Terrifying True Urban Legends: Summertime Edition // Dark Summer Series
Lights of a ghost plane that illuminate a New Jersey forrest, the legend of a hermit who lives in the woods in Maine, and a woman found at the bottom of a lake in New York. These are three urban legends with some terrifying truths behind them
TW: Suicide
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SOURCES
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/09/27/82151044.html?pageNumber=14
https://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit
https://www.adirondack.net/history/lady-in-the-lake/
https://www.tiktok.com/@espookytales/video/7310053047642721582
https://weirdnj.com/stories/local-heroes-and-villains/carranza/
TRANSCRIPT
The humid summer night enveloped the girls as they spilled out of a local convenience store and into their car.
That night, The moon cast an eerie glow on the deserted road as they set off, headlights cutting through the oppressive darkness. It was nearly midnight when they turned onto the narrow, sandy trail of Carranza Road
Back in the convenience store, three older boys told them if they wanted to get scared that night, there was a statue at the end of Carranza road they should check out. Legend has it, it’s the site of a plane crash, and the ghost of the pilot still hangs around the monument at night. If you flash your brights and call out the pilots name, Emilio, you’ll see him. The girls were out that night looking for places to scare each other, so that was all they needed to hear to jump in their car and head deep within the New Jersey Pinelands.
There was a lot to be afraid of in the New Jersey Pinelands. Aside from this haunted monument they had never heard of, there were legends of creatures that lurked in the deep forest. Most famously, the Jersey devil. A demonic creature with the the head of a dog, but facial features more similar to a horse. It also had a kangaroo like stature. Legend said It had bat-like wings, horns and a tail. Stories of this creature had spread around New Jersey communities for 250 years, and as the girls made their way down the long road, they looked deep into the woods for signs of it. Hoping they’d see something that could scare the others.
Eventually, far down Carranza road, their headlight illuminated a monument. This must be it. The monument was a sturdy pillar made of tan stone blocks, like a tiny piece of an Aztec temple, surrounded by spiky yucca plants at its feet. Through the darkness, they could see A falling eagle engraved in Aztec stylings on its front, with strange footprints imprinted upwards along the pillar and an arrow carved into the back. It looked odd sitting in the middle of a New Jersey forest.
As they approached it, they killed the engine and sat in silence, the quiet only broken by the distant rustle of leaves in the midnight breeze. The girls dared each other to flash their brights and call out the name of the pilot the boys had told them about. With a deep breath, the driver flicked the headlights three times and they all shouted, "Emilio!" The silence that followed was suffocating.
The girls all laughed to themselves, “you’re scared, no i’m not YOURE scared!” they teased. Well if you’re not scared why don’t you go out and touch the monument.”
Just then, one of them caught something in the corner of her eye, and she whipped her head around. “Um, GUYS?!”
Suddenly, a shadow emerged from behind the monument. It was too large, too dark, and moved too unnaturally to be human. Panic set in as the girls scrambled to start the car, but it wouldn't turn over. Their breath quickened, eyes wide in terror. Then, out of nowhere, three ghostly faces appeared in the darkness, surrounding their car. Their pale, expressionless visages seemed to float in the night. Without waiting to find out what would happen next, the driver put it in reverse and hit the gas. The group sped off, never to return to the crash site of the ghost plane.
The legend of Carranza road and the pilot who haunts the monument has spread throughout New Jersey, and daring teens tempt fate and try to visit it. What they don’t know though, is that the legend was much more real than they could have imagined
I want to tell you the truth behind the Carranza Road legend, as well as two other summertime urban legends that ended up being true. But first we’re going to take a quick break.
BREAK 1
HSP INTRO: Just the Gasp, and then sounds of the house.
Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries. I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore. I want to give a shoutout to everyone who has rated and reviewed the podcast–it’s really helpful for the algorithms, so if you have a chance make sure and do it. I’ve been sitting in the Rogue detecting society headquarters reading through some of them, and they’re so kind. McKittens listens on apple and recently wrote “Me and my sister love to listen to this in her car I love it so much it’s so great you should definitely listen”. ZaneJT, another apple podcast subscrbier who uses the secret code in their review said a lot of nice wonderful things including that they “drive over an hour each way for work on top of a 12 hour shift and a new episode is always something I look forward to in driving”--thank you for listening Zane. Your kind words dont got unnoticed and I really appreciate them you have no idea. Zane also said they like that I never ‘go on and on’ like some other hosts–so I’d better get back to the episode but thank you again everyone for listening and for your reviews. Now…
We’ve all been told urban legends since childhood. They’re fun little two sentence horror stories often meant to scare us, like that a plane crashed in the woods and now the ghost of the dead pilot haunts the area.
But behind every legend is a kernel of truth. I mean, they have to come from somewhere, right? Today, we’re going to look into the truth that lies underneath a couple, but first, I want to take you back into the New Jersey Pinelands
As the girls sped off from the ghost plane memorial deep within the forest, they thought that the three older boys from the Wawa had followed them into the Pinelands with the intention of scaring them. They figured the story of the ghost plane wasn’t even real, just part of their elaborate prank. The girls had no clue that the boys had all gone home for the night, and were nowhere in the area. And that the story they had told them was, in fact, true.
The, strange, Aztec-style monument is a tribute to the tragic end of a young pilot from Mexico, Emilio Carranza Rodriguez.
By 22 years old, Emilio was a national treasure in Mexico. In the new age of aviation, Emilio was unafraid of flying, conquering the skies as a skilled pilot.
Emilio’s childhood during the Mexican revolution was turbulent, and his family was forced to leave Mexico multiple times. The first time being 1911 when he was just 6 years old.
But once, when tensions had calmed a bit in 1917, his uncle, a General, brought him to work at Balbuena airport where he worked on planes. When Emilio first saw the aircraft, everything in his life started making sense. He could finally see order amongst the chaos of the revolution. He became obsessed with the idea of flying, and he counted down the days until he could join the military aviation school in 1923.
Emilio wanted to show Mexico that long distance travel in a plane was possible. That they could one day be used to get the people of mexico from Mexico City all the way to Ciudad Juarez. Hell, they could even get them all over the world.
When he first flew from Mexico City to San Diego and back, thousands of people waited at the airport for his return, cheering and waving bandanas as he touched down in his plane. He was a national hero, and few months later, he was invited to fly to Washington DC and dine at the White House with Calvin Coolidge.
In July 1928, at just 22 years old Emilio embarked on a goodwill mission from Mexico to New York City, hoping to strengthen ties between the two nations. He wasn’t just a celebrated aviator now, his inspiring story was making him a sort of Diplomat, it was helping to repair relations.
He scheduled his flight back to Mexico on July 2nd, but soon, reports of a bad storm rolling in were being delivered to his dinner table. Don’t risk it, his advisors all told him. He cancelled the flight, intending to fly out just a few days later.
But days came and went and the storm raged on. Emilio wanted to get home, so on July 11th, he asked that his plane be prepared for him. The mechanics that helped him get ready for the flight looked nervously at the angry gray clouds in the sky. But soon, his plane, the Mexico Excelsior, was ascending up into the heart of the storm. The single engine plane with it’s small propeller on the front was no match for the roaring storm clouds. The headlines the next morning read “"Captain Emilio Carranza left New York en route to Mexico and walked straight into a raging storm."
As he flew south, the storm continued to grow in size. Lightning flashed, illuminating the dark clouds, and the rain battered his fragile aircraft, Emilio struggled to keep the plane level, and eventually, the power went out, plunging him into darkness. He gripped a flashlight in one hand as the storm's fury increased.
Residents of Tabernacle, New Jersey, heard the sound of the plane's engine sputtering overhead, a sound that was quickly drowned out by the storm. Emilio was desperately searching for a place to land when the engine finally gave out. The Excelsior plummeted into the dense forest of Wharton State Park. Emilio was ejected from the plane, his body was discovered the next day when a family picking berries in the forest found the wing of his plane.
News of Emilios death sent shockwaves throughout Mexico and the United states alike. The young heroes’ life had been cut short, how could he have been so stupid.
Well, found tucked into the pocket of his jacket was a telegram that he had received from a superior in the military the night before. It read "Leave immediately, without excuse or pretext or the quality of your manhood will be called into question."
His superior was afraid that watching out for his own safety would cause Emilio to be seen as less of a man. And at the heart of the trailblazer was a young kid raised in the middle of a revolution, used to doing what his parents asked of him even if it meant moving in the middle of the night.
A monument now marks the spot where Emilio's body was found. Made of sturdy tan stone blocks, it resembles a piece of an ancient Aztec temple, surrounded by spiky yucca plants, an homage to Emilio’s heritage.
Legends of his ghost have spread far and wide, but with the increasing number of people who have reported seeing the same, large and shadowy figure emerge from behind the monument, it seems like that part of the legend holds some truth as well
One group of friends, separate from the group I described in the beginning, dismissed the tale as mere superstition, and ventured to the monument late one night. After calling out Emilio's name and flashing their lights, their car inexplicably stalled. The engine refused to turn over, leaving them stranded in the oppressive darkness. Just as panic began to set in, the car finally roared to life, and they sped away. But as they glanced in the rearview mirror, they saw lights following them—lights too high to be another car, yet too low for an airplane. They never did figure out what those lights were.
More, after the break
BREAK 2
In the Summer of 1997, a woman who has remained anonymous, so for the purpose of this story I’ll call her Wendy, drove up to her cabin in Maine with her husband.
The couple’s cabin sat on a beautiful pond surrounded by pine trees and maples. This was going to be their first summer in the cabin, and they were so excited.
The first thing they did to get ready for the summer season was stock the refrigerator and cupboards with fresh food. After setting everything up, they left, planning to return in just a few days with their family to celebrate the new cabin.
Wendy and her husband eventually returned with their family. But as soon as they stepped inside, something felt off. The house seemed too empty, too quiet. And it had the overwhelming feeling that someone had been there.
Wendy went over to the fridge to start cooking, and to her surprise, it was completely empty.
Her husband still talks about how she repeatedly opened and closed the freezer door in disbelief. Each time she looked, the food was gone. "I must have opened it three times," she recalled, shaking her head at the memory.
Eventually, she mentioned what had happened to some neighbors, who gave her an all knowing smile, I see you’ve encountered the hermit.
And so, Wendy was introduced to the Ponds Urban legend. No one had ever seen this person, but everyone in the neighborhood had stories of coming home to food missing from their fridge and pantries.
Some thought it was funny, but Wendy and others found it creepy. The legend that someone was out there, lurking in the woods and breaking into homes, changed the community. Nights by the fire became filled with stories and speculations about the Hermit. Tales of a man with a crooked spine, at least 70 years old. He had a furrowed brow and a long gray beard. His glazed over eyes went in different directions, but you could still feel his stare bore into your soul. These legends had floated around for years, a mixture of hearsay, folklore, and myth. But now, to Wendy, it felt all too real.
So, Wendy did what any new and terrified home owner would do, she set up cameras in her cabin. She was going to get to the bottom of this.
One Thursday morning, she arrived at the cabin and immediately noticed the Rice Krispie treats in her pantry were gone. "Oh god, he's been here," she thought.
She ran straight to the cameras and pulled the cassette tapes out to review the footage. Maybe she caught the first ever image of their terrifying recluse.
Reviewing the surveillance tape, her expression dropped in horror. she watched as the backdoor opened, and a hermit slipped in through the back, moving quietly around the house. He rifled through the cupboards, eating chips and putting them back—an act both bizarre and gross. He even opened the refrigerator, where they kept worms for fishing, inspected them, and closed it again.
But most shocking of all, as she reviewed the footage, she realized this was not at all who she was expecting. It wasn’t the deranged psychopath they had all described. No, the man wore nice pants, a clean golf jacket, and a baseball cap. He even had wire framed glasses. The footage showed a man who could easily blend into society, someone who didn't match the wild, ragged stereotype of a hermit.
She finally had proof of the man’s existence, but Despite the clear images captured on the tape, no one came forward to identify him. His picture was disseminated throughout central Maine, appearing in newspapers and community bulletins, but he remained a ghost. People would speculate, pointing out resemblances to acquaintances or strangers, but his true identity remained a mystery. Though there was footage of him, he still remained somewhat of a legend.
Still, Every summer, like clockwork, the Hermit would emerge from his forest refuge to "harvest" supplies in the area. Neighbors would awake to find chip bags mysteriously opened in the night, flashlights silently ripped from a utility drawer, even their gas tanks mysteriously emptied. People began to feel paranoid, constantly on edge, knowing that someone could slip into their homes at any moment.
The man’s stealth was legendary. He never left a trace, never shattered a window or forced a door. Instead, he slipped through unlocked doors and windows, moving silently in the dead of night. And in a community where people rented summer homes, leaving them unattended for sometimes weeks, he had his pick of basically whatever home he wanted.
Occasionally Security cameras captured grainy images of a man in hiking clothes, but his face was always obscured. But over the years, The few photos that did emerge captured a man growing more and more into the gaunt figure with a wild beard and rotted teeth—a stark contrast to the regular folks he stole from. Locals tried to find him, trekking through the woods hoping to find a breadcrumbed trail of their belongings, but no one knew where he was.
This all came to a tipping point in April 2013. That night, a neighbor got an alert on a motion detector he had set up in his walk-in freezer. Assuming it was the thief, he called a state trooper friend who had been tracking the situation for years.
When the trooper arrived, he found a man, almost 50 years old, with a receding hair line and thick, scraggly gray hair protruding from his face and head. He wore the wire rimmed glasses that had been caught on camera over 15 years ago, and tattered clothes.
His name, as they would come to find out, was Christopher Knight, and he was a hermit living in the Maine wilderness for the last 27 years.
When Christopher was just 20 years old, his car broke down on a dirt road and he walked into the wilderness with just a tent, and never walked out. His family assumed he had died.
What was even stranger, was Chris’s life up until that point had been normal, healthy even. He had two loving, though stoic parents. He had a vocational degree and a job as an alarm technician, which, as a side note, is why he was so good at disabling alarms.
And yet, he abandoned all of that to live a life in the woods, surviving largely on mac and cheese, mountain dew, and whatever other summery snack foods he could loot. He averaged around 40 break ins a year, totaling over 1,000 in his career.
His Life in the woods was far from idyllic. He described the harsh Maine winters, when he would meditate to stave off hunger and freezing temps. He never lit fires, fearing the smoke would give away his location. He cooked on small camping stoves, and every item in his camp was meticulously camouflaged. He avoided walking in the snow to prevent leaving footprints, and he never slept inside a building or used a toilet in all his years as a hermit.
Christopher was arrested by the sheriff and spent 7 months in custody. In that time, public opinion on him seemed to change. Now that the people knew his intentions they almost felt…bad for him. He wasn’t trying to scare them or steal their valuables. He was just taking what he needed, no more. People started referring to him as a legend, not in the mythological sense, but as a hero.
As the years pass, the legend of the North Pond Hermit will likely grow, blending fact and myth. But for those who lived through his reign of quiet terror, the memory of missing batteries and empty propane tanks will always be tied to the mysterious figure who lurked in the shadows, living a life few could imagine but many will never forget.
More after the break
BREAK 3
Story 3: Lake Placid
Each summer, thousands of vacationers head to Lake Placid in New York. With scenic hiking trails, miles of lake and rivers to paddle down, and lower temperatures than New York City, it’s a perfect getaway
Nestled on one end of the lake are cliffs that adventurers can jump off of. The cliffs themselves are part of a larger rock structure, called Pulpit Rock, and for nearly 100 years, legends about this rock in particular have made their way through camp sites of vacationers staying in the area.
“There’s a ghost that haunts the rock”, kids would warn each other on their way up the cliffside to jump into the water. They’d nervously look over their shoulders as they’d make the plunge.
Though the legend had persisted for decades, no one knew exactly where it came from, and as kids repeatedly plunged from the top of the cliffs into the 105ft depths of the lake, they didn’t realize that the truth behind that legend lay underneath their treading legs.
In 1963, two scuba divers, Richard Niffenegger and Jimmy Rogers, were exploring lake placid. For fun, they swam over to Pulpit Rock. There, they dove down into the murky depths of the lake, down to where the suns rays weren’t as strong. Where the muck from the bottom of the lake fought its way towards the surface, obscuring everything below it..
There, one of the divers saw something. It looked waxy, and pale, almost glowing in the bits of sunlight that reflected off of it. He signaled to the other diver to come over. As they slowly approached, a face appeared.
It was a woman, around 50 years old, with short hair flowing back and forth with the waters movement. Around her neck was a rope, with an anchor attached to it.
Even more shocking, she looked as if she had just been submerged in the water moments ago. The divers jumped into action. One swam towards the surface to mark the area, while the other reached out to pull her to the surface. That was a struggle, the anchor holding her down was at least 50 pounds. as he pulled her up the rope slipped from around her neck and sank back down to the lakes bottom, disappearing below the murky depths.
As the diver swam with her toward the surface, he noticed how waxy her skin looked. Though she was in perfect condition, he started to get the sense that she had been down here for quite some time.
When the woman was brought to the coroner’s office, that hunch was confirmed. The body was that of Mabell Smith Douglass, an academic who had gone missing in the area 30 years prior, in 1933. Her identity was confirmed by a mark on her arm from a break she had suffered close to the end of her life.
Mabell Smith Douglass was born in 1877 and though she accomplished a great deal in her life, she was also subject to much tragedy.
In 1916, her husband William passed away and In 1923 her son took his own life. She still had a daughter, Edith as she worked on her academic career despite her hardship, and by the 30s, she was the Dean of a woman’s college.
But a year before her death, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a sanitarium. Her breakdown was attributed to burnout, and she went away mostly to rest and recover from her grueling hours as an educator.
On September 22nd, 1933, Mabell and her daughter Edith were planning on leaving lake Placid to head to New Jersey. The two waited for Alfred Henderson, one of Mabell’s colleagues to join them. As they were collecting their things and getting ready for their journey, Mabell was seen going down to the rowboats near a doc around 1:30pm. She was never seen again.
Police assumed she had drowned in the lake, but they never imagined the condition she’d be found in, what with the rope and anchor tied to her neck.
Coroners looking at her body couldn’t concretely say if Mabells drowning had been self inflicted or not. It was strange to find someone with an anchor tied around their neck that had done it to themselves, but because the rope and anchor were at the bottom of the lake, they couldn’t be sure how it was tied. Was it an expert fishing knot, or did it look like she had quickly done it herself?
If it was foul play, no one was ever suspected in her death, she didn’t have any enemies. In fact, she was well regarded at her university and in the world of academics. Her death was officially ruled an accident.
It’s important to note here that when her body was found, she had no surviving relatives to inform. Her daughter Edith had taken her own life in 1948.
The kids in Lake Placid may not know the true story behind the haunting they tell each other about, or even that as they told each other the story, Mabell was just below their feet under the water.
But they say that her ghost still haunted Pulpit rock, roaming around endlessly, trying to close up her home for the end of the summer season before heading back south for the school year.
Conclusion
The last time I wrote an episode on true urban legends, I asked you all what were some urban legends you grew up with, and I got answers that really ran the gamut
Everything from the Alaskan Triangle, to a road that collapsed when a bus full of children were on it, to ghost trains that whistle through the night. It seems like every place has a story.
So remember, as someone is telling you those tales to scare you, there may be a kernel of truth behind it, and it may be even scarier than the legend itself….