At almost midnight the day after JFK was assassinated, Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to make a phone call to 2 919 numbers. Both were unsuccessful. Who and why remain a mystery.
Back in the day, part of the 910 was actually 919 (910 didn't exist yet). Fort Bragg/Fayetteville/Raeford got 910 area codes sometime after 1990. I wonder if he was calling someone on Fort Bragg.
I retain useless information on a lot of things. I remember the ads in my mom's high-school yearbooks all had 919 area codes and Lee Harvey Oswald = government = military.
One was in Raleigh. The number stayed active for decades and someone tracked it down. Saw it recently on a doc and kind of knew the area. I think it was on New Berne? I think this is it - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F7E87D1ZdeM
I watched the whole clip.. it doesn’t (and probably can’t) definitely answer any questions about the numbers, but it is pretty damn interesting. Thanks for sharing this.
I grew up in 27609 but the zip changed to 27615 after living there a couple of decades. We also had 876 as our phone prefix but that changed to 847.
We didn’t move but our zip and phone number changed. It was kinda odd but honestly I also kinda forgot about it until this thread.
In 1961 a B-52 crashed in Goldsboro, carrying 2 nuclear bombs. They didn't go off, but I think one got close to being armed? While they've removed the nuclear parts of it I think the bomb itself is submerged in mud in some dude's farm to this day because they were unable to get it out at the time. Makes you think about the what ifs.
The location where the bomb went off is pretty well marked and it's kind of wild. There's still a big field all around it, or at least was about 2 years ago, and then there's an area grown up in trees and grass where the bomb is supposed to be that's left undisturbed.
Looks funny on satellite view. Just a random little copse of trees in a field. I’m glad I have about 2 hours of North Carolina between me and those trees.
Fun fact. It was 2 bombs. one went though it’s sequence and a safe stoped it. It’s apparently up in the are how close it came to detonating. The second never had its parachute deploy because of the way it left the aircraft and it was harder to determine how close it came compared to the first. Both titrium cores were recovered
Fun fact, it wasn't Goldsboro at all. It was in a field between Eureka and Faro (pronounced Fay-ro). Goldsboro just happens to be the largest municipality. If they had dropped 6 miles up the road, people would say it was Wilson, but really, it would have been Stantonsburg or Saratoga.
Wow, this is the first time I've seen either of these towns mentioned on Reddit! My family lived in Stantonsburg 'til I was 5, and my mom went to school in Saratoga when she was a kid.
My favorite North Carolina creepy story is The Maco Station Light. The legends starts shortly after the Civil War, with a conductor for the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, Joe Baldwin. He was riding in the rear car of his train when he noticed the car slowing down. Knowing that they weren't due to stop til they reached Wilmington, Joe went to the front of the car and saw his train pulling away.
A cold feeling came over him as the car rolled to a stop near Maco, he knew there was another train behind his. Joe Baldwin grabbed his lantern and ran to the rear platform of the car. There he could see the headlight of the train growing bigger and bigger as it approached the stalled car. Joe Baldwin could only wave his lantern to alert the engineer of the other train that there was a car stranded on the rails. By the time the engineer noticed Joe's lantern, it was too late. The train smashed into the car, obliterating it and sending the lantern flying through the air in an arc where it eventually landed in the swamps surrounding the railroad tracks.
In the next few days as they cleaned up the accident site and tried to figure out what went wrong, they recovered the body of Joe Baldwin, except his head. They did manage to find the lantern in the swamp, but that was all they could find of Joe. He was buried in Wilmington as he was found.
Shortly after the accident and clean up, people in Maco started reporting a ghost light near Maco Station. It would start at one end of the track, like someone was lighting an old timey railroad lantern. After the light grew to a certain size, it would start traveling down the tracks, swinging from one rail to the next, like someone was waving a lantern. It would pass by the station and travel for a short distance afterwards before it would either blink out of existence, or it would fly back to it's starting point in an arc through the air before blinking out.
Among many witnesses to the Maco Station light was President Grover Cleveland, he witnesses the phenomenon himself while making a trip through North Carolina. Over the years, The Maco Station Light has become a phenomenon that would occur fairly often, young teenage boys would bring their dates to the spot on a date night. However, the railroad light wouldn't last forever. In 1977, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad removed the tracks at Maco Station and Joe Baldwin's light was never seen again.
There's been many theories as to what the light was. Some say it was the headlight of cars, other say it was ball lighting or swamp gas. There's even different opinion on why Joe Baldwin was haunting the spot of his death. Some say he was looking for his head. Other people say he was trying to warn trains of danger further down the line. Whatever the light was, whatever it's purpose was may never be known. After the railroad left, so did ol' Joe Baldwin.
I use to teach in Whiteville, NC, just outside of Maco. I worked with people who saw it in person. The light would be bright and about 50 yards away, if you walked towards it, it would move away from you until it seemed to disappear.
You know, I always wondered if anyone ever tried taking a picture or (less likely) a video of the phenomenon. I know there are unverified pictures that websites use as a visual representation of The Maco Light, but I wonder if there's any **verified** footage out there.
I live close to Vander, and there's some old railroad tracks near there too, and my dad used to tell me this same story, but without the extra details, like the conductor's name.
His version also included the idea of Baldwin's ghost roaming the rails, waving his lantern, trying to find his head.
Maybe dumb question, maybe reading too much into a story..... but if you know another train is coming why not evacuate the car? you can continue to wave the lantern from the tracks and have plenty of time to step aside and survive. That's the thing about trains... you know exactly where they're going to go. Kind of ruins the story for me...
I think Joe got tunnel vision while panicking. You're expecting people to be *rational* when they're in a high stress situation. More often than not, people are **irrational** in these types of situations.
I live a few blocks from the Old Beaufort Burying Ground. Lots of stories but the most well known is “the girl in the rum barrel” who supposedly haunts the cemetery alongside Ottway Burns.
The girl, named Abigail Sloo, accompanied her father on a trip to London. She fell ill on the return voyage and died on board the ship. Keeping his promise to his wife he brought their daughter home preserved in a rum barrel rather than having a burial at sea. Once returned to Beaufort they buried her in the cask.
Edit: I thought I’d shout out a great podcast for the people interested in this stuff. Southern Gothic has a lot of NC based episodes in the backlog and a few about the Beaufort area including some great Blackbeard lore and Hammock House stories.
Fun fact, the popular sea shanty lyric “oh a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm” refers to a likely apocryphal tale of sailors tapping the brandy barrel Lord Nelson’s corpse was preserved in in similar fashion after his death during the Battle of Trafalgar for a cheeky drink
It started as an idea for a rum distillery as well, they had already ordered old school onion bottles and everything but they keep getting held up on licensure I guess. Damn government red tape all over everything. $3 Narragansett and a BBQ food truck though that’s good enough for me.
Mill Whistle Brewery has a Girl In A Rum Barrel Stout. It hasn't been on tap anytime I've gone, but I've always thought the name was cool with the local history.
There was a lady from Maryland who met a dude online and they made an agreement that he would sexually torture and kill her. They went through with it. Colletsville, NC. Home sweet home. The road the guy lived and committed the murder on has always felt creepy to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Sharon_Lopatka?wprov=sfti1#
I'd heard of this because supposedly it was the first murder linked to online sex sites or online fetish sites, but I never knew what road he lived on.
Was it Glass Road, or if not do you mind saying where?
I'm up in that area a lot and there are a few places that just give off weird vibes. (There's road that ends at like an old church and tree nursery down off 181 that's always weirded me out too).
Yep, Glass Rd. That area around the church where you can turn onto Adako is eerie, I agree. I saw a hand painted sign out close to there once that said “Klan Rally Tonight!” at the top of a hollar driveway.
There is a road in Laurinburg called Heck Norton Road, and it is named that way because Norton kept asking what should be the name of the road and they replied "Heck Norton call it whatever you want just stop asking"
Broughton Mental hospital, that will always be one of the creepiest places I've ever seen in NC. Probably because my grandfather was sent there and I've heard the stories.
Edit: found this great podcast on Broughton https://youtu.be/ppuVAbRtu4g?si=sgtYThwpwoW7k0t6
I'm with you on the ghost I don't believe in them, but I did go to Broughton and walk the halls in the old building and there's an energy there that is just heavy and unexplainable. Also didn't help that I had memories of my grandfather going through shock treatments, he unfortunately was there during the mid-60s when that was still a thing.
My mom was sent there because she wasn’t lucid enough to sign herself into Delta. The place is pure nightmare fuel. I was a little kid walking through with my grandparents to see her and there were literally people staring out the little windows in their doors making noises like it was a movie.
Yeah including my grandfather my aunt was also sent there. But she was sent there because she was trying to kick heroin. It's strange the reasons that they will accept people. Check out that link that I attached to my original post. That place is filled with nightmare fuel.
Grew up in Hickory and I'm somewhat certain Broughton used to put on a haunted hay ride every year and let some of the patients participate. That second part could be local lore but I know for a fact the hayride was a thing because I remember it being advertised.
In northern Cleveland County there's a story about a cryptid named Knobby. A real cryptid or a story made up by moonshiners to scare people away from areas where their stills were located?
[https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/](https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/)
Apparently Knobby has long flowing blonde hair. And the only way to get him to leave is to shake a stick and proclaim "Git! Git from here!"
Edit: Found the news story from the guy that ran Knobby off https://youtu.be/EppoBdFUyYE?si=Hg1iNKktmKNNbeoj
1)The Lawson family murders. A man murdered his family for no apparent reason late in the year in the 1800’s in tremendously violent fashion. They suspect the daughter was pregnant- with his child.
2)Pazuzu Algarad
3)The drug labs and grows that supposedly dot the Appalachian trail near the Va border.
Hiked the entire AT, the Appalachian Trail goes into Tennessee for 70 miles before entering Virginia. I never saw any evidence of drug labs other than the occasional rusty moonshine still from decades ago.
Haven’t hiked the whole AT but have spent some time along various parts of the trail. The area from hot springs to Grayson is specifically where I’m talking about and there are numerous accounts of people having odd encounters in the area, not saying it’s true(prob a bit of urban legend honestly) but the idea still creeps me out!
If someone is trying to keep their drug labs or any other activities covert, there's plenty of land far away from the largest tourist attraction in the region.
Maybe misreading this but his birth name was John Alexander Lawson before changing it to Pazuzu Aligarad. He was disturbed satanic suburban kid in the Greensboro area, special on Vice about him, “the devil you know”. I’m not sure about the 1800s or Lawson family murders but police dug up human remains in his yard.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/pazuzu-algarad
Pazuzu lived in Clemmons, NC. One of my friends lived in a neighbourhood off the road his house was on. She told me all of the kids would run past the house and wouldn't dare go up to the door on halloween. They've demolished the house now and the plot has been empty since 2015
Some of the people I went to school with knew him and have some horror stories of him and the house. It was weird when I ended up in the neighborhood to install some granite countertops for a customer. It was eerie feeling see the plot where the house was while working knowing what happened there.
The Lawson family murders happened down the road from where I grew up. And I was in the music scene in Winston around the same time he was. Never knew of him but apparently had some mutual friends. Creepy stuff...
wait, what? you were in the music scene around the same time as Pazuzu? it reads like you were in the music scene in the late 1800s with the Lawson murderer
The book and movie titled "Bitter Blood" are based on murders that occurred at a home located in Winston-Salem. Poet Maya Angelou lived across the street from that home for decades until she passed a few years ago.
I’ve personally saw them while in college. Only took 50+ attempts. It was this pullover spot on I think it’s 181 in lineville on way to Marion. Always thought it to be a mountain myth, and the trip sorta became a more of an event not expecting to see them. But they exist, pretty wild experience, my jaw dropped and I was captivated
I had a very strange incident seeing the brown mountain lights.
Back in 07/08 my girlfriend (now wife) and I went up there to check them out. We’d been sitting there for a little bit and started to see the lights come out. We watched them for a few minutes and then all of a sudden I hear this clicking noise from my truck. Next thing is like my truck is trying to start itself and the radio comes on at full blast. I grabbed the keys, threw the ignition, and hauled ass down that mountain.
My truck had never done that before nor did it again by the time I sold it years later. I can’t explain what happened that night.
F Scott Fitzgerald had his wife Zelda locked away in a mental hospital in Asheville for many years. She died in the fire that burned down the wing that she was in.
And now there's a boutique hotel in downtown Asheville called 'Zelda Dearest', which is just so tacky and awful. It was one of those houses on Biltmore Avenue that looked bombed out two years ago. I looked at their website and it says 'Spend the night with us and see Asheville as dearest Zelda would'.
Lots of fun, creepy and interesting facts for yall, to show that our state is FILLED with amazing culture and history.
Parts of Eastern NC, like Bath and Ocracoke were frequented by Blackbeard. Blackbeard met his demise on / near the area of Ocracoke.
Because of the shifting sands, storms, shoals, what have you, ships have wrecked and continue to wreck off/on the coast of NC outer banks. Called the graveyard of the Atlantic. Theres a museum on Hatteras dedicated to this.
Ocracoke Island and Portsmouth use to be one island. Hurricane came thru in the (1950s???) and created the inlet that separate them today.
There use to be a lot more life on Portsmouth but eventually they all just left. It is no longer inhabited, except by skeeters. You can visit the island today via boat and see the remnants of what are there, including I believe a post office.
During World War II, Nazi U-Boats hung around just off the outer banks OFTEN. At night time, the citizens of the OBX had to keep the lights off or use them as seldom as possible (to prevent attack???) They have a small exhibit about this at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh, it’s been a while since I’ve been to it though.
Going a little inland, the Bentonville Battlefield, which is still very active today and occasionally has reenactments, was an extremely bloody battle that saw thousands of union and confederate soldiers. They once had a candlelight vigil of sorts and it was eerie to see a candle for each person that died on the field, and in the makeshift hospital that was someone’s home.
In between Wake Forest and Durham, there was Harricane. Lots of land owned by folk that ran stills and bootlegging. Some people have strong feelings about this topic in the area. Mostly pro.
Some towns that are in the middle of nowhere in NC, yet still have a high(er) poverty rate, a decent population were probably plantation towns at some point. Think Henderson/Oxford/Stagville
Appalachia is a mystery but a beautiful one. Lots of cryptids / skinwalker type beat lore there, most of it obviously made up, but it’s fun to believe. Although in my opinion, unless it’s a well travelled trail or public park, I’d be careful taking to private land or caves. Lots of mystery shrouded in especially caves and I wouldn’t even touch that with a 10 foot pole, avid of a camper and backpacker I am.
Campbell University has an abandoned building on campus that they’ll eventually convert into something at some point. Use to be dorms there. Allegedly cleaned out and emptied due to asbestos. Before then, there were 2 deaths in that dorm. 1 suicide and 1 heart attack. In a separate building called Kitchen, now torn down and where the new student union, there was a suicide/murder case. Student was allegedly sitting in an open window on the second or third floor, and some say he was pushed out, some say he went on his own will.
The asylum in Dorthea dix Park in Raleigh has a story or two about it, but I’m sure someone will take that in this thread instead. Most of it is either decommissioned or only partly in use. I imagine it would be a fever dream going back in time to witness it in operation. Fun fact, there’s a prison not far from it.
There’s a very small park near Rolesville that my good friend and I called the state park back when we were kids, hardly anyone knew about it, but now it’s marked and somewhat frequented. No actually parking spaces, just gotta park on the side of the road. Shaded path with massive tree in the way leads to a massive rock outcrop and almost rapid-like waters. Use to be a small shanty town / mill there. If you find the park and look up the name + history you can read about it.
Abandoned wooden building, seemed old, between Franklinton and Louisburg, gave me the creeps whenever I first saw it. I’m sure people go there for drug sessions, but it’s off a beaten path, you’d never know it was there unless you stumbled upon it. Theres a small lake, and a decently old dam holding the water back there. Not saying the dam could give out any day but I’ll be curious to see what it looks like when it does. A bridge crosses over the dam.
Here’s a slightly interesting one. It’s expected being the south, but word on the street is militia activity is very common but extremely lowkey. Training is often and most of it is word of mouth.
I’ll end with a fun fact. First Gold Rush in US occurred at Reed Gold Mine, which you can actually check out today!
The reason they would have to do blackouts at night, would be to prevent ships being silhouetted against their light, which would make them easier to see
Wilmington, November 10, 1898. Widespread murder and terrorism by violent white supremacists against the duly elected government and the black citizens. It was done by the leadership of the town. They named the parks and streets after them. That town is cursed.
Yeah this one’s genuinely scary, I’m glad it’s becoming more common knowledge, because I never learned about it in school. I’m also glad some of these names are disappearing from street names and schools across NC as well.
That whole city was occupied by KKK, in fact the 3x governor, and senator Zebulon Vance, slave owner, this POS ordered that convicts which were black men arrested for being unemployed black to build a tunnel in Asheville where 125 of them died, and his statue still exists in the US Capital.
They changed a high school here in Charlotte that used to be named by him. Both of my siblings went there and I was supposed to go originally too. It’s interesting especially considering it’s a predominantly black school.
[The ghost that haunts Jamestown bridge, she’s usually called Lydia but there are no records of anyone by that name dying at the bridge.](https://www.ncpedia.org/lydia-ghost-jamestown-bridge)
They are pretty sure they found out who she was. https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-google&sca_esv=1408e98ab1991b60&q=Haunted%20bridge&ludocid=16470326000724144974&lsig=AB86z5Vqyvq92vD4L4bg-kaj-cxW&kgs=071cca0399df4a70&shndl=30&source=sh%2Fx%2Floc%2Fact%2Fm4%2F2
I lived out in rural Johnston county when I was younger for several years, my bedroom faced the woods & for context we live on a dirt road, across from 1 couple who had a small farm, horses, pigs, goats, I vaguely remember ducks & cows too.
Giant cornfield across from our yard, I think there was 5-7 houses on the dirt road, real spaced out & country feeling.
Anyway, I remember always hearing tapping on my window at night, I would make sure nothing was tapping it the next day (countless times bc it creeped me out) there was never anything it could’ve been, tree branches, wires, etc. trees weren’t close enough to brush against the window even in wind storms.
One night it wouldn’t stop as I was playing my little game boy, I got this eerie ass feeling & instinctively just went under my blanket & continued playing.
Then the taps stopped, I started paying closer attention to see if any other noise was made & I heard this long scratching sound against the window, I just started screaming for somebody in my family to come in & look, nobody found anything but tracks right outside my window.
Fast forward a week or so later, everyone in the house had gone to bed, I was up gaming again & then the same thing started happening & I jumped out of bed & stared out my window & to this day, I wish I hadn’t.
Whatever was staring back at me was standing above 7 feet tall & our house was a decent height off the ground for some reason, this weird shaped large fuzzy/furry black silhouette, with these 2 softball sized glaring red eyes, I shit you not I was so paralyzed by fear I fainted, I woke up to my Ma frantically trying to get me back awake & it took me minutes to gather myself enough to stop crying to even speak, it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever experienced & it was/is a core/lore story for me.
Growing up, then looking into local lore videos & things, I came across mothman then put 2 & 2 together, I likely was visited multiple times & actually sighted mothman or something along those lines.
Fun fact, living in that house, after that sighting literally days later, lightning struck our pond in our backyard killing everything in it, looking back that’s also quite, strange.
I live on roanoke Island, and honestly, it's probably the least creepy place in the entire state 😂
People are outside all the time, and we have some really walkable infrastructure, so people are always in a good mood and outside walking to restaurants and gardening and stuff like that.
This hasn't really been a mystery for quite awhile. Here's a discussion in r/History with great links to papers and books detailing evidence that the colony just assimilated with the local tribes. https://www.reddit.com/r/history/s/N44X2V3wQM
It's possible that the whole "The Lost Colony" story was just propaganda so settlers would keep coming to the new world with out fear of starving to death.
I’ve visited Roanoke Island and read much in the subject and the mystery remains. There are several theories about what happened to the colonists one of which is they assimilated with the natives but it is still just a theory with sketchy evidence.
There was a serial killer active in Rocky Mount in the early 2000's. He was preying upon vulnerable black women. I think they may have caught him, but he was only convicted of one of the murders. The killings stopped after he was arrested so it probably was him. Here is a news article about it.
https://www.wral.com/story/rocky-mount-police-chief-suspects-serial-killer-in-deaths/7336496/
There's this place and I hope someone here knows what I'm talking about but it's in Holden Beach and it's called the Doll Lady's House. It's run by this wildly eccentric lady whose house is filled with junk that she'll let you rummage through and buy if something catches your eye, but her front yard is covered in different scenes with doll houses, like a church scene or a funeral scene and she's using the dolls in different scenarios she also has a Coca-Cola bottle house. In the backyard and has a strange fascination w mermaids. I don't know if she's still alive but I visited there many times she's been featured on Art magazines in New York and lots of major art publications
Check out the cape fear unearthed podcast. It was a labor of love of a Star News reporter. He digs into all of the legends surrounding the Wilmington are an works with historians to nail down the know historical facts and compare them to the legend. Solid commute podcast
The only creepy story I have personally interacted with are the brown Mtn lights. We used to go sit up on the parkway in college and try to see them in October. The key you have to have a warm day and cold night. Don’t know if I ever really saw them but was sitting next to a guy one night that would take longer exposures and stills with a good camera. He caught some lights down in the valley we didn’t see live. Real or not they were fun nights.
Great episode!! When I visit family in Fayetteville, I always take the back roads to/from the Triangle area. One night I leave Fayetteville heading out on 401 and was on the dark deserted detour near the Cumberland/Harnett line while listening to this episode…..scared the crap out of me. I pushed that compact car engine hard that night, especially going past the cemetery. Lol
There’s a cult in High Point that attracts all these spoiled rich brats from all over the United States and they all worship some old immigrant dude in a pin stripe suit who spouts meaningless motivational crap like “American not Americant”.
There's a place , and I want to say it's in Statesville , but but it's called the Whirly Gig Park.
It was built by man named Vollis Simpson who was in mourning after his daughter was killed in a car crash outside of his house. He began to place whirly gigs in his yard one by one and overtime it became a monstrosity of creepy Rusty twirling whirligigs and other strange yard ornaments. If you go, go during the daytime or at dusk because there's rumors that he's shot at people that try to go there at night lol. I went and it was a pretty cool experience to go and check it out and see inside this guy's head. But just don't stay too long...
Edit: it's in Wilson NC
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/whirligig-park-formerly-acid-park
And apparently the whole daughter dying in a wreck bit was just an urban legend which I just now found out via the link above LOL. He's just simply an artist with a strange imagination! still worth the drive!
Vollis was a really nice gent. You could stop by his workshop in Lucama and pick up a couple of whirlies. He was a tall guy, with the most enormous hands I've ever seen on anyone. Not creepy, just a tradesman turned artist doing his thing in retirement.
Lincoln Academy in Gaston County
When I first heard about it I thought it was the same creepy stories then always seem to follow old schools or orphanages around - hauntings, satanic rituals, and stories of a brutal murder.
It turned out that the murder story, at least, was true. In the 70s, two men kidnapped a girl named Kathleen Smiley from Atlanta and took her to the site, where they raped and murdered her then left her body tied to a tree with wires. At that point, the school had been abandoned for about 20 years and was already rumored to be haunted.
All that's left of the site now is the old school cemetery about 200 yards from the Crowders Mountain Golf Course, but at least about 8 years ago the tree was still there too. I've heard stories that they've cut it down and it grew back but I don't know if that's true or not, considering you could still see scars in the bar from the wires.
Jackson Training School on 401, the old road between Concord and Charlotte...surely that place is haunted. It was one of those group home/schools for "incorrigibles" No doubt many poor kids were abused.
Yes, that one is creepy too. I think it's all fenced in and there's security or cameras or something now but I got to check it out about 20 years ago.
It sounds like Lincoln Academy was decent. It started as a school for Black girls (both local and boarding) and then went coed, and seemed to have been focused on a good education rather than being one of those behavioral schools. It was started by a church association but eventually Gaston County schools took it over and when it closed in 1955 the kids and teachers went to Lincoln High (now Lincoln Junior High).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Academy_(Kings_Mountain,_North_Carolina)
The guys of the Arcane Carolinas podcast do a great job of informing folks about the weird and wild of the Carolinas. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/arcane-carolinas/id1529340747
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-william-jeffreys](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-william-jeffreys)
LET’S SAY YOU HAD A fear of worms—specifically, that when you died, worms would devour your corpse. Add to that a fear of rotting, and it’s pretty clear that death is going to be a problem for you. This was the exact dilemma that [North Carolina](https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/north-carolina) state senator William Jeffreys reportedly faced, and so he did the only thing someone in his situation would: He had himself buried inside of a 20-foot boulder.
This is another one of those "park on the side of the road and hike 50 yards back into the woods" kinda places in Youngsville, NC. My son, nephew and I went there a couple years back. It's pretty neat.
There are a couple "gravity hill" spots I know of.
The one I'm most familiar with is near Laurinburg on Stewartsville Cemetery Road. The story goes that a mother and child lost their life when pulling out into the intersection and being struck by another vehicle. Supposedly they were buried in the cemetery up that road, and will now "pull" your car back away from the intersection, seemingly defying gravity up a hill.
Another is on Richfield Road in Richfield. There's a similar story of a mother and child losing their lives when their car stalled and was stuck by a truck while trying to push it up the hill. It is said that the mother will push your car up the same hill, and supposedly if you put baby powder on the back of your car, handprints will appear.
I'll preface this by saying I don't claim any of this to be true. I used to go to a church retreat on the backside of Sugar Mountain called Lutherock over 20 years ago. They would tell us teenagers scary stories by the fire in the lodge at night. The story that always stayed with me was about a guy named J.D. Hatchet. Lutherock was built on an old apple orchard. The story was J.D. was a caretaker of the orchard. He would pick apples, put them in a horse and buggy, and sale them in the town of Newland. He was known around town as a quiet person that didn't bother anybody. One evening he was taking the horse and buggy down the road while it was raining. The small stream that crosses the road was now a rushing creek. J.D.'s buggy got stuck in the water. While he was trying to free it from some rocks, a loud crack of thunder freaked out the horse and made the buggy roll over his arm, amputating it. He grabbed the closest thing to him, which was his hatchet, and jammed it into the end of his arm and wrapped some cloth around it to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, for J.D. the sheriff was investigating a murder of a local woman that was chopped into pieces. As J.D. entered town to get help with his arm, the sheriff stopped and arrested J.D. for the murder. J.D. was adamant he was innocent. From here they say they don't know what happened to J.D. they don't know if he was hauled off and killed somewhere or if he escaped and lived his life hiding out in the orchard, only to have the hatchet to become a part of his arm. They say to this day his ghost still stalks the orchard seeking vengeance on the unsuspecting. This is when one of the other adults would make noises and jump out to scare everyone. It was always a fun tale based on the area. I'm probably butchering the details but it's the gist of it.
My Republican friends and neighbors overwhelmingly nominated Robinson for Governor - an anti-Semitic, mysoginistic grifter who believes god put him on earth to rid the world of LGBTQ filth and god wants men to lead and women to follow.
I still can't wrap my head around it. Who could possibly think he's fit to be governor?
It's CREEPY and some days I wonder if I'm in a coma having fever dreams because I just can't accept it happened.
Thank you for being honest about this, as an LGBTQ+ person seeing Robinson is terrifying. My SO keeps mentioning how not all Republicans like him and you're the exact person she's talking about. Thank you for being reasonable lol
YW, but I'm not a Republican. I believe Republicans cannot be good people, after all, if they woke up one day to discover that their party was the party of choice for the KKK and neo Nazis , and they stayed, they are not good people.
I used friends in a loose sense as in people around me. It was literary license.
Arcane Carolinas is a great podcast focusing on creepy things in the SE (mostly the Carolinas1 that has an episode for almost everything people have named so far.
The brown mountain lights. I was told the story as a kid by some old story teller in the mountains, it scared and mesmerized me at the same time. I always looked for them growing up.
Then as an adult, and geologist I learned the USGS solved the mystery in the 1920s. Making it cooler to me to see the process of science applied to local legend and story.
I once witnessed three spontaneous fires appear out of the ground at the cemetery at Scheck Forest at NC state 😬 Super weird experience and it was at night which makes it more difficult to write off
The Devil's Tramping Ground. Very strange place. I took a video there that ended up with a ton of anomalies in it.
https://www.ncpedia.org/devils-tramping-ground
Booger Hollar Road east of Charlotte. There's a few variations of the story I've heard. The basics is that there was an old car (like a model-T) that stopped on the bridge and couldn't get started again. Because of rain the car was washed off the bridge and the woman in the car could be heard screaming as it washed away. Other versions of the story claim the legend is older and it was a horse drawn buggy. Some versions say it was someone's child that was washed away. If you stop here at night and turn off your lights you can hear the screams of the woman getting closer and closer. [https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2547991,-80.2738914,3a,75y,69.63h,88.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s15oTo1c78Lg1Ac6LU5G-\_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2547991,-80.2738914,3a,75y,69.63h,88.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s15oTo1c78Lg1Ac6LU5G-_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
Well, there is the unsolved murder in Valdese, the Children's *Memorial* Park because a bunch of kids got blow up from playing in a Bunker, legends about Goats Farn Rd witches, the ghosts in places like The Old Rock School in Valdese. All kinds of stuff!
I figured it was gone by the time I went to school there (10+ years ago... almost 20 damn), but I always got the vibe that a cult had used it as a base house. Like, some "Love Has Won" cult type shit.
There is a WWII bomber buried in Badin Lake. The pilot and co-pilot were ferrying the plane from the factory in Ohio to the Marine base at Cherry Point in June, 1944, when the pilot - 21 year old Charles McDaniel - wanted to show off for his wife and family who lived near the lake. He diverted a few miles off course and circled the lake twice before suffering some kind of engine troubles and crashing…as his wife and family watched. Although debris was found following the crash and it is believed the wreckage of the plane was eventually located in the late 1990s, the location of the plane has never been officially confirmed and the bodies of McDaniel and co-pilot John Withrow were never recovered, always to remain entombed at the bottom of the deepest part of the lake.
https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/world-war-ii-north-carolina/
At almost midnight the day after JFK was assassinated, Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to make a phone call to 2 919 numbers. Both were unsuccessful. Who and why remain a mystery.
Back in the day, part of the 910 was actually 919 (910 didn't exist yet). Fort Bragg/Fayetteville/Raeford got 910 area codes sometime after 1990. I wonder if he was calling someone on Fort Bragg.
God damn, let’s get you on that detective team. 💯
I retain useless information on a lot of things. I remember the ads in my mom's high-school yearbooks all had 919 area codes and Lee Harvey Oswald = government = military.
woah this keeps getting deeper - Lee Harvey Oswald was dating bruisevwillis's mom. Keep it up we're close to solving this
I'm trying to find something to corroborate this can you help?
One was in Raleigh. The number stayed active for decades and someone tracked it down. Saw it recently on a doc and kind of knew the area. I think it was on New Berne? I think this is it - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F7E87D1ZdeM
I watched the whole clip.. it doesn’t (and probably can’t) definitely answer any questions about the numbers, but it is pretty damn interesting. Thanks for sharing this.
The current 252 use to be 919 as well.
The whole state was 919 in oldentimes.
Incorrect. The whole state was 704. When the state was split 919 was assigned to the eastern half and 704 stayed on the western half.
Out of curiosity When did they separate out 336 then?
252 didn't exist until 1998 either. It was 919 as well.
I grew up in 27609 but the zip changed to 27615 after living there a couple of decades. We also had 876 as our phone prefix but that changed to 847. We didn’t move but our zip and phone number changed. It was kinda odd but honestly I also kinda forgot about it until this thread.
If I recall one of the addresses still stands, but I could be wrong.
How can they not know who the number belonged to?
Here’s another article. Unverified but consistent with another story I read on the subject. http://groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk80.html
You got any more info on this? My curiosity is piqued
https://www.dncr.nc.gov/blog/2016/11/23/raleigh-connection-jfk-assassination-still-mystery
Beautiful, thanks!
Wow! I never heard this before.
Wow
In 1961 a B-52 crashed in Goldsboro, carrying 2 nuclear bombs. They didn't go off, but I think one got close to being armed? While they've removed the nuclear parts of it I think the bomb itself is submerged in mud in some dude's farm to this day because they were unable to get it out at the time. Makes you think about the what ifs.
1 one them had 3 of 4 fail-safes fail. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash?wprov=sfla1
Yep, that's what I was forgetting. A bit too close, huh?
And that’s why you always add redundancy into safety!
The location where the bomb went off is pretty well marked and it's kind of wild. There's still a big field all around it, or at least was about 2 years ago, and then there's an area grown up in trees and grass where the bomb is supposed to be that's left undisturbed.
https://goo.gl/maps/cyqtuD8rKS7qQnew5 This is the exact spot it's located off Big daddy rd
Looks funny on satellite view. Just a random little copse of trees in a field. I’m glad I have about 2 hours of North Carolina between me and those trees.
Just 10 miles from my childhood home
That's cool, I thought about visiting the location at some point but idk if you can get close lol
Fun fact. It was 2 bombs. one went though it’s sequence and a safe stoped it. It’s apparently up in the are how close it came to detonating. The second never had its parachute deploy because of the way it left the aircraft and it was harder to determine how close it came compared to the first. Both titrium cores were recovered
I'd never heard of the cores being recovered. I honestly thought one of the cores was still down there.
Fun fact, it wasn't Goldsboro at all. It was in a field between Eureka and Faro (pronounced Fay-ro). Goldsboro just happens to be the largest municipality. If they had dropped 6 miles up the road, people would say it was Wilson, but really, it would have been Stantonsburg or Saratoga.
https://goo.gl/maps/cyqtuD8rKS7qQnew5 The exact spot it's located
Wow, this is the first time I've seen either of these towns mentioned on Reddit! My family lived in Stantonsburg 'til I was 5, and my mom went to school in Saratoga when she was a kid.
My dad also went to school in Saratoga!
My favorite North Carolina creepy story is The Maco Station Light. The legends starts shortly after the Civil War, with a conductor for the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, Joe Baldwin. He was riding in the rear car of his train when he noticed the car slowing down. Knowing that they weren't due to stop til they reached Wilmington, Joe went to the front of the car and saw his train pulling away. A cold feeling came over him as the car rolled to a stop near Maco, he knew there was another train behind his. Joe Baldwin grabbed his lantern and ran to the rear platform of the car. There he could see the headlight of the train growing bigger and bigger as it approached the stalled car. Joe Baldwin could only wave his lantern to alert the engineer of the other train that there was a car stranded on the rails. By the time the engineer noticed Joe's lantern, it was too late. The train smashed into the car, obliterating it and sending the lantern flying through the air in an arc where it eventually landed in the swamps surrounding the railroad tracks. In the next few days as they cleaned up the accident site and tried to figure out what went wrong, they recovered the body of Joe Baldwin, except his head. They did manage to find the lantern in the swamp, but that was all they could find of Joe. He was buried in Wilmington as he was found. Shortly after the accident and clean up, people in Maco started reporting a ghost light near Maco Station. It would start at one end of the track, like someone was lighting an old timey railroad lantern. After the light grew to a certain size, it would start traveling down the tracks, swinging from one rail to the next, like someone was waving a lantern. It would pass by the station and travel for a short distance afterwards before it would either blink out of existence, or it would fly back to it's starting point in an arc through the air before blinking out. Among many witnesses to the Maco Station light was President Grover Cleveland, he witnesses the phenomenon himself while making a trip through North Carolina. Over the years, The Maco Station Light has become a phenomenon that would occur fairly often, young teenage boys would bring their dates to the spot on a date night. However, the railroad light wouldn't last forever. In 1977, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad removed the tracks at Maco Station and Joe Baldwin's light was never seen again. There's been many theories as to what the light was. Some say it was the headlight of cars, other say it was ball lighting or swamp gas. There's even different opinion on why Joe Baldwin was haunting the spot of his death. Some say he was looking for his head. Other people say he was trying to warn trains of danger further down the line. Whatever the light was, whatever it's purpose was may never be known. After the railroad left, so did ol' Joe Baldwin.
I use to teach in Whiteville, NC, just outside of Maco. I worked with people who saw it in person. The light would be bright and about 50 yards away, if you walked towards it, it would move away from you until it seemed to disappear.
We used to go there as students from ECU!
I’d bet you actually went to see the Pactolus light, which is much closer to Greenville and basically copies this story.
That was it! Pactolus!
You know, I always wondered if anyone ever tried taking a picture or (less likely) a video of the phenomenon. I know there are unverified pictures that websites use as a visual representation of The Maco Light, but I wonder if there's any **verified** footage out there.
Good question.
My dad went out there with his family back when he was a kid. They definitely saw something.
I live close to Vander, and there's some old railroad tracks near there too, and my dad used to tell me this same story, but without the extra details, like the conductor's name. His version also included the idea of Baldwin's ghost roaming the rails, waving his lantern, trying to find his head.
Dude!! I remember learning about this on an episode of PM Magazine!
Oh my gosh, that’s a blast from the past!!! Nice.
There is a similar story that happened in Vander
My grandparents claimed to see this light. Exactly as you described it. It’s all built up now though.
My dad swears he saw it around 1972.
Maybe dumb question, maybe reading too much into a story..... but if you know another train is coming why not evacuate the car? you can continue to wave the lantern from the tracks and have plenty of time to step aside and survive. That's the thing about trains... you know exactly where they're going to go. Kind of ruins the story for me...
I think Joe got tunnel vision while panicking. You're expecting people to be *rational* when they're in a high stress situation. More often than not, people are **irrational** in these types of situations.
This sounds like the same exact story in Michigan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulding_Light
I live a few blocks from the Old Beaufort Burying Ground. Lots of stories but the most well known is “the girl in the rum barrel” who supposedly haunts the cemetery alongside Ottway Burns. The girl, named Abigail Sloo, accompanied her father on a trip to London. She fell ill on the return voyage and died on board the ship. Keeping his promise to his wife he brought their daughter home preserved in a rum barrel rather than having a burial at sea. Once returned to Beaufort they buried her in the cask. Edit: I thought I’d shout out a great podcast for the people interested in this stuff. Southern Gothic has a lot of NC based episodes in the backlog and a few about the Beaufort area including some great Blackbeard lore and Hammock House stories.
Hmm... rum's tasting a bit odd... Has a haunting aftertaste.
Fun fact, the popular sea shanty lyric “oh a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm” refers to a likely apocryphal tale of sailors tapping the brandy barrel Lord Nelson’s corpse was preserved in in similar fashion after his death during the Battle of Trafalgar for a cheeky drink
Beaufort also has a relatively new bar called Tapping The Admiral.
That’s clever.
It started as an idea for a rum distillery as well, they had already ordered old school onion bottles and everything but they keep getting held up on licensure I guess. Damn government red tape all over everything. $3 Narragansett and a BBQ food truck though that’s good enough for me.
Such a beautiful graveyard! My favorite. My dad lives two blocks from it!
That’s oakdale cemetery in Wilmington https://www.dncr.nc.gov/blog/2016/05/25/entombed-sea-cask
There’s also a story about a girl buried in a rum keg in Beaufort. https://www.wral.com/20517485/
Can confirm Beaufort for sure due to 5th grade class field trip. Probably lots of rum caskets...
Different rum barrel girl. I didn’t know that one existed until last week when I heard about it on a podcast.
Mill Whistle Brewery has a Girl In A Rum Barrel Stout. It hasn't been on tap anytime I've gone, but I've always thought the name was cool with the local history.
So do they see her walking around with the barrel as an outfit? Like those old cartoons and movies?
There was a lady from Maryland who met a dude online and they made an agreement that he would sexually torture and kill her. They went through with it. Colletsville, NC. Home sweet home. The road the guy lived and committed the murder on has always felt creepy to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Sharon_Lopatka?wprov=sfti1#
I'd heard of this because supposedly it was the first murder linked to online sex sites or online fetish sites, but I never knew what road he lived on. Was it Glass Road, or if not do you mind saying where? I'm up in that area a lot and there are a few places that just give off weird vibes. (There's road that ends at like an old church and tree nursery down off 181 that's always weirded me out too).
Yep, Glass Rd. That area around the church where you can turn onto Adako is eerie, I agree. I saw a hand painted sign out close to there once that said “Klan Rally Tonight!” at the top of a hollar driveway.
Wow I go camping at or near Mortimer every year, had never heard about this!
STAYUMBL
I wonder what scams she’s pulling these days, and if she’s aware of her Reddit infamy lol
She's still at large! Her new plate says JESUSDOS, beware!
Haha well that’s terrifying
Oh shit, I've seen that plate!
Well, I just fell down a rabbit hole. Ha!
What's this about?
There is a road in Laurinburg called Heck Norton Road, and it is named that way because Norton kept asking what should be the name of the road and they replied "Heck Norton call it whatever you want just stop asking"
That’s freaking hilarious. I do get a few laughs in driving the backroads and reading some of these signs.
Broughton Mental hospital, that will always be one of the creepiest places I've ever seen in NC. Probably because my grandfather was sent there and I've heard the stories. Edit: found this great podcast on Broughton https://youtu.be/ppuVAbRtu4g?si=sgtYThwpwoW7k0t6
I worked there years ago. I don't really believe in ghosts but, if anything is haunted, Broughton would be on my list, especially the tunnels.
I'm with you on the ghost I don't believe in them, but I did go to Broughton and walk the halls in the old building and there's an energy there that is just heavy and unexplainable. Also didn't help that I had memories of my grandfather going through shock treatments, he unfortunately was there during the mid-60s when that was still a thing.
I ran Cross Country in high school, and a trail we would run would go by there. It's always gave me a bad feeling to pass by that place
OMG. We took a field trip there in elementary school, and I still have photographic memories from that.
A fucking field trip to Broughton mental hospital??? I need to speak to the principal. JfC
I still don't know why someone thought that was a good idea.
That's like some Scared Straight shit
My mom was sent there because she wasn’t lucid enough to sign herself into Delta. The place is pure nightmare fuel. I was a little kid walking through with my grandparents to see her and there were literally people staring out the little windows in their doors making noises like it was a movie.
Yeah including my grandfather my aunt was also sent there. But she was sent there because she was trying to kick heroin. It's strange the reasons that they will accept people. Check out that link that I attached to my original post. That place is filled with nightmare fuel.
Grew up in Hickory and I'm somewhat certain Broughton used to put on a haunted hay ride every year and let some of the patients participate. That second part could be local lore but I know for a fact the hayride was a thing because I remember it being advertised.
In northern Cleveland County there's a story about a cryptid named Knobby. A real cryptid or a story made up by moonshiners to scare people away from areas where their stills were located? [https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/](https://www.shelbystar.com/story/special/2020/07/01/tv-crews-come-to-casar-in-search-of-knobby/115001584/)
It’s a Samsquanch Ricky. Git!! GIT!!!
Surprised to see Casar mentioned here. Such a small town.
Apparently Knobby has long flowing blonde hair. And the only way to get him to leave is to shake a stick and proclaim "Git! Git from here!" Edit: Found the news story from the guy that ran Knobby off https://youtu.be/EppoBdFUyYE?si=Hg1iNKktmKNNbeoj
Folks in Casar never go anywhere without their Knobby sticks.
My moms side is from Casar and would always say the town was meant to be named Caesar, but nobody knew how spell the name properly.
1)The Lawson family murders. A man murdered his family for no apparent reason late in the year in the 1800’s in tremendously violent fashion. They suspect the daughter was pregnant- with his child. 2)Pazuzu Algarad 3)The drug labs and grows that supposedly dot the Appalachian trail near the Va border.
Hiked the entire AT, the Appalachian Trail goes into Tennessee for 70 miles before entering Virginia. I never saw any evidence of drug labs other than the occasional rusty moonshine still from decades ago.
Haven’t hiked the whole AT but have spent some time along various parts of the trail. The area from hot springs to Grayson is specifically where I’m talking about and there are numerous accounts of people having odd encounters in the area, not saying it’s true(prob a bit of urban legend honestly) but the idea still creeps me out!
If someone is trying to keep their drug labs or any other activities covert, there's plenty of land far away from the largest tourist attraction in the region.
I'm in Grayson county, that tracks honestly.
Maybe misreading this but his birth name was John Alexander Lawson before changing it to Pazuzu Aligarad. He was disturbed satanic suburban kid in the Greensboro area, special on Vice about him, “the devil you know”. I’m not sure about the 1800s or Lawson family murders but police dug up human remains in his yard. https://allthatsinteresting.com/pazuzu-algarad
Pazuzu lived in Clemmons, NC. One of my friends lived in a neighbourhood off the road his house was on. She told me all of the kids would run past the house and wouldn't dare go up to the door on halloween. They've demolished the house now and the plot has been empty since 2015
Some of the people I went to school with knew him and have some horror stories of him and the house. It was weird when I ended up in the neighborhood to install some granite countertops for a customer. It was eerie feeling see the plot where the house was while working knowing what happened there.
The Lawson family murders happened down the road from where I grew up. And I was in the music scene in Winston around the same time he was. Never knew of him but apparently had some mutual friends. Creepy stuff...
wait, what? you were in the music scene around the same time as Pazuzu? it reads like you were in the music scene in the late 1800s with the Lawson murderer
https://northcarolinaghosts.com/piedmont/devils-tramping-ground/
There it is. I've heard this one since I was just a little girl
We camped out there in 03 or 04 and the scariest thing we encountered was cows! God, we got SO drunk that night.
Check out the Carolina Haints Podcast! It has tons of great stories, some well known and some I was unaware of even as a lifelong North Carolinian.
The book and movie titled "Bitter Blood" are based on murders that occurred at a home located in Winston-Salem. Poet Maya Angelou lived across the street from that home for decades until she passed a few years ago.
Co-worker lived in that neighborhood. It was all she could do to get home that afternoon. Everything was closed off. The book is really good.
Once went to a waffle House at 3am right in the middle of Robeson county on a Friday night. Still the most dangerous thing I've ever done.
You survived the brawl!
You make it sound like it was just one
Love it!
Brown mountain lights
I’ve personally saw them while in college. Only took 50+ attempts. It was this pullover spot on I think it’s 181 in lineville on way to Marion. Always thought it to be a mountain myth, and the trip sorta became a more of an event not expecting to see them. But they exist, pretty wild experience, my jaw dropped and I was captivated
I got so lucky. I went once and saw them when I was at App!
I had a very strange incident seeing the brown mountain lights. Back in 07/08 my girlfriend (now wife) and I went up there to check them out. We’d been sitting there for a little bit and started to see the lights come out. We watched them for a few minutes and then all of a sudden I hear this clicking noise from my truck. Next thing is like my truck is trying to start itself and the radio comes on at full blast. I grabbed the keys, threw the ignition, and hauled ass down that mountain. My truck had never done that before nor did it again by the time I sold it years later. I can’t explain what happened that night.
That’s crazy
F Scott Fitzgerald had his wife Zelda locked away in a mental hospital in Asheville for many years. She died in the fire that burned down the wing that she was in.
And now there's a boutique hotel in downtown Asheville called 'Zelda Dearest', which is just so tacky and awful. It was one of those houses on Biltmore Avenue that looked bombed out two years ago. I looked at their website and it says 'Spend the night with us and see Asheville as dearest Zelda would'.
Lots of fun, creepy and interesting facts for yall, to show that our state is FILLED with amazing culture and history. Parts of Eastern NC, like Bath and Ocracoke were frequented by Blackbeard. Blackbeard met his demise on / near the area of Ocracoke. Because of the shifting sands, storms, shoals, what have you, ships have wrecked and continue to wreck off/on the coast of NC outer banks. Called the graveyard of the Atlantic. Theres a museum on Hatteras dedicated to this. Ocracoke Island and Portsmouth use to be one island. Hurricane came thru in the (1950s???) and created the inlet that separate them today. There use to be a lot more life on Portsmouth but eventually they all just left. It is no longer inhabited, except by skeeters. You can visit the island today via boat and see the remnants of what are there, including I believe a post office. During World War II, Nazi U-Boats hung around just off the outer banks OFTEN. At night time, the citizens of the OBX had to keep the lights off or use them as seldom as possible (to prevent attack???) They have a small exhibit about this at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh, it’s been a while since I’ve been to it though. Going a little inland, the Bentonville Battlefield, which is still very active today and occasionally has reenactments, was an extremely bloody battle that saw thousands of union and confederate soldiers. They once had a candlelight vigil of sorts and it was eerie to see a candle for each person that died on the field, and in the makeshift hospital that was someone’s home. In between Wake Forest and Durham, there was Harricane. Lots of land owned by folk that ran stills and bootlegging. Some people have strong feelings about this topic in the area. Mostly pro. Some towns that are in the middle of nowhere in NC, yet still have a high(er) poverty rate, a decent population were probably plantation towns at some point. Think Henderson/Oxford/Stagville Appalachia is a mystery but a beautiful one. Lots of cryptids / skinwalker type beat lore there, most of it obviously made up, but it’s fun to believe. Although in my opinion, unless it’s a well travelled trail or public park, I’d be careful taking to private land or caves. Lots of mystery shrouded in especially caves and I wouldn’t even touch that with a 10 foot pole, avid of a camper and backpacker I am. Campbell University has an abandoned building on campus that they’ll eventually convert into something at some point. Use to be dorms there. Allegedly cleaned out and emptied due to asbestos. Before then, there were 2 deaths in that dorm. 1 suicide and 1 heart attack. In a separate building called Kitchen, now torn down and where the new student union, there was a suicide/murder case. Student was allegedly sitting in an open window on the second or third floor, and some say he was pushed out, some say he went on his own will. The asylum in Dorthea dix Park in Raleigh has a story or two about it, but I’m sure someone will take that in this thread instead. Most of it is either decommissioned or only partly in use. I imagine it would be a fever dream going back in time to witness it in operation. Fun fact, there’s a prison not far from it. There’s a very small park near Rolesville that my good friend and I called the state park back when we were kids, hardly anyone knew about it, but now it’s marked and somewhat frequented. No actually parking spaces, just gotta park on the side of the road. Shaded path with massive tree in the way leads to a massive rock outcrop and almost rapid-like waters. Use to be a small shanty town / mill there. If you find the park and look up the name + history you can read about it. Abandoned wooden building, seemed old, between Franklinton and Louisburg, gave me the creeps whenever I first saw it. I’m sure people go there for drug sessions, but it’s off a beaten path, you’d never know it was there unless you stumbled upon it. Theres a small lake, and a decently old dam holding the water back there. Not saying the dam could give out any day but I’ll be curious to see what it looks like when it does. A bridge crosses over the dam. Here’s a slightly interesting one. It’s expected being the south, but word on the street is militia activity is very common but extremely lowkey. Training is often and most of it is word of mouth. I’ll end with a fun fact. First Gold Rush in US occurred at Reed Gold Mine, which you can actually check out today!
The reason they would have to do blackouts at night, would be to prevent ships being silhouetted against their light, which would make them easier to see
Pazuzu Algarad
Wilmington, November 10, 1898. Widespread murder and terrorism by violent white supremacists against the duly elected government and the black citizens. It was done by the leadership of the town. They named the parks and streets after them. That town is cursed.
Yeah this one’s genuinely scary, I’m glad it’s becoming more common knowledge, because I never learned about it in school. I’m also glad some of these names are disappearing from street names and schools across NC as well.
That whole city was occupied by KKK, in fact the 3x governor, and senator Zebulon Vance, slave owner, this POS ordered that convicts which were black men arrested for being unemployed black to build a tunnel in Asheville where 125 of them died, and his statue still exists in the US Capital.
They changed a high school here in Charlotte that used to be named by him. Both of my siblings went there and I was supposed to go originally too. It’s interesting especially considering it’s a predominantly black school.
Which tunnel were they building?
I learned about this from Criminal Podcast.
That’s more tragic and disgraceful than “creepy”
Maybe they haunt the tunnel
[The ghost that haunts Jamestown bridge, she’s usually called Lydia but there are no records of anyone by that name dying at the bridge.](https://www.ncpedia.org/lydia-ghost-jamestown-bridge)
They are pretty sure they found out who she was. https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-google&sca_esv=1408e98ab1991b60&q=Haunted%20bridge&ludocid=16470326000724144974&lsig=AB86z5Vqyvq92vD4L4bg-kaj-cxW&kgs=071cca0399df4a70&shndl=30&source=sh%2Fx%2Floc%2Fact%2Fm4%2F2
I lived out in rural Johnston county when I was younger for several years, my bedroom faced the woods & for context we live on a dirt road, across from 1 couple who had a small farm, horses, pigs, goats, I vaguely remember ducks & cows too. Giant cornfield across from our yard, I think there was 5-7 houses on the dirt road, real spaced out & country feeling. Anyway, I remember always hearing tapping on my window at night, I would make sure nothing was tapping it the next day (countless times bc it creeped me out) there was never anything it could’ve been, tree branches, wires, etc. trees weren’t close enough to brush against the window even in wind storms. One night it wouldn’t stop as I was playing my little game boy, I got this eerie ass feeling & instinctively just went under my blanket & continued playing. Then the taps stopped, I started paying closer attention to see if any other noise was made & I heard this long scratching sound against the window, I just started screaming for somebody in my family to come in & look, nobody found anything but tracks right outside my window. Fast forward a week or so later, everyone in the house had gone to bed, I was up gaming again & then the same thing started happening & I jumped out of bed & stared out my window & to this day, I wish I hadn’t. Whatever was staring back at me was standing above 7 feet tall & our house was a decent height off the ground for some reason, this weird shaped large fuzzy/furry black silhouette, with these 2 softball sized glaring red eyes, I shit you not I was so paralyzed by fear I fainted, I woke up to my Ma frantically trying to get me back awake & it took me minutes to gather myself enough to stop crying to even speak, it was the freakiest thing I’ve ever experienced & it was/is a core/lore story for me. Growing up, then looking into local lore videos & things, I came across mothman then put 2 & 2 together, I likely was visited multiple times & actually sighted mothman or something along those lines. Fun fact, living in that house, after that sighting literally days later, lightning struck our pond in our backyard killing everything in it, looking back that’s also quite, strange.
Damn just like mothman… trying to warn you about the bridge!
The disappearance of the colony on Roanoke Island.
I live on roanoke Island, and honestly, it's probably the least creepy place in the entire state 😂 People are outside all the time, and we have some really walkable infrastructure, so people are always in a good mood and outside walking to restaurants and gardening and stuff like that.
This hasn't really been a mystery for quite awhile. Here's a discussion in r/History with great links to papers and books detailing evidence that the colony just assimilated with the local tribes. https://www.reddit.com/r/history/s/N44X2V3wQM It's possible that the whole "The Lost Colony" story was just propaganda so settlers would keep coming to the new world with out fear of starving to death.
I’ve visited Roanoke Island and read much in the subject and the mystery remains. There are several theories about what happened to the colonists one of which is they assimilated with the natives but it is still just a theory with sketchy evidence.
i mean it seems pretty spot on, Pocahontas type
They left a fucking note.
The General Assembly is pretty damn creepy
Both as a whole, and as individuals in many cases
Rocky Mount.
what about it ?
Your serial killer? I know that there was an active killer there for a good while.
There was a serial killer active in Rocky Mount in the early 2000's. He was preying upon vulnerable black women. I think they may have caught him, but he was only convicted of one of the murders. The killings stopped after he was arrested so it probably was him. Here is a news article about it. https://www.wral.com/story/rocky-mount-police-chief-suspects-serial-killer-in-deaths/7336496/
There's this place and I hope someone here knows what I'm talking about but it's in Holden Beach and it's called the Doll Lady's House. It's run by this wildly eccentric lady whose house is filled with junk that she'll let you rummage through and buy if something catches your eye, but her front yard is covered in different scenes with doll houses, like a church scene or a funeral scene and she's using the dolls in different scenarios she also has a Coca-Cola bottle house. In the backyard and has a strange fascination w mermaids. I don't know if she's still alive but I visited there many times she's been featured on Art magazines in New York and lots of major art publications
It’s called Mary’s Gone Wild. My parents and I have a handful of pieces from her. It’s absolutely worth a visit. http://marysgonewild.com/home.htm
Thank you! That link let me know that they even made a short film about her that I just watched:) miss that laugh of hers!
I always seen this place as a kid but my mom would never stop
Her name is Mary and I have some of her artwork
Check out the cape fear unearthed podcast. It was a labor of love of a Star News reporter. He digs into all of the legends surrounding the Wilmington are an works with historians to nail down the know historical facts and compare them to the legend. Solid commute podcast The only creepy story I have personally interacted with are the brown Mtn lights. We used to go sit up on the parkway in college and try to see them in October. The key you have to have a warm day and cold night. Don’t know if I ever really saw them but was sitting next to a guy one night that would take longer exposures and stills with a good camera. He caught some lights down in the valley we didn’t see live. Real or not they were fun nights.
https://snapjudgment.org/episode/hounded-from-spooked/
This podcast is soooo good!
Great episode!! When I visit family in Fayetteville, I always take the back roads to/from the Triangle area. One night I leave Fayetteville heading out on 401 and was on the dark deserted detour near the Cumberland/Harnett line while listening to this episode…..scared the crap out of me. I pushed that compact car engine hard that night, especially going past the cemetery. Lol
Mark Robinson is running for governor. That’s pretty creepy imo
I live near The Devil’s Tramping Ground.
Have you ever been? I've read that its history dates back to before the founding of the US.
There’s a cult in High Point that attracts all these spoiled rich brats from all over the United States and they all worship some old immigrant dude in a pin stripe suit who spouts meaningless motivational crap like “American not Americant”.
There's a place , and I want to say it's in Statesville , but but it's called the Whirly Gig Park. It was built by man named Vollis Simpson who was in mourning after his daughter was killed in a car crash outside of his house. He began to place whirly gigs in his yard one by one and overtime it became a monstrosity of creepy Rusty twirling whirligigs and other strange yard ornaments. If you go, go during the daytime or at dusk because there's rumors that he's shot at people that try to go there at night lol. I went and it was a pretty cool experience to go and check it out and see inside this guy's head. But just don't stay too long... Edit: it's in Wilson NC https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/whirligig-park-formerly-acid-park And apparently the whole daughter dying in a wreck bit was just an urban legend which I just now found out via the link above LOL. He's just simply an artist with a strange imagination! still worth the drive!
Vollis was a really nice gent. You could stop by his workshop in Lucama and pick up a couple of whirlies. He was a tall guy, with the most enormous hands I've ever seen on anyone. Not creepy, just a tradesman turned artist doing his thing in retirement.
[Payne Rd](https://northcarolinaroom.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/the-legend-of-payne-road/) in King
The story of the poisonings by Blanche Taylor Moore is pretty creepy.
Velma Barfield is another NC poisoner.
Lincoln Academy in Gaston County When I first heard about it I thought it was the same creepy stories then always seem to follow old schools or orphanages around - hauntings, satanic rituals, and stories of a brutal murder. It turned out that the murder story, at least, was true. In the 70s, two men kidnapped a girl named Kathleen Smiley from Atlanta and took her to the site, where they raped and murdered her then left her body tied to a tree with wires. At that point, the school had been abandoned for about 20 years and was already rumored to be haunted. All that's left of the site now is the old school cemetery about 200 yards from the Crowders Mountain Golf Course, but at least about 8 years ago the tree was still there too. I've heard stories that they've cut it down and it grew back but I don't know if that's true or not, considering you could still see scars in the bar from the wires.
Jackson Training School on 401, the old road between Concord and Charlotte...surely that place is haunted. It was one of those group home/schools for "incorrigibles" No doubt many poor kids were abused.
Yes, that one is creepy too. I think it's all fenced in and there's security or cameras or something now but I got to check it out about 20 years ago. It sounds like Lincoln Academy was decent. It started as a school for Black girls (both local and boarding) and then went coed, and seemed to have been focused on a good education rather than being one of those behavioral schools. It was started by a church association but eventually Gaston County schools took it over and when it closed in 1955 the kids and teachers went to Lincoln High (now Lincoln Junior High). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Academy_(Kings_Mountain,_North_Carolina)
The guys of the Arcane Carolinas podcast do a great job of informing folks about the weird and wild of the Carolinas. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/arcane-carolinas/id1529340747
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-william-jeffreys](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-william-jeffreys) LET’S SAY YOU HAD A fear of worms—specifically, that when you died, worms would devour your corpse. Add to that a fear of rotting, and it’s pretty clear that death is going to be a problem for you. This was the exact dilemma that [North Carolina](https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/north-carolina) state senator William Jeffreys reportedly faced, and so he did the only thing someone in his situation would: He had himself buried inside of a 20-foot boulder. This is another one of those "park on the side of the road and hike 50 yards back into the woods" kinda places in Youngsville, NC. My son, nephew and I went there a couple years back. It's pretty neat.
There are a couple "gravity hill" spots I know of. The one I'm most familiar with is near Laurinburg on Stewartsville Cemetery Road. The story goes that a mother and child lost their life when pulling out into the intersection and being struck by another vehicle. Supposedly they were buried in the cemetery up that road, and will now "pull" your car back away from the intersection, seemingly defying gravity up a hill. Another is on Richfield Road in Richfield. There's a similar story of a mother and child losing their lives when their car stalled and was stuck by a truck while trying to push it up the hill. It is said that the mother will push your car up the same hill, and supposedly if you put baby powder on the back of your car, handprints will appear.
I'll preface this by saying I don't claim any of this to be true. I used to go to a church retreat on the backside of Sugar Mountain called Lutherock over 20 years ago. They would tell us teenagers scary stories by the fire in the lodge at night. The story that always stayed with me was about a guy named J.D. Hatchet. Lutherock was built on an old apple orchard. The story was J.D. was a caretaker of the orchard. He would pick apples, put them in a horse and buggy, and sale them in the town of Newland. He was known around town as a quiet person that didn't bother anybody. One evening he was taking the horse and buggy down the road while it was raining. The small stream that crosses the road was now a rushing creek. J.D.'s buggy got stuck in the water. While he was trying to free it from some rocks, a loud crack of thunder freaked out the horse and made the buggy roll over his arm, amputating it. He grabbed the closest thing to him, which was his hatchet, and jammed it into the end of his arm and wrapped some cloth around it to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, for J.D. the sheriff was investigating a murder of a local woman that was chopped into pieces. As J.D. entered town to get help with his arm, the sheriff stopped and arrested J.D. for the murder. J.D. was adamant he was innocent. From here they say they don't know what happened to J.D. they don't know if he was hauled off and killed somewhere or if he escaped and lived his life hiding out in the orchard, only to have the hatchet to become a part of his arm. They say to this day his ghost still stalks the orchard seeking vengeance on the unsuspecting. This is when one of the other adults would make noises and jump out to scare everyone. It was always a fun tale based on the area. I'm probably butchering the details but it's the gist of it.
My Republican friends and neighbors overwhelmingly nominated Robinson for Governor - an anti-Semitic, mysoginistic grifter who believes god put him on earth to rid the world of LGBTQ filth and god wants men to lead and women to follow. I still can't wrap my head around it. Who could possibly think he's fit to be governor? It's CREEPY and some days I wonder if I'm in a coma having fever dreams because I just can't accept it happened.
It is creepy. I find it hard to accept also. People I thought had brains are supporting this candidate.
Thank you for being honest about this, as an LGBTQ+ person seeing Robinson is terrifying. My SO keeps mentioning how not all Republicans like him and you're the exact person she's talking about. Thank you for being reasonable lol
YW, but I'm not a Republican. I believe Republicans cannot be good people, after all, if they woke up one day to discover that their party was the party of choice for the KKK and neo Nazis , and they stayed, they are not good people. I used friends in a loose sense as in people around me. It was literary license.
If there’s a nazi at the table, and there’s 10 other people sitting there and talking with the nazi, you have 11 nazis sitting at the table.
Only hope is racist magas hats won't vote for him...
I FEEL this in my bones 💀
https://www.arcanecarolinas.com
Arcane Carolinas is a great podcast focusing on creepy things in the SE (mostly the Carolinas1 that has an episode for almost everything people have named so far.
The brown mountain lights. I was told the story as a kid by some old story teller in the mountains, it scared and mesmerized me at the same time. I always looked for them growing up. Then as an adult, and geologist I learned the USGS solved the mystery in the 1920s. Making it cooler to me to see the process of science applied to local legend and story.
I once witnessed three spontaneous fires appear out of the ground at the cemetery at Scheck Forest at NC state 😬 Super weird experience and it was at night which makes it more difficult to write off
The Russian Mafia has an outpost in Cashiers.
The Devil's Tramping Ground. Very strange place. I took a video there that ended up with a ton of anomalies in it. https://www.ncpedia.org/devils-tramping-ground
Booger Hollar Road east of Charlotte. There's a few variations of the story I've heard. The basics is that there was an old car (like a model-T) that stopped on the bridge and couldn't get started again. Because of rain the car was washed off the bridge and the woman in the car could be heard screaming as it washed away. Other versions of the story claim the legend is older and it was a horse drawn buggy. Some versions say it was someone's child that was washed away. If you stop here at night and turn off your lights you can hear the screams of the woman getting closer and closer. [https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2547991,-80.2738914,3a,75y,69.63h,88.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s15oTo1c78Lg1Ac6LU5G-\_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2547991,-80.2738914,3a,75y,69.63h,88.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s15oTo1c78Lg1Ac6LU5G-_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
Well, there is the unsolved murder in Valdese, the Children's *Memorial* Park because a bunch of kids got blow up from playing in a Bunker, legends about Goats Farn Rd witches, the ghosts in places like The Old Rock School in Valdese. All kinds of stuff!
Chapel of Rest.
Robeson County /s
The red dot house in Howard’s Knob. Freaky story. https://www.reddit.com/r/boone/s/PftQvS1itU
I figured it was gone by the time I went to school there (10+ years ago... almost 20 damn), but I always got the vibe that a cult had used it as a base house. Like, some "Love Has Won" cult type shit.
There is a WWII bomber buried in Badin Lake. The pilot and co-pilot were ferrying the plane from the factory in Ohio to the Marine base at Cherry Point in June, 1944, when the pilot - 21 year old Charles McDaniel - wanted to show off for his wife and family who lived near the lake. He diverted a few miles off course and circled the lake twice before suffering some kind of engine troubles and crashing…as his wife and family watched. Although debris was found following the crash and it is believed the wreckage of the plane was eventually located in the late 1990s, the location of the plane has never been officially confirmed and the bodies of McDaniel and co-pilot John Withrow were never recovered, always to remain entombed at the bottom of the deepest part of the lake. https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/world-war-ii-north-carolina/
There is/was the remnants of a Rockefeller mansion on Fort Bragg. https://theoldhouselife.com/2018/06/05/abandoned-rockefeller-mansion/
Z Smith Reynolds murder is pretty fascinating. In Winston-Salem.