The Spirit Leaves

When I was a kid, my grandparents (like a lot of Southern grandparents) were full of great stories, including a few ghostly tales. This is a story from my grandmother.

When she was a young woman, she had an unusual experience after a family friend had passed away. As was customary, the casket and body were placed in the family's home so that friends and relatives could visit and pay their respects. The casket was on display in the back room of this small house, and most of the well-wishers had said their goodbyes and headed home for the night. My grandmother and her family lived only a few doors down, so they had stayed on to help clean dishes and put away chairs and the numerous pictures and mementos that had been hauled out as the various well-wishers had stopped by.

Late in the evening, with the still summer air hanging heavy in the house, my grandmother and the rest of the family found themselves sitting quietly in the living room. The silence was interrupted by a sharp creaking sound coming from the back room. They all realized that they were hearing the sound of the casket slowly opening. Everyone sat up, alert and scared and fascinated. They heard the creak of the wooden coffin as it opened and the dull pop as the lid closed again. Then there was the soft shuffle of footsteps on the worn wooden floor. And then last, the sharp metallic creak of the spring on the back screen door as it opened and then slammed shut. Silence followed, until the normal summer chorus of crickets and katydid's resumed in the darkness around the house.

They sat in stunned silence for several long minutes until a brave member of the family finally crept into the back room, followed closely by the rest of the family and friends. Nothing was obviously amiss so he slowly raised the lid of the rough oak box. The deceased was still there, still firmly deceased. They retreated to the living room and sat in the gloom of the late summer night until sunrise.

I think this is a great story, spooky and a little sweet in the picture that it paints of family and friends coming together and a less frightening view of the spirit world. The house is gone now, replaced with a parking lot for a builders supply store. But the good, solid darkness of a southern summer night is still around, and it's easy to imagine that the quiet is crowded with spirits if you try.

Reader Story :: Spectral Dog

I received an interesting email from a reader that I thought I would share:

I came across your blog while looking for something completely unrelated, and it made me remember something that happened to me about 12 years ago. I was living in Balsam and working in Sylva (a town about 10 miles from Balsam - Wes). It had snowed Saturday night, maybe 4 or 5 inches, and it had been cold all day Sunday. The state snow plows hadn't made it to Balsam yet, so the roads were still fairly covered. I woke up early Monday morning, an hour so so before sunrise, to see if the roads were passable. I walked down to the road, maybe thirty yards from my front door, and stood in the middle of the road, testing to see how slick it was. Because a few cars had driven the road over the weekend, it was frozen into solid ice. There was no traffic, and it was dead quiet. The moon was out and the snow and ice practically glowed.

From down the road I heard the unmistakable sound of a dog running. I could hear heavy panting, the jingling of a collar and the thumping of paws on the frozen pavement. I stared towards the source of the sound, but I couldn't see anything. My first thoughts we simply wondering if I was about to be attacked by a dog. As it got closer though, I started to get weirded out. The sound was definitely coming from the road, and it was definitely coming towards me. After maybe 20 seconds, the sound of this invisible dog passed right in front of me and I could hear it continue down the road for a another few seconds until it faded back to silence. I swear that I could have reached out my hand and touched the source of the sound as it passed me, but I never saw anything. No dog, no ghostly footprints in the snow, nothing. Just this disembodied dog sound.

Anyway, probably not the weirdest story in the world, but your blog brought it to mind so I thought I would share. Nothing else ever happened while I lived there, and that was probably the closest I've ever come to a paranormal experience. Thanks for the blog, cool stuff.

Chris 

Thanks for sharing that. Definitely interesting, and probably really unnerving in the moment.

TAPS/Harrah's Casino investigation

Not much to report, other than the bits that I've heard via social media, but I thought I would share what I know.

On Monday, October 25th, Harrah's Casino in Cherokee hosted a meet and greet with a couple of the guys from Ghost Hunters. After the event, the Ghost Hunters and a few guests journeyed over the mountain and did an investigation of the Balsam Mountain Inn. I don't have any details on the investigation, and I'm not sure if they filmed it to make an episode, but Harrah's twitter feed did post a fairly intriguing photo of a figure in a window. The photo purports to show the infamous "Blue Lady". 

 Again, not a lot of details, but it's exciting that some of the big names in the paranormal world have taken an interest in our little area.

Flat Laurel Creek Bigfoot Encounter

     I pulled this first report from a website that specializes in cryptids in western North Carolina. It's a fairly typical Bigfoot encounter, but it represents another facet of the unusual here in Appalachia. I've linked to the original website below if you want to look at the original write-up or read through some of the other mystery animal sightings from the area. There's some fascinating reports to examine. The second report came to my by word-of-mouth. I'm still trying to track down some of the participants, but I've told the story as I heard it.

     In June of 2005, an unnamed hiker claims to have had an encounter with a large, bipedal creature on the Flat Laurel Creek trail. The creature stood and moved away, quickly vanishing in the thick underbrush. The hiker found physical evidence in the form of a 16" long, 8" wide footprint. It is unknown if he took a photo of the footprint. 

     The second case is almost identical: Four hikers were moving down the Flat Laurel Creek trail when one of them spotted what they thought was a bear resting in the shade. They made a little noise to scare of the creature, but were shocked when it stood up on two legs. It appeared to be human in shape, but much larger and more muscular. It was described as having black and silver fur, and moving quickly away, with large strides.

     More than one person has ventured into the dense thickets that surround the trail, only to find branches that have been broken off with a twisting motion. Others have reported thuds and thumps and crashing noises.

     It's hard to make any sort of judgement based on these two meager reports. The area is known to have a healthy bear population, so simple misidentification may be the explanation. I will say that the area would make a good habitat for a large mammal; the rugged topography keep most hikers out, and water and food sources abound. Is there some connection between these more modern encounters with a cryptid ape and the historical accounts of the Boojum of the Balsams? 


     If you want to go explore, the Flat Laurel Creek trail is a great hike. Take the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Black Balsam Parking Area. Drive all the way to the end of the road until you hit the parking area with a restroom. Park there; the trail starts at the far end of the lot opposite the restrooms.

Resources

Mystery Animals in WNC
    

Lights in the Mountains

Brown Mountain Lights
   
     Though it's not technically in the Balsam Mountain region, the Brown Mountain Lights are an important part of the paranormal history of North Carolina, so I'll touch on them briefly. There are lots of great resources available if you want to explore this topic in more depth. In particular, I would direct you to this excellent resource provide by L.E.M.U.R.

     The lights at Brown Mountain have been seen for generations; one of the first published accounts is from 1913, but native beliefs incorporated the lights long before European settlers entered the area. The US Geological Survey undertook a study in 1922 to attempt to solve the riddle of the Brown Mountain lights; the report indicated that people were simply seeing common terrestrial lights including trains and automobiles. A flood shortly after forced the temporary closure of the railroads and washed out several bridges, greatly reducing automobile traffic. But the Brown Mountain lights did not cease, and the explanation provided by the USGS was proven to be incomplete at best.

A still from the LEMUR video linked below

     The lights have been described in numerous ways; white or yellow, sometimes rising slowly in the night sky, other times spinning and darting away. Likewise, there are numerous explanations for the supposed cause of the lights, ranging from geophysical anomalies to lost a Indian maiden in search of her true love. L.E.M.U.R. investigator Brian Irish captured some pretty remarkable footage of the lights in late 2000. That video is available on YouTube here. There are several vantage points if you wish to experience the lights for yourself. The Brown Mountain Lights site that I mentioned earlier can fill in the details; even Wikipedia lists good spots to see the ghost lights.

Thomas Divide Lights
   
     This is a lesser known story concerning inexplicable lights in the mountains. The Thomas Divide Overlook is on the Blue Ridge Parkway and provides an incredible view of Cherokee, NC. It's named for William Thomas, the white chief of the Cherokee who, in the 1830s and '40s, helped create the Qualla Boundary that allowed some Cherokee to stay here in the mountains.

     The story goes that if one parks at the overlook so that you are looking over the Thomas Divide Ridge and either blink your lights or honk your horn, inexplicable lights will appear in the darkness. One report states that the lights "appeared as balls of lights that shot up vertically in the air like a bottle rocket, but then circled around to drop back to earth only to shoot up again to follow the same route."

This video on Vimeo shows a different phenomenon: Two lights seem to appear and the disappear on the ridge facing the overlook. This YouTube video depicts lights, but there is no visible ridge line or anything else to give scale or context to them.

It's difficult to determine the source of these lights, especially considering the various ways that the atmosphere can bend and distort lights. Its certainly feasible that there is a totally normal explanation for the lights seen both at Thomas Divide and at Brown Mountain. It could be something slightly more exotic, like ball lightning. Or the lights could emanate from some paranormal realm, where we have yet to delve. Whatever the case, ghost lights in the mountains have a long history and hopefully will continue to befuddle and amaze us for years to come.

Resources

 http://www.brownmountainlights.com/

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ss17HFKKU

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Mountain_Lights

http://southernspiritguide.blogspot.com/2010/09/thomas-divide-lights.html

http://vimeo.com/27979481

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqRXmMaGRGw

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy New Year! Tune in on Friday to get a little glimpse into the local ghost light scene!
WH

Light on the Parkway

This is a story that was told to me several years ago by a coworker. He was a very honest and straight-laced type of guy, so while I can't verify this story, I can vouch for the teller. He told me this story one evening wile we were working, and even though the encounter had been several years in the past, he still seemed shaken up by the experience. I've changed the names to respect his privacy, everything else is as I remember it.

     My name is Bill and I live in Cherokee, North Carolina. I had a rare weekend night off (I'm in healthcare), so my wife, her sister and the sister's husband decided to head over to Asheville. It's a fairly long drive, so when we go, we usually make an occasion out of it. We spent the day shopping, had a decent meal and then caught a movie. We left the theater around 11 pm. It was a beautiful summer night, so we decided that we should take the Blue Ridge Parkway from Asheville back to Soco Gap and then on to Cherokee and home. This would almost double the trip time, but we were enjoying the day and didn't mind a late night. I want to point out that I do not drink or take any drugs. No one else in the car had been drinking that day either.

     The parkway was almost deserted; we passed a few cars early in the trip, near the Asheville side of the Parkway. For most of the trip, we had the road to ourselves. The sky was clear and the moon illuminated the road and forest. We were enjoying the drive, talking and looking down into the valleys that fell away from the road. Just past the Black Balsam overlook area, I noticed a light on the road behind us. At first, I assumed that it was a motorcycle, but after a moment, I realized that it was glowing red. I still didn't think much of it; maybe it was the brake light of a car that had pulled away after we had passed. A couple of minutes later, I looked up again and realized that the red light had gotten much closer. I motioned with a nod and asked my companions to look back. They all saw the light, but none of us were alarmed by it. Within moments though, the light had gotten close, maybe 200 yards back. I could see it illuminating the trees that frame the road. Everyone again looked back, and we realized that the light was much higher off the ground than a car or motorcycle would allow. It seemed to be just below the tops of the trees. This spooked us. I sped up, trying to outrun this thing while also avoiding driving us all of the parkway. My wife and her sister were frantic, staring back at this ominous red light that seemed to be chasing us down the parkway. Ahead, I could make out the silhouette of Devil's Courthouse. I knew this meant that we were approaching a tunnel, and the thought of being trapped under the ground with that thing terrified me. I sped up again, but this damned light was still behind us, maintaining that same 200 yard buffer.
   
     I hit the entrance to the Devil's Courthouse tunnel doing about 60 mph. Seconds later, the light slipped in to the tunnel as well, and the walls were suddenly bathed in red. The inside of the van seemed to glow with this unnatural light. As soon as we were out of the tunnel, I whipped the car into the Devil's Courthouse parking lot, ready for a fight. We all saw the light just behind us. It flew past us, still above the Parkway road, and then ascended to just over the trees before swooping down the northern face of the mountain, heading towards Sunburst. The tops of the trees were lit up for the few seconds that the light was there, and then all was dark again.

     We sat there in the dark, silent, waiting for this thing to come back. After fifteen or twenty minutes with no sign of it, I backed the van out of the parking lot and sped down the parkway towards home. Nothing else strange happened that night. I looked around online after this happened, trying to understand the experience. I didn't really find anything, but I did read some about UFO encounters and abduction experiences. We didn't notice any missing time, and none of us had any sort of physical effects from the experience. It was simply and utterly terrifying. I'm still wary of the Parkway, especially at night. As a Native American, I know that certain places are charged with power, either good or evil. I'm not sure what we saw that night, but I know that I never want to see it again.