Category: Paranormal/Urban Legends

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: October 25, 2022

This famous cave at Hocking Hills is believed by many to be haunted by Richard Rowe, a trapper who once lived in the cave in the mid-1800’s. During my recent two-day visit hiking the parks many trails with Rosie, I decided to investigate the stories. I spoke to a park ranger who told me that as legend goes, Rowe moved to the cave during the War of 1812 and lived under the overhang with his hound dog until the 1850’s. Sadly, the hermit accidentally shot himself as his musket discharged while he was trying to break through the ice in the nearby creek. Other trappers buried him in the cave with his dog on the sandy floor of the cave that he called home for decades. The overhang or cave was thus named, Old Man’s Cave. Fifty plus years later people found out about the beautiful gorge, waterfalls and rock formations and it became a popular picnic and hiking destination eventually becoming a state park in 1924.

Over time, the area gained a reputation for being haunted as patrons have heard the eerie baying of a hound dog or seen apparitions of an old man in hunting clothing in the cave. Often the apparition of the old man was seen walking along the creeks edge, walking into the cave and disappearing into the cave floor. In 1907, a resident claimed to have dug up the cave grave of the trapper and his dog and found a biography nearby. The book said the trapper loved eating pickles spiced in prune juice.

Ghost sightings increased in the decade after the grave was excavated. Several females picnicking under the overhang fainted when seeing the ghost. Dozens and dozens of sightings were documented.

Today, the hike to Old Man’s Cave (photo #6) was beautiful with the trees turning colors. Back in the cave, I took lots of photos. Even stating the phrase, “pickle spiced in prune juice” produced no EVP responses. There was a plaque in the cave placed near where the alleged grave of the old trapper is, telling his historic story. I rested there a while looking out at the stream below (Photo #5) but observed nothing unusual. As the old saying goes, “there is an element of truth in all folklore”. So, with the past ghost sightings and the history of the old trapper, was there really a ghost or is this just an urban legend?

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: July 7, 2022

Located on a small islet on the Pacific coast, it is accessible only at low tide. At high tide, it becomes an island. One of the oldest lighthouses on the California coast, it was built of brick and granite in 1856 to help ships negotiate the treacherous coastal waters. The lighthouse was first lit with oil lamps then automated in 1953. It remained in service until 1965 when it was replaced by a flashing light. Reactivated in 1982, it is active today as a working lighthouse, museum, and lighthouse keepers’ residence. In 1964, the keepers witnessed the massive tsunami that destroyed 29 city blocks and battered the lighthouse islet with ravaging waves.

Paranormal investigators believe the lighthouse is haunted by one child and two adults. Some think one ghost is John Jeffrey, a lighthouse keeper for 39 years. Through the decades, one family after another worked and lived here. Tour patrons have reported being touched or feeling an unseen presence. Lighthouse keepers have reported a rocking chair moving by itself and their slippers moved at night while they are asleep. Keepers have also heard sea boots stomping up the lighthouse stairway especially during storms. Footsteps have also been heard up in the top of the lighthouse as well as the occasional smell of cigar smoke. Keepers’ families that had cats reported that they acted strangely during paranormal activity.

Rosie and I walked quickly across the now dry isthmus to the lighthouse. We received a private and not group tour due to me being immune compromised. Many artifacts and furniture from the 1850’s are still here plus photos, documents and other maritime exhibits. I took video and photos of the rocking chair in the keepers’ quarters and did several EVPs throughout the lighthouse. We carefully climbed the narrow spiral staircase, then a short ladder through a trapdoor into the tower where the lens is located. At the top we had panoramic views of the ocean, the coastline, and the city. I did not obtain any evidence during this investigation. The current keepers said that you can sign up and be the working volunteer keeper for a month at a time. Perhaps some day we can return and do that and really find out if ghosts reside here or if it is just another urban legend.

As the tide began to rise, we walked back across the 200-foot slippery, rocky path and enjoyed a picnic lunch. Several squirrels came begging for food. One bold squirrel jumped right up on the picnic table and crawled over to my plate. I had to politely knock him off the table. As we ate, the tide came up and the lighthouse land became an island.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: August 7, 2022

Crypto Zoologists are very familiar with this creature. This small Indiana town of 1,700 considers itself Turtletown USA and to celebrate its lake horror, holds a Turtle Days Festival every June. The actual story of this cryptoid (which is often called the Beast of Busco) is much more intriguing than the current statues of the alleged giant prehistoric turtle displayed at the city park.

Rosie and I were driving back from Michigan where we celebrated our 40^th anniversary with the kids. Churubusco was along State Route 33, so I had to check out the creature legend. Locals named him Oscar the Monster Turtle, after farmer Oscar Fulk who owned the land that included the seven-acre lake. Fulk spotted the turtle in 1898. The creature was spotted again in 1948 by two adults fishing at Fulk Lake. Several other adults saw the giant turtle as well. Witnesses describe the turtle as being prehistoric and as large as a car or boat. The eyewitness reporting’s became a national news story. The community was so frightened that they had the small lake drained but found no giant turtle. Today, locals believe that Oscar resurfaces during rainy nights to eat geese and ducks. All the witnesses are long gone. To me, this has the makings of an urban legend, but the town embraces their history of this giant prehistoric turtle. The Turtle Days Festival is the longest running continuous festival in all of Indiana. The Fulk Lake Horror sort of reminds me of two other crypids, one reported in Waynesville, Ohio and one reported in Loveland, Ohio.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 8, 2022

At 14,179 feet, Mt. Shasta is not only California’s fifth highest volcanic mountain peak, but it is big in urban legends and myths. The mountain and the nearby city of only 3,200 people, is the center of paranormal, mystical, and metaphysical activity. The mountain has been worshiped for over one thousand years by Hopi, Wintu, and other native American tribes but in the past one hundred years it has also been worshipped by believers in aliens, UFO’s, Bigfoot, and Lizard-people.

Native Americans believe a chief God fought another chief God by throwing hot rocks and lava, probably just describing a volcanic eruption. They also believe a hidden underground city called Telos is occupied by advanced beings from the lost continent of Lemuria. In the 1880’s they were seen coming out of tunnels and lava tubes wearing white robes, had white hair and were about seven feet tall.   

A British prospector named Brown said he discovered an underground lost city in 1904 filled with gold, shields, and ten-foot-tall mummies.

Many believe that Mt. Shasta is the home base for the Lizard People, reptilian humanoids that reside underground. The story reminds me of the Lizard Man, reported seen in Bishopville, South Carolina. In this case it is just not one lizard man, but many.

As for the spiritualists or “New-Age” believers, they feel that the mountain resonates “zero point energy” or “Essence Energy” which translates to the awakened vibrational field of the planet.

Lastly, unexplained lights and UFO’s have been reported many times around Mt. Shasta as recently as 2020. As if this isn’t enough, during the building of nearby Shasta Lake and Reservoir in 1944 and 1945, miles of land were flooded. Underneath the water are seven old mining towns, many former Indian sites and, some speculate, many bodies and cemeteries.  My hike in the nearby Shasta-Trinity National Forest produced no evidence of anything supernatural other than a strange cloud that looked like a hand with fingers with a hole in the middle. But with this history it’s no wonder there are so many urban legends and supernatural beliefs here.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 5, 2022

Tales of a vanishing hitchhiker have roots in stories back to the 1870’s and in the USA since 1930’s but is mostly considered just an urban legend. However, in 1980, eerie reports of a vanishing woman hitchhiker with a prediction of doom occurred just after the deadly Mount St. Helens volcano. The volcano erupted on May 18, 1980, killing 57 people and causing incredible damage. The first report of the female hitchhiker came about 80 miles north of the volcano when a man driving on HWY 12 picked up a beautiful woman with haunting eyes. She told him of a second volcanic eruption that would take place between October 12 and 14 that would devastate an area within a 100-mile radius of St. Helens. When he took his eyes off the road and looked over, she was gone. Several more reports came into the local police departments of several other small towns near the volcano site describing a woman in a white dress making the same prediction and then vanishing. One man said he was driving 60 MPH and looked in the back seat and the woman was gone.

Ironically, several months later from October 12 to 14 only small seismic events took place. However, a final major explosive activity took place a couple days later from October 16 to 18 with ash flows up to 47,000 feet high and some pyroclastic flows. The vanishing hitchhiker was only a couple of days off her prediction and fortunately the eruption was much milder than predicted. During my drive in the area west of the mountain no woman tried to hitch a ride with me. Although I consider the hitchhiker stories just an urban legend, what intrigues me is that the reports and sightings of the hitchhiker came in months before the October 12 to 14 catastrophe prediction. And what happened? Only two days after October 14, there was a volcanic eruption. Quite a coincidence.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 16, 2022

This Empire architectural house, built in 1903 on 201 South 5^th Street in Montrose, was the site where a man murdered several of his family in the 1930’s. The house was purchased and moved to the museum in the spring of 2016. Ironically, the museum later discovered that this was not the real murder house, that the murders occurred in a nearby house on that street.

None the less, I interviewed a tour guide who told me about his scary personal experience at this house a few years ago. The guide said that years later after the house was relocated here, that this house was debunked – it was not the actual murder house. It was a different house next to this house in the alley that was the actual murder house.

“I was closing one night and had locked up the brick building up there and was walking down through here and I heard bang, bang, bang. I thought there had been carpenters working around all day and if the carpenters are working in that house, they are sure working late. I walked up to the house and the door was open and I heard the bang, bang again. It was obviously coming from upstairs. I went in and the house reeked – old, dirty, nasty, and unwashed for years at the time. I opened the door to the stairway. It was a short hallway and had a sharp turn, with tight, tiny steps. I started up the stairs and heard bang, bang really loud since I was inside. I yelled, “upstairs, who is upstairs?” I started upstairs, and as my eyes came over the last step the banging stopped. Not a sound. I walked through the entire upper part of the house, every room, closet, every nook and cranny and nothing. No one was there. I did the obvious thing and got the heck out of there. I don’t need this.”

I walked through the house. The house was now clean and furnished in early 1900 furniture and artifacts. I took photos and an EVP inside. Outside around the perimeter of the house I took more photos. I obtained no evidence. Yet, the guide’s story was true and he speculated if a different ghostly presence is in this house, who is it?

Talking to the museum owner/archaeologist Richard Fike, he told me that Zak Bagan brought his Travel Channel “Ghost Adventures” TV show here in 2017 to investigate.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 16, 2022

A few miles down the road from where we camped at the Montrose KOA was the Mountain West Museum. Founded in 1997, this museum is dedicated to preserving the history of the west. There are over 20 historic buildings that have been relocated here and feature more than 500,000 artifacts displayed in authentic settings. Three of which have had paranormal activity. I met and interviewed Museum founder/owner and former Colorado state archeologist Richard Fike. The 1890’s saloon has a bar from a pony express and stagecoach station in Utah. The saloon also has a haunted clock which sits atop an upright piano. Here is Fike’s story in his own words.  

“A lady named Wanda Dejulio died in the saloon on May 17, 2002. She was cleaning in the saloon, had a heart attack and died. Her grandson found her. Shortly thereafter after the body was removed, Richard himself then came into the saloon and noticed that the clock on the piano was working and on time. He could never get the clock to work before as he had tried numerous keys to wind it, but none ever fit. He told the family that he had noticed that there were two thumbprints in the dust by the clock as she had not dusted there. So, she had not touched the clock and could not have got it working. Richard came into the saloon three days later after her funeral day and he noticed the clock had stopped working. That was after she had been interred in the ground. A few days later a couple spiritual leaders came into the saloon and did a Ute cleansing ceremony using sweet grass. They said the full good spirit of the deceased would stick around three days and then a part of the spirit will stick around forever. So, you figure it out. Why did the clock that never before worked, started working after all the times I had tried and failed to get it to work but it started when she died and stopped by itself three days later when she was buried. Explain that to me.”

I can’t explain it, but the story is compelling. I took photos and did two EVPs but obtained nothing unusual.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 16, 2022

This 1895 Diehl Carriage Works building was moved to the museum from Delta, Colorado not only a place to repair carriages but it was also where heavyweight champion boxer Jack Dempsey trained. Upstairs, a section of the loft was Dempsey’s training area. Some of his first fights were held in this building. The paranormal angle is that staff and visitors have had a lot of experiences such as hearing footsteps on the second floor, seeing a black shadow figure, lights that come on at night by themselves, and an apparition that appeared in a mirror. Museum owner and archaeologist Richard Fike said that he had heard that back in Delta, enraged townsfolk had lynched a Ute Indian in the rafters of the building. In that same building a man died after being kicked by a horse. I took many photos and an EVP, but it was difficult to investigate the building as a country band was performing a couple buildings down and the carriage house always had a patron or two in it. Still, it was filled with frontier history and many artifacts. Behind the carriage house was a boxcar used in the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 8, 2022

The legend of Bigfoot is alive in this museum that had exhibits of Bigfoot foot casts, hair, and sightings many of which came from the nearby southern Oregon, northern California area.  Some casts were from Dr. Jeff Meldrum from Utah State University. Another room contained shirts, books, magnets, socks, literally everything Bigfoot. Outside was a nine-foot-tall Bigfoot statue and behind the museum is Yeti’s Ice Cream & Treats featuring Oregon’s own Umpqua brand ice cream. I talked to the manager who related several Bigfoot sightings that took place along the Smith River just south of Cave Junction.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 4, 2022

This is where the UFO phenomena began. That’s right, back on June 24, 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying by Mount Rainier on his way to Yakima, Washington. His trip was delayed one hour as he flew in search of a marine transport plane that reportedly crashed near or around the southwest side of the mountain. A “mirror bright” flash reflected on his airplane, and he saw a fleet of nine peculiar looking objects flying north at supersonic speed at about 9,500 feet. Every few seconds two or three of the objects would change course or dip.  The sun would then reflect brightly off these objects. Mr. Arnold described the objects as being flat or crescent appearing like saucers skipping on water. Newspaper men began calling them “flying saucers”. Below is a photo of Mr. Arnold and his original report and drawing of the UFO’s.

Hiking the mountain foothills and trails it made me think of what Arnold saw 69 years ago. There have been UFO sightings reported in recent years but the past two days and nights it was so foggy at the campground so I could not see the night skies and clouds.

On day three it was sunny as we left Mount Rainier and drove east. We saw a large bigfoot statue at a gas station in Morton reminding us that we were in “Squatch” country. Hundreds of bigfoot sightings have been reported over the years not only in this tri-county area but throughout the state.