Files From the Edge

by Philip J. Imbrogno

  The Ellenville Tunnels

  Although the strange occurrences mentioned so far took place on the east side of the Hudson River, equally mysterious things were being seen or discovered on the western side as well. In Pine Bush, New York, a great number of UFO sightings and paranormal phenomenon took place beginning in 1983 and continue to the present. However, it is not the scope of this book to cover these events in great detail. If the reader is interested, I recommend reading Silent Invasion by the late UFO researcher Ellen Crystal. In Silent Invasion, Crystal mentions underground tunnels and caves in the area where she claims a secret agency in the U.S. government has a joint operation with an alien intelligence. These tunnels are located outside the town of Ellenville, New York, and, unlike the tunnels in Brewster, there is no historical record of who made them so they remain a mystery to local historians. One theory suggests that Dutch miners looking for pockets of minerals carved the tunnels into the mountain, but no evidence has ever been found to support this conclusion. The two things the Ellenville tunnels and Brewster tunnels have in common are how they were made and the number of paranormal events that have taken place in and around them. The most-reported phenomenon seen near the tunnels is spook light. As in Brewster, the lights are referred to as the ghosts or UFOs of Ellenville and have been seen since the early part of the nineteenth century.

  Tunnels To Nowhere

  I visited the Ellenville Tunnels on September 10, 2001, to get a better understanding of what they looked like and how they were similar (or dissimilar) to the underground tunnels on the eastern side of the Hudson. Although I found only three of them, they were very hard to explore; the water was at least knee-deep. The only tunnel that seemed to have a modern look to it was the one located near High Point Mountain.

  The High Point Mountain tunnel was first discovered in 1905. In 1907, a water company bought the land and used the natural springs to sell bottled water. The water company went out of business several years later, but activity there did not stop. In the mid-1980s, local residents claim to have seen military vehicles traveling up the road leading to the tunnel opening. Some of these people speculate that the government may have had some type of underground operation there sometime in the past; this may have been the basis of Ellen Crystal’s claim in Silent Invasion.

  Although I explored all three tunnels, my investigation was short compared to the research done in Brewster. I found evidence of chisel and drill marks on the walls that appeared to be made by tools used in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At the end of each tunnel, I noticed a great deal of rock and dirt as if someone collapsed the walls to seal off what lay beyond. It is my opinion that the tunnels of Ellenville were originally made in the eighteenth century by colonial settlers looking for iron ore. However, who or what took them over in modern times is unknown. Pine Bush and Ellenville have many mysterious secrets and in the years to come, my pursuit of High Strangeness would take me to these two towns repeatedly.

  My Continuing Investigation of the Spook Light Phenomenon

  It’s interesting that spook lights are a worldwide phenomena. Many locations around the United States have their own variation of the phenomena. As a science educator for the past twenty-seven years, I have a considerable amount of free time to pursue my passion in the summer, so I made it a point to visit states in which spook light has been well documented. Spook light seems to be associated with areas that have had a great number of UFO sightings and underground tunnels or caves. The connection is still unclear and speculation differs: some feel the phantom lights are probes from extraterrestrial spacecraft, some say they are disembodied spirits, and others think they come from the lower levels of the earth’s crust and are released into our world during mining operations.

  The Hornet Spook Light: Joplin, Missouri

  Just southwest of Joplin, Missouri, near the old town of Hornet is an isolated countryside road where a ball of light has been seen for the last hundred and fifty years. It has been called many things, including the “Devils Promenade,” “Hot Devil,” and finally, “The Hornet Spook Light.” It has been reported to spin down the center of the road at great speed then rise into the air and disappear. Local legend says that the light is the collective spirit of the Quapaw who died in the area many years ago. Others believe the light are the ghosts of a miner’s murdered children. Whatever the explanation, the Hornet Spook Light is very similar to the Reservoir Road Spook Light in Brewster, not only in appearance, but also that it is reported near an old mine entrance. In August 2001, I made a trip to Joplin to track down this phantom light. Over several nights, I parked alongside several dark secondary roads off Route 43 near Hornet, Missouri. During my time in the area, I did not see the light(s) despite spending several days there, but I did talk to a number of people who witnessed the phenomenon—one person even claimed he took a shot at it but the bullet had no effect.

  The Crossett Spook Lights: Crossett, Arkansas

  Information about the Crossett Spook Lights came to my attention in 2003. Over spring vacation of that year, I decided to take a trip to Arkansas with the goal of tracking down another mystery. When I arrived in Crossett, I was surprised that almost everyone (who was willing to talk) knew about the lights. The lights have been described as being various colors: red, blue, green, and sometimes a yellowish white. These lights always keep their distance from the curious who try to approach. During my three-day visit, I drove one night along Backwater Road and witnessed a ball of green light off the side of the road in the woods. I stopped the car and got out to try and get a better look at it. The light bobbed up and down in the trees, causing me to periodically lose sight of it. I watched it for three or four minutes before it quickly rose into the air and fell into a heavily wooded area. I could find no rational explanation for the phenomena, and although I took about ten photographs not one came out clearly enough. This may be because the light was never stationary—it continuously moved quickly above and below the tree line. Local legend says that the spook light is the ghost of a switchman at the nearby railroad who was killed by a train sometime around 1850. I wasn’t surprised when I discovered a mineral mine less than one-eighth of a mile from the location where the light has been reported.

  The Dover, Arkansas, Ghost Lights

  The local Dover, Arkansas, newspaper reports that the “Dover Ghost Lights” can be seen almost every night, just 15 miles outside the city. After leaving Joplin, I paid a visit to Dover to try and catch a glimpse of another local legend. Just off highway 7 is a lonely stretch of dirt road considered a scenic route for the area—and the ghost lights’ main drag. It is reported that the light behaves like a curious animal that responds to other lights and sounds. I spent the entire night switching positions using Route 7 as a center point so I would not get lost. At three in the morning, I noticed a faint ball of light ahead of me on the dirt road. At first I thought it was a motorcycle headlight, but quickly ruled this out because I heard no sound and at times the light went at least 10 feet in the air. I flashed the bright lights in my car and was amazed that a second later, the light flashed back! I did this five times and was able to obtain the same clear response. I started the car and slowly drove down the road with the headlights off; the light then seemed to shift in color from a yellow to a blue and quickly moved to the right into the woods. The next day, I went into Dover and asked about the ghost lights. To my surprise, I was given the names of eight people who had encounters with it. Since my time was limited, I was only able to interview one of them. I did not find a mine in that area, but noticed a very large pit filled with water about 15 feet wide and very deep. A volunteer at the local museum told me there were as many as eight such pits and no one knows who dug them.

  The Surrency, Georgia, Spook Light

  In 2004, I was visiting a friend in Georgia and decided to look into another report of a spook light that has been seen in Surrency, a small town of about four hundred people in the south
east corner of the state. According to the locals, the light can be occasionally seen along the railroads tracks that belong to the Macon/Brunswick line. In the local library, I found eighteen news stories about the lights indicating sightings began shortly after the railroad was constructed in 1911. According to the news stories, the light is the size of a large beach ball and bright yellow in color. During a regional seismic survey in 1985, geologists from the University of Georgia found a bizarre anomaly deep under the town of Surrency. The anomaly is unlike anything they have seen before: a dome-shaped pocket of unknown liquid at a depth of 7 miles. Some believe this strange underground anomaly is responsible for the light while others say it is the ghost of a resident killed in 1870. From 1925 to present, a number of town residents reported poltergeist phenomenon accompanied by mysterious noises, things being thrown around, and disembodied voices.[7] I spent two days in the town and although I didn’t see any strange lights or other strange occurrences, I did leave with a great deal of information that proved Surrency is one haunted little southern town.

  The Marfa Lights of Texas

  The most famous of the American spook lights can be found in Texas in a small town called Marfa, located about 190 miles southeast of El Paso. Although the lights do not appear every night, they are said to be quite regular such that even visitors to the area have claimed to have seen them. The first recorded incident took place in 1883, when cattlemen first thought they were Apache campfires, but soon realized that they were something else, something strange. The lights have been reported to be yellow in color, and float up and down (or sometimes back and forth) in the sky. Several of them have been seen frolicking around as if in play, chasing each other like baby animals.

  In 1973, a team of geologists from the University of Texas went to Marfa to make observations between the months of March and June. On one outing on March 19, they were able to see the lights, but as they tried to get closer, the lights moved away and kept their distance. On March 20, the scientists observed the spook light uninterrupted for twenty minutes. They reported the phantom lights swinging in the air, rocking back and forth then started looping around each other. One of the geologists remarked that the lights appeared to be playing. The lights have been photographed many times since 1986. In my analysis of these images, my impression is the photos are inconclusive. The Apache of the region were familiar with the Marfa Lights; they perceived them to be spirits. According to historical records, nineteenth-century settlers of Marfa believed the lights were ghosts of massacred natives. Later in the early twentieth century, Texans believed the lights were spirits that guarded hidden treasures. Finally, in the twenty-first century, many think the lights are probes sent by an extraterrestrial intelligence!

  There are a great many locations in the United States and around the world that have their own spook or ghost lights; the cases are so numerous, a book could be written on this phenomenon alone. Whatever they really are, science lacks a definite explanation. Spook light sightings are very well documented and deserve serious study, in my opinion.

  [1]. The Greek word pangea roughly translates to “entire earth.”

  [2]. Walter Brewster founded the village in 1848, motivated by nearby mines (which he partially owned), an abundant water supply, and the railroad’s plans to pass through the area. The railroad helped to foster two local industries: iron mining and dairy. By the 1870s, Brewster was a thriving community, due in large part to these industries’ successes.

  [3]. Andrew Cosgriff was born in New York City in 1821. In 1865, he was mining in Pennsylvania. In 1868, he came to Putnam County and became the superintendent of Tilly Foster Mine.

  [4]. This information is from a microfilm at the Danbury Library.

  [5]. Electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range 4-400 nanometers (known as ultraviolet light). This range begins at the short-wavelength limit of visible light and overlaps the wavelengths of long X-rays.

  [6]. I called Kodak Labs in the winter of 2009 and was informed that the film had been discontinued.

  [7]. The Savannah Morning News, August 1875.

  Creatures from a Hidden Reality

  The vast diversity of paranormal phenomena provides many avenues of research—enough to fill a very thick book. One important part of paranormal research is cryptozoology, the study of unusual creatures.[1] Under this branch are creatures such as Bigfoot, lake monsters, the Chupacabra, mothmen, and other creatures we once thought could only be found in our worst nightmares. In our modern age, people still report encounters with monsters; it makes you wonder if all mythological creatures like the minotaur, griffin, cyclops, dragon, gargoyle, and a host of others really did exist and were not the product of medieval over-active imaginations. Throughout history, these strange creatures of time and space appear in certain areas of the world but then vanish without a trace—only to reappear once again at some point in the future. Perhaps they are not part of our world, but from a nearby parallel reality. If we accept the fact that over the centuries even a small percentage of these reports have substance, we have to consider their origin may be interdimensional. However, the frequency of reports seems to indicate the nature of their appearance in our world may be cyclic.

  Half Human

  Way back in 1960, when I was very young, I saw a movie on television called Half Human. The movie was supposedly based on a true story of the Yeti (also known as the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas). The story centered on a peaceful creature somewhere between an ape and a human that lived high in the mountains with his family. One day, greedy hunters who had heard of the creature found and shot his mate and child. The bodies were taken to a village for storage until the hunters could arrange transportation back to England where they planned to display the creatures and sell them to the highest bidder. Well, the surviving male went berserk; he attacked the village and got his revenge but the story had a sad ending. The Yeti was finally hunted down at the edge of a cliff where he fell off after being shot several times. The Yeti portrayed in the movie was a terrifying creature, but it made me wonder who the bad guys really were in the story: this creature was peaceful and minding its own business until greedy profit-seeking humans found him and his family.

  I was quite surprised when they played a short documentary at the end of the movie informing the audience that the creatures in the film were real and have been seen in the isolated Himalayas, and in many other parts of the world, including the northwest part of the United States. I felt safe in my apartment in New York, but I was greatly interested in the topic and began going to the library to see what books I could find on the Yeti and his American counterpart, the Sasquatch or “Bigfoot.” You have to keep in mind, this was 1960; the public libraries did not carry many books on the paranormal—especially for kids. With the help of a librarian I was able to find two books, one about the Yeti in Asia and the other called Tracking Big Foot, which centered on one individual’s search for the elusive beast in northern California. For some reason, the two were not shelved with the few books on the paranormal, but in the zoology section. I looked at some of the other nearby books, and they were science books about known animals, so my first impression was that the Yeti or Bigfoot was a real creature. Today, I no longer consider the shelving strange; at that time, books about what were called “flying saucers” were located under astronomy!

  They Are Everywhere

  As time went on, I began to do more research and found that sightings of similar creatures are not restricted to Nepal, Tibet, or the backwoods of the United States. There have been reports of Sasquatch-Yeti-like creatures in almost every state in the United States, including New York and my present home, Connecticut. According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), these creatures have been seen in almost every country on every continent. The following report of a Bigfoot-like creature was published in The Republican, a Connecticut newspaper still
in print today. I am very familiar with this paper—for the past ten years it has been carrying my column on astronomy. The sighting that appeared in The Republican was made in Winsted, Connecticut; today this creature is part of local folklore and is called the “Winsted Wildman.”

  The initial sighting was made on August 21, 1895, and was made by Selectman Riley Smith, a local town official, according to newspaper clippings from the time. Other Winsteders supposedly saw the creature later as well, but it was Smith’s sighting that was given the most credibility. According to the report in the paper, Smith had gone up to pick berries near the Colebrook town line on Lowsaw Road in an area then known as Indian Meadow. He had his dog with him, a six-year-old bulldog named Ned. When Smith bent over and began picking berries, his dog began barking as if someone was approaching. A short time afterward, a “large man, stark naked and covered with hair all over his body,” ran out of a clump of bushes and, with fearful yells and cries, made for the forest at great speed where he disappeared.

  According to The Republican, “Selectman Smith is a powerful man who has a reputation for having lots of guts, and his bulldog Ned is also noted for his pluck, but Riley admits that he was badly scared and his dog was fairly paralyzed with fear.” Word of Smith’s tale spread through the little town quickly and eventually caught the interest of newspapers from New York to Boston. Soon after the sighting, newsmen converged on Winsted not only to write about the incident, but also to try and capture the Wildman and bring him back to the city on the train! According to the story, the gang of reporters was unsuccessful and all they went home with were “sunburns and hangovers from the local beer.” Townsfolk were scared, however, and a local posse was formed to find the mysterious creature; but like the reporters, the posse was also unsuccessful. Winsted residents speculated on who—or what—the Wildman was. Some newspaper reports from the time even said the Wildman may have been an insane artist named Arthur Beckwith. Beckwith reportedly escaped from a New York insane asylum in 1894 and was thought to be hiding somewhere in the Litchfield, Connecticut, hills. He was found six months later in Cuba, living naked in the tropics and eating raw fruits and vegetables from the jungle. Today the Winsted Wildman is a local legend and people who live in the backcountry still claim to hear his cries in the night; some say they have even seen the creature running through the woods.