STRANGE THINGS IN THE

WOODS

A COLLECTION OF TERRIFYING TALES

STEVE STOCKTON
 CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85

About the Author

Also by Steve Stockton
 INTRODUCTION

All my life, I’ve been fascinated with the woods. While it’s
marvelous to be surrounded by nature, there is also at times a
certain ‘creep factor’ involved. As anyone who has spent a
considerable amount of time in the great outdoors will tell you,
there are some places in the woods that just don’t feel right, for
lack of a better word. Also, by the same turn, there are weird
things to be found in the woods, many of which truly defy any
rational explanation.
As a youth, I grew up on a small farm in East Tennessee, not
far from Knoxville and Oak Ridge. While not considered deep
woods by any stretch of the imagination, we had several acres
that were heavily wooded with old-growth timber. Factor in
that our property also bordered vast, undeveloped land claimed
by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and you have the
perfect recipe for youthful adventure and exploration.
Blessed with an active imagination and a love for adventure,
these woods were full of countless hours of time spent looking
for anything weird or out of the ordinary. As I grew older, my
forays into the woods expanded, and I’ve had the opportunity
to explore many national parks and forests. I sometimes saw
strange things that defy explanation (my own personal
experiences are currently being compiled for publication in a
separate volume).
 Due to my own experiences in the great outdoors, I also
began talking to family and friends, mostly older folks, and
collecting stories of strange things they had encountered in the
woods—this book is a culmination of those conversations.
Many of the tellers of these tales have passed on, but their
stories continue to live in my imagination and now in the
printed word. Where possible, I’ve left the language and
‘mountain slang’ intact just as it was related to me, to give the
true feel of the story—whether you call a place a ‘hollow’ or a
‘holler’ makes no difference, as long as we understand each
other.
I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed
collecting them over the years. If you yourself have ever
encountered anything weird in the woods, I’d love to hear from
you; my email address can be found at the end of the book.

– Steve, September 2013.

 CHAPTER 1

THE FLYING ORGAN

I grew up on a several-hundred-acre farm in Jamestown,

Tennessee, near what is now the Big South Fork National Park.
My older brother, Leonard, and I were just kids, so this would
have placed the event sometime in the early 1930s.
We were down by one of the creeks on our property, about a
half mile or so from our family’s farmhouse. We lived in a very
remote and rugged area of the Cumberland Plateau, and our
‘nearest’ neighbor was several miles away. It was summertime,
getting close to twilight, and we were cooling our feet in the
creek. The day’s chores were done, and it would be time for
supper soon.
Suddenly, off in the distance, we heard the strains of what
sounded like and old-time church organ, the kind that required
the organist to pump the pedals with their feet to produce
sound.
We immediately found this to be odd, because the nearest
church was several miles away as the crow flies, and it would
have been unusual for sound to travel such a great distance
even in the quiet of the country.
Much to our amazement, the sound continued to grow
louder and seemed to be moving up the holler we were in,
heading toward us. Eventually, the sound was close enough that
we could indeed tell it was an organ and was playing a song,
although neither of us recognized the tune. The sound became
louder and louder and eventually seemed to pass right over the
top of us, apparently coming from an invisible source just
above the treetops.
The musical notes continued playing as the still unseen
object continued up the creek and then turned and went up
across the ridge. The sound eventually faded into the distance
until we could no longer hear it.
There were no roads nearby, and the sky was clear and
cloudless, yet we both distinctly heard the song as the organ
approached, flew directly over us (again, I’m guessing it was
just above treetop level) and faded into the distance. There was
nothing to see; it was only sound.
Needless to say, we were spooked by the entire incident and
beat a hasty path back to the house, arriving just before supper.
Leonard and I never told our parents, and only talked about it
occasionally between ourselves. It was quite some time before
we were brave enough to venture back to the area of the creek
where we had been, but we never heard the invisible flying
organ again.
To this day, I am at a loss for a logical explanation as to what
we heard. I guess we’ll never know what it was, but it sure
frightened two young farm boys.
 CHAPTER 2

THE CRYING KITTENS

When I was a child, we had an old cat that hung around in the
barn on our property. One spring, she had a litter of kittens up
in the hayloft, seven kittens in all. The old cat wasn’t a very
good mother and had abandoned the kittens, and
unfortunately, they were already dead by the time my brother
and sister and I found them. We felt sorry for the kittens and
decided to have a funeral for them down by the creek bank.
We purloined one of mother’s old hatboxes from the attic,
filled it with straw, and placed all the tiny lifeless bodies inside.
After arriving at the creek with our makeshift ‘coffin,’ we said a
few words, and my older brother dug a hole with a shovel in
the soft ground.
Sometime later, perhaps a week or more, my sister had gone
to place some fresh-picked wildflowers on the tiny grave.
Imagine her surprise when she heard the sound of kittens
meowing!
Thinking we had made a mistake and had buried the poor
kittens alive, she ran back to the house and got my brother and
me. My brother grabbed the shovel out of the barn, and we flew
down to the creek bank as fast as our feet would carry us.
When we arrived, we could hear the faint sound of kittens, too.
 My brother soon uncovered the box, and we quickly pulled
it out of the ground and ripped the lid off the hatbox. Much to
our shock, we were greeted with the sight—and smell—of seven
very much deceased kittens. My sister took a stick and, holding
her nose with one hand, gently prodded each tiny kitten. It was
obvious they were all very dead.
Mystified, we replaced the box into the grave and covered it
back up. From then on, for many years, we all continued to
hear the muffled sounds of tiny kittens near the grave. We
could only assume that what we were hearing was the ghosts of
these poor tiny creatures.
 CHAPTER 3

THE GIANT SNAKE

This happened when I was a much younger man, I’d say fifty or
more years ago.
It was in the early spring, and I was out squirrel hunting in
the woods with my .22 rifle.
I hadn’t gotten many squirrels that day and observed that
there wasn’t hardly anything stirring in the woods, not even
birds. I thought that maybe something had all the woodland
creatures spooked, maybe a bobcat, as they were common in
that part of the country at that time.
I shouldered my rifle and decided to make my way back to
the house, figuring I’d just have to be content with the two or
three squirrels I had bagged earlier.
At one point, I arrived at the creek and started following it
back toward the house, figuring I still had a mile or more to go
until I reached a place where it was shallow enough to ford.
I came upon a small clearing when I spied what I thought
was a log lying across the creek. Surprised at this good fortune,
I knew if I could cross the creek here, it would save me a lot of
walking.
I was just about to step on the log to see if it would hold my
weight—when the log moved! What I thought was a log turned
out to be the biggest snake I’ve ever seen!
Stunned, I watched as the snake’s tail came into view as it
slithered across the creek. Now, this was in East Tennessee—we
don’t have snakes as big as telephone poles!
I wish I could have gotten a look at the snake’s head, but by
the time I came to my senses, I realized I had better get out of
there—no wonder the creatures of the forest were spooked—as
big as the snake looked, I was afraid it would try to eat me!
I made it back home and was met with disbelief when I told
my tale of the giant snake, but I know what I saw. Years later, I
saw a giant snake at a traveling carnival that was almost as big
as the one I saw. It was, I believe, some sort of articulated
python from South America. The only thing I can figure out to
explain my sighting was that the snake I saw was an escapee
from another carnival. I never saw the giant snake again, but I
was always extremely careful out in the woods after that.
 CHAPTER 4

DISINTEGRATING PEOPLE

This is the story of the weirdest thing I’ve ever encountered in

the woods. It was the summer after my freshman year of high
school, and my friends and I often went to —— Park on ——
Lake [exact location redacted at the original author’s request]
when the weather was nice.
The lakeside park backs up to another state park that has
lots of hilly terrain covered with hiking trails. It had become
kind of cloudy on this particular day, so my friend Jenny and I
thought we might explore in the woods and maybe try some of
the hiking trails.
As we ventured into the woods, we veered off the trail and
came across what I can only describe as a primitive campsite.
There was a lean-to made from pine boughs, a stone firepit, and
evidence that someone had been there recently, namely empty
Coke cans and snack food wrappers.
Jenny and I poked around the campsite for a bit and,
growing bored, decided to venture farther toward the lake.
About a hundred yards from the campsite, we happened upon
one of the scariest things I have ever seen in my life—there on
the ground in the woods were two complete sets of human
clothing, one male and one female, laid out as if the people
were still in them.
The man’s outfit consisted of a lightweight tan windbreaker,
a button-up shirt with a yellow checked pattern, a white T-shirt,
khaki pants, socks and brown leather shoes. The T-shirt was
inside the checked shirt, which was tucked into the pants. There
was even a belt in the pants. The socks were still in the bottom
of the pant legs and went down into the shoes.
The woman’s ensemble was just as creepy—a pale blue
windbreaker over a printed dress, with tan-colored hose ending
inside a pair of penny loafers.
Furthermore, the right arm of the man’s clothing overlapped
the left arm of the woman’s clothing, giving the appearance that
the couple had lain down on the forest floor and had been
holding hands.
Now, there were no bones or anything like that, and the
clothing still appeared to be in a fairly new state—it hadn’t
been in the woods very long.
We prodded the clothes with a stick and heard what
sounded like loose change or maybe car keys jingle in the
pocket of the man’s khakis.
Suddenly overcome by fear, Jenny began crying and said we
needed to leave, right now. I agreed. I was feeling totally scared
and freaked out. It looked as if the couple had lain down and
simply disappeared, leaving their clothing behind. By now, both
of us were in tears, and we ran the rest of the way out of the
woods.
We debated over several days as to what we should do—
maybe call the cops? Or take some other friends back and show
them what we had found? We scoured the local papers for
weeks, but never turned up any information about a missing
couple. In the end, we decided the best thing to do was to keep
it to ourselves and never go back into the woods—and we never
have and probably never will, although it has now been close to
fifteen years since the incident occurred.
 CHAPTER 5

THE SPIRIT TREE

I had gone on a trip to the Sequoyah Museum in Vonore,

Tennessee, to do some research for a film script I’d been hired
to write.
After I finished my research in the museum, I decided to
stroll around the grounds for a bit and see what there was to
see outside.
At one edge of the paved parking lot, there is an ‘Indian
Mound’ where the remains of many Native Americans are
interred. It’s commemorated with a plaque, and there were
many Native American objects left on the mound as tribute,
items made from such things as bird feathers and deer sinew. I
stood near the mound and contemplated these indigenous
peoples and their fate.
Afterward, I decided to venture back into the woods behind
the mound, seemingly drawn to a particular area for some
unknown reason. After a short walk, I found myself in a
clearing with the strangest tree I have ever encountered.
It was very large and very old, several feet around at the
trunk. I’m unsure just what type of tree it was, but I think it
may have been a beech tree. The tree was so massive and so
otherworldly looking, it seemed totally out of place among the
pine, oak and elm. The area beneath the tree was devoid of any
plant life, covered instead by a thin layer of leaves over dark,
fertile ground so barren otherwise that it gave the appearance
of having been swept clean.
I knew right away that this was someone’s ‘power spot,’ as I
could feel the energy. This tree was so huge and so old and so
magnificent that it seemed more like a Disney creation than an
actual tree.
I stood at the base and meditated for a few moments, feeling
the waves of energy, when I abruptly felt a darker, heavier
presence, as if I was being watched. I suddenly was overcome
with a mixture of fear and sadness. I felt like I was an intruder,
and this was a sacred place, even though I am one-eighth Native
American by birth on my father’s side. I took a few pictures of
the tree and then hurriedly left the area. Once I got home and
looked at the digital pictures on my computer, I wasn’t
surprised to see what some call ‘orbs’ or spirit lights in the
photos. I’ve visited the tree on a couple more occasions since,
but always end up feeling like I’m somewhere I don’t belong
and beat a hasty retreat after a few minutes.
The tree, which has stood for hundreds of years—and I
suspect will be there for hundreds more years to come—still
stands and can be visited by anyone.
But if you do visit, please be reverent and respectful—there
are protective spirits in these woods, and especially around this
particular tree. If you visit it, you will immediately know what
I’m speaking about to be true.
 CHAPTER 6

NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITS

We prodded the clothes with a stick and heard what sounded

like loose change or maybe car keys jingle in the pocket of the
man’s khakis.
Suddenly overcome by fear, Jenny began crying and said we
needed to leave, right now. I agreed. I was feeling totally scared
and freaked out. It looked as if the couple had lain down and
simply disappeared, leaving their clothing behind. By now, both
of us were in tears, and we ran the rest of the way out of the
woods.
We debated over several days as to what we should do—
maybe call the cops? Or take some other friends back and show
them what we had found? We scoured the local papers for
weeks, but never turned up any information about a missing
couple. In the end, we decided the best thing to do was to keep
it to ourselves and never go back into the woods—and we never
have and probably never will, although it has now been close to
fifteen years since the incident occurred.
It was Thanksgiving weekend, and my parents and I had
traveled to the family farm to spend the holiday with my
grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles and their
children.
The farm was expansive and covered over 900 acres. In
addition to many creeks and a river, there were also many
natural features such as caves and bluffs, where centuries ago
the Native Americans had hunted and lived.
My mom and dad and I were the first to arrive, and I
decided to go out exploring while waiting for my older cousins,
Jerry and James, to show up.
I considered walking down to cross the creek and mess
around in one of the many livestock barns, but it had begun to
spit snow, so I decided to go in the other direction down past
the corncrib instead and visit one of the Indian bluffs that
dotted the property. I made my way through the woods and
down the steep bank above the bluff, carefully taking my time,
as the snow was starting to stick a bit, which made for tricky
going. I finally arrived and went under the bluff and decided to
build a small fire in the ancient firepit to keep myself warm.
I ventured a little ways out into the woods, gathering dry
twigs and pine cones with which to build my little fire. On my
way back into the cavern-like area under the bluff, I thought I
heard voices in the distance. I assumed Jerry and James had
arrived and would soon be joining me.
I continued building my fire as planned, and soon had a nice
little blaze going in the firepit, where the Native American
inhabitants of centuries ago had cooked their meals. Every so
often, I could still hear the sound of muffled voices in the
distance.
Thinking nothing of it, I continued tending my small fire and
looking around in the loose soil underneath the bluff, hoping to
find a lost arrowhead or two—at the time it wasn’t uncommon
to find these much-prized pieces of worked flint.
I kicked at something in the dirt, thinking it might be an
arrowhead, but it turned out to be a bone. Just as I pulled the
bone from the dirt, the voices became louder. I walked to the
opening of the bluff, expecting to see my cousins and share my
find with them.
Looking this way and that, I could still hear the voices, but
no one was in sight. At this point, the sounds seemed to be
coming from the top of the bluff. I decided to walk back up and
see if my cousins were on the top, perhaps trying to find the
way I had used to climb down.
When I reached the top of the bluff, however, there was still
no sign of my cousins. I could still hear the muffled voices, but
now they seemed to be coming from the bottom of the bluff
instead of the top. At first I was a little perplexed, but thought
maybe Jerry and James had gone down the other side, and we
had missed each other in the process. So I began the task of
making my way back down, taking my time, as there was a
good dusting of snow on the path now, which made for slippery
going—one wrong move and I could slide all the way down the
steep hill past the bluff, ending up getting soaked in the creek
and maybe even injuring myself in the bargain.
Picking my way along carefully, I made it back to the
entrance to the cave and found myself still alone. What was
going on? I immediately thought of the bone that I had found,
which I had stuck into my jacket pocket. It suddenly occurred to
me that this might be human remains. It wasn’t impossible, but
to my knowledge only one skeleton had been found in the cave
years ago. The skeleton had been buried sitting up, suggesting
the body had been that of a Native American chief.
Under the bluff, I could still hear the muffled conversation,
and as I strained to listen, it began to sound more and more like
English was not the language being spoken. This sent shivers up
my spine.
Hurriedly, I replaced the bone in the soft earth where I had
found it, and covered it well. In my mind I apologized to
whomever or whatever I had disturbed. I had the growing
feeling that I needed to leave this place as soon as possible,
which I did, as soon as I’d put out my little fire.
 When I got back to my grandparents’ house, my cousins had
just arrived and were still helping their parents carry food out
of the car and into the house. I spent the rest of the evening
pondering the events of the day, and the next morning when
my cousins wanted to go exploring, I refused to go anywhere
near the bluff. I never told them the reason, but they didn’t
seem to mind, as there were lots of other places to explore.
I was a grown man before I ever ventured back under the
bluff again, although during those later occasions I did not hear
any more voices—and I also took care not to disturb any areas
that I thought may be sacred to my ancestors.
 CHAPTER 7

THE ABANDONED HOUSE

This happened in the mountains of North Carolina. My husband

at the time was in the military, and we were stationed at Camp
Lejeune. One weekend, we and another military couple decided
to go camping in the rugged Appalachian Mountains on the
other side of the state. After setting up camp, we decided to hike
around for a bit in the hilly, mountainous terrain.
Deep in the woods in a little hollow, imagine our surprise
when we chanced upon an abandoned Victorian house. It was
almost overgrown with kudzu vines, but we still managed to
find a way inside and decided to explore.
Once in, we were amazed at the surprisingly good condition
of the inside of the house. Upon further inspection, we found
the house to be fully furnished, and also found clothing and
even old children’s toys. It was more than a little creepy, and we
all got the feeling we shouldn’t be there—it was if the people
who lived there had just stepped out and would return at any
moment.
Our husbands were just as mystified as we girls were,
although they didn’t seem as scared. My husband, Richard, even
began checking the walls for any hidden passages, thinking
perhaps the family had gone into hiding for some reason and
then perished, trapped inside the walls.
I can’t express how much the house still looked lived-in.
There was clothing laid out on the still-made beds, and plates
and silverware set out on the dinner table. Everything was
covered with a somewhat heavy layer of dust, however, so it
was obvious the place hadn’t been lived in for decades. This
was in the early 1960s, although the musty calendar on the
kitchen wall was from 1909. Was it even possible that no one
had enter this dwelling in over fifty years?
The longer we spent in the house, the more scared my
female friend and I became, eventually becoming almost
hysterical. Eventually, after much pleading, our husbands
decided we should leave, although they would have been
happier to stay and explore the house more.
After we had left and the shivers wore off, all we could
discuss on the drive back home was how isolated the house was
—it was literally in the middle of the woods, and the nearest
paved highway was miles away.
A few weeks later, our husbands planned a trip back—alone
—to continue exploring. My friend and I were fine with that.
Although I was curious about the house, I had no desire to
visit again after the sense of fright that had enveloped me there.
However, when the guys came back home the Sunday
evening after their planned trip, the story became even
stranger. Although they were sure of the exact location, they
had been unable to find the house and had spent the entire
weekend wandering the woods.
Even though they remembered and recognized natural
landmarks, no trace of the house could be found.
They even stopped at a roadside general store a dozen or so
miles from where the house had been, and when they inquired
about the house, the proprietor emphatically denied that any
such house existed. When my husband and his friend persisted,
the man at the general store suddenly became angry and told
them to leave, adding that if they knew what was good for
them, they should forget the house and never come back!
They ignored the warning and went back on two other
occasions, but could never find the house again. And, like the
owner of the general store, any of the locals whom they
chanced upon and asked about the place refused to talk about
or even acknowledge it.
I know what we saw, and I know that it was real. But not
being able to find it again and the local folks not wanting to talk
about it only adds to the mystery—did we chance upon the site
of some unspeakable tragedy? I may never know the answer,
but I will always wonder about the abandoned house deep in
the woods.
 CHAPTER 8

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW

The weirdest thing that I ever saw in the woods happened when
I was just a boy, maybe ten or eleven years old.
It had snowed heavily the night before, so I was enjoying a
day off from school (it had been canceled due to the weather)
by walking around in the early morning snow-covered silence.
I was quite a ways back in the woods, maybe a mile or so,
when I happened upon some footprints.
They were human footprints, but smaller than my feet, so I
assumed they belonged to a child of maybe five or six years old.
And to top it off, whoever had left the prints in the snow had
been barefoot! It was about 34 degrees and much too cold for
anyone—let alone a child—to be out wandering barefoot, in the
snow, no less.
I noticed right away that there were no footprints—bare or
otherwise—leading up to where the tiny footprints began. I
followed the prints for a few hundred yards—where they
abruptly ended in a small clearing. I looked all around, even up
in the trees, but could find no trace of the small child who had
made the prints. I followed them back again to where they
began, still just as mystified as ever.
 Still puzzled, I made my way over to my friend’s house and
told him about what I had seen. He got dressed for the weather,
and we both trekked back out into the woods.
When we arrived, the footprints were still visible, but just
barely. The freshly falling snow was filling them in. We scoured
the entire area for maybe a square mile, but never found more
footprints or any evidence of the child who had made the ones
we both observed. To this day, I still can find no rational
explanation. That’s my story of the weirdest thing I ever
encountered in the woods, and I’m glad I have a witness who
will back it up!
 CHAPTER 9

EVIL IN THE WOODS

The weirdest, creepiest stuff I ever found in the woods

happened when I was a teenager. I’d only been driving a few
years and had an old ’71 Chevrolet Impala. It was a road boat
and gas guzzler for sure, but I loved to get out at night and drive
around by the moonlight.
There was an abandoned subdivision tract I had found
during my ramblings, and I decided to go back one night and
check it out. There were no houses, only what seemed like miles
of paved road that went far back into the hills. The original
developer had gone bankrupt, which was why it was left in the
state it was in, all the building lots long since overgrown with
brush and sapling pines.
On this particular night, I had found the furthest extreme of
the paved road blocked by a fallen tree. Feeling somewhat
adventurous, I got out of my car with a flashlight to see if the
tree could be moved. However, it was a beast of an old rotten
oak and must have weighed close to a ton. There was no way I
could move it by myself. Deciding that I wasn’t finished
exploring for the night, I decided to lock my car and go ahead
on foot. I figured since the road was blocked, I was safe, as
there would be no one else in the area.
 After about half a mile, the pavement stopped and continued
on as a gravel road leading up a steep hill.
I sallied forth, undaunted, happily stomping along in the
gravel while enjoying the noise it made as it crunched beneath
my boots.
At the top of the hill, the gravel road ended as well, and now
the road became nothing more than a rutted path through the
high weeds and briars, with huge trees flanking either side. I
was still feeling adventurous and decided to press on,
determined to see how far I could go and where I would
eventually end up.
About a half mile along the footpath, it curved sharply to the
right. At the corner where it curved, I was playing my flashlight
over the woods when the beam suddenly struck something out
of the ordinary. On the slope of a short, steep bank, someone
had fashioned a crude arrow shape out of some logs and
branches of varying size. It looked too perfect to be random, so I
was sure it was some kind of trail marker. I debated for a
couple of minutes, then decided to abandon the path and see
where the primitive ‘trail maker’ led.
At the crest of the bank where the arrow pointed, I found
another narrow but well-worn path, which led deeper into the
woods. I forged ahead, enjoying the adventure and solace that
comes with being out in nature. The path twisted and turned a
bit, but was leading uphill, to the top of a ridge.
When I arrived at the top after a good half hour of hiking, I
thought I would perhaps be met with a vista overlooking the
city or the nearby lake. Instead, what I found made my blood
run cold.
Where the ground leveled out, in a fairly large clearing, was
a gigantic pentagram made from carefully arranged logs—I
mean this thing was huge! There were other logs set up outside
the circle of the pentagram, which reminded me of altars. There
were also upside-down crosses planted at various spots.
By now, I was actually sweating and shaking, jumping at
every sound I heard and playing my flashlight all over the trees,
trying to catch sight of anyone who might be hiding.
I caught a glimpse of something in the middle of the large
pentagram and shined my light on it for a better look—it turned
out to be the remains of some large bird, perhaps even a duck
or a goose, which had been burned. I realized that whoever had
done all this was serious about it—it was too intricate for just
some metalhead kids messing about out in the woods. This was
some sort of Satanic-type cult or group or whatever, which met
to perform blood sacrifices.
I decided it was high time I got out of there, and I started
moving as fast as I dared back through the woods.
After what seemed like hours, I finally arrived back at my
car. Written in mud across my windshield was a single word:
BEWARE. I grabbed an old T-shirt out of the back seat and
scrubbed it off the best I could and then jumped in, silently
praying my car would start. Thankfully it did, and I’m sure I
broke the speed limit all the way home.
I’ve never shared my experience with anyone, and I never
went exploring anywhere near the derelict subdivision or
surrounding woods again. It still frightens me to this day to
even think about what might have happened if I had shown up
on the wrong night or at the wrong time and happened across
these people and their evil practices in the woods.
I still have a sense of adventure, but learned some very
valuable lessons that night—never go exploring alone, always
let someone at home know where you’re going, and realize that
there are some things that are better left alone—people who do
things in secret and hidden out of sight do so for a reason.
As the crudely written message on my car windshield stated
—BEWARE!
 CHAPTER 10

THE MONSTER IN THE WOODS

This was back in the late sixties, and my friend Eddie and I had
taken our dogs out hunting at night. We were hunting coons
and possum, and the dogs were well trained at treeing those
animals.
It was about two o’clock in the morning and we hadn’t had
much luck. We had walked all the way across the farmlands
and ended up at the edge of the river.
We decided to take a break on the riverbank and let the dogs
run free for a bit, to see if they could flush any animals out of
hiding.
We sat on a high bank overlooking the river, smoked a
couple of cigarettes, and just listened to the sounds of the
rushing water below. After about an hour, we started getting
tired and decided we had better call the dogs and then start
making our way back home.
This was where it started getting weird.
First of all, when we called the dogs, they wouldn’t come.
Anyone who’s ever used hounds to hunt coon or possum knows
that these dogs will come when called even if they have an
animal treed. Our dogs, four in all, would come to within maybe
a couple dozen yards of where we were standing on the
riverbank, but wouldn’t come any closer. We started walking
down to where the dogs were, and when we came upon them,
we saw that they were frightened and whimpering and even
had their tails between their legs. Now these dogs weren’t
exactly ferocious, like a pit bull or anything, but coonhounds
tend to be very brave—I’ve had several dogs who have lost
chunks of their ears and have also been bitten and clawed on
their muzzles and snouts. Both coons and possum will put up a
fight to the finish, even against a creature that is several times
their size.
But these dogs were scared, I mean truly scared, and it was
definitely something we were not used to seeing out of
otherwise great and valuable hunting dogs. About this time, we
heard a commotion on the bank by where we had just been
sitting. It sounded like a large animal was coming up the bank.
The dogs grew even more afraid and were now cowering
behind our legs and letting out high-pitched yelps and whines.
The batteries on Eddie’s flashlight had already given out, but
mine was still working, although somewhat dimly. I flashed the
beam over the area to see what was making the noise.
In the dim beam, I saw what looked like a man (or at least
the shape of one), but unlike any man I had ever seen. He
would have had to be between eight and ten feet tall. I called
out, asking the person to identify himself, and also stated that
we were armed. The thing just stood there, as if it was eying us.
The dogs, although now on leashes, were still making a
racket and trying to pull us away. After there was no response, I
fired a shot into the air.
Whatever it was didn’t budge, but instead let out a low,
groaning noise, almost a growl. Whatever it was, it sounded
hostile.
We tried to set the dogs on it, but that was a lost cause—the
hounds were out of their minds with fear at this point, even
wetting themselves. Suddenly, I noticed a stench. It was way
worse than any skunk I had ever smelled, more like rotting
garbage. Eddie and I fired two more shots, one each, in the
general direction of the creature.
At this point it let out a loud yowl, which made the hair
stand up on my arms.
I let the dogs go, and they took off back towards where our
pickup truck was parked. The beast suddenly turned and
jumped or dove off the bank, and we heard a huge splash as it
hit the water.
Shaken, Eddie and I decided now would be a good time to
make ourselves scarce, and we headed back for the truck. We
got the dogs rounded up and got out of there.
I’ve told the story to several people, some of whom
concluded we ran into a bear. This doesn’t sound right to me—
first of all, there are no bears in this area, and certainly not any
that would be that large. Furthermore, what little of it I was
able to catch sight of in the light of the flashlight, it looked like a
man, only very big and very tall. There have been no further
sightings I’m aware of in the area, but due to the size of the
creature, the unique smell and the noises it made, I think we
came across a Bigfoot. I’ve read similar stories about how dogs
react to the creature as well, and that further convinced me. It
wasn’t scared of us, our dogs, or our guns—so I certainly don’t
want to encounter it again under those circumstances.
 CHAPTER 11

THE LAKE MONSTER

One day my friend Scotty and I were out messing around in the
woods with our BB guns. We had hiked out into the woods over
by the lake. It was starting to get dark, so it would soon be time
to go home, as we didn’t want to be wandering around in the
woods after dark.
We found that the quickest way home would be to walk
around the shore of the lake rather than cutting back through
the woods—it was probably a little bit farther in distance, but
the walking would all be on level ground instead of climbing
the hills and ridges on the trek through the woods, thus saving
us some time.
We had just rounded a point of land and headed into a small
cove that we thought would lead us back to the paved road. The
sun was starting to set, but we weren’t as worried about it
getting dark, since we were familiar with the area we were now
in.
Just as we came up the side of the cove, we heard a splashing
in the water. It wasn’t unusual for fish to jump up out of the
lake sometimes, so at first we didn’t think too much about it.
However, the splashing continued, and when we got around the
bend where we could see, we were met with an unusual sight.
 Out in the water, in about the middle of the cove, something
was moving up and down in the water, making a greater and
greater commotion. At first I thought it might be a turtle, as
snappers weren’t uncommon in the area, and some can grow to
a pretty large size. As we continued watching, it became evident
that this wasn’t a turtle, at least not like any we had ever seen.
We observed the beast’s back or ‘hump’ moving briskly up
and down in the water, making a fairly large wake around
whatever it was. From the part that we could see, however, it
would have had to have been the size of a small car, maybe a
Volkswagen Beetle!
We stood and stared at it for a good fifteen minutes, too
dumbstruck to do much else. Eventually, the hump submerged
with a large splash and left a sizable wake on top of the water
as it swam away.
We hightailed it out of there and made it back to the paved
road in record time. We went back on several occasions
throughout the rest of the year, now always carrying binoculars
and a Polaroid camera.
Unfortunately, we never spotted whatever it was again.
Short of a giant sea turtle (which was very unlikely, since we
were hundreds of miles inland from the coast), I don’t know of
anything else to which our ‘monster’ could be compared.
 CHAPTER 12

STRANGENESS IN THE SMOKIES

I’ve spent a great deal of time hiking in the Great Smoky

Mountains National Park, on both the Eastern Tennessee and
Western North Carolina sides. The mountains derive their name
from the ‘smoke’ that seems to hang in the trees of the deep
forest. From what I’ve heard, the Cherokee gave the mountains
this name.
Now, the Smokies are a vast expanse of wilderness. It’s easy
to get lost and turned around there—I can attest to this fact,
having been temporarily lost a few times myself.
There are also some unexplained disappearances in the
mountains—a brief search online will give you more info,
bringing up such tragic missing person stories as young Dennis
Martin, teenager Treeny Gibson, and retiree Thelma Melton.
These people have been missing for decades, and no trace of
them was ever found.
I mention that to tell you this—there is a strangeness to the
mountains.
There are places that, although they represent nature at its
finest, also have a very eerie, creepy feeling. I’ve experienced it
firsthand on many occasions.
 One memorable instance that springs to mind was when I
made one of my many hikes up to Clingman’s Dome, the highest
point in the park. It’s a tough hike, the trail feeling like you’re
almost walking straight up in places. The incline is so steep in
some parts, you can literally reach out and touch the trail in
front of you as you ascend.
On one particular occasion, I had inexplicably decided to
wander a little ways off the trail, having seen some beautiful
mountain laurel plants in a nearby hollow. Now, like I was
saying, it’s very easy to become disoriented in the deep woods,
and going off the trail is not recommended for even the most
seasoned mountain hiker. But, even knowing better, off I went,
thinking I’d just walk in a straight line and therefore make it
easy to find my way back to the trail.
I made it to the hollow and was admiring the mountain
laurel patch when I decided to venture up the bank and see
what was above the little hollow. As I cleared the top of the
bank, I spotted an ancient oak tree off in the distance. I decided
to go have a look at the massive giant of a tree, which was easily
centuries old.
As I stood looking up at the towering oak, I noticed a little
path leading off to one side, probably left by deer or other
animals that live in the park. I ducked under the overhang in
the brush and pushed my way along the little game trail.
The trail ended and I found myself in a small clearing, and
this is where it gets weird—it was suddenly as if the whole
forest became silent. I didn’t hear a bird or the wind in the
leaves or anything—it was the most deafening silence I have
ever encountered.
I stood in the clearing a long time, marveling at the silence—
it was like being in a vacuum. Suddenly I felt very drowsy and
had to fight off the urge to just stretch out and go to sleep. It
was as if the woods were lulling me into a dreamlike state.
Eventually, the strange paralysis seemed to lift, and I began
to hear the noises of the forest again. I made my way back to
the trail, somewhat alarmed that the sun was starting to set—all
in all, I figured I must have stood transfixed for over an hour, at
least. I often wonder if I might have a period of ‘missing time’
regarding this episode.
So if you find yourself in the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park, take care and notice your surroundings and be
wary of the mystical effects of the park. I feel like if I had
followed temptation and stretched out for a nap, I might have
been one of those souls who are lost and never heard from
again.
 CHAPTER 13

THE HAUNTED CABIN

I’ll tell you about something that happened to me one time that
was really weird, really strange. It was fall of the year, I know,
because I was out in the woods hunting ginseng, and that’s the
time of year to look for it—the berries have turned red and it’s
easy to spot. A friend of mine had a big piece of property,
several hundred acres, that was nothing but woods. He used to
lease it out to deer hunters during hunting season. He gave me
permission to hunt for ginseng on this property.
I was way back in the woods, following a dry creek bed. In
spring, during the rainy season, the creek was pretty good sized,
but this time of year it was dry, so the going was fairly easy,
although it was a little bit rocky.
Once far enough back into the woods, I started side trips up
the bank to look for ginseng plants in the shade of trees and
rocks where it was likely to grow. I had dug several good-sized
roots and was spurred on by dollar signs in my head for every
root I dug. Ginseng is highly sought after, and the dried roots
are worth almost their weight in gold.
On one of my side trips, I came across the remains of a one-
room cabin, what most people would call a shack. This was in
the heart of Appalachia, and at one time all the hills and hollers
around here were dotted with tiny structures like this, where
poor families lived without any electricity or running water.
This particular cabin had no doors or windows remaining,
just holes where they once had been. Most of the roof was still
intact, and the walls and floor were still in passable shape. I
stepped in and had a look around, just to see what I could see.
As it turned out, there was absolutely nothing inside, not a stick
of furniture or belongings or anything to suggest people had
ever lived here.
I stepped back out and started on my way up the hill, when I
heard what sounded like heavy footsteps on the wooden floor
of the cabin. I stopped and turned around and went back,
figuring someone else (perhaps another ginseng hunter) was
trying to play a trick on me. I snuck up beside the cabin and
poked my head into one of the open window holes. The cabin
was still just as empty as when I had been in it just a couple of
minutes before. I walked all the way around the structure, but
there was no one there. I just kind of shrugged it off and started
walking again.
When I was just a few yards away, I heard it again, the
sounds of someone walking across the cabin floor. This time it
was accompanied by a noise that sounded like someone
dragging a wooden chair across the floor too, a familiar kind of
noise if you’ve ever lived in a house with wooden floors (which
I had).
Again, I snuck back to the cabin, but this time I quickly ran
around to the front door. This was the only door, so if someone
was inside, this was the only way out. Again, the cabin was just
as bare and empty as before. I had heard the noises continue
right up to just before I stepped inside.
The third time I started to walk away, I heard both noises
again, and I also heard what sounded like a small child whisper,
“Daddy?” It was more of a question than a statement, I could
tell just by the way it was said.
Again, I went back. I thought maybe some kid was hiding or
was perhaps even trapped. I didn’t have any kids at the time, so
I knew if someone was expecting ‘daddy,’ then they weren’t
talking to me anyway. And again, the cabin was totally empty,
and the noises stopped when I stepped in. I even checked the
floorboards, and none of them were loose. Outside, the cabin
was high enough off the ground that I could see all the way
under it. There was just no place a person, even a child, could
hide.
I turned and left again, and the noises started back up. This
time, however, I just kept walking, and I heard the noises until I
was out of earshot.
I’ve had people ask me if I was afraid, but the answer is no, I
wasn’t. I’m not scared of any haint, spook, booger or ghost. I’ve
been all through these woods, and the only thing I might be
afraid of is a snake, and I’m not even afraid of them if I can find
a stick. Later, I told my friend who owned the property about
what happened, and he said he’d heard about similar
encounters.
He also added that the story he had heard was that the
people who once lived there all died suddenly, the whole family
wiped out by smallpox or cholera or something, but that it had
been decades ago. He said he was not only afraid to go in there,
but wouldn’t even go near the woods where the cabin was
located—he said he’d rather walk a mile out of his way than
pass by it. I just laughed at him and told him ghosts can’t hurt
the living, but they can make you hurt yourself if you try to run
off scared!
 CHAPTER 14

THE CRYING BABY

Back when I was a young man, people around where we lived

in the mountain community of Ramsey talked about an
abandoned, haunted house way out in the middle of the woods.
The story was that a woman had gone crazy and killed her baby
one night during a storm and had buried the infant in the
cellar.
The legend also stated that if you visited the house on a
stormy night, you could still hear a baby crying.
My friends and I got our courage up, and the next time it
stormed, we went off to find the house and see if we could hear
the baby crying. It was pouring rain like mad when we struck
out through the woods, lightning dancing all around and
thunder booming to beat the band. It was a pretty good hike
back into the mountains where the remains of the old house
were located, maybe two or three miles, but we plunged ahead
in stony silence, dripping wet but determined to experience the
legend for ourselves. We were just a bunch of young bucks out
to prove our bravery and that we weren’t afraid of anything.
We reached the old abandoned house shortly before
midnight, and the storm was still going full force. The house did
look pretty scary; with all the windows knocked out, it looked
like a giant mouth missing a few teeth. We piled inside; at least
we were in out of the pounding rain and howling storm. It
would have been scary, I imagine, even if we didn’t know the
legend about the woman and her baby.
Sure enough, right after a big crack of lightning hit nearby,
we heard a sound that sounded exactly like a baby crying. All
the hair stood up on my neck, and I’ll never forget how
lonesome and pitiful the crying sounded. There were seven of
us boys altogether, but when that baby started crying, it was
easy to see who the cowards were—four of the fellows ran off
into the night as fast as their legs would carry them. Myself and
two other guys stayed behind.
I’ll admit I was scared, and I know the others who stayed
were scared too, but we were determined to see if we could
locate the source of the crying. I kept telling myself that maybe
it was a cat or some type of bird, and maybe we just thought it
sounded like a baby because that’s what we wanted to believe.
We looked over the entire house, top to bottom, but were
unable to find the source of the crying baby.
When we finally gave up and left, we were just as mystified
as before, perhaps even more so. We never were able to go back
and look again—about a month or two after our little
expedition, the house was struck by lightning and burned to the
ground.
After that, I never heard any more reports of the crying baby
—but I know for a fact that there was something strange there,
for I heard it with my own ears.
 CHAPTER 15

THE LIGHT IN THE COFFIN

A long time ago, I was seeing this young lady who lived several
miles away, and I had stayed at her house a little later than I
had planned one Sunday evening after church. Back in my day,
we called it ‘courting’ or ‘sparking.’
Basically, it meant that we weren’t old enough to actually
date, so it was how couples got to know each other under the
watchful eye of parents. I guess things sure have changed since
then.
Anyway, it was late, probably about eleven at night, and I
had a long walk ahead of me via the old country roads.
Knowing I had to be up early Monday morning to do my farm
chores, I was already regretting staying so late, so I had the
bright idea to cut through the woods and try to save myself
some time.
I wasn’t scared of the woods, I had played in them since I
was just a little boy, and as I got older, I also often hunted in
these same woods and fished on the bordering lake. So off I
went through the woods, hoping I’d get home in time to at least
get four or five hours’ sleep before I had to get up and milk the
cows. Life on the farm starts early!
 I was coming up through a small hollow when I noticed
something odd off to my right. I was following a little trail, and
whatever I was seeing was farther off into the woods. As I got
closer, I saw what appeared to me to be a coffin, with a glowing
light inside!
Well, needless to say, it shook me up pretty badly. I was so
scared that I just started running. I ran through saw briars,
tripped over rocks and roots, you name it, and I either plowed
through it or fell over it. By the time I got home, I sure was a
mess—scratched, cuts all over, bleeding and so on. I had even
torn the knees out of my good Sunday pants. I was still so
scared of what I had witnessed that I was sweating and shaking
all over.
I almost hate to admit it now, but back then, most of my
family were superstitious. Not so much my dad, but my mother
was extremely superstitious, and I guess it rubbed off on me. I
was sure that I had witnessed some strange omen that foretold
my death. Still, I was scared silly, and with tears on my cheeks, I
hesitantly awakened my parents and told them what I had seen.
As expected, my superstitious mother started panicking and
crying, thinking that I (or someone else in the family) was a
goner for sure. My dad wasn’t happy at being woken up, but he
dragged himself out of bed and started getting dressed. Like I
said, he wasn’t very superstitious and wanted to put an end to
this before the whole house was in an uproar.
I didn’t want to go back out and was already sure I wouldn’t
last through the night. But my dad prevailed, and soon we were
back out in the woods, retracing my route. Before long, we
reached the area, and I saw the slowly blinking light. My heart
began to race—I knew it was for real now.
My dad left me on the path and ventured closer. Suddenly,
he let out a loud laugh. That kind of shocked me even more—
how could he find this funny? Still chuckling, he called me over,
assuring me everything was going to be okay.
Reluctantly, I joined him.
 “There’s your coffin with a light in it,” he said, putting a
hand on my shoulder. I looked over and saw what he was
talking about—on the ground was a half-rotted log, with a
firefly caught in a spiderweb inside it. Boy, did I ever feel
foolish!
To this day, I’m no longer superstitious, despite being raised
that way by my mother. My father has passed on now, but I will
forever be in his debt for going back out into the woods with
me that night. If he hadn’t discovered it was just a lightning bug
caught in a spiderweb in a half-rotted, hollow log, I probably
would have died of fright.
 CHAPTER 16

THE PETRIFIED PIG

When I was just a little girl, we had an old sow that took sick
then wandered off into the woods and died. It wasn’t like she
was a pet or anything, so I soon forgot about her and thought
nothing more of it.
Years later, one of our chickens had escaped from the pen
and was happily making her home in the woods surrounding
our house. I’d catch sight of her now and again, but anytime I
tried to catch her, she would run off into the brush and escape.
I figured that since she was a laying hen, she had probably
nested somewhere in the woods and left her eggs out there
somewhere. There wasn’t a lot to do back in those days—we
had to make our own fun—so finding fresh eggs in the woods
had kind of become a game for me.
Well, on this particular day of playing ‘find-the-eggs,’ I had
ventured farther into the woods than usual. I could hear the
hen clucking, and followed the sound, winding this way and
that. I stepped through a row of midsized cedar trees into a
small clearing—and there was the old sow!
I couldn’t believe my eyes. She had gone missing at least two
years before, but here she was on the ground in front of me—
whole. She looked as if she had just lain down and gone to
sleep, and other than being smashed flat on the side she was
lying on and the gray pallor of her skin, she looked just like she
always did.
I couldn’t believe she hadn’t rotted away, and I looked
around until I found a small branch off a tree to poke her with.
Believe it or not, the old sow was as hard as a rock!
I’m not sure if she was mummified or petrified, but she was
solid as could be, if not a little hollow sounding. I wasn’t brave
enough to touch her with my bare hands, but prodded around
as much as I could with my stick.
I often went back and observed the pig on several instances
through the years, and she always looked the same, no matter
the season. One day, however, when I entered the little clearing,
the pig was completely gone. There was nothing left but a dark
spot on the ground that perfectly reproduced her outline. I have
no idea what happened to her, but my best guess would be that
someone else found her and made her part of a sideshow
somewhere.
Probably made a pretty penny off of her, I’d imagine.
That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in the woods, and
I’m almost ninety years old. I wouldn’t have believed it if I
hadn’t witnessed it for myself.
 CHAPTER 17

BIGFOOT IN FENTRESS COUNTY

One of my distant cousins inherited a large farm in Fentress

County, Tennessee, from his mother’s side of the family. He
worked as a banker in nearby Knoxville, but liked to ‘play
farmer,’ as I called it, on the weekends.
Through the week, he hired me to be the caretaker, and my
job was to feed and water the livestock, which was comprised
of several hundred head of cattle and a few workhorses.
One weekday evening, a fellow who lived on a nearby farm
had cut his leg very badly after a mishap with a chainsaw. He
called for an ambulance, and I heard it coming down the
common gravel road that the farms shared.
He’d cut his leg fairly deeply, and the ambulance crew
decided to transport him to the local hospital several miles
away. When the ambulance had first arrived, they were
running lights but no siren. On the way back out, however, they
had the siren going as well.
I was standing on the front porch of the farmhouse and
watched the ambulance go by with the neighbor inside. The
loud sound of the siren was quite a racket out here in the
country, where normally everything is very quiet.
 After the ambulance passed, I started to go back in the
house, when I heard another sound off in the distance. It sort of
sounded like the ambulance siren, but was coming from a
direction way off into the woods.
Whatever it was, it put up quite a howl and made the hair on
my neck stand up. It continued for a good fifteen minutes or so
after the actual ambulance was out of earshot. I was glad when
it finally hushed, and I didn’t think much more about it after
that.
Several weeks pass by, and one evening I was over at a
nearby friend’s house, watching television via satellite. He was
flipping through the channels and just happened to stop on a
Bigfoot documentary.
There was a Bigfoot researcher on the show who claimed to
have recorded the sound of a Bigfoot creature howling in the
wilderness. When he played the audio, I once again felt the hair
stand up on my neck—it sounded exactly the same as the howl
I’d heard after the ambulance had went by when the other
farmer had sliced his leg!
Before I could say anything, my friend started talking
excitedly—he said he’d heard the same kind of yowls in the
woods around these parts. When I related my story about the
ambulance, he knew exactly what I was talking about—we had
both heard the same sound but on different occasions.
Now to my knowledge, there have been no Bigfoot sightings
in Fentress County, but there are at least two people who have
heard the exact same howl as what the researcher played on
the documentary. These days, I always take a pistol with me
when I’m out tending to the livestock—just in case.
 CHAPTER 18

THE MYSTERIOUS BALL

Back when I was a boy, there wasn’t any such thing as a school
bus out in the country. If you went to school, you had to walk.
Some kids had it better, some worse, but I lived about three
miles from school, if I took the gravel road.
On this particular spring day, when school ended, instead of
walking back via the gravel road, I decided to go through the
woods. In my mind I considered it a shortcut, but in reality it
was probably even farther, especially the route I took. I had a
slingshot that I had carved myself, and I wanted to see if I could
find anything to shoot at in the woods on the way home.
I was just ambling along, taking shots at birds, trees,
whatever, but soon ran out of stones. With no ammo, I figured I
might as well head on to the house.
As I walked through a small clearing, I heard something
coming through the woods off to my right flank.
Since I was getting close to home, I thought it might be my
brother. He was already finished with school and worked at a
nearby sawmill, and he often walked home through the woods.
I called out his name, but got no response, although the noise
continued getting closer.
 All of a sudden, something I can only describe as a giant ball,
about five or six feet high, rolled up on top of some small pines
and came to rest. I couldn’t tell what it was made of, but it was
perfectly round and seemed to be blue and white striped, like
old-time overalls.
As I stood looking at it, it was as if it noticed me, and then it
rolled slowly backwards out of sight, the pine trees snapping
back into place and hiding it from view. Again, I thought my
brother might be trying to scare me, so I called out his name.
Again, no response, but I could still hear the ball or whatever it
was rolling around in the bushes, although it stayed out of sight.
I was pretty scared at this point, so I took off running in the
direction that I knew would lead me to the gravel road. I’d had
enough adventure in the woods at this point. Once I’d reached
the gravel road, I didn’t stop running and ran all the way to the
house.
When I got there, my brother was sitting at the kitchen table
finishing dinner, so there was no way whatever I had seen
could have been him.
I have no idea what it was, and I never saw it again. It
appeared sentient, as it had rolled backwards after ‘seeing’ me.
I don’t guess I’ll ever know what it was.
 CHAPTER 19

THE PIPER IN THE PARK

Big Ridge State Park is located in eastern Tennessee, not too far
from the Norris Dam area. I have been to the park on many
occasions and have hiked all of the available trails and taken in
the sights.
There are many legends about the park, including a ghostly
dog, a phantom horse, and even human apparitions at the old
grist mill. I’ve never experienced any of the hauntings, but I
have heard what they call the Piper.
The Piper is usually heard in the park in the summertime,
just after sundown.
It sounds like someone trilling tuneless notes on a flute or
perhaps a penny whistle.
The sound is certainly eerie, and it will give you goosebumps
for sure. I’ve had people try to explain that it’s just someone
practicing their playing in the park, but the fact of the matter is
that it has been heard for many decades.
If you want to hear it for yourself, go into the park some
summer evening and park in the lot down by the old gristmill.
Roll your car windows almost all the way up (I don’t know why,
but you can hear the sound better if the windows are just
slightly cracked instead of being all the way down) and just
wait.
Many people have heard the Piper, but no one has ever
solved the mystery of this seemingly paranormal happening.
 CHAPTER 20

THE FLOATING COFFIN

This happened back when I was a little girl. My older sister,

Dosha, and I were out picking blackberries in the woods. It was
a pretty bushy area, and we had to be careful and watch for
snakes, as there are poisonous copperheads in this part of the
country.
We were up high on the edge of a steep bank overlooking the
river, and just about had our baskets full, so it would be time to
head home soon.
All of a sudden, Dosha shrieked and dropped her basket,
spilling her berries all over the ground. I looked up to see what
was the matter, figuring she had probably seen a snake, and I
was hoping she hadn’t been bitten.
Her eyes were big and she had both hands over her mouth.
Before I could ask what was wrong, she pointed down below
toward an old railroad bed. It took me a few seconds to see
what she was pointing at, but then I saw it too. It was a coffin
making its way along the roadbed, seemingly floating in the air.
You talk about scared! Dosha didn’t even take the time to
pick up her basket, much less her berries, and we ran through
the woods, screaming as if the devil himself were after us.
 We made it back home after what seemed like an eternity,
and explained to our mother (as best we could between sobs)
what we had seen. My mother seemed frightened too, but was
eventually able to calm us down and convince us we must have
seen something else.
But Dosha and I knew better—we knew what a coffin looked
like. Back then they were made out of pine and painted black. I
don’t know if it was a warning or a sign, but a few days later an
old woman who lived a few miles farther up the roadbed where
we had seen the coffin died unexpectedly. We never went berry
picking in that area again.
 CHAPTER 21

ANGEL HAIR

I’ve got one for you. I’ve heard of as well as seen plenty of weird
stuff out in the woods (including a grown man, naked except for
tube socks and a clown mask, carefully making his way through
a briar patch), but this story is the strangest by far that I have
personally encountered.
I was out traipsing about in the woods one day with my dog,
not hunting or anything, but just bored and looking for
something to get into. My dog had run off ahead of me out of
sight and was barking at something, so I went to have a look.
As I came into a small clearing, it looked like someone had
dumped clear cotton candy all over several trees. The strands
were not as fine as a spiderweb, nor as thick as fishing line, but
somewhere in between.
The strands were sticky to the touch, and large clumps of
them were falling from the trees, where they basically just
melted into the earth.
I couldn’t help but notice some of the strands extended into
the sky above the tops of the trees, and went high enough into
the sky to be out of sight. I tried to gather some of it in, but like I
said, it basically just melted to the touch.
 I’ve read about other people finding it online, but no one has
any idea what it really is. Some scientists claim that it’s strands
of web left by migrating spiders that ride the air currents, but I
never saw the first spider and I shiver to think just how many
arachnids it would take to leave such huge clumps and strands
of the material.
Other folks claim that it’s something the military is doing,
testing radar signals or something, but I have my doubts about
that. Still another school of thought ties them into UFO activity,
but I certainly didn’t hear of any UFOs in the area at that time.
I’m sure there is some sort of logical, scientific explanation
for it, but it’s just something that hasn’t been fully proven or
discovered yet. Still, it was a really weird sight to see.
 CHAPTER 22

PHANTOM HORSES

When I was in the sixth grade, my family and I moved into an

old farmhouse on the edge of some deep woods in Arkansas.
Not long after moving in, I began hearing strange noises outside
at night when I was trying to go to sleep. It sounded like horses
galloping by in the woods back behind the house.
I told my mother and father about it, but they just kind of
laughed it off and attributed it to me getting the jitters from
never having lived out in the country before. Still, I know what
I heard, and I was sure it was the unmistakable sound of
hoofbeats.
One day, while exploring in the woods, I found a small cave
quite a ways out from where we lived. There were initials and
dates from the 1800s scratched into the walls. I visited the cave
on several different jaunts into the woods over the years, but
always left after becoming frightened. I wasn’t sure what about
it scared me, other than being a kid with an overactive
imagination in a cave deep in the woods.
We eventually moved away, going up north so my parents
could find work, and I forgot all about the hoofbeats and the
cave. Years later, all grown up, I was watching a documentary
about ghosts and Civil War hauntings. And there, believe it or
not, was the old farm we had lived on!
My eyes almost bugged out of my head. The man they were
interviewing said that some bandits had come through the area
and were cornered in the woods nearby. They had holed up in
the very same cave I used to play around, and were
subsequently caught and executed—when they had tried to flee
on horseback. He continued that on some nights, people claim
to still hear them on their horses, galloping through the woods
to the deadly fate that awaited them.
I’m sure glad I didn’t hear of the legend when we lived there,
or I would never have gotten any sleep. It gives me shivers even
now, and I can still hear those horses galloping through the
woods in my mind.
 CHAPTER 23

A CIGAR-SHAPED UFO

The only thing I can think of that I ever saw that was what I
would consider weird was the night my father died, many years
ago. I was living and working in a town about an hour and a
half away, and that night I had received a call from my mother
that my father was in bad shape and wasn’t expected to live
through the night.
With a great sadness and heaviness, my wife and I got in the
car and began the drive out into the country where my parents
lived. I had grown up on the same farm where they still lived,
but had gone away to college and then stayed in the city to
work.
Their place, the old home place as I call it, is way out in the
Cumberland Mountains. Back then there weren’t any interstate
highways, so we had to drive the old curvy state roads that
wound through the mountains.
About three-quarters of the way into the drive, we came
through the highest part of the mountains and could see the
darkened valley below us. I could still see a few lights from the
homes down in the valley, but there was one light I spotted
across the mountain range that appeared to be behaving
strangely.
 Finally, it got close enough that I could get a good look at it. It
appeared to be going in the same direction as we were
traveling, but was several miles off to the left. It wasn’t any type
of airplane, that much I know. It seemed to be cigar shaped and
was moving just above the treetops on the other side of the
valley.
All of a sudden, it shot straight up and went completely out
of sight. I have never seen anything move that quickly in the
sky before. My wife saw it too, so I know my eyes weren’t
playing tricks on me.
Sadly, when we arrived at the home place, my mother met
me out in the yard and informed me that my father had already
passed on. Oddly enough, he had died at almost the same time
as we had observed the weird object flying over the deep woods
of the mountains.
 CHAPTER 24

THE SCREAMING WOMAN

I was over on the Kentucky side of the Big South Fork National
Park some years ago. It was fall of the year, and I was just out
rambling around in the woods, enjoying the peace and solitude
of nature.
I had packed a lunch and had spent most of my day enjoying
the woods. It had started getting late, so I decided it was time to
start hiking my way out. I had just passed one of the many
natural waterfalls in the park when I heard a woman scream. It
made the short hairs on my neck stand up, it was that
bloodcurdling. I stopped walking so I could hear better, but
heard nothing but the sounds of the forest. I was almost to the
point of wondering if I had imagined the whole thing when I
heard the scream again. I carefully began to walk in the
direction that I thought the scream came from, even though I
wasn’t sure I wanted to find the source.
After a few minutes of cautious, quiet walking, I heard it
again, but this time it seemed like it was coming from behind
me. Rather than try to find out who was screaming, I decided it
might be a better idea just to keep going and get out of the
woods.
 When I got back to the paved lot where I had parked my
truck, I saw one of the National Park Service rangers driving by,
so I flagged him down and told him what I’d heard.
He didn’t seem at all surprised, but told me that he had
heard several similar reports recently from other park visitors.
He assured me that it most likely wasn’t a woman at all, but
rather a panther or some other type of large cat, and that I was
lucky I got out when I did. He explained that the sounds some of
these huge predatory cats make range from that of a woman
screaming to a baby crying.
He further stated that since I had first heard the sound in
one direction and then behind me, it was possible the big cat
could have been stalking me. This scared me even more than
the idea of a woman screaming. I haven’t been back to the park
since and don’t know that I’ll ever go back alone—I don’t want
to end up mauled or worse by a hungry panther.
 CHAPTER 25

THE GHOSTLY GEESE

The strangest thing I ever had happen to me was when I was

working on my daddy’s farm in Kentucky, way back when I was
just a boy. We raised corn and tobacco, as well as pigs, cows and
other livestock. We also had a huge garden far down below the
barn, where we raised other vegetables destined for the family
dinner table.
Daddy had instructed me to take one of our mules and a
wagon out to a certain area down by the creek and fill the
wagon full of the rich topsoil that could be found nearby. Kind
of disgruntled at such a hard chore, I begrudgingly hitched the
mule to the wagon, tossed a shovel in the back, and headed off.
It was a long way down there, and I was feeling kind of lazy
that day, so I decided instead to get some rich dirt from a closer
place I knew of, about a mile or so closer. It was a huge mound
of dirt that looked like it had been there a long time, and I
wondered why we had never used it earlier.
I hopped off the wagon, and just about the time I broke into
the rich dirt with a shovel, the oddest thing occurred—I heard
what sounded like a flock of geese. I stopped and looked up, but
didn’t see anything in the sky. It was still early in the morning,
but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
 I started to dig again, and once again, I heard the geese start
up. Mystified, I stopped shoveling and began looking around,
trying to find out where the sound was coming from—it wasn’t
just a few geese, but sounded like a whole huge flock or ‘gaggle,’
which is the correct term for a group of geese.
Even though the dirt pile backed up to the woods, there were
no geese in the trees. Every time I started to dig, the noise
seemed to get closer and louder.
Finally, it sounded like they were all around me, very close.
By this point I was spooked and decided to give up on the
easy way and go down to the creek and get the dirt like I was
told to in the first place. It was a lot of hard, sweaty work, but
by lunchtime I had a wagon full of the rich loam my daddy
wanted for the garden.
When I got back, he met me at the garden with another
shovel and, thankfully, helped me unload the wagon. As we
shoveled the dirt into the garden, I sort of told on myself and
mentioned that I had started to get the dirt from another place
until the sound of geese had scared me away.
My father stopped shoveling and gave me a very stern look.
“Don’t ever dig in that mound of dirt again,” he stated solemnly.
“That’s an Indian burial mound, and it would be disrespectful to
disturb them.”
I was both shocked and shamed. To this day, I believe the
noises I heard were the spirits of the Native Americans warning
me that they did not want their resting place disturbed.
 CHAPTER 26

THE BLACK DOG

I was just a child when this happened, about ten or so, but I’ve
never forgotten it and I never will. It was in the fall of the year,
so it would have been early October. I believe it was just a few
days before Halloween. We had gone up into Ohio to visit my
grandmother, who still lived on the family farm after my
grandfather had passed away the year before.
I was out wandering around in the huge yard and decided to
go for a stroll through the cornfield adjacent to the yard. Now, if
you’ve never seen a cornfield in Ohio or Indiana, these can be
massive, covering many, many acres.
The ears of corn had already been harvested, and I was
having a grand time walking through the dead stalks that had
yet to be plowed under. I remember it seeming spooky, like that
Stephen King movie Children of the Corn. Heck, I half expected
Bigfoot to pop out from between the rows.
After what seemed like miles (but was probably only a
quarter mile or so), I came out of either the back or the side of
the cornfield (I had been running around like a wild ape and
wasn’t sure which way was which at this point—the rows all
look the same after a while if you’re a kid and not paying
attention).
 I didn’t see the farmhouse anywhere, so instead had the not-
so-bright idea to head into the woods.
If I had found the cornfield confusing, then the woods were
a hundred times more so, at least. I was a smart-aleck suburban
kid (we lived on a cul-de-sac, for crying out loud) who thought
he knew everything there was to know about the woods. Boy,
was I ever in for a surprise.
I was just moseying along, looking at rocks and trees and
birds and squirrels, when I noticed it was starting to get dark. It
was already kind of dark in the woods anyway, but I hadn’t
noticed the quickly setting sun, so it would be really, really dark
soon.
Instead of panicking, I did have at least enough sense to keep
my head about me and ignore the urge to just start running in
any particular direction.
Although now I know that the best thing to do if you’re lost
in the woods is to stay in one place (otherwise you’ll end up
walking in circles without even realizing it), I decided to hike
my way out of the woods. I had no idea which way the farm or
the main road or anything was, so I just picked a direction and
started walking.
It was completely pitch black in the woods. I didn’t have any
kind of light with me, of course, and I couldn’t see any lights
anywhere in the distance. I just kept walking and finally sat
down beneath a huge tree and wept. I was truly, absolutely lost
in the woods.
After I had been sitting for probably fifteen minutes or so, I
stopped crying and decided to get up and start walking again.
As I continued to make my way through the maze of trees and
dense brush, I heard a sound off to my right.
Thinking it might be someone looking for me, I called out.
No response came, but I could hear the noises getting closer.
A couple of minutes later, the biggest dog I have ever seen
poked his massive head out of the bush. This dog was immense,
like a Labrador but even bigger.
 Looking back, it may have been a mastiff or some kind of
Great Dane hybrid.
At first I was sure the huge beast was going to eat me—or at
least tear me to shreds—and at that point, I almost didn’t care.
Instead, the dog walked right over to me and, while wagging his
massive tail, licked my hand. I petted him for a few minutes and
was amazed at how beautiful he was. He wasn’t wearing a
collar, but he looked healthy and very clean. His coat was soft
and shiny, not ragged and full of burrs and ticks like you might
find on a dog roaming in the woods.
I began walking again—at least now I had some company.
The dog eventually began walking in front of me, and every few
feet would stop and look back, as if urging me to keep following
him. I was so tired that all I wanted to do was find a place to sit
down, but it was really getting chilly now in the dark, so I did
the best I could to keep the dog in sight and kept moving.
After what seemed like an hour, we stepped out of the
woods onto a paved road.
Civilization at last! However, I wasn’t sure whether to follow
the road to the left or to the right. I looked at the dog, and as if
he understood my predicament, he started trotting off down the
blacktop to the left. I figured it was a fifty-fifty shot anyway, so I
continued following him.
There were still no houses or lights in sight, but the night
was clear enough that I could follow the dog, which was
following the road. I did find it kind of strange that he didn’t
stop and sniff things every few feet like most dogs do, but I was
too tired to care.
Soon, I began to see some lights off in the distance. It looked
like houses, so I hoped I had gone in the right direction. As I
continued along, still following the dog, I saw a pair of
automobile headlights approaching in the distance. I almost
started to hide in case it was some kind of weird stranger, but
instead decided to stay by the road, but got safely off onto the
shoulder. The dog stood by my side, waiting.
 As the vehicle drew nearer, I recognized it as my uncle’s
dilapidated old Buick. I was rescued!
The car pulled over and my dad jumped out. He was
thankful to see me, as I had been gone for hours and no one
knew where I was. He said they had been out for the last couple
of hours driving the back roads looking for me, while some of
my cousins had gone into the woods, and another batch had
headed over to a nearby lake.
Once I assured him I was okay, I piled into the back seat and
fell fast asleep, enjoying the warmth of the Buick’s heater. I
don’t even remember arriving back at the house, as my dad had
carried me inside and put me to bed.
The next morning over breakfast, all the conversation was
about my little adventure the night before. I told the whole
story about becoming lost and how the big black dog had led
me out of the woods and in the right direction towards the
house. I asked both my dad and uncle if they hadn’t seen the
dog waiting beside me when they stopped in the car, but
neither one had any idea what I was talking about—they hadn’t
seen any dog, just a tired, cold boy standing and shivering on
the side of the road.
My uncle asked around, and no one had ever seen or heard
of such a large black dog being owned by anyone in the area.
And this was the type of farming community that was pretty
tight-knit—everyone knew everyone else.
I often wonder if maybe I even imagined the dog, but a part
of me knows better—I remember what his tongue felt like when
he licked my hand, and how soft and warm his coat felt when I
stroked him. Maybe the dog was some sort of guardian angel—I
suppose an angel could take on any form, and I would have
been a lot more scared of a strange person than a big black dog.
Either way, he led me out of the woods, and I’ll never forget.
 CHAPTER 27

THE GLOWING BALL

I had been over to visit a friend from school who lived nearby.
We lived in a semirural area, so in this case ‘nearby’ meant
about three and a half miles by road. I had originally ridden my
bicycle over, but when it came time to go home, I was tired and
thought I would walk back through the woods. Being in the
country, the roads were very hilly, and I felt too tired to ride my
bike all the way back. By cutting through the woods in a more
or less straight line, I could cut the distance by more than half. I
would just leave my bike overnight, as I was planning on going
back the next day anyway.
I told my friend goodbye and struck off through the woods
toward home. It was already getting dark, but I didn’t really
mind. I had taken the shortcut through the woods many times
before and knew the route like the back of my hand. I had
cleared the first wooded area and entered a large open field (it
had once been a cow pasture, but was now just a huge expanse
overgrown with weeds), when something caught my eye.
On the other side of the field, perhaps a quarter mile or so
away, the area was once again heavily forested. Right at the
edge of the field I observed what I can only describe as a large
ball of light, about the size of a basketball. It sort of pulsated
between orange and red in color. It wasn’t really bright, but
bright enough that I could see that it lit up the lower parts of
the trees that were near it.
At first, I had assumed maybe it was someone with a large
flashlight or maybe even a lantern, but as I got closer, I
observed that I could see all the way around and even partially
through the ball of light. It slowly and gently bobbed along right
at the edge of the forest at a varying height I estimated to be
about seven to ten feet off the ground. It was totally noiseless
and seemed to travel at a consistent speed forward.
I had stopped walking while I observed the ball of light, but
decided to try to go in for a closer look—for some reason, at the
time it never occurred to me to be scared. As I got to within
approximately thirty yards of the light, it shot almost straight
up and disappeared over the treetops and into the woods. I
waited around for a few minutes to see if it might reappear, but
it unfortunately did not.
At that point I started to get a little spooked and decided I’d
rather not go through the woods after all. Instead, I went back
to my friend’s house and retrieved my bicycle to ride home. I
guess the sighting of the ball of light gave me a little adrenaline
surge, as I no longer felt too tired to bike home and was too
spooked to venture through the woods.
I never did see the light again, despite many attempts at
looking for it. I did, however, hear similar stories from people
in the area who had seen something almost identical at various
times.
 CHAPTER 28

IT WAS…A PIZZA?

I got one that’s kinda funny, but weird at the same time, and
totally from the realm of the unexplained. My friend Jake and I
had gone hiking in the infamous New Jersey Pine Barrens,
home of the Jersey Devil, among other things.
Now there’s not really that much to see in the Pine Barrens,
except for pine trees—I guess that’s why they call it the barrens.
But it is a really creepy place, what with all the legends of
monsters, mobsters, KKK, devil worshipers and whatnot. It’s
one of those places where you always feel like you’re being
watched…And truth be known, you probably are!
So anyway, I was visiting my friend in New Jersey, and he
had promised to show me the infamous Pine Barrens, so there
we were. It was on a Saturday, and we seemed to have the place
all to ourselves. Jake parked his truck in a turnout on the side of
a dirt road (really just what we would call a cow path down
south) and off we went.
I admit, it was a very spooky, eerie-feeling place. Of course
my head was full of legends about monsters and disposed
bodies of mob hits and the like. We had hiked maybe a mile or
so into the barrens when we came across the strangest thing we
would see on the whole trip. It was a pizza!
 Yes, that’s right, a pizza. A whole pizza, cooked and sliced but
still whole, just sitting on the ground. There was no box around,
nor any other evidence of anyone having been or currently
being nearby. The pizza looked fresh, like it couldn’t have been
there more than a few hours, tops. We half jokingly dared each
other to have a slice, each eventually concluding there wasn’t
enough money in the world to get us to eat the pizza.
Sadly, I didn’t have a camera with me, or I would have taken
a picture of it.
It boggles the mind. How did it get there? Why was it there?
Was it laced with drugs? Or maybe a trap laid by the Jersey
Devil? I reached the conclusion that I had seen enough of the
Pine Barrens and was happy to leave by this point. And just for
the record, it was a large-sized pie with pepperoni and a thin
crust.
 CHAPTER 29

DEVIL WORSHIP CAVE

My friends and I heard of a cave over in Blount County, not too

far from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, that was
supposedly a site where devil worshipers and/or Satanists met
on a regular basis. One Friday night, we decided we were brave
enough to check it out. My one friend, Stanley, had family that
lived in the area, and he knew pretty much where the cave was,
so it was decided we would make his aunt’s house our base
camp for this expedition into the bizarre.
We arrived at her house just before dark and started getting
our gear together. There were four of us in all, including myself,
Stanley, and a couple of girls whom we had coaxed into tagging
along (I won’t name their names just in case they might see
this). It was in October, a couple of weeks before Halloween, so
Stanley and I thought a spooky trip like this might be a good
way to get to know the girls a little better, if you get my
meaning. Walking around exploring a spooky cave with scared,
beautiful girls clinging onto us for dear life sounded like a great
night to Stanley and me!
We gathered up a few glow sticks, several yards of rope, and
some snacks and liquid refreshment (hey, the drinking age was
eighteen at that time in Tennessee, so we were legal!) and
headed off into the woods.
We had to walk quite a ways just to get to the farm the cave
was on, so the whole way Stanley and I were telling all these
wild stories about ghosts and witches and hooded figures and
such—we were really playing it up for the benefit of the girls,
who by this point were probably having second thoughts about
tagging along, yet they were too scared to turn around and try
to find the way back by themselves in the dark. Our plan was
working just as we expected!
After nearly getting lost (and not on purpose) a couple of
times, Stanley was finally able to locate the entrance to the
cave. I’ll admit one thing, it was sure isolated—I began to
wonder if all those creepy stories and legends we had heard at
school might be true after all!
We cracked our glow sticks and ventured inside, the girls
clinging to us as planned. Once inside, the cave was much like a
labyrinth, with all kinds of twists and turns. One of the other
nicknames I had heard the cave called was Rescue Squad Cave,
due to all the people who had allegedly gotten lost inside over
the years, and it was easy to see why—every passage seemed to
look just alike.
Shortly, we saw some light ahead, and when we stepped
around the corner, we found evidence of some kind of strange
ceremony. There was a large pentagram drawn on one wall of
the chamber, along with some other strange symbols.
There were candles that were still burning sitting on either
side of the pentagram. We stood quietly and listened for the
sound of anyone else moving around, but the silence was
deafening. We slowly and carefully turned around and started
back the way we had come in.
After a couple of false starts, wrong turns and almost
stepping off a huge drop-off, we finally made our way back out
of the cave entrance. Outside, we could hear what sounded like
chanting begin to echo from inside the cave.
 Although Stanley and I were spooked, we were doing our
best not to show it. By this point the girls were begging us to
leave, so it was decided it was past time to leave.
That was my one and only trek to Devil Worship Cave, and
as far as I know, neither Stanley nor the girls—understandably
—ever ventured back.
At least we were able to confirm all the tales we had heard
in school were true, and were smart enough to realize there are
some things and places better left alone.
 CHAPTER 30

BROWN MOUNTAIN LIGHTS

At the time, I was living in Mountain City, Tennessee, which is

in the extreme northeastern corner of the state, right on the
border with Virginia and North Carolina. My aunt and her
husband decided one weekend that they would like to drive
over into North Carolina and try to see if we could see the
legendary Brown Mountain Lights.
It was only a couple of hours’ drive, so we loaded up the van
and headed out, eventually parking at an overpass along a dirt
road and then hiking the rest of the way in to a spot that
overlooked Linville Gorge, with Brown Mountain on the other
side. We arrived just before sundown, set up our supplies at a
spot with a good view of the mountain, and settled in for the
night.
Shortly after dark, the show began. I had heard about the
lights all my life, but this was my first time ever seeing them.
Some of the lights were sort of an off-white, but many of them
were also faintly colored red, blue, green and orange. Some of
the lights even seemed to change colors as they flitted about the
mountain, some in the trees and some over the tops of the trees
in all directions.
 The most amazing lights I saw were the ones that appeared
to be among the trees on the mountainside. These lights were
similar in brightness to a fluorescent lantern and seemed to be
moving laterally through the trees with great speed.
They would wink out and then reappear at a spot probably a
couple of miles away. From our vantage point, it looked like
someone running through the woods while switching an
electric lantern off and on.
The next morning when observing the terrain where we had
seen the lights, it was obviously impossible that it could have
been anyone with a lantern—the area was craggy, almost sheer
cliff faces!
We went back on several occasions afterward and were
always treated to a spectacular light show. These lights have
been seen for centuries, and there are many legends about
them, which you can find online with a quick search.
Many scientists and geologists have also studied the
phenomenon, but have never been able to fully explain the
lights.
If you want to observe a possible paranormal mystery, I
highly recommend visiting Brown Mountain, North Carolina. In
my experience, late summer and early fall are the best times to
see the lights.
 CHAPTER 31

THE GIANT BALL OF ICE

Once when I was a kid, one of our cows had gotten out and
taken off into the woods somewhere. My dad tasked me with
finding it and bringing it home, so the next morning at
daybreak, I grabbed a piece of rope and took off through the
woods in the direction where the cow was last seen. She had a
bell on her neck, so I figured she wouldn’t be too awful hard to
find.
I covered all of the cornfield, where I thought she might be
gorging herself, and then followed the woods down toward a
spring branch that ran through our property. The spring wasn’t
that deep, and I thought she might have gone down there for a
drink or even be bathing herself in the cold water.
Shortly, I heard the dull sound of her cowbell and, sure
enough, found her at the edge of the creek, standing in the
water up over her hooves. She seemed surprised to see me, and
I had no trouble getting close enough to get the rope around her
neck and start leading her back toward the house.
I had enjoyed this particular little chore, as it had gotten me
out of doing some of the much harder chores on the farm, so I
decided to take my time going back and take the long way
around. I liked being out in the woods and just wanted to give
myself a little more enjoyment—my idea of my reward for
finding the cow.
As we followed along the creek, headed back toward the
house, I heard something crashing through the woods. The cow
heard it too, and she stopped in her tracks and let out a small
bellow. I listened carefully and didn’t hear anything else, but
started up through the woods where I had heard the noise.
About a hundred yards into the woods, I found what had
made the noise. It was a huge ball of ice, about half the size of a
large washtub. It had obviously fallen from above, as I could
see freshly broken tree limbs and branches up above it. It
appeared to have come in at a slight angle.
It reminded me of a hailstone, but was bigger than any I had
ever heard tell of. A good portion of it had broken off and was
melting into the forest floor.
I hurried on home at that point and told my dad about it,
and we went back for another look. However, most of it had
already melted by that time, although it was still ten times
bigger than any hail I had ever seen.
It was a clear day, in the summertime, so I don’t think it was
giant hail. I hadn’t heard any airplane pass over, either. We
never did figure out where it came from.
 CHAPTER 32

THE GRINNING MAN

When I was a child, my parents and my little sister and I would

often go visit my grandparents who lived on a farm in West
Virginia. At the time, we lived in the suburbs of a large city, so it
was a refreshing change of pace for all of us to get out into the
country for a bit.
I always loved visiting my grandparents, and was free to
roam about the woods bordering their farm to my heart’s
content. There were ponds, a creek or two, and lots and lots of
places to explore.
One morning, while out looking for berries or wildflowers in
the woods, I caught sight of a man standing inside the trees. He
looked harmless enough, but it was kind of creepy because he
had a huge grin on his face.
I kept on walking along, trying not to pay him any attention,
but he just stood in the same spot and continued grinning. Now
this was back in the days before ‘stranger danger’ and all that,
but looking back, I should have taken off then and there.
Instead, I tried to stare him down.
No matter what I did, he just stood there, motionless, with
that weird grin on his face. I eventually tried waving at him, but
this elicited no response. I tired of the game after about fifteen
minutes or so and eventually made my way back to my
grandparents’ house.
When I got in, I told my grandma about the grinning man,
and she became visibly upset. She went and got my grandpa
and told him about what I had seen.
Grandpa went into the bedroom and got his shotgun and
headed off in the direction of the woods where I had been. He
stated very vehemently that nobody had any business being on
their property, especially when his granddaughters were
nearby.
I got kind of scared when we heard a couple of shotgun
blasts a few minutes later—I was afraid grandpa had killed
someone. I went and hid in the back bedroom.
However, when he came back inside later, he let us know
that he hadn’t seen a soul, but fired off a couple of rounds to
make sure the grinning stranger knew he wasn’t welcome here.
After that little incident, I never did venture too far into the
woods anymore when we went to visit. It scares me more to
think about it now than it did when I was a child.
 CHAPTER 33

THE MYSTERIOUS MONKEY

The weirdest thing that I ever came across in the woods was a
monkey. It wasn’t anything big, like a chimp or a gorilla, but it
was a monkey, I’m just not sure what kind—maybe a capuchin
or a spider monkey since it was small.
I was hunting deer in Alabama with some cousins, and I was
up a tree, hoping that a big buck might come along. The birds
were all upset, however, and thrashing about in the trees, so I
was afraid they were making too much noise and would scare
the deer off.
I was trying to see what was upsetting the birds, when I
heard an odd noise.
It kind of sounded like a bird, but not a regular wild bird, it
sounded more like a parrot or something exotic. Scanning the
treetops with my binoculars, I finally spotted what was making
the odd noises. It was a small monkey.
I had a clear shot at him, but I just didn’t feel right shooting
a monkey. He seemed almost human. Plus, I wasn’t sure if it
was legal or not, and I didn’t want to get into any trouble with
the game warden.
Instead, I tried calling it. It looked in my direction, but never
would come any closer than a tree or two over from me. I took
a handful of trail mix out of my jacket and threw it on the
ground below, and eventually the monkey came over and ate
part of it before scampering off into the woods. If it had gotten
close enough, I would have liked to have tried catching it and
making it a pet, but I would have also been afraid of it, as
monkeys are known to carry tuberculosis and possibly even
rabies.
I never did see it again, and around the fire that night the
guys accused me of having been drinking, but I promise that I
hadn’t had a drop. What a monkey was doing out in the woods
in Alabama, I haven’t a clue. Near as I can figure, it was
probably an escaped research animal or had been someone’s
pet at one time.
We still hunt the area in season, but I have yet to see the
monkey again, and it’s going on five years now since my
sighting.
 CHAPTER 34

THE RIVER GAME

My strangest encounter in the woods was one time during deer

season. I was sitting in a blind, waiting for a deer, when I heard
some sort of commotion in the woods. Lots of noise, branches
breaking, it sounded a lot bigger than a deer.
What I saw still amazes me to this day. First, I saw a lot of
squirrel and chipmunks pass by. Then some raccoons and
rabbits followed. Then came a bunch of deer, a whole herd of
them, running like mad. I was too stunned at what I had just
witnessed to even try to get off a shot.
I’ve heard stories like this before and was afraid the animals
might be running from a forest fire, so I decided to go in the
same direction as the ‘river of game’ I had just seen pass by.
On my way back to the truck, I passed some other hunters
and stopped to talk.
They had seen the same thing that I had, and were just as at
a loss to explain it. They, too, were so stunned that it didn’t
occur to them to take a shot at any of the bucks.
We looked around for a while, but didn’t see any evidence of
a forest fire or anything else. I stopped at a ranger station and
let them know what we’d seen.
 They double-checked to make sure there weren’t any fires in
the area, but everything reported back clear.
I’ve since heard the suggestion that, among other things, a
bear or large cat may have been on the prowl in the area and
spooked all the smaller animals.
Another guy suggested there might have been a forthcoming
earthquake in the area. That would make sense, sort of, and
some research online does indeed indicate animals will
sometimes flee ahead of a quake; however, there was never any
earthquake in the area that I could find. Beats me!
 CHAPTER 35

THE ABANDONED CAB

When I was a teenager, some friends and I had gone exploring

on federal land.
I won’t name the place, because I’m pretty sure we were
trespassing. Let’s just say it was way out in the middle of
absolute nowhere, and leave it at that.
We were just goofing off, drinking some beers, having a
good time far away from prying eyes. We had been walking
through a power cut, but decided to stray off into the woods for
a while.
Again, I want to stress just how far out this place was. We
were miles and miles from any semblance of a road or highway.
Making our way through the woods was difficult at best, and
many times we had to hike around areas that were overgrown
too thickly to pass.
We eventually found a little clearing beneath a stand of pine
trees and sat down to take a break for a while. One of the guys
with us, I’ll call him Andy, was horsing around, tossing big rocks
off into the trees and getting a kick out of hearing them crash
through the brush below.
However, one particular rock didn’t go crashing down the
hill through the trees, but instead hit something heavy, making
a dull metallic sound. We all got quiet real fast, trying to figure
out what on earth he might have hit. We waited a few minutes,
and then Andy tossed another hand-sized rock in the same
general direction. Again, we heard it strike something metallic.
Time to go explore and find out what was up here with us.
Making our way down the steep embankment into a ravine,
we jokingly came up with all manner of imaginative scenarios,
including a UFO, a moonshine still, and a plane crash. Oddly
enough, what we found was just about as weird and farfetched.
At the bottom of the ravine, resting on its side, was the ancient,
rusting hulk of an abandoned taxicab.
Rust was about all that was holding it together, but we could
still make out the fare amount painted on the door, but not the
name of the cab company.
Based on the body shape of the car, we guessed it to be from
the 1930s or 1940s. All the windows were smashed out and the
license plates were nowhere to be seen, so we had no idea
where it could have come from and how it could have possibly
ended up there.
We cautiously crept up far enough to have a look inside, half
expecting to find a dead body or two, but nothing other than
the rotting interior of the car could be seen. It’s probably still
there to this day, but like I said, you’d probably be trespassing if
you went to see it, so for now the location will have to remain a
mystery, just like the cab and how it came to rest deep in the
woods of Ohio.
 CHAPTER 36

THE MAN IN THE WELL

This happened when we were kids, my brother and I. We were

only a year apart, so if memory serves correct, we would have
been about nine and ten years old respectively. Deep in the
woods, a couple of miles or so from where we lived, was an old
abandoned farm. Other than a crumbling foundation and a
dangerously leaning chimney, no trace of the farmhouse that
had once stood on the property remained.
Near the foundation was an old well or cistern, where the
folks who lived there had most likely caught rainwater. The
cistern was covered with several half-rotten boards, but we
knew to stay far away from it—abandoned wells are dangerous,
and if you fell in, you could easily break a leg or even drown.
Well, on this particular trip out past the old farm, we noticed
that the boards were missing from the top of the cistern, and
the rock-lined hole was wide open. We knew not to get too
close, but curiosity got the best of the both of us, and we just
had to have a look down into the deep, dark hole. We figured
some wild animal or maybe even someone’s livestock might
have ventured on top of the boards and had fallen in.
For fear of standing too close and having the side collapse
(these wells or cisterns were dug by hand and also hand-lined
with smooth river rock), we instead lay down and crawled up to
the edge to have a peek.
My brother got to the edge about a second or two before I
did, and I heard him gasp with surprise. His eyes were as wide
as saucers and his mouth hung open. I eased up to the lip to
have a look for myself—and I nearly jumped out of my skin
when I saw a body about twelve feet below, floating headfirst in
the brackish water. We jumped up and ran as fast as we could
back home, both of us too shocked to even speak as we beat a
path back to the house.
Once we had arrived home safely, we caught our breath and
located my uncle Pete, who just happened to be the only adult
home at the time. I say ‘adult’ because he was older than us, but
I’m sure in reality he was probably only sixteen or seventeen
years old at the time. We told him of our discovery, and even
though he threatened to pound us if we were telling lies, he
could tell we were really scared. He got a length of rope from
the storage shed, and we all trekked through the woods to the
abandoned farm.
Upon arrival, sure enough, Pete peered in and saw the man
in the well. My brother and I held our breath as Pete tied a loop
in the rope and managed to snag one of the boots. We even
helped Pete pull on the rope to bring the body up and out of the
well.
As the body was near the top, I shut my eyes tight. The only
dead person I’d ever seen was in a funeral home, and I was
afraid I’d have nightmares after seeing a bloated corpse pulled
from a well.
All of a sudden, Pete let loose with a string of curse words
that I’m sure turned the air around us blue. I opened my eyes
just a crack as he turned the body over—it was a dummy! It
looked almost like some farmer’s scarecrow, but whoever had
made it had taken great pains to make sure it looked real.
Relieved that it wasn’t a real body, we took a closer look at
the dummy. It was wearing faded blue denim overalls, a plaid
shirt, and worn work boots. The head was fashioned out of a
dried gourd with drawn-on eyes and a crude slit for a mouth,
and it had an old hunting cap shoved down over the top of it.
Looking back, someone spent a lot of time putting it together
and filling it with straw.
At first, Pete blamed us and was ready to give us the
pounding he’d promised if we were making it up. We assured
him we had no part in it, and he seemed to believe it—at least
he didn’t beat us up.
I guess the real mystery was why someone would go to all
that trouble—no one lived for miles around, and we had only
happened upon the elaborate prank by chance. Pete tore the
dummy to pieces on the spot and swore into the neighboring
woods in case the merry pranksters were watching from a
distance.
We covered the cistern with some more old boards and a
few large tree limbs for good measure, and that was the end of
it.
Pretty weird.
 CHAPTER 37

DEVIL DOLL

Several years ago, my husband and I bought an old, renovated

farmhouse in North Georgia. Having been apartment dwellers
previously, it was so nice to have our own place with a yard and
trees and all.
One day, only a couple of weeks after we had moved in, I
was out in the expanse of woods that adjoined our property,
looking for wildflowers to dry and make arrangements for our
new house.
While tramping around in one particular area, I rounded a
corner and found what must have been someone’s garbage
dump from years gone by. There were lots of old bottles and
rusted-out cans—I even gathered a few of the bottles to clean
up and display around the house, lending an air of authenticity
to my ‘shabby chic’ decor.
I went back to the dump site on several occasions, and on
one particular trip I noticed something odd resting in some
vines at the base of a huge oak tree.
Reaching in carefully, I was amazed to pull out an old bisque
doll’s head. The fabric had long since rotted away, but after a bit
of digging, I was also able to find the fragile arms and legs for
the doll.
 Amazed with my find, I hurried back to the house and set
about sewing a body for the doll, to make her whole again. Once
finished, I placed her on the ornate fireplace mantel in our
living room. She looked right at home up there.
That night was when things started getting weird. Just as we
were falling asleep, I thought I heard the sound of giggling and
a rapping noise coming from downstairs. I roused my husband,
but he assured me it was just the wind or raccoons in the
garbage or something, and rolled over and went back to sleep.
Throughout the night, I would doze off only to be awakened
by little noises from downstairs.
Finally, I had had enough and got out of bed myself. I put on
a housecoat and crept down the stairs with a flashlight. As I
shined the light around the living room, I was startled to see the
doll sitting on the floor beside the fireplace. I assumed it had
fallen, but I was literally dumbstruck at how it could have fallen
four feet from the mantel and landed in a sitting position on the
far side of the mantel without breaking the head or limbs. I
replaced the doll and went back to bed, but continued to hear
noises throughout the night.
The next morning when I got up, I went downstairs to start
breakfast and was startled to see the doll once again sitting on
the floor next to the fireplace. I picked up the doll and, while
examining it for any cracks, noticed how evil the expression on
its face appeared. Something didn’t feel right. I’ll admit that I
was more than a little bit scared at the time.
After breakfast, I took the doll back out into the woods and
replaced it where I had found the head and limbs. I slept
soundly that night, and every night thereafter. We’ve lived here
for almost twenty years now, and I’ve never experienced
anything even slightly out of the ordinary. There are some
things that can’t be explained and times when it is best to leave
well enough alone.
I learned my lesson about bringing things into the house
from out in the woods, and if I ever see another doll out there,
I’m going to run as fast as I can in the other direction.
 CHAPTER 38

TAROT OF THE WOODS

The strangest thing I ever encountered in the woods was in the

Jefferson National Forest, not too far off the Appalachian Trail.
I had made a day trip to the forest to do some hiking, mainly
just to get out and get some exercise. The Appalachian Trail cuts
through the edge of the area, and there are some beautiful
hiking spots. It was a fine spring day, just a little bit of morning
chill in the woods, and I felt lucky to have the place to myself.
I had wandered off the main trail on to a smaller, but well-
marked side trail, when I noticed a tarot card nailed to a tree,
maybe thirty yards or so off into the woods. I walked up to the
tree to have a better look, finding it kind of odd. The card was
still stiff and new looking, so I gather it hadn’t been there for
very long. I found it to be strange, but have spent enough time
in the woods to know that sometimes you come across some
pretty weird things. As I turned to go, I spotted another tarot
card nailed to a tree yet farther off in the distance. I walked
over to it, as well.
Same thing, new-looking card, nailed to a tree with a single
roofing nail. I scanned around the woods and saw another card
a little distance off. I went and had a look at that one too. Every
time I spotted a new card and went to have a look, I would see
another off in the distance. I followed the ‘trail’ as far as twelve
cards, then kind of got the heebie-jeebies and decided maybe I
didn’t need to go any deeper into the woods.
I hiked back out to the main trail I had been on and didn’t
see anyone else or have any further strange incidents. I have no
idea what the meaning of the tarot cards was, why they were
nailed to trees seemingly at random intervals or what the cards
would have eventually led me to, but not being armed at all,
save for a small pocketknife, I wasn’t in the mood to find out.
 CHAPTER 39

OUIJA WEIRDNESS

When I was a kid, I was not allowed to have a Ouija board in

the house. I found that out the hard way when I borrowed one
from a friend of mine from school, and my mom had an
absolute fit when I brought it in. I sheepishly took it back to the
owner and kind of forgot about it. I was no longer tempted to
mess with the unknown.
Fast-forward years later, and I was out in the woods
bowhunting. I had climbed up to the top of a draw and was
hoping to spot a nice deer to take down. Off to one side, I saw
the remains of someone’s campsite. Now keep in mind, this
wasn’t a normal camping area by any stretch of the
imagination. We’re talking extremely rugged terrain, miles and
miles from anywhere. The going is so rough, you need either a
horse or an ATV with high clearance to even make it to the base
camp area.
Nonetheless, here was an abandoned campsite. There were
shredded remnants of a heavy tarp someone had used to make
a lean-to, some trash, and a stone circle where a fire had been
made. Sitting in the middle of the stone circle, of all things, was
a Ouija board. It was singed around the edges, as if someone
had tried to burn it in the fire, but it hadn’t fully caught ablaze.
I picked it up and looked it over.
I guess maybe it was because of how my mom had berated
me for bring one into our house, telling me how evil they were,
but I got really creeped out. One of the legends about the boards
I had heard growing up was that you couldn’t burn one unless
you snapped it in half first. And here in my hand was proof—
the back side of the board was blackened with soot, and the
corners and edges were singed, but it hadn’t burned.
I carefully placed the board back into the stone fire circle
and hurried off to another part of the woods. The next year
when I was hunting in the same area, I plucked up enough
courage to visit the campsite again, but this time the Ouija
board was nowhere to be found. Call me superstitious if you
want, but why take a chance with something like that? Not me.
 CHAPTER 40

VOODOO RITUAL

I’ll tell you about something weird that I came across in the
woods one time in the Pocono Mountains. I was just a kid at the
time and was spending part of my summer vacation in the
mountains with my mom and dad.
We were staying in a rustic cabin way back in the hills, and I
was having a grand time exploring the woods. I was raised in
the city, in a suburb of Philly, so it was a nice change of pace to
see trees and nature.
I had wandered a good distance from the cabin one day,
looking for wildflowers. I was following a little trail and noticed
what looked like a small cave up the hill to my left. Feeling
adventurous, I climbed the steep bank to have a look inside.
When I got to the area I had seen from below, I was
disappointed to find that it wasn’t actually a cave, but more of a
hollowed-out little stone ledge about halfway up the steep
embankment.
Peering inside the little shelf, I was shocked to see what
looked like a little homemade doll. On closer inspection, I
noticed that it appeared to have been crudely fashioned from
burlap, with a small shock of human-looking hair at the top,
and buttons for eyes. There were also straight pins sticking into
it—I suddenly realized that I was looking at a voodoo doll. I had
read about creepy stuff in books in the library, but had never
seen anything quite like this.
There were some other items on the ledge, including a
mostly burned candle, a small china saucer with some objects
in it, and a piece of parchment rolled up and tied with twine.
About that time, a stark realization began to creep over me.
I suddenly got goose pimples all over my whole body—I had
stumbled across someone’s voodoo ritual. I carefully made my
way back down the bank, trying hard not to leave any trace that
I’d been up there, and went straight back to our cabin.
For the three more days or so we stayed in the Poconos, I
refused to venture out of sight of our cabin, afraid I might have
been observed sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I even
had trouble sleeping at night, every little creak and groan of the
forest sending me into spasms of fear that a voodoo priestess
was coming to get me.
My mom and dad asked me what was wrong, and I just
played sick, saying I didn’t feel like going out into the woods. I
was very happy when the time came to go back home to Philly. I
never did tell them what I found, and I’ve never mentioned it to
another soul until now.
I never had any bad luck or anything after the incident, so I
guess I didn’t upset anything. Who would have ever imagined
there were voodoo practitioners in the Pocono Mountains, of all
places?
 CHAPTER 41

THE BURIED SUITCASE

I was out in the woods scouting deer, in anticipation of the

opening of bow season in a couple of weeks. It was a good way
to spend the weekend, I figured, and would hopefully increase
my chances of getting a nice trophy buck for the wall of my den
at home. I’d already found some good, likely spots to place a
tree stand, and was on my way back to my four-wheeler when I
decided to sit down beneath a tree and take a rest.
As I sat down, I put my hand on a large flat rock that was at
the base of the tree. The rock wobbled and rocked a little bit,
and I heard a hollow-sounding thunking noise coming from
underneath. Curiosity up, I scraped leaves from around the
rock, and once exposed, I found I had no trouble rolling it over
to one side and out of the way.
Underneath the stone, I found that the soil was loose, and it
was obvious someone had previously been digging here. I
looked around and found a pretty good-sized stick and started
scraping away the dirt. Much to my surprise, a square outline
began to take shape. Using my gloved hands, I had soon
uncovered the top of an aluminum case of some sort.
I cleared some more dirt from around the sides and very
soon had made the hole big enough that I was able to grasp the
dirt-encrusted handle and lift the case free. I was surprised at
the heft of it, and I could feel something shift inside. It was one
of those aluminum flight cases and had been locked with a key.
As visions of buried cash and jewels danced in my head, I
grabbed the Leatherman tool from the pouch on my belt and
went to work on the locks.
About fifteen minutes later, I finally broke through the
second lock. I held my breath as I slowly opened the case,
already thinking what I would do with all the cash I was about
to find (or at least the reward money if it turned out to be
stolen).
Inside was a pillowcase and a laminated note. The note was
actually a poem dedicated to Brewster, the Best Bird-Dog Ever. I
felt the pillowcase with my gloved hand, just to make sure. Yep,
he’d been in the ground for quite some time, and I felt the
unmistakable feel of bones without having to open the
pillowcase, which was tied shut with a short length of nylon
rope.
I thought of the many good hunting dogs I’d owned over the
years, and I admired the tenacity of anyone who would lug
their deceased dog in a suitcase all the way out here in the
middle of nowhere. What better tribute than to bury the dog in
the same area where fond hunting memories were once made?
Satisfied, I carefully reburied the case, replaced the rock and
covered it with leaves, all the while with tears in my eyes. I may
not have found any loot, but instead found a real treasure—
there’s nothing like a good canine hunting companion.
Sorry to have disturbed you, Brewster—I hope you’re having
a blast flushing grouse out of the brush in dog heaven.
 CHAPTER 42

THE IMPRISONED TOAD

The strangest thing I ever came across in the woods happened

during deer season when I was out hunting in Catoosa.
[Author’s Note: Catoosa is a Tennessee Wildlife Management
Area where hunting is allowed in season.]
I had been up in my tree stand since before daylight and
hadn’t had any luck, so I figured I’d climb down and stretch my
legs for a bit. I was starting to stiffen up from sitting in the tree
for so long.
Catoosa has been a popular hunting destination for
centuries, long before the white man ever came to America. As
such, people unthinkingly leave a lot of trash in the woods. I
was always taught that if you take it in, you take it back out, and
not to leave any trash for the next fellow. Some people don’t
grasp that concept and leave trash strewn all over the forest.
When I’m out hunting, I’ll often pick up cans or bottles and
stuff left behind by thoughtless hunters, just because I like the
idea of leaving nature better than when I found it.
This time, while I was walking about having my stretch, I
happened to notice the neck of a half-buried soda bottle sticking
out of the ground. I reached down and gave it a tug, and it
easily pulled free of the dirt and leaves.
 It was one of those old Coca-Cola bottles, the kind made of
thick, greenish glass. I was just about to put it in my pack when
I noticed what looked like mud and leaves inside the bottle.
When I tried to shake the gunk out, so as not to mess up my
pack, I heard a funny noise. I looked around, didn’t see
anything, but then I heard it again. About that time, I felt
something move—inside the bottle!
I almost dropped it, thinking it might be a snake, but on
closer inspection—I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—there
was a frog or a toad of some sort trapped inside the bottle! I got
the bottle angled around to where I could see a little better, and
sure enough, I could peek into the bottle and see the frog
looking back at me. It was a pretty tight fit for the little guy, he
didn’t even have enough room to turn around.
I took the bottle back to camp, and that evening showed the
other guys I was hunting with what I had found. One of my
friends, Dan, helped me carefully break the bottle so we could
free the frog. After we got it out, it sat there for a few minutes
and then took off hopping through the woods. I’m sure it was
happy to be set free.
The only answer we could come up with was that the frog
had ventured inside the bottle when it was small (maybe even a
tadpole) and had thought he had a good place to hole up for
cold weather. The bottle had been tilted in the ground at such
an angle that he had enough water, and I suppose, enough to
eat—he wasn’t exactly fat, but was fat enough to not be able to
fit back out the narrow bottle opening. I can’t imagine how
many weeks or even months he may have been trapped inside.
I ended up not getting a deer that trip, but my story of the
toad in the bottle continues to be told and retold year after year,
so all in all it was worth it. I’m just glad I found the little guy
before he either drowned or starved in his glass prison.
 CHAPTER 43

THE OPENED GRAVES

Back when I used to hunt quite a bit, there was an old cemetery
way off back in the woods close to Jefferson City. Most of the
stones were so old and weathered that you couldn’t make out
the names or dates. From what I recall, the ones you could read
dated back to the early 1800s.
I had passed the cemetery on many occasions and never
gave it much thought.
One time though, when I passed by, something out of the
ordinary had happened.
All the graves, every one of them, had been dug up. I was
stymied and went in and poked around a bit, but had to be
careful because I didn’t want to fall into any of the open graves.
I didn’t want to break a leg and have to crawl several miles out
of the woods.
There were about twenty in all, if memory serves correct,
and every single one of them had a pile of dirt beside it. It was
freshly dug, too, couldn’t have been more than a week or so
prior, I would guess. I didn’t see any sign of heavy equipment,
so whoever had been digging had done so by hand, so you can
imagine how long it must have taken and how much work was
involved, even if it was two or three people doing the digging.
 The headstones were all still in place, more or less, although
some of them had tumbled over while the digging was going on.
I didn’t see any human remains or any coffins or anything, but
then again these people had been in the ground so long I
figured there wasn’t anything left of them anyway.
I never did figure out what happened there. I thought maybe
the graves had been relocated, but for what purpose? This was
miles deep into the woods and not near anything that would
have required the graves to be relocated. In fact, I’m certain the
old cemetery is still there to this day.
I also considered the idea of grave robbers, but again—this is
way out in the middle of nowhere—the people buried out here
were poor mountain folk, and I seriously doubt they would
have had any valuables buried with them.
I have an inkling that it may have been in reality something
more sinister, something evil, but I don’t want to even think
along those lines. I don’t want any part of anything like that,
don’t even want to know about it. Anyone who would
disrespect the dead like that is pure evil in my mind, pure evil.
 CHAPTER 44

PHANTOM FOOTSTEPS

One time, I was out hunting along Beaver Creek, in Knox

County. I had a rifle and a pistol with me, in hopes of finding a
few squirrels. We didn’t really know it, but we were poor back
then, and any extra meat on the dinner table was a welcome
blessing.
Beaver Creek runs for miles through East Tennessee and up
into Virginia. The water is cold but clear and pure, and lots of
animals come to it to get a drink, so it makes for good hunting.
I’ve shot many a squirrel, raccoon and possum along its banks.
On this particular day, I had ventured farther up and along
the creek than usual, up near the mouth. For some reason, I had
never felt comfortable in this particular area of the creek. I
always felt like I was being watched, and there were tales of
large cats being spotted in the area. I myself had never seen
one, but knew other folks in the area who had supposedly
sighted them.
Lots of times any missing livestock or even missing pets
were attributed to the mysterious cats.
I was walking along the bank, scanning the tree line, but not
having much luck.
 The creek was gurgling as normal, but my footsteps in the
creek gravel seemed to be making more noise than usual. I
knew that wasn’t a good thing if I wanted to shoot any squirrels
—if they heard me coming, I didn’t stand a chance.
I stopped to rest for a minute, and to my surprise, it sounded
like my footsteps continued. I held my breath and listened for a
minute and realized I was hearing someone—or something—
else walking nearby. The footsteps abruptly ceased. I stood very
still and quiet for a few more minutes and, hearing nothing
else, continued on.
I hadn’t gone more than a few yards when I heard the other
set of footsteps start up again. I would stop, and after another
step or two, the others would stop as well. I scanned the area
carefully, but didn’t see anyone or anything else nearby. This
continued for the better part of a half hour, off and on,
matching my own pace.
At one point, it almost seemed that the footsteps were even
with me, but coming from the other side of the creek. The creek
wasn’t that wide in this area, so I could see the other side
plainly.
This little game went on until I reached a bend in the creek
and I headed off through someone’s cow pasture.
Enough was enough. I didn’t want to meet up with a big cat
or worse.
Like I said, I never did see or hear anything, but I did hear
what sounded like something with two legs matching my pace
along the creek. I wasn’t scared since I had my guns with me,
but they might not even have been any use since I couldn’t see
what was following along with me. I still venture back to that
area of the creek on rare occasions, but I’ve never heard the
footsteps again. I have no idea what it could have been.
 CHAPTER 45

THE MYSTERIOUS COW PILE

This one is both funny and weird, but it happened anyway.

Some friends and I were messing around in the woods, miles
from anywhere, when we came upon an old barn. There had
been a dairy farm in this particular place decades ago, but the
river had been dammed up to make a lake, and now everything
except for the barn and accompanying silo was under a dozen
or more feet of water.
The barn looked like it was about ready to fall over, but
being adventurous boys with more curiosity than good sense,
we decided to explore it anyway.
We went inside, but there wasn’t a lot to see—not much
excitement in an old abandoned barn. I figured we should
leave, but then one of the guys got the bright idea that we
should climb up into the loft and look around.
Like I said, the barn was dead old and looked on the verge of
collapse—I wasn’t too keen on the idea of climbing around up
in the top of it. But, ah, youth…
Rather than be called yellow or chicken, I decided to climb
up with the rest of the guys.
If the barn had been boring, the loft was doubly so. Just a
bunch of wobbly boards with gaps big enough to see the dirt
floor some distance below. It looked like a good place to fall and
break a leg or even your neck. I was getting ready to climb back
down, hoping the wooden rungs would support my weight for
the return trip, when one of the guys called out, “Look! Come
and look at this! You won’t believe it!”
The rest of us hurriedly made our way over to the corner
and up to a higher side loft, where the one kid had found
something exciting. It was a cow pile.
And a fresh one at that.
Now this may not seem very exciting to you. If you’ve ever
lived on or been around a farm, you come to know cow manure
as a fact of life, and you’d better watch where you step. But
here, in the top loft of an ancient barn that hadn’t been used in
decades, was an unmistakable fresh pile of cow flop.
If you stop and think about this for a little while, you’ll
realize just how weird this discovery was. Number one, like I
said before, the barn hadn’t been in use for at least twenty or
thirty years. Number two (no pun intended), even if it had still
been a working farm, there would be no way for a cow to get
into the upper loft on its own, nor any reason for putting one up
there by manual means—the upper side loft was just a little
platform under the eave of the barn, maybe twenty or thirty
feet off the ground.
Yet there it was. We even poked it with a stick to ensure that,
yes, it was indeed fresh. Some things are better left to the
imagination, and we never could come up with a plausible
reason for our discovery.
 CHAPTER 46

THE VANISHED CALF

I know of a really strange encounter for which there is no

explanation—at least not a rational one, anyway.
When I was just a boy, my uncle owned a small farm in the
foothills of western North Carolina. Farming is a hard way to
make a living, as my uncle discovered, so he used his farm to
supplement the family food supply. By putting food on the table,
the farm paid for itself in the long run, but they weren’t solely
dependent on it to survive.
The farm, although small, was diverse. They raised a huge
garden in two different areas of the property, and they kept
some livestock. The animals consisted of chickens for fresh
eggs, and a couple of dairy cows for fresh milk and butter. I
seem to recall seeing the odd pig or two and a goat from time to
time as well.
Anyway, the story is that one day they had a calf go missing.
Now as any small-time farmer can verify, the loss of a calf—
even one, whether it be for milk or meat or sale—can be
devastating. My uncle was tasked with locating the missing calf
and bringing her home. He looked high and low—yet no calf.
Think about it—I mean, how many places could a calf be?
They’re not that small—it’s not like it could get lost or misplaced
or have fallen behind something or under something, right?
But on the other hand, the woods—even on a small farm—
can be a big, big place. The old ‘needle in a haystack’ analogy
springs to mind. I guess there are lots of places a calf could get
lost, after all…
Soon, darkness fell and my uncle had to abandon the hunt
until first light of the next day. He had never lost a calf before,
so this bothered him to a great degree. Had it been stolen?
Taken by a predatory animal or animals, such as a mountain
lion or a pack of wolves? Was it lying somewhere injured and in
pain, or perhaps even dead? My uncle had trouble sleeping due
to concern over his missing livestock.
Just as he was drifting off to sleep, around three a.m., my
uncle heard a noise out in the trot between the barn and the
house. He sprang up from his bed and raced out into the
backyard to see if the wayward calf had returned. Much to his
chagrin and dismay, he saw nothing, and the noise abruptly
stopped as soon as he was halfway to the barn.
Perplexed, he stood and listened for a few minutes. He was
positive he’d heard the calf lowing (which is much more subtle
than bawling, that being the noise the calf would make if it
were injured or in distress). Sure enough, he heard what
sounded like the calf again, only this time from the other side of
the house, away from the barn in the side yard.
My uncle walked over into the side yard, expecting to see the
calf, only to be met with emptiness and silence. An almost eerie
silence. Same as before, within a few minutes he heard the calf
again. This time, it was farther back beyond the house and
seemed to be coming from a hillside just above the tree line.
He slowly crept to the top of the crest, and now the noise
was deeper into the trees, off to his left. Again, he followed the
sound, only to have it move farther away and in a different
direction every time he thought he was getting near it.
It was also about this time that he started noticing some
strange lights darting among the trees at a distance. He stated
that the lights were sort of glowing, almost like a fluorescent
light that didn’t have quite enough electricity to fully engage.
Just as with the apparent sounds of the lost calf, whenever he
walked close to one of the mysterious glowing lights, it would
wink out silently, only to reappear a short time later, although
at a considerable distance, more than a human carrying a light
could travel.
By now, my uncle was developing a good case of the ‘willies,’
as he called it. Add in the fact that he was also no longer within
sight of the house or barn, and you will begin to understand his
consternation and concern. As he turned to head back toward
the house before he wandered off too deep into the dark woods,
he said he thought he heard voices in the distance as well,
coming from the area of the lights. He further stated that one of
the odd things about the voices was that (while being somewhat
soft) they sounded like someone speaking the wrong speed—
years later when he recounted the tale to me, he likened it to a
33 rpm phonograph record being played back at 45 rpm.
To make a long story short (and I glumly realize that we may
be a bit too late in that regard), the calf was never found—not a
trace. When my uncle went to the wooded hillside the next
morning during the light of day, he claims to have found some
odd, ‘totally round’ prints in the soft earth. The tracks were too
small to have been left by a man-sized human, but were way
too large to have been left by any kind of known animal…About
eight inches across, he said, and ‘as round as a pie plate.’
No blood, no hair…nor bones, nor hide—it was as if the poor
calf simply ceased to be—at least in this dimension or plane of
existence. While it’s possible that a calf could have simply
wandered off and perished, it’s highly unlikely given this
particular scenario.
My uncle has always been a sober and somber man, and I
have no reason to doubt the description of the event as he
related it to me. I heard the story a few times (usually at my
insistence) both as a youth and as an adult, and the story never
wavered or faltered.
 My uncle stated in all honesty that he truly believes that
someone (or something) abducted the calf and was using the
noises to try to lure him into the woods—where he feels he
would have been abducted as well.
I always keep this in the back of my mind—as a ‘cautionary
tale,’ as it were—whenever I’m out in the woods, particularly
after dark. Thank you for letting me share my uncle’s strange
story.
 CHAPTER 47

THE DOG WHO WASN’T THERE

When I was a kid, we lived in the foothills of upstate New York.

My brother, who is several years older than me, used to keep
hunting dogs. He enjoyed forays into the wilderness and would
occasionally hunt for raccoons or opossum. He had one
particular hunting dog, a Walker coonhound named Moses,
which he dearly loved. At around three years of age, Moses had
become entangled in a barbed wire fence one day while my
brother was at work, and the poor dog subsequently died from
complications due to the injuries he suffered.
My brother took the death of his favorite coon dog pretty
hard, understandably so. He had erected a nice, homemade
headstone out behind my parents’ barn where he’d buried his
dog. The dog was a very unique-looking black, white and tan
coloration, and it wouldn’t have been easy to confuse him with
another dog. But—a few weeks after Moses had been buried—
he started showing up around our farm. Oddly enough, almost
everyone in our immediate family had a paranormal encounter
with the dog EXCEPT my brother.
There are many examples: One day, as my mom was hanging
up the wash out by the same barn, she noticed the first sheet
she’d hung was missing. A few minutes later, she saw a dog that
looked exactly like Moses carrying it off into the woods and out
of sight.
Another time, my dad was out working in our garden. He
looked up just in time to see Moses in profile as he disappeared
around the corner of our house. Intrigued, my dad dropped the
hoe he was using to weed the garden and immediately took off
in a trot around the same corner of the house—only to be met
by absolutely no dog of any kind, let alone the phantom Moses.
I, myself, had several encounters with the ghost dog,
including some in which visual contact didn’t happen—I would
hear a dog sniffing and whining nearby our house or barn, but
would then be unable to locate any such dog. I had several
visual sightings too, and it always seemed to be (like everyone
else) at a particular time when Moses was rounding a corner or
was just going out of sight.
Another time, my brother’s wife and young son had just
arrived from a shopping trip, and they spotted Moses on the
edge of the woods beside the barn. My young nephew was so
excited, he burst into the house exclaiming that Moses had
returned. On further investigation, of course, no dog was found
anywhere on our property.
We moved to the south when I was a teenager, and the ghost
of the dog didn’t follow us those several hundred miles.
However, I do often wonder if there’s not some people living on
a small farm in upstate NY who often spot a ghostly hunting dog
just turning the corner and then being nowhere to be found. My
family was always somewhat skeptical when it came to the
paranormal or supernatural, but we accepted that somehow
Moses continued to stay with us even after he had passed on
from this physical world.
 CHAPTER 48

GHOSTLY SCHOOL BUS

[Author’s Note: I don’t know about you, but I find an abandoned

school bus deep in the woods much more frightening than I
would, say, an abandoned house…There’s just something so
inherently creepy about a school bus, ghostly or otherwise. This
is one of my favorite stories that I collected for this volume. –
Steve]

In an undisclosed area of Southern Ohio lies an abandoned

stone quarry. While exploring that quarry, I had the strangest,
most paranormal, most inexplicable experience of my life. I
choose not to disclose the location, as I refuse to feel
responsible should an irresponsible party or parties venture
forth and hurt, maim or kill themselves. Caveat aside, this is my
story.
When I was in grade school, I used to fancy myself a
‘hunter,’ and I spent many bucolic, sunlit, Kapraesque days in
the woods with a Crossman BB rifle (some of you may also
know this as a ‘pellet gun,’ as it would launch pellets as well as
BBs). I had a .22 single-shot bolt-action rifle I had received as a
Christmas gift, but I usually preferred the somewhat more
silent BB gun when stalking prey in the woods.
I’m not proud of it now (I hung up my hunter’s cap many
decades ago and now campaign for animal rights), but I had a
lot of patience and a good aim and racked up many slain crows
in my day—at least the animals that I had chosen as targets
were a bane to the farmers, so I was helping save the crops—
although that seems like a thin justification now for my
activities.
On one particular day, I had ridden my bicycle—Crossman
rifle strapped across my back—a lot farther and in a different
direction than I would usually go hunting. If you’ve ever been
through rural Ohio, you know how one cornfield can look just
like any of the other hundreds that dot any particular farming
community, so anything was a welcome break to the monotony.
Or so I thought, when I spotted a dry, abandoned quarry.
Oh, what luck, I thought as I secured my bike and began my
descent down one of the hewn rock walls. The quarry hadn’t
been in use in what looked like decades, and had some good-
size trees growing up from the once-submerged bottom. I was
in BB-rifle, crow-hunting heaven!
I followed the edge of the steep wall and soon found myself
mid-quarry, then decided to cut across the middle. Imagine my
surprise when about halfway in, in a clump of blackberry
briars higher than a man’s head, I spied an old yellow school
bus.
I say ‘old’ because it was of a style that harkened back to a
day different than the one I currently lived in—my school bus
was sleek, aerodynamic and downright modern compared to
the example in front of me, which, although well worn, did not
look like it had suffered years of neglect. Curious beyond belief,
I picked a line and began to carefully pick my way through the
briars.
After what seemed like an eternity (scratched from head to
toe and oozing blood from a few dozen tiny cuts, thanks to the
briars), I arrived at the bus. As luck would have it, a gentle push
against the doors was all that was required to make them swing
open, albeit somewhat creakily and reluctantly at first.
I entered the bus and was pleased to see that it was in good
repair. All the windows were intact and closed, and the vinyl
seats, although cracked with age, were present and intact. I
slowly crept all the way to the back of the bus, ensuring that I
had the entire vehicle to myself.
Satisfied that I was all alone, I sat down in the very last seat
to rest for a bit. While relaxing, my gun laid across my lap, I
even managed to wiggle the window by my seat down a crack,
thinking that I could use the bus as a hunting blind and take
shots at crows that might venture close for the blackberries.
While scanning the bushes for any movement, I suddenly
began to hear voices approaching. Fearing I might be in trouble
for being in the quarry (and aboard someone’s school bus), I
gently eased myself and my rifle down onto the dusty floor and
tried to remain as still and as quiet as possible.
Thankfully, I had closed the doors to the bus upon my
successful entry, so no one would have suspected an interloper.
Sure enough, the voices grew louder still, and I could make
them out clearly—it was two girls, most likely around my own
age. I held my breath as I heard the doors at the front of the bus
creak open. I remained still, not sure how I would explain
myself when discovered.
I was relieved when I realized that the girls had chosen seats
at the front of the bus. I peered under the seats and could see
their feet beneath the seat where they had perched. They were
speaking in quiet, hushed (almost conspiratorial) tones, so I
really couldn’t make out what was being discussed. After a few
minutes, I watched as one girl exited the bus.
I risked discovery and peeked over the top of the seats,
observing a dark-haired girl wearing a stocking cap still sitting
in the seat. In a few moments, I heard footsteps and observed
the other girl, with longer blond hair and also wearing a
stocking cap, climb back into the bus. In her hands was some
sort of serving tray (looking back, I think it may have been a
school lunch tray) containing two mugs. The blond girl placed
the tray on the adjacent seat, closed the bus doors, and then
served whatever was in the mugs. It was cold enough that I
could see my breath, but I don’t recall seeing any steam rising
from the cups—or from the girls’ breath either, for that matter.
I decided it looked like I was going to be here awhile, so I slid
back under my seat in the back and proceeded to wait them
out. After about twenty to thirty minutes, I noticed it had grown
completely still and quiet in the bus. I no longer heard the
frantic whisperings or the sounds of shifting in the seats.
Carefully, I eased my head up for another peek—only to
discover that I was completely alone in the school bus.
At first I thought maybe I was mistaken, and assumed that
maybe the girls had done the same thing I had and were resting
either across the seats or even on the floor. I left my rifle in the
back of the bus, so as not to frighten them with it, and walked
stealthily to the front of the bus. No one was there.
Perplexed, I returned to the back of the bus and retrieved
my BB gun. It was starting to get dark, and I didn’t want to be
caught out in an unfamiliar area after dark—trying to climb the
rough rocks out of the quarry in the dark probably wouldn’t
have been a good idea.
The bus doors were closed, and I even tried opening and
closing them a few times. No matter how fast or slow or rough
or gentle I worked the doors, they still made a distinctive sound.
There was no way they could have left via the doors without my
having heard them.
I’m not sure exactly what I witnessed that day, but I’m sure it
was of paranormal or supernatural origin. I didn’t revisit the
quarry until later in the winter when I returned with a friend. I
had told him all about my mysterious encounter with the bus
and the girls. He eyed me suspiciously when we arrived in the
middle of the quarry—and found nothing but a huge patch of
berry briars. There was no evidence that a bus had ever been
inside the briar patch.
 I now feel that this was something meant for me to
experience. I have yet to fully understand the meaning, but it
was essentially a turning point in my life, and I can trace back
to that moment when I began to realize the ‘gift’ that I have,
and I have spent the rest of my life learning how to use it to
help others.
 CHAPTER 49

JOANNA’S CABIN

When I was a kid, I used to go with my parents to visit my

cousin Joanna, who owned a cabin in Townsend, Tennessee.
Townsend is known as ‘the quiet side of the Smokies,’ a world
removed from the not-so-quiet side of the Great Smoky
Mountains, the uber-touristy Gatlinburg and total mondo
tourist trap of Pigeon Forge.
Joanna and her husband, William, actually lived in nearby
Knoxville, where they were both schoolteachers. The cabin,
deep in the woods, was their sanctuary away from the city and
screaming, rowdy elementary school students. We most often
visited in the fall, when the Smokies were awash in color with
their world-famous foliage.
I’m guessing that the cabin was built during the early part of
the twentieth century, best guess between 1920 and 1930. And
as such, and this was in the 1970s, there were at least five
decades during which someone could have died and returned
to haunt the cabin.
Not only the cabin, but the whole area of woods surrounding
it felt strange—it just felt ‘off,’ if you know what I mean…You
folks who investigate haunted locations will know exactly the
kind of feeling I’m describing. It’s a very real, very palpable
feeling, very high emotion.
The most activity inside the cabin seemed to take place in
the room at the very back of the dwelling. It was an unused
bedroom when I was a kid, and I was usually relegated to this
area to play quietly so as not to disturb the grown-ups while
they chatted over coffee—like I said, both my cousin and her
husband were lifelong elementary schoolteachers, so the last
thing they wanted while trying to relax was some little hellion
like myself running around and making noise.
So I would sit in the back room and read a book, sometimes
for hours. On the first occasion that I had a paranormal
experience, I had walked into the back room and sat down on
the floor and was minding my own business with a book. All of
a sudden, a rocking chair on the other side of the room started
rocking slowly, as if someone unseen was sitting in it and
relaxing. The rocking chair was near a window, so I would have
easily spotted any string or fishing line or anything that would
have indicated hijinks on the part on any of the adults—plus the
chance that any of them would have even tried to scare me
would have been at least a billion to one. It was much more
preferable to them that I remain silent and out of sight.
I tore into the living room where the adults were, blubbering
at the top of my lungs about a ghost in the back bedroom. The
adults more or less dismissed me, my cousin and her husband
in particular. I suppose the only thing worse than a know-it-all
kid is a couple of smug, know-it-all schoolteachers!
They tried as they might to tell me that nothing had
happened, but I know what I saw—it’s just as clear in my mind
to this day as any other memory from the same time period.
That cabin is haunted as all get-out! That was my last trip to the
cabin, and that’s been over ten years ago now—I will never go
back there if it can be helped—no thanks!
 CHAPTER 50

SCRATCHING AT THE TENT

Some friends from school and I had a strange experience years

ago in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We were
camping in one of the designated areas near Clingman’s Dome.
In the middle of the night, we heard something large lumbering
through the mountain forest. Whatever it was, it came right up
to our tent and was scratching like it was trying to get in.
My friend Paul actually ended up cutting the back of the tent
with his camp knife, and we dove out the back and ran off
down the trail in the dark—probably not the smartest move
that could have been made, but we were scared out of our wits.
Looking back, I think, What if one of us had gotten hurt? For
example, Paul was a rather large fellow (six feet one and easily
250 lbs), and there’s no way my skinny self and the other friend
camping with us (he was skinny, too) could have carried him
back down the mountain. When it was discussed later on, Paul
mused we would have just had to leave him to be eaten (or
whatever fate awaited) if he’d broken a leg or ankle that night.
Comparing memories later on, we all agreed that at the time
we could make out a large hulking shape that was wreaking
havoc on our campsite. The black bears that are indigenous to
the Smokies can get fairly large, but this thing would have
made two or three black bears. We’ve all hesitated to say it for
fear of ridicule, but we are fairly certain it was a Bigfoot or
similar creature.
That night, we ran off down the trail and slept in our car.
The next morning, we warily crept back to our former
campsite, grabbed up as much as we could carry, and fled. I
guess it kind of goes without saying that we never went
camping in that particular area again. I’ve been all over the
area many times since, but always in daylight. To me, there’s
just been too many strange disappearances over the years in
the Smokies to take any chances after dark.
 CHAPTER 51

THE PHANTOM WOODSMAN

I had an argument with my then boss and decided to go out for

a walk in the woods to cool off. And by a ‘walk in the woods,’ I
intended for it to be just that—a walk—not a hike or an
excursion or a journey—and certainly not an ordeal that could
have cost me my life.
The area in which I decided to go for a walk was part of a
state park, so I thought stomping through the woods would be
better than stomping on my boss’s head and thus ending my
perfectly clean record—I had never been arrested or even
suspected of anything, so I was kind of already unnerved that I
had let Keith (my boss at the time) get under my skin so bad
with mere words. Looking back, I think he meant well and was
trying to push me into giving my best—but as a then nineteen-
year-old, I knew better and was insulted rather than taking his
pep talk to heart. I’ve never been a violent person, have never
hit anyone in anger, so this was one of my secrets. My relief
mechanism was walking it off in the forests of Ohio.
On this particular day, I wasn’t paying too much attention to
where I was going once I arrived at the state park. I parked my
truck and locked it up in the parking area, strapped on a small
daypack and my Garmin GPS, and stomped off into the woods
and solace, at long last.
Let me stop right here to say that I learned a valuable lesson
that day. First of all, if you’re going into the woods, even for
fifteen minutes, pack enough supplies (i.e., food, water,
matches, candles, a change of clothes, dry socks, etc.) as if you
were going into the woods for a minimum of two days…
Literally, this one simple act of overpreparing could save your
life.
And, oh yes, batteries. By all means pack batteries. Especially
if you have things you depend on that need them—like a
flashlight. And (argh) a Garmin GPS that can lead you back to
the parking lot, even in total, absolute darkness. Yes, the
batteries in my GPS died, by my estimation, about two hours
into the trip. And if you’ve ever been in deep woods—well away
from the ambient light and light pollution of the city—you
realize the kind of total, absolute darkness I’m describing being
lost within.
So here I was, gathering my thoughts and getting all calm
and collected in the middle of the woods. Ahh, glorious nature.
Now, about the time I calmed down and was once again at
peace with myself, I had a few sudden revelations dawn upon
me…
Revelation number one: It is dark.
Revelation number two: It is getting cold.
Revelation number three: I have no idea where I am located,
other than in a state park.
Revelation number four immediately followed when I
whipped out my trusty Garmin GPS, only to watch it chuckle
weakly then die completely when I tried to power it on.
As you may have guessed, none of these myriad of
Revelations could be considered A Good Thing at the time. Nay,
in fact, rest assured that they were all Very, Very Bad Things.
My first thought (that wasn’t filled with expletives) was to
get a look at the night sky and see if I could chart a course by
the stars. As luck would have it, I was in a low valley (what they
call a ‘holler’ down South) and couldn’t see the night sky due to
the centuries of tree cover above my head, provided by the old-
growth timber. Furthermore, even if I had been on the highest
point in the park and standing on my tiptoes, I still wouldn’t
have been able to see the first celestial body with which to
guide myself—the sky was completely overcast. And a light rain
was beginning to fall. Lovely.
So now I really was in a pickle. Lost, in the dark, without
food, water, a change of clothes or batteries for my GPS, in the
cold and rain. And I had also neglected to tell nary a soul where
I was going or when I should be expected back. Brilliant, simply
brilliant.
It was the beginning of my ‘weekend’ too—I was off from
work and away from the devil (aka my boss) for the next two
entire days—meaning it would be more than forty-eight hours
(more like sixty) before I would even be missed at work. Sigh.
I did what anyone would do in the circumstances (in fact, it
really is what most people do, and they don’t even realize it—I
didn’t)…I started walking in circles.
Now, that’s not to say I thought about it and decided, Gee,
you know what, I bet if I started walking in circles, everything
will be cool and groovy. No, I was actually trying to walk back to
the parking lot and my truck. I kept thinking something would
look familiar and I would find the way back. But after a couple
of frustrating hours of passing what appeared to be the same
rocks and trees (they were), I admitted that since I was lost, I
was probably walking in circles (I was). So essentially, I wasted
two hours of energy for nothing, only making myself more
tired, more wet and more cold in the process. So I decided to do
the next thing that most people do in these types of situations: I
sat down by a tree and cried. Really, I did.
After regaining my composure from the sobbing, I decided
the third best thing to do would be to try to find some kind of
shelter, out of the increasingly heavy rain. Of course, the best
time to pick out a spot to shelter is in the daytime and plan
ahead for when you need it—not after it’s dark and cold and
rainy and you’re already wet and lost. Oh, and hungry…I forgot
to mention that…By this time I was starving.
I slept a little—a fitful, miserable sleep. Looking back, I
seriously doubt I slept more than an hour or two. I had been up
most of the night, and when I dozed and awakened, I could just
make out the faintest glimmer of dawn beginning to subtly peek
over the far mountainside.
I groaned as I stood, having spent the night on the cold,
damp ground had definitely taken its toll on my joints. At least I
hadn’t succumbed to hypothermia—at least not yet—so I at
least had that to be (somewhat) thankful for, I suppose…
The rain was still falling, although it was just more of a
damp misting variety rather than a soaking downpour. I guess
at the time I was counting my blessings that the drops were
almost microscopic, but I was still soaked to the skin either way.
Oddly enough, I felt kind of warm inside my damp clothes, I
suppose it was because my body was losing heat faster than
normal. This thought scared me—I didn’t want to die—not now,
not out here in these desolate woods…
On the second day, now in progress, I became convinced that
I was going to die. I had already resolved myself to accept this
fate. I was going to die out here, alone, deep in the woods. I’d
never see my family or friends again, and the next time they
saw me—if they ever did—I’d be a skeleton in some rotting
clothes. And that’s if the animals of the forest didn’t gnaw and
scatter my bones.
A couple of times, I actually sat or lay down at the base of a
tree, thinking this looks like a nice, comfortable place to draw
my last breath. But over time, sometimes without even realizing
it, I would get up and start walking again.
As I trudged along, I started hearing what I thought was my
heart pounding in my ears, except that it sounded too slow for
my heart. Great, I thought, my heart will just stop, and I’ll roll
down the mountain into a gully and become squirrel food. I was
exhausted to the point that I was, without realizing it, basically
delirious and on the verge of having visual and aural
hallucinations.
Then it slowly dawned on me (my brain was working in
slow motion) that the rhythmic thud, thud, thud I was hearing
wasn’t my heartbeat at all, but rather someone chopping wood.
Okay, cool. There was a lumberjack or a woodsman about.
Wait! Another person! I was saved! Suddenly, after what
seemed like I had been sleepwalking for hours and hours, I was
wide awake and almost running toward the sound of the
woodsman’s axe.
Sure enough, I soon saw a guy in red and black flannel
flailing away slowly and methodically at a tree with a double-
bladed axe. I staggered up to him and blurted out my
predicament. I vaguely remember him apologizing for not
having any food or water to offer me, or any dry clothes, but he
could show me the way out. He just kind of pointed up a steep
bank off to my left. I thanked him and began working my way
up the steep embankment by grabbing small saplings and
hoisting myself up the hundred or so feet to the top.
After what seemed like forever, I finally made the top and
collapsed on the edge of a packed dirt road. I had been close all
along, but still had no idea which way to go. Exhausted, I was
content to just sit for a while. Shortly I heard the sound of an
approaching vehicle. As luck would have it, a park service truck
appeared momentarily, and I waved the ranger down. I wasn’t
going to die out here after all.
I imagine I looked like an insane person, and the ranger kind
of eyed me unbelievingly when I told him about the woodcutter
just down the slope. He told me to get in and help myself to a
bottle of water and some packs of peanut butter snack crackers
lying on the seat. I only had to be invited once, as it all tasted
like pure heaven to me.
The ranger disappeared over the side of the road and
reappeared a few minutes later. When I asked about the
woodcutter, he only muttered something about us being at the
park service station in a few minutes. When we got there, he
and the other ranger decided it would be best if they called an
ambulance from the county and had me go to the hospital to be
looked over—I’m sure I looked a fright.
Before the ambulance came, I once again asked the ranger
about the guy cutting wood—I hoped I hadn’t gotten him in any
trouble. The ranger looked me straight in the eye and said, “Son,
there wasn’t anyone down there. No sign anyone had been
there recently, and certainly no one cutting trees down. We sort
of frown on that sort of thing.”
He patted me on the shoulder and that was the end of the
discussion, so I just let it go at that.
Looking back, I realize that I probably was near death, and I
may have been hallucinating. But the man with the axe whom I
saw and talked to was as real as you or me. I can’t explain it
other than to say there are some things that can’t be explained.
 CHAPTER 52

MACABRE MUSEUM

I came across the remains of an old shack out in the middle of

the woods. It looked like it was ready to fall over, and the roof
sagged heavily in places. I found the door ajar and went inside,
curious to see what type of detritus might have been left behind
from the previous occupants. What I found chilled me to the
bone.
Set on crude shelves, there was a prominent display of
bones, weird carvings and strange-looking stones with what
appeared to be runes carved into them. There were things in
liquid in jars, some sort of specimens, I suppose?
There were also bizarre lines of words—possibly dark
poetry of some fashion—written in inch-high black boxcar
letters all around the room. I managed to locate the stub of an
almost used-up wax candle and lit it with my cigarette lighter.
Above the door, I saw the words “A curse be upon you,”
which kind of freaked me out—if you were going to threaten
me with a curse, shouldn’t it be on the outside of the shack?
I’m not sure just who set up this macabre museum out in the
woods (or, more importantly, why), but it may be one of those
cases where it’s better not to know—if you catch my drift. Kids
having a laugh? Heavy metal dude bros recreating their
favorite album cover? Hardcore Satanists deep in the woods?
Your guess is as good as mine…
 CHAPTER 53

DEMON FROG

I found something really strange out in the woods once. Let me

tell you about it. I was in this area hunting. It was on a farm,
and I’m not going to name any names, but I did have
permission to be on the land.
Now this old farmer, from what I’d heard, would allow
anyone permission to be on his land, but you had to ask. Well,
what I heard was that there were some witches who had asked
to use his land, and he had said okay to them. Now, depending
on what you hear and who you ask, some folks say they were
witches and some folks say they were devil worshippers.
Me, I know the difference. My grandma was from what they
always called the Old Country, and she was a witch. A gypsy
witch. She told fortunes and whatnot, made love spells for
teenage girls to cast to get themselves a boyfriend, and stuff like
that…That ain’t no devil worship—that’s just being a witch!
Now, back to what I was saying—so anyway, this old farmer
had given me permission to hunt squirrel on his land. I had
gone out there one day about five o’clock in the evening after
school and I was looking around. I had my rifle with me, as
always—back then you could walk around with a rifle and no
one thought twice about it. It was just a .22, nothing scary about
it.
I hadn’t really thought I’d get much of anything squirrel wise
that day, it was more of just a scouting trip. It was really too late
in the day to do any serious hunting. You want to hunt squirrel,
you got to get up early, already be in the woods when daylight
breaks. Squirrels are early risers, so you have to rise even
earlier than they do!
Here I was, just moseying along, looking for squirrel nests
up in the trees, any signs that might show me where to come
back, when I saw someone moving through the woods out of
the corner of my eye. My senses were sharp back then, and
there wasn’t much I didn’t notice, especially in the woods.
I slid behind a tree and squatted down, doing my best not to
be noticed and see what this other person was up to out here in
these deep woods. Whoever it was must have come up from the
creek, because no one had passed me, and I hadn’t passed
anyone on the little game trail that wound through the forest.
The growth was too dense otherwise, and if you’d tried to come
straight through the woods, you would have made more noise
than a boar in a briar patch.
When the person got a little closer and drew up almost even
with me, I could see that it was a woman, actually a girl, maybe
eighteen, nineteen years old—she was young, but a little bit
older than I was. She was wearing all black and had long dark
hair. Now, I ain’t afraid of stuff, and I don’t pay no never mind
to all them spooky tales folks like to swap, but she did give me a
creepy feeling, just the way she looked and because I certainly
hadn’t been expecting to see such a sight out here in the woods.
I maneuvered around so that I could see better, but still held
my secret position and didn’t let her know I was there by
making any noise. She hadn’t spotted me, as far as I could tell.
She laid a burlap bundle down in the dirt and began carefully
unwrapping it. I couldn’t see what it was, but she took
something out of the bundle and set it up in the hollowed-out
place in the crotch of a knotty, gnarled-looking tree.
 She lit some little candle stubs and said some words I
couldn’t make out—she might have even been speaking in some
witch language, I reckon. I’m sure my eyes was as big as
saucers, because I ain’t never seen nothing like this before or
since. Satisfied with whatever she’d done, the girl put out the
candle stubs and lit off back through the woods the way she’d
come. Of course now I was a mite curious, so I waited a little
spell to make sure she wasn’t going to double back. When I was
sure she wasn’t, I slowly crept over to the hollow tree and had a
look inside. Imagine my surprise when I saw a grinning demon
frog looking back at me!
I jumped back, and to be honest, it took all the courage I
could muster not to holler out loud—that thing was that scary! I
slowly peeked in again, prepared this time. The frog I could see
now wasn’t real, but seemed to be made out of rubber. I really
didn’t want to touch it, but I did give it a poke with the tip of my
finger, and it jiggled a little. It was like a frog in a sitting
position like a human, and it had human facial features and
some kind of weird, pointy ears. I reckon it was a frog—I ain’t
never seen nothing like it in real life though!
I’d had enough spooks for one night, so I cut a fast walk back
to the house. I heard other folks talk about the weird stuff that
goes on back there in the woods, and I believe it—because I’m a
witness to it!
 CHAPTER 54

CUMBERLAND FALLS GHOSTS

Cumberland Falls is located in Kentucky, not far from

Monticello. It’s close to DuPont Lodge, which was once a
destination for the wealthy elite of the robber barons of the
early twentieth century. The falls are famous for the
‘moonbow,’ which is a rainbow visible in the dark. There is only
one other place, Victoria Falls in South Africa, where this
phenomenon occurs. Apparitions, spook lights and more have
been spotted in the heavily wooded areas away from the tourist
areas of both the park and lodge.
There are a couple of different legends about the ‘White
Lady of the Falls,’ a bride who either slipped over the falls
accidentally and drowned or was murdered by a jealous rival
suitor of her husband-to-be. Either way, whichever story you
hear, the end result is the same—a woman died in the water at
Cumberland Falls, and her ghost can be spotted around the base
of the falls at night. Additionally, a lot of people have gone over
the falls over the past few decades (some by accident and, sadly,
some on purpose), and it’s said that all these spirits haunt the
area below the falls as well.
Up above the falls, there also used to be a hotel that burned
down and a ferry that capsized, killing many people. It’s not
unusual to hear moans and cries coming from the woods on the
far side of the falls on dark nights. I’ve spent a lot of time
hanging out around the falls at night, and there is a certain
heaviness, a certain creepiness in the air—if you’ve ever been
to extremely haunted locations, such as the battlefield at
Gettysburg, then you know exactly the type of feeling I’m trying
to describe.
As well, the area immediately down below the falls is
haunted. Just behind the falls is a cavern—not a lot of people
know this—and the park tries to keep it a secret. I’m not
advocating anything illegal, of course, but I will say that anyone
who is determined enough can get inside the cool cavern. There
have been reports of ghostly sounds and voices from decades
past being heard to echo throughout the cave. Once, I had gone
hoping to see the moonbow. However, as conditions have to be
so perfect, on occasion there would be no moonbow. Instead, I
spent the hours from midnight until about 3 a.m. exploring the
caves under the falls. I never saw anyone, but at one point I
heard someone way, way back in the cavern singing an old
hymn. I decided it was time for me to go after that.
Aside from the park and designated areas, there are a lot of
‘forgotten’ areas in the woods nearby, holdovers from the good
old days. Staircases that lead nowhere, crumbling foundations,
lone chimneys. In short, it’s a very spooky and spectacular area
to go to after dark.
 CHAPTER 55

BALL LIGHTNING

Ball lightning is a natural phenomenon, but that doesn’t make it

any less frightening. I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing
ball lightning in the forest during an epic thunderstorm several
years ago.
It didn’t really even look like rain when I left to go on a joy
hike, but did it ever blow up an electrical storm. I was able to
seek shelter under the overhang of a rock outcropping for the
worst of the storm, but I still ended up soaked to the skin—it
was one of the tremendous storms, full of boom-bang thunder
and lightning and the wind pelting the rain as it blew it
sideways. Quite the spectacle!
From my vantage point inside the tiny, cavelike hidey-hole, I
watched as rain beat down with a fury. In addition to what
appeared to be silver-dollar-sized raindrops, hail between the
size of a dime and a quarter also began to bounce off the forest
floor. Thankfully, I was only soaked to the skin, but at least I
wasn’t having chunks of ice bounced off my head!
Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light with a
thunderous boom on top. You know how you can tell the
distance of a storm by counting the seconds between the flash
of lightning and the resultant boom? Well, these were
instantaneous—you would have needed scientific instruments
to calculate what must have been a few scant milliseconds!
The forest immediately took on a ‘heaviness’ that I don’t
think I can accurately describe. The very air was damp, and the
familiar smell of ozone permeated the area. Off to my left, I
heard what I’ll call a sizzling noise, and I turned to face it.
Although it was daylight, it was dark inside the forest, in
part due to the heavy foliage and also in part due to angry black
storm clouds that filled the sky horizon to horizon. I observed
what I first thought to be someone approaching with a very
bright searchlight. On closer inspection, it was an orb of
extremely bright light, and it was ‘bouncing’ down the dirt path
that led through the woods.
Mystified, I’m sure my mouth was hanging open as I
watched the ball bounce and seemingly roll past. The sizzle was
louder now, and there was also a subtone, a low electronic
buzz, kind of like you hear near high-tension power lines.
The ball of light, which now was very close and seemed as
bright as the sun, rolled past me on down the path and bounced
into a tree, hitting the trunk solidly about three feet above the
forest floor. There was a loud “bang!” and an even brighter
flash, like a giant flashbulb going off, and then nothing…The
ball lightning was gone.
There was still a heavy smell of ozone in the air—the air
practically still tingled with electricity—I’m guessing the charge
that the ball lightning dispersed was still hanging in the damp
air particles. Soon, the storm passed over the valley I was in,
and headed over the other side of the ridge. When it let up
enough, I headed home and made it without further incident. I
consider myself fortunate to have witnessed such a spectacular
natural phenomenon as ball lightning—and to have lived to tell
about it!
 CHAPTER 56

SURF’S UP

The weirdest, most unexplainable thing that ever happened to

me was up near Cumberland Gap [Tennessee] back in the late
1960s. I was just a kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, and we
didn’t live too far from the Gap. Nowadays, they’d probably put
you in jail for it (or at least call the sheriff on you), but back
then I used to go hunting in the woods with my BB gun—it was
something all the boys did until they were old enough to hunt
with a real rifle. I admit, I did shoot a bird or two, but usually
the only thing I caught was a stiff neck from walking around in
the woods looking up!
This time, it was quiet in the woods. I figured something had
the birds scared into being quiet. If a snake or bobcat or other
predator (even another human) was around, the birds would
stay quiet. So something had the birds spooked. I kept walking
around looking up, but they were all hid out.
About that time, I walked into a clearing, and when I did, I
caught sight of something way, way up in the sky. It was a
bright, clear day, and at first I thought I was seeing a small
plane—maybe like a Piper Cub or something similar.
As I continued watching, it soon became evident that the
object was falling, and tumbling as it fell. As it got closer, I then
decided maybe it was a glider plane since it was silent. As it
grew closer still, I was finally able to see that it was much too
small to be an airplane or a glider. Maybe a remote-control
hobby plane? I thought. That would be cool to find one of those!
As the object drew nearer, now just above the treetops, I
could see it spinning lazily in the sun. I could at long last see
that it wasn’t a remote-control plane, either, but what looked
like a plane’s wing. I felt a chill as I realized I may be looking at
floating wreckage from a plane crash!
I ran down the hill through the woods to approximately
where I noticed the object was headed. I thought if it was part
of a plane wing that had come off in flight, I’d probably get my
picture in the paper with it if I retrieved it.
Sure enough, I hadn’t much more than lost sight of it
through the leaf canopy, when I heard something crashing
through the trees over to my left. As I ran over, I watched the
object strike the ground, bounce end over end, then come to a
final stop with a small thud. I raced over, heart pounding, only
to discover—a surfboard?
What the heck? Seriously, it was a surfboard, and a nice one
at that. It was the kind that is fiberglass laminate over a
Styrofoam core. The fiberglass was somewhat scratched up,
probably from falling through the trees. There was also a ‘bite-
shaped’ chunk missing near the nose of the board—I figured
this had happened as it plummeted through the tall trees as
well.
Imagine my folks’ surprise when I came home from hunting,
having bagged a surfboard instead of a bird! I kept the board
for years, occasionally taking it to the lake near my house just
to paddle around on. I left it in the crawlspace when my parents
and I moved out of my childhood home in the late ’70s, I’m
guessing it was around 1978 or 1979.
How did the board get in the sky? I doubt it fell out of an
airplane, as I would have seen and or at least heard one going
by prior. Apparently, there was a big storm over the coast of the
Outer Banks of North Carolina around that time—but keep in
mind that I was in Tennessee, right on the Kentucky border,
and easily a few hundred miles inland from the coast. How did
this happen? Your guess is as good as mine.
 CHAPTER 57

STRANGE MACHINES

[Author’s Note: This story is very similar to another included in

this book, titled ‘Mysterious Sphere.’ While both stories are
from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and about the same time period, I
decided to include both. The persons who told me the original
stories did not know each other, yet had almost the same type
of experience, which I feel makes these all the more fascinating.
– Steve]

What were those strange machines we witnessed in the woods

as kids? I’m thinking it was some sort of government/military
doings, or maybe even a ‘mad scientist/inventor’ situation.
Some of the machines appeared to march across the field,
autonomous, while others—perhaps if only for their sheer size
and complexity—simply must have had a human operator
inside.
Keep in mind that the area where my friends and I grew up
as children was very heavily vested in the military-industrial
complex. In fact, there for a decade or so in the 1960s, Oak
Ridge had more PhDs per capita than any other city in the
world.
So, you take that mix—nuclear physicists, rocket heads,
gearheads, robotics dreamers, and basically scientists of every
tool and die and flavor and discipline—and it would have been
more stunning to me in retrospect if we didn’t have some nut
running around in the suburbs, building potentially harmful
machines.
We’d take our fishing poles and head to the lake—the
beautiful Melton Hill, a result of the Tennessee Valley
Authority’s damming of the Clinch River—and set off into those
dewy, bucolic summer morns of decades past. Days like those
only exist now in the hearts and minds of those lucky enough to
have experienced them the first go-round. Simply put, I don’t
think days like that—perfect days, with the optimal
temperature, warm glowing light, and cool, refreshing,
delicious breezes—exist anymore. Like boyhood, days of that
caliber have vanished into the mists of time itself.
Some days, we wouldn’t see the fantastical machines at all.
Just quiet sounds of nature and the gentle rhythm of the lake
water lapping against the shore. Other times, there would be
what seemed like at least half a dozen of the infernal machines
out amongst the tall grass on the other side of the lake.
We had entertained the idea of ‘borrowing’ one of our
neighbors’ aluminum boats and seeing how close we could get.
But, alas, opportunities missed and all that—the land was
government controlled, a part of the Oak Ridge Reservation,
and the US Atomic Energy Commission (as well as the
Department of Energy, later on) took a dim view of anyone
waltzing onto their land and seeing what they were doing,
much less some nosy-parker grade-school lads who were easily
excitable and still proverbially wet behind the ears.
Or it may have been on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s
easement rather than that of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Or even private land, belonging to some demented farmer with
a shotgun full of buckshot and a vicious dog that loved to
chomp the rear ends of little boys who were too curious and
best keep to fishing.
Either way, whoever—or whatever—controlled those
fascinating machines was never known. We simply chose to
admire them from afar, from our hidden perches and secret
tree forts from the safe distance that having a body of water
between you and whatever you’re watching provides.
One thing that immediately springs to mind, none of the
machines were shiny or new looking. Not a single, solitary one.
They were muted, rust-colored beasts, or perhaps the dull clay-
red and nonreflective gray of automobile body primer.
No glints from the sun, no reflections from windows or
portholes. If not for the undeniable movement, we might not
ever have noticed them at all, moving silently, doing whatever
bidding for which they had been secretly constructed.
Now, Oak Ridge is home to some high-tech manufacturing
companies, such as RemoTec, which specialize in robotics, in
particular those sent into hazardous situations. The forerunner,
the spirit, of a tech company like this may well have been
founded by a lone inventor away from prying eyes.
I suppose it’ll have to remain a mystery. I have even
considered that the real reasons behind the weird machines we
observed is truly more stale and benign than those we conjured
up in our fertile, young imaginations. But it sure is enjoyable to
look backward upon those halcyon days (as trite as that sounds)
of living in ‘The Atomic City’ of Oak Ridge in the early 1970s,
and not really finding ‘killer robots’ running amok in the fields
to be that far out of the ordinary. Now that is a special
childhood, indeed.
 CHAPTER 58

THE MAN IN THE SWAMP

I was working as a night watchman out at the low-level

radiation disposal incinerator out on Bear Creek Road in East
Tennessee. One night while making my rounds, I saw a man in
old-timey clothes standing in a swampy area out beside one of
the buildings.
The area in question was heavily fenced off—there was no
way a person could have easily gotten in, as there were two
separate chain-link fences with barbed wire as well as razor
wire running around the top. Plus, just for good measure and to
add potential injury to insult, the water in the swampy area was
‘hot,’ meaning there was the distinct possibility of active
radioactive runoff in it.
I called out to the man, trying to get his attention so that I
could tell him to get the heck out of the swamp, if he knew what
was good for him. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to
me, as I continued to yell and gesticulate wildly.
This little bit of pantomime went on for a few minutes
before the man finally turned around. He made eye contact,
smiled an economical smile…and then faded away, like so much
smoke or fog beginning to dissipate. I was in a cold sweat, but
managed to find my senses after a few moments and then
wandered back inside.
I finished out my shift and left in the daylight, never to
return. Looking back, I’ve tried to convince myself that I was
tired or somehow delirious and imagined the whole ordeal.
However, I know that the incident really did happen the way I
described it above.
 CHAPTER 59

HAT MAN

When I was a little girl back in the 1960s, we used to go and

visit my grandmama and my aunties in the little town of Dunn,
North Carolina. They were all originally from Louisiana, but
one too many floods in the Delta had finally displaced them
from their ancestral home.
Dunn is an odd town to begin with. In the past, there have
been a lot of unexplainable happenings in this small town.
From monsters to ghosts to the ‘cavortings of a little man the
size of a Coke bottle,’ Dunn has more or less something weird
for everyone.
I was all of six years old, and it was the first time I
remember seeing my grandmama and my aunties. They had
come to stay with Mama for a while after I was born, but of
course I don’t remember anything about that. They lived in an
old house, I’m guessing from the Victorian era, on the outskirts
of town.
Our visit was during the summertime, and I was outside at
just about twilight, marveling at being able to chase lightning
bugs—we didn’t have those in the city where I lived with Mama
and Daddy. I got a little braver and a little braver, despite the
growing dark, and before I realized what had happened, I had
wandered off quite a ways from the safety of Grandmama and
the aunties’ front porch with the comforting glow of the yellow
porch light.
I was at the edge of some deep woods when I suddenly
spotted a man standing off to one side, partially obscured by
shadows, yet watching me very intently. He was dressed in all
black and was wearing an odd-looking stovepipe-style tall hat
and smoking a pipe.
I knew better than to talk to strangers, so I didn’t say
anything, but I couldn’t help but stare at the man. It didn’t seem
to bother him any, being stared at, and he stared at me in
return. After what seemed like hours (but I’m sure it was just a
few minutes), his dark face broke into a huge, broad grin and I
saw his face illuminated in the glow from the pipe he was
puffing—and his eyes were as black as coal!
Now, I was scared silly and broke in a dead run back toward
Grandmama’s. When I hit the porch, I was screaming and
crying to beat the band. Grandmama must have heard me
coming (unless she was stone deaf, I don’t see how she could
have kept from hearing!) and met me at the screen door. My
mama and daddy had gone down to the drive-in to get us all
some dinner, so it was just Grandmama and the aunties in the
house. Within a few minutes, I had a rapt audience.
After they got me calmed down to where I could talk and
had blown my nose a few times, I related my tale of the dark
man who’d smiled at me, the one with the tall hat and the pipe
and the eyes as black as coal.
“Guede,” my grandmama said with authority. My aunties
nodded their heads in silent agreement. Now to my knowledge,
neither my grandmama nor her spinster sisters ever practiced
any form of voodoo. However, having grown up in rural
Louisiana, I’m sure they knew some practitioners of this old
African religion. It wasn’t until I was almost grown that I found
out exactly who ‘Guede’ is—he’s one of the spirits summoned
forth during a voodoo ritual and has to be appeased lest you
incur his vengeance.
 My grandmama and the aunties placed an offering in a plate
outside on the porch, and as far as I know, it worked like a
charm, as I haven’t had an encounter with Guede since!
 CHAPTER 60

A HAUNTED SCHOOL

When I was a teenager growing up in California, some friends

and I used to go hang out and party at the remains of an old
abandoned school, which had been gutted by fire. I’m not sure
how many were killed, but the story I always heard repeated
was that a bunch of kids and at least one teacher died.
The roof and the insides were completely gone; the only
thing still standing was the walls. It had burned quite a while
ago, like years and years—in fact, there were rather large trees
growing inside the walls where the floor had once been. We
used to go up there a lot when I was in high school, and there
were always groups of people up there, mostly other kids from
our school or other high schools in the area. It was almost like a
local rite of passage…you had to make at least one trip to the
haunted school to prove your mettle.
It may have been due to the drug use in the area—I’m
convinced that certain drug activities open ‘doorways’ if you
will—doorways that should otherwise remain firmly closed.
LSD, DMT, peyote—basically anything mind-altering can cause
similar circumstances, and the energy collected from the drug-
fueled participants can often ‘gather’ in a place, for lack of a
better phrase, and interact with non-drug users, if that makes
sense.
One night, several of us were sitting around inside the walls.
Granted, looking back, this was probably far from the safest
thing we could have done. I didn’t think at the time how easy it
would be for those walls to collapse. I guess the truly safest
thing to do would have been to stay at home!
Anyway, we were sitting ‘inside’ the school in the dark. I
think there were about ten of us, including two or three girls
who had never been up there before and were, of course,
scared out of their minds. There was beer and pot and acid too.
We were partying it up in this creepy place. All of a sudden the
trees—some sort of pines, if I recall correctly—all bent over
from the top down, the tips almost reaching the ground. It
scared the crap out of us, and we all ran out. I know people will
say it was the booze and drugs, but the thing is EVERYONE saw
it happen, including the new girls, who were not drinking or
high in the least.
Other times, always when we were sitting in complete
darkness, we would hear what sounded like little kids laughing
and playing. Normally, that’s not a creepy sound—but out in the
dark woods, in an allegedly haunted, burned-out school at three
o’clock in the morning—it’s frightening beyond belief. No
matter how brave, or full of bravado or booze or drugs, people
would scatter like scared little rabbits when the incidents would
occur.
I moved away from the area in the ’90s and have never been
back, not even to visit friends or family who are still in the area.
I last heard that the walls finally did collapse, and the haunted
school is just a pile of overgrown bricks now. But I still dare you
to go back in those woods at night and not experience
something supernatural!
 CHAPTER 61

THE MAN IN THE TREE

I had a strange thing happen to me in the woods once, when I

was a teenager spending the summer in Ohio. My mother had
inherited a dairy farm near Centerville from her parents when
they passed away. The farm was no longer a working farm and
hadn’t been for several decades. As such, it was creepy and
spooky to me, even though I was a brooding young lass of
thirteen years old and was fearless for the most part.
There’s just something about a place that was once lively
and full of life, that when it shuts down and goes into disrepair,
there’s a sadness—a pathos, if you will—that begins to be
associated with it. It’s like you can see the life and the light
draining slowly out of the barns and buildings. Even the trees
looked sad and forlorn.
So I was out being all Goth—full of dejection and despair
and enjoying feeling lonely (I was kind of a strange teenager),
wandering the woods in our new old family farm…Not the most
gothic thing in the world, I reckon, but when you’re an angst-
ridden teenager in the middle of the Ohio heartland, you do the
best you can with what you have…
I was probably about a half a mile or so out in the woods, far
enough that I could no longer see the farmhouse, so it felt very
alone. I had a notebook with me, which I always carried at the
time. It was full of my drawings and dark poetry and that kind
of stuff. Like I said, I was a very strange teenager. I came across
the most magical-looking little clearing in the woods—it almost
looked like the fairy circles in England that I had seen pictures
of in some of my magazines. I immediately decided this would
be an excellent little spot to do ‘theater in the round’ and put on
a little poetry show, consisting of me and my dark verses being
read aloud, in a dramatic performance style.
I let it all out. The little clearing was just what I needed, and I
let loose wave after wave of Goth angst and sadness. I’m sure I
gave what would have been considered an award-winning
performance. Spent from spewing all my vitriol of society in
general, I slumped to a heap in the leaves, panting for breath. It
was while I lay there that I rolled over to one side and, looking
up through the forest, spotted a man calmly standing way up in
the fork of a nearby tree.
Puzzled, and more than just a little embarrassed, I sat up to
get a better look. He wasn’t really that close, maybe a hundred
yards or so away, but I could make him out clearly. He was an
older gentleman, probably in his forties or fifties. He was
dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt and was also wearing a khaki-
colored windbreaker or jacket and a gray fedora-style hat.
I dropped my head momentarily in embarrassment; then
when I stood up, I could still see him, so for whatever reason, I
started walking in that direction. I felt some sort of need to talk
to the man—I guess, in a way, I felt like he was a part of the
catharsis of the ‘performance’ I’d just put on for him in the
woods. At least, if he was a near neighbor, I probably needed to
convince him that the new farm owners didn’t have a crazy
daughter. At most, maybe he understood after listening to me
rant (and isn’t it really understanding that we all crave?), and
he would turn out to be a good friend.
I went straight to the tree, only to find it empty. I walked all
around the huge tree, inspecting it from every angle. I even
called out, but the only response I received was the silence of
the forest. Perplexed, I made my way back to my fairy circle. He
must have made record time getting out of that tree from such a
height, I mused. In order for him to have fled that fast, he must
have thought I was bonkers!
I arrived back at the fairy circle and was twirling around
when I glanced back up at his tree—and there he was again, in
the same fork, way up near the top. I stood, hands on hips, and
fixed him with my steadiest of gazes. He didn’t move or
acknowledge me in any form or fashion. Once again, I took off
on a straight line for the tree…And once again, there was no
man to be found when I arrived.
I was stymied. There was no place up in the tree he could
hide. I even considered climbing the tree myself, but decided
against it—something just didn’t feel right. I went back to the
clearing, and while casting sidelong glances so he wouldn’t
know I was watching, I saw him in the tree yet again. I just
ignored him this time, and he was still up there when I left to
walk back to the farmhouse.
I visited the fairy circle in the clearing on several occasions,
but I only saw the man one other time, on the eve of my
eighteenth birthday and also the last night I was ever at our
farm. My mom sold it to some distant relations, and we have yet
to go back and visit. I’m not sure just who or what the man in
the tree is or represents—I kind of get the feeling he’s someone
who’s passed away who used to live on the property. Perhaps
even one of my relatives. He will always be special to me, and I
feel kind of sad for him, a real melancholia for a spirit who
remains in a tree only wishing he could interact once again
with the living.
 CHAPTER 62

THE CAT CARVING

I was playing in an old ditch beside the house I grew up in. I

was probably all of ten years old. While climbing up one side of
the ditch, I happened to spy a small hollow area underneath a
tree root that was growing out over the top of the bank.
Curious, I first poked into the little hidey-hole with a stick (to
make sure there were no snakes or spiders or other creepy-
crawly slithery things inside) and then explored it with my
hand, all the while thinking this would be a great spot to stash
something (as to what I would stash, I hadn’t a clue, but it was a
keen hiding spot nonetheless).
While clearing debris from the hole, I pulled out what
looked and was shaped like half of a round river rock, as if it
had been cut in two lengthwise. I started to toss it over my
shoulder, but then something on the rock caught my eye—I saw
the crudely drawn face of a cat staring back at me.
On closer examination, the ‘rock’ turned out to be half of an
almost perfectly formed clay ball, into which someone had
carved a classic (albeit simplistic) cat’s face, complete with
upside-down triangle nose and sporting sets of three whiskers
on each side. Two small close-set eyes and two open-bottomed
triangles for ears made up the whole of this handiwork.
 Overjoyed at my fortune, I stuck the carving in my pocket
and promptly forgot about it, as small boys are known to do. I
didn’t think about it until later in the night…when I started
hearing strange noises in my house.
I was getting ready for bed and had absentmindedly tossed
my clothing of the day on the floor of my closet—this was
where my mom always looked for my stuff anyway, so I figured
no harm, no foul. I turned on my small reading lamp and
plopped into bed with a stack of comic books I had acquired
earlier in the day from an older kid at school. Ah, ten-year-old
boy bliss!
Just as I finished scanning the covers and had chosen a
volume to peruse, I heard an odd scratching sound coming
from somewhere in my room. I was puzzled, but didn’t think
much of it and happily continued to lose myself in the comic
book.
A few minutes later, I heard the noise again. This time the
scratching was more urgent, more fervent. It was if a small
animal was trying to vie for my attention with the comic book.
Granted, we did live out in the country and I had a few pets—
but they all had their respective places outside and had never
been allowed to set a paw within the confines of our
farmhouse.
Diligently, I rose from the bed and began walking the
periphery of the room, listening at all the windows and doors.
Suddenly, it dawned on me—the sounds were coming from my
closet. I eased over to the closet door and warily pressed an ear
against it. Yep, sure enough, it sounded like something small
and furry was gently but firmly trying to extricate itself from
my closet.
I armed myself with a BB gun and a flashlight (I was ten
years old, mind you) and quickly slid the door open on its
track…only to be met with a closet full of nothing. At least,
nothing that wasn’t supposed to be there. I didn’t hear the
scratching with the door open, but continued to poke around
inside the closet with the barrel of the BB gun.
 All of a sudden, when I shifted my blue jeans from the pile,
the little carving I had found in the woods gently rolled out of
the pants and came to rest upright on the floor. In the eerie
beam of the flashlight, it appeared as if the little cat was glaring
at me.
I resisted the urge to take the carving back immediately,
settling instead to put it in the garage for the night. I didn’t hear
any more scratching, and when I got up the next day, I returned
the little carved cat back to the hole in the woods where I had
found it. Sometimes things are where they are for a very
specific reason and are not meant to be disturbed by children.
 CHAPTER 63

THE ACCIDENT

This happened to my dad and me on a lonely stretch of country

road back in the ’70s.
We were headed home after attending a car auction in a
nearby town. It was really, really late—I’m guessing like 2 a.m.
or so.
We came around a curve in the road, and my dad jammed
on the brakes in our Monte Carlo. There was a white utility van
sitting sideways in the road, blocking the way. The rear doors of
the van were flung open wide, and an assortment of power
tools were scattered all over the roadway.
There was also a bunch of fresh tree limbs and branches of
various sizes in the road, leaves still attached. My dad backed
up and tried to aim his headlights to get a better look. I was
scanning the side of the road from my window, when I called
out for my dad to stop backing up. We had almost backed into a
motorcycle sitting on the shoulder of the road. We had initially
not noticed the motorcycle because it, too, was covered by
branches and brush.
I was leaning out the window, trying to decipher this weird
scene, when I felt something wet splatter onto my hand. I pulled
it back into the car and turned on the interior dome light, only
to be startled out of my wits—my hand was spotted with
droplets of fresh blood!
Now keep in mind, there was no one anywhere in sight—just
a van sitting in the middle of the road, and a motorcycle on the
shoulder. I suddenly had the most eerie feeling imaginable and
told my dad that we needed to get out of there, and as fast as
possible.
He agreed, thankfully, and was able to do a multiple-point
turn and get the car turned around in the middle of the road,
and we tore off down the road in the direction we had just
come from. After about ten minutes of fast driving, we skidded
to a stop in the gravel parking lot of an all-night diner. As luck
would have it, there was a state trooper inside having a cup of
coffee.
We went in and excitedly told our tale, and he agreed to
follow us back to the location. I’d even shown him the large
spatters of fresh blood on my hand before washing it off. All in
all, I figure a ten-minute drive, five minutes explaining what
we’d found, and then another fifteen-minute drive back to the
spot on the road (naturally, my dad had chosen to drive slower
with the state trooper following him, but I’m sure we still broke
the speed limit).
We arrived at the bend in the road and…nothing was there.
Save for a few of the fresh branches still scattered along the
blacktop in the curve. No van, no tools, no motorcycle. The state
trooper shined his super high beam light all around in the trees
and woods, but other than being able to see where the branches
had been freshly snapped and twisted off high above our heads
(I’m estimating fifteen to twenty feet, if memory serves
correctly), there was no evidence of anything having ever taken
place on this dark stretch of road.
The trooper thanked us for our concern, told us to be
careful, and climbed back in his cruiser and headed to the
diner, I assume, to continue his coffee break. My dad and I got
into our car and continued on toward home, the way being
clear now. We never spoke about the incident, except years
later when he mentioned it briefly and only then to concede
that he still had no idea what it was that we saw.
Looking back, this is one of the creepiest things I have ever
experienced. Had we happened upon a crime scene? An alien
abduction? A ghostly replaying of some event from the past?
How could it have been cleaned up so fast? I have no answers
(but a million questions at least); however, the encounter did
assist me in keeping an open mind about paranormal events
and the unknown in general. I realized that no matter how wild
the tale, the person could really be telling the truth and
describing an incident just as it happened to them. Thank you
for giving me the opportunity to tell about our encounter after
all these decades.
 CHAPTER 64

TREASURE FOUND AND LOST

When I was a kid, there was a man in our neighborhood named

Charlie Tipton, who was a local entrepreneur and treasure
hunter. He was successful at his endeavors and never held
down an actual job (nor did he need to) as far as I knew. He was
always finding lost or buried money, sometimes from caches
that were hidden before the Civil War.
As Charlie himself was always fond of saying, treasure
hunting often involves a bit of a supernatural element. Those
old tales of a pirate killing a hapless shipmate so that his spirit
would guard the treasure springs to mind.
Charlie had located a ‘treasure map’ retrieved from behind a
stone in an old chimney he’d found in the woods where a house
once stood.
Successfully deciphering the map, Charlie handily located
the area and dug up the strongbox hidden decades previous.
The curious thing was, the instant he pulled the strongbox from
the ground, an old rusty, weed-encrusted tractor sitting in a
nearby field roared to life.
As Charlie approached, the tractor belched smoke and fell
silent once more. Charlie once stated that if he hadn’t known
better and hadn’t trusted his senses so fully, he would have
sworn he imagined the whole incident.
In addition to being a local treasure hunter, Charlie was
known to be a treasure ‘hider’ as well—which only seems
fitting, I suppose…
His sole heir, a son who was lame in one leg, wouldn’t be
able to scramble for hidden money the way Charlie had always
managed to do, so Charlie supposedly hid an iron pot full of
gold coins for his progeny. The son, whom I’ll call Adam,
worked the counter at a local feed store and spent the
remainder of his life trying to find the wealth his father had
hidden for him.
Although Charlie had secreted the aforementioned iron pot
full of gold coins where his son would be able to retrieve it
despite being partially crippled, Charlie, alas, passed away
before taking time to leave a map or any form of instruction to
Adam regarding where the wealth could be retrieved. Now,
how’s that for a quandary? The best treasure hunter in four
counties didn’t leave a map!
So, shorted of his inheritance, Adam managed to eke out a
living at the feed store and spent his spare time imbibing
alcohol and ranting about his father’s lack of foresight. I can
remember riding my bike by his house as a child, and being
terrified of him when he was ‘liquored up and pissed off,’ as
was said amongst us children. And who could blame him? I
imagine I’d be upset too if I knew that somewhere a treasure
cache—a pot full of gold coins—was waiting for me while I
toiled away at manual labor to barely make ends meet…
Alas, poor Adam died as well, having never found his
fortune. I heard later on that the container of coins was
discovered, but that the finder (another area gentleman who
was fond of searching with a metal detector) eventually went
quite mad and had to be institutionalized—one of his claims
was that he was being visited by ghosts claiming to own some of
the items he had recovered.
 CHAPTER 65

DISAPPEARING CEMETERY

This was out in the country in Rhode Island, and it happened

around 1981, right after I had graduated from high school. I had
gone to stay with relatives in Rhode Island, as my dad’s work
had taken him out of the country to France, and my mom
luckily was able to go with him.
I had visited New England on a few occasions, but I was
really enjoying my newfound freedom on this trip. It was nice
to be a teen and not have your parents looking over your
shoulder for a while. My relatives were not as overly cautious
as my mom and dad, so that suited me just fine and took some
of the pressure off those tasked with ‘keeping an eye on me.’
While exploring in the woods a few miles down the road, I
chanced across an old cemetery, forgotten and far off the
beaten path. The stones were ancient and were some of the
most ornate and intricately carved I had ever seen. As I was
enjoying the handiwork associated with this now-lost art, I
realized it was starting to get dark and I had better head back.
Although I was having a blast being free, I didn’t want to end up
lost in an unfamiliar area after nightfall.
I went back a few days later to do some rubbings of the
headstones, but could find no evidence that a cemetery had
ever existed in that location. Perplexed, I pressed on, but
eventually came to the bank of a shallow but fast-moving
stream. The stream was unknown to me, so obviously I hadn’t
traveled this far before. I returned home with my beeswax and
rice paper unused.
Later on that week, I even went to the county library and
pulled out the dusty old topography maps, but even by going
back several decades, I could not find any evidence of a
cemetery having ever been located where I had been. I was
certain it was the right area, due to the roadways, one of which
had originally been a part of the route stagecoaches used
centuries ago. I asked my relatives I was staying with, but none
of the household knew anything about a cemetery nearby.
Strange, strange, strange!
 CHAPTER 66

THE PILE OF WALLETS

The creepiest thing that I ever came across in the woods was in
New England during summer break. This would have been in
either the very early ’70s or very early ’80s, while I was still in
high school down South. I was up hiking in the woods near the
river and was looking for a place to sit down for a spell and
take a rest.
In a clearing not too far from the river, I came across a pile
of wallets that appeared to be hastily hidden under some dead
leaves.
Most of the wallets were rotten, but some looked newer than
others. I poked around in them with a stick, and when one
flopped open, I froze—inside were ID, credit cards and some
moldering cash! I didn’t check very thoroughly, but all of the
wallets seemed to have personal effects left in them. I mean, for
real—there were driver’s licenses with people’s pictures and
stuff on them! Talk about stone-cold weird! All of a sudden, I got
a very creepy sensation, as if I was being watched, so I took off
back the way I came.
In retrospect, I probably should have alerted the authorities
to this strange find. But I was only a teenager at the time and
didn’t always think or behave in the most rational, logical, or
sensible manner. To this day, I have a nagging suspicion in the
back of my mind that the wallets were deposited there by a
serial killer—and if I had stuck around for much longer, my
own wallet would have joined the forgotten pile.
 CHAPTER 67

MOUNT BALDY

Mount Baldy is way up in the Badlands area of California. There

are some legendary pipes up there, used to carry water down
from the mountains and into constantly thirsty and drought-
stricken Southern California. If you look in any of the
skateboard magazines or search on YouTube, you can see
skaters letting it all hang out in the giant full-pipes up on Baldy.
We would hitch rides to skate inside the huge tunnel-like
drainage pipes on Baldy, but on this particular occasion we
weren’t successful in hitching a ride back home. Left with no
alternative, we accepted our fate and began to prepare to sleep
on Mount Baldy overnight. This far up in the mountains, it
wasn’t unusual to run into the odd rattlesnake now and then.
(One skater we knew had actually been bitten by a rattler on
Baldy. He survived, but the recovery took a long time, and he
now has to permanently wear glasses because of the lasting
effects of the snake venom.) So as we bedded down for the
night, planning to walk out to the highway the next morning
and see if we could hitch a ride with a tractor trailer driver, the
odd happenings began. If you’ve never seen the water pipes on
Mount Baldy, let me tell you—they are huge. Being as big as
they are and made of concrete, the pipes produce a lot of
strange echoes. Sounds will carry and seem to be coming from
several different directions.
So here we are, a half dozen or so tough skate punks,
sleeping outdoors in the mountains—when we start hearing all
these weird voices. It was a mix of stuff, like people talking, kids
laughing and also some electronic-sounding ‘bleep bloop’ type
noises.
Crazy, huh? Well, there wasn’t anything we could do. No way
were we going to try to walk down from Baldy in the middle of
the night. There were not any real shoulders on the road, and
we would have either been greased by a big truck or had to
plunge over the side to our deaths trying to leap out of harm’s
way.
The voices ebbed and flowed and finally let up just as dawn
was breaking. My friends and I hadn’t slept a wink, as the
cacophony of noises and creepy goings-on had kept us awake all
night. Bloodshot and bleary-eyed, we hitched a ride with an RV
that happened along shortly after daybreak.
As we related our tale to the elderly driver and his wife, a
vacationing retired couple from Scottsdale, Arizona, they
allowed that they, too, believed the mountain to be haunted,
and wouldn’t have spent the night, even in the comfort and
security of their RV, for love nor money.
 CHAPTER 68

DEAN’S SHACK

Dean was a homeless (as far as I know) guy we used to hang out
with while skateboarding. He seemed to live in a dilapidated
shack way out in the woods. The shack had once been the ticket
booth for a drive-in theater, although I have no idea why
someone would have taken the time or energy to drag the little
building way out in the woods in the absolute middle of
nowhere.
When my friends and I were out skating during our
elementary and middle school years, we would always make it
a point to drop in and visit Dean. He was a fountain of
knowledge about ghosts, conspiracy theories, girls and beer. He
seemed ancient to us at the time, but I’m guessing he was
probably only in his thirties.
There was always a stash of warm Pabst Blue Ribbon and
Playboy magazines nearby, and although none of us partook of
the beer, I can say those Playboys saw so much browsing action
that they were literally falling apart and were very, very dog-
eared.
During the summer before I started eighth grade, Dean
passed away. He was decapitated in a car accident while
hitchhiking his way back from town (I don’t know for sure, but
I’d be willing to bet he was on a beer run), and after that,
anytime we ventured back in the woods to Dean’s shack, we
would experience some sort of paranormal or supernatural
activity.
Sometimes it might be laughter, just barely audible, and
other times a soft, crying sound. It sounded like Dean to us, and
even to this day thinking back on it makes the hairs stand up on
my arms and on the back of my neck.
We eventually got to the point where we would go back to
Dean’s shack, but refused to go inside. However, the creep
factor and strange goings-on continued to escalate beyond that,
and I’d say by a year after his death, we wouldn’t go near the
shack at all.
To the best of my knowledge, it’s probably still sitting out
there in the woods, if it hasn’t rotted into the ground yet. I don’t
think Dean was trying to scare us, but instead believe his spirit
was sad and lonely and was just trying to reach out to us for
company—which would mean that Dean was the same in death
as he had been in life. Rest in peace, Dean, rest in peace.
 CHAPTER 69

THE LITTLE MAN

When I was a kid, we saw something in the woods that scared

the crap out of us. It was some sort of—well, the only way I can
describe it is it was a little man. We could never agree just what
it was just what it was—an alien, a leprechaun or an elf of some
sort—but we did agree that it was a little man. I’d say he was
about double the size of a two-liter soda bottle, although there
was even some disagreement on that—it was like we all saw the
same thing, but we didn’t see the same thing, ya know? I hope
that makes some sense…
My friend Jimmy and I were playing in a big ditch that was
overgrown with weeds. I’m not really sure whose property it
was on, so we were probably trespassing, but we were just kids,
so we really didn’t worry about it. The general rule of thumb
when you’re a kid is that if you’re on someone’s property and
they don’t want you there, they will come out and scream at
you until you leave.
So anyway, we were playing in the ditch. It was full of weeds
and vines and junk and stuff; it was probably pretty dangerous.
But it was where the whole neighborhood played. On any given
day, there might be as many as a dozen kids all total in the
ditch. It stretched for probably a half mile or so, so there was
plenty of room for everyone to stretch out and do their own
thing.
On this particular day, however, and for whatever reason,
the only kids who were in the ditch were me and Jimmy.
Looking back, I’m thinking we probably skipped school that day
and that’s the reason we were the only ones there at the time.
We would have been all of about ten years old, so yeah, that
sounds about right.
I don’t remember exactly what we were doing when we saw
him, but Jimmy saw him first. He didn’t say anything, but I just
remember it was kind of quiet, and I looked up from whatever I
was doing (probably digging up old bottles—people had thrown
trash in the ditch for decades, and it wasn’t unusual for us to
find old bottles dating back to the early 1900s) and caught sight
of Jimmy’s surprised look on his face.
I stopped whatever I was doing and stood up so that I could
see over the weed growth to whatever had Jimmy transfixed. I
know it sounds crazy, but what he was looking at was a little
man who couldn’t have been more than a couple of feet tall. He
looked like one of those concrete garden gnomes come to life,
minus the stocking cap. He was wearing darkish green and
beige loose-fitting clothing, and he had shoulder-length white
hair and a trim little white beard.
The scariest thing, though, (as if a tiny man wasn’t scary
enough) was the angry look on his face—he was pissed off! I’m
not sure if he saw us or not, but by this time Jimmy’s paralysis
of initial fright had broken, and he let loose with something
between a cry and a wail that made the hair stand up on my
arms.
I had been curious at first, but Jimmy’s scream did
something to me. I started screaming too, and we both started
running down the ditch line for all we were worth. We ran all
the way to Jimmy’s house and waited for someone to get home
so we could get in. The first person home was Jimmy’s older
brother Toby, who was in high school and therefore fearless in
our ten-year-old eyes. We recounted our harrowing experience,
and Toby looked at us like we were trying to pull his leg. I think
though that our sincerity finally showed, and he realized we
were truly frightened. He said, “Come on, let’s go,” and made us
go back to the ditch with him.
Jimmy and I were both still too scared to go back down in
the ditch, so instead we stood and pointed at the other side of
the bank where we’d seen the little man parting through the
weeds and making his way down. There were even some fresh
skid marks in the dirt and grass on the bank that looked like
tiny footprints, like feet about the size of a small potato.
Other than that, we didn’t see anything. We had heard
stories about stuff in the ditch, but that was usually just kids
fooling around. I don’t recall anyone else ever having seen a
little man. Toby joked that since kids were always finding
discarded girlie magazines in the ditch, maybe the little man
was angry that we kids had found his secret stash.
It was a while before we played in the ditch again, and when
we did, we always kept an eye out for the little man. We never
did see him again, but to this day, whenever I pass by that ditch,
I always wonder what it was we saw that day as kids. I never
see any kids playing in there these days, so I guess times have
really changed. Maybe the little man is still in there somewhere,
thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Playboy from decades
ago and wondering where all the kids went.
 CHAPTER 70

RAIN OF MARBLES

Now, I’m going to tell on myself a little here—you’re not

supposed to ever ask a lady her age, but if you are smart, you
can figure out about how old I am. This was back in the day
when children, schoolkids, still played with marbles—it was a
grand deal at the time—so now you know that I’m simply
ancient!
Mind you, back then we didn’t have a lot of entertainment—
television was years away, a radio was a large appliance in your
living room, and most kids around where we lived didn’t have a
lot of toys. Marbles kind of made up for that. A rousing game of
marbles was considered a fun time by one and all. Every child
in my school had a collection of marbles, and every day on the
playground at school, you could find several games in motion.
Your marbles were your pride and joy, and you knew every one
in your collection.
I told you all that to tell you this—I was out in the woods
near our farm in Gallatin, Tennessee, where I grew up. It was a
sunny, clear day in the early summer—there wasn’t a cloud in
the sky. I was walking along, picking berries from wild bushes
that grew down by the creek on the back side of our property. It
wasn’t anything for us kids to play miles away from the house
back then—there wasn’t much real danger out in the country, at
least not like there is these days.
As I was walking along, putting berries in a tin lard bucket I
had brought along for the purpose, I felt something hit me on
the shoulder. I swatted my hand at the air, at first thinking it
might be a bee—there were bumblebees around in the summer,
and they were capable of stinging the fire out of you! I didn’t
see any bee, but what I did see on the ground, just as proud as a
rooster, was a shiny blue marble.
I gleefully picked up the marble and pocketed it in my dress.
A fine addition to my personal collection. Plus, ‘finders keepers,
losers weepers,’ as we used to say! While smiling smugly at the
thought of my new treasure, I heard a muffled sound as
something struck the ground beside me…It was another
marble!
All different kinds, from a clear, blue sky. One initially
pinged me in the head, I thought it was a rock or maybe a
hailstone, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a glass
marble and was rather warm to the touch. They continued to
fall for about the next hour, sporadically. There was no cover
that anyone could have hid behind to launch the projectiles,
and furthermore, they appeared to be falling straight down,
whereas they would have fallen along an arc or angle if fired
from the ground.
Years later, as I was thinking about this strange occurrence, I
discovered the writings of Charles Fort, the father of ‘Forteana,’
which is the study of odd happenings. In his seminal work, The
Book of the Damned, Fort wrote about such similar ‘rains,’
although his usually were about small frogs, fish or slivers of
fresh meat. All in all, I think I’d rather be hit with marbles than
any of the above!
 CHAPTER 71

THE ABANDONED CAROUSEL

I came across a strange thing in the woods once—something

very, very strange. It was an old carousel that had been hauled
into the woods after some children were severely injured on it.
I don’t want to give away the exact location, because I’d feel bad
if someone else went looking for it and got hurt themselves. I’ll
just say that it’s in the area of the southern United States and
leave it at that…
I had been out geocaching and just happened to take the
long way back to my truck. I knew I couldn’t get lost as long as I
had my trusty GPS unit, so I was taking my time and just
enjoying being out in the woods on a warm fall day—with
winter coming on, I wanted to get as much outdoor time in
before it got too cold to enjoy it.
I was working my way around a huge clump of overgrowth
I’d encountered, when something caught my eye inside the
brush. As it turned out, I was seeing a carousel horse staring
back at me. That explained the large clump of overgrowth!
There’s something eerie about a carousel that’s shut down
anyway, and the creep factor goes up by at least a hundred
when that carousel is abandoned in pieces deep in the woods. I
have experienced the feeling of being watched when deep in
the woods on many occasions, but this one took the cake.
I took one last look around, expecting to see someone
peering back from the shadows (which, thankfully, I did not)
and then fled back to my truck. I was overcome with a deep
feeling of despair and sadness.
Over the next couple of weeks, I couldn’t get the image of the
creepy carousel out of my head, so eventually I went to the big
county library and did some research. Not surprisingly, I finally
managed to uncover the history of the carousel—it had been
scrapped and hauled into the woods after one child was killed
on it and several more injured by it in the early 1960s in
another part of the state. I haven’t been back and can’t say that
I ever will be. I feel that the spirit of the dead child must have
attached itself to the old wooden carousel. I told you it was a
very strange thing.
 CHAPTER 72

MYSTERIOUS SPHERE

I grew up near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, so that little bit of

information will hopefully make my story a little less
nonsensical—if you know anything about Oak Ridge and the
Manhattan Project during World War II, you know that a lot of
interesting technology was developed at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (aka the X-10 facility).
This particular day, I had been out fishing along the banks of
Melton Hill Lake in the Solway community, which is just a few
miles outside Oak Ridge. The area where I was at was just
across the river from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While waiting for a fish to take the bait, I observed a strange
occurrence on the opposite bank—I saw something shiny and
metallic moving swiftly along the shore, more or less even with
my position.
The object appeared to be a sphere or ball made of dull,
semi-reflective metal and probably measuring eighteen to
twenty-four inches tall/round. If there was anyone nearby
controlling it, they would have been visible, as there were only
weeds growing down on the lake bank—TVA [the Tennessee
Valley Authority] had recently bushhogged the bottoms, so
there were neither weeds nor woods deep enough where a
human being could have been hidden.
The ‘ball’ (as I’ll just call it for brevity) would amble along
the lakeshore, first this way then that, as if it were searching for
something. As it darted to and fro, at various speeds, I noticed
that it would always skitter back just short of actually going in
the water.
There was no one anywhere nearby who could have been
controlling the object. I also knew, from messing with radio-
controlled airplanes when I was a kid, that there was no way
the thing had an antenna.
After watching the ball roll around the edge of the water for
the better part of an hour, it suddenly seemed as if it suddenly
remembered an important appointment and took off in the
other direction, towards the National Laboratory.
Unfortunately, as I was on the other side of the lake, I couldn’t
follow suit. The last time I spotted it, it was rolling through the
tall grass, up a slight incline. I have no rational explanation for
this event.
 CHAPTER 73

STANDING STONES

This is a story about some standing stones that I came across in

the woods of Alabama. While they are not as fancy as England’s
famous Stonehenge, I think they may have been even older,
predating even the Native Americans, based on my own
personal beliefs and research.
I’m not going to give out the exact location, as there are
some people now conducting serious research at the site, and I
don’t want it to be covered in graffiti, littered with beer cans, or
used for heavy metal ‘Satan parties’—I’m sure you
understand…
I’ve been working on my aforementioned personal theory
about such places, not only in the United States, but throughout
the world. I think it dates back to biblical times and the Tower
of Babel, and also relates to the pyramids throughout the world,
such as those in Egypt and on the North and South American
continents.
If you read in the Bible, the people were trying to build a
tower to heaven, sort of in arrogance to God. Well, in Genesis,
God came down and confused their language and scattered
them across the earth…
 Now think about this for a moment—you’re building a
tower, and suddenly—in the blink of an eye—you find yourself
in another part of the world. Talk about having your mind
completely blown! Now, under those circumstances—and
remember that these were primitive people—what would you
do?
I think they did what was natural…They were building a
tower and then suddenly found themselves in an unknown
location…so they might have ascertained, “Well, we were
building a tower and suddenly ended up here. Maybe if we
build another tower, we’ll be able to go back!”
And in a nutshell, that’s my explanation of Stonehenge, of
the pyramids in Peru, Mexico and Egypt, and the ‘standing
stones’ and strange ‘monoliths’ found throughout the world.
Again, it’s just my own personal theory based on what I’ve
read, but it makes just as much sense to me as any other theory
I’ve heard posited. Maybe more sense than most, come to think
about it. Give it some thought and see what you think…
 CHAPTER 74

LOST SOLDIER

While only sort of ‘in the woods,’ I had an encounter once that
defied explanation on several different levels. It was back in
1990, and I was living in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and dating a
girl who lived just across the state line in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. I was a young buck, all of eighteen, and knew
everything—or at least I thought I did. I had an old pickup
truck, a part-time job in a grocery store, and ruled the earth
back then.
It was Tuesday night (my ‘weekend’ or days off were
Tuesday and Wednesday back then), and I had been in
Chattanooga spending time with my sweetheart. Our day had
consisted of going around to the Fort Oglethorpe and
Chickamauga areas and seeing what we could find around
those old battlefields.
Now, if you grew up in the area where we both lived, you
would know that there have been stories since the Civil War
(and supposedly even some prior) about all the ghostly goings-
on around Chickamauga battlefield. Now it’s a national park
and amusement area, but back during the Civil War, it was
home to one of the bloodiest battles ever, apart from
Gettysburg.
 One of the most popular (and mind-bendingly scary) legends
revolves around areas of the battlefield known as Snodgrass
Hill and Wilder Tower. The story goes that even while the battle
was going on, a weird apparition with glowing green eyes was
seen moving among the dead and dying soldiers from both
sides of the conflict. Known as ‘Ol’ Green Eyes,’ the figure is still
seen in modern times, with even respectable (and sober) park
rangers claiming to have had sightings of the mysterious beast.
There’s also a haunting perpetrated by a ‘lady in white,’ who
is said to be the spirit of a Civil War bride who searches the
battlefield eternally for her young husband, who never
returned home from battle.
On this particular evening, along about twilight, the sighting
I had was neither of the known haunts—my sighting was
unique. I was driving up Alexander Bridge Road, which
essentially cuts all the way across the northeastern side of the
battlefield. Like I said, it was almost dark, and we hadn’t seen
anyone in the last couple of hours. The rangers don’t step up
their patrols until full dark when the park closes and they want
to make sure everyone has left.
I’m also aware of the occasional re-enactors who frequent
the park, but there wasn’t any reenactment going on that day
(and certainly not into the night), so that makes my sighting all
the more unusual.
Just as we rounded the bend where Alexander Bridge Road
connects with Lafayette Road, I caught sight of someone just out
of the range of the car’s headlights. I slowed to a stop and
pointed out the figure to my date. She immediately got
goosebumps and insisted that we leave the area ASAP. But
before I could react, my eyes locked with those of what we were
seeing—a gaunt, pale Confederate soldier. We stared at each
other for a few seconds, and then the phantom turned away
and, with more than a hint of pathos, marched into the woods
off to the edge of the clearing. Had I just come face-to-face with
the spirit of a long-dead Confederate soldier?
 With that, the spell broke and we tore willy-nilly out of there
and back for Chattanooga just as hard as we could go. My
girlfriend had a hard time sleeping, and I stayed up with her,
not going to sleep until well after the sun had risen the next
morning.
When we finally did awaken, I pondered the strange
encounter of the night before. What was the reason the soldier
had revealed himself to us? Was it (as my girlfriend feared) a
warning of some sort from the netherworld? Had it been a
warning, but actually for another reason? I often wonder that if
I had never had the encounter, I would have left Chattanooga a
lot earlier the next morning—and possibly have been involved
in one of the most deadly multiple-car pile-ups in US history:
The crash on Interstate 40 near the Bowaters Plant in South
Pittsburg, Tennessee, killed fifteen people on December 12,
1990, when seventy-five vehicles crashed due to poor visibility
in the early morning fog…If that truly is the case, then I owe the
old soldier a huge thank-you for possibly saving my life.
 CHAPTER 75

GIANT EYES

This happened in Jefferson National Forest when I was a boy.

My friends and I had gone up to that area of the state to hike a
bit of the Appalachian Trail. We had taken the trail as far as
Damascus, Virginia, and stopped at a roadside market for
supplies. After filling our packs and canteens, we had taken off
again on a nearby trailhead known as the Virginia Creeper
Trail.
It wasn’t exactly a spot where camping was permitted, but
we pitched our tent there anyway—better to beg for forgiveness
than to ask for permission…at least sometimes, right?
So our little clandestine camp was set up; we had some grub
stealthily warmed over cans of Sterno and settled in for the
night. It was all well and good, just some friends camping out
beneath the stars, about to drift off to sleep after a long day of
hiking—and then all hell broke loose.
It started out as noises, like some kind of wild animal. Now,
my friends and I were not only Boy Scouts, but a bunch of farm
boys from the mountains of upper east Tennessee…We knew
our way around the woods, having grown up in them, and we
knew the creatures in those woods. And these noises were
unlike anything that any of us had ever heard before (or since).
 Describing the sounds as yips, yowls and growls is like
calling the Queen Mary a boat—words just aren’t enough. At
this point, we were all fully awake and unsure of either the
direction or source of the sound. Whatever it was, it was big,
pissed off, and headed in our general direction—in the pitch
black of a moonless night, deep in a national forest and miles
away from anyone who might help us should the need arise.
As the grunts and growls grew closer, so did the sound of
crashing timbers and broken branches. I don’t think an
elephant would have made as much noise coming through the
brush. I’m sure I speak for the other fellows when I say that all
the hair on my neck and arms was standing up at this point,
and I felt like it wouldn’t take much to make me wet my pants—
now that’s how truly scared I was at the time!
We finally managed to gather outside the tent, more or less
in a circle with our backs touching, flashlights in hand. We
played the beams over the surrounding woods to try to
ascertain what was making such a commotion. For the most
part, however, the beams were too weak to be of much use in
illuminating the dense growth of forest.
We noticed that the crashing and thrashing had abated, and
we held our breath as the quiet stillness of the forest returned.
If anything, it was too quiet—I think that was even more
frightening. I continued to shine my light into the surrounding
woods, when suddenly a reflection caught my eye.
I moved the beam of the flashlight back over the area, and
there it was again—two giant eyes glowing an eerie red!
Unable to speak for a moment due to fear, I managed to
make a squeak and get the other guys’ attention.
“What in the hell is that thing?” one of my friends
exclaimed, only to be met with gasps of disbelief and an
otherwise continued silence.
Looking back, the smartest thing to do would probably have
been for all of us to run—but I stood my ground—I wanted to
see what this thing was that was vexing us.
 While I’ve read lots of Bigfoot encounters since that time, I
have to wonder…Mine is the only one I’m aware of where
‘Bigfoot’ had a set of red glowing eyes. The only creature or
cryptid I’m aware of that fits this bill is the infamous Mothman
of West Virginia and Ohio. Granted, we weren’t really THAT far
from West Virginia…It makes me wonder just what we
encountered in those woods.
 CHAPTER 76

THE CRYING GRAVE

Out in an abandoned area of North Georgia, there’s a grave

located in the family plot of an old homesite where nothing
remains except bits of the foundation and the crumbling
remnants of a stone chimney.
My personal knowledge of the grave began during my days
in elementary school. I always enjoyed hearing spooky stories,
like every kid, but I never put a lot of stock into them as I got
older. It’s funny how something you take as the absolute gospel
when you are a child can seem so childish when you are older.
But I digress…
As expected, it was around Halloween, and stories of
haunted places and creepy happenings were the order of the
day on the asphalt playground. One story I kept hearing
repeated really gave me the chills—it was about a spooky,
abandoned cemetery in the woods (which, in and of itself, is
good scare fodder) where the sound of either a woman or a
young girl could be heard weeping.
My best friend, Richard, and I were diehards when it came
to anything weird or creepy. We had spent literally several
summers hunting for Bigfoot in the woods, scanning the night
skies for UFOS, and exploring old houses and buildings for
ghosts. Naturally, we decided a trip in order to check out the
grave was the best course of action.
We synchronized our stories—his mom thought he was
spending the night with me, and my mom thought I was
spending the night with him—and off to the graveyard we flew
on our bikes one dark Friday night.
Nowadays (and probably back then if we’d only known), the
biggest danger was the cars tearing by on the expressway,
oblivious to two kids pedaling along (equally oblivious) on the
shoulder of the highway. We ambled along and eventually
arrived at the location where the ‘Crying Grave’ was supposed
to exist.
The going was a considerable degree tougher than we had
initially anticipated. What started out as an okay gravel road
eventually dwindled down to a trail, then a footpath, then an
even smaller throughway, which kids in the neighborhood
referred to as a goat path or a game trail. The sides of the path
were so overgrown that we had to dismount our bicycles and
push them ahead of ourselves.
A lot of the weeds we were wading through in the dark
turned out to be (as we would find out later…the hard way)
poison ivy. The mosquitoes, blue bottles, no-see-ums and
whatever else could fly and bite were having a field day—we
were a warm-blooded buffet in the woods.
After what seemed like forever (a half hour at least), the goat
path opened out into a large clearing. The moon had moved out
from behind the clouds, and we could see the lone tombstone
off on the edge of the almost perfectly formed circle of the
clearing.
The stone was so old and weather worn that the name and
dates had faded out of existence decades before either of us had
been born. We played our flashlights over the stone as well as
over the deep, dark surrounding woods outside the clearing.
While it was very, very spooky, I got the distinct feeling that it
was so far out in the sticks that even the ghosts were unaware
of the locale. That all changed within the space of a few
minutes…
It started out as a low moaning sound, kind of like what it
sounds like if you blow across the top of an empty glass cola
bottle—sort of a drawn-out whooooooo whooooooo. My friend
and I looked at each other, eyes growing wide in disbelief. If I
looked even half as scared as my friend did to me, then we were
obviously frightened out of our wits! In almost perfect unison,
we clicked off our flashlights, thinking that the darkness would
serve to hide us from whatever was making the moaning noise.
Although hidden from sight, the source of the noise
continued. It rose in volume and pitch and got to the point
where it was more of a crying noise. I think I almost soiled
myself with unbridled fear. We decided we’d had enough, so we
clambered aboard our bikes and fled in the other direction as if
our heads were on fire.
After we cleared the immediate area, we slowed down from
our fever-pitched ride. Stopping to catch our breath, we were
startled to hear the noise again—that’s right, the crying noise
seemed to be following us out of the woods—now, we had even
more reason to flee for our very lives!
Every time we would think it was safe and stop to keep from
passing out from sheer exertion, the noise would start up again,
first distant and then closer and closer. Eventually, after this
creepy game of cat and mouse, we reached the dreaded
expressway. If anyone had bothered to notice, two panicked
kids on Schwinn Stingray bicycles must have been a funny
sight.
Needless to say, we made it back, and the ghost or whatever
it was didn’t follow us home (that was another part of the
rumor or legend), and we never heard the noise again. And, not
being ones to push our luck, we never went back. I wouldn’t
ever go there even now as an adult. We did get some good
mileage out of our tale on the schoolyard playground though—
I’m sure there are still kids who shiver at our story of the
infamous nighttime bike ride to the Crying Grave of Catoosa
County.
 CHAPTER 77

BULL’S BREATH

I was out hunting early one morning on a neighboring farm out

in the wilds of Virginia. The farm was no longer in operation,
and I had permission from the current owners. There wasn’t
any neighbors for miles around, just woods and trees and what
seemed like miles and miles of overgrown fields. To me it
seemed like the perfect place to hunt any small game that might
be in season.
I had walked past some of the dilapidated outbuildings and
was waist high in the weeds when I came upon what I believed
to be an old, disused well house or springhouse. Back in the
days before refrigeration, people used springhouses and deep
water wells to keep things like milk and butter cold and
preserved.
As I waded through the weeds up to the springhouse, I
noticed a strange mist hovering in the air just to one side of the
old boarded walls. The sun was just barely shining over the
hills, so it seemed to give the vapor an almost golden glow…At
least I assumed it was the sun.
Now the worrisome thing about this is that the farm was
disused—I mean as in completely abandoned, no people or
farm animals had been here on the premises in at least two
decades if not longer. Suddenly I realized that if the mist I was
seeing was a bull blowing its breath out between the slats of the
springhouse (which had been my first impression), then I (and
possibly the bull as well) was in deep, deep trouble. I wasn’t
entirely comfortable with shooting someone’s livestock, but I
was rather attached to my own hide as well—if it came down to
either me or the bull…well, you get the idea.
I slowly raised my rifle, took aim, and stepped around the
corner of the springhouse—to be met with absolute
nothingness. There was nary a thing inside, at least not a living
one. To this day, I believe I saw someone’s ghost beside that old
springhouse, perhaps a long-dead farmer wondering what I
was doing on his land. I never went hunting there again.
 CHAPTER 78

VAPOR MAN

While driving at night, I came around a curve in the road in a

heavily wooded area. Much to my consternation, I braked hard
and swerved to the left to avoid a man who was standing
directly in the roadway. However, the ‘man’ wasn’t a man at all,
but rather some form of apparition, seemingly made out of mist
or vapor.
I had a really fast Chevrolet Camaro at the time, and I had
been driving what was in reality way too fast for the little
country roads I was traveling on. I jammed on the brakes, too
late, of course, to avoid missing the figure, and skidded right
through it. My Camaro came to rest on the high side of the
curve, partially in the weeds.
I leapt out, expecting to find a crushed, mangled body on the
side of the road, my heart pounding ninety miles an hour. As I
started to calm down a bit, it began to dawn on me—I hadn’t hit
a thing—there was no crash, nor was there any damage to my
pride and joy Camaro. I stood there scratching my head until a
very uneasy feeling began to creep over me.
It was if something was telling me I needed to get back in my
car and get out of there—NOW—but at a sensible pace…Which
was exactly what I did. Was it a ghost? A warning not to drive
so fast? An omen? I don’t guess I’ll ever know, but it seems to
have done the job, whatever the job was.
 CHAPTER 79

ISLAND OF THE WITCHES

Siquijor is an island in the South China Sea off the coast of Cebu
in the Philippines. While working overseas in a contract
position, I had the opportunity to visit the island firsthand and
experience the supernatural activity that has long been
rumored to occur there.
I saw one man who had life-sized ‘paper dolls’ made out of
newspaper. He laid them out on the floor of a nipa hut and then
started waving a little stick or wand around. Shortly, the two
paper figures began to stir, gently at first, but then more and
more. Eventually, they were standing completely up and
dancing around inside the hut. This continued for several
minutes, like fifteen minutes or so, and then the figures airily
floated down to rest on the floor once more. I’m not sure if it
was witchcraft or some very clever sleight of hand, but it was a
very, very creepy thing to observe nonetheless.
I also heard of a kangaroo-looking animal of some sort that
would bound around on the island after darkness. Now, as if I
need to tell you, kangaroo are not native to the Philippine
Islands—I suppose someone could have imported one to the
island from Australia and turned it loose, but it’s still scary to
think about some big, weird, hairy animal out jumping around
in the darkness!
In addition to all the paranormal oddities, there were
rumors of rather mundane—yet completely sinister—acts being
perpetrated. I was told by some locals in Cebu City (on the
neighboring island of Cebu, a short ride via air boat from
Siquijor) that it wasn’t unheard of even in recent years for
visitors to be kidnapped and held for ransom (although I
understand this can happen anywhere in the Philippines—it
actually happened to an American expat friend of mine in
Manila). Another little ‘trick’ the inhabitants of Siquijor like to
play is to poison the food of foreigners…and then offer you the
antidote for a healthy sum of pesos—a nice racket, I suppose, if
you can get away with it.
Although I was neither kidnapped (my friend in Manila was
able to ransom himself for the cash he had on his person,
approximately two hundred US dollars, although the joke was
on the kidnappers—he told them he had no family in the states
who would ransom him—but he was actually the only child of
an only child, and his extremely wealthy, and doting,
grandmother would have easily and readily paid millions of
greenbacks for his safe return), nor poisoned (I hired some
locals as my ‘food tasters,’ thus preventing any chicanery with
my eats—I had heard the ‘poison’ and resultant ‘antidote’ were,
indeed, fake—but who’d be willing to bet their very life on it?) I
did experience some unusual activity on Siquijor and plan to
return there someday to film a documentary about the island
and the strange goings-on that occur there.
 CHAPTER 80

ALIEN RESISTANCE

I was camping near the river, and on the second night, I began
to have strange, very disturbing dreams. By the third night, I
was becoming more and more convinced that there was more
than meets the eye going on. I decided to steel myself and
prepare to fight back—I would resist the aliens—I refused to
allow myself to be abducted!
How do you fight a foe that supposedly doesn’t exist? I had
read all the books about alien abduction, and one of the things
that struck me as a constant through everyone’s tale is that NO
ONE tried to fight back! There was my answer! If I flatly refused
to be abducted—if I fought back tooth and nail, then maybe—
just maybe—I could prevail against the alien threat…
By refusing to make myself available, by refusing to go along
like a sheep led to the slaughter for their nightmarish and
horrific ‘tests,’ then maybe I could get some peace and be left
alone by the entities.
I was prepared that night when I finally lay down and
allowed myself to drift off to sleep. I slept the tired but deep
sleep of the righteously angry—let them come and try to start
something with me—I dared them!
 It wasn’t long before I felt the old familiar sting—I heard the
tones and felt the paralysis begin to take hold. In my mind, my
pep talk began: I don’t have to accept this—I won’t accept this—
I refuse to accept this!
Slowly, I felt their presence enter the area. As usual there
were three or four of them. Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t
paralyzed—I broke free and stood. Although I found it
somewhat disconcerting to find that I was no longer safe and
secure I wasn’t surprised—they had to take me elsewhere to do
whatever it is they do—tests, probing, experiments…
I had faked the paralysis well, but now I had had enough as
they approached on each flank. I sat up on the bed or table or
whatever it was where they had me, and it startled them. I used
this moment—this element of surprise as it were—to launch my
attack. I grabbed the one nearest to me by his long, slender neck
and twisted for all I was worth. Incredibly, I felt the neck twist
in my hands, it was very soft, like twigs covered in plush fabric,
but smooth instead of furry or even scaly. There was a
sickening crunch and the alien went limp. Its huge black eyes
looked at me, unbelievingly, and then filmed over and closed. I
couldn’t help but notice it had two sets of eyelids—one on the
bottom and one on the top.
The other figures froze and I hesitated and then dropped the
dead one I was holding. Why did you do this? I heard in my
head. What have you done?
“Go ahead, try me!” I screamed, reaching for the next one
nearest me (which skittered away just out of reach). “I’ll kill you
—I’ll kill all of you!”
They clearly weren’t expecting this sudden turn of events.
They all withdrew into a clump and stood close together,
obviously deciding what to do next and how to handle this
crazy earthling who had already killed one of their own and
was threatening the rest with at least grievous bodily harm, if
not certain death.
They seemed to have elected one of them as a
‘representative,’ and he/she/it (do they have a sex? Intersex?)
approached me somewhat petulantly. As this one approached,
the other two dragged the one I had killed out of the circular,
gray steel room.
The representative stood looking at me, and I caught what I
considered at the time to be a hint of pathos in those big black
eyes. Again, I felt (more than heard) the words What have you
done? Why did you do this? How could you do this? echo through
my head and my psyche. At first I did feel a tinge of remorse,
but then my rage—my anger at being taken against my will, my
rage at being violated—resurfaced and bile and bitterness
spewed forth. In my mind, I screamed at the creature. I called it
every manner of obscenity I had ever heard before.
It tried talking back, trying to tell me ‘but we have the right,’
but I wouldn’t back down or let it force its thoughts into my
brain—I wasn’t about to back down now. “You have NO RIGHT,”
I screamed in my mind. “What makes you think you HAVE THE
RIGHT?”
Instead of responding or trying to argue, it suddenly began
to slip backwards—it was if it was moving without moving, if
you can imagine that. Then I realized that the alien wasn’t
moving—I was. I was slowly slipping backwards; then the sense
of motion grew faster and faster. I heard a loud POP and was
then in complete darkness. I blinked a couple of times, and then
found myself, oddly enough, alone It was quiet—I could hear
the night chirps of crickets outside.
Had they given up on me? Had killing one of them been the
last straw? Would they punish me or let me go—perhaps find a
more pliable and willing subject to cater to their probing and
examination whims and desires.
Whatever happened, it seems to have been the end of my
alien abduction experiences, at least for now. I no longer dream
of aliens, and I haven’t had a night terror abduction experience
in over three years. Sometimes, it’s best to fight back—you
never know what you are capable of until you have nothing left
to lose.
 CHAPTER 81

LAUGHING CHILDREN

Well, this was sort of out in the woods—it was in a huge prefab
metal building out in the middle of the woods in the middle of
nowhere. I was working the graveyard shift for a tool and
plumbing supply company that had the contract for a large
processing plant. The plant ran twenty-four hours a day, but,
fittingly enough, only ran a skeleton crew on the graveyard
shift. The contract required that someone be on-site at the
suppliers area twenty-four hours a day, and I was lucky enough
to get the graveyard shift, which I enjoyed—it was nice to
virtually have the place to myself, only occasionally being
disturbed if someone from processing needed a particular tool
or fixture.
Most nights I would read or surf the internet on the
company computer, but on this particular night I turned the
lights off save for a small desk lamp, and leaned back in my
chair to catch a few winks. Just as I started to doze off, I had a
very distinct impression that someone was watching me. Let
’em watch, I thought. If they didn’t have anything better to do
than watch me sleep, then bully for them.
As I began to doze, I heard small distinct voices. Children,
female, at least three or four of them total. For some reason,
instead of bolting wide awake and going to check out the source
of the voices, I instead continued to rest. I felt very relaxed and
pleasant. The voices got louder and louder, and shortly it
sounded like I was surrounded. At this point, the voices began
to sing a song, a nursery rhyme I believe, and they were
distinctly moving around me in a circle. I simply smiled and
listened to the beautiful singsong voices of the little girls, and
they danced ’round and ’round me in my comfy chair.
 CHAPTER 82

WHAT DID WE RUN OVER?

This was back in the mid-1970s. My family lived in Scottsboro,

Alabama, at the time, and we had driven up into East Tennessee
to visit some relatives—my grandma lived up there at the time,
as well as several of my aunts and uncles.
On this particular trip, my mom and dad and I were in one
car, and my sister and her husband and young son were
following along behind us in their vehicle. It wasn’t a long
drive, maybe two to three hours, if memory serves correct.
We had just crossed out of Alabama and into Tennessee, and
I believe it was about two or three in the morning—it was
indeed after midnight, I do remember that much. The place we
were driving through was kind of swampy, just a narrow two-
lane road out in the middle of nowhere.
Suddenly and without any warning, we hit something rather
large with our car. My dad was driving and was talking to my
mom, so neither one of them really saw what happened,
although my dad is really good at watching the highway. The
only thing I can figure is that way out here in the middle of
nowhere, he let his guard down a little—my dad is proud of the
fact that in all his decades and decades of driving, he has never
had an accident and has never had any sort of traffic ticket or
moving violation.
I was sitting on the edge of the back seat, sort of leaning over
the front seat, having been engaged in conversation with my
mom and dad. I no longer recall what we were discussing, but I
was politely listening when we hit whatever it was. All I
remember seeing was a dark shadowbox two to three feet high
dart in front of the car from the shoulder on the right-hand side
of the road. There was a heavy bang as the car and the object
impacted, and the car even rocked a bit on its chassis.
“What was that?” my dad asked, slowing the car. He looked
both in the rearview mirror as well as out his window
backwards, but didn’t see anything. “Might have been a deer,”
he mused as he continued driving. My sister’s husband was
driving right behind us in their car, and they didn’t react as if
anything was amiss, so we just kept driving. The rest of the
drive was spent discussing what it was we might have hit, and
we were soon pulling into my uncle’s driveway near Knoxville.
I’m guessing it was about a half hour to forty-five minutes that
we continued driving after we hit the thing.
When we pulled in, my uncle was waiting up for us, and he
came out through the garage door and turned on the floodlights
on the front of his house, which illuminated our cars in his
paved driveway.
“Jim,” my uncle Bill called to my dad as he stared at the front
of our car, “what in the world did you hit? There’s blood all
over the front of your car. It looks like gallons of it!”
I ran around to the front of the car, and, sure enough, there
was blood all over the front of the car—it’s on the chromed
bumper, it’s on the grill, it’s on the headlights, it’s on the air dam
and ground effects pieces under the bumper, there are even
some streaks down the side of the car and across the hood—it
was lots and lots of blood.
My dad just stood and stared with his mouth open. It was
easy to see that he was very upset. He began talking to my
sister’s husband, Bobby, who had walked to the front of our car
and was shaking his head in abject disbelief as well.
“I saw something,” Bobby said conspiratorially, while
making sure my mom and sister didn’t overhear. “I think it
could have been a big dog or some other animal—but you know
what I thought it was at first glance? A guy in a scuba diving
suit, a wet suit, crawling across the road on all fours.”
I watched all the color visibly drain from my dad’s face.
“We have to go back,” he whispered to Bobby. “We have to
see for sure.”
Bobby nodded in agreement and said something to my uncle
Bill, who helped my mom and sister and my sister’s little boy in
the house. After the last of the things were carried in, the four
of us (Uncle Bill, Bobby, my dad and myself) all hopped into
Bobby’s station wagon and stealthily drove back in the direction
from which we’d come. It was still very late (or very early, I
guess, depending on your perspective), and daylight was a long
way off.
As expected, we returned to the scene of the accident about
twenty to thirty minutes later. My dad was pretty sure that he
had hit what Bobby thought he had (a guy on all fours in a black
rubber wetsuit crawling across the road in the dark) and that
he would be arrested and sent to prison—or worse.
We got out and looked around and were relieved (in a way)
that although we did find some now not-so-fresh blood smears
on the pavement, there was no ‘body’ to be found—no guy in a
wetsuit, no big black dog, etcetera—nothing.
Looking around on both sides of the road, we saw that it was
kind of muddy and swampy, but not deep enough for a crushed
body to sink out of sight. The sun was starting to come up over
the horizon when we finally called it quits and went back to my
uncle’s house. The rest of the trip was without incident, and we
didn’t run over anything, mysterious or otherwise, on the way
home.
My uncle kept an eye on his local newspapers for a few
weeks, just in case, but nothing out of the ordinary was ever
reported. Years later, my sister’s husband, Bobby, ran over a
deer with his car in Georgia, and it made a similar mess,
although not as bloody. To this day, we have no idea what it was
we ran over on the road all those years ago.
 CHAPTER 83

THE VOICE IN THE WELL

Once, I heard a voice in the old abandoned well at my

grandmother’s house out in the country. Although the well was
no longer used, it had supplied my grandma and her family for
decades (prior to indoor plumbing).
I knew where the well was and had been warned not to play
in or around it. Of course, being a child of eight years old, this
only made the well that much more attractive to me! So one
thing led to another, and soon enough, in my fantasy world (I
had quite the imagination, mind you) the well had become the
last outpost with clean water on the prairie, and I was
defending it from wild Indians.
I was standing on top of the rotting boards covering the hole
(not even realizing the imminent danger this entailed) with a
‘rifle’ made from a tree branch, fending off the redskins for all I
was worth, when suddenly, I heard a voice call out:
“Get down…NOW!”
I leapt off the boards onto the ground and quickly spun this
way and that. I expected to see one of my uncles (as the voice
had been that of a male), but there was no one in sight…Being
in a large cleared-off area, I could see quite a ways, and there
was also nowhere anyone could have hidden themselves.
 The eerie voice that I heard was talking to ME! So I lit out
like a wild savage myself. I was kind of tired of fighting Indians,
anyway. I asked around and nobody would let on that they
knew anything. I figured someone might have fallen in the well
and died, but if they did, I couldn’t find anyone that would even
admit it, much less talk about it. Beats me!
 CHAPTER 84

PHANTOM TRAIN CRASH

An Oneida & Western train crashed off a bridge in a heavily

wooded area in middle Tennessee. For years after, it’s said that
on or near the anniversary of the crash, it continues to replay
over and over again. I had heard the story growing up in
Jamestown, but I myself had never heard the phantom train,
although my grandmother had once. In the early 1980s, I was
out in the woods not too far from the tracks one Thanksgiving
afternoon. Suddenly, I heard the high, lonesome sound of a
steam train off in the distance. Odd thing about that is, there
hasn’t been a train run through there in at least the last fifty or
so years, and the rails have been taken up in most of the area. I
knew at once it must be the phantom train, as that’s what
sprang to mind.
The steam train continued on up through the woods, and
about where I believe it would have crossed the river, I heard a
terrible crash. It sounded as if the train, trestle and all, had
plunged into the river below. Following the crash, I heard some
voices, sounded like men yelling, and then the forest fell silent
again.
I stayed quiet and never heard another thing. I was stone-
cold sober and cannot explain what I heard at all.
 CHAPTER 85

YAMACRAW

There’s an old mining community in southeastern Kentucky,

near Stearns and Whitley City, known as Yamacraw. It’s no
longer a mining community—in fact, it’s no longer anything
other than a ghost town (and in more ways than one).
I discovered Yamacraw when I was dating a girl from
Whitley City back in the 1980s. Her mother had actually grown
up in Yamacraw as a child, which would have been back in the
1930s or so. When the mines closed down, the town went with
it, and all that’s left now is a few foundations and chimneys—
and restless spirits.
We had driven out by the old railroad bridge (teenagers and
older in Whitley will know exactly the ‘parking’ spot I’m talking
about!) and left the car for a bit of a walkabout. We followed the
railroad bed (the rails and cross ties had long since been
removed) back into the woods a couple of miles. It was serene
by moonlight, but very creepy as well. It’s far enough out in the
middle of nowhere that you can’t see any lights or hear any
traffic or anything off in the distance.
I decided we should venture off the old railbed and see what
was in the woods. By the light of the full moon, I had spotted
some odd-looking structures off a little ways into the thick
vegetation under medium to large-sized trees. (Yamacraw had
been abandoned since the late 1950s, and this story takes place
in the late 1980s, so it was fairly well returning to wilderness
when I was there. Some thirty years on almost now, I’m sure it’s
even harder going.)
Parts of the structure I had spotted were the concrete pylons
from an old coal tipple. The tipple was used to add coal to the
trains that once chugged along through these hills. In the
moonlight, they looked like some kind of strange monoliths,
which reminded me of Stonehenge. Tongue firmly in cheek, I’ve
always referred to them as ‘Crawhenge’ ever since.
A little farther back, there was the remains of what had once
been houses for the coal miners. Small, one- or two-room
structures, now nothing but foundations, a chimney here and
there, and the odd collapsed rock wall.
I was sitting on a low wall, trying to start a fire with some
damp tinder in the remains of an old, decrepit fireplace. Off to
my right, I heard a low voice and assumed my then-girlfriend
was offering fire-starting tips (she was Cherokee and a lot more
well-versed in wood lore than this city boy). However, when I
turned around, no one was there. Puzzled somewhat, I
continued trying to get the spark to catch, when my girl came
walking around from the other side of the ruins (where she had
been answering ‘nature’s call,’ I suppose).
Immediately, she began quizzing me about what I had been
talking about—according to her, I had been murmuring a mile a
minute, but just low enough under my breath that she hadn’t
been able to make out a word I’d been saying. Very odd indeed,
as I had been as silent as a church mouse.
I held my finger up to my lips (my spark had finally caught,
and a weak flame was stuttering to life in the old chimney,
providing the tiniest bit of light), then leaned in and whispered
to her that I hadn’t said a word and was inclined to believe we
weren’t alone out here in the woods.
At first, she later confessed that she thought I was just trying
to scare her—after all, we were way out in the middle of
absolute nowhere, and a lot of guys my age (at the time) might
have used the cover of the dark woods to attempt, shall we say,
amorous advances. However, nothing could have been further
from the truth. My heart was beating a little fast for sure, but
that condition was due to what might be lurking in the woods
rather than what was lurking in the sweater my date was
wearing.
About the time I was whispering, “I think someone else is
out here,” we heard low voices again. Plural. Voices…There was
more than one somebody out here with us. I immediately
grabbed my date by the arm and led her into a darker area—no
use giving ourselves away by the glowing (although somewhat
pitiful) light of my fire. We crouched down below the crumbling
foundation and listened, every nerve on alert.
We eventually heard what sounded like four people—a man,
a woman, a small child and a baby—pass by. Odd thing about
this, the old foundation was in deep brush. There were decades
of leaves, branches, twigs, all manner of stuff under our feet
(and presumably the feet of anyone passing by). Even the old
railbed was overgrown enough that even the stealthiest of
ninjas couldn’t have walked it silently…Yet the ‘family’ (I
assume) we heard pass by, very near to our hiding spot, did not
make any sounds other than with their voices.
Think about that for a while. Voices. No footsteps. Yep, that
was the conclusion we arrived at as well—spirits, ghosts, dead
folk. We rose from our hiding spot (my tiny fire had fizzled and
gone completely out. I dumped a bottle of Coke on it to be sure),
and beat a path back to my car. I haven’t been back to those
woods since, and I haven’t seen the girl in over eleven years.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Stockton grew up in the wilds of East Tennessee, but now makes his home in
the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoys finding all kinds of new, weird places to seek
out. As well as the great outdoors, he also enjoys hearing from his readers. If you
have a story you’d like to share for future volumes or would just like to say hello, you
can reach him at SteveStockton81@Gmail.com.
ALSO BY STEVE STOCKTON
MY STRANGE WORLD