Technically speaking, we as a species have explored more of the cosmos than of the extensive oceans that make up the majority of our planet. Earth’s history is riddled with sightings and encounters of subaqueous creatures both large and small, beautiful and dangerous, and real and imaginary. Whole skeletons have been discovered to prove the existence of immense antediluvian monsters the globe over. While these creatures are in fact proven to have roamed the earth’s waters at some prehistoric juncture, many more fantastical types have managed to bleed over into a myriad of weird and wonderful superstitions. The Curse of The River serpent is no exception.
Urban legends are positively rampant in the United States, largely in sparse areas of vast deserts, rivers, and woodland where superstition is given true space to run wild. One long-persevering tale, originating from the rivers of Tennessee and Alabama, sounds more like something from HP Lovecraft’s most aqueous nightmare than a backwater fantasy. This is the curse of the river serpent.
The Coosa River
By Original: Pfly, using a base map template made with US Federal public domain GIS data;Version 3: John Lambert – This is a modification of File:MobileAlabamaCoosa2.png, which is in Wikimedia under GFDL license., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2065758
The Coosa River, once claimed by the French and considered the “key to the country”, is one of the main areas this particular thalassic oddity has been sighted. A 280 mile tributary of the Alabama River, Coosa River has been a place of rich history since long before the first Europeans visited it in 1540. Coosa Basin contains 147 fish species, oddities such as the painted rocksnail, and plenty of alligator sightings, but it was around 1822 when a great snakelike creature with large fins was first spotted slithering near the banks at Ball Play Creek.
The Curse of The River Serpent Legend
Columnist E. Randall Floyd described several incidents in a 1993 article in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. According to the article, Buck Sutton was fishing in Van’s Hole when he saw the creature writhing in the swampy shallows. He described the horrible sighting to his friends, only to turn up mysteriously dead a few days later. Since this mysterious occurrence other victims have fallen prey to the serpent’s curse, such as Billy Burns dying in 1827 and Jim Windom in 1829. No records exist as to the actual cause of these perplexing departures, though the stories are evidence enough for many to avoid the basin at all costs.
So is it just backwoods imagination gone wild, or is there something to be said for the curse of the Alabama river serpent? While most tales of sea creatures have been dismissed as sightings of extremely large river fish, fossils discovered in 1834 show a prehistoric whale once swam in waters that existed long ago where Alabama is now. According to the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the creature was later found by scientists to be Basilosaurus cetoides, or zeuglodon, a prehistoric meat-eating whale found once in the Eocene epoch that grew as long as 70 feet (the head itself able to grow as long as five feet).
Conclusion
Humans are not meant to be underwater, and it is this fact that drives our inescapable thalassic fears. Films likeUnderwater (2020) and Leviathan (1989)exploit this to great effect, and the possible existence of seventy-foot sea serpents doesn’t help matters much. From the early to mid-1800s, sea serpent sightings occurred with the regularity of UFO sightings today, according to the Geological Survey of Alabama, and it is within the public’s fascination with the uninhabitable that the truth will grow ever closer.
Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft. Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature. He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.
Born of the eerie and enigmatic nature of the sea, ghost ships have been objects of fascination for centuries. Many of the stories behind phantom vessels have historical evidence, explanations—or at least theories—of how they came to be abandoned and what happened to their crew. The legend of the ghost ship Jenny and how it came to be the Ship of Icy remains shrouded in mystery centuries after it was discovered.
“May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive.” – Was the captain’s last entry in the ghost ship Jenny’s log book. Jenny was an 1800’s English schooner that became frozen in ice crossing the Drake Passage in 1823.
Ghost Ships: A Common Thread
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
One of the earliest substantiated claims of a phantom vessel is one that ran aground on Easton’s Beach in Rhode Island, between 1750 and 1760. The SV Sea Bird is well-known through a fictional account, but historical records also exist.
Another well-researched and factually interesting instance was the disappearance of Sir John Franklin—a British Royal Navy Officer and Arctic explorer who, after serving the crown in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States led an ill-fated expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1845 (Ray 2023). Countless stories are associated with Franklin’s vanished expedition. Two centuries later his disappearance is just as fascinating and inexplicable now as it was at the time (Schuster 2)
Karl T. Andree a German geographer and publicist, is well-known for linking the story of Franklin and the ghost ship Jenny. As the editor of the Globus, he purportedly brought the two stories together first. In his excitement of the first edition of his geographical journal, he wanted to create interest. His enthusiasm stirred from introducing the general public to the exciting side of geography (Schuster 2).
Watch the Ghost Ship Jenny on Puzzle Box Horror’s YouTube channel
Jenny of the Isle of Wight
Ghost ships are clearly not an impossible concept. The events that surround the ghost ship, Jenny, however, are most unusual and highly unsettling. Bohemia, boasts a narrative that is simultaneously more believable and different than popularly cited sources. Regardless of these differences, the story remains an eerie example of the destructive capacity of Mother Nature.
The ghost ship Jenny was, allegedly, an English schooner that hailed from the Isle of Wight. She would come to be the subject of a legend that remains unproven to this day. The Jenny left its home port on the Isle of Wight, and made a successful journey all the way to the port of Callao, Peru—the main port just outside of Lima. With one-half of their journey completed, the crew of the Jenny would have to sail their vessel through the treacherous waters of the Drake Passage once again. The Jenny’s return trip would end in the Drake Passage—but what caused the ship’s voyage to end so abruptly?
The Drake Passage: The Roughest Seas in the World
The Drake Passage has the roughest seas known in the world. This is largely due to the fact that the Pacific, Atlantic, and Southern Oceans all converge into this one passage. With no landmasses to create resistance, the winds can reach incredible speeds. All of this adds up to rocky waters that only the most robust of vessels can withstand. Throughout maritime history, the Drake Passage has claimed more than 800 ships and with them, the lives of approximately 20,000 sailors. (Andrews, 2015)
The Story of the Ghost Ship Jenny
Little to nothing is known about what Jenny and her crew endured during their travels. Countless versions of their story have been published and since speculated upon. It is believed that Jenny began her journey in England. She left her home port on the Isle of Wight approximately a year before the last entry in her logbook. The intended voyage and where Jenny ended up is vaguely mentioned. However, it is known through each rendition of her story that she navigated the Drake Passage. Her last port of call was Callao, Peru—the de facto port of the city of Lima.
From Peru, Jenny traveled back through the Drake Passage but this is where her journey, as we know it, ended abruptly. It would be quite some time before the fate of Jenny and her crew would be discovered and no evidence of her expedition has been uncovered outside of the stories of her rediscovery. Regardless, any theories surrounding her disappearance would be pure speculation.
Did the Ghost Ship Jenny really exist?
Upon further research, neither the ghost ship Jenny, the whaling vessel Hope nor Captain Brighton could be found among any official documentation of Andree’s sources for the 1862 edition of Globus (Schuster 2). The story that appeared in Globus in 1862 was, however, traced back to the original publication which had been anonymously printed in Bohemia on February 14, 1841. In fact, the story had not only been printed in Bohemia but at least nine other magazines and newspapers within the same year. The only significant difference that could be cited was the year Brighton was said to have found the ghost ship Jenny, but whether it was 1839 or 1840 really made no difference to the readers.
It is assumed that since none of the publications cite a source for their information, the initial journalist likely believed the information was authentic and happened upon it from an oral source since no documentation of an English source has ever been discovered (Schuster 3).
There are theories that suggest that the ghost ship Jenny story is actually an Antarctic retelling of the Octavius which had not only happened on the opposite side of the globe, but almost an entire century prior (Schuster 3). It’s curious, but true that many renditions of the legend include details identical to those of the Octavius. The cargo ship turned ghost ship allegedly vanished off the coast of Greenland in 1761. The story tells us of its miraculous discovery fifteen years later. The crew froze in their agonizing final moments. The Captain, pen still in hand, froze at his desk.
The Ship in the Ice
In an effort to consolidate the details into one manageable story, we have taken the multitude of sources we found and created our own version of the story, just as the storytellers of our past might have done.
That was the story. Question the manner of telling
But be sure at least of ice and pain and silence.
Of Time? Well, there one can never be certain —
For you a thing to be measured, perhaps — for me, a searching,
And for seven alone on a frozen ship? I wonder.
However it was, is beyond our chance of knowing.
— from The Ship of Ice by Rosemary Dobson.
September 22, 1839
Captain Brighton of the whaling ship the Hope, entered into his logbook the sighting of a whale. When their chase drew them close to the ice barrier, they lost sight of the whale. In an effort to find the safety of calm seas, Brighton and his crew found themselves in the middle of a chain of icebergs. Around nine in the evening, a storm was upon them, despite the situation Brighton was more annoyed than afraid since they had chanced into a basin of calm waters. He alerted his crew to remain awake so that they might catch a favorable midnight breeze and navigate out of the basin. If they didn’t turn back, then they risked becoming stuck in the ice for the entire winter.
As the midnight winds hit…
They brought with them a flurry of snow and thunderous cracks that left the crew filled with dread. Brighton knew this sound was an indication that the icebergs surrounding them were breaking apart and his fears were confirmed when tremendous shock waves rocked the Hope from all sides. Escaping the basin proved to be impossible, as did finding a safe place to pass the rest of the night. Anxiety persisted amongst the crew, but they managed to stay afloat through the night. Morning light brought a calm over the crew when they saw their ship had taken no significant damage. An astonished crew noted that the mountainous bergs that had closed them in the day before now lay shattered around them. The icy waters that surrounded them bore a resemblance to a desert archipelago.
Around midday…
The sailor at the watch in the masthead cried out that he had spotted a ship at sea. Persistent icebergs blocked Brighton’s line of sight for a time, but when the hull came into view he stood aghast. The sails faced in strange directions and the ship’s rigging was wholly miserable. They watched as the vessel sailed feebly under the persuasion of the wind before it finally came to rest upon an iceberg. Captain Brighton, along with a few of his men boarded their ship’s jolly boat and quickly rowed over to the derelict vessel which had so piqued their curiosity. A more intimate view of the ship revealed a slew of impacts against the ice that the hull had withstood.
From their vantage point in the jolly boat, they could see no one on the deck. A blanket of snow that reached an incredible height covered the ship’s deck. Still, Brighton called out to the ship several times and received no answer. Just as they were about to make their way up to the deck, an open gate caught Brighton’s attention. Twilight permitted him to see the silhouette of a man sitting in a chair at a desk. He could just make out writing instruments and an open book in front of him. Brighton and his men hesitated no longer. Once on deck, they shoveled away the high blanket of snow that covered the trapdoor to the cabin.
Consumed with anxiety…
The men descended into the depths of the ship. Together they headed to where Captain Brighton had seen the man sitting. They trembled in anticipation as they came face to face with the stranger, who sat unresponsive in front of them. Brighton took a few steps closer to him and observed that the man was dead. Upon closer inspection, he noted something disturbing. A thin greenish mold covered the man’s forehead and cheeks. What was worse, was that it clouded the man’s eyes as well. The ship’s logbook lay open in front of him. It was open to the last entry and a quill lay aside the dead man’s hand. The man had succumbed to the elements shortly after penning the final log.
“January 17, 1823. Today it is seventy-one days that our ship has been trapped in the ice. All our efforts were in vain — last night the fire was extinguished, and all our captain’s efforts to light it again failed — this morning his wife died of hunger and cold, as did five of the sailors from the crew. No more hope!”
Next, the men…
Ventured into the Captain’s quarters, wherein they found the corpse of a woman on the bed. Her features remarkably preserved by the cold, she still held the appearance of life. However, her torment-twisted limbs told the story of the pain and suffering she had endured in her last hours. They next searched the crew’s quarters at the front of the ship. There they found several sailors lying dead in their hammocks. Even the dog lay frozen to death under the stairs in the corner. Out of all the things the men found in their search, food, and fuel were not among them.
Little by little Brighton’s men lost their mettle. Their fears and superstitions prevented Brighton from investigating the ship as thoroughly as he would have liked. Saddened by what they had discovered, Brighton took the ship’s logbook. Noted in the logbook was the ship’s last port of call—Callao, Peru. On the cover of the logbook, Brighton saw the name Jenny of the Isle of Wight. Brighton resolved to return the logbook to the ship’s owner. When he returned to his ship, he did so with renewed conviction. Any ship which ventured too far into these inhospitable waters faced incalculable dangers.
Fact or Fiction: The Jenny’s Mystery Persists
Outside of the legend, there are very few references of the Jenny in fictional works. Both of the works we found through our research were published within the last century. Rosemary Dobson wrote the poem “The Ship of Ice” in 1948. Her poem won her the Sydney Morning Herald award for poetry that same year. In her poem, she mentions that the discovery of the ghost ship Jenny happened in 1860. She cited the information she pulled from the anonymous report The Drift of Jenny, 1823-1840. She cited an English translation of the story from the Globus in 1862.
In 2018, Michael Wilkinson published a short story, entitled “The Drift of the Jenny”. It was a dramatic rendition of the story from the article found in the Globus in 1862. He included elaborate details and perspectives that otherwise would have been unknown. The retelling of this story by new authors truly inspires creative minds to keep old legends alive.
The truth behind the ghost ship Jenny continues to elude us, but our sources remain. The legends as they appeared in both Bohemia and Globus have been included below in their English translations. We hope that you, the reader, will conduct your own investigation. Ascertain the details for yourself and draw your own conclusions. This centuries-old mystery may simply be the evolution of a sailor’s yarn into an urban legend or, this seemingly tall tale may have been birthed from true events. New and substantial developments are unlikely to be found. That doesn’t mean that a dilapidated ghost ship Jenny and her crew aren’t still sailing the haunted inhospitable Antarctic waters.
The Original Tales, Translated
The following article appeared in Bohemia, ein unterhaltungsblatt on February 14, 1841. It is the earliest printed source of the legend for the ghost ship Jenny.
What follows is a direct translation of the story as it was printed in the Bohemia magazine in 1841:
The Ship in the Ice.
A true story.
The ship the Hope, Captain Brighton, equipped for whale fishing beyond Cape Horn in the calm sea, found itself in the middle of a chain of icebergs on September 22nd, 1839, at 9 o’clock in the evening, just as stormy tides were setting in, which formed a wide bay, so to speak. Not half an hour from his ship the captain noticed another long line of ice cliffs of wonderful height and completely covered with snow. All space through which the eye could pass was filled with enormous masses of ice, which showed that the ocean was closed in this direction.
Captain Brighton, however, found his situation more difficult than dangerous, for there was complete calm in the large basin. He was not afraid of being thrown against one of those ice rocks that lay motionless. He therefore limited himself to the exact vigilance that his position required of him; the whole crew remained awake on deck to catch the breeze which usually rises after midnight; in this case, he wanted to turn the ship around immediately because if he had ventured any further he would have to fear being surrounded by ice for the entire winter.
At midnight…
A strong wind arose and brought a flurry of snow. A thunder-like crack, a terrible roar, filled the crew with terror. It was a sign that the ice was moving. The Hope received tremendous shocks from the floating ice masses; it was impossible to find a safe place. The night passed with anxiety difficult to describe. In the morning the storm calmed down and the crew was pleased to see that the ship had not suffered any significant damage. The sailors were astonished to see that the icy mountains that had been so tightly closed yesterday had been shattered, and the entire sea had taken on the appearance of a desert archipelago.
Towards midday, the watch in the masthead shouted: “A ship at sea! At first, some icebergs floating between this ship and the Hope prevented the captain from seeing more than the mastheads, but soon the hull came into view, and Brighton was amazed by the strange direction of the sails and the miserable appearance of the ship the rigging was astonishing. The vessel sailed fleetingly before the wind for a distance of a few cable lengths and finally hit an iceberg.
Soon the crew…
Of the Hope noticed that the strange ship was abandoned. But Captain Brighton let out a boat. He boarded it with a few sailors and quickly rowed over to the ship whose appearance had so excited his curiosity. As he got closer, he saw the ship’s hull, as it were, gnawed by time or by countless impacts against the ice. No one was on the deck, which was covered in snow to an incredible height.
Brighton called the strange ship several times, but there was no answer. He was just about to climb up when an open gate caught his attention. Through the window panes, he saw a man sitting on a chair in front of a table on which there was a kind of register, writing utensils, and pens. The twilight in this room prevented the captain from seeing more.
Brighton and the sailors…
With him did not hesitate to climb the deck. Here they first had to shovel away the high blanket of snow that covered the trapdoor of the cabin. Here they descended with a mixed feeling of anticipation and secret horror. First, they went to the room where the captain had seen the man sitting. When they entered they couldn’t help but tremble. The unknown sat there, didn’t move, and didn’t return the greeting of his guests. The man took a few steps closer to him and saw that he was without life. A thin, greenish mold covered his forehead and cheeks and clouded his eyes. He was a man about thirty years old. A feather lay next to his hand on the table, and the ship’s book was open in front of him.
The last passage in this journal read as follows:
“17. January 1839. Today it is seventy-one days that our ship has been trapped between the ice. All our efforts were in vain — last night the fire was extinguished, and all our captain’s efforts to light it again failed — this morning his wife died of hunger and cold, as did five of the sailors from the crew. No more hope!”
Captain Brighton and his sailors were forced to leave the horrible place after such a sight. When they entered the main façade, the first thing they noticed was the body of a woman on a bed. Her features had retained all the freshness of life, only her limbs, through their twisting, indicated the terrible torments under which the poor thing had died. At her side was sitting on the floorboards a lifeless young man, holding a steel in his right hand and a flint in his left, next to him was a can of tinder.
From here…
The captain went to the front of the ship to the crew’s quarters; several sailors lay dead in their hammocks. A dog was found frozen to death under the stairs in a corner. There was no food or fuel anywhere.
Captain Brighton was prevented by the superstitious fear of his sailors, from searching the extinct ship with as much detail as he would have liked. Meanwhile, he took with him the ship’s book, in which was recorded the entire route the ship had taken since it had sailed from Lima. In front of the diary was the name of the ship, Jenny of the Isle of Wight. At last Captain Brighton returned to his board, deeply saddened by the sad spectacle he had just seen, and by his examination convinced anew of the incalculable dangers to which all ships are exposed if they venture too far into the inhospitable Arctic Ocean.
The following article appeared in Globus, Illustrated Magazine for Countries and Ethnography. It was also a self-proclaimed Chronicle of Travel and Geographical Newspaper. This version of the story wasn’t printed until sometime in 1862. This article remains the most cited source of this legend.
What follows is a direct translation of the story as it was printed in the Globus in 1862:
A Ship in the Ice of the Southern Polar Sea.
Mac Clintock’s report on the trip to find Sir John Franklin is read with keen evaluation and not without emotion. At Victoria Point, on the northwest coast of King Williams Island, where Bad Bay lies, the first written record of the missing sailors was recovered; It was dated May 28, 1847, and at that time everything was fine. But there was a postscript in the margins, according to which the ships Erebus and Terror were abandoned on April 22, 1848, having been encased in ice since September 12, 1846. Franklin had already died on June 11, 1847, and the total death toll already amounted to 9 officers and 15 men from the remaining crew. On April 26th the survivors wanted to escape to Bad’s Fish River.
On May 30, 1859, Mac Clintock found a large boat on the west coast of King Williams Island, not far from Cape Crozier (latitude 69° 8′ north, longitude 100° 8′ west), at a point where the coast bends to the east his companion Hobson had been examined a few days earlier. It was 28 feet long, flat-built, and carefully prepared for travel on the large fishing stream, and consisted of a very strong sleigh. In this boat lay two human skeletons; One had been chased home by wolves, and the other was still covered in clothes and belts. Beside these unfortunates were five rifles, and on the side were two double-barreled shotguns, each of which had a barrel loaded.
Next to various…
Autochthon* books was a copy of the eulogist from Wakefield. Mac Clintock also found an astonishing array of clothing, nails, files, all sorts of implements, some tea, forty cans of chocolate, some tobacco and firebolt. The Eskimos had already told us that many white men had fallen on the way to the great Fish River; A skeleton partially covered in snow had been found at Cape Herschel. An old Eskimo woman hunted: “They fell down and died while they were running.”
Mac Clintock’s report reminded us of a funny one we once read about a dead ship in the southern Arctic Ocean.
It must be a terrible fate to be surrounded by icebergs in the gray polar cold, to be pinned down and to be wiped out by cold, hunger, terror, and doubt, and to say to yourself that you have disappeared without a trace.
In September 1840, the whaler Hope, Captain Brighton, cruised beyond Cape Horn in the southern Arctic Ocean. One September evening the wind drove him to ice fields and mountains, which formed a wide road. About half a nautical mile away, an indistinguishable chain of high, snow-covered Spitsbergen** was visible; Everything was covered in ice and in that direction, the ocean was visibly closed. In the wide basin, however, the sea was rough and the Hope was in no danger of strolling towards the ice coast; Nor were there any icebergs floating around, as they all formed one continuous body of water. However, the captain was always vigilant and the crew was ready to take advantage of the first favorable wind, which usually blows around midnight in September.
If you explore…
This ice base for a long time, a terrible event could occur that the icebergs become mobile, fold together, and wedge the whaler until mild bitterness sets in or for eternity.
The wind really picked up at midnight and at the same time, there was a heavy snowstorm. Soon afterwards a thunder-like sound rang out and the terrible crash of the icebergs filled the crew with fear and horror. The previously rigid masses of ice began to move. The floes also began to drift rapidly and collide against the ship, and Brighton barely had any hope of finding a way out of the billowing ice labyrinth.
The terrible night passed away amidst people who didn’t give in to gossip. The storm subsided as day appeared and was considerably busy. The ice masses, which in the evening had formed an impassable, mountainous mainland, now dissolved into countless floating islands and formed, as it were, a mobile archipelago.
A ship in sight! About midday the sailor on duty called Go from the masthead. The captain, who was on deck, could only see the tops of the masts because of the icebergs between the Hope and the indicated ship, but he soon noticed the strange condition of the rigging. The ship drifted downwind against an iceberg and then came to a standstill.
There was now…
There was now no longer any doubt that the team had deserted. The captain put a boat out to sea and went to the wreck. It soon became apparent how much it had suffered. There was heavy snow on the deck and not a living creature was to be found; There was no answer to repeated calls. Brighton docked and boarded with three sailors. Not a soul moved. When he entered the cabin, what did he see? A man sat on a chair in front of a table on which a logbook lay. Everyone’s hair stood on end because the man remained motionless and the greeting that was called out to him remained unanswered. The man was a dead corpse; He still had a pen in his hand and the last word in the logbook read:
“January 17, 1823. Today is our seventy-first day since we were surrounded by the ice. Despite all our efforts, the fire went out yesterday. His wife is sick today died of hunger and cold; no more hope!”
That’s how it was in the helmsman’s cabin. In the captain’s room, the corpse of a woman lay on the bed; Her face still bore almost all the expressions of life, and only the cramped appearance pulled together limbs suggested the battle she had fought with death. A man sat next to her; On the ground next to him lay firesteel, stone, and a lighter filled with burned canvas. Several sailors were found frozen to death in the hammocks, a dead dog lay in front of the stairs and there was no trace of food anywhere.
The Fear and…
Superstition of the sailors did not allow further investigation, but Captain Brighton took the logbook with him to give to the shipowners. The ship was the Jenny and was based on the Isle of Wight; It had last been in the port of Callao near Lima and had lain in the Antarctic ice for a full seventeen years. Captain Brighton returned happily to Europe with the Hope.
*/ôˈtäkTH(ə)n, ôˈtäkˌTHän/ noun. an original or indigenous inhabitant of a place.
Jeans, Peter D. “The Schooner Jenny.” Seafaring Lore & Legend: A Miscellany of Maritime Myth, Superstition, Fable, and Fact, International Marine, Camden, ME, 2004, pp. 272–273.
Schuster, Frank M. “In search of the origin of an Antarctic ghost ship: The legend of the Jenny re-evaluated.” Polar Record, 58(e13), 2022, pp. 1-9.
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.
Hood River sits in the Columbia Gorge along the Columbia river surrounded by fields, orchards, vineyards, and at the foot of Oregon’s tallest mountain, Mount Hood. “The area was inhabited by Native Americans when the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through on October 29, 1805. Here they found a campsite called “Waucoma,” or “place of big trees.” The camp was located near what became known as the Dog River.” – City of Hood River Website. The town was established in 1858 and was originally called “Dog River.” The Columbia Gorge is a wonder of nature unto itself stretching 80 miles and at times is 4,000 feet deep. The Columbia River that flows through the gorge near Hood River is notorious for windsurfing and kiteboarding. On any given day you can see the sails and kites littered about the massive river.
Haunted Hood River Hotel
The quaint town of Hood River is an outdoor adventurer stronghold. Sprinter vans, mountain bikes, kite and windsurfers, and craft beer are everywhere. The town is home to about 8,000 people and it’s a blend of farmers, migrant workers in the summer working the vineyards, mountain sports enthusiasts, beer lovers, surfers, and about anyone else who loves outdoor activities.
Scenic Map of The Columbia River
The town is also the home of two of Oregon’s most haunted hotels. The “Hood River Hotel” and “The Columbia Gorge Hotel.” The Hood River hotel established in 1912 is now over 100 years old and the magnificent Columbia Gorge Hotel will turn 100 next year in 2021. After a century in business, these hotels have seen some life and even some death. The town was originally a major hub for trade before being discovered as an outdoor person’s hot spot. With hundreds of thousands of visitors a year there are stories to tell.
The Haunted Hood River Hotel
Haunted Hood River Hotel Front Door, Hood River, Oregon
The original hotel named the Mt Hood Hotel dates back to 1888 which was strategically located near the train depot in the center of town. It is the oldest hotel in the city of Hood River. Local lore tells of the original owner Ola Bell still inhabiting room 319 even though she died in 1942. She owned the hotel for over 30 years and her ghost is said to still haunt the hallways. The haunting ranges from sheer terror guests have experienced such as mortal fear when entering a room and disembodied footsteps to less terrifying events such as doorknobs moving with no one in sight, phantom phone calls. The most horrifying account comes from a guest staying in room 310. The guest reported opening the door and becoming overcome with dread, this the statement left in their review of the hotel room ” I nearly knocked my poor daughter down trying to get out. Every hair on my body stood on end, every rational thought left my brain and all I could do was yell GO GO GO GET OUT GET OUT.”
The Haunted Columbia Gorge Hotel
Haunted Columbia Gorge Hotel, Hood River, Oregon
The Columbia Gorge Hotel was built by Simon Benson, who was involved with the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway. Benson envisioned a hotel at the end of the highway and completed the Mission style hotel in 1921. The new hotel was built on the site of the previous Wah Gwin Gwin Hotel, built in 1904. Between 1925 and 1952, the hotel went through several changes of ownership.
The then-48-room hotel closed in 1952, when it was sold to the Neighbors of Woodcraft, a non-profit fraternal benefit society based in Oregon since 1905, and converted into a retirement home.It was sold again in 1978, with the new owners planning to reopen it as a hotel. After a $1-million renovation, the now-42-room hotel reopened in September 1979.
In January 2009, the landmark hotel closed its doors again, due to foreclosure. The foreclosing bank later re-opened the hotel before selling it to Vijay Patel’s A-1 Hospitality Group in October 2009 for around $4 million. Between 2009 and 2012, the hotel underwent a major renovation. The hotel is currently open and you can take a virtual toor.
Haunting and ghost sightings within the hotel vary. There are sighting of a woman in White attire who allegedly committed suicide at the hotel, most recently sitting at a park bench on the ground. Scents of cigar smoke with no identifiable cause possibly related to a retiree who died on the premises when it was a retirement home. There are other sightings of a ghost of a child near an area that once held a pool. Room 330 has reports of another female ghost of unknown origin. Rooms have been found barricaded with no known cause and a man wearing a frock coat and a top hat been seen.
Recent guests report strange dreams such as this guest in 2020 “I saw a black mass hovering above my the nightstand next to the bed. In the dream, it started to smoke and the room started on fire due to this presence.” In 2018 Another guest reported, “I saw a human form walk around the foot of our bed and to my side of the bed, suddenly I couldn’t move or speak.” That was not the only guest who was left paralyzed in fear. Another man in 2016 reported “my wife said she couldn’t move, speak or open her eyes, she was in a frozen state. I woke up when something felt like tugging or sitting on the blankets on my side of the bed that sent tingles up my legs.”
Columbia Gorge Hotel Information Guide
The town of Hood River is beautifully nestled along the Columbia River Gorge. It is home to some of the best outdoor activities in Oregon but it also has a long and haunted history. It’s well worth a visit for ghost-hunters, historians, and anyone who visits the great haunted state of Oregon.
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.
Mexico has enough folklore and urban legends to make HP Lovecraft cancel his flight, though none are as menacing and confrontational as the dreaded La Mala Hora.
La Mala Hora Legend
La Mala Hora relates to The Devil’s Hour also called The Witching Hour;a time many know as 3am, and a time at which one may wake suddenly for no perceptible reason with an acute sense of dread wallowing in their stomach. This uncanny hour has been associated with practice of witchcraft, imbued with great satanic significance and even held accountable for the true story of The Amityville Horror, though residents of Mexico know it as something rather more tangible, and far more horrifying.
In 1910 the phenomenon was described by Aurelio Espinosa as a malicious entity that stalked crossroads around Mexico at night. It would hunt, torment, and even kill anyone brave enough to ignore the tales and travel home alone at such an hour. If these individuals were unfortunate enough to come across the dreaded La Mala Hora and gaze headlong into it, they would be driven hideously and irreversibly insane. Sounds like Mexico has been reading a little of Lovecraft’s work after all.
And because of this, this particular spirit is said to be more feared than the devil himself. Most of Mexico flat-out refuses to talk about it, changing the subject or simply referring to it as “an evil thing”.
La Mala Hora takes great pleasure in driving its victims mad. Not only this, but it will often attack helpless travelers, paralyzing them in their tracks and brutalizing their weakened forms. After being suffocated by the fiend their bodies are left at the side of the road.
In Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, the insidious entity is told to take the form of a beautiful woman, sometimes dressed in white, sometimes in black. This incarnation and its diversely gruesome behaviours come across like some demented video game enemy gone rogue. When dressed in white La Mala Hora is said to be gentler and more graceful. She hypnotises weary travellers who, if they don’t notice the space between her feet and the ground, or the fact that her toes are backwards, or the fact that their lanterns have stopped working and all sense of direction seems lost, will follow her obediently into wherever peril she chooses. Perhaps this will be off the edge of a ravine, or perhaps in front of the next passing car.
When dressed in black, La Mala Hora is more aggressive. She will stop a traveller by any means and attack directly with her pointed nails. The strong-willed should hope to meet her on a “white night,” while no one should hope to see her in black.
One particular story has been circling the internet for quite some time, earning La Mala Hora its creepypastacertification along the way. In this story a woman goes to stay with her friend who is experiencing marital troubles. On the way she almost hits a woman in the road who, when the car stops, begins scratching fiercely at the windows in an attempt to get in. After driving away as quickly as possible, our protagonist reaches her friend who tells her frantically that she has seen La Mala Hora, the spirit who only appears when death is close. The woman then calls her husband, who she finds has been mugged and shot to death in another area.
New Mexico Legend
On the southern border of the United States, in the state of New Mexico, La Mala Hora seems to appear much closer to Espinosa’s original description. Usually it’s seen as a black abstract form, like a fleece of wool which expands and contracts, changing size and shape and seemingly floating along the roadside. A widely feared omen, this incarnation is only told to be seen when death is soon to befall a loved one. I would imagine a lot of concerned yet apologetic phone calls taking place around 3am in Mexico.
One thing is for sure; if I lived near any of the places that La Mala Hora is said to appear, I would doubtfully ever go out after midnight.
Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft. Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature. He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.
Deep in Southern Illinois coal country, along the banks of the Big Muddy River, sits the peaceful town of Murphysboro. Known for its natural beauty, fishing spots, and local wineries, Murphysboro also boasts one particularly infamous resident: The Big Muddy Monster, an eight-foot tall, slime-covered sasquatch. The Big Muddy Monster, also known as the Murphysboro Mud Monster, frightened local residents in the early 1970s, putting Murphysboro firmly on the map for North American cryptid enthusiasts.
Murphysboro Mud Monster History
The Murphysboro Mud Monster was first seen around midnight on June 25th, 1973. Randy Needham and Judy Johnson, two Murphysboro residents, were sitting in a parked car near the Big Muddy River when they heard a loud shriek coming from the woods. The next thing they knew, a tall, pale creature with fur caked in mud lumbered towards their car. The two left the scene, but reported the incident to the local police.
This was but the first of many unexplained sightings in the weeks to come. The experience of teenagers Randy Creath and Cheryl Ray, recorded in a police report, is particularly interesting. While sitting on their front porch around 10:00 the night of June 26th, Creath and Ray saw the creature not fifteen feet away. They described it as eight feet tall and approximately 300-350 pounds, with pale white fur, and smelling “foul, like river slime”. Again, the creature quickly departed, but Creath and Ray also reported their experience to the police.
More sightings would be reported in the days to come, prompting the local police to launch a 14-person manhunt. Footprints were found at the scenes of the encounters, along with a mysterious black sludge. Although the search did not locate the creature, local law enforcement had no doubts that the residents did see something. A sighting at a traveling carnival ten days later was the last reported sighting of the Murphysboro Mud Monster for many years. Just as mysteriously as it had appeared, the creature was gone.
Murphysboro Mud Monster Today
The Murphysboro Mud Monster has stayed alive in the years since these sightings, at least in the imagination of town locals and monster hunters nationwide. Another possible sighting was reported in the late 80s. In 2021, a documentary called Creature from Big Muddy was released that explored the story. The creature is even featured prominently on a new mural in Murphysboro!
The Creature from Big Muddy Trailer
The story of the Murphysboro Mud Monster, like the best urban legends, has more questions than answers. What is the true identity of this tall, pale, smelly creature? Is it related to the similarly-described Sasquatch, seen by hundreds of Americans over the last century? Perhaps we will never know. What is unique about Big Muddy, however, is that its presence in Murphysboro was recorded by law enforcement at the time of the sightings, along with compelling evidence. This lends believability to the existence of the Murphysboro Mud Monster. As Sasquatch expert Harlan Sorkin stated at the time of the initial sightings, “The gorilla as we know it today was [unknown to many] until the early 1800’s. Can you imagine what people thought when they first saw it?”
Joseph Green is a writer, filmmaker, and lifelong horror nut. When he isn’t watching horror movies or listening to heavy metal music, he is writing articles about them.
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