Suddenly, you’re certain of what you saw, and it definitely wasn’t a black bear. On the ground, there’s an imprint-like a human foot but much larger, nearly two feet long and eight inches wide. Your heart pounds in your chest and you realize, jarringly, that the sounds of the forest have died. Is it a bear? You stand frozen in place, eyes locked to that shadowy spot in the woods, waiting for the animal to move. The animal-or whatever it is-is large and covered in dark fur.

Imagine you’re deep in the woods when you spot a sudden movement through the trees. We took a look at six of the most popular legends in our region. Whether our collective imaginations are running wild or we’re really sensing something otherworldly, stories of ghosts, UFOs, terrifying man-sized animals, and other hair-raising tales abound in these Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s just that your imagination and your emotions can fool you.” “Or you happen to catch something out of the corner of your eye and you swear it’s a ghost. “If you hear things that go bump in the night and you swear you don’t have a pipe rattling or anything like that, you think it’s a spirit,” he says. “Your psyche has a tendency to get away from you,” says Rivers. Though it’s hard to say why stories of unexplained phenomena pop up in these mountains, Rivers says that fear can easily get the best of people.

Michael Rivers, lead investigator of the Smoky Mountain Ghost Trackers and an author who has written extensively about Appalachian folklore, says that the Appalachian Mountains are ripe with paranormal activity. Some scholars believe that the danger and isolation of early mountain life gave birth to many of the legends that still exist today, banging around in our brains and compelling us to take an extra look over our shoulder should we find ourselves alone in a dusky forest or a creaky old cabin.

It’s not surprising that a 480-million-year-old mountain range would inspire legends of unexplained animals darting through the darkened forest or strange and ghostly apparitions appearing in the night sky.įor generations, myths and superstitions have been passed down through the oral traditions of native tribes and early settlers, gaining a foothold in our Appalachian culture. Bigfoot, Brown Mountain Lights, and the Bell Witch.

The Black Witch by Micheal Rivers