5 More True Scary Appalachian Trail Stories | VOL 4

my grandpa grew up in this little town called grape field Virginia these days grap field is just four streets with a creek running through it but it used to be a whole lot more and walk about a mile out of town past a pair of Old Logging patches and you got the Appalachian Trail right there in your figurative doorstep I used to think growing up in that kind of place would make for an idealic childhood with its small town values strong sense of community and the great Green Forest for a backyard but there was a

reason Grandpa got out of there the first chance he got they used to say they moved because of the Great Depression and there might have been at least some truth to that but if some of the stories Grandpa later told me or anything to go by it wasn't just money problems that made the want to move because although it seems like a quiet and eventful Place grapefield Virginia has a real dark past and some of the folks living there still say it's cursed now back before the Civil War grapefield was said to be a prosperous

and promising little town where the vast majority of people were employed by one of two Plantation families who lived at opposite ends of the holler one family were slave owners and employed white towns folks as drivers overseers Tradesmen and clerks while the other family were staunch abolitionists and employed all and the same except for their Farm hands and technicians were white towns folk for the most part this Arrangement worked out just fine for both parties but as the violence over in Kansas got more and more out of hand Still Waters came to a simmer before

long the subject of slavery was no longer something that could be discussed politely and by the time the first shots were fired at Fort Sumpter folks in grapefield weren't using words to settle arguments anymore they were using bullets obviously the abolitionists had what you might call the moral High Ground the only trouble was Virginia was a slave state and the profit margins of the slave owning side of grapefield were much higher than those on the Abolitionist side who paid all their people good and fairly but then this meant the slave owners had mountains of cash

lying around cash they could use to hire all kinds of unsavory types to protect them from the abolitionists and that protection usually involve violence intimidation and occasionally murder some of the abolitionists tried to fight back but seeing as they were outnumbered and outgunned most ended up hanging from their Barns and anyone with any sense fled for northern states before they could be targeted this would have all worked out just fine for the slave owners if it wasn't for the fact that the greybacks would go on to snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory and once

the federals arrived in town the slave owners had to Parlay their way back into ownership of their own Plantation somehow they managed to do just that only this time they couldn't rely on Free Labor and there were no more abolitionist farmers in town to help maintain the plantation they had all the expertise they needed just none of the Manpower and although they shipped in folks from out of town to try and fill the gaps things were never quite the same as they were before before the war the head of the slaveholding plantation family had been

cruel and conniving but he was at least competent but then his replacement his eldest surviving son was a fool a tyrant and a drunk he might not have owned slaves anymore but he sure did treat his people like they were and he didn't just treat them like his property he treated their homes and their families like they were his property too The New Plantation owner always was a little too fresh with grap Field's women folk but then one night after a man's wife returned home claiming the plantation owner had violated her the town's folk decided

that enough was enough a whole mob of them marched over to the plantation house but instead of dragging the owner outside and hanging him from his own porch the mob started going around nailing doors and windows closed anyone who tried to escape was shot and there were lots of folks in there too not just the plantation owner and his family they had Maids Cooks nannies for the children all of whom learned to stay away from the doors or Windows L they face a hail of bullets once they had the plantation house locked down the mob

doused the place and set it on fire the mob were liquored up and they clapped and cheered as the plantation house burned but that all stopped when they started to hear the screams of the women and children upstairs it was then and only then that they realized what a terrible thing they'd done one man tried to pry the nails out of one of the window frames in hopes that he might be able to rescue some of the women and children but it was too late there was no way back for them they couldn't have any

witnesses to attest what they'd done the whole thing needed to look as much like an accident as possible not so much for their consciences but for appearances no one could ever know the truth of what happened that at night well you can see how well that went the mob must have done a decent job enough of covering things when it came to the authorities because no one was hanged for burning down the plantation house but I guess at some point someone talked either to their wife or to a minister maybe even to their deathbed because

once word got out that the fire was no accident it was like a Darkness seeped into grape field one that never went away the town's economy was completely torn apart fear and suspicion became the norm it took 40 years for the place to even start to heal but even after things started to pick up again folks talked of a curse hanging over the town all that guilt meant a lot of drinking and all that drinking meant a lot of broken homes a lot of Anguish and a lot of misery too and that ladies and gentlemen

is the kind of town my grandpa grew up in far from the kind of Hallmark card upbringing that I imagined he had as you can probably tell Grandpa talked an awful lot about growing up in grapefield probably in an attempt to instill gratitude in myself and his other grandchildren I can promise you it worked because as much as my grandpa had1 stories from his childhood that had make you laugh your butt off he had one or two extremely creepy ones too he wouldn't tell them often and he didn't tell us any scary stories when we

were kids but once I was old enough and I happen to be picking his brain one dark October evening he told me one story I'll remember for as long as I live it all started when a hunter named hyram Carter walked back into town one day after spending all morning sitting in his blind out in the woods this was back in 1934 just after prohibition ended and someone had set up a little Speak Easy kind of joint over on Apple Lane hym walked straight into the Speak Easy drank a whole bottle of beer in four

or five gulps and chased it down with a double shot of whiskey then when both bottle and glass were empty hyam asked for another round obviously a man doesn't drink like that unless something very good has happened or something very very bad has happened so naturally Ham's fellow patrons were pretty Keen to know what the occasion was but hyam didn't have any good news to share in fact he was more frightened than he'd ever been in his whole life he'd been s sitting in his blind which for those that don't know is basically like a

camouflaged shelter that Hunters hide in and H rooms there for hours before anything comes along but sure enough he starts seeing this big old Buck walking through the trees towards him it's still some distance away so Ham's got to wait as it gets closer and closer so he can get the perfect shot he's got that buck trained in his sights he's steadying his breathing then something Spooks the deer and it goes bolting off through the Woods hyram lowers his rifle trying to spot whatever it was that spooked his deer then suddenly he sees it something

darts through the trees in front of him too skinny to be a bear too big to be a dog and it's moving so fast that it just about scared hyam half to death he stays put in his hide for a few minutes clutching his rifle with sweaty palms and then he rushes out of his hide back to his truck and drives all the way back into town as fast as the engine could handle he said that whatever it was it was stalking him all the way back to his vehicle it stayed just out of sight

but it was there following him and hyam said it just about frightened the life out of him the boys done at the speaky he told him it was probably just some coyote or a mangy bear that didn't get enough food before hibernating but hyram said he was certain about what he saw and he hadn't seen nothing like it before in his life it was big it was fast and most importantly it seemed smart after finishing his drinks hym walked out of the Speak Easy and made his way home but not before warning every man in

there to stay the hell out of the woods something was out there and it was dangerous when word got around about Ham's encounter out in the woods some folks took it with a pinch of salt well the rest took it with a whole Shaker see hyam was in the habit of telling Tall Tales after a few whiskies in fact the only reason he was hunting in the first place was so he could spend half his grocery money on booze having the reputation that he did no one took hyrum's claims all that seriously and went about

their business as usual but just 7 Days Later Ham's story was the talk of town and unlike the week prior they took his claims much more seriously by the time my grandpa was a boy the site of the old plantation house the one that had been burned down by the town's folk had been abandoned and overgrown for almost 50 years with no heirs to inherit the property the land had fallen under the temporary ownership of bland County's controller whose only task was to find the property a buyer but then in the 40 plus years had

been up for sale the county hadn't been able to find one even The Carpet Baggers from up in New York and Chicago wanted nothing to do with it they'd roll through in their fancy stage coaches and top hats take one look at the land and the folks living on it and say thanks but no thanks as a result the land was all waste High Grass wild flowers and Cypress trees surrounding the brick foundations of the old plantation house local kids were warned to stay away from the place but I guess kids back then were no

different than kids today because they ignored their parents' warnings completely I guess on account of how mysterious and spooky it was but kids around my grandpa's age so about 10 or 11 would often sneak up to the old plantation to explore the grounds my grandpa said that he went up there once or twice himself but that he was always getting a bad feeling whenever he was near that place he'd heard the stories everyone had about the plantation being haunted about the town being cursed it just wasn't enough to keep the kids away and for one

little girl ignoring those warnings almost cost her her life one day a little girl came running back into town with her even younger sister in toe and they were both out of their poor little Minds with fright they'd been taking their beagle pup out for some exercise and decided to take it onto the old plantation grounds to run him around a little they were there for no more than a few minutes before their dog suddenly tucked its tail between its legs and started to growl the older girl gave the dogs leash a tug and it

was only too happy to get the hell away from that creepy old place but then as they're walking the older of the two girls see something moving in the trees surrounding the old plantation something that scared the living hell out of her something she later described as a monster later she was safe and a little calmer the older girl was asked for more details on what she'd seen she said that the monster had been creeping through the trees on all fours at first but when it saw her it raised itself up on its H legs

to watch her from across the clearing then when she and her sister started to run back towards grapefield the thing in the tree line dropped back on all four legs again then started running in their Direction like it was trying to cut them off the two girls ran as fast as their legs could carry them with their dog doubling back every so often to bark up a storm in the hopes of protecting his owners thankfully the girls managed to make it into town before whatever it was caught up with them but when they arrived they

were sobbing something fierce the older of the two girls said the creature was huge with shaggy hair all over its body but none at all around its muzzle which appeared horribly misshapen and deformed this time people took the claims much more seriously but they still thought that it must have been some kind of mangy bear that had attacked the girls after their hibernation period if a bear can't find itself a snack in quick enough time they can get really hungry and you better believe that a hungry bear is a very dangerous bear as well and

having something rate a few chicken coups or butcher a few Hogs that was one thing but having the thing hunting the town's children that could not be tolerated the most accomplished hunter in grapes field a man named Rufus Robinson volunteered to head out into the woods with his Australian Shepherd he'd said he'd come back with the beast's head or he wouldn't be back at all well a few days later rufus's Aussie shepher came hobbling back into town all on its Lonesome it walked right over to rufus's cabin but then instead of sitting on his porch

the dog went and laid down on his neighbors almost like it knew that Rufus wasn't coming home folks said rufus's dog might have run ahead gotten itself lost than simply walk back home to wait for his master they'll be back in a few days they said ay no mang bear got the better of old Rufus but Rufus never came back with no mangi Bear's head in fact Rufus Robinson never came back at all and there was no sending a search party in after him unless its first and foremost task was hunting down the bear that

took him and that's when the town's folk formed a Hunting Party Six of their best men that had head out into the woods with shotguns and rifles and bring home rufus's body and end the threat that that mangy bear posed once and for all well according to a member of The Hunting Party they were out there for less than 24 hours before they found the thing that had been stalking the town's children and it wasn't no bear one night they set up a real simple trap just laid some fresh me's bait out in the open

then all they had to do was wait well they waited and they waited but nothing showed then just when someone gets up to collect the meat so they can move it someplace else Bingo the thing comes tearing through the trees and attacks the man who approached the meat it almost took a chunk of his arm before he managed to stick a knife in the thing then once he was free of its grip his Hunting Buddies emptied almost every shell they had into it and they didn't stop firing until the Beast stopped moving once they were

quite certain the thing was dead the hunters approached shining their lanterns on the creature to get a better look only then did they realize what they were looking at it wasn't any kind of bear it was a man his hair and beard were long and Shaggy his unclothed body so filthy in parts that the dirt and mud appeared as a second kind of skin wherever there was bare skin such as his face his chest and his shoulders there were hideous webs of burn scars so much so that the man beneath had been robbed of his

human appearance his spine was arched and contorted his hands and feet bore heavy calluses and at the ends of long bony fingers sprouted sharp filth encrusted claws obviously none of the men had ever seen anything quite like it so they dragged the man's body Out of the Woods then woke up the town's doctor to come inspect their Quarry now this doctor had been grap Field's resident physician for the better part of 50 years he treated everyone in town that had lived there since the 1870s including the old plantation owner and his family it was him

that realized who the man was why he was covered in Burn scars and why he'd been living like a wild animal for what must have been decades it was one of the plantation owners Sons back on the night of the plantation house being burned down the mob encircled the building to make sure no one could Escape they took shots at anyone who came near the windows or doors at least all except one the plantation house was huge so the dozen or so men that made up the mob had to space themselves out real wide to

cover all the angles one man stationed just off the east Wing sees someone scrambling out of a small Cellar grate he raised his rifle got ready to fire but then Saul was just a boy his skin all scorched and blistering and he didn't have it in him to execute a child besides he was so burned up that there was no way that he'd survive more than a day or two out there in the woods all alone so instead of filling them full of lead like they did with the others who tried to escape the man

let the boy go having no idea that in decades to come his decision would come back to quite literally haunt them no one knows how the boy survived out in the woods for so long or why he'd chosen to live out in the trails of app lcha instead of trying to settle down any place most suspect that the grief of losing his whole family so suddenly drove him insane and that fear of mankind kept him living in the woods like some type of animal but there are few who agree on how he came to look

the way he did obviously the scars were present all over his body being from the fire but what wasn't so clear was how the boy had come to be so comfortable running on all fours like some type of dog some said that he must have been born that way and his appearance was probably why he couldn't settle down anywhere they figured that since he got treated like a monster he started acting like one too but others said that he was perfectly healthy and that in slowly losing his Humanity he learned to run and Hunt like

an animal honestly I don't know what to make of any of this and neither did my grandpa he always thought it was some myth or Legend until his own Ma and PAW con affirm that it was indeed the truth they said that the boy's death was just another and a long line of murders that never saw Justice and since they couldn't stand another one they decided to move Grandpa raised the point that it couldn't have been murder if the hunters were just defending themselves and his paw responded with what I think are some wise words

he said that the boy never really survived the plantation fire that night how he was probably wandering around the Woods living like an animal never truly being a person whether he came back to Grape field for revenge or just to revisit the place he grew up killing him meant finishing off a murder that started 30 or 40 years earlier and that's why people say the town is cursed not because there's some evil spirit lurking around the place but because those who came before condemn those who came after to have all the same blood on their

hands [Music] I want to tell you a little story about a pretty Appalachian girl named Willa May Martin or as we call her around here the girl who married a corpse Willa May lived with her husband in a place called clinch Valley over in Eastern Tennessee they were a young couple married at 17 and a shotgun wedding once Willa realized that she was pregnant they moved into a small Royal home together and for at least a little while they were happy but tragically around halfway through the pregnancy Willam May lost the baby and unfair as

it was Alden her husband never forgave her for it he blamed willay for the miscarriage saying she didn't take care of herself properly and accused her of not loving him anymore he couldn't deal with the grief so he drank and when he he drank he beat Willa May something terrible and after a while the only thing Willa May liked about her husband was the fact that he worked as an oil driller down in Texas that meant that he worked two weeks on and two weeks off which for Willa May meant two weeks of Heaven followed

by two weeks of Hell whenever he was away Alden asked his brother Silas Martin to check in on his wife every so often to keep an eye on her he did as he asked stopping by once a month or so so to do all the man's work around the home but after a while Silas who was unmarried began to wonder why Willa may had such a Melancholy about her he talked to her sometimes and asked her questions and when will May realized that he was genuinely curious about her and wasn't her husband's spy she broke

down and told him everything how he beat her how he berated her how her life was barely worth living silus did his best to comfort poor Willa May and then one thing led to another and they ended up falling in love they tried not to act on it for as long as they could but while Spirits were strong their flesh was weak after violating the sanctity of marriage the clandestine couple knew they couldn't continue their Affair in secret will may had to do the right thing and break off her marriage to Alden she waited until

Alden went on down to Texas to work for 2 weeks and then after spending a few days packing up her things and planning her escape with her new bow willay sat down to write Alden a letter word has it she gave him both Barrels in that old letter of hers told him what a piece of trash he was how she'd never really loved him and how she'd see him in hell she then grabbed her bags then rode a wagon all the way to Bean Station just over 12 miles away when Willa May arrived at Bean

Station she found Silas waiting for her there was just one problem Silas couldn't collect the last of his wages until the next day at which point they'd have enough money to survive on for a while once they'd made it to California silus put Willa May up in a cheap hotel then said that he'd meet her at the train station the very next morning with all the cash they needed to start a new life together the next morning willame may got up got dressed then headed to the station to meet Silas when she arrived she saw

him waiting on the platform for her wearing his favorite felt hat and jacket but as she got closer and the figure turned she saw it was not Silas Martin at all but rather her husband Alden Martin wearing her brother's clothes you see Alden had arrived in Texas to begin his two weeks of work only to find his Services were no longer required he could come back in 2 weeks and try his luck then but for the time being he'd have to head back up to Appalachia and try to make do with what he had saved

Alden then caught an overnight train back up to Tennessee then caught another to Bean Station arriving back in town just hours after Willa May did but while she was up in that hotel room dreaming of Life married to Silas Alden was back home reading the both barrels letter that she'd written just the night before the only trouble was and under the assumption her husband wouldn't return return for a full 11 days Will May told him exactly what she and his brother were planning to do along with exactly when she was planning to do it because

after all why not and by the time he read it she and silus would be safely in California a detail she'd completely omitted from her letter Alden lifted his brother's felt jacket showing the gun tucked in his Brites and told her he'd spare her life if she rode to his brother's house with him for a heartfelt apology Alden gave his wife's bags to a wagon Courier and arranged for their delivery back home he then pulled her at top his horse and then both rode out to silas's home on the approach when her Lover's home came

into view Will May tried jumping from her husband's horse she didn't want to see what he' brought her to see she screamed cried and bucked but Alden was Stronger he dragged her to the yard outside his brother's home then fored his hysterical wife to gaze upon the body of her lover as it hung by the neck from the beams of his porch before he let will go Alden told her go and remember you did this not me he then rode back into Bean Station and handed himself into the sheriff Alden told deputies exactly where they

could find his brother's body and that since Silas was orphaned and unmarried there was no one they needed to inform but when the deputies went to collect it was gone and there was no sign of will a May the lady herself was never seen again and Silas Martin's body remained missing until the night after his brother's hanging when someone abandoned a cart in front of the Sheriff's Office the next morning someone pulled back a sheet to see what it contained and saw Silas Martin's body lying there and balmed and pristine with a wedding band wrapped

around one of his old dead fingers the regions surrounding the fabled Appalachian Mountains are home to some fascinating but often maob myths and legends many are already familiar with the likes of The Moth Man the redey harbinger of Doom who lurks at the locations of impending disasters or the Flatwoods Monster who many believe is an example of extraterrestrial visitation yet fewer are familiar with another Appalachian Legend which after some research might just be rooted in a very unsettling truth in certain parts of Southern and Eastern Appalachia some folks still talk of an eerie nocturnal race

of imp-like humanoids known as the moon eyed people the moon-eyed people are said to be around 4T high with pale ghostly bodies and large slightly bulbous eyes they're mostly harmless and only ever come out at night due to their General fear of humanity but go walking on the trails where the moon is big and bright and you might just spot a moon-eyed person bathed and silvery light to most the moon-eyed peoples sound like nothing but a quaint rural folk tale but like many so-called myths and legends there can be varying degrees of truth to them

and in the of nocturnal gnomes that degree of Truth might be very large indeed prior to the removal of 1838 North Georgia and other parts of the Appalachians were still part of the Cherokee Nation and in 1782 the Region's governor was a man named John Sevier that same year Sevier paid a visit to the Cherokee Chief okoda at Fort Mountain who had recently reached the ripe old age of 90 years old given his status as the regioner governor Sevier and okota dedicated a great deal of their discussion to local politics Sevier sought the old Chief's

wisdom yet he also sought his experience and before long the conversation turned to history Sevier and okoda began discussing the origins of the Cherokee with the old Chief describing how his people had migrated to Appalachia from the Northern Great Lakes Region okano claimed his ancestor SS had arrived to find another people had settled the area a people so sophisticated that they turned the mountain into a veritable Fortress hence why it was given the name the Cherokee fought hard to conquer the indigenous tribe but eventually they prevailed and drove their enemy from the region before settling

it themselves seier then asked the old Chief if he knew anything of the vanquished tribe what he was told shocked him deeply Chief okon's forefathers told him that those who had occupied Fort Mountain before the Cherokee were and I quote white men from across the Great Sea the chief went on to describe how these moon-eyed people earn their name not only did they have huge disc-like eyes much larger than any humans but they devolved to be viciously effective nocturnal Hunters with natural night visions so strong that it struck fear into the hearts of the Cherokee

who didn't dare Venture away from their camps after dark AR Governor Sevier was stunned and assumed that these caucasoid tribes people were merely the stuff of Legend yet Chief okoda assured him that his account was no mere myth Sevier promised to return the following spring and in the company of a historian so that the chief's account could be officially recorded yet sadly when seier returned in the spring of 1783 he discovered that the elderly Chief had passed away despite Chief okan est's death rumors of the moony people did not Abate in fact almost every band

of Appalachian Cherokee were familiar with the Legends so much so that it attracted the attention of a man named Benjamin Smith Barton born in 1766 in the British colony of Pennsylvania Dr Barton was one of the early United States most prominent Physicians he' studied at the Philadelphia school of medicine but also at Scotland's University University of Edinburgh and Germany's University of Goan he was also such a famous and well respected figure that he' received honorary diplomas from both the lisban academy and Keel University at one time Dr Barton specialized in botany and after corresponding with

naturalists throughout the United States and Europe he published the first American textbook on the subject yet around the end of the 18th century Barton became fascinated with a subject of anthropology and more spefic specifically the origins of humanity after many years of study Dr Barton published his 1797 book new views of the origin of the tribes and nations of America the book includes excerpts of an interview with a US army colonel named Leonard Marbury fluent in the Cherokee language Colonel Marbury acted as an intermediary between the government and the natives for the better part of

20 years and in that time had heard many a story regarding the so-called called moonite people the Cherokee tell us that when they first arrived in the country which they inhabit they found it possessed by a certain moony people Colonel Marbury explained these wretched people could not see in the daytime and were expelled following a brief but bloody war at first Dr Barton theorized that there had been some kind of miscommunication and that these pale moon-eyed people were not some previously undiscovered race of stunted humanoids but rather a collection of French settlers the Cherokee had

sometimes described the moonite people as possessing what they described as alien or unfamiliar Weaponry yet when Dr Barton interviewed one frequent visitor to the Cherokee he claimed these alien weapons were little more than hoes axes guns and other metallic utensils that had been brought to the New World by the French many others have supported this assertion claiming the moony people people were no more than Rogue European settlers who specialized in hunting by Night rather than by day yet when South Carolina historian BR Carroll interviewed Merchant Explorer James adir he refuted any and all claims that

the moonight people were European born in the Irish County of antrum in 1709 Ada sailed to the new world with a British trade Mission at the age of 26 he spent the next 40 years living among the natives chiefly among the Chickasaw and Eastern Chaka while being almost entirely cut off from the outside world in 1775 when Adair was in his 60s he was encouraged to pen an account of his experiences with the native tribes titling the book a history of the American Indians the book cemented adair's status as one of the most knowledgeable Indian

experts of his generation hence why he was sought out by the author BR Carol and when asked if he was familiar with the so-called moon-eyed people he replied in the affirmative Adera claimed that almost all of the Appalachian tribes had stories concerning this primordial race of albino humanoids but it was not the frequency with which he encountered these stories that convinced aare of their veracity it was the consistency with which they were described each and every tribe spoke of the moony people being stunted nocturnal and Incredibly pale and what's more most tribes agreed that the

cause of their malformation was that they chose to live underground scientifically speaking the moon-eyed people's wide-eyed phom is entirely consistent with an offshoot of humanity having taken to living underground especially if they've done so for thousands upon thousands of years and while this all might sound like the stuff of Science Fiction it is firmly rooted in truth back in 2003 a team comprised of local and Australian archaeologists began Excavating in an Indonesian cave known as Leong bua in the hopes of uncovering premodern human remains two years later the team was undertaking a routine dig when

they discovered evidence of a human skull when a section of this skull was sent away for analysis an Indonesian scientists believed that due to its relatively small Dimensions the skull must have belonged to a child yet after more of the person's skull was uncovered and analyzed it was discovered that their teeth were that of a full-grown adult The Remains they discovered were not those of a homo sapien they belonged to a previously undiscovered relative homo florianus named after the island of Flores in which they were found homo florenci Enis were determined to be an extinct

species of small archaic human that inhabited the island until the arrival of modern human about 50,000 years ago the remains found in the Leong bua cave belonged to an adult female believed to have stood at 3' 7 in tall which earned her the nickname the little lady of Flores if the Cherokee did indeed migrate to Appalachia around 12,000 years ago which is when The Last of The fures Hobbit people are believed to have died out it's frighteningly feasible that they encountered a prehistoric race of subhuman cave dwellers against whom they waged a terrible and ultimately

genocidal War but then again how could the Cherokee be so certain that every last one of the moon-eyed people were extinct perhaps they simply took shelter in the deepest recesses of their Subterranean settlements and became even more cautious following the arrival of European settlers maybe the stories have stunted ethereal looking beings roaming the Appalachian Trail aren't just stories but rather an aspect of ancient an anthropology that we have yet to fully explain after all if the little lady of Flores and her kin were only discovered in 2003 what else has mankind yet to discover regarding

our ancient and mysterious [Music] Origins about 10 years ago an old College buddy and I had the bright idea of hiking the east e Tennessee section of the Appalachian Trail we weren't too hardcore about it or anything we just took things at our own pace and stopped at grocery stores and diners whenever we could to stock up on home Comforts at one point we stopped in a town in Hancock County intending to pick up a few six-packs and maybe a bottle of Jack since we were in his home state anyone who's from there will find

that hilarious because they'll know what we didn't walking into town and that's how there is n a drop of alcohol for sale in that whole godamn County we managed to stop in a dry Town meaning we had access to all the snacks but none of the booze and while we were at the store the nice lady behind the counter said that we'd have to walk to the next County if we wanted to buy any alcohol but she also said that if we asked someone real nice they might be able to pick some up for us

if they were already out of town we asked around town for a while approaching anyone who looked approachable but while everyone was real nice no one was able to help us out we were just about ready to give up and we were walking back the way we came when we suddenly see this dude walking out of the General Store toward what we assumed was his truck he looked to be around our age so maybe 25 to 30 and he sure looked like he enjoyed a drink so me and my buddy decided to ask him if

he could give us a ride or something and we pick him a few beers as a thank you so we walk up introduce ourselves and then make our proposal the guy seems friendly enough and didn't seem too keen on giving us a ride until we mentioned buying him a few drinks out of gratitude after that he invited us into his truck and we took off in the direction of the next County over which was the home of the nearest liquor store we were making some small talk with this guy just about how the hike was

going and stuff like that when we got to talking about how long the ride would be he said that it'd be about an hour hour there and back if we wanted to carry on hiking where we'd left off at which point we'd have lost all of our daylight and finding a place to Camp would be a real pain in the butt we mentioned this to him and he seemed to have a sort of flash of inspiration he knew of another place we could buy booze but seeing as it was a dry county it wasn't strictly

legal either he asked if we were cops and we laughed when we said no and he then asked if we were okay buying shine instead of just beer now at this point I should explain why this got us so excited by Shine the guy obviously meant moonshine which was something we talked about at length before we even stepped on the trails sipping beers and whiskies around a campfire was one thing but getting our hands on some genuine homemade moonshine would just about be the coolest thing ever if you went to October Fest in Germany you'd

want some genuine Vice brow to wash down that BR worst right and if you were vacation ing on some Caribbean island anyone in their right mind would couple that with a good locally made rum so the fact that we were in the middle of moonshine country we were just about ready to jump at the chance to enjoy some genuine locally made liquor because when in Rome you know and that's why when this dude said that he'd drive us over to his buddy's place a total stranger to buy moonshine we just kind of said okay cool

anyway the guy changed his course a little and we're totally under the impression that we're going to pull up to some house we're going to give him some cash and then he's going to go inside get us our shine and then off we go but then when we arrived at the place where he was taking us it didn't look like anyone's house at all in fact we recognize what the place was almost instantly the building itself almost looked like a community center or something definitely not a house and way bigger than most that we SE

out in those parts too but the thing that really clued us in what we were looking at was the big row of motorcycles outside my little brother was a big Sons of Anarchy fan at the time like he had all the box sets and was almost constantly watching it on the big TV downstairs in her house so right away I knew what I was looking at we were at a motorcycle Club's clubhouse it was pretty awesome seeing this actual clubhouse right there in front of us but it was like being at the zoo or something

we were still under the impression that our new friend would just go in buy the shine for us while we got to sit in the truck so when he got out of the truck and told us to follow him inside we both are like uh are you sure about that not going to object to strangers in their Clubhouse but our new friend said no it' be fine and they wouldn't mind at all so long as we were respectful Etc and so and we went and while there wasn't any kind of branding on the outside of

the building the inside was totally different they had the name of their Club everywhere and while I'm not about to reveal what that was for reasons that have become obvious they sure did like their branding they had all kinds of memorabilia all over the walls pictures and antiques and stuff and I mean it would be pretty cool of an experience walking into a bar like that if it wasn't for the record scratch moment when we walked in the second we walked in all these big hairy biker dudes just stop what they're doing and turn to

look at us our new friend asks if the pre is around which I'm assuming means the club's president and when told that he was in his office our new buddy tells us to take a seat at the bar we do as we're told but no one comes to serice drinks or anything there's just all these dudes and a few chicks standing around looking at us like what the hell are you two thinking about walking into a place like this our new buddy walked off down a hallway then after knocking on what must have been the

door to the president's office he walks inside and disappears both my buddy and I aren't saying a word but we're looking at each other like this is a really bad idea everyone in there is giving us death stairs and I even said to one guy like the guy said it would be fine and he says nothing to me in reply just grips a pool queue like he's imagining it's my neck and Carries On staring at me I was right on the verge of just being like h we'll just go ahead and wait outside sorry for

the intrusion when we suddenly heard yelling coming from down the hall so loud we could hear it over the heavy metal music playing on their in-house PA system we heard yelling then some kind of crashing then our new buddy flies into the hallway with this huge fat bald dude following quickly behind the big dude kicked his butt the entire way down the hallway stomping him at first but then dragging him to his feet and smacking him around while screaming all kinds of stuff like you dumb POS are you trying to get us busted you bring

them in here and expect us to I should drag you back and blow your head off you rat my buddy and I get off our bar stools and head towards the way we came in but another biking dude stands in our way and is like you two aren't going anywhere so right then in my had I'm thinking that a new buddy had walked into the office announced that he'd brought two strangers to the the clubhouse to buy moonshine and the club's president had freaked out on him we knew it had been a risky move to

just walk in and ask but we also figured our new friend was connected enough for that not to be a problem otherwise why bother risking it in the first place but then apparently the president had not taken it well and it seemed it was us that were about to pay the price too so as I said one of the other bikers had stepped in our way and wouldn't let us leave right so we just had to stand there and watch our new friend getting smacked around until he finally turned his attentions to my buddy and

I and right away I started saying things like we're so sorry we had no idea he told us it was cool we didn't know and all this other stuff but then instead of just beating us right there the president points towards the door and tells us both get the F out I remember feeling relief at first like this sort of lucky relieved feeling at the idea that he was just going to let us go but then at the same time I'm not the kind of person to just walk off and leave someone in trouble and

neither was my friend every fiber of my being wanted to just walk out of that door run like hell but there was also this voice in my head saying if you just leave that guy here after he put his butt on the line to get you booze you were the lowest form of scun bag imaginable I still feel like that might hold true it's just that that's not what happened at all so the big biker guy stepped out of our way so we could leave but then I say what about our friend there what's going

to happen to him and the President says he's not your friend I'm still very much in the dark so I try appealing to the guy's conscience or whatever telling him he was just trying to help us but the president yells back help you he was robbing you now get out out of here while you still have a chance and I couldn't believe it well at the time I couldn't but now it obviously makes way more sense to me but what I still can't get my head around is the fact that those bikers kind of had

our back in a way I guess when the president was asking something like are you trying to get us busted he didn't mean that we might be undercover cops or whatever he meant that robbing and maybe even killing us would bring way more heat down on them than just selling a little moonshine so they could pay to patch the leaks in the clubhouse roof or something but anyway once we realized our new friend was in fact out to get us we dropped him like a live hand grenade and then got the hell out of there

just like the president had told [Music] us a few years back I was hiking the Appalachian Trail with a few friends of mine and we ended up stopping in a campsite that had Comfort stations and all of that one night I woke up at around 2:00 in the morning and needed to use the bathroom the site was one of those Corner sites so there was a really short Trail at the back of the site which led through the woods before you get to the lights where the washroom is I guess I could have gone around

the front but I figured that I would just cut through there like I usually do to save time because I was tired and needed to pee real bad so as I'm passing the middle of the trail I he hear a very faint noise coming from my right something that sounded almost like laughing I didn't freak out or anything like I know raccoons and porcupines make something like a sort of teeh he he sound at night and I couldn't see anything like a raccoon or a porcupine but it was dark so why would I I just

kept going towards the Comfort station without a second thought but then a few seconds later I hear a voice deep in the woods a woman's voice asking hello to say I jumped was an understatement but then I was just startled you know not scared at all but I also didn't know what to say in response or if this girl was talking to me or someone else entirely I ended up just saying hey in like a sort of friendly voice because if some girl was freaking out hearing Footsteps in the middle of the night I didn't

want her to think that I was some kind of Creeper but then after I said hey and there was no response and that's the point that I started to get a little bit freaked out once I was at the Comfort station I did my business and managed to talk myself out of having a serious case of the Creeps I don't believe in ghosts or anything like that and I still don't to be honest and although the timing and sudden silence had been fairly creepy I knew that worst case scenario it was just a person that

was probably as spooked as I was anyway so I started heading back the way I came thinking if I heard anything this time I'm just going to Sprint but I'm getting further and further along the trail and it's as quiet as the grave out there I'm maybe 75% of the way along the trail thinking to myself I hope I didn't scare that girl too bad when I hear her voice again only it's not her voice it just sounded like her voice but it was different in a way that made my skin want to crawl right

off my body body when it said come back and I think that was the fastest I've ever ran in my entire life I beat feet like an athlete and threw myself back into my tent so frantically that I woke everybody up they kept asking what was wrong and all I could say was I think I just freaked myself out as all there was no way in hell they'd believe me if I told them what I'd heard they'd think that I was drunk high or just a little baby man or maybe a little of all three

but they would not believe that I Heard a Voice Change in a way that it did it sounds crazy but I actually hoped that they would hear it at some point but we moved campgrounds that next day and I didn't hear anything like it for the whole rest of the trip I'm obviously very glad that's the case I just wish that I knew what I heard that night because I'd be lying if I said that question didn't keep me up at night hey friends thanks for listening click that notification Bell to be alerted of all

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the channel and check out the let's read podcast where you can hear all of these stories and big compilations remastered and sounding Awesome every Tuesday at noon located anywhere you listen to podcast all links in the description below thanks so much friends and remember Joel for president 2924