Haunted White Mountains - your latest experiences???

[Becca M]

It's that time of the year again...OCTOBER... time to reflect on your experiences over the last year with things that make you go, "hmmmmm" in the mountains of NH in particular. Anything you want to share???? Like, do you ever hear people nearby but there isn't anyone? Got a sense of something "weird" besides other hikers ? Feeling that you're not completely alone??? Where did it happen? What happened? People say the Pemi Wilderness is haunted. Is it?

 

[Will]

Not the last year, but several years ago, soon after having seen The Blair Witch Project.

Slogging out towards Lincoln Woods along the Franconia Brook Trail after a long trip. Tired, groggy. Maybe an hour past sundown. Coming through the beaver bypass.

Bundle of twigs hanging from a string in the trees above and 25-30 yards or so to my right, twisting in the wind.

Gulp. What? Shake head, refocus. Still there. I'm standing there, frozen. Force myself to move on a few steps, almost staggering with disbelief.

Then I see the flashlight. It's not a bundle of sticks, it's _one_ stick, a throw stick for hanging a food bag. Some guy is setting up camp right on the old trail just past the cutoff.

Yeah. Knew it all the time.

 

[NewHampshire]

Mine wasn't this year eithr....a few years ago. We were camping on the Ethan Pond trail right near it's junction with the Willey Range trail. It is winter time and the only other person we saw all day was one guy going all the way to the shelter to spend the night. So We pretty much know there is no one out there since the lone guy we saw had passed us hours...HOURS ago. So we are all just sitting around by candle light when all of a sudden we hear, somewhat close by, a person shout "Hello!" We all turned.....yelled back but got nothing. A few minutes later, less loudly, we hear it again...."Hello!" We can't see any headlamp in the darkness, so Hikerfast turns on his headlamp and heads up the trail a decent ways, maybe a hundred yards or so, returns and says he didn't see anything. No person, no headlamp shining in the night, no footprints save for the guy from the previous in the day and heading only one direction...away. We all heard it, we all agreed it sounded like someone saying Hello, it was that clear and crisp. But no explination. Perhaps the Willey family was romaing the woods that night.

Brian

 

[Elizabeth]

Heavy Breathing

A few years back when hiking I would occassionally hear a rasping, animalistic wheezing noise. The sound sped up when I sped up and slowed down when I did. I would stop to listen and the noise would cease. I was sure something was stalking me through the woods. Then I got diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma. It turned out the noise was coming from my own lungs. Now THAT is scary.

 

[FARMER]

I'm always hearing voices when i'm on the trail but nobody is ever there. I wonder if it's my meds?

 

[DougPaul]

I'm always hearing voices when i'm on the trail but nobody is ever there. I wonder if it's my meds?

You just have to run a bit faster to catch up with them...

Doug

 

[erugs]

This summer I noticed a swooshing of air at my elbows. For a while I thought someone was rushing up stealthfully behind me. Finally realized it was coming from the way the back of my pack, an Osprey, is constructed for airflow.

 

[Elizabeth]

Yesterday evening while I was taking the dogs for a walk in the woods, I heard animated chatting, as at a cocktail party . . . . then I looked up to see a V of geese flying overhead.

 

[Becca M]

Ethan Pond

Thanks NewHampshire - I had a similar experience near the Ethan Pond Shelter/Trail junction area mid-afternoon on a nice sunny day about a month ago. I had returned from the shelter to the trail when I heard a voice say something like "Hello" or "Wait" - I cannot remember exactly. I answered back, thinking I left something at the shelter (there was one guy there). I didn't get a response back, so I took off my pack and checked that I had everything. Then I figured maybe it was somebody on Ethan Pond trail but there was nobody in either direction. I never caught up with anyone as I went west on Ethan Pond Trail. It was windy out, but the voice was SO distinctive

 

[Will]

I'm always hearing voices when i'm on the trail but nobody is ever there. I wonder if it's my meds?

The sound of water bubbling through medium sized round rocks (which themselves slightly vibrate) can fall right in the audio range of the human voice under certain conditions. You get the wind and the flow speed and water height just right, and it sounds like a conversation.

Solo camping (only marginally legal) and waking up to that at 3 a.m. was disconcerting the first time.

 

[REK]

While I've had several incidents in places where you might expect them; old houses, battlefields, graveyards, I've never experienced anything of that nature in the woods. There are just so many cool sounds to begin with. It would be pretty neat though.
Bob

 

[SteveHiker]

Ok, so I heard the "hello" sound today on the Algonquin Trail. It was a pretty distinct sounding hello, perhaps with a slight speech impediment. Of course, it was just a freak combination of the wind and some mostly dead trees since I only heard it once. It was very breezy today and I was in a pretty wooded area at the time. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if not for this thread.

 

[Amicus]

Of course, it was just a freak combination of the wind and some mostly dead trees since I only heard it once.

Your logic escapes me. Must the incorporeal repeat themselves, just because we tend to?

 

[Paradox]

Not my experience, but this video of a car commercial documents a spooky occurance in the mountains.

Haunted Car Commercial.

 

[rup]

There was a strange story posted a few years ago about a mysterious looking 'hiker' walking up a trail in the Great Gulf all bundled in a big down jacket in the summertime. Walked right past the observer w/o saying a word. So bundled up that they couldn't get a good look at it - except that it was BIG. Anyone remember that? Very ghostly.

 

[erugs]

We were hiking up the Newbury Trail (Mt. Sunapee) in early winter snow and following some noticeably HUGE footsteps. Suddenly the footsteps just stopped. They didn't step aside, and they didn't turn around. They just dead ended, like the person who left them had been lifted skyward.

 

[BF]

There is a legend of how Nancy Brook got its name. Attached is the legend, and here is my story:

In October 1991, I camped about two miles from route 302 on Nancy Brook. The night was clear and calm, but cold with a large full moon. Near midnight, I heard an eerie howling in the distance. It sounded unfamiliar, something that I’ve never heard before. I thought it sounded like a human trying to make the sounds. But I had not seen anyone hiking on the trail, and there were no other cars but mine at the trail head. I believed I was alone.

For the next few minutes I lay there in my tent breathing quietly so I could pay attention to the sound and try to make out what I had heard. The sounds repeated a few more times and then silence filled the forest once again. I had to conclude that it was only the night woods accompanied by the flow of the brook toying with my imagination.

After about five minutes of silence, I dismissed the haunting sounds and decided to leave the tent to check out the night sky. The quiet engulfed the surroundings. The bright full moon grabbed my attention, so with my 35 mm camera, I pointed it upward and took a picture of the moon glowing in the darkness. I thought the picture of the bright moon would look nice against the dark sky. I then returned to my tent to go back to sleep.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. I did not hear the sounds again. When morning came, I hiked out and drove home.

A few days later, on the way home from work, I stopped by the photo shop to pick up my developed pictures. In my kitchen, I dropped my mail on the table and anxiously pulled out the pictures to see how they looked. I was disappointed. The moon shot looked terrible. It had a cloud-like image draped across the picture. I thought it was a defect in the film because there weren’t any clouds in the sky that night.

I placed the picture on the table and picked up my AMC newsletter, The Charles River Mud, from the stack of mail. On page three of the newsletter I read with astonishment The Legend of Nancy Brook. I then picked up the picture of the ghostly-looking image drifting across the full moon, remembered the howling I heard in the woods and wondered if it could have been Nancy...

 

[Chip]

NYT Article

Not the Whites, this is about a trail in NY.

 

[Raymond]

As I was approaching Stairs Col last month I was certain I heard voices off to my right. Passing that same spot again later, on my way back, I could swear I heard voices again. I don’t think there was actually anyone there, it was probably just a couple trees scraping each other, but it was still strange.

 

[JohnL]

Winter solo hike of Mt Waumbek. Now I know the mere thought of this sends shivers up your spine but that’s not even the scary part. I knew that trail would be broken out because I knew of some other VFTTers who were there the previous day. I was the first one up the trail and it was a mild early morning. Everything was fine until I got a short ways past the summit of Starr-King. Suddenly I felt like someone was watching me. I didn’t hear anything to precipitate this feeling; no voices, no footsteps, no equipment noises, just the quiet of a windless winter day. I just felt like someone was out there watching me. As I got closer to Waumbek’s summit the feeling diminished and I began to feel better. However upon returning the feeling got stronger again. I kept stopping and looking around. Nothing. Just silence. I came around a corner and saw a partially downed tree ahead that I had ducked under on the way over. Six inches of snow covered the tree. In the snow, looking at me was a face. A smiley face. Someone the previous day had drawn a smiley face in the snow. But it didn’t have a regular smile. It had a Chucky smile. My heart was pounding. I took a few more steps forward and when I got to the tree I obliterated the face and wiped the tree clean of the snow. I felt better. What had caused me to think someone was looking at me? Why I did get that feeling? I could not have seen this face on the way over as it was on the backside of the tree as I walked in that direction. Could it have caused my uneasiness? How could that be possible? I felt foolish. But after removing the face from the snow my uneasiness disappeared. I continued my hike, muttering to myself “This is crazy. This is crazy.”

JohnL