Beyond The Bridgewater Triangle: ghost stories

Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts

Hey! Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone: An Unusual Bridgewater Triangle Haunting

By Kristen Good

In January of 1886, a Middleboro schoolhouse temporarily closed its doors due to panic over a ghost. The ghost--believed to be that of a young boy who died from traumatic injuries after a "severe flogging"-- had a reputation for helping children who were in danger of being punished by the teacher, even assisting the children in solving math problem by writing out the arithmetic in phantom writing mysteriously appearing on the chalkboard. But when Miss Nancy Butler--a young woman who lived a short distance from the school--claimed that the ghost chased her home from work one night, joining her as she passed by the small school house, the children's fear grew into an all out panic.

One local newspaper reported on January 28, 1886, "Miss Nancy Butler, a young woman living a short distance below the school house, tells her shop mates at the straw works that no longer ago than one week the ghost escorted her while passing down the road by the school house lat in the evening. She was frightened at the sight of the goblin, all in white, and ran, and the ghost pursued and "chased me home she declared excitedly. Many times the school bell has been rung in broad daylight when no one was in the hallway at the bell rope."

Middleboro area residents claimed to have seen a lamp glowing in the midnight hours in the school room, only to look in the windows and see a young boy diligently studying at his desk. "Stories are told of late passers by in the dead of night who have seen a light in the school room, and at intervals, the bell would ring out sharply--always one single stroke--that then the dim form of a boy dressed in white and carrying a lighted lamp would be seen to walk about the school room, and finally seating himself at ta desk, would place the lamp upon it and bend over as if in deep study." Witnesses claimed that daytime of appearances of the spirit boy would always be in particular spot of the in hallways, always with a a beam of light coming out of him. But at night, witnesses claimed described him as "traditional goblin, dressed in white and of extremely ghoulish appearance."

"In the meantime numberless stories are told of the pranks of this spirit of a boy said to have died soon after having received a severe flogging at the hands of a pedagogue. It is related, that on several occasions in a single night, or after the school had been closed for the Saturday holiday and over Sunday, when the school room was opened to the morning the black boards were found to be covered with elaborate designs in scroll work and lettering in a peculiar handwriting entirely different from anything seen on those board at any other time. Sometimes an example of in arithmetic that had puzzled some dull scholar to the verge of desperation would thus be found clearly demonstrated upon the board in the morning, and would be recognized by the scholar at once as intended for his or her befit and would doubtless prevent some punishment from being inflicted. In this way the ghost came to be recognized as a friend of the unfortunate but deserving scholar, who stood in the wrath of a teacher inclined to be unjust or severe."

Amazon.com Widgets

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into...the Twilight Zone." If there is any place that one could compare to the Bridgewater Triangle, the Twilight Zone would be it. The stories that hail from this bizarre area as strange and diverse as story lines from the "Twilight Zone!" Here are some of the creepiest stories eye witnesses have ever sent to me.

2014

Now, let me go with this. I am a writer and a student, in a way, of the Hockomock Swamp. I have attached here a link to a story I wrote on the swamp that ran in Boston Globe South a number of years ago. I have also attached here a photo of a path through the swamp. I know about the fascination people across America have with the Hockomock Swamp, and the Bridgewater Triangle, in which the swamp is located. I know many, many people believe weird things take place in the swamp. But I have to say this, I don't believe that anything paranormal or extrasensory takes place in the swamp. Then again, let me come clean. About 1:45 this morning, I was driving east along Rte. 106/Foundry St., probably a few hundred yards before the intersection of Foundry Street and Prospect Street. And, then, something ... raced ... from right to left across my view ... so that would be something running from the neighborhood of the Hockomock Swamp across my view .. that looked like, well, a razorback hog ... but we don't have razorback hogs up here, right? Very interesting.
I was just past Colleties Market in Raynham, heading towards 138. It looked like a quick bright flash if light in the sky... And then was gone... Like someone in a dark room turned a flashlight on and then off again...I actually saw a helicopter shortly after. It was dark. I couldn't tell the color, but my eyes were on the sky!

2013
I wanted to share something odd that happened to me about a month ago. As I was trying to fall asleep, I was lying on my back, looking towards my window to my left. A man was trying to look out the window. (I had my blinds closed, I noticed he had a white tee shirt on and was either bald or had very thin hair...he was moving up and down back and forth trying to see something. I thought at first it was my dad but he would have knocked before coming in and it was around 4 am. When it hit me that it could not be my father the “man” evaporated into an eggshell white color smoke.  It rose quickly to my ceiling. I remember two wisps of smoke licking my ceiling before it went into the ceiling.

2012
I used to live in West Bridgewater. I am very familiar with the Hockomock Swamp. I’ve gone pretty deep out there hunting. But me and a buddy of mine were camping out off the town river one day and there must have been at least 20 of these crazy shaped aircrafts with different crazy lights go over head, just above the trees. They weren’t that high up at all. WE could not figure out what they were, they were silent, made no sound, and were not normal aircraft. Just puts into mind that there are strange things among the Hockomock Swamp.
There are Army helicopters that fly over REALLY low over the parking lot of the school I teach at in Brockton (East Side) Sometimes we see men hanging out of them. The WHOLE SCHOOL sees this! Yeah! Try teaching a class and hearing/seeing the helicopters flying low over the parking lot/house.
It happened like one or two times. I’d be by myself in the swamp near the Prospect Hill Extension. Sundown during deer season is usually between 5 and 6 p’clock. I went to deer stand and in the swamp it and it seemed to get dark like an hour before it should have. I’d walk back to the street and it would still be light out.
I camped on the island in the Nip once with a friend and my friend all of a sudden felt suicidal and went blank and he tried to walk into the water. I had to stop him. Another time on the beach at the Nip, a friend and I were camping we felt the presence of like a dog. I've heard the term hellhound but it had red eyes.  When I would approach it, it would be behind me somewhere and then move again. It seemed huge. It was not of this world.
I lived in that area for over 17 years. I grew up in the swamp exploring the swamp every day. But I always got this weird feeling that I was being watched when I would be coming back form the deerstands  after sundown.
On September 16, 2012, Benoit witnessed a very bright stationary light that she focused on because of its unusualness. It was too bright to be a star and definitely not a plane. Others in the area saw the same thing in the sky that night between 8:45 and 9:10 that night. “When I was leaving work at about 8:45 there were three black helicopters flying low toward the direction of the light. I must say it was the first night I ever had an eerie feeling driving near those woods. (Route 105/Halifax/Middleboro line.
Tonight at 9:15 while traveling on Slab Bridge Road heading home a large orb like light (larger than a bird and quite bright like a meteor) passed over the road from tree top (arched) to tree top and disappeared. This was just before we passed the entrance of the Freetown State forest. My daughter has seen many unusual things happen on this road at night. This one gave me goose bumps, and we both saw it at the same time. Any idea as to what it could have been?

2011
My cousin and her friend claim they saw something right after Halloween. They were in Brockton, close to 24 and the West Bridgewater/Easton line. They were outside and they said the sky turned turned green all of a sudden. It was after dark, so the sky had been pitch black beforehand. Around the same time, her sister was inside and said the power flickered off and then on.
I spotted a shiny saucer about 2 miles away on the 30th of December 2011 floating over south Weymouth, it was a Friday morning and as I did every morning I got ready for work, went to the bus stop and waited for the MBTA. I was in east Weymouth watching at the sky (because I was bored killing time) around 7:55 A.M I glanced up at the sky and saw something that had been reflecting a glare from the sun, I thought it was a plane at first but upon further examination I concluded it was a saucer shape, and was metallic. It stayed for about 2 minutes, and then I glanced away to attempt to re-adjust my eyes the object vanished. If anyone saw the same thing on the same\or close to the 30th please contact me, I’d like to learn more!
Hi! I am Michelle's friend! Yesterday afternoon my husband and I saw a UFO hovering over 106 on the Plympton/Halifax line. It looked almost clear and then it disappeared..Had it been a plane or helicopter it wouldn’t have been gone like that!! Sky was clear blue. Had I not been driving I would have took a picture...very strange experience!
I don’t know if it’s part of the triangle, but I’d say about six years ago, my brother-in-law and I were coming back from Attleboro. We were heading East on the same stretch of road going through Plainville we came upon a  stretch of road with fairly  new homes....on the way back,  looking out the car window on the side with the homes on it. Just as I was looking, my brother-in-law says, “Where are the houses? The ones we passed on the way here? Somehow we skipped the houses we had seen

2010
I was walking back from Marciano Stadium, and I was looking over towards the Asiaf skating rink, when I saw a really bright light... without blinking lights a plane would have. I pointed it out to my friend who was with me and we both watched as it as it sped up and disappeared. I talked to a few other friends about it, and two of them admitted to seeing it as well.
1989
Location: Bridge Street, Bridgewater / East Bridge Water line (just around the corner from CN Smith Farm) I grew up in Whitman on Pleasant Street with access to wooded areas with rivers, swamps and old homes built before the Civil War and older. I say that to say that I have had my share of creepy, weird places which may or may not have had spiritual influences… good or bad. I do not consider myself a psychic but someone who discerns. I have been able to discern when someone has committed suicide in a structure without having any prior knowledge or history. I have had visions, heard demonic voices and seen demonic manifestations, it is not something that I look for but it is something that finds me. I was visiting a close friend of mine’s house that was set back off of Bridge Street, nestled behind trees and undergrowth that had a long drive-way running through it. The property was large and reached back as far as the Matfield River and had swamps and a small pond on it. I remember there was always an unsettling feeling about the wooded area and the pond, it always seemed dark even on the brightest day. There are also the remains of what seemed to be a very large brick structure, we were told that an explosion killed some people there many years ago but I have no proof of that occurrence. The two family dogs always acted strange and very protective when walking the paths to the pond in this area as if they sensed something that the rest of us did not. I distinctly remember walking to the pond with the dogs, one on either side of me and as we passed through two trees (which resembled an airport security metal detector) the dogs both stopped at the same exact time staring at something in front of us but I saw nothing. They didn’t growl, they didn’t move, they just stood still I thought it was a bit creepy and decided to return to the house and not go on my walk through the woods on that day. Just before midnight in mid-November I was spending the night, my good friend in his bed and me on the floor in a sleeping bag, the only light was that of the moon which filled the room. We talked about our favorite bands, hottest girls we knew and what things we wanted to accomplish before we were 40. What I am about to write changed my life and is still very real to me even now 22 years later. Something made a noise in those woods that was like nothing I had ever heard, it was like a scream and a roar mixed together with frequencies so low is rattled the windows and the floor that I was laying on. We both asked, “Did you hear that, what was that”? The both of us too afraid to get up and look out the window eventually fell asleep. In the days that followed we would experience things that can’t be explained without including the supernatural. We heard heavy footsteps running in the woods around us without ever seeing anyone or anything. I personally saw an eight foot humanoid shadow walk out of the woods, stop and turn and look directly at me, what happened next is unclear due to my running away like a small child who had seen a ghost. Then there was the 14 ft. white ghostly apparition that flew from one side of the yard to the other, it had a head and a tail (for lack of better terms) with a face that could not be described other than “fucking scary”! There is much, much more to tell but this is what I wanted to start with more than anything.
1980
Both my sisters went to Bridgewater State College and they were friends with some guy who went to school with them, but live in a house off campus. On April 24, 1980 as these guys were asleep thy heard and felt a crash. One of the guys ended up having a body fall on him in bed. He was screaming and his roommates rushed in to his room turned on the lights and saw a charred body lying on him they could actually smell the burned flesh and then it just disappeared!
1972
I want to relay this story about, for the lack of a better term, “Bigfoot” sighting me and my best friend Dave had in September 1972 in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. The date was Friday, Sept. 29^th, 1972 at about 7:30 pm. Dave and I were 14 years old at the time and had known each other since 1^st grade. What happened that night is as follows: Dave’s family just moved to a new neighborhood they were building behind my street (Courier Street). His family lived in my neighborhood before that. That’s how we knew each other for so long. We were walking around his street (Lintric Drive) which is a loop. We all hung up there because there weren’t many houses up there yet, especially on the farm side of his development and we went to school with other kids up there. We happened to run into his 15 year old sister who was babysitting one of the kids who lived there. The girl she was babysitting was about 6 or 7 years old. Dave’s sister wanted to go over to the old farm field and smoke a cigarette. The incident happed at the old farm field. The field was part of a large horse farm, but not kept up. The grass probably stood 3 feet high. The field was between my street, a new elementary school (Union Street Elementary School), and Lintric Drive. There was a pond in the field to one corner and woods on 3 sides. Other fields, heavier woods, swamps, and creeks went on for quite a distance plus there was a sandpit and the Old Swamp River out in those woods. Dave’s neighborhood was built over the dirt access road that used to be the right of way to the farm. Most of it was still there in 1972. We walked over to the farm field using the old dirt road. Because of the lights around the school, the field was quite brightly lit once your eyes became accustomed to the available light. The vegetation between the school and the field was low enough at that time to allow a lot of light into the field. We stood in a circle under one of the two large trees that stood on the field. I stood facing Dave, with the school to my left. Dave was busy talking to his sister when I heard or sensed something was with us in the field and at the same time it caught my eye. It was to the left of me, no more than 30 to 50 feet away! It was a large, hairy creature walking parallel to the school to my left. It kind of looked like a gorilla, but was huge. I remember it had huge shoulders and head. The shoulders looked to me like they were six to eight feet off the ground. The head just went into them, maybe with a slightly conical shape, with no real neck to speak of. Its arms were quit long and the legs short. It looked hairy, but was really just a dark shape against the lights of the school. It crept in short movements. By that I mean it put its arms out, hands down on the ground, and then moved its back legs forward about the same distance... I saw it do this a few times. I never saw it walk upright. Although the creature was silhouetted in the light, I could tell it was watching us. I believe it did not want us to see it and was trying to move quietly through the grass on the edge of the field. It did not make any sounds. It had large shoulders, no neck and a large head. The body was heavily built. The head profile looked like the “Bigfoot” in the 1967 Patterson film when it turned and looked at them as it walked away. Needless to say I must have looked freaked out and turn to look at Dave who also looked the same. I said to him,” do you see that” and he said “yeah”. We just started to run away up the dirt road by to his neighborhood. We didn’t even say why we were running to his sister. Naturally she and the kid ran when we did. Once we got safely back to Lintric Drive and stopped running Dave’s sister asked why we ran. When we told her, she called us a couple of jerks and thought we were trying to just scare her. She went back to the house she was babysitting at and Dave and I hung out in front of a house that was under construction, 94 Lintric Drive that boarded the field. There was a small strip of woods between the house and the field. It was right in front of the sighting spot. We wanted to go back and see if the creature was still there, but were too afraid. We heard some noise, wood banging or wood being knocked around at the house under construction and decided that it was in our best interest to leave the area and see if we could find some of our other friends to tell them what we saw and maybe to go back there "in force". As we were walking back to a house where our other friends usually were hanging out at, things got weirder if you can believe it. After walking maybe a couple of hundred feet we were in front of 69 Lintric Drive when the second strange thing happened that night. We had a beam or a ray shoot in front of us. It was higher than the tree tops, but went right across our path. It looked like a blacklight stretched across the sky because it was purple. It was bright but did not illuminate anything. It was almost like it was a solid rod of purple light. It actually hummed and had a feeling of power to it. Very strange! It lasted only a second or two, but truly shocked us. I’d say it was like 6” in diameter and shot across the sky like a laser beam. We lived less than a mile from the South Weymouth Naval Air Station which was active at the time. I would say the beam would have to cross over the air base and maybe even came from it. I lived around that base for over 30 years and never saw any beams come from the base before or after that event. I never saw anything like the beam or the creature again. We were always in those woods and fields AT ALL HOURS after that and never saw anything else strange or unexplained again. Although, my youngest sister saw a large UFO come in over the trees and hover over her car at the Union Street Elementary School in July 1983. She had 3 other people in her car and they all saw it. A year later a person I worked with described seeing a UFO in Weymouth, MA in July 1983 that matched my sister’s EXACT description! Unfortunately the farm field, woods, and sandpits are gone, all developed, although the field remains as a golf course. I cannot say if the creature and the light beam were related, but they happened within 10 minutes or less of each other. Dave and I always felt the creature was not of the world and the beam had something to do with it.
Non-Specific Year
I used to see the black helicopters all the time in West Bridgewater. They used to fly over the high school.
I'm a 4th generation Bridgewaterian. My great-grandfather had a friend who had a dairy farm back in the day (many, many years ago). His friend's fences started to fall apart one year, and every day he would find a few of his cows dead from suffocation due to all of the "quicksand" type mud holes out in the back section of the Hockomock Swamp. There is still a circulating legend that on certain evenings, when the moon is just right, you can hear the agonizing cries of drowning Holsteins, though there are no dairy farms in the area any longer.
When I was 14, my dad worked at the Murray Carver Cotton Gin building in East Bridgewater. Every weekend, we would do night man watch. He would send me out alone with time clock and the things I saw scared the hell out of me: Shadows, glowing yellow eyes, doors being opened, even though I had closed them tight. Now keep in mind that these doors were heavy steel sliding. This stuff went on until the company moved to Georgia.

Many of the "otherworldly" encounters people experience in Bridgewater Triangle happen on dark, wooded country roads. My very unique first experience of the Bridgewater Triangle happened on the midnight-darkened roads of Bridgewater, Middleboro and Lakeville. I knew nothing about the Bridgewater Triangle at the time.

It was 1989. I was living in Hanson and a new friend from Bridgewater and I went to movies in Brockton. I dropped her off around 11:45 and she gave me directions to the only gas station that was open, as I had just realized I was on empty. After driving for about 25 minutes I knew I was lost. Dreadfully lost. And was about to run out of gas at any second. I had no idea where I was, let alone where the gas station was. It was just one dark street after another. I looked at the gas gauge and now I was below empty. My heart was pounding and fear started seizing me. No payphones in sight. In the middle of nowhere. That is where my car was going to run out of gas.

Twenty-five minutes turned into an hour. And I had never been so scared in my life. Any second, this car was going to stall on one of these pitch black roads. I was running on fumes. The car slowed, but kept going. It was like I was being gently propelled along. I started praying Hail Mary’s to calm me. I must have said five hundred of them.

After one o'clock in the morning, I finally came to a road I recognized. Route, 18. I was in Lakeville, a town which I had never been to, but I had heard of. I started heading north to Whitman, which was about 20 miles away. From Whitman to my house, another seven or so.

I passed several gas stations, but they were all closed. I had no idea how my car was still going after all this time and all these miles. Adrenal rushing though me. Forty minutes later I was on my street, and then my car finally quit. I took my foot of the gas and let the car glide on its own. I rolled into my driveway and the car finally came to a complete stop: in my parking spot.

always attributed my little miracle to my prayers. But maybe something else heard my pleas for help that night. When I first learned of the Bridgewater Triangle about five years ago, my unexplainable experience that night in 1989 instantly came to mind. I have never heard of a POSITIVE bizarre experience like mine, but it happened. It happened to me. What happened to me simply defied physics. Something was protecting me and got me home safe that night. I felt it and knew it. But most people's experiences on the dark, wooded roads of the Bridgewater Triangle are anything but positive. Sometimes just "odd", these encounters are often times terrifying.

THE MOST FAMOUS ROAD GHOST OF THEM ALL: THE RED HEADED HITCHHIKER OF ROUTE 44

Experiences with roadside ghosts are a common theme in the Bridgewater Triangle. The most famous of all of these is the Red Headed Hitchhiker of Route 44, made famous by the local legends recorded by Rehoboth historian Charles Turek Robinson in his folklore cult classic, "New England Ghost Files." This menacing spirit is said to haunt the stretch of road of Route 44 at the Rehoboth/Seekonk town line. The ghost is said to have red hair, a beard, wears a red flannel shirt, has a “maniacal” laugh…and really, really likes messing with people.

The first red headed hitchhiker story dates back to 1969 and the legends span to the 1980s. My favorite red headed hitchhiker story happened in 1984. A local couple’s car broke down. The man told his wife to stay in the car while he tried to find a pay phone to call AAA. “I was hoping to find a house with a light on,” the man said.

“Suddenly I saw a man sitting on the side of the road. He was a sloppy looking guy, with red messy hair.” The man asked the stranger if he knew where the closest pay phone was. The stranger did not answer. The man asked him again, and again…and again. And still no answer. He just looked at the man with an odd grin. So the man asks the stranger if he is okay. The man said in Robinson’s book, “Suddenly, the man’s face got very strange. He stopped grinning, he twisted his mouth and I noticed that there was something wrong with his eyes. They were all clouded over--no pupils or anything--and all white.”

The man runs back to towards the car only to hear this crazy laughter behind him. He turns and looks and the guy is gone, but the laughing is still really loud, like he is still behind him. But the story gets weirder. When the guy gets back to his car he finds his wife standing outside of it, scared out of her mind. Apparently she had turned on the car radio while she was sitting there waiting when suddenly a creepy voice cut right through the song that was playing. It started taunting her, calling her by her name…and laughing hysterically.

Maybe the red headed hitchhiker finally caught a lift, because there have been no legitimate sightings since those stories initially laid out by Robinson. But the red headed hitchhiker isn't the only game in ghost town. Phantoms come in all shapes in forms in these stories of some older and some more recent tales of roadside encounters with ghosts. Some of these stories come from websites such as Cellar Walls by Chris Pittman and Ghosts of America. Others come from books such as Christopher Balzano's "Ghost of The Bridgewater Triangle" and Charles Turek Robinson's "New England Ghost Files." Some are first hand accounts. But they all happened on a dark wooded road at night. And I know first hand how terrifying it can be to drive those roads. I can't imagine seeing what these people reported seeing on one of those roads the night I should have run out of gas. I can't imagine their terror and what had to be immense confusion and fear at what they were seeing before their very eyes.

GHOSTLY ROAD RAGE

This story is so spooky, it sounds like an urban legend told to warn young teens not to stay out too late at night. A teenage girl takes a shortcut down a very dark country road late one night on the way home from her boyfriend's house. And is terrorized by a team of road ghosts.

"It happened to me in 1967. I was 16. I was taking a short cut from my boyfriend's house in Easton through East Bridgewater on a very dark wooded road on my way home to Weymouth. It was a Friday night. Just before I turned down the road which only had one street light at the time, there was a car behind me taunting me. They sped around me and went ahead of me. Later I got a creepy thought that they might ambush me in the middle of the wooded road.

I put the creepy thought out of my mind. But as I got to the one street light in the middle of the dark wooded road. There they were... a line of them on the street holding their arms up and intentionally waiting for me, blocking my path. I was horrified that what I had just imagined was actually happening to me. My foot slipped off the clutch and the car began to buck. I screamed a bloodcurdling scream that hurt my ears. Then a moment of self preservation kicked in just before the car stalled, I stepped down on the clutch and drove straight through them...literally.

Weird thing is, they did not let go or move out of my way. I clearly drove through them as them they were not there. I really did experience this. It felt so dark and frightening that I buried this experience and didn't tell anyone. I thought people would think I was crazy. Could someone please tell me why this happened? I felt like ghosts were trying to trap me there out in the woods on that dark night... It was horrifying to a young girl at 16.

I don't even know why I didn't tell anyone. Many years later I was dating this guy on the cape who started telling me about a friend of his who was with his girlfriend kissing in their car one night that someone had picked up the car and started shaking the car....I was listening to the story and all of a sudden wreaked and remembered what had happened to me that night long ago.I couldn't believe he was telling me this story. It had happened near the area where I had my horrible experience." www.ghostsofamerica.com.

PRISON DEMON

A mother and daughter are driving in the prison complex when suddenly they see that the road in insurpassable: a pine tree is down in the middle of the road. But as they get closer they see that this is not a fallen tree, but rather a living tree bent from the weight of a black winged creature standing on the top of it, causing the unnatural bending of the pine.

One Saturday afternoon a mother a daughter were driving in the Bridgewater Correctional Complex. What they saw that day will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Out of all the stories of the Bridgewater Triangle, this one has to be up there on the list of the most disturbing and bizarre. The first thing that they noticed as they approached "the thing" was a pine tree completely bent to the ground in the middle of the street. As they neared closer they saw what was causing such an unnatural occurrence. It was a black, man-like being with huge bat-like wings standing on the top of the tree that was now on the street. The mother described it as looking like "a tall man hunched down a bit, in a skintight black suit with large and almost bat type wings. He was standing, but hunched down, on the pine tree, his weight was holding down the top. He saw us and we looked at each other for just a few minutes then he straightened, leaped and flew over the top of the trees on the other side of the road. The pine tree he had been standing on, bounced back up slowly, and rocked back and forth a few times before stopping in its normal standing position. That was all we saw."www.cellarwalls.com

GHOST RIDERS

On more than one occasion, apparitions have been seen riding spectral bicycles on the roads of the Bridgewater Triangle. These next two stories happened on different routes, but both happened in the same general vicinity. One happened on Route 106 in Halifax, the other not far on Route 105 in Middleboro.

Carlston Wood is a paranormal investigator who grew up in Bridgewater. More than once, the ghost of a a a bicycle riding on route 105 in Middleboro has appeared to him. Wood describes the apparition as appearing to be a young teenage girl wearing clothing that looks like they are from the 1950s. She is riding a bike from same era.

Wood has witnessed the apparition three times and all three times his car was the only one on the road at the time. All three times the conditions were the same: very dark and cloudy and in the dead of winter when the temperature is at freezing. "Over the course of many years I have seen girl on the bike three times but I have never stopped the car and ventured outside. Each time she peddles by on the opposite side of the street and looks straight ahead. Looking into the rear view mirrors the girl passes she fades away as quickly as she materializes."

Recently, Wood who is also a musician was in Raynham. After a band set, Wood got to talking with two fans, a local married couple. Somehow the story of the ghostly biker of route 105 came up and the girl turned to her husband, jaw dropped. The couple had seen the ghost before too and were shocked that someone else had witnessed this creepy apparition. "He saw it too!" The wife exclaimed.

Last summer, a local couple was traveling down route 106 in Halifax, which joins Route 105 where Carlston Wood had his experiences. The wife was busy texting and wasn't paying attention to the road when suddenly her husband pulled the car over.. She looked over at her husband who looked terrified. She was perplexed as to what had transpired in the last few seconds. At first the husband said nothing. After about thirty seconds he turned to her and told her he just "saw a ghost on a bike." He claimed the ghost and the bicycle were all white. Then drove across the route 106 and simply vanished.

THE MAD TRUCKER OF COPICUT ROAD

The legend is that the ghost of a mad truck driver has terrorized drivers of this dark road at night.

"I recently visited Copicut Woods and my friends and I drove through. There wasn't much that we experienced except the whole time, I had a strange, uneasy feeling. When we reached the end of the dirt road, we noticed that there were these bright blue headlights behind us. It looked as though they were coming from a huge truck. My friend mentioned how it looked like a Mack truck or something because it seemed so big. He said that it looked like it had orange lights on the top of it, which I didn't see. What was funny and creepy about the whole thing was that it wasn't behind us the whole time and as soon as it was behind us, it pretty much vanished. There wasn't a place for a car to pull over unless it pulled into a driveway at the end of the forest. The really weird thing was that we couldn't find our way to the road to get home, so when we turned around to go back through the path, we didn't see any large vehicle anywhere...in a driveway or anywhere in the woods. I researched about the woods and the mysterious lights the next day, which led me to this site. I was curious to know if anyone had any similar experiences or knew anything about it because it scared me."www.cellarwalls.com

Most residents of Taunton and Rehoboth frown upon the national attention their towns have gained as being among the most active paranormal areas in the country. Try visiting such famed haunted sites as Shad Factory Pond and Palmer River Burial Ground and neighbors will come right out their houses and ask you to leave. Residents will come right out and ask you what you are you doing there. They know exactly what you are doing here. But you feel you have to hide your agenda. You can try to tell them that you are bird watching or from a Historical Society, but they won’t buy it. The police that arrive about 30 seconds after you get to Taunton State Hospital seem a little more understanding of your curiosity, as long as you are polite and honest. But they still will demand that you leave…and in timely fashion.

Next, you want to next visit the famed Hornbine School in Rehoboth, a “haunted” site that makes it’s way into virtually every book and article about the subject of paranormal activity in Rehoboth. As recently as October 18th, ghost tours have visited the famed school. Here is a description of the alleged activity that takes place there from the masscrossroads website (one of the most comprehensive and well-organized sites on The Bridgewater Triangle):

"Rehoboth has several of its own haunted schools. The most notorious is the historic Hornbine School. Originally built in 1845 and enlarged in the 1920’s, the school has not been used to educate youth since the late thirties. The one room schoolhouse was restored in 1968 to celebrate the town’s 325th anniversary. Whether it was the renovation and the import of other desks and materials or just the added people coming in contact with the school, it has now become known as a paranormal hotspot. People hear noises, usually the laughter of children, coming from the area of the school and then find no one there when investigate. On at least one occasion a visitor to the town stopped by the school and watched a teacher dressed in period clothes teach a room full of eager students. When the teacher sensed his presence she turned to him, annoyed he had disturbed class. He then went inside to apologize and found no sign of the children or the angry teacher."

According to The Rehoboth Historical Society, there is no haunting, and a logical explanation for the "sighting." Each school year, grade schoolers attend class at the old school...the class all dressed in period garb. One day a local woman was driving by Horbine School when out of the corner of her eye,she thought she saw movement inside. So she turned around and pulled up to the school. Upon looking in the window, she saw the Rehoboth children on their annual field trip. It was a natural assumption. Especially if the light was right, the windows were dirty...I have no doubt that what this woman saw appeared supernatural.

Later that evening, the woman, disturbed by what she saw, returned to the school only to find it empty. Conclusion? Haunted schoolhouse. And there it is. That is how the legend started. And now, thank to Russell, it can be put to rest and crossed off the list of places to check out in The Bridgewater Triangle.

You have the most luck at Anawan Rock, which sits almost hidden off of Route 44 in Rehoboth. Blink as you are driving by and you will surely miss it. Luckily, no houses abut the most significant haunted landmark of The Bridgewater Triangle -- the very site that many paranormal investigators holds the key to unlocking the Bridgewater Triangle mystery. On August 28, 1676, the last Chief of the Wampanoag's surrendered to Captain Benjamin Church. Upon surrender, Church took King Philip's sacred belt and presented it to Church. The belt disappeared centuries ago. Some believe that until this belt is returned to the Wampanoag Tribe, the area of the Bridgewater Triangle will continue to be "cursed."

At Anawan Rock, you immediately spot three quick moving beams of light on the dark path that leads to the rock. It's not orbs or anything supernatural, though. It is three people running out the darkness as fast as they can. The first, a man somewhere in his fifties, is covered in sweat though it is September, ten o‘clock at night, and in the low 60s. You ask him if he saw anything. And he answers, “Oh…yeah…we…sure did.” And he waits to catch his breath. A younger man that is with him says, “We were just sitting on top of the rock, when all of a sudden it got real cold and we saw about 100 eyes floating over the rock watching us.” You are in shock. You can’t believe your luck. Adrenaline pulses through you. You ask them if they will go back and show you exactly where they saw the eyes.

They are still breathless from their experience on the rock. They tell you that the would consider going back into the woods, after but after they’ve recovered from their heart attack. They tell you this is not the first time that something supernatural happened at the rock during one of their visits. “We even once got an EVP! (electric voice phenonomen) We didn’t here anything at the time, but when we played back the tape we heard a guy’s voice say something like, 'netomp.' I wish we could figure out what that means."

“I know, I tell them. It is Wampanoag for “friend.” The three of them glare at one other, jaws dropped. “Okay, I’ll go back,” said the young man. “Me too, I’ll go,” said a girl about the young man’s age. A sigh comes from the oldest of the group. “Okay.”

You know the rock pretty well from your research. You know the exact spot where Chief Anawan was captured by Captain Benjamin Church, as he lay sleeping with his son. You are not surprised when the three people tell you that this is where they saw the eyes.

The discovery of The Bridgewater Triangle is attributed to leading American Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who coined the phrase in the 1970s in his correspondences in researching the area. In 1980, Boston Magazine published the first of many articles about the triangle written by Coleman himself. Rehoboth and Taunton were both featured prominently in the article.

Why Rehoboth? Why Taunton? The answer could be steeped in the bloody history of the colonial period. These two towns figure prominently in the monstrosities of King Philip's War. The gruesome acts committed here seem to hale straight out of a horror movie.

Picture the scene, June. 1675: The city of Rehoboth is burning, people are screaming. And there is King Philip, sitting peacefully in a familiar chair in the shadow of this horrific inferno, taking in the scene with glee. Just days ago, the chair sat by a cozy hearth in the home of a Rehoboth family who had considered Philip a family friend. King Philip had paid many visits to the home and always chose this one particular chair on which to sit. His admiration for the chair spurned the family to call it “King Philip’s Chair.“

Now King Philip’s chair is far away from that cozy hearth. King Philip’s first order of business when he reached Rehoboth was ordering his men to retrieve the chair from the abandoned house. He sits down in the chair and watches from his front row view, the burning of Rehoboth.

Flash forward. Now it is August 2, 1676. The war will be over in less than a month. King Philip’s wife and son are captured, to be sold into slavery in the West Indies. There is a great battle in a nearby swamp. There is slaughter on both sides.

Weetamoo, Indian Sachem Queen and Philip’s sister-in-law attempts escape over the Taunton River by fleeing across a fallen tree. She slips off into the wild current and drowns. The colonists fish her body out of the river and immediately get to the work of cutting off her head. They carry her head to Taunton, where they raise it upon a pole and parade it through the streets of Taunton. The Indians captured at Hockomock Swamp that day were temporarily imprisoned in Taunton around August 4th of 1676. The colonists took a great pleasure in taunting the prisoners with the once beautiful head of Sachem Squaw Weetamoo.

The Sachem Squaw Princess Weetamoo was a powerful woman--even before she became the wife of Philip's brother Alexander. The union of Alexander and Weetamoo was a very strong one. The strength created in the marriage of the Pocasset and Pokanoket tribes was no secret to the English and no doubt contributed to the suspicions toward Alexander which led to the conspiracy of his death in 1662.

Just before the death of Weetamoo, many of her Pocasset people were taken prisoner out of the Hockomock Swamp where they were taking temporary refuge from the Colonists. They were so frightened upon capture, that they surrendered without a fight. After all, these were not warriors. These were tribe's women, children and elderly. And they were weak from hunger and travel. The prisoners were marched to Taunton where a gully served as their jail. They were then forced to bare witness to the horror of the parading of Wetamoo's head upon a spike back and forth in front of there disbelieving eyes.

Weetamoo, flying with a small remnant of her people, took refuge in a dense swamp near Taunton early in August, but an Indian deserter, in order to ingratiate himself with the whites, carried the news to the people of that place on the 6th, and offered to lead a force to the encampment, which he declared was but a few miles distant. Twenty men immediately set out, and, surprising the encampment, took over a score of prisoners, but Weetamoo herself escaped. Attempting to cross the Taunton River near its mouth, on a raft or some pieces of broken wood, and either "tired or spent with rowing, or starved with cold and hunger," her strength failed and her naked body was brought to the shore by tide or current. Some days later, "someone of Taunton finding an Indian squaw in Metapoiset, newly dead, cut off her head, and it happened to be Weetamoo, squaw sachem, her head, which, placed on a pole and paraded through Taunton, was greeted by the lamentations of the captive Indians who knew her, crying out that it was their queen's head. "A severe and proud dame she was," says Mrs. Rowlandson, "bestowing every day in dressing herself near as much time as any gentry in the land." Such treatment meted out to the dead body of a white woman would have sent Mather searching the Scriptures for a proper characterization of the barbarity and wickedness of the act.

the Rev. Increase Mather, to cloth this sad story in language inhuman and almost devilish. In describing the event, he said, - "They made a most horrid and 'diabolical' lamentation, crying out that it was their queen's head." With all the horrific pain and suffering that was inflicted in the area during the war, it is no wonder it is such a paranormal soup of activity. Read More