still stands, even though it's now sealed up as tight as Fort Knox to keep out the hoi-polloi, party boys, and graffiti artists.

Sadly, the truth is a bit more prosaic. In reality, Harriet Rionda died of natural causes in 1922, surviving her alleged suicide by twelve years, and was interred in a nearby mausoleum (it's still there, in the Tower's shadow, along with a chapel) until 1943, when Manny died and their remains were interred at Brookside Cemetery, in Englewood.

And the Tower was finished - in fact, Rionda, it was said, delighted in taking guests up to the top of his Clock Tower (its real function) for the stunning view across the Hudson.

The estate gradually reverted to woodlands, was taken over by the state for back taxes, and later sub-divided into 197 lots, becoming the current high-end Rio Vista community during the eighties.

But hey, pick the reality you choose. There are enough spooky encounters at this site not only to rate a visit - how often do you get a chance for a face-to-face with Satan? - but to also merit a mention in the book Weird U.S., by Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, the People's Bible of the offbeat.

Black Aggie

Black Aggie from Snopes.com
We have happy feet again - it's time to rev up the ol' gas guzzler for our Halloween road trip. H&H thinks that a stop in Pikesville, Maryland, is in order to brush up on the lore of an old friend, Black Aggie.

Black Aggie is the name of a statue that once marked the grave of General Felix Agnus, who was buried at Druid Ridge Cemetery in 1925.

The statue itself is an unauthorized replica of Augustus St. Gaudens' monument, popularly called "Grief". It's located at the Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and was recast on the sly by Edward L. A. Pausch. The figure is of a seated woman wrapped in a shroud.

St. Gaudens was a noted American sculptor of the late 1800’s. "Grief" would become one of his most famed works, said to be named by none other than Mark Twain. It took him four years to create, and was the memorial for Marian Adams, who committed suicide. It marked her final resting place, along with hubby Henry.

Oddly, the Washington original has no spooky tales associated with it, despite the suicidal and probably mad Marian. But the pirated copy made by Pausch became one of Baltimore's most enduring urban legends.

General Felix Agnus purchased the Pausch version of the sculpture in 1905. He was a much decorated, and wounded (it was said that he had so many lead balls in him that he rattled when he walked), Civil War vet, starting out as a private and ending up a brigadier general.

He built a family memorial in Pikesville's Druid Ridge Cemetery, with the "Grief" clone as its centerpiece. As soon as the granite pedestal was laid, he had his mom's remains transferred from his French birthplace to the new family plot.

The general's wife, Annie, died in 1922 and Angus joined her in eternal repose three years later at the age of 86. They were laid to rest at the feet of "Black Aggie." Then the fun began.

It was said that the statue's eyes glowed red at the stroke of midnight. People claimed that the spirits of the dead rose from their graves to gather around her on moonless nights, and that living persons who returned her gaze were struck blind. Sitting in her cold lap was a death sentence.

If you spoke Black Aggie's name three times at midnight in front of a dark mirror, an evil angel appeared to escort you to hell. Other variations of the theme claim that Aggie herself showed up behind you, and some say with a knife to plunge into your back repeatedly.

Pregnant women who passed through her shadow would suffer miscarriages. The grass wouldn't grow wherever Aggie's shadow touched the ground. She came to life and strolled the grounds in the darkness.

Another story tells of a guy that used Aggie's hand as an ashtray. He was found dead soon thereafter. Aggie doesn't take to disrespect very well.

It's even said that any virgin placed in the outstretched arms of Black Aggie will lose her virginity in 24 hours. Now that's a paranormal phenomena we never heard of before.

But it took a frat rat to launch her into headline haunting news. Supposedly, local fraternity pledges had to sit on Aggie's lap all night as part of their "hell week" initiation. (Geez. At Pitt, the worst we had to do was run back to the house from Schenley Pond in our skivvies).

One bit of lore claims that she once came to life and crushed a hapless freshman in her bronze hands, in front of the eyes of two of his fellow fraternity brothers.

Another tale of Greek hazing gone astray claimed that one night, at the stroke of midnight, the cemetery watchman heard a scream. When he reached Black Aggie, he found a young man lying dead at the foot of the statue. He had died of fright.

It gets stranger. One morning in 1962, it was discovered that one of Aggie's arms had been cut off. The missing limb was later found in the trunk of a sheet metal worker's car, along with a saw. Open and shut case, right? Wrong. He had a defense.

He told the judge that Black Aggie had cut off her own arm while in the throes of depression and had given it to him. Many people believed the tradesman's tale, but not the person that counted - the judge. The tin-knocker was hauled off to jail.

Allow us to digress a minute. Aggie's name is assumed to be taken from her wards, the Agnus family. But another legend tells of a turn of the century nurse named Aggie. She was popular, but her patients had a way of unexpectedly dying off under her care.

The locals thought she was hastening their trip to the River Jordan, and lynched the assumed angel of death. But ooops, they were soon proven wrong, sadly after the fact. The story ends that the monument was built for her as atonement, which is obviously wrong.

But did her vengeful spirit adopt the statue? It would sure explain the eerie goings-on surrounding the bronze sculpture. OK, back to our regularly scheduled post.

In addition to Aggie’s arm being hacked off, graffiti was scrawled on the statue, the granite base and its outer wall, while trash heaped up everywhere from the midnight thrill seekers. Groundskeepers did everything they could to control the vandalism, including planting thorny shrubs around Aggie, but they were overwhelmed.

The Agnus family, upset by the desecration, donated Aggie to the Smithsonian in 1967. It sat for years in storage at the National Museum of American Art (later the Smithsonian American Art Museum), where an authorized recasting of the original Adams Memorial statue is now exhibited. Heaven forbid the Smithsonian deal in fake artwork!

The Smithsonian refused to even admit it had the ersatz sculpture, but it's location was finally run down by an enterprising young reporter, Shara Terjung, rescuing it from oblivion in an outdoor storage lot.

After being rediscovered, Black Aggie was moved to an I Street courtyard behind the Dolly Madison House on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, where she's quietly enjoying her tranquil new home.

If you want to see her, enter the courtyard during the day, through the entryway off the street. Walk straight back, look to the right, and Black Aggie will be there, waiting for you in the middle of the flowers, looking as serene as can be. You might even tuck a coin in her hand, a good luck tradition from the Druid Ridge days.

Just don't sit in her lap.

Katy's Church

Photo of Katy's Church by Eric on Blackstar Blog - Scooter Trips.

The popular mid-state legend goes that an unmarried pregnant girl, Katy Vandine, ostracized by the community, hung herself on a tree outside the Emmanuel Lutheran Church graveyard in Muncy Hills, Columbia County, near Bloomsburg.

Other darker varitions on the theme claim that father of her child was a married man worried about his own hide, and so accused her of witchcraft. The church members accepted his self-serving word and hung her from a tree in the cemetery. What, there wasn't any stake to burn her on in Muncy Hills?

It's said that if you stand on her grave, which is right beside the tree she hung herself on, and knock on the tree that her ghost, dressed in shimmering white, will walk down the hill towards you. According to local lore, this sighting only occurs the night of a harvest moon. It's also said that you can hear her crying from inside the church, or hear her call your name.

There's an alternate tale. It says she was waiting to marry a soldier, but he was killed before they could wed. Distraught, she hung herself in her wedding dress. She's supposedly been seen in church and walking the road between her house and the cemetery.

Some reports say that her noose can be see hanging from the tree overlooking the cemetery. There are even stories of blood gushing from the windows of the small hilltop church.

Other tales allege that her tombstone is located just outside the consecrated grounds of the cemetery, while others say it's in the graveyard proper, but her marker faces the opposite direction of all the others. This, at least, can be debunked, as her grave is in the boneyard and pointed the same way as the others.

Another legend says that there's a bottomless pit covered by a boulder on the grounds. If you can move the rock a smidge and toss a stone down the hole, you'll never hear it land.

Of course, some people believe the tale was just a by-product of the 2002 mystery book "Katie's Church" by L.A. Flick, which recounts - or maybe invents - the legend of Katy. On the other hand, we have a reader that says the legend predates the novel, and others that support him.

BaltimoreMan wrote:

I am originally from a couple of miles from Katy's. The tale has been around for a long time. I couldn't guess the original source, but definitely not a 2002 book.

Another reader added:

"I also live near Katy's church. I am 36 and have heard the tales since I was a young child."

So we can cross Ms. Flick off the list off rumor-mongers.

May Shetler, granddaughter of Katy several times removed, denies the tales on her web site:

"Catherine Vandine attended services there until her passing at 87 years old. Since its closing in 1969, the urban legends surrounding Katys Church have given birth to increased incidences of vandalism, tales of hauntings, and even a horror novel. But, as with most legends, these tales are simply not based on fact. The only haunting comes from the young people in search of an adventure who are being fined for trespassing and destruction of private property."

Sadly, this is another spot that vandals have ransacked. The church, which by some tales is also haunted, isn't used for regular services anymore, just weddings and other special events, and goofs feel free to break in and spray graffiti on the walls and floor.

The cemetery has been desecrated, despite being fenced, gated and watched over by the locals, the caretaker, and the State Police. Those folk that use the graveyard as a party spot should be much more ashamed than poor Katy.

Polly Williams and White Rock

Near Fairchance, in Fayette County, there's a precipice called White Rock. It's a lover's leap where New Salem's 18 year old Polly Williams met her doom in 1810, according to centuries-old local lore.

The story goes that a neighborhood rich dude, Phillip Rodgers, had promised to take her as his wife, but kept putting her off. Wanting to become an honest woman, Polly pressed the issue. He finally told her to see him at the top of White Rock late one night.

It was their favorite meeting spot, but when their last conversation there was overheard, in bits and pieces through the evening breeze, it wasn't lovers cooing, but an argument about their wedding.

Some versions say that the debate ended when he pushed her to her death; others claim she jumped in frustration at Rodger's betrothal betrayal. Deep scratches in the stone from her fingers supposedly remain along the edge of the sandstone cliff.

The next day, her father found her body on the rocks of White Rock Hollow below, shattered after plunging 60 feet through the air. Rodgers took off and joined the army.

But he returned to the scene of the crime after the war, according to one version, and filled with remorse over William's fate, took the leap himself as told in Charles Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land.

In Ceane O'Hanlon-Lincoln's yarn, written up in County Chronicles, the cad Rodgers was tried in court and found innocent, since no one could prove whether he actually did the dirty deed or she leaped to her own demise.

Her grave is located in Little White Rock's Methodist Cemetery on Hopwood-Fairchance Road, and its epitaph reads:

"Polly Williams 1792 - 1810

Behold with pity you that pass by
Here do the bones of Polly Williams lie
Who was cut off in tender bloom
By a vile wretch, her pretended groom."

Not much doubt about which story the locals bought into, hey? But the tale wasn't quite over. It's said Polly still haunts the cliff, searching for her lover, through its fog and mist. Even in the afterlife, she won't rest until she's wearing that diamond ring.

A reader posted that "White Rocks is now owned by the Pennsylvania DCNR. It is State land open to the public. There is an access gate across from the Little Whiterock Church. No parking though, so park across at the cemetery, and you can also see Polly's gravesite."

White Rock has always ben a fairly popular site for rock hounds & hikers, so feel free to take a climb and see if Polly is still looking for love.

Cleveland's Castles

Franklin Castle from Forgotten Ohio
OK, we're gonna continue our road trip this weekend, taking a little jaunt to the shores of Lake Erie to check out a couple of Cleveland's haunted castles.

Franklin Castle, in Cleveland, Ohio, was built in 1865 by Hannes Tiedemann off of Franklin Avenue. Tragic deaths began to curse the family in 1881 when his 15-year-old daughter Emma succumbed to diabetes. Not long after that his aged mom died.

During the next three years Tiedemann would bury three more children, giving rise to speculation that there was more to the deaths than meets the eye. Hmmmm.

Over the next several years, he did extensive work on the castle by adding secret passages, concealed rooms, and hidden doors inside while adorning the outside with gargoyles and turrets. (During Prohibition, a new tunnel was supposedly constructed that ran from the grounds all the way out to Lake Erie to shelter bootlegging operations, so old Hannes didn't do all the dirty work.)

Some say his building frenzy was just his way of taking his wife's mind off the recent death of her daughter. Others maintain that the rooms and passages were designed so that Tiedemann could do his evil on the QT, murdering his niece and even his own daughter, Emma, among others, without being found out.

And some believe that Mrs. Tiedemann herself had the passages created so that she could sneak past her violent and overbearing husband undetected.

The house subsequently belonged to a German brewer and the German Socialist Party (rumored to be Nazis that spied on the activities on Lake Erie from the house), who were alleged to have machine-gunned some traitors to the Fatherland in the home.

Strange occurrences have plagued all of the residents. Voices, eerie organ music, shaking light fixtures, and many apparitions have been reported. There are rumors of an axe murder in the front tower room, the victim sometimes being seen standing in the window.

A servant girl was supposedly killed in her quarters on her wedding day for refusing Tiedemann's advances. He's said to have shot his mistress Rachel for wanting to marry another man. Her gasping for breath and death rattle can be heard in one of the rooms. Geez, he didn't get into wedding festivities very well, did he?

The secret passageways around the ballroom are said to be where Tiedemann hung his illegitimate daughter Karen. Her ghost is the star of the castle, usually spotted on the third floor in "the cold room," named because it stays ten degrees colder than the rest of the house.

Karen, according to legend, lost her life in a fight between her father and her boyfriend. She and her beau were supposedly hung from a rafter to make the deaths look like suicide. Karen was just a teen at the time, and her ghost is described as a tall, thin woman dressed in black, often seen by the locals.

The Romano's bought the house in 1968 and reportedly had encounters with wraiths that were so frightening they even attempted an exorcism. They called in a Catholic priest for help, but he allegedly refused to bless the house because of the overwhelming evil he felt when he stepped inside its doors.

In 1975, the owner at the time went searching for the secret passageways, and he found more than he bargained for. He uncovered a pile of old human bones. Another of the rooms was found to hold at least a dozen baby skeletons.

Today, Franklin Castle is managed by Charles Milsap, who has announced plans to turn the property into the Franklin Castle Club. Although he began offering memberships, little work has been done to restore the Gothic mansion. In fact, "The Most Haunted House in Ohio" is rumored to be on the sheriff's sale list for unpaid back taxes.

It's probably better to let sleeping spooks lie.


Squires Castle from Prairie Ghosts
Squire's Castle is located in Willoughby Hills in northeast Ohio. It was built by Feargus B.Squire in the 1890's. He was a beaucoup wealthy man and one of the founders of the Standard Oil Company. Squire had a grand estate in Cleveland but always wanted a home in the country.

Late in the 1890's, Squire purchased 525 acres of land near Cleveland, planning to build that summer estate for himself, his wife and daughter. A few years after buying the property, a gatehouse went up.

It had three floors plus a basement, in which avid hunter Squire designed an private trophy room for the skins and heads of the beasts he had shot. It would serve as their summer home until a righteous manor could be built.

There is an urban legend about the cottage claiming that it's haunted by a ghostly woman carrying a red lantern who walks the building at night. She's supposed to be the shade of Rebecca Squire, Feargus' wife. She hated the old pile of stones, much preferring to remain in the city with its bright lights.

In her restless state, she developed insomnia whenever she stayed at the cottage and would sleeplessly pace about the house at night, carrying a small red lantern to light her way through the gloomy halls.

On one fateful night, Mrs. Squire wandered into the trophy room of the house, a place that she usually avoided. No one really knows what happened next, but it's thought that Mrs. Squire became frightened of something in the room. Perhaps the mounted animals spooked her in the dim light.

Whatever the reason, she began screaming in terror and in her haste to escape the room, she tripped and fell back down the steps. She was discovered dead a short time later, the victim of a broken neck.

A cool tale, though not close to being wholly factual. The family actually sold the castle in 1920 and Mrs. Squire didn't depart this vale of tears until 1929. She died of a stroke, not a broken neck. Oooops!

Nevertheless, there are still reports of hauntings and red lights floating through the cottage and grounds at night. And it's believed that to this day, she is doomed to roam the halls and rooms of the castle she so despised carrying her lantern and spookily screaming in her anguish.

Oddly, her apparition is often seen on the second floor - which no longer exists, having been razed years ago. And she can't haunt the trophy room in the basement. It was filled in with cement to both keep the rowdies out and to help stabilize the remnants of the cottage. But that's OK - Rebecca never liked the place anyhow.

If you want to find out if the tale is so, Cleveland runs the ramshackle property as part of its Metropark system. Give it a visit, and watch your step. It's covered in graffiti, and the insides are pretty well gutted. It's even spookier now!

Zombie Land

In Mahoning Township (Lawrence County), hard on the Ohio border, Zombie Land (called White Bridge by the locals) is a lovers lane, party spot, druggies hangout - and the scene of murder. The desolate, two acre spread of land is frequented by teens, state police, and the supernatural.

The first tale concerns Frankenstein Bridge, from where a youth once leaped to his death. It's said that if your name appears on the bridge, the "bridge people" living underneath will find and kill you. It's also known as Puerto Rican bridge, because its early taggers were Latinos.

Another tale concerns an old oil well near the bridge. It seeps natural gas, and if you light it, you'll trigger an attack of the easily annoyed bridge people.

There's a small church by the bridge. It's reported that its boneyard sports a glowing grave.

It's home to the Blood House (now burned down), where an alleged witch lived. She only came out when she wanted to put a spell on someone - or snatch a child to kill. Her yard is supposed to be the kiddies' burying grounds.

Zombie Land has its own Green Man legend, too, featuring a handy man that was badly burned in an electrical accident who now roams the ZL roads, all the way to Steubenville. This tale is based on reality, and has been part of Tri-State history - mostly exaggerated - for decades.

The area also includes lore of ghost hounds and a phantom train, although the train legend could be explained by the echoes of actual trains resounding off the hills.

It's been the scene of grisly death, too. A car crash claimed another life. The tale, as told by one of our readers, is that Chris Jordan, aka Spoon, was riding with his friend Pat, with other friends traveling in a car behind them. Supposedly they were running from something which had chased them from Graffiti Bridge, leading to a wreck that took his life. Of course, there may be a more mundane explanation.

A reader wrote us and said "Hey, this is Patrick, and there was nothing spooky about what happened with me and Chris. And I wouldn't have lived if it wasn't for Ricky and Vinny. We hit a patch of black ice. That's it, nothing more."

A child was murdered there, when three men raped and killed a 12 year-old Ohio girl. They burned her body and left it under the Robinson's Crossing bridge.

It's also said that the mob use to dispose of their victims in the mine shafts that dot the area. But those deaths were the results of evil that walks the earth, not the supernatural.

Tom Rupe, Youngstown blogger ("Y-Town and Beyond") was kind enough to share his knowledge of Zombieland

"I guess rumors and ghost stories must evolve over the years. I was in high school in Struthers in the early 1970's and our tales our completely different to some of the accounts I've read here.

The Green Man was from Transfer, Pa. and I personally read the story of him being tragically burned by a 50,000 volt overhead powerline.

The Zombies were actually a colony of people who had 'Water On The Brain,' a medical disfigurement that causes the skull to be grossly distended making a person's head twice the size of normal. As the story goes they lived there to escape ridicule from gangs of people. Isn't that an irony?

The Eternal Flame was a 'Preventer' from keeping pockets of natural gas from accumulating in low-lying areas and being a hazard. The gas company diverted a small pipe about 10 feet in the air and lit it to burn off the excess gas."

Another reader took the time to give us an update on the locale:

"I grew up in the area and still live near there. I graduated from Campbell in 1977. We knew the area as Hook Man's. It was the same legend as lovers parked by the bridge: their car got attacked, they sped off, and later found a hook stuck in the door.

The bridge is still there. Last I knew the flame was still there. Apparently if you lit the flame hook man would come. If you walked down the stream, south from the bridge, there was a small waterfall supposedly with a coffin buried under it.

Zombieland was farther out near the quarries. A partying/swimming area mainly where you weren't allowed to be. The Green Man was real. He passed away a few years back. The glowing grave was an effect of a small light on the church reflecting off of the head stone of one grave.

Alas, progress has changed a few things. The gravel road is now paved. The trees along the sides have been trimmed up. There are housing developments going up on the east hill of the bridge. The church has updated, added more and brighter lights and now everything is lit.

I loved growing up here with the legends and stories, like the ghost lights at Lake McKelvey, Mary's Grave, and the voices at the Greek Cemetery."

There is one final legend with a saving grace. A statue of the Virgin Mary, the sole remaining piece of old St. Lawrence's church, will open her arms when it's safe to enter Zombie Land, and clasp them in prayer for the people there if it isn't safe.

No one ever recalls her arms being open.

The Rain Boy

In late 1983, Don Decker, an unemployed 20 year old, was released from the local jail to attend his grandfather's funeral. He had lived with him, and after the burial he was taken in by a family on Ann Street in Stroudsburg.

Young Don didn't have many talents, but the one he did have was a doozy. "I can make it rain," he told police officers. Could he ever - in his home, in jail, in front of friends, strangers, and the police. At his whim, jets of water would rain down from no apparent source. He also could drop the temperature of a room to freezing cold in a heartbeat.

Some of the splashdowns were witnessed and verified by the local gendarmes, including Stroud Area Regional Police Chief John Baujan and former Stroudsburg cop Richard Wolbert.

A friend of his, Pam Scarfano, tried to get him under control by putting a crucifix around his neck. It left a burn mark on him before he could tear it off. Then, a year to the day after his grandfather's death, the rainmaker suddenly lost his power.

Parapsychologists still haven't figured out the cause of his short-lived ability to call down rain, but Decker always thought it was his grandfather's spirit channeling through him.

The Ann Street house he performed his rain dance in has been demolished - for a church parking lot. Now there's an exorcism for you! His watery feats have been shown on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries and the French TV series 30 Most Mysterious Mysteries.

Rain, rain, go away...

Jersey Devil

We're gonna share one of our neighbor's tales with you today as we gaze eastward towards the woodlands of New Jersey and its' infamous Devil. The well-traveled Jersey Devil has been known to cross state lines to spook small town Pennsylvanians, so we figure it's fair game for this blog.

The Jersey Devil is a legendary critter said to generally cavort in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. It's sort of a cross between a pterodactyl and a horse.

The Jersey Devil's home is the Blue Hole. According to popular folklore, the pond is a gateway to Hell. The water in the hole is always frigid, even during the summer. And the pool is said to have a whirlpool effect on any person who dives into it, swirling you into the depths of Hades - or the Jersey Devil's living room.

Unlike the surrounding rivers and lakes in the region, the Blue Hole has crystal clear water, which is one of its stranger features. Clean water in Jersey? Now that's eerie. (Actually, the Pine Barrens is one of the state's major aquifers.)

The most popular version of the Jersey Devil legend begins in the 18th century when Jane Smith arrived from England and went to the Pine Barrens to marry a Mr. Leeds, who wanted heirs to continue the family name. As a result, the missus was continually preggers, getting frumpier and grumpier by the child.

After bearing twelve healthy children, she lost it when she became pregnant with her thirteenth kid. She cursed the unborn child, saying she'd rather have the Devil's child than another Leeds' legacy. Guess the blush was off the rose by then, hey?

According to legend, her wish was granted. Her new child had cloven hooves, claws, and a tail. The gruesome babe devoured the other Leeds children and then its' parents before escaping through the chimney to begin its' reign of terror. (Yah, it seemed odd to us too that all the witnesses became Devil chow. Maybe the nanny busted it.)

This version, cool as it may be, is waylaid by the fact that Mother Leeds has descendants that, as of 1998, still lived in Atlantic County NJ according to the New York Times. Bummer.

But there are several twists of the Leeds tale, like the one claiming that in 1735, Mrs. Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child. She complained to her friends and relatives that the “Devil can take the next one”, and he did.

The child was born with horns, a tail, wings, and a horse-like head. Leeds threw it out of the house, but the creature came by and visited its' mom everyday, like a good son. And every day, she stood at the door and told it to leave. After awhile, the Devil took the hint and never came back, retiring to the Barrens.

Another similar bit of folklore says a Mrs. Shourds made a wish that if she ever had another child, she wanted it to be a devil. Watch what you wish for.

Her next child was born misshapen and deformed. She hid the baby in the house, so the curious wouldn't see him. One stormy night, the child flapped it's arms, which turned into wings, and escaped out the chimney and was never seen by the family again.

The Shourds House (Leeds Point, Atlantic County, NJ) is considered sacred ground for Jersey Devil devotees. It's alleged to be the Devil's birthplace, and the ruins of its' old stone house still remain. So whether its' ma was Mrs. Leeds or its' home was Leeds Point, the Jersey Devil is also often known as the Leeds Devil.

But there are other older origins for the Jersey Devil legend besides the Leeds' family feud. The local Lenni Lenape tribes called the area around Pine Barrens "Popuessing," meaning "place of the dragon." Swedish explorers later named it "Drake Kill", "drake" being a Swedish word for dragon, and "kill" meaning river.

Some skeptics believe the Jersey Devil is nothing more than a morality tale of the English settlers. The Pine Barrens were shunned by the early locals as a desolate, threatening place. Isolated in the misty forest, it became a natural refuge for those on the lam, such as religious dissenters, loyalists, fugitives and deserters in colonial times.

The runaways formed groups known as "pineys", some of whom became bandits called "pine robbers". Pineys were further demonized after two early 20th century eugenics studies depicted them as inbred congenital idiots and criminals (Modern geneticists say that the studies weren't worth the paper they were written on, but the stigma is hard to shake, even today.)

It's easy to imagine early tales of terrible monsters arising from a combination of sightings of wild life, fear of outlaws, and dread of the Barrens. Don't you love it when a story comes together?

But Jersey Devil lore is backed by many reputable eyewitnesses who have reportedly seen the creature, dating over two centuries to the present day.

In 1778, Commodore Stephen Decatur, hero of Tripoli, visited the Hanover Iron Works in the Barrens to test artillery at a firing range, where he witnessed a strange, pale white creature flying overhead. Using cannon fire, Decatur punctured the wing of the creature, which continued on its' merry way without missing so much as a flutter.

The problem with this tale is that Decatur wasn't born until 1779. But it could have happened between 1816 and 1820, when he was the Naval Commissioner in charge of testing equipment and materials used to build new warships.

Joseph Bonaparte, the oldest brother of Napoleon, is said to have witnessed the Jersey Devil while hunting on his Bordentown estate around 1820.

In 1840, the Devil was blamed for cattle killings. Similar attacks were seen in 1841, accompanied by strange tracks and unearthly screams. The devil made an 1859 appearance in Haddonfield. Bridgeton witnessed a flurry of sightings during the winter of 1873.

About 1887, the Jersey Devil was sighted near a house, scattering the local rugrats. The Devil was spotted in the woods soon after that, and just as in Decatur's story, it was shot in the right wing, but still kept flying.

There were reported Jersey Devil sightings throughout the 1800s, include an 1899 raid on Vincentown and Burrsville, during which many sheep and chickens disappeared, presumably becoming a quick snack for the Devil.

January of 1909, however, was the mother of all Devil sightings. Thousands of people claimed to witness the Jersey Devil during the week of January 16–23 in towns, hamlets, and farms all over New Jersey. Newspapers nationwide followed the story and published breathless eyewitness reports.

The Philadelphia Zoo posted a $1M reward for the Devil's capture. The offer set off a chain of hoaxes, including one involving a kangaroo with artificial wings. None were good enough to pass the Zoo's muster, and the reward remains unclaimed to this day.

Since that week of the Devil, sightings have been much less frequent, but didn't end by any means. In 1951 there was an uproar in Gibbstown after local boys claimed to have seen a screaming humanoid monster.

A telephone lineman working near Pleasantville was chased up a telephone pole by the Jersey Devil. He stayed there until a co-worker arrived and shot the Devil in the wing, wounding it. The Devil escaped into the surrounding woods.

In 1991, a pizza delivery driver in Edison described a night encounter with a white, horselike creature. In Freehold, in 2007, a woman supposedly saw a huge creature with bat-like wings near her home.

In August of the same year, a young man driving home near the border of Mount Laurel and Moorestown reported a similar sighting, claiming that he spotted a "gargoyle-like creature with partially spread bat wings" of an enormous wingspan perched in some trees near the road.

In January 23, 2008 the Jersey Devil was spotted again, this time in Litchfield, PA, by a local resident that claims to have seen the creature standing on his barn roof.

Many theorists believe that the Jersey Devil could possibly be a very rare, unclassified species which instinctually fears and attempts to avoid humans. Pretty smart critter, no?

Supporters of the crypto theory point out the similarities of the creature's appearance (horselike head, long neck and tail, leathery wings, cloven hooves, blood-curdling scream), with the only difference being the height and color.

Another fact supporting the cryptozoological theory is that it's much more likely that a species could endure over a span of several hundred years, rather than a single creature surviving since the days of the Lenni Lenape.

Some people think the Sandhill Crane (which has a 7' wing span) could be the Jersey Devil. But the physical descriptions of the Devil seem to be match up with the species pterosaur, Jurassic Park era dinos known popularly in museums as "winged lizards."

A rotting corpse vaguely matching the Jersey Devil's description was discovered in 1957, leaving some to believe the creature was dead. However, there have been several sightings since that time, soooo...

How ingrained is this story into the Jersey psyche? Well, the New Jersey Devils hockey team takes its name from the legendary critter. It sure beats the New Jersey Sopranos, right?

(The top and bottom images are from the
Elk Township - Jersey Devil site.)

Crystal Skulls

Crystal Skull from Wikipedia

Every so often we deviate from the Keystone path, and this post takes one of those side trips. After watching History and Sci-Fi Channel programs about Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls, we thought we'd see whassup with them. Here's the H&H answer, based on an AP article and our crackerjack research skills (i.e., Google), with a link to a meatier story below:

The legend goes that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls which, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth.

New-agers have linked the skulls to the Maya "Long Count" calendar that ends on December 21, 2012, when it reaches the final day of a 5,126-year cycle. According to the tale, all 13 skulls must be reunited and lined up together to prevent the world from falling off its axis.

Don't laugh. It could happen, and already has once. Recent work by geologists Adam Maloof of Princeton and Galen Halverson of Paul Sabatier University found that the north pole shifted more than 50 degrees (about the distance between Alaska and the equator) some 800 million years ago during the Precambrian time period. But it took about 20 million years to wander that far afield. Science is often stranger than spooks. But back to the skulls.

They were hidden all over the earth by the wily Mayan priests. Seven are believed found and in private or institutional collections, with another half dozen yet to be discovered. The catch - mankind must be morally and mentally ready to use them in our time of need. That's a tough one, given our current track record.

Others believe that they act like crystal balls and you can see images of the past and future in them. Some think they are ET or Atlantean communication devices, like computer chips, that hold our origins, history and perhaps destiny, but that humans can't quite figure out how to turn them on yet. There are those that claim the skulls are powerful physical and spiritual healing tools.

Experts dismiss the hundreds of existing crystal skulls as fakes that were probably made by shady antiquities traders in the 19th century. But Mayan priests worship the skulls, even today, and real-life skull hunters still search for them. Go figure.

The story of the skulls stretches over continents and many decades, and may even hold more twists and turns than the tale portrayed by Indiana Jones, while every bit as mercenary.

Few of today's crystal skulls can be dated any further back than the 1860s, when Europe was swept by a rage for pre-Hispanic "relics."

Frenchman Eugene Boban, a colorful rascal with a checkered past and murky political ties, set up a store to supply the relics market after the French invaded Mexico. Eventually he carted his skulls to New York, Paris and Mexico City, selling them to private collectors.

Buyers were told that the skulls were made by the Mayas, whose civilization peaked between 300 and 900 A.D. But no crystal skull has ever been excavated from a documented Mesoamerican archaeological dig. Caveat emptor, hey?

Some believe the skulls can emit and focus light, project visions, heal, and even influence natural forces. Today, these beliefs persist in the jungles of southern Mexico among the Lacandon, the last of the Mayas, some of whom still worship the skulls. Even they don't know where they came from originally.

Thousands of miles away in Washington, Jane MacLaren Walsh keeps one of the skulls in her office at the Smithsonian Institution. She doubts the ancient Mayans ever worshipped any such skulls.

An anthropologist and antiquities sleuth, she has spent more than a decade studying the better known skulls, like the ones acquired by the British Museum and Paris' Quai Branly museum over a century ago, as well as the Smithsonian's own skull.

She says they are artistically unlike pre-Hispanic depictions of death's heads, and often show microscopic markings from fairly modern cutting tools.

"None of them is ancient," Walsh said. About their touted powers, she notes wryly: "I've been sitting in fairly close proximity to one of the skulls for about 16 years, and I have not witnessed anything like what people say."

The British Museum keeps a skull in its collection largely as a curiosity, listing its pedigree as "probably European, 19th century."

It's possible that the near-human sized fakes may have been inspired by two real crystal skulls now on display at Mexico City's renowned National Anthropology Museum. One was purchased in 1874 for 28 pesos by the museum from Mexican collector Luis Costantino, and another for 30 pesos in 1880.

Much smaller and less perfectly carved than the ones held at the museums in Europe, these jewelry-sized trinkets, about an inch in height and made of milky rather than clear crystal, are in the Aztec and Oaxaca collections. The museum classifies them as either late pre-Hispanic or early colonial.

These smaller crystal skulls may have been genuine Mesoamerican beads that were later carved into a skull shape. They might also reflect Latino Catholic culture. At least one skull has been found attached to the base of a crucifix, that being the Catholic symbolism for Golgotha, the "place of the skull." Or they could just be macabre jewelry. Quetzelcoatl and the gang ain't telling.

At least those skulls are the real McCoys, originally used as necklace pendants and ornaments by the natives in one form or another. They may have been the height of Maya chic, but supernatural...well, we'll find out in a few years - 2012, to be exact.

This tale was taken from CNN.
Here's an article by Skeptoid regarding the skulls.