Author Denver Michaels

My latest book,  California (Lucid!) Dreaming: Water Dragons, Lemurians, Bigfoot and More  is now available for  preorder on Amazon . Full-time traveler Denver Michaels navigates torrential rains in Santa Barbara, the blazing sun in Blythe, mudslides along the Pacific Coast Highway, swollen creeks in Yosemite, knee-deep snow in Lake Tahoe and other obstacles while seeking out water monsters, giants, megaliths, Bigfoot and other mysteries in the Golden State. In the eighth installment of his popular Detours Into the Paranormal series, Michaels investigates the Winchester Mystery House, rumors of ancient nuclear war in Death Valley, sky gods over the Colorado Desert, Bigfoot sightings beneath the giant redwoods, thunderbird reports, lucid dreams, strange stone walls, the Lemurian civilization and much more. What will he uncover in his never-ending search for truth? Over 80 photographs chronicle this epic seven-month tour.

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...

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...

There is a gravity hill, called "Spook Hill" just outside of Burkittsville, Maryland. If the name sounds familiar, you might remember it from the 1999 cult-classic, The Blair Witch Project . Unfortunately for Blair Witch enthusiasts, most of the movie was filmed about 25 miles away and the recognizable landmarks in the movie are not located in town or the area nearby. Local legend holds that the spirits of disembodied Confederate soldiers haunt the area. It is these spirits—thinking they are pushing artillery uphill into position—that will push your car up the gravity hill. For this to take place: bring your car to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill; put the vehicle in neutral; your car will then begin to move uphill and gain speed the further up the hill you go. I have personally reached speeds of 7–10 miles per hour.  As a side note, be very careful if you are in the area and attempt this. For a two-lane country road, there is more traffic than you might expect. O...

In his 1896 book Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, Charles M. Skinner recorded a number of strange tales from across the nation. One of those stories came to mind while I was camped at the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in South Dakota. As the sun set, I admired the badlands landscape, and thought of Skinner's story titled “The Banshee of the Bad Lands.” The story tells of a ghostly woman that haunts a butte in the badlands and she is sometimes accompanied by a skeleton that enjoys music. I have reprinted the classic story of the Badlands Banshee in its entirety below: ""Hell, with the fires out,” is what the Bad Lands of Dakota have been called. The fearless Western nomenclature fits the place. It is an ancient sea-bottom, with its clay strata worn by frost and flood into forms like pagodas, pyramids, and terraced cities. Labyrinthine canons wind among these fantastic peaks, which are brilliant in color, but bleak, savage, and oppressive. Game courses over the cast...

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 ...

There is a Bigfoot variant native to northwestern New Jersey  called "Big Red Eye"; Big Red Eye takes its name, obviously, from its red eyes—glowing red eyes. An eyewitness from 1991 had this to say about their Big Red Eye encounter: I knew it wasn’t a bear, it was too lean and upright; it was humanoid. It had been there the whole time, watching our approach. There was no noise, otherwise we would have heard something big crashing through all the underbrush. It was tall and shaggy with red eyes. The eyes were glowing red from reflected light, not glowing like LED lights. It just stood there motionless, arms hanging limply at its sides. It didn’t seem to have any bad intentions, it was just creepy. Then of course, we ran and did not look back. I don’t care what anybody says, I know what I saw. That is something you don’t forget, I definitely did not go back to that spot anytime soon. 1 Big Red Eye, as we know it today, seems to have gotten its start in the 1970s along New Je...

I have long been fascinated with the Marfa Lights. Really, that fascination goes beyond the Marfa Lights and includes any example of “mystery lights”—strange lights that appear and move in an erratic manner without a known cause.  Most think atmospheric conditions cause these weird mystery lights to appear in the night sky. But truthfully, no one knows how or why this occurs. The mystery light phenomenon is truly an enigma. One of the most well-known manifestations of mystery lights or “ghost lights” takes place at Brown Mountain in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. I have visited a couple of times and the lights did not disappoint. Lights appeared and disappeared on the mountain, often looking like twinkling stars. The lights sometimes changed colors to a yellow, orange or red and they would float or sometimes quickly dart from side to side. Another famous example of mystery lights is the aforementioned Marfa Lights. These lights appear in the desert outside the west Texas ...