Author Denver Michaels

In June 2021, my wife and I spent some time in the Dakotas while traveling the nation in our RV. While I was in the town of Medora, North Dakota, located on the border of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I began thinking of the "Badlands Horror." I first learned of the Badlands Horror from a guy who contacted me through my website. He told me the story of a strange creature that went on a rampage killing livestock in the North Dakota badlands during the early 1930s. He also sent the text from news articles mixed with his own commentary. I posted the article on my blog and asked that anyone with more information contact me, but no one did. I ended up putting the story out of my mind, but upon my arrival to Medora, I began thinking of the strange tale once again. The article that the fellow sent me is printed below. Again, if you have any information regarding it, I would love to hear from you. Theodore Roosevelt National Park. THE BADLANDS HORROR The Badlands, in No...

Among the innumerable legends of haunted places, haunted bridges play a prominent role. Horrible accidents occur on bridges; corpses have been dumped off of bridges to hide evidence of horrible crimes; countless desperate people have chosen to jump off of bridges to end their lives. Think of it, how many ghost stories have you heard centered around a bridge with a phantom jumper? There are categories of bridges known as crybaby bridges and suicide bridges. Crybaby bridges are usually attached to legends of a mother drowning her child or babies being thrown into the water below—the angry spirit of the infant stays behind to haunt passersby. It is obvious what the other category, suicide bridges, are all about. In the early part of the 20th century, there was a bridge in Chicago that served as a perfect example of a suicide bridge. The bridge was simply known as the High Bridge or the Lincoln Park Arch—because of the large arch that allowed sailboats to pass underneath—it was also refer...

When thinking of the various "monsters" out there, the New Jersey Vegetable Monster will undoubtedly come up.  Wait a minute... A vegetable monster? C'mon, man... What the *%^* is a vegetable monster?  Glad you asked. I briefly discussed the New Jersey Vegetable Monster in my book Detours Into the Paranormal: Atlantic City Road Trip .   The following is an excerpt: ...This creature, if it ever existed at all, has little evidence to support its existence. In fact, New Jersey Vegetable Monster is a term used within the cryptozoology community to describe a report that is so “out there” that no one could possibly believe it. The addition of the New Jersey Vegetable Monster to the lexicon comes from a sighting by an elderly gentleman who was severely intoxicated. The man claimed to see a large humanoid that resembled a stalk of broccoli. Unsurprisingly, the encounter occurred in the Pine Barrens. As ridiculous as a “broccoli man” sounds, there is another case that comes to mi...

Looking at the title of this blog post—Pig Lady—if you're old enough to remember Seinfeld , you might hear in your mind Kramer shout:  "It was a pigman, Jerry! Half man, half pig!" The Pig Lady, from Cecil County, Maryland, however, is no joke. She is not a "fat little mental patient" as Kramer's pigman turned out to be. In my book Detours Into the Paranormal: Atlantic City Road Trip , I discussed the legend. The following is an excerpt: ...According to the tale of the Pig Lady, she was horribly disfigured in a house fire. She escaped the burning structure with her life but suffered awful burns in the process. A nearby person came to help, but when he laid eyes on her, he became so frightened by her burnt, disfigured face that he took off running. The poor woman who had just lost her home had now lost her face—she was a freak, an outcast; she fled into the woods and became the Pig Lady. As with a lot of these urban legends , there are several variations of ...

Virginia was arguably the most important Confederate state. It was the most populous with over 1.5 million residents. Virginia was also the wealthiest state, thanks in large part to its industrial base. Virginia was the industrial hub of the Confederacy and it equaled the output of all other Confederate states combined. Being the northernmost Confederate state, and a state of such importance to the South’s war effort, the majority of the Civil War was fought on Virginia soil. The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission classified 384 Civil War engagements as “principal battles.” Of those battles, 123 occurred in Virginia. Tennessee comes in a distant second with 38 principal battles. Some of the most fierce fighting in Virginia occurred in the Shenandoah Valley. For this reason, the valley attracts history buffs from far and wide who visit the battlefields scattered throughout the region. The Breadbasket of the Confederacy Favorable growing conditions made the Shenandoah Valley vital to th...

The audio version of my latest travel book just went live. My buddy  @uncleperry  narrated the book and did an excellent job, I know you'll be impressed with his work. You can find the audio version of Detours Into the Paranormal: Big Bend on Amazon by clicking here. Or go directly to Audible. If you want a free promo code, go to the contact area of this site and send me an email. This is a description of the book from Amazon: Did ancient astronauts visit Big Bend? Are the Chisos Mountains haunted by the spirits of a vanished and forgotten people? Is Bigfoot lurking in the shadows of the Davis Mountains? What are the Marfa Mystery Lights? Is a pterosaur hiding in a cave in Mexico? Is a six-foot-tall bipedal lizard roaming the Chihuahuan Desert? Were Zoroastrians—practitioners of an ancient Iranian religion—living in West Texas more than 1,000 years before Christopher Columbus set sail? In this installment of his Detours Into the Paranormal series, author Denver Michaels ...

As I drove up and down the Ozark Mountains with a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel of my RV, hairpin turn after hairpin turn, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Ozark Howler was lurking somewhere in those woods. I had just spent several days in the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, and now I had crossed over into Arkansas. I knew I was deep in the Howler’s territory and wondered if it was out there somewhere. It has been spotted as far as Oklahoma and Texas. According to legend, the Ozark Howler is shaped like a bear and it is about the same size as a bear. It has a long, shaggy coat usually black in color. Some say the monster sports a set of horns and glowing red eyes. It lets out a cry that has been described as cross between a wolf howl and an elk bugle. Some even say a hyena’s laugh is mixed with the howl. Pretty weird, huh?  Thinking of the strange cry of the Howler, which some say is a bad omen, the first thing that comes to my mind are the Irish banshee legends. And I mig...

There is a historical marker just off I-64 at Exit 156 near Sam Black Church, WV that tells of the Greenbrier Ghost: Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition's account. Edward, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to the state prison. Only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer. Indeed, I’m not sure that I have read another ghost story in which the ghost of the deceased secured a murder conviction! The story began in the fall of 1896 when a young Zona Heaster met E. S. “Trout” Shue. Unfortunately for Zona, it would not come out until later—after it was too late—that Shue had been married twice. His second wife died under mysterious circumstances and his first marriage ended in divorce. Shue's first wife accused him of “great cruelty.” Shue was a drifter ...

Throughout Appalachia , there are tales of "phantom dogs" and it is widely believed that these stories were carried to the New World by European immigrants long ago. The most famous of these ghostly dogs has to be the Snarly Yow, but my favorite tale is of the "Black Dog of the Blue Ridge." It is the story of both a frightening apparition and a loyal companion to the end—and beyond. Writing in the Journal of American Folklore in 1907, Mrs. R.F. Herrick recounted the tale: In Botetourt County, Virginia, there is a pass that was much traveled by people going to Bedford County and by visitors to mineral springs in the vicinity. In the year 1683, the report was spread that at the wildest part of the trail in this pass there appeared at sunset a great black dog, who, with majestic tread, walked in a listening attitude about two hundred feet and then turned and walked back. Thus he passed back and forth like a sentinel on guard, always appearing at sunset to keep his n...

According to local legend, there is a phantom hitchhiker named Lucy along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This trail is a six-mile, one-way drive that cuts through a dense tree canopy. Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail is easily accessible from downtown Gatlinburg and lands you a world away from the busy streets in mere minutes. The trail follows Roaring Fork, a beautiful cold-water stream typical of those found in the Great Smoky Mountains. The white-water crashes against large boulders and there are small waterfalls and deep pools of frigid mountain water along the way. Mills, old structures, and historic homesites are scattered along the trail—a reminder that people used to live and work here. One of those old mountain folks that lived along the trail in the early 1900s was Lucy. As the story goes, Lucy was a young lady who died tragically when her family’s cabin burned down. Sometime after her death, a man named Foster (I don’t know if this ...

In 1935, when the Great Depression was ravaging the country, the federal government formed the Works Progress Administration (later named the Work Project Administration) to combat the devastating effects of the depression on the nation. The largest and most successful project was the Tennessee Valley Authority, which, through the construction of hydroelectric dams, modernized the region and created desperately needed jobs. One of the administration’s lesser-known projects was the Federal Writers Project. This project employed thousands of out-of-work teachers, researchers, librarians and historians who went about recording American oral histories and folklore. One of the better-known works of the Federal Writers Projects is Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States , which was compiled from over two thousand interviews with formerly enslaved people. Field workers employed by the federally subsidized Virginia Writers Project captured all manner of Virginia folkl...

The oldest house in Winchester, Virginia is known as "Abram's Delight." The history of the home goes back to the 1730s days when Abraham Hollingsworth received a land grant consisting of 582 acres in present-day Winchester . His land was a “delight to behold,” and he built a log cabin alongside a natural spring. Hollingsworth died in 1748, and his wife passed away a year later. His second son, Isaac, inherited the property, which would stay in the Hollingsworth family for two hundred years. Isaac built a stone house that served as the first quaker meeting place in the area, and it holds the distinction of being the oldest house in Winchester. Old homes and hauntings go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so, of course, Abram’s Delight has its share of ghost stories. Abram’s Delight underwent restoration in the 1950s. During this time, workers began seeing a tall man, over six feet in height, dressed in quaker’s clothing, walking in an out of the house. Marguerite ...

One of my all-time favorite authors is Louis L’Amour (1908–1988). L'Amour is best known for his western novels. He was born in North Dakota, and his father settled there before it became a state. Surely L’Amour’s Dakota upbringing shaped him and gave him a solid background for his writing. Over the course of his life, he authored over 250 short stories and 100 novels. By 2010, L’Amour’s works had sold in excess of 320 million copies! That is a metric fuck ton of sales, believe me. I will do somersaults and throw ninja spin kicks into the air while singing “We Are the Champions” when I hit one thousandth of that sales number. Seriously, I will. President Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1982 awarding L’Amour the Congressional Gold Medal. Reagan said that L’Amour had “brought the West to the people of the East and to people everywhere.” Indeed. Since my late teenage years, L’Amour’s stories had me daydreaming of the West. Had I not read the books The Daybreakers , Conagher , Lonel...

In 1971, an unusual creature was spotted in a lagoon outside of Havana, Cuba. The lagoon, a flooded quarry, is located in San Miguel del Padrón, a suburb of Havana. Rumors of a frightening creature quickly spread throughout Havana; crowds of curious onlookers flocked to the lagoon. As news of the monster spread, the masses grew—crowds that once were in the hundreds, quickly escalated to thousands in number. The creature created such a buzz within the community, that the government-ran radio station, Radio Progresso, took an interest and sent reporters to investigate. The correspondents descended upon the scene; they examined eyewitness reports and interviewed witnesses. Descriptions of the creature vary; some described it as spindle-shaped, with large and threatening yellow eyes; others claimed to see a horned, hippopotamus-like animal with a featureless face. According to one witness who claimed to have seen the animal on multiple occasions: “It doesn’t look like anything but a black...

The story of “McChesney’s Ghost” is one of the best ghost stories in all the Shenandoah Valley. It began in Augusta County’s unincorporated community of Newport in 1825 in the home of Dr. John McChesney—a man of unquestioned honesty and integrity in his day. McChesney, his wife and four children were gathered for their evening dinner when one of his slaves, an eight-year-old girl named Maria, burst in from the kitchen. Maria was frightened to the core and said an old woman “with her head tied up chased her.” Unsurprisingly, McChesney ignored the girl’s story, attributing the tale to childhood imagination. For days after the event, Maria complained of being frightened, and shortly thereafter, “vollies of stones began to fall on the dwelling house, and continued to fall at intervals, in daytime and also at night.” Most of the rocks were fist-sized, but some were “too large to be thrown by a person of ordinary strength.” Even weirder, some of the stones were so hot they burned the grass ...

When I arrived in Moodus, Connecticut in early-May 2022, I was surprised when a friend texted me an article from the New England Historical Society. The piece was titled “The Mysterious Moodus Noises of Connecticut,” and recounted the history of strange, unexplained noises that occur around the village of Moodus. The Moodus Noises I read the article at once. I couldn't believe that I had stumbled upon a place renowned for strange activity. According to the article: The Wangunk Indians had told the colonists of the fearful noises that they tried to appease. In fact, the Indians called the land around Mt. Tom “Machemoodus,” meaning place of bad noises. The settlers shortened the name to Moodus, now a village in East Haddam. Once Puritans moved to the area in the early-1700s, they heard the noises, too. And they, too, attributed the sounds to a supernatural source. The superstitious Puritans believed God was angry with them for their sins. Meanwhile, the local Indians believed the...

A reader contacted me several years ago. He had just finished my book  Water Monsters South of the Border .   The book inspired him to share a story with me about "El Mohan"—a creature of Columbian folklore.  His story reminded me a lot of those great campfire tales and ghost stories so often recounted among friends. I thought I would share it with you, but first, here is a little background on El Mohan: Although his description does vary from place to place, he is usually a huge creature, covered in hair with long, claw-like nails. He sometimes has red eyes and gold teeth and is fond of mischief. Fisherman say el mohán  capsizes boats and steals bait and hooks. Washerwomen claim he bewitches girls with music and tricks. He is also said to guard ancient treasures in his underground palace and his appearance heralds the arrival of floods, earthquakes and plagues. Click Here for full article from Columbia.co This is the El Mohan story sent by the reader:...

I first learned of the East Bay Walls by watching an episode of America Unearthed on History Channel. The episode is titled “Marco Polo Discovers America” just in case you would like to watch it. At any rate, the show introduced me to a series of mysterious walls, called  the East Bay Walls, and alternately called the California Mystery Walls and Berkeley Mystery Walls. These stacked stone walls stretch from San Jose in the southern Bay Area fifty miles north to Berkeley. At first glance the East Bay Walls do not look all that mysterious. Back on the East Coast, where I’m from, there are tons of stone walls. In my home state of Virginia, especially in the piedmont’s horse country, mortarless stacked stone walls—built in the same fashion as those in California—run for miles on end. There are tons of similar walls in the Northeast, too. Farms and wooded areas in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York have stone walls running in various directions almost as far as the eye can see. ...