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El Campo Haunted Cemetery

This Catholic cemetery was founded in 1849 and remains today as a state landmark in California. The site is said to have around 477 tombs however in 1851 the site was desecrated when a streetcar path was constructed through the graveyard. There are around 18 graves that were paved over in order to create the pathway. This upset many who had loved ones buried at the site and also the spirits themselves. After the site was disrupted stories of ghosts and strange occurrences began. There are stories of car alarms going off for no reason, an unexplained icy chill coming over guests, a ghost of a Native American or possibly Hispanic man has been seen as well as the spirit of a woman wearing 18th-century periodic clothing.

The site has also experienced issues with grave robbers and a fire that destroyed the chapel.

After local petitions occurred there were markers added where the gravesites had been paved over. At first, just crosses were painted in the street but eventually, the city created proper grave markers for the graves that had been displaced. Walter P. Temple filed a lawsuit against the city preventing any further desecration of the cemetery. In 1917 he purchased the land the graveyard was on to begin restoring it.

Tritone

Tritone’s love of horror and mystery began at a young age. Growing up in the 80’s he got to see some of the greatest horror movies play out in the best of venues, the drive-in theater. That’s when his obsession with the genre really began—but it wasn’t just the movies, it was the games, the books, the comics, and the lore behind it all that really ignited his obsession. Tritone is a published author and continues to write and write about horror whenever possible.

puzzleboxhorror.com

Date of Discovery

First sighted in the 1900s.

Name

The Gumberoo, with a scientific name of Megalogaster repercussus.

Physical Description

This bear-like creature is described as being incredibly fat–in some cases, compared to the shape of a football–with no hair, and dark leathery skin. Oddly enough, this creature has a large grin with sharp teeth, a beard, and prominent eyebrows. Their dark complexion is said to be as black as coal, but there is speculation that this is due to rubbing up against the inside of the charred cedar tree.

Origin

The Gumberoo originated in the foggy region along the Pacific Coast from Grays Harbor, WA, the entire coast of Oregon, all the way to Humboldt Bay, CA as well as the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Its origin is spun from the folklore of lumberjacks and forest workers–with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

According to Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose, the Gumberoo belongs to a group of beings within this mythology called the Fearsome Critters. All of the Fearsome Critters are noted to have exaggerated proportions and activities which are believed to be the explanation of the strange sounds and bumps in the night when in isolated and remote locations. They also provided some amusement for the men in the camps, as they told stories to pass their down-time.

The Gumberoo is said to be a scarce creature due to the fact that it is quite combustible, and forest fires are relatively prevalent. They are said to be as flammable as celluloid film; during and after a forest fire within the heavily forested cedar region near Coos Bay, lumberjacks reported that they heard loud sounds that were not identifiable as well as the smell of burning rubber.

Mythology and Lore

When the lumberjacks, responsible for its discovery, attempted to kill it–except the Gumberoo didn’t die, its skin was apparently impenetrable. It is said to hibernate a majority of the time and it lives in old enormous, burned, and hollowed-out cedar trees. When it does come out, it only comes out at night and has an insatiable appetite when it does. The Gumberoo will devour anything that crosses its path, even reportedly a whole horse at one point, which was still not enough to discomfort nor satiate it.

Modern Pop-Culture References

Podcasts

Fearsome Critters 2: Electric Gumberoo (April 24, 2019)
Olympia Oddities: Gumberoo (August 2, 2019)

Is there anything we missed about the Gumberoo? Let us know in the comments section below!

Macabre Mary

Georgia-based author and artist, Mary has been a horror aficionado since the mid-2000s. Originally a hobby artist and writer, she found her niche in the horror industry in late 2019 and hasn’t looked back since. Mary’s evolution into a horror expert allowed her to express herself truly for the first time in her life. Now, she prides herself on indulging in the stuff of nightmares.

Mary also moonlights as a content creator across multiple social media platforms—breaking down horror tropes on YouTube, as well as playing horror games and broadcasting live digital art sessions on Twitch.