September 5, 2025 • 45 mins
Join host Tony Sweet as he sits down with author, explorer, and paranormal storyteller Jeff Belanger to dive into his latest book, Wicked Strange: Your Guide to Ghosts, Monsters, Oddities, and Urban Legends from New England. From haunted lighthouses to mysterious creatures lurking in the woods, Jeff takes us on a journey through the strange, quirky, and spine-chilling legends that make New England unlike anywhere else. This episode is packed with folklore, history, and tales that locals whisper about—but only if they trust you. 👻 Whether you’re a fan of the paranormal, a lover of history, or simply curious about the oddities hidden in plain sight, this conversation will leave you ready to plan your own legend-hunting road trip. ✨ Tune in and uncover why legends matter, how they shape communities, and what they reveal about the human need for mystery.
🔗 Listen now on [Truth Be Told / Club Paranormal]
📚 Pick up Wicked Strange wherever books are sold!
#JeffBelanger #WickedStrange #ParanormalPodcast #GhostStories #UrbanLegends #HauntedHistory #MonstersAndMysteries #NewEnglandLegends #ClubParanormal #TruthBeToldPodcast
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/truth-be-told-paranormal--3589860/support.
🔗 Listen now on [Truth Be Told / Club Paranormal]
📚 Pick up Wicked Strange wherever books are sold!
#JeffBelanger #WickedStrange #ParanormalPodcast #GhostStories #UrbanLegends #HauntedHistory #MonstersAndMysteries #NewEnglandLegends #ClubParanormal #TruthBeToldPodcast
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/truth-be-told-paranormal--3589860/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, welcome back and welcome to the in beginning of
the Halloween season, Today, we're diving deep into the shadows
and secrets of New England with one of the leading
explorers of the unexplained. He's a best selling author, storyteller,
and one of the most reconnized voices in the world
of paranormal We've seen his work on television, heard him
(00:21):
on countless radio shows, and read his words bringing ghost,
monsters and mysteries to life. His brand new book, Wicked Strange,
Your Guide to ghost, monsters, oddities and urban Legends of
New England. It's not just a travel guide, it's an
initiative into a hidden world right under our noses. From
haunted lighthouses and cursed hotels to sea serpents, vampires and
(00:45):
even UFO crashes, Jeff takes us off the beaten path
and he reveals why New England remains one of the
strangest and most fascinating regions on Earth. Will get ready
to uncover the eerie tales, meet eccentric locals, and even
find out where we can experience these legends for yourself.
It's spooky, it's weird, it's wicked fun and guess what
(01:08):
I am, Tony Sweet with Truth Be Told, and please
welcome back to the Truth Be Told Studios, the one
and only Jeff Bellinger. All right, Jeff, it's only about
your fifteenth time on Truth Be Told. Every time you're
here you probably have a new book, and so I
don't know how you don't have like Fred Sanford's arthritis
(01:31):
from writing so much, but or typing so much. But
congrats on the new book.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Once in a while they get lucky and we just
put it out right right, Well, I can't take all
the credit.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Exploiting those monkeys, damn it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, first of all, I don't know where you constantly
get your inspiration to write all these different books and
TV shows and do the things you do on your podcast.
So let's jump right in and ask what inspired you
to write The Wicked Strange. But I have to say
I do love it that it's kind of like this
(02:03):
travel guide for people that don't get to because you know,
everybody goes to different cities and they're like, all right,
let's go to the Empire, state building and this and that,
but we don't hear about the odd oddities in the monsters,
in the ghosts that are in surrounding area. So what
inspired you?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, So the book was born first from the Newing
A Legends television series that I started on PBS back
in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We we didn't get any money for that. We literally
funded it ourselves. And it's you know, as you know,
it's very expensive and time consuming to make a TV
episode and and expensive because again I can't stress enough,
we got no money. And I don't mean I'm not
that's not hyperbole. I mean literally zero week.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So let's go go fundme to Gypno skidding, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, it's okay. I don't need a handout anymore. But
it's so But from there, I was like, man, I
love these stories. There's so many more we could do.
And so I started the Newing Legends podcast back in
twenty seventeen. And they're short scripted stories, right, We script
them like how did we get to right now? How
did we get to talking about this building being haunted
or this being a UFO hotspot, or this roadside oddity
(03:13):
or this eccentric person leaving a very strange mark behind.
And then we'd sort of unfold the story and also simultaneously,
for the last ten years, twelve years. Actually, my photographer
Buddy and I, Frank Grace. He and I have been
producing a Haunted New England calendar where he takes such
great pictures. There's one right behind you right now where
(03:34):
you're in the Mark Twain House, I can tell in Hartford, Connecticut.
So Frank tanks these amazing photos. And so we partnered
up to do this annual calendar and every year we
would change the months, change the stories. And I was like, man, Frank,
we got to do a book. I have all these
stories from the podcast, which are crowdsourced. At this point,
the audience writes in and says, oh, in my town,
we've got this strange little tale. And those are my favorite,
(03:57):
not the one I mean the ones everybody knows I
call it like play the hits. Those are great, right,
But I like the deep cuts on the album too,
And and so that really inspired us, and we said,
all right, let's let's do a book. His photos, my
stories culled from really the last you know, twelve thirteen
years of work, and that's what sort of brought this
(04:17):
all together. And you know, when you're talking about these
strange places, writing can take you so far. Photos can
take you so far, I mean, and putting them together
was just kind of natural.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Now, did you both go at the same time to
these locations to take pictures and you get the sense
of what's kind of going on? Or did you kind
of rely on the people, the locals to send you
the information and you did the research.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I well, sometimes the email was as much as like, hey,
there's these strange petroglyphs in my town, you should check
them out. Like that was it. It's all I had
to go on. And so then you start digging in
and I would do all the research. Rank and I
went together to lots of them because we've taken a
lot of road trips over the years. But some you know,
(05:07):
it was such a great story, he had to go
get the photo. In other cases he took such a
great photo, I had to do the story. You know,
mostly the story dictated the photo. But there were a
few occasions. So for example, we were doing this road
trip through Maine and we were going through this tiny
little town and there was a giant, old fashioned phone,
you know, with the thing hanging in the crank on
(05:28):
the side. Giant, I mean, I was twelve feet tall
and huge and I'm just like, I don't know, pullover,
we should photograph that. I have no idea what's going
on here, but let's just photograph it. So we were
there like all of five minutes. We photographed it and
left and sort of forgot about it. And then later
on I learned that tiny little town in Maine was
the site of the very last crank phone call in America,
(05:51):
the last cranked phone call, the last cranked phone call
in America. And the year is way later than you
would ever guess. It was like nineteen eighty and they
were they were the last ones to sort of hold
onto this old phone system. Literally party line. You could
pick up and hear your when I was a kid. Yeah,
(06:12):
so but it was really party line. There could be
twenty of you listening and uh. And I was like,
how great is that? And so they put it up
as a monument saying we were the last to go
down swinging with these old fashioned phones. You're onto touchtnes
and wireless phones and then cell phones, and they were
still cranking phones in Maine.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I love that I missed those days.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Skiddy, Right, Yeah, is your refrigerator running? You can't? Right,
everybody's got caller ID it doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I'm sure I am a little older than you.
I don't You probably didn't remember the the crank phone calls.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well actually, heck, yeah, dude fifty one.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh I guess wow you look good.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Wow, I'm selling the chasing weird things. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's yeah, No, I remember the is the refrigerator running
and calling? The bowling alley that had its little joke.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, and Mike, No, that's a different one. Sorry, that's porky. Right,
so let's move on from that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I know that one though, I know it, but we
won't say it because it's.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, I won't say friendly. Uh So, So some of
these sites that you went to, did either of you
kind of get an unsettled feeling? Because I know a
lot of people go to these locations. Some people are
a little more sensitive to you know, maybe there the
(07:31):
their psychic abilities are a little more than some other people.
But were you or Frank is out of his name, Frank? Yeah,
did you ever walk into a place and really get
an unsettled feeling? And where was that?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Rarely? But there was one in particular, there's this ancient
site in Connecticut called Gungeewomp. And what makes it so
interesting is that there's a bunch of stone ruins up
on this hill and there are there's a colonial foundation,
we know who lived there, is a colonial house, but
there's also monument stones that go back to Native American
times long before that, and stone structures that look like
(08:06):
it could have been like a root seller, even post colonial.
So there's I mean a couple thousand years of historic
markers up there, and we knew where it was, we
knew where to park. And then you take this trail
maybe half a mile three quarters of a mile into
the woods. And we started walking down the trail like
any other No big deal. We've been in the woods plenty.
We go buy a swamp, no big deal. But then
(08:30):
just as you take the hill that just gets you
up to this Gungeewomp site, there's this tree line, a
distinct tree line, and as soon as we crossed over it,
we both got silent and I looked at him after
you know, ten steps in, and I just went, man,
it feels different here, different here compared to ten feet ago.
I don't mean back at the car. I mean, wow,
we could just go back ten feet And He's like yeah,
(08:51):
it is weird. And then you come up around the
corner and there's all the stone monuments and there was
there's a stone circle. There's this one stone huh that's
got a tiny window. It's mostly built into a hill.
And when the sun it's either like the sunset or
the sunrise hits that stone and a cornerstone it marks
the solstice. Oh and yeah, so someone built this with
(09:14):
a lot of intention. And it's a tiny little room.
I mean it's it's smaller than my office. You know,
is this tiny little stone hut? Not good for much,
not good for shelter or anything like that. And you go,
why did they need to know the solstice? I mean,
I assume attached to farming or something like that. But
a very mysterious sight. And we both got the same feeling.
And then when we left the tree line it was okay.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
But what was the feeling? Was it a fear? Was
it just overwhelming? Was it a anxiety?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think the best description would be we were trespassing. Now,
we weren't the hell out, but it felt like we
were sneaking onto someone's property. We shouldn't be there, and
if we get caught, we're going to be in trouble.
That was not the case, but that's what it felt like.
It felt like someone we shouldn't we shouldn't be here,
We're not allowed to be here, and someone could be
(10:04):
watching for us.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So what was the background of that.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So so well, there's petroglyphs on some of these old
standing stones, so we know it was a somewhat of
a sacred site. And the thing about Native Americans in
New England is they didn't mess with the stones too much.
Even though it is an abundant resource. I promise we've
got rocks everywhere. They didn't really mess with them on
the whole. They built structures that could be taken down
(10:30):
and moved. Yet there's these carvings on these rocks and
no one really understands what they were for. There's a
stone circle. Some suggest that was used for tanning leather. Maybe,
you know, maybe that's the case, or maybe it was something.
I mean, when you go up there, Tony, it's like
right out of pet cemetery, you know. I mean, it's
on the top of the hill, lots of trees now,
(10:51):
But at the same time there's these weird stone circles.
The foundation. We know was just a colonist, someone had
a little house there, and then the house is gone
but the foundation remains. That's pretty straightforward. And then that
stone hut with the window that marks the solstice. We
don't know. And that's what's so strange about this site
is that it's been left alone. Nobody ever came in
(11:13):
and destroyed it. It's just left as it was for
many centuries. And now you can go and explore it
for yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That's pretty amazing that it's kind of untouched, where I
have to say America in a lot of ways that
people like to tear things down build new. So I'm
impressed that that did not get touched at all.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it's it's conservation land and so they've they've left
it and and you know, there's there's an interpretive center
that's not too far away. They can tell you about it,
but there's just not much that's known. But I love that,
And this is this speaks to New England in general.
We tend to preserve history. We tend to like like,
if you go to that site, I can't imagine anyone saying, yeah,
(11:55):
let's tear this down and put in another dunkin Donuts right, right,
I think we just we just understand for reasons we don't.
We can't fully explain we're going to leave that alone.
We're going to leave it as it is.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Do you think that's why New England has such fertile
ground for you know, all these hauntings and legends and stuff,
because of the preservation of history.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's absolutely part of our culture. I grew up in
small towns where if you owned a house on main
street and you wanted to paint it, you have to
ask the town's permission if you want to change the color,
because it's there's such an effort, and you understand that
when you buy it, by the way, they don't they
don't pull that on you, right, there's such an effort
to preserve our towns. In my town, they were so
(12:43):
meticulous about painting our town hall this particular shade of yellow.
They found some very old boards and they said, this
was the original color. We now have to make it
that original color. And they went through a lot of
effort just to paint a building. And it's a beautiful
old town hall. It was a meetinghouse and everything else.
But that's that's our way we preserve and we also hibernate,
(13:03):
we get some pretty cold winters, so I think I'm
sure that combination. You know, we've got these puritanical sensibilities
and yet we were storytellers and we preserve. So when
you drive down our main streets, that's what it looked
like one hundred and fifty years ago, and you understand, right,
and also were a matter of fact, oh that house
is haunted. That one isn't. Let's not argue about it.
(13:26):
It's not a big deal, and it's just okay, good
enough that one's haunted.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
How did you and I'm sure you did encounter many
stories that were haunting, that were titled hauntings, but you
went in and found out it was more community folklore.
And how did you How did you determine yourself what
was which was which? Because I'm you know, I've I've
heard that, oh, that's house is haunted, but you walk
(13:53):
in and you're like, I don't feel anything at all.
So how do you how did you determine what was what?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah? So so the book, first of all, we don't
just cover hauntings. You know, We've got UFO sites, we've
got roadside on it, we've got eccentrics, you know a
little bit of all the weirdness, the fringe, the fringe stuff.
So sometimes, you know, a legend is just is just that,
and all we can do is sort of take a
snapshot of it. You know, you can't explain it now,
(14:21):
you know as well as I do. If a building
has a haunted reputation and you go in there one
night it doesn't and you don't experience anything, it doesn't
mean it's not haunted. It means nothing happened that night. Va. Yeah, right,
I mean, you know, it's it's that's always boggling to
me when someone's like, yeah, I went in for five minutes,
I didn't see anything. Could have been the wrong five minutes.
(14:45):
But yeah, sometimes, but for me, I still wonder why
are we keeping these stories around? Because that's how I
find out about them. I only find out about them
because the community keeps them around, keeps talking about them,
and it's enough, there's enough truth in it that people
tell and tell the story, and then when you go
there to experience it, you become part of the story,
(15:05):
which is the most egocentric thing all of us can do.
You know, like we're like, you know what they say
that's on it, or they say there's a monster in
that lake. I'm going swimming. I'm gonna go look for it.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I would too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Right, that's that's how we're that's how we're cut. Right,
that's the tree we fell out of. So yeah, so
we go and we look at the lake, and we
go to the cemetery and we knock on the cursed
headstone three times at midnight like you're supposed to, and
and we wait and maybe the witch jumps out, maybe
she doesn't, But that doesn't mean something didn't scare the
hell out of someone somewhere along the way.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, we talked about, you know, having the overwhelming filling
once once you walked into this one location. Was there
one that was actually more just fun that you just
really was looking forward to seeing because it just seemed
like it would be really entertaining or just a hoot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You've heard of Stonehenge, of course, Yeah, of course I've
been there. It's an incredible, mysterious place. There's a place
in New Hampshire called America's Stonehenge, not nearly as big,
but there's these alignment stones around and they call it
America's Stonehenge because it seems to be an ancient astronomical calendar. However,
the henge I would like to tell you about is
in Massachusetts, and it's called pony Henge, pony Hinge. It
(16:25):
dates all the way back to the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
This up, okay, pony Henge.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Something happened. There's a farmer who owns some land right
by this this road in Massachusetts, and one day, you know,
the child's rocking horses with the old springs. When we
were kids, we got our fingers caught in the springs
and it would hurt like hell. Remember, someone dropped off
a couple of those, and the farmer just went, that's odd,
and instead of throwing them away, he just kind of
(16:56):
arranged them. And then two became five, and then five
became ten, and people just kept dropping them off. Some
people would steal them, but more kept arriving, and the
farmer would arrange them in different patterns. Sometimes he had
to move them all to cut the grass, and then
he would put them back. And now it's called pony
Henge and people stop by every day to just take
(17:18):
pictures of this weird roadside oddity that was born for
reasons we'll never understand, but something happened, someone did a
thing and left these these old rocking horses, and someone
else left another one and another one and another one,
and you're free to do so today you can drop
off your own there it is. Tell me that's not
the most fun you could have on like an Outing
America Stonehenge. And now I've been to Pony Henge.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That's funny. So yeah, how did you cause I'm sure
you received so many different people suggesting did you pick
like a top ten, a top twenty? How did you
pick these locations? Because I'm sure you could write probably
four or five thousand books about what's not just in
(18:03):
New England alone.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So part of the challenge, we
knew we wanted stories from each of the six New
England states. We wanted to be fair, so the same
number of stories from each of the six New England states.
And then also, you know, you can't just have like
all haunts in Maine and all cemeteries in Connecticut, so
we wanted to make sure we had a UFO story
in each of the six states. We had a couple
(18:26):
cemetery safaris in each of the six states, haunts in
each of the six States, So that was the challenge
was and they had to be visually interesting because you know,
some stories there's nothing left to see, you know, I
could take it. There's literally a it's not in the book,
but there's this haunted Cumberland Farms, which is a popular
(18:46):
gas station slash convenience store out this way, Comby's we
call it, and they call it haunted because it's only
like five six years old. But before that, there was
this restaurant that was famously haunted right on those grounds
and everybody knew it was one of the most famous
New England haunts. They took it down and now it's
a Cumberland farm. So you're gassing up, you're getting a
(19:06):
pack of gum or like an iced tea or something,
and if you know what was there before, you know
this this rich story. I didn't think, as good of
a photographer as Frank is, a picture of a gas
station convenience store just doesn't seem interesting. So now it's
not in the book.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Here at seven eleven exactly, that's what it looks like,
just like that.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well, well, speaking of UFOs, because you know, we talk
a lot about ghosts and UFOs here on truth be told.
I want to talk about because I know you and
like Barney or Betty and Barney Hill and the Baton
Lake crash that one I have not heard about. Can
you talk about some of these UFO stories that you chose.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Sure. The Bantam Lake crash was in Morris, Connecticut, and
it was not all that long ago, but it was
so well documented by various witnesses, including state police and locals.
What they described was, forgive me, I don't have the
date in front of me, but what they described was
(20:15):
they saw this glowing green light in the sky late
at night and it came down right in the area
of Bantam Lake, which is the largest lake around that
part of Connecticut for many many miles, and a state
police officer reported it too. In fact, they alerted the
FAA and said, did you have anything you know happening
(20:35):
that night? This was twenty twelve, by the way, I
just found it April tenth, twenty twelve, so not all
that long ago. They call nine to one ones getting
phone calls because people around the lake are seeing it,
and the FAA is alerted. We think there could be
a plane crash. So the FAA verifies we had nothing
on the radar, nothing in the area. No one filed
any flight plans. State police officers saw it fall like
(20:59):
in the vicinity of lake. It was the size of
a whale, glowing green, and then fell, you know, just
past the tree line into the lake. The next day,
a search and rescue comes out looking for anything. You know,
they're they're they're dragging the lake. There is there a
plane down there, or is there something that that entered
the water. They took it seriously, you know, everybody took
it as if something from the sky had fallen into
(21:21):
that water. And they found nothing. And yet it was
witnessed by so many people, and it's just become this
this spot now and and that's part of Connecticut is
sort of on the Northeasternish side. There's not a lot
of population around it, there's enough. But it's one of
those stories that because it was called into the police,
the police actually witnessed it and search and rescue got involved.
(21:45):
We're still talking about it.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
That's pretty amazing. Yeah, I'm not for some reason. I've
heard of many, but that's one I have not heard about.
Did they ever find anything in the lake at all? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
They found absolutely nothing. Plus you know, some said, well
it was a meteor. Well, if a meteor the size
of the way there hit that lake, there would be
no more Connecticut right right, at least no more lake. Yeah, no,
I mean that would that would leave a mark. I
mean we're talking something that size would have blown away
in an entire town at least minimum if if it
(22:18):
was a if it was like a meteor. But yeah,
space junk. They found nothing. They looked and looked.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know, they're going to say, because off off of Malibu,
they say, there's an under underwater Uh you know, like,
what do you call a Oh shit, I can't even
think of it.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Underwater hmmm, yeah, the underwater kind of UFO.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yes, the base base there we go. Yeah, easy word,
the easy word base. But yeah, so maybe there's a
some underwater bass under there. Who knows. That's pretty cool though.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, so there it is cool, and there's you know,
sometimes there's stories we all know, like Betty and Barney
Hill you mentioned in New Hampshire. How Ever, in working
on one episode of my podcast, there was a Cold
War era satellite station in Vermont and they reported a
UFO the same night as the Betty and Barney Hill incident.
(23:16):
They had this, so it was really cool. I mean,
they absolutely must be connected.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'm certain they saw that pretty coincidental.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Because you're talking about I don't know, one hundred miles
between this base and where Betty and Barney Hill had
their experience, and it was you know, about an hour apart.
One hundred miles in an hour in an aircraft is
nothing like that's a very short distance to cover. So
you had this this Cold War era base, go on Highlert.
They saw something on radar and they were watching for
(23:47):
nukes from Russia. That's the job. But they have this
one thing. They go outside with binoculars, they see the
weird lights. They don't know what it is, but they're
pretty sure it's not a missile. And then it's gone.
It moves over the horizon and they just shrug and say, well,
you know, not a missile. So I guess we just
go back to watching. And then you know, an hour
later Betting and Barney Hill had their experience. And that's
(24:09):
really I didn't hear too many people cover that part
of the story. No, not something that happened just a
little bit before.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, that's that's definitely not a coincidence. I don't think.
I feel that once once a few sightings nearby and
then there's something like a big event like an abduction,
and two people experienced it. It's probably part of the story.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And that was so cool. You know. Frank's a UFO nerd, hardcore.
I mean, I love it too, but Frank even more.
And he got to go up to I think the
University of New Hampshire I believe has a lot of
the artifacts. He got to take out the dress. We
photographed the dress. You can see it in the in
the book. He photographed it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I don't even know which anything.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Jeff just tried it on. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I tried it. It looks it didn't fit, but I
tried so he you know, he got to look at
all the five the bust of the you know, the
artists rendition of what they claim they saw, and it
was just it's so cool to get into the story.
But my favorite part is you could see the historic
marker on the side of Route three, and whether you
believe in UFOs or not, that is a state historic marker.
(25:16):
It's really nice. It's made of metal, cast iron, it's
hand painted and taxpayers paid for it. Oh, just let
that sink in. Wow, that's that's taxpayer dollars that pay
for that sign that so many people pull over and
take pictures next to and you know, put their stickers
on it and everything else. I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Oh I do too. No, I love it and one
good shot that Frank did and I think and I
have this thing for lighthouses. As you can see in
like for the people that are listening, I'm showing a
picture of myself but a lighthouse in the background. Can
you talk about I'm terrible lordship, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Is that the Lordship lighthouse? Yeah? Okay, in Connecticut. Yes,
so that's that light. First of all, so many lighthouses
have a haunted reputation. That one is not one of them,
that one not necessarily haunted. But the lighthouse keeper is
pretty well documented as claiming he saw a mermaid. Oh
(26:19):
wow behind that lighthouse. We have other area haunted lighthouse stories,
but this one's a mermaid story. Yeah. He was in
the papers for claiming he saw it. The lighthouse keeper
had worked there for decades and claimed he saw this mermaid.
It's Stratford, Connecticut, which is on Long island sound pretty
(26:39):
close to Bridgeport if you're familiar with the coast. And
Theodore Judson was the lighthouse keeper from eighteen eighty to
nineteen twenty, so he was there for a good long time.
And he claims he saw it plainly. He went out.
He was quoted in the paper. We quote him in
the book. He said it was a woman with beautiful hair,
(27:00):
and she was brushing her hair, and he claims, ready
for this, this is the best part. He says he
tried to grab her because no one would believe him,
and she whacked him in the head. He got a
little cut on his head, and she got away. But
he had the hair brush, and he could show people
the hairbrush. And when people pointed out, that looks like
any hairbrush I've ever seen. Ever, he explained, mermaids get
(27:23):
their hair brushes by going to the staterooms of sunken
ships and pulling it out, So of course it looks
like any hair brush you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's a good answer.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
This is one of those stories, Tony, where you gotta go.
I don't know. Yeah, And in his defense, many lighthouses
are completely isolated on a tiny, little little island and
you're stuck. This is not one of them. This is
on the mainland, so you can't say he's stir crazy.
He could actually just you know, walk into town if
he wanted to. But still that's his story. He's sticking
(27:53):
to it. It was in the papers and to this
day people still look for the lordship Mermaid.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's pretty cool. I have to say, you know Mermaid,
and you know, with Ariel and all that stuff, we
can aka Ariel. Was he a drunk? Was he a
known drunk because it sounds like you may have a
little or No.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
No, they didn't. They didn't claim he was a trunk drunk.
But on another occasion he did claim he also saw
a sea serpent right off the coast. So take that
for what you will. Sea serpents and mermaids right there
off the coast of Stratford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, I love it. I love it well. You you
mentioned that legends, you know, preserved a town's unique identity,
and sure, and how do you see some of these
towns holding on to these legends like we we talked
about that about is it more for just being something
(28:48):
fun to talk about or do you think some of
these people really take some of these legends seriously.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh no, people do take them seriously. It depends on
the story, of course. Yeah, you know it's I think
about a town like Salem, which is Salem, Massachusetts. You know,
I remember I've covered so many stories there over the years,
and I only live an hour away. Salem, of course,
is famous or infamous for its sixteen ninety two witch
(29:15):
trials that were so well documented that we know everything
about them. And then Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, which
was really a very pop culture rehash of this thing
that happened. He was using it for a metaphor for McCarthyism,
but also there's witch hunts and like your PTA meetings
and in your town board meetings and your neighborhood associations
(29:35):
and politics and so on and on and on. So
we know the story so well, and all kinds of
people flock there for the weird. There's witchy shops. The
police cars have a witch riding a broom on their
official logo. And I remember interviewing a local and there's
two different monuments in town for the people who were
killed in the trials, and he said, you know, would
(29:58):
you put Disneyland up and how oh god, no, But
he has a point, right, You're like no, and he said,
so why do we do it here? Why do we
have this like festive celebration. People were murdered, you know,
a bunch of them were murdered right here. And he's like,
I don't like it. I don't like that we have this.
And yet it is such a huge industry in Salem.
(30:20):
Salem has become the mecca for witches, the the you know,
a central point for anybody who's into weird stuff. You know,
even The Bewitched has a monument in town. You know,
the the Bewitch Show has a monument. So I understand
how it grapples with its own identity. You know. On
the one hand, you're like, no, we want to be
(30:40):
known as this community. That's that's about them, just a
historic community at one point a bigger port than Boston.
I mean there was a time where that was a
larger port. We want to be known for that, not this.
Yet they also understand you can't pick and choose. And
two hundred thousand tourists come in every October and by pizza,
stay in the hotels and even the restaurants and and
(31:04):
do all the touristy things. It is such a community
with a split identity, and that's that's one where you
can understand it, but you can also see it in
the dichotomy of it just as you walk down the street.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I mean, I guess that could be true. I mean
I've been to Roswell where the street lamps are you know,
shaped like aliens and they have a you know, alien museum,
and I mean I find that fast and I find
it fun, and you know, they even have a parade.
But I can't see where a community where they John
(31:37):
Wayne Gacy, Gooday, you know right? Yeah, I guess it's
a pick and choose of what, what's more would be
more offensive to people.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I guess you're totally right.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah. Yeah, So let's dive into the monsters and creatures
because I know, you know, ghosts are great, UFOs are great,
but there there's a lot of different types of cryptozoology
creatures out there, like champ and the Cumberland vampire. Can
you talk about a few of those?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And uh do you yet?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, because there's there's tons out there too, I'm sure
on the East coast on the news in New England.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, no, we have no shortage of strange creatures. So
Champ is probably my favorite, and the reason is it's
he's so well documented. So Champ is the lake monster
of Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain is massive. It borders Vermont,
New York, and then to the north it's in Canada,
(32:43):
so like a third of it is up in Canada.
And the thing about Champ is that, I mean, the
sightings go back centuries when Samuel D. Champlain it's Champlain's
named after he heard the stories he had documented, you know,
talking about giant serpents one hundred feet long plus in
this lake, and he said he heard from the natives
(33:04):
that it's always been there. They called it a sea serpent,
but obviously it's not an ocean, it's a lake. So
the stories go far far back. However, the modern day
sightings are so numerous. On the New York side, there's
a big sign where there, I mean, there must be
dozens of names where it would say like Tony Sweet
and then the date of your sighting. And so people
(33:24):
are literally just going on record saying, this is my name,
this is I had a sighting, and they it's the
newspapers filled with accounts of this I got to talk
to someone who grew up with a little campsite right
on the lake and on the Vermont side, and he said,
you know, he was there actually photographing their campsite, and
he had just taken his last picture of the campsite
(33:47):
and he's out of film and he turns around and
there's the lake and he sees this this thing moving
kind of swaying back and forth, coming toward the shore. Wow.
And then it reared its head and he described like
a horse's head, which is what all the descriptions are,
a horse's head, but without the years. And it sort
of came up, but then a boat started coming up
(34:08):
the lake, a motor boat. And once the motor boat came,
it submerged again and it was gone. But he said
this thing had to be at least eighty feet long
because of its wake and the way it sort of
swayed in the water. And then it went under and
him and his dad saw it, and he said, and
it killed me. I had no film. This was back
before cell phones, you know, But he said, I had
no film, but I saw it. Now he has been
(34:29):
photographed by other people. You can go online and google,
you know, Champ photos and you'll see it. And that's
a community, especially Burlington, which is a fun, weird town
right on the lake. In Vermont, they've embraced Champ to
the point where you can buy a t shirt, a
plush toy. There's signs sponsored by the Vermont State Lottery,
which also means taxpayers paid for it. And then they're
(34:54):
professional minor league baseball team is called the Lake Monsters.
And yeah, our picture taken with Champ.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
So the first one, you say Champ, I thought it
was a boxer. But in fact now I remember not
only Locknest. But I believe if I remember right, I
could be wrong. In search of with Leonard Nimoy, I
think he may have talked about it. I'm not for sure, Mayor,
but I'm sure I've seen it many times throughout the years.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So I'm I mean, I know I'm biased, but I
truly believe there's far more sightings of Champ than Lockness.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, I haven't heard much about Lockness in years.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
They still come up, they still make the paper. You know,
so and so says they saw it, and the story continues.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
All right, we have to talk about because Halloween's coming up.
The Cumberland vampire. Oh yeah, what I've heard about it,
but I don't know much about it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So vampires were pretty common in New England that there
were many. The Cumberland vampires just one of probably like
a dozen that I've looked into over the years. Oh yeah,
So before, you know, before Dracula, before nos Faratu, before
all that stuff, the vampires were considered kind of like
(36:13):
walking corpses, and they fed on the life blood literally,
the blood and the vitality of the living. And during
times of tuberculosis, which is an absolutely massive killer. Tuberculosis
has taken a billion lives between the years eighteen hundred
and two thousand. Still a huge global killer. It's just
mostly under control of this in this country thanks to
(36:35):
vaccines and everything else. So so there was a time
when if you got tuberculosis, it could kill you in
like a couple of weeks. It could kill you in
a few months, some took years, and some people sort
of lived with it the rest of their lives. And
even though people understood contagion, you know, it's still people
couldn't get their head around it. How come my whole
(36:57):
family has been wiped out by this illness and the
house next door down the street is fine, we go
to church, they don't, Well, how come, you know? Is
God angry at me or punishing me and rewarding them?
You know, people when they're scared, they start looking for answers.
Medical science tells you it's a bacteria it gets in
your lungs that eats you away from the inside, and
(37:19):
your clergy says it's God's will. Just pray, And for
a lot of people that just wasn't good enough. But
folklore always has an answer. You might be the victim
of a vampire, and if you can find the vampire
and stop it, then you might be able to break
the spell. So the Cumberland vampire is interesting because we
know a little bit about it because the father of
(37:41):
the victor of the girl who was buried went to
the town council and said, I want permission to dig
up my daughter's grave because my other daughter is now
sick with consumption and I suspect my daughter might be
the vampire. And if we dig her up and we
can verify she's the vampire, I'm going to attempt to
break the spell, which could be cutting her head off
(38:04):
or pulling out her heart, disrupting her turning her head
upside down, you know, whatever it is that could disrupt
the vampire, and then I'll readbury her. And he got
permission from the town to do what because he's desperate? Right,
I mean, yeah, when COVID hit, we did a lot
of stories about vampires because we're just like, hey, it
(38:24):
turns out when you're really scared about this invisible illness
that's killing some people and could kill you and your
loved ones, we don't always act rationally, what I know,
And you know, you want to go back to Cumberland
and say, did you even try hoarding toilet paper? Because
did you even give that a whirl before you started
digging up dead bodies? But anyone who's a parent, I
(38:47):
think sort of understands if someone says, hey, there's a
one in a million shot this will work. Your other
daughter's already dead. But if she's the vampire, we could
prove it, you know, we can look for signs that
she hasn't decomposed, that she's moved, her bodies moved in
her casket, and she's getting up to feed on her
sister because that's what they do. And the crazy thing
is this remedy, this this folkloric remedy did work on occasion.
(39:12):
Skeptics will say that person was going to get better anyway,
and destroying burning a body or tearing its heart out
had no effect other than maybe placebo. Maybe they're right,
or maybe you got lucky and you found the right vampire.
And that's the story I've got. I've got a vampire story.
I think we found them in all six states except Maine.
(39:34):
So so this was the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
This was no main huh.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Now told me maniacs we call them. I think they're
we just they left it alone.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Well, I know our time is getting limited, and I
know there's so many people, there's so many stories that
we can keep talking about. But I want people to
actually get the book and read it. But what advice
would you give your readers to h who want to,
you know, respectively, explore these places themselves. Would what would
(40:06):
you give them as they take this journey, Because some
people may pick up the book and says, I'm going
to every single site, And.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
The good news is every single site is accessible. That
was another criteria. We wanted to make sure it wasn't
private or anything like that. You are allowed to go
to every one of these Oh yeah, that was part
of the plan. And you should go to every one
of them and you should ask your own questions. That's
the thing the story sticks around. I think one of
my favorite tropes when it comes to haunts, especially is
(40:33):
the unfinished business idea. Right. I believe that to my core,
But I think we're thinking of it the wrong way.
I don't think the ghost has unfinished business. I think we,
the living, have unfinished business. So we keep it around.
We keep talking about these stories because we haven't quite
reconciled the answer yet. So if there was an unsolved
murder that still haunts us, we don't like it because
we know it could happen again. If there's reports of
(40:56):
a monster in the woods, we say, wait a minute.
We are the smartest creatures on earth. We should know
every creature that lurks the earth with us. We must
know it. We must be that smart. Impossible, So it
bothers us because we go, is it possible we miss something?
Of course we did. Our oceans are filled with life
that we have yet to discover. So these are the
big questions. And when you go, you get to talk
(41:18):
about this stuff. And if you want to take it
as just a story. You can keep it at arm's length,
that's fine, but that story still has value and it
still connects us with a community. It connects us with
our past, and that helps us understand who we are
now in the present, because we're all a product of
where we grew up, where we live, and who raised
us within that community. And the way we treat these
weird stories is in our DNA.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I agree with you. I think you know, as we
keep exploring this amazing world that we live on, constantly
new discoveries of ancient civilizations and a human remains that
are ten twenty thirty thousand years old in an Arctic ice,
(42:03):
and I just find it fascinating that even just recently,
I think they they had a rare sighting of a
gorilla that they thought was it may be extinct. So
you know, I think this is why humans are constantly
excited about the unknown, and people like you that actually
(42:25):
go out and bring these stories to us through books
or podcast and I find it fascinating and appreciate that
you do stuff like that, so thank and every time
you come you always impress. I don't know where You're
fifty one years old and you still have energy of
a teenager. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I guess because I don't have a real job, maybe
that helps a lot. But Tony, thank you. Thanks for
giving people like me a voice, you know, I mean,
I appreciate it. I think my favorite part of this
is the discussion because I don't I don't know the answers.
I can just tell you, like I said, these are
literally snapshots sometime and literally you see the photograph, but
also it's the story as I know it to be
right now. It's going to change. I know that if
(43:07):
we go back in ten years or twenty years, it's
going to evolve, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot.
But this is where it's at today. And that's what
legends do. They live, They breathe, they grow, they move,
they can marry, and they can die. But they only
die when we stop talking about them, when we fully
reconciled whatever thing we were processing about that legend. But
that's I mean, it's such a wonderful way to connect
(43:29):
with people in a time when we really need to connect,
you know, we like, let's not talk about politics or
sports or stuff that's going to make us fight. Let's
talk about weird things. And go why did someone put
a bunch of ponies on the side of the road. True,
and then leave them there and you can have a
good laugh over it and say remember being a kid
and riding those things? Sure do. And then next thing,
you know, like we connect it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, I d in here in California where I live.
I'll be driving down the road and I'm like, that's odd.
I turn off and go to look at it. I mean,
that's the first thing I do. Yeah, And you're like,
why would they do this? But it's fun to it's
fun to look at. So well, everybody that's listening or
watching Wicked Strange, Uh your guide to Ghost, Monsters, Oddities
(44:12):
and Urban Legends for from New England. Uh do you
see yourself doing Wicked Strange too? And that actually sounds
like a movie?
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Uh strange too, Yeah, Starry Tanya Katine, I think we
can get her. It might be available. So yeah, that's
that's for the old people. I know, right that one
was dated. Uh you know for sure, this is only
a couple of days old. Our podcast alone has covered
over four hundred different stories. Wow, and there's a little
over one hundred in this book. So yeah, there could
(44:43):
easily be a volume two and three and four and
five and yeah, I guess time will tell. Let's see
how it goes.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, we'll go New England once stayed over, that'll be
the next one.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
We'll bleed out to like New York and down to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Right sure, well, Jeff, thank you thanky so much. You again,
it's always a pleasure. You're launching the holiday season for
us for Halloween, so we appreciate you being here and
bringing us the amazing book Wicked Strange. And tell us
your podcast name again.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's called New England Legends. You can get it for
free wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Awesome. Well, thank you everybody, and please support Jeff and
his endeavors. Go to Jeff Bellinger dot com and you
can watch us here every Friday on YouTube channel. Please subscribe,
follow share, and give us suggestions like Jeff's got to
go hear from the community, and we'd love to hear
(45:43):
from you and who do you want us have on?
But until next next time, take care of yourself and
each other, and I really appreciate you guys. Take care. Bye.
Well, welcome back and welcome to the in beginning of
the Halloween season, Today, we're diving deep into the shadows
and secrets of New England with one of the leading
explorers of the unexplained. He's a best selling author, storyteller,
and one of the most reconnized voices in the world
of paranormal We've seen his work on television, heard him
(00:21):
on countless radio shows, and read his words bringing ghost,
monsters and mysteries to life. His brand new book, Wicked Strange,
Your Guide to ghost, monsters, oddities and urban Legends of
New England. It's not just a travel guide, it's an
initiative into a hidden world right under our noses. From
haunted lighthouses and cursed hotels to sea serpents, vampires and
(00:45):
even UFO crashes, Jeff takes us off the beaten path
and he reveals why New England remains one of the
strangest and most fascinating regions on Earth. Will get ready
to uncover the eerie tales, meet eccentric locals, and even
find out where we can experience these legends for yourself.
It's spooky, it's weird, it's wicked fun and guess what
(01:08):
I am, Tony Sweet with Truth Be Told, and please
welcome back to the Truth Be Told Studios, the one
and only Jeff Bellinger. All right, Jeff, it's only about
your fifteenth time on Truth Be Told. Every time you're
here you probably have a new book, and so I
don't know how you don't have like Fred Sanford's arthritis
(01:31):
from writing so much, but or typing so much. But
congrats on the new book.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Once in a while they get lucky and we just
put it out right right, Well, I can't take all
the credit.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Exploiting those monkeys, damn it.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Well, first of all, I don't know where you constantly
get your inspiration to write all these different books and
TV shows and do the things you do on your podcast.
So let's jump right in and ask what inspired you
to write The Wicked Strange. But I have to say
I do love it that it's kind of like this
(02:03):
travel guide for people that don't get to because you know,
everybody goes to different cities and they're like, all right,
let's go to the Empire, state building and this and that,
but we don't hear about the odd oddities in the monsters,
in the ghosts that are in surrounding area. So what
inspired you?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, So the book was born first from the Newing
A Legends television series that I started on PBS back
in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
We we didn't get any money for that. We literally
funded it ourselves. And it's you know, as you know,
it's very expensive and time consuming to make a TV
episode and and expensive because again I can't stress enough,
we got no money. And I don't mean I'm not
that's not hyperbole. I mean literally zero week.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So let's go go fundme to Gypno skidding, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, it's okay. I don't need a handout anymore. But
it's so But from there, I was like, man, I
love these stories. There's so many more we could do.
And so I started the Newing Legends podcast back in
twenty seventeen. And they're short scripted stories, right, We script
them like how did we get to right now? How
did we get to talking about this building being haunted
or this being a UFO hotspot, or this roadside oddity
(03:13):
or this eccentric person leaving a very strange mark behind.
And then we'd sort of unfold the story and also simultaneously,
for the last ten years, twelve years. Actually, my photographer
Buddy and I, Frank Grace. He and I have been
producing a Haunted New England calendar where he takes such
great pictures. There's one right behind you right now where
(03:34):
you're in the Mark Twain House, I can tell in Hartford, Connecticut.
So Frank tanks these amazing photos. And so we partnered
up to do this annual calendar and every year we
would change the months, change the stories. And I was like, man, Frank,
we got to do a book. I have all these
stories from the podcast, which are crowdsourced. At this point,
the audience writes in and says, oh, in my town,
we've got this strange little tale. And those are my favorite,
(03:57):
not the one I mean the ones everybody knows I
call it like play the hits. Those are great, right,
But I like the deep cuts on the album too,
And and so that really inspired us, and we said,
all right, let's let's do a book. His photos, my
stories culled from really the last you know, twelve thirteen
years of work, and that's what sort of brought this
(04:17):
all together. And you know, when you're talking about these
strange places, writing can take you so far. Photos can
take you so far, I mean, and putting them together
was just kind of natural.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Now, did you both go at the same time to
these locations to take pictures and you get the sense
of what's kind of going on? Or did you kind
of rely on the people, the locals to send you
the information and you did the research.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I well, sometimes the email was as much as like, hey,
there's these strange petroglyphs in my town, you should check
them out. Like that was it. It's all I had
to go on. And so then you start digging in
and I would do all the research. Rank and I
went together to lots of them because we've taken a
lot of road trips over the years. But some you know,
(05:07):
it was such a great story, he had to go
get the photo. In other cases he took such a
great photo, I had to do the story. You know,
mostly the story dictated the photo. But there were a
few occasions. So for example, we were doing this road
trip through Maine and we were going through this tiny
little town and there was a giant, old fashioned phone,
you know, with the thing hanging in the crank on
(05:28):
the side. Giant, I mean, I was twelve feet tall
and huge and I'm just like, I don't know, pullover,
we should photograph that. I have no idea what's going
on here, but let's just photograph it. So we were
there like all of five minutes. We photographed it and
left and sort of forgot about it. And then later
on I learned that tiny little town in Maine was
the site of the very last crank phone call in America,
(05:51):
the last cranked phone call, the last cranked phone call
in America. And the year is way later than you
would ever guess. It was like nineteen eighty and they
were they were the last ones to sort of hold
onto this old phone system. Literally party line. You could
pick up and hear your when I was a kid. Yeah,
(06:12):
so but it was really party line. There could be
twenty of you listening and uh. And I was like,
how great is that? And so they put it up
as a monument saying we were the last to go
down swinging with these old fashioned phones. You're onto touchtnes
and wireless phones and then cell phones, and they were
still cranking phones in Maine.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I love that I missed those days.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Skiddy, Right, Yeah, is your refrigerator running? You can't? Right,
everybody's got caller ID it doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I'm sure I am a little older than you.
I don't You probably didn't remember the the crank phone calls.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well actually, heck, yeah, dude fifty one.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh I guess wow you look good.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Wow, I'm selling the chasing weird things. Yeah, yeah, no,
it's yeah, No, I remember the is the refrigerator running
and calling? The bowling alley that had its little joke.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, and Mike, No, that's a different one. Sorry, that's porky. Right,
so let's move on from that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I know that one though, I know it, but we
won't say it because it's.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, I won't say friendly. Uh So, So some of
these sites that you went to, did either of you
kind of get an unsettled feeling? Because I know a
lot of people go to these locations. Some people are
a little more sensitive to you know, maybe there the
(07:31):
their psychic abilities are a little more than some other people.
But were you or Frank is out of his name, Frank? Yeah,
did you ever walk into a place and really get
an unsettled feeling? And where was that?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Rarely? But there was one in particular, there's this ancient
site in Connecticut called Gungeewomp. And what makes it so
interesting is that there's a bunch of stone ruins up
on this hill and there are there's a colonial foundation,
we know who lived there, is a colonial house, but
there's also monument stones that go back to Native American
times long before that, and stone structures that look like
(08:06):
it could have been like a root seller, even post colonial.
So there's I mean a couple thousand years of historic
markers up there, and we knew where it was, we
knew where to park. And then you take this trail
maybe half a mile three quarters of a mile into
the woods. And we started walking down the trail like
any other No big deal. We've been in the woods plenty.
We go buy a swamp, no big deal. But then
(08:30):
just as you take the hill that just gets you
up to this Gungeewomp site, there's this tree line, a
distinct tree line, and as soon as we crossed over it,
we both got silent and I looked at him after
you know, ten steps in, and I just went, man,
it feels different here, different here compared to ten feet ago.
I don't mean back at the car. I mean, wow,
we could just go back ten feet And He's like yeah,
(08:51):
it is weird. And then you come up around the
corner and there's all the stone monuments and there was
there's a stone circle. There's this one stone huh that's
got a tiny window. It's mostly built into a hill.
And when the sun it's either like the sunset or
the sunrise hits that stone and a cornerstone it marks
the solstice. Oh and yeah, so someone built this with
(09:14):
a lot of intention. And it's a tiny little room.
I mean it's it's smaller than my office. You know,
is this tiny little stone hut? Not good for much,
not good for shelter or anything like that. And you go,
why did they need to know the solstice? I mean,
I assume attached to farming or something like that. But
a very mysterious sight. And we both got the same feeling.
And then when we left the tree line it was okay.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
But what was the feeling? Was it a fear? Was
it just overwhelming? Was it a anxiety?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I think the best description would be we were trespassing. Now,
we weren't the hell out, but it felt like we
were sneaking onto someone's property. We shouldn't be there, and
if we get caught, we're going to be in trouble.
That was not the case, but that's what it felt like.
It felt like someone we shouldn't we shouldn't be here,
We're not allowed to be here, and someone could be
(10:04):
watching for us.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So what was the background of that.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So so well, there's petroglyphs on some of these old
standing stones, so we know it was a somewhat of
a sacred site. And the thing about Native Americans in
New England is they didn't mess with the stones too much.
Even though it is an abundant resource. I promise we've
got rocks everywhere. They didn't really mess with them on
the whole. They built structures that could be taken down
(10:30):
and moved. Yet there's these carvings on these rocks and
no one really understands what they were for. There's a
stone circle. Some suggest that was used for tanning leather. Maybe,
you know, maybe that's the case, or maybe it was something.
I mean, when you go up there, Tony, it's like
right out of pet cemetery, you know. I mean, it's
on the top of the hill, lots of trees now,
(10:51):
But at the same time there's these weird stone circles.
The foundation. We know was just a colonist, someone had
a little house there, and then the house is gone
but the foundation remains. That's pretty straightforward. And then that
stone hut with the window that marks the solstice. We
don't know. And that's what's so strange about this site
is that it's been left alone. Nobody ever came in
(11:13):
and destroyed it. It's just left as it was for
many centuries. And now you can go and explore it
for yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That's pretty amazing that it's kind of untouched, where I
have to say America in a lot of ways that
people like to tear things down build new. So I'm
impressed that that did not get touched at all.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it's it's conservation land and so they've they've left
it and and you know, there's there's an interpretive center
that's not too far away. They can tell you about it,
but there's just not much that's known. But I love that,
And this is this speaks to New England in general.
We tend to preserve history. We tend to like like,
if you go to that site, I can't imagine anyone saying, yeah,
(11:55):
let's tear this down and put in another dunkin Donuts right, right,
I think we just we just understand for reasons we don't.
We can't fully explain we're going to leave that alone.
We're going to leave it as it is.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Do you think that's why New England has such fertile
ground for you know, all these hauntings and legends and stuff,
because of the preservation of history.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's absolutely part of our culture. I grew up in
small towns where if you owned a house on main
street and you wanted to paint it, you have to
ask the town's permission if you want to change the color,
because it's there's such an effort, and you understand that
when you buy it, by the way, they don't they
don't pull that on you, right, there's such an effort
to preserve our towns. In my town, they were so
(12:43):
meticulous about painting our town hall this particular shade of yellow.
They found some very old boards and they said, this
was the original color. We now have to make it
that original color. And they went through a lot of
effort just to paint a building. And it's a beautiful
old town hall. It was a meetinghouse and everything else.
But that's that's our way we preserve and we also hibernate,
(13:03):
we get some pretty cold winters, so I think I'm
sure that combination. You know, we've got these puritanical sensibilities
and yet we were storytellers and we preserve. So when
you drive down our main streets, that's what it looked
like one hundred and fifty years ago, and you understand, right,
and also were a matter of fact, oh that house
is haunted. That one isn't. Let's not argue about it.
(13:26):
It's not a big deal, and it's just okay, good
enough that one's haunted.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
How did you and I'm sure you did encounter many
stories that were haunting, that were titled hauntings, but you
went in and found out it was more community folklore.
And how did you How did you determine yourself what
was which was which? Because I'm you know, I've I've
heard that, oh, that's house is haunted, but you walk
(13:53):
in and you're like, I don't feel anything at all.
So how do you how did you determine what was what?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah? So so the book, first of all, we don't
just cover hauntings. You know, We've got UFO sites, we've
got roadside on it, we've got eccentrics, you know a
little bit of all the weirdness, the fringe, the fringe stuff.
So sometimes, you know, a legend is just is just that,
and all we can do is sort of take a
snapshot of it. You know, you can't explain it now,
(14:21):
you know as well as I do. If a building
has a haunted reputation and you go in there one
night it doesn't and you don't experience anything, it doesn't
mean it's not haunted. It means nothing happened that night. Va. Yeah, right,
I mean, you know, it's it's that's always boggling to
me when someone's like, yeah, I went in for five minutes,
I didn't see anything. Could have been the wrong five minutes.
(14:45):
But yeah, sometimes, but for me, I still wonder why
are we keeping these stories around? Because that's how I
find out about them. I only find out about them
because the community keeps them around, keeps talking about them,
and it's enough, there's enough truth in it that people
tell and tell the story, and then when you go
there to experience it, you become part of the story,
(15:05):
which is the most egocentric thing all of us can do.
You know, like we're like, you know what they say
that's on it, or they say there's a monster in
that lake. I'm going swimming. I'm gonna go look for it.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I would too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Right, that's that's how we're that's how we're cut. Right,
that's the tree we fell out of. So yeah, so
we go and we look at the lake, and we
go to the cemetery and we knock on the cursed
headstone three times at midnight like you're supposed to, and
and we wait and maybe the witch jumps out, maybe
she doesn't, But that doesn't mean something didn't scare the
hell out of someone somewhere along the way.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, we talked about, you know, having the overwhelming filling
once once you walked into this one location. Was there
one that was actually more just fun that you just
really was looking forward to seeing because it just seemed
like it would be really entertaining or just a hoot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You've heard of Stonehenge, of course, Yeah, of course I've
been there. It's an incredible, mysterious place. There's a place
in New Hampshire called America's Stonehenge, not nearly as big,
but there's these alignment stones around and they call it
America's Stonehenge because it seems to be an ancient astronomical calendar. However,
the henge I would like to tell you about is
in Massachusetts, and it's called pony Henge, pony Hinge. It
(16:25):
dates all the way back to the year two thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
This up, okay, pony Henge.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Something happened. There's a farmer who owns some land right
by this this road in Massachusetts, and one day, you know,
the child's rocking horses with the old springs. When we
were kids, we got our fingers caught in the springs
and it would hurt like hell. Remember, someone dropped off
a couple of those, and the farmer just went, that's odd,
and instead of throwing them away, he just kind of
(16:56):
arranged them. And then two became five, and then five
became ten, and people just kept dropping them off. Some
people would steal them, but more kept arriving, and the
farmer would arrange them in different patterns. Sometimes he had
to move them all to cut the grass, and then
he would put them back. And now it's called pony
Henge and people stop by every day to just take
(17:18):
pictures of this weird roadside oddity that was born for
reasons we'll never understand, but something happened, someone did a
thing and left these these old rocking horses, and someone
else left another one and another one and another one,
and you're free to do so today you can drop
off your own there it is. Tell me that's not
the most fun you could have on like an Outing
America Stonehenge. And now I've been to Pony Henge.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
That's funny. So yeah, how did you cause I'm sure
you received so many different people suggesting did you pick
like a top ten, a top twenty? How did you
pick these locations? Because I'm sure you could write probably
four or five thousand books about what's not just in
(18:03):
New England alone.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So part of the challenge, we
knew we wanted stories from each of the six New
England states. We wanted to be fair, so the same
number of stories from each of the six New England states.
And then also, you know, you can't just have like
all haunts in Maine and all cemeteries in Connecticut, so
we wanted to make sure we had a UFO story
in each of the six states. We had a couple
(18:26):
cemetery safaris in each of the six states, haunts in
each of the six States, So that was the challenge
was and they had to be visually interesting because you know,
some stories there's nothing left to see, you know, I
could take it. There's literally a it's not in the book,
but there's this haunted Cumberland Farms, which is a popular
(18:46):
gas station slash convenience store out this way, Comby's we
call it, and they call it haunted because it's only
like five six years old. But before that, there was
this restaurant that was famously haunted right on those grounds
and everybody knew it was one of the most famous
New England haunts. They took it down and now it's
a Cumberland farm. So you're gassing up, you're getting a
(19:06):
pack of gum or like an iced tea or something,
and if you know what was there before, you know
this this rich story. I didn't think, as good of
a photographer as Frank is, a picture of a gas
station convenience store just doesn't seem interesting. So now it's
not in the book.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Here at seven eleven exactly, that's what it looks like,
just like that.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Well, well, speaking of UFOs, because you know, we talk
a lot about ghosts and UFOs here on truth be told.
I want to talk about because I know you and
like Barney or Betty and Barney Hill and the Baton
Lake crash that one I have not heard about. Can
you talk about some of these UFO stories that you chose.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Sure. The Bantam Lake crash was in Morris, Connecticut, and
it was not all that long ago, but it was
so well documented by various witnesses, including state police and locals.
What they described was, forgive me, I don't have the
date in front of me, but what they described was
(20:15):
they saw this glowing green light in the sky late
at night and it came down right in the area
of Bantam Lake, which is the largest lake around that
part of Connecticut for many many miles, and a state
police officer reported it too. In fact, they alerted the
FAA and said, did you have anything you know happening
(20:35):
that night? This was twenty twelve, by the way, I
just found it April tenth, twenty twelve, so not all
that long ago. They call nine to one ones getting
phone calls because people around the lake are seeing it,
and the FAA is alerted. We think there could be
a plane crash. So the FAA verifies we had nothing
on the radar, nothing in the area. No one filed
any flight plans. State police officers saw it fall like
(20:59):
in the vicinity of lake. It was the size of
a whale, glowing green, and then fell, you know, just
past the tree line into the lake. The next day,
a search and rescue comes out looking for anything. You know,
they're they're they're dragging the lake. There is there a
plane down there, or is there something that that entered
the water. They took it seriously, you know, everybody took
it as if something from the sky had fallen into
(21:21):
that water. And they found nothing. And yet it was
witnessed by so many people, and it's just become this
this spot now and and that's part of Connecticut is
sort of on the Northeasternish side. There's not a lot
of population around it, there's enough. But it's one of
those stories that because it was called into the police,
the police actually witnessed it and search and rescue got involved.
(21:45):
We're still talking about it.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
That's pretty amazing. Yeah, I'm not for some reason. I've
heard of many, but that's one I have not heard about.
Did they ever find anything in the lake at all? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
They found absolutely nothing. Plus you know, some said, well
it was a meteor. Well, if a meteor the size
of the way there hit that lake, there would be
no more Connecticut right right, at least no more lake. Yeah, no,
I mean that would that would leave a mark. I
mean we're talking something that size would have blown away
in an entire town at least minimum if if it
(22:18):
was a if it was like a meteor. But yeah,
space junk. They found nothing. They looked and looked.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
You know, they're going to say, because off off of Malibu,
they say, there's an under underwater Uh you know, like,
what do you call a Oh shit, I can't even
think of it.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Underwater hmmm, yeah, the underwater kind of UFO.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yes, the base base there we go. Yeah, easy word,
the easy word base. But yeah, so maybe there's a
some underwater bass under there. Who knows. That's pretty cool though.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, so there it is cool, and there's you know,
sometimes there's stories we all know, like Betty and Barney
Hill you mentioned in New Hampshire. How Ever, in working
on one episode of my podcast, there was a Cold
War era satellite station in Vermont and they reported a
UFO the same night as the Betty and Barney Hill incident.
(23:16):
They had this, so it was really cool. I mean,
they absolutely must be connected.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I'm certain they saw that pretty coincidental.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Because you're talking about I don't know, one hundred miles
between this base and where Betty and Barney Hill had
their experience, and it was you know, about an hour apart.
One hundred miles in an hour in an aircraft is
nothing like that's a very short distance to cover. So
you had this this Cold War era base, go on Highlert.
They saw something on radar and they were watching for
(23:47):
nukes from Russia. That's the job. But they have this
one thing. They go outside with binoculars, they see the
weird lights. They don't know what it is, but they're
pretty sure it's not a missile. And then it's gone.
It moves over the horizon and they just shrug and say, well,
you know, not a missile. So I guess we just
go back to watching. And then you know, an hour
later Betting and Barney Hill had their experience. And that's
(24:09):
really I didn't hear too many people cover that part
of the story. No, not something that happened just a
little bit before.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, that's that's definitely not a coincidence. I don't think.
I feel that once once a few sightings nearby and
then there's something like a big event like an abduction,
and two people experienced it. It's probably part of the story.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And that was so cool. You know. Frank's a UFO nerd, hardcore.
I mean, I love it too, but Frank even more.
And he got to go up to I think the
University of New Hampshire I believe has a lot of
the artifacts. He got to take out the dress. We
photographed the dress. You can see it in the in
the book. He photographed it.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I don't even know which anything.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Jeff just tried it on. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I tried it. It looks it didn't fit, but I
tried so he you know, he got to look at
all the five the bust of the you know, the
artists rendition of what they claim they saw, and it
was just it's so cool to get into the story.
But my favorite part is you could see the historic
marker on the side of Route three, and whether you
believe in UFOs or not, that is a state historic marker.
(25:16):
It's really nice. It's made of metal, cast iron, it's
hand painted and taxpayers paid for it. Oh, just let
that sink in. Wow, that's that's taxpayer dollars that pay
for that sign that so many people pull over and
take pictures next to and you know, put their stickers
on it and everything else. I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Oh I do too. No, I love it and one
good shot that Frank did and I think and I
have this thing for lighthouses. As you can see in
like for the people that are listening, I'm showing a
picture of myself but a lighthouse in the background. Can
you talk about I'm terrible lordship, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Is that the Lordship lighthouse? Yeah? Okay, in Connecticut. Yes,
so that's that light. First of all, so many lighthouses
have a haunted reputation. That one is not one of them,
that one not necessarily haunted. But the lighthouse keeper is
pretty well documented as claiming he saw a mermaid. Oh
(26:19):
wow behind that lighthouse. We have other area haunted lighthouse stories,
but this one's a mermaid story. Yeah. He was in
the papers for claiming he saw it. The lighthouse keeper
had worked there for decades and claimed he saw this mermaid.
It's Stratford, Connecticut, which is on Long island sound pretty
(26:39):
close to Bridgeport if you're familiar with the coast. And
Theodore Judson was the lighthouse keeper from eighteen eighty to
nineteen twenty, so he was there for a good long time.
And he claims he saw it plainly. He went out.
He was quoted in the paper. We quote him in
the book. He said it was a woman with beautiful hair,
(27:00):
and she was brushing her hair, and he claims, ready
for this, this is the best part. He says he
tried to grab her because no one would believe him,
and she whacked him in the head. He got a
little cut on his head, and she got away. But
he had the hair brush, and he could show people
the hairbrush. And when people pointed out, that looks like
any hairbrush I've ever seen. Ever, he explained, mermaids get
(27:23):
their hair brushes by going to the staterooms of sunken
ships and pulling it out, So of course it looks
like any hair brush you've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's a good answer.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
This is one of those stories, Tony, where you gotta go.
I don't know. Yeah, And in his defense, many lighthouses
are completely isolated on a tiny, little little island and
you're stuck. This is not one of them. This is
on the mainland, so you can't say he's stir crazy.
He could actually just you know, walk into town if
he wanted to. But still that's his story. He's sticking
(27:53):
to it. It was in the papers and to this
day people still look for the lordship Mermaid.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's pretty cool. I have to say, you know Mermaid,
and you know, with Ariel and all that stuff, we
can aka Ariel. Was he a drunk? Was he a
known drunk because it sounds like you may have a
little or No.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
No, they didn't. They didn't claim he was a trunk drunk.
But on another occasion he did claim he also saw
a sea serpent right off the coast. So take that
for what you will. Sea serpents and mermaids right there
off the coast of Stratford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, I love it. I love it well. You you
mentioned that legends, you know, preserved a town's unique identity,
and sure, and how do you see some of these
towns holding on to these legends like we we talked
about that about is it more for just being something
(28:48):
fun to talk about or do you think some of
these people really take some of these legends seriously.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh no, people do take them seriously. It depends on
the story, of course. Yeah, you know it's I think
about a town like Salem, which is Salem, Massachusetts. You know,
I remember I've covered so many stories there over the years,
and I only live an hour away. Salem, of course,
is famous or infamous for its sixteen ninety two witch
(29:15):
trials that were so well documented that we know everything
about them. And then Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, which
was really a very pop culture rehash of this thing
that happened. He was using it for a metaphor for McCarthyism,
but also there's witch hunts and like your PTA meetings
and in your town board meetings and your neighborhood associations
(29:35):
and politics and so on and on and on. So
we know the story so well, and all kinds of
people flock there for the weird. There's witchy shops. The
police cars have a witch riding a broom on their
official logo. And I remember interviewing a local and there's
two different monuments in town for the people who were
killed in the trials, and he said, you know, would
(29:58):
you put Disneyland up and how oh god, no, But
he has a point, right, You're like no, and he said,
so why do we do it here? Why do we
have this like festive celebration. People were murdered, you know,
a bunch of them were murdered right here. And he's like,
I don't like it. I don't like that we have this.
And yet it is such a huge industry in Salem.
(30:20):
Salem has become the mecca for witches, the the you know,
a central point for anybody who's into weird stuff. You know,
even The Bewitched has a monument in town. You know,
the the Bewitch Show has a monument. So I understand
how it grapples with its own identity. You know. On
the one hand, you're like, no, we want to be
(30:40):
known as this community. That's that's about them, just a
historic community at one point a bigger port than Boston.
I mean there was a time where that was a
larger port. We want to be known for that, not this.
Yet they also understand you can't pick and choose. And
two hundred thousand tourists come in every October and by pizza,
stay in the hotels and even the restaurants and and
(31:04):
do all the touristy things. It is such a community
with a split identity, and that's that's one where you
can understand it, but you can also see it in
the dichotomy of it just as you walk down the street.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I mean, I guess that could be true. I mean
I've been to Roswell where the street lamps are you know,
shaped like aliens and they have a you know, alien museum,
and I mean I find that fast and I find
it fun, and you know, they even have a parade.
But I can't see where a community where they John
(31:37):
Wayne Gacy, Gooday, you know right? Yeah, I guess it's
a pick and choose of what, what's more would be
more offensive to people.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I guess you're totally right.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah. Yeah, So let's dive into the monsters and creatures
because I know, you know, ghosts are great, UFOs are great,
but there there's a lot of different types of cryptozoology
creatures out there, like champ and the Cumberland vampire. Can
you talk about a few of those?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And uh do you yet?
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, because there's there's tons out there too, I'm sure
on the East coast on the news in New England.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, no, we have no shortage of strange creatures. So
Champ is probably my favorite, and the reason is it's
he's so well documented. So Champ is the lake monster
of Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain is massive. It borders Vermont,
New York, and then to the north it's in Canada,
(32:43):
so like a third of it is up in Canada.
And the thing about Champ is that, I mean, the
sightings go back centuries when Samuel D. Champlain it's Champlain's
named after he heard the stories he had documented, you know,
talking about giant serpents one hundred feet long plus in
this lake, and he said he heard from the natives
(33:04):
that it's always been there. They called it a sea serpent,
but obviously it's not an ocean, it's a lake. So
the stories go far far back. However, the modern day
sightings are so numerous. On the New York side, there's
a big sign where there, I mean, there must be
dozens of names where it would say like Tony Sweet
and then the date of your sighting. And so people
(33:24):
are literally just going on record saying, this is my name,
this is I had a sighting, and they it's the
newspapers filled with accounts of this I got to talk
to someone who grew up with a little campsite right
on the lake and on the Vermont side, and he said,
you know, he was there actually photographing their campsite, and
he had just taken his last picture of the campsite
(33:47):
and he's out of film and he turns around and
there's the lake and he sees this this thing moving
kind of swaying back and forth, coming toward the shore. Wow.
And then it reared its head and he described like
a horse's head, which is what all the descriptions are,
a horse's head, but without the years. And it sort
of came up, but then a boat started coming up
(34:08):
the lake, a motor boat. And once the motor boat came,
it submerged again and it was gone. But he said
this thing had to be at least eighty feet long
because of its wake and the way it sort of
swayed in the water. And then it went under and
him and his dad saw it, and he said, and
it killed me. I had no film. This was back
before cell phones, you know, But he said, I had
no film, but I saw it. Now he has been
(34:29):
photographed by other people. You can go online and google,
you know, Champ photos and you'll see it. And that's
a community, especially Burlington, which is a fun, weird town
right on the lake. In Vermont, they've embraced Champ to
the point where you can buy a t shirt, a
plush toy. There's signs sponsored by the Vermont State Lottery,
which also means taxpayers paid for it. And then they're
(34:54):
professional minor league baseball team is called the Lake Monsters.
And yeah, our picture taken with Champ.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
So the first one, you say Champ, I thought it
was a boxer. But in fact now I remember not
only Locknest. But I believe if I remember right, I
could be wrong. In search of with Leonard Nimoy, I
think he may have talked about it. I'm not for sure, Mayor,
but I'm sure I've seen it many times throughout the years.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
So I'm I mean, I know I'm biased, but I
truly believe there's far more sightings of Champ than Lockness.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, I haven't heard much about Lockness in years.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
They still come up, they still make the paper. You know,
so and so says they saw it, and the story continues.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
All right, we have to talk about because Halloween's coming up.
The Cumberland vampire. Oh yeah, what I've heard about it,
but I don't know much about it.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
So vampires were pretty common in New England that there
were many. The Cumberland vampires just one of probably like
a dozen that I've looked into over the years. Oh yeah,
So before, you know, before Dracula, before nos Faratu, before
all that stuff, the vampires were considered kind of like
(36:13):
walking corpses, and they fed on the life blood literally,
the blood and the vitality of the living. And during
times of tuberculosis, which is an absolutely massive killer. Tuberculosis
has taken a billion lives between the years eighteen hundred
and two thousand. Still a huge global killer. It's just
mostly under control of this in this country thanks to
(36:35):
vaccines and everything else. So so there was a time
when if you got tuberculosis, it could kill you in
like a couple of weeks. It could kill you in
a few months, some took years, and some people sort
of lived with it the rest of their lives. And
even though people understood contagion, you know, it's still people
couldn't get their head around it. How come my whole
(36:57):
family has been wiped out by this illness and the
house next door down the street is fine, we go
to church, they don't, Well, how come, you know? Is
God angry at me or punishing me and rewarding them?
You know, people when they're scared, they start looking for answers.
Medical science tells you it's a bacteria it gets in
your lungs that eats you away from the inside, and
(37:19):
your clergy says it's God's will. Just pray, And for
a lot of people that just wasn't good enough. But
folklore always has an answer. You might be the victim
of a vampire, and if you can find the vampire
and stop it, then you might be able to break
the spell. So the Cumberland vampire is interesting because we
know a little bit about it because the father of
(37:41):
the victor of the girl who was buried went to
the town council and said, I want permission to dig
up my daughter's grave because my other daughter is now
sick with consumption and I suspect my daughter might be
the vampire. And if we dig her up and we
can verify she's the vampire, I'm going to attempt to
break the spell, which could be cutting her head off
(38:04):
or pulling out her heart, disrupting her turning her head
upside down, you know, whatever it is that could disrupt
the vampire, and then I'll readbury her. And he got
permission from the town to do what because he's desperate? Right,
I mean, yeah, when COVID hit, we did a lot
of stories about vampires because we're just like, hey, it
(38:24):
turns out when you're really scared about this invisible illness
that's killing some people and could kill you and your
loved ones, we don't always act rationally, what I know,
And you know, you want to go back to Cumberland
and say, did you even try hoarding toilet paper? Because
did you even give that a whirl before you started
digging up dead bodies? But anyone who's a parent, I
(38:47):
think sort of understands if someone says, hey, there's a
one in a million shot this will work. Your other
daughter's already dead. But if she's the vampire, we could
prove it, you know, we can look for signs that
she hasn't decomposed, that she's moved, her bodies moved in
her casket, and she's getting up to feed on her
sister because that's what they do. And the crazy thing
is this remedy, this this folkloric remedy did work on occasion.
(39:12):
Skeptics will say that person was going to get better anyway,
and destroying burning a body or tearing its heart out
had no effect other than maybe placebo. Maybe they're right,
or maybe you got lucky and you found the right vampire.
And that's the story I've got. I've got a vampire story.
I think we found them in all six states except Maine.
(39:34):
So so this was the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
This was no main huh.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Now told me maniacs we call them. I think they're
we just they left it alone.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Well, I know our time is getting limited, and I
know there's so many people, there's so many stories that
we can keep talking about. But I want people to
actually get the book and read it. But what advice
would you give your readers to h who want to,
you know, respectively, explore these places themselves. Would what would
(40:06):
you give them as they take this journey, Because some
people may pick up the book and says, I'm going
to every single site, And.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
The good news is every single site is accessible. That
was another criteria. We wanted to make sure it wasn't
private or anything like that. You are allowed to go
to every one of these Oh yeah, that was part
of the plan. And you should go to every one
of them and you should ask your own questions. That's
the thing the story sticks around. I think one of
my favorite tropes when it comes to haunts, especially is
(40:33):
the unfinished business idea. Right. I believe that to my core,
But I think we're thinking of it the wrong way.
I don't think the ghost has unfinished business. I think we,
the living, have unfinished business. So we keep it around.
We keep talking about these stories because we haven't quite
reconciled the answer yet. So if there was an unsolved
murder that still haunts us, we don't like it because
we know it could happen again. If there's reports of
(40:56):
a monster in the woods, we say, wait a minute.
We are the smartest creatures on earth. We should know
every creature that lurks the earth with us. We must
know it. We must be that smart. Impossible, So it
bothers us because we go, is it possible we miss something?
Of course we did. Our oceans are filled with life
that we have yet to discover. So these are the
big questions. And when you go, you get to talk
(41:18):
about this stuff. And if you want to take it
as just a story. You can keep it at arm's length,
that's fine, but that story still has value and it
still connects us with a community. It connects us with
our past, and that helps us understand who we are
now in the present, because we're all a product of
where we grew up, where we live, and who raised
us within that community. And the way we treat these
weird stories is in our DNA.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I agree with you. I think you know, as we
keep exploring this amazing world that we live on, constantly
new discoveries of ancient civilizations and a human remains that
are ten twenty thirty thousand years old in an Arctic ice,
(42:03):
and I just find it fascinating that even just recently,
I think they they had a rare sighting of a
gorilla that they thought was it may be extinct. So
you know, I think this is why humans are constantly
excited about the unknown, and people like you that actually
(42:25):
go out and bring these stories to us through books
or podcast and I find it fascinating and appreciate that
you do stuff like that, so thank and every time
you come you always impress. I don't know where You're
fifty one years old and you still have energy of
a teenager. I don't know how you do it.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
I guess because I don't have a real job, maybe
that helps a lot. But Tony, thank you. Thanks for
giving people like me a voice, you know, I mean,
I appreciate it. I think my favorite part of this
is the discussion because I don't I don't know the answers.
I can just tell you, like I said, these are
literally snapshots sometime and literally you see the photograph, but
also it's the story as I know it to be
right now. It's going to change. I know that if
(43:07):
we go back in ten years or twenty years, it's
going to evolve, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot.
But this is where it's at today. And that's what
legends do. They live, They breathe, they grow, they move,
they can marry, and they can die. But they only
die when we stop talking about them, when we fully
reconciled whatever thing we were processing about that legend. But
that's I mean, it's such a wonderful way to connect
(43:29):
with people in a time when we really need to connect,
you know, we like, let's not talk about politics or
sports or stuff that's going to make us fight. Let's
talk about weird things. And go why did someone put
a bunch of ponies on the side of the road. True,
and then leave them there and you can have a
good laugh over it and say remember being a kid
and riding those things? Sure do. And then next thing,
you know, like we connect it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, I d in here in California where I live.
I'll be driving down the road and I'm like, that's odd.
I turn off and go to look at it. I mean,
that's the first thing I do. Yeah, And you're like,
why would they do this? But it's fun to it's
fun to look at. So well, everybody that's listening or
watching Wicked Strange, Uh your guide to Ghost, Monsters, Oddities
(44:12):
and Urban Legends for from New England. Uh do you
see yourself doing Wicked Strange too? And that actually sounds
like a movie?
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Uh strange too, Yeah, Starry Tanya Katine, I think we
can get her. It might be available. So yeah, that's
that's for the old people. I know, right that one
was dated. Uh you know for sure, this is only
a couple of days old. Our podcast alone has covered
over four hundred different stories. Wow, and there's a little
over one hundred in this book. So yeah, there could
(44:43):
easily be a volume two and three and four and
five and yeah, I guess time will tell. Let's see
how it goes.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, we'll go New England once stayed over, that'll be
the next one.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
We'll bleed out to like New York and down to Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Right sure, well, Jeff, thank you thanky so much. You again,
it's always a pleasure. You're launching the holiday season for
us for Halloween, so we appreciate you being here and
bringing us the amazing book Wicked Strange. And tell us
your podcast name again.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
It's called New England Legends. You can get it for
free wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Awesome. Well, thank you everybody, and please support Jeff and
his endeavors. Go to Jeff Bellinger dot com and you
can watch us here every Friday on YouTube channel. Please subscribe,
follow share, and give us suggestions like Jeff's got to
go hear from the community, and we'd love to hear
(45:43):
from you and who do you want us have on?
But until next next time, take care of yourself and
each other, and I really appreciate you guys. Take care. Bye.
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