Appalachian Mountains Legends That Turned Out to Be True

It was Father's Day weekend. Back in nineteen sixty nine, the Martin family had a tradition of hiking around the Tennessee North Carolina border, and there were four of them camping overnight. William Martin, Clyde Martin, and two boys out there with very few people around, and while they were playing, the boys decided to prank the adults by hiding and then popping out to scare them. One of them went out toward the bushes, while the other, Dennis, went the other way. It was never seen again. Meanwhile, in Cade's Cove, several miles away, another family from Tennessee was out in the mountains and went home completely unaware that there was a search going on nearby. But once the father, Harold Key, heard about a missing boy, he called the authorities to tell them that he had heard a scream and saw a figure running through the woods. The son was the one who spotted it first and thought that it was just a bear, but Harold, on taking a closer look, saw what appeared to be a quote dark figured, rough looking man trying to hide behind a thicket. And we just have to ask, had a wild man taken Dennis Martin? The police said that it was too far for it to have been connected to the missing boy, but still we'll never know. As the years went by, the story of Denis Martin became connected to the existence of feral humans, which are people that live out in the wild without any connection to the civilized world, and out there in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park area, people claim to have spotted them. People that like beasts, hunt with their bare hands and live off the wilderness, livestock and kidnapped children. But do they actually exist in such an ancient place, surrounded by mysteries and legends of hikers completely disappearing off the face of the earth, strange creatures, terrifying campers. We have to wonder what lurks around the dark woods in Appalachia. My name is Edwin and here's a horror story. What happened to Dennis Martin remains a mystery, although we must admit that the most likely explanation would be that the boy became disoriented, maybe walked in the wrong direction, and died due to the elements. But if he died that way, why was he never found? Reports say that he had been wearing a red shirt at the time of his disappearance something seemingly easy to spot against the brown and green colors of the woods. A couple of men believe they stumbled upon the remains of a human boy not far from where Dennis had been reported missing several years later, but because they were out poaching Jean Sang, they didn't call the police right away, but eventually one of them came forward and a party of thirty people went out to look for Dennis, but couldn't find him. A retired law enforcement officer, David Polidis started investigating strange disappearances specifically in national parks at this time, and not in the conspiracy type of way, but more of looking at statistics, analyzing data and such, and one of the early cases he studied was this one, the missing boy Dennis Martin. Specifically, he looked at what the Keys family had said about the man that had been spotted out there in the Smoky Mountains National Park you see. David Polyides met with a retired National Park ranger, Dwight McCarter, who talked about wild men that were out living there in the area at the time when Dennis Martin went missing. David was curious and wanted to see if there was a connection. Now, to be clear, these aren't beasts or creatures of some sort. They're humans that live off the land. But still, it was the idea that feral humans were living out there, people that had never been a part of civilization, and that seem to explain several strange sightings from locals in the area. To me, it's strange to think that. Sure, we have people who choose to live off grid and others that are forced to due to crime or other reasons to hide out, but these aren't either of those. They have never been a part of civilization, never used money, medicine, or language like we do. In fact, some say that the feral people of Appalachia communicate through clicks, that sometimes these can be heard out in the woods. I mentioned the Smoky Mountains National Park, so you might assume the usual park trails and safety associated with one of them, which there are, by the way, But let me tell you, as always, there are some hikers that choose to go off trail, and out of those we end up with some very interesting stories. The Appalachian Mountain Range is older than the Rocky Mountains, starting to form some one point one billion years ago. These lands are a and some speculate that there are places there that literally no human has ever stepped on before, with it being so vast and empty. In some areas, the place has been surrounded by mysteries about what rome's out there, including sightings of the supposed dog man, Bigfoot, and the Blue People. You may have already heard of Bigfoot, a large ape like creature that has been supposedly spotted around the Pacific northwest of the United States, while others claim to have seen a variation of it somewhere in the Appalachian area or up in the northern part of the United States crossing into Canada. There are some areas, though, where soil is acidic saturated and with very few nutrients, where a very unique species of animals and plants can live. A mountain bog for those of you nature enthusiasts, where Bigfoot is said to live, and even though this specific area I'm talking about, the jonas Rich Bog in North Carolina near the Pisca Loops Highway only mentions Bigfoot or Sasquatch as parts of its lower and mystery. Few know about the witches mentioned in the fifteenth century when the Spanish were trying to settle in the land. According to an article in the Charlotte Observer, an archaeology team found a mysterious object, a piece of metal, sticking up from the ground near the remains of Fort San Juan in present day Burke County. David Moore, an archaeology professor at Warren Wilson College, learned that iron would be embedded into Spanish forts to protect themselves from witches. It's interesting to have Europeans using folklore and magic to ward off witches while they themselves considered native peoples uncivilized. But hey, if you know about my fascination and healthy fear of witches, you also know that there are events and first had accounts of people that can perform magic. And even though they are scattered throughout different areas and cultures, the Appalachian Mountains are no exception to this. If we go way back, we'll find rituals mixing with Appalachian nature, beginning with a Cherokee and Choctaw from North America way before the Europeans arrived. Europeans were the ones that started calling those who use rituals outside of their beliefs as witches. So it's safe to assume that it was the good kind of magic they were performing. But any search of witches in Appalachia is going to lead you to information about people who use nature for healing, making teas, oils, and ointments, secure just about anything. However, the Cherokee tribe also has its share of legends in the Apalachian Mountains area, one of which is a wild man, but not in the sense that we refer to it now. It refers more to a protector of the woods. But there is this story I found on the Southern Highlander dot org that mentions the tale of a group of gold miners that encountered a wild man in Caldwell County, North Carolina. This happened back in eighteen seventy seven. They were saying that it appeared to be a giant six feet five inches tall, with a funnel shaped head, and was hairy all over. They were able to track him to a cave deep in the mountains. That's where they found animal bones and other signs that it was there where he lived. But this wasn't the only one. Another paper, Forest and Stream published a sketch of the wild Man of Chilhowe in eighteen ninety six, who was encountered by four hunters and they tried to capture him, but he overpowered them and ran away. Eventually they were able to capture him and send him to the insane asylum. Then in Pennsylvania's mountains, a group of hikers found a wild man who could only grunt and wave his hands. But hundreds of these similar stories, brief ones about encounters with humans that had hair all over, were large and fast leaving out there in the wilderness started sprouting up. There might be an explanation to at least some of the wild men of Appalachia, though, and they make logical sense, like in this specific case where a wild man was said to capture five members of Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army and Tennessee and was later found to have a name Bill Patten, who refused to join the army and instead started living in the hills. Deserters of the Civil War escaping to the woods instead of fighting and unable to return in shame for not picking a side and fighting for their country makes an interesting theory. With such a vast amount of land, one could live their entire lives out there completely unnoticed. The area famous for its Appalachian Trail has legends of creatures that come from secret underground tunnels, the ghost lights, and everything from that same stretch of two thoy two hundred miles across fourteen different states in the US. Among those creatures that are said to rome like the snarley yow or the mothman. But it's said that those who have chosen to live off grid are also known to scare hikers and campers every once in a while. Plus, if you walk along the Appalachian Mountains, you might also be passing by a few of the couple hundred old cemeteries gravestones still peeking out of the underserved land. I'll tell you all about it up next. Stay with him. When you're out there in the woods at night and you hear a sound, your mind has a strange way of connecting things. Suddenly a broken stick feels like a spirit about to chase you down the trail, or when something moves and you can't quite catch it completely with your eyes, begin to wonder if it's something supernatural. But some of these strange occurrences have been documented for over a century, with multiple witnesses willing to share their own experiences. There no need of being convinced, but there are things out there in the hills just above Brown Mountain in North Carolina, people have been seeing glowing orbs, hovering and sometimes vanishing or exploding in silence. Tracing it back, we find the first report by a fisherman who said that he could see red lights over the horizon. This was back in nineteen thirteen. But then the explanation came by the US Geological Society, who said that the Brown Mountain lights were actually headlights of cars or passing trains, a reasonable explanation until waters washed out the roads and bridges in nineteen sixteen and no more cars were circulating, yet the lights could still be seen in the sky. Then, just recently, in twenty sixteen, Forest Service officers reported close encounters with these lights, described as orbs about the size of beach balls that were floating by and then disappearing. Just a month later, WLS, a local TV station, reported on footage from two separate cameras capturing the Brown Mountain lights. To this day, there isn't a proven explanation, although the source appears to be natural. Perhaps it's mountain gas or ball lightning, and if you're curious. You can also see these that the Brown Mountain Light overlook between September and early November right there on site. Legend has it that these lights are the ghosts of grieving women looking for the bodies of fallen warriors. We talked about this in a previous episode, But back in nineteen sixty six in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, there was a sudden craze about this strange creature that could fly. It was like a man with wings, and it was spotted by grave diggers at first. A few days later two young couples also saw the large flying man with wings, and then eight more sightings were reported. Thus the mothman was born. An interesting legend from the area comes from the Cherokee that says that there once existed a race of bearded white men, small in stature, that lived in the mountains and took up the land from Little Tennessee River to Kentucky. According to the Cherokee County Historical Museum, it is said that they lived in rounded log cabins with large blue eyes and white skin, and they were called the moon eyed people because they could see only in the dark. Eventually they abandoned their homes and were never seen again. Whether they existed or not is still a mystery, although some believe that they may have been Welshmen that arrived in the Smoky Mountains around eleven seventy, long before the Spanish. But there is one strange piece of history around the area that was documented enough even recently. That is of the Blue People of Appalachia. In nineteen sixty, doctor Madison Cowan from the University of Kentucky had heard about the blue people of eastern Kentucky that wanted to go find them to analyze their blood, and so him and a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, went along for the trip. They traveled for eight hours until they got to Hazard, a town by Troublesome Creek, where even more families talked to them about the blue people living in the hills. They would go up and down the hills in search of the blue people, but they could never find them. Every once in a while they would see someone standing by the top of the hills, but the way up to it would take them some time, so when they finally reached the top there would be no one there. They were tired and frustrated, so they were debating whether to just give up when suddenly two blue people showed up. There were siblings, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, and analyzed them at the clinic, where the doctor found that there was nothing wrong with them. Now this was a relief for the siblings because people believed that there was something wrong with their hearts, their lungs, and even their souls that made them blue. And their skin was blue like indigo. Some people were saying maybe they were a new race. Obviously these weren't the answers. The truth was that there was an abundance of mythemoglobin, similar to what Native Alaskans have, who lack an enzyme in their bodies. The doctor injected a dye methylene blue into them and they turned pink for the first time ever. There were no side effects to it, so they ended up giving them tablets to take every day and they went back to a normal looking skin color. In eighteen twenty, Martin Fugate got land from the US government in eastern Kentucky by a Troublesome Creek, along with a few other families in the valleys nearby. He married Elizabeth Smith, a red headed American woman, and they had seven children. Three kids came out white and the other came out blue. For years, members of the same family married each other, along with other families like the Smiths, Stacy's, and Richies, and the Blue People spread throughout eastern Kentucky. They were made fun of while others thought they were an act of the devil, so they chose not to stray too far from home and continued to intermarry. As generations continued and the years went by, the blueness from these families started to fade away, mainly because they were able to go further out due to the railway and modern roads. Although in nineteen seventy five, Benjamin Stacy, a descendant of the Fugate family, was born blue, his skin eventually turned to a normal color. There are more than two hundred cemeteries around the Great Smoky Mountains, hidden in the trails that are not used that often, adding to the lore and mystery of the area. My friends over at Astonishing Legends talk about a story of a movie, The Blair Witch Pride, which was made to seem real about college students investigating a legend of a witch in the woods of Maryland, but it's thought to be based on the story of mal Dyer a woman who lived in the seventeenth century near Leonardtown. A group of men attacked her and were cursed as a result. The thing is. The legendary hometown of this legend is in Burkettsville, an area with a dark field due to its haunting paths. Of course, we must also mention Zentralia, Pennsylvania, a ghost town that was abandoned in nineteen sixty two due to a tragic accident when fires started at the town dump and then spread to the mining tunnels, which were full of coal, flammable and known to burn very hot. Today, visitors can drive through the town to see the abandoned homes and cracking roads. Just east of Hope Township, there is a six point seven mile roadway known as Shades of Death Road. They say that at one time the area was home to vicious wildcats, and that they were feared so much that early settlers referred to that section as cat Hollow and cat Swamp because of the attacks and deaths by these wildcats. However, others talk about a band of squatters that would kill each other in the surrounding areas, earning the place a reputation for murder. The road also has many low hanging trees, giving it a lot of shade, which brings up a theory that maybe the road was known as the Shades but due to the murders of Death added to it, and these aren't just legends. In the nineteen twenties and thirties, records show at least three murders. One of them was a man killed for gold coins, the other of wife murdering her husband and burying his head on one side of the road and his torso on the other, and a local resident that was shot and buried under a pile of muck. One of the theories talks about how original settlements were surrounded by marshy swampland so when malaria carrying insects came once a year, citizens knew to expect death, and this road became a reminder of that. If you travel along Shades of Death Road today, you can still feel the eeriness of the place. Something about it and not just the name, sets the perfect environment for ghost stories. People reported strange mists rising from Ghost Lake known as a Great Meadows fog, also ghosts and empty cabins, and curious people experiencing their own paranormal events. While investigating at night. The tales and legends of Appalachia are enough to fill several volumes of books, and whether it's the history of the settlers and natives, the war, where the vast amounts of wilderness stories are plenty. With people scattered throughout the regions with their own mix of mysteries and legends, were bound to get a melting pot of tales. And just like the wolf like creature along the Appalachian Trail, the wild men, or the souls from the many grave sites, these stories still roam at night, waiting for curious high cures and campers ready for another story to listen to. This episode of Horror Story was written and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. You can get in touch via email or through social media over on at Edwin co that's e d W I n COOV, but I'll leave links to everything in the description of this episode. You can support me and Scary FM by trying out scary Plus over on scaryplus dot com. I'm opening up a Q and A section on there, as well as a subscriber only newsletter for you to check out with more information on our sources and behind the scenes content. You canceled Scary Plus at any time, so it's pretty simple. Thank you very much for listening. If it's scary everyone, see you soon.