Paranormal Peeps
Paranormal Peeps
Lake Lanier’s Dark Past And Haunting Present
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A drowned town, unmarked graves, and a lake that keeps pulling people under—Lake Lanier is more than a popular getaway. We dig into the 1912 murder of May Crow, the racial terror that emptied Oscarville, and the federal project that flooded homes, barns, bridges, and church pews while leaving countless unmarked graves behind. That buried history shapes everything that comes next: a staggering number of deaths, vanishings that defy common sense, and legends like the Lady in Blue seen on the bridge before stepping into the water without a sound.
We balance hard hazards with hard-to-shake stories. Think zero visibility, cold shock, and an “underwater forest” that can trap even pros—alongside diver reports of warm, grasping hands in the silt and sonar scans that map upright, human-shaped figures where Oscarville’s streets once ran. Add in campsite encounters—tents shaken at 3 a.m., blue mist gliding ashore, batteries drained to zero—and the picture turns visceral. Whether residual energy replaying the past or intelligent presences reacting to us now, the throughline is the same: places remember, and Lake Lanier remembers a lot.
You’ll hear how side imaging sonar cuts through the murk to reveal submerged structures and uncanny silhouettes, why campers report footsteps circling for hours, and how trauma, geology, and water can amplify paranormal activity. We don’t ask you to choose between curse and physics; we lay out both and let you decide how you’d approach the shoreline. If you’ve boated, swum, dived, or camped at Lanier, we want your stories. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review telling us: would you spend a night on that shore—or keep driving?
Thank you for listening to the Paranormal Peeps Podcast. Check us out on Facebook Paranormal Peeps Podcast or Coldspot Paranormal Research and on Instagram coldspot_paranormal_research
New Year Banter And Weather Chat
JameyBetween the realm of the dead and the journeys of the living, join Josh, Jamie, and Elisa as they delve into the vast world of the paranormal and breathe life back into the history of the departed.
JoshHey everybody. Welcome back to the Paranormal Peeps Podcast.
JameyYay! So this is our first official episode of the new year. Oh, yeah.
JoshYeah. Welcome, 2026 and season five.
AlecaThat still blows my mind. I know, right? 2026 still seems like next year to me. It's hard to get used to it. It's always hard until like June or July. And then I'm like, okay, I'm starting to get used to it. Then I finally get used to it and it's December. And then you gotta give up for the next one.
Speaker 2Yeah, before you know it, the Olympics will be here in Salt Lake City and it'll be 2032.
Speaker 3Oh my word.
Speaker 6Let's not go that far yet. I seriously wonder, though, if they'll keep it here because we're not getting snow.
Speaker 2Oh, they'll make it.
Speaker 6That's a heck of a lot of snow they're gonna have to make. Yeah. Because we're literally not getting any.
Speaker 3Not right now.
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 3But hopefully that by then or that year.
Speaker 6Hopefully by then we get some snow. It's just like slowly getting worse. Like I saw this video of uh remember back in the day in Utah, this is what it used to be like, and they actually had snow. And I was like, yep, we did. Like we would have like three feet of snow, three, four feet of snow, and that was normal. Yeah. And now nothing. Like we're lucky when the grass gets frosted.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's the whole cyclical weather thing. Because I remember, oh, it was like three or four years ago, we had like 300% snowpack.
Speaker 4Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2So, you know, everything kind of comes up and down. And I mean, there was one year uh our first significant snowfall was on my birthday in February.
Speaker 6Sometimes that happens. See, and I grew up, and my birthday is the last day of April. I grew up and I would have parties outside. We'd be in our cement suits. Dang. You know, playing outside in the water. And now, like I get snow on my birthday.
Speaker 2Yeah, it it's almost like that window of snow shifted just a little bit later.
Speaker 6So instead of being shifted like two months.
Speaker 2Yeah. So instead of getting it earlier and then it gets later. But I also talked to people who have lived here for a while, and they were like, we were golfing in February. And I'm like, that's insane.
Speaker 6Oh, that's gonna happen this year.
Introducing Lake Lanier
Speaker 2Oh, it probably will. Outdoor pickleball coming up soon. All right. Elisa, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 6We are talking about Lake Lanier. Heck yeah. It is I honestly had never heard of it. And decided to look some things up and found it. And I was baffled by how much information they have. There's a lot. It is ridiculous how much crap goes on at this lake.
Speaker 1It sounds very familiar. I'm sure I'm gonna rem remember it when I hear it.
Speaker 3I'm sure that you, as she goes on, you'll recall bits and pieces of it. They'll be familiar to you. I just have to say, I don't think I'd go to Lake Lanier.
Speaker 1No?
Speaker 3I don't think I would either. I don't think so. Not from what I've seen and read, and there's just no way. With all the other lakes out there, that would be my last choice. One of my last choices. Yeah. And let's find out why.
The 1912 Murder And Racial Terror
Speaker 6And I will tell you all about it. And you're ready? Buckle up. Okay. So Lake Lanier is one of the deadliest and most haunted lakes in America. And like this is no joke. Like a lot of people will claim that they're the most haunted building in America or whatever. This I believe. This one I actually believe. It has a lot of history and it started underneath the water. So before the lake was made, it was once a thriving city for a black community called Oscarville. And everything started to go downhill with a young woman named May. In 1912, May Crow was an 18-year-old white woman living in the Oscarville area. And on a Sunday afternoon, she set out on foot to go visit her aunt. The path took her along the Browns Bridge Road, and it's just a trail that sits at the bottom of the lake. Well, she failed to arrive or turn home, return home. And the community formed a massive search. And for 18 hours, hundreds of men with lanterns scoured the dense pine forest of the Chattahoochee Riverbank. On the morning of September 9th, a local farmer found May in a secluded gully about a mile from her home. And the scene was pretty gruesome. She had been brutally beaten, sexually assaulted, her throat had been slashed, and her skull had been crushed with a heavy rock. Like terrible, absolutely terrible. So the rock was found nearby and it was covered in blood and hair. And miraculously, she was still alive. Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding you. This girl was holding on for dear life.
SpeakerJeez.
Speaker 6She was unconscious and breathing shallow shallowly. And she carried, she was carried back to her family home where she stayed in a coma. And near the scene, searchers found a really small pocket mirror, and that mirror became the smoking gun used to implicate a 16-year-old Ernest Knox, who allegedly admitted to owning it under extreme duress. Now, see, part of me is like, I know people will cave after a while of interrogations. Yeah. And with lack of sleep, with wanting it just to be over and done, depending on how mean and brutal they can be. And I'm sure back then it was a heck of a lot worse than it is now because we have laws and rules.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 6And this kid is 16 years old.
Speaker 3Yeah, he's young.
Speaker 6Yeah. And unfortunately, back then, if a white person was murdered or hurt or killed or whatever, in an area of black people, they would go straight and say that it was a black person that did it.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 6And it was, it's completely unfortunate. Um, but Mae Crow lay in her bed while the the county outside spiral into chaos, like literal chaos, because she never regained consciousness. May was never able to identify her attackers or describe what happened to her. So September 10th, 1912, the next day, Rob Edwards, a 24-year-old farmhand, was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice in the attack on May Crow. A mob of at least 2,000 white residents swarmed the small jail in downtown Cumming. The sheriff reportedly just handed over the keys, allowing them in, and leaving his deputy to be easily overpowered. The mob dragged Edwards from his cell, beat him with crowbars and hammers, and then he was shot multiple times while being dragged through the streets behind a wagon.
Speaker 4Oh, geez.
Speaker 6Then his body was hauled to the coming town square where he was hoisted onto a telephone pole. And then the mob then used his lifeless body for target practice.
Speaker 3That makes me sick.
Speaker 6And he was riddled with hundreds of bullets. Like absolutely terrible. So May Crow survived for two weeks in a coma. So meanwhile, she's alive. This is like two days after this has happened. Yeah. But she survived for two weeks. And then on September 23rd, 1912, she succumbed to her injuries, and her funeral was the breaking point for the community. On the day she was buried at Pleasant Grove Church, white residents gathered in massive numbers. Witnesses described the atmosphere as electric with grief and rage. As soon as the sun went down following her burial, white vigilantes known as the Knight Riders began to can their campaign of terror. On October 25th, 1912, while Edwards was murdered by a mob, Ernest Knox, the 16-year-old, and Oscar Daniel, he's 17, were subjected to what historians call, quote, legal lynchings, fast-track trials with predetermined outcomes. Both boys were convicted by an all-white jury in a single day. You know that wasn't fair. That's way not fair. That's terrible. Yeah. Because let's be honest, the odds of it being those boys, it probably was nil. Yeah.
SpeakerYeah.
Speaker 6But I mean, you never know, but just because of how things were handled back in the day, they just went for the easiest target. Of course. Yeah. That's terrible.
Speaker 2Reminds me of the Green Mile.
Oscarville Erased And Town Submerged
Speaker 6Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So despite Georgia law prohibiting public executions at the time, the sheriff prepared a massive event. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people in a county of only 12,000 gathered in a field owned by Dr. Ansel St uh Strickland. Families brought picnic baskets with the teenagers hanging. Okay, that's sick. Right? What is wrong with people? They were probably waiting there all day. Oh, geez. A fifteen put fifteen put. A fifteen foot privacy fence meant to hide the gallows had been mysteriously burned down the night before. Of course.
SpeakerSo mysterious. The sheriff had the torch and the deputy had the gas.
Speaker 6Yep. Ensuring that the crowd had a clear view. Because Ernest Knox was so small, a special noose had to be fashioned to ensure that the hanging worked correctly.
Speaker 5Ugh. Can you imagine those parents? I can't imagine any of it.
Speaker 6It's all very horrific.
Speaker 5Yep.
Speaker 6Following the death of May Crow and these lynchings, the Knight Riders began a racial cleansing of the county. They delivered 24-hour notices to black families warning them to leave or be killed. So this is the whole town. They say the county, but they mainly talk about the town.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 6When families didn't leave fast enough, night riders burned their churches, they put dynamites, dynamite in their homes, they fired rifles into their houses at night. They also slaughtered their livestock so it would destroy their livelihoods. By the end of 1912, approximately 1,098 black residents, nearly 98% of the black population, had fled, leaving behind their homes, their crops, their lands, and eventually seized by white neighbors. So while that exact number is debated due to the lack of official death certificates for black residents at the time, historical accounts from Patrick Phillips. He is an author of Blood at the Root, and the Atlanta History Center indicate that several individuals were killed at the home, at their homes, or while attempting to flee. Night riders regularly fired rifles into their homes, threw sticks of dynamites under their rooftops, like we said, and many of the families escaped into the woods. And it was widely accepted by historians that some did not survive these midnight raids, particularly the elderly or those who attempted to flee or attempted to defend their property. A significant number of people, including infants and elderly, died shortly after the cleansing due to the exposure about being outside. Families were forced to flee with only what they could carry, often hiding in the woods or walking for miles in the cold toward the hall or Gwinnett counties. May's story is the start of many Lake Lanier legends, providing the historical trauma that many believe fuels the lake's modern-day hauntings. May Crow is often considered the original spirit of the Lake Cirque energy. So when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to process the process of creating Lake Lanier in the late 1940s, it wasn't just a matter of turning on the tap, but the build that would become one of the nation's largest man-made reservoirs. They had to systematically erase a valley of communities, farms, and history. The government purchased over 56,000 acres of private land. While some families sold willingly, many were forced out through imminent domain. Approximately 700 families were relocated, along with their businesses, schools, and churches. The government paid an average of just $50 per acre for the land. Can you imagine? $50 an acre? No.
Speaker 2Was that good or bad back then?
Speaker 6I don't I don't know. But nowadays?
Speaker 3I couldn't imagine it nowadays.
Speaker 6No way. You get like a quarter of an acre and you're paying $300,000 for it. Yeah, it's at least.
Speaker 2Now imminent domain seizures is double market value.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2So if the government really wants it that bad because they're putting in that new freeway, they're gonna pay. They're gonna pay.
Speaker 3Yeah, but back then.
Speaker 2Yeah, back then I don't think it was I think they were lucky to get fifty dollars an acre because I think uh back then they could just take it, call in imminent domain, and say, have a good day.
Graves, Relocations, And Unmarked Dead
Speaker 6Yeah. Yeah. So while the residents moved, the physical structures often stayed because it de it was deemed too expensive and time consuming to demolish every building. The corpse of engineers only cleared what they had to for navigation. The city isn't gone, it's just simply submerged. Divers and sonar mapping have confirmed that much of the infrastructure remains on the lake bed. In the deeper parts of the lake that's over 100 feet down, there are fully intact houses, barns with tools still inside, and concrete bridges. Thousands of trees were not cut down. They remain standing underwater, and their branches, now leafless and covered in silt, creating a quote, vertical graveyard that frequently entangles the gear of divers and the feet of swimmers. So they call it like the underwater forest.
Speaker 3Oh, yeah. And some of these trees are quite tall.
Speaker 6Mm-hmm.
SpeakerIt'd be so creepy to see. It's almost like what lies beneath.
Speaker 6Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's actually what I thought when I was researching all this. May Crow was buried in Oscarville. And when the Beaufort Dam was built in the 1950s, the valley containing the Oscarville uh cemeteries, including where Mae was buried, were flooded. They officially relocated 20 cemeteries, roughly like 2,000 graves. However, this process was deeply flawed. The corpse primarily moved graves that had headstones. Many of the cemeteries in Oscarville were considered or were unmarked graves or simply field stones, because they were poor poorer communities. Right.
SpeakerPopper stones, yeah. Popper graves.
Speaker 6These were largely ignored or missed during the relocation process. The Civil War era graves and this-I don't know how to pronounce this, so if I pronounce this wrong, it's summer or so it's summer O-U-R. Summer or hour, summer hour? I don't know. But it's a mound and it's a significant Cherokee burial and a ceremonial site that was also flooded without its remains being removed. So while many of these bodies were removed, records from that era were notoriously poor, leading to the belief that thousands of graves, including the ones from 1912, though all those victims, remain beneath the water.
SpeakerSo now we got poltergeist.
Speaker 2I mean, I hate to draw to always draw like movie references, but That's what comes to mind, right? That's what comes to mind because they're like, hey, we're gonna move the graves and then we're gonna build a housing development on it.
Speaker 3Right, but then they didn't really move the graves.
Speaker 2Yeah, they didn't really move them. And this is kind of the same point, right? They'd like we moved what we found.
Speaker 6Yeah, and then other ones. Well, and that like I wonder how often they were like, uh no, we'll just do like one every five or something. Right.
Speaker 2Nobody'll know.
Speaker 6Yeah. Nothing's gonna happen. Because I mean, they're leaving the houses.
Speaker 2Yeah.
The Lake’s Body Count And Risks
Speaker 6They're leaving the barns. They're leaving everything. Everything. So I really honestly wonder if they were just like, uh, screw this. We've dug up enough.
Speaker 3I I could see that.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Honestly.
Speaker 2Well, then, you know, and also too, like how many people were buried in backyards on, you know, family plots that were never marked.
Speaker 3Right. Hard to say.
Speaker 2You know. Because that was pretty common practice, too. Let's go on to the back 40, we'll let you know, bury mom and pop back there, and it's where they love to be, so just put them back there and don't need to mark it. It's marked by a tree or whatever.
Speaker 6Right. So this means that when people would swim in Lake Lanier, I mean, even today, they are literally swimming over the remains of hundreds of people who were never moved. Yep.
SpeakerSo nightmares.
Speaker 6Right? Oh. Buck Buchanan, a veteran diver who has spent decades in the lake, famously told local media that he has encountered, quote, body parts, arms and legs, while feeling his way through the dark silt. Because these remains were never officially dug up, they are technically still in their original resting places. Now, forty to a hundred feet underwater, divers describe the sensation of touching limbs that don't move and aren't attached to trees. Feeling the belief that the unrelocated are still very much present. Oof.
Speaker 3That's freaky.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3Could you imagine like swimming in there? Not knowing the history and then feeling something like that? I mean, I know these were divers that but could you imagine? Yeah, that are that, you know. But could you imagine someone just swimming?
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 3And coming in contact with that.
Speaker 6These ones that are just dug by family members or whatever, how deep are they actually? Right.
Speaker 2Oh, they're not gonna be six feet under.
Speaker 6Nope. Yeah. So since the lake was filled in 1956, it is claimed between 700 and 750 lives. That's a lot. Since the highest 1956. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker70 years.
Speaker 620 years. I know, but yeah. Like that's a lot.
Speaker 2That's quite a few for a body of water. Yeah.
Speaker 6Exactly. That's why we'll never go. Never gonna go. Okay, by the way, guys, I have a cold, if you can't tell by my voice. And I have a throat lousy. What are they called? Lozenge.
Speaker 2In my mouth.
Speaker 6She's sucking on a cough drop. So if you hear it, I apologize. But we're trying to make it through. Okay, so 27 of those victims that have died at the lake have never been found.
Speaker 5Their bodies were most likely stuck inside those trees.
Speaker 6Because reality is, I mean, a hundred feet is is deep, but that's like the deepest section. Right.
Speaker 2And you can have a hundred foot tree. So, I mean, realistically speaking, I mean a lot of those trees are really tall.
Speaker 3I don't think they're a hundred feet tall, but they there's some that are under there that are pretty dang tall. Yeah.
Speaker 2Or they're sitting, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So could you imagine diving into like one of the houses, right? Um, because you want to go check it out, and you got your scuba gear on. You get into the house and you look up, and there's just a body floating on the ceiling of someone that's just drowned there.
Speaker 3That's a whole lot of nope. Yeah, I believe that happened with uh New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. Oh, I bet. Like they go through and they'd clear bodies out of flooded houses, but they come back and they'd find more, you know, family members like going up to the attic and stuff, and that just drowned. So yeah.
The Lady In Blue Legend
Speaker 6Yeah, it's wild. So the lake averages between 15 and 20 fate fatalities per year. That's crazy. To put that in perspective, Lake Alatoona, who receives about the same amount of visitors per year, often has fewer than five. Same amount of people go and visit, but they have most often less than five people that die per year. Yeah.
Speaker 2I would say probably there's gotta be less than that on like Lake Michigan a year that that die. And Lake Michigan's a pretty nasty lake. It's a lot of ships.
Speaker 3Lake Lanier is probably the highest body count year after year.
Speaker 6Oh yeah. So it's it's appropriately called the Lake Lanier curse. So in April 1958, Susie Roberts and Dela Delia Parker, young, were driving home from a dance. They stopped to get gas, skipped out on paying for it, and they were driving away in their 1954 sedan, and it skidd off the Jerry D. Jackson Bridge and plummeted a hundred feet into the dark waters. Many divers on the state Route 53 reported seeing a woman in a long flowing blue dress wandering the bridge at night. Eyewitnesses described her as appearing, quote, lost or searching, often seeing walking along the edge of the bridge or standing in the road. Witnesses who have slowed down or offered to help described a moment of pure terror. As the woman turns towards the car, they realize that she has no hands. And before they can react, she doesn't vanish into thin air. She simply steps off the side of the bridge and falls into the water. Oh, just disappearing before she even hits the surface.
Speaker 3Oh, I'd pee my pants.
Speaker 2Right?
Speaker 3Oh, 100%. I would totally pee my pants if I saw that.
Speaker 2Especially if she looks corporeal. If she looks solid, that would be absolutely freaky. Yeah.
Speaker 6And you think odds are that she does look solid because most people aren't going to stop for something that doesn't look like an actual person. Or that's floating.
Speaker 2Or see-through.
Speaker 6Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2I mean, some people would, but most people won't.
Speaker 6So initially it was only thought of as a legend until 1959. A fisherman discovered a female body floating near the bridge. The corpse was wearing remnants of a blue dress, but was so badly decomposed that it was missing its hands and two toes. Oh jeez. So it's like legit. People were like, what the heck? Because they were before her body was found that they were saying that she was missing her hands. Yeah, and wearing a blue dress. Yeah.
Speaker 2She was I bet she was trying to show people where her body was.
Speaker 6Oh, I bet. No doubt. I bet. Yeah. But listen to this. So that happened, so her body was found in 1959. But in 1990, during some bridge renovations, the 1954 sedan was found at the bottom of the lake. The divers who first laid eyes on it described this scene from a horror movie. The car was buried deep in the muck near the bridge supports. The diver who found it reported that the car didn't look like a wreck. It looked parked. He claimed that as he wiped the silt off the driver's side window, he saw a skeletal face looking back at him, and the jaw was dropped open as if the skeleton was trying to scream. He later told investigators that the energy around the car felt heavy and protect uh protected, as if the lake itself didn't want him to take the car back. So in 1959, or the 1959 body was then confirmed to be I want to say Delia.
Speaker 5Is it Dahlia? D-E-L-I-A. Del Delia?
Speaker 6I don't know.
Speaker 1Delilah.
Speaker 6Oh, there's only one L. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know. Anyway. So despite the recovery of their remains, sightings of the Lady in Blue still continue. In 1964, there was a Christmas Day massacre, that they call it. On December 25th, 1964, a holiday outing turned into one of the most of the lake's deadliest single vehicle accidents. A car carrying 11 passengers, mostly children, careened off the bridge into the freezing water. Seven people died, including five children and two adults. The tragedy is often cited as a dark pulse of the lake. Locals and paranormal researchers claim that on Christmas night you can hear the faint muffled sounds of children crying or splashing near the site of the crash, despite the area being deserted. Oh, that's so sad. That's really sad.
Modern Mysteries And Vanishings
Speaker 2It is sad. I mean, part of me though would want to go try to go there on Christmas night and investigate and see if you can actually hear it. Like to like substantiate the claims.
Speaker 3Okay, that's fair, but even with that, I don't think I would go.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, I just don't. I don't know. I think I would. I don't think I would.
Speaker 6I mean, I would do it very respectfully.
Speaker 3Well, we always try to do everything really respectfully when it comes to these things, but I just don't like the energy that surrounds all of it.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6See, and that's the thing for me though, is you know kids aren't going to have uh a bad energy. So for me, I would want to see what that energy feels like. Right. What really is this energy?
Speaker 3Right. I well, I mean, I mean more or less the energy of not like the victims that were claimed, but just of the lake itself and whatever is behind a lot of the bad stuff. Right. The happenings.
Speaker 2It's it's it's less negative happenings. It's less about the singular instance, it's more about the the what's causing it.
Speaker 3Like, okay, was them driving off of that bridge just like a total accident, which could have taken a big thing.
Speaker 6I bet it was because if it's cold and icy, right.
Speaker 3So you could slide, you could go over the bridge.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 3Okay, I get that, but more unless somebody was falling asleep or something. Right, but maybe it's not the spirits of like the kids and the people that have necessarily died there. But there's there's that other energy that's there.
Speaker 2The the more dark, more.
Speaker 3The dark, the yeah, the negative, whatever's, you know, claiming these things, and that's true.
Speaker 2The the curse in itself.
Speaker 3Yeah. Like I don't like messing with stuff like that. It's understandable.
Speaker 6Makes sense. So the next death remains one of the most perplexing and unexplained incidences associated with the lake. Kelly Nash, a 25-year-old college student, disappeared from his home in Beauford, Georgia in the early morning hours. His girlfriend reported seeing him around 4 a.m. and he was awake because he had been coughing and sneezing from a sinus infection. Oh, that sounds familiar. When she woke up again at 7 30 a.m., Kelly was gone. He left behind his wallet, cell phone, car keys, and his pickup truck. The most unsettling was the fact that he appeared to have left in his pajamas. He had on dark pajama pants and a tan shirt. During the cold January morning. Yeah. Was he sleepwalking? See, here's the thing. After a massive five-week search and a reward that grew up to 50,000, his body was found by a fisherman in Lake Lanier near a private dock along Shadburn Ferry Road. This location was several miles from his home. He walked miles to get there in the cold with nothing warm on. That's weird.
Speaker 2It's very weird.
The Man On The White Raft
Speaker 6Yeah. The case and it's like 4 a.m. That's part of the coldest time. Yeah. Like midnight is not as cold as 4 a.m. Nope. So the case took a darker turn when the medical examiner findings were released. While initial reports focus on drowning, the autopsy revealed a gunshot wound. Authorities confirmed that a 9mm handgun was missing from Kelly's home at the time of his disappearance. Although the Hall County Sheriff's Office eventually stated that they did not suspect foul play, the circumstances walking miles in pajamas while ill, only to end up at the lake with a gunshot wound, has never been fully explained to the satisfaction of many researchers. It has fueled theories like, quote, lake-induced trances. Some people believe that the lake has a psychological pull that draws people to it. A very recent and unsettling death involved 27-year-old Raymond Diazoria, which many locals view as evidence of quote unseen hands. Raymond, a 27-year-old account executive and community leader from Atlanta, was on a rented pontoon boat with his friends to celebrate a birthday near Van's Tavern Park, an area close to a submerged ruins of the old Oscarville settlements. The boat came to a stop in a residential cove. Raymond decided to jump into the water for a swim. Friends witnessed him enter the water, but chillingly he never resurfaced. Witnesses say it happened within seconds. The moment he was there, and then the next, he had simply vanished in the murky sixty foot depths. So Raymond could not swim. Knowing this, he was wearing a life jacket when he jumped. While Raymond disappeared instantly, his life jacket was found floating on the surface moments later. The community of Lake Lanier truthers, is what they call themselves. This is seen as a classic example of the quote unseen hands. The legend suggests that something beneath the surface actively pulls victims down, stripping them of their flotation devices to ensure that they are claimed. Creepy. This is significant depth for someone who had just jumped from the surface, suggesting that he sank rapidly and straight down. Weird. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, how does he just go straight down? I don't know.
Speaker 2Especially with the life vest on.
Speaker 6The only thing I can think of, well, I mean, his life vest comes off, because it comes off right after he jumps in. Yep.
Speaker 2So he could improperly put it on.
Speaker 6Right. Didn't fit properly, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6But in order to sink down, you have to release all of your breath. And even then it's hard to sink all the way down.
Speaker 2Yeah, because eventually you're gonna start floating again. I mean you'd be gone, but you'll float.
Speaker 3Yeah, so well typically when your body starts to decompose, it will float. You will float. Yeah. It sounds like he sank right away.
Speaker 2Yeah, instantaneously.
Speaker 3Yeah. He said rapidly even.
Speaker 2Which the thing is, the interesting thing is like even if someone jumps in the water who can't swim, they will fight to stay up.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2But it doesn't sound like he did. It doesn't sound like that. Now there is one potential possibility of this, um, non-paranormal, right? Is if the water of the lake is cold in that area and it's a warm day, when your body hits that water, you go into shock.
Speaker 5Right.
Speaker 2And he you could sink instantly with that. Because I had that happen to me when I jumped into a lake. I was gonna I was going um uh water skiing, and I just I had my life vest on and I just I tossed my skis in the water and jumped in after them, and as soon as they hit the water, it was instant shock and I couldn't move. Had I not had a life vest, I would have sank.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2So maybe it was a case of shock. Could have been that pulled him down.
Speaker 6If not eventually turning into shock because he's his life vest goes, and then that puts him into shock just for the fear of drowning.
Speaker 2Yeah. And if he's already in partial shock, I mean they it could really just terrify him and mess you up too.
Speaker 6Well, it reminds me of like we'd always call it a candlestick. When you jump and you put both arms up and you touch your hands together at the top, and you jump in, point your toes, and then that way you're kind of like a bullet going into the water. And so we'd say candlestick, and then everybody jumps in and sees who can reach the ground, the bottom, and then push yourself back up. And we do this at the deep end at 12 feet.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6And we were fighting to get down to that 12 feet. Right. Without life jackets. So, like you had to jump really high to get that far down, and that was only 12 feet.
Speaker 3You need more of the momentum going in.
Speaker 6Yeah. So, but I know people will be at the bottom of the pools and they're drowning. Yep.
Speaker 2But that's usually they get sucked down because of the drain that's sitting at the bottom of the pool. Not always. Not always.
Speaker 6No. But so it's just, I don't know. It's a mystery. But I did do some more research on that, and they did say that they are claiming that he didn't put his vest on appropriately.
Speaker 3So But that wouldn't explain the sinking straight down like instantaneously, like just like that would have to be a shock response. It would have to be.
Speaker 2Because like I said, it you would fight. You if you throw somebody who can't swim into the water, they're gonna be kicking and screaming and fighting.
Speaker 3Well, yeah, if he jumped in, he and yeah, he would be splashing around. Once the life jacket came on, I think he would have panicked and started splashing around. But to jump in and just sink straight to the bottom. Because they said he just he went in and just never come out. Yep. They didn't say any splashing, nothing.
Speaker 2Right. Which to me it's a shock.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2You know, or unseen hands just drag him down, which right.
Speaker 3But if we're looking for a rational explanation, right, non-paranormal explanation, I would go.
Speaker 6It would be the shock. But come on, Jamie. This is a paranormal podcast. We're going for we're going for paranormal. Not everything's paranormal.
Speaker 3Blasphemy. How dare you say that on this podcast? You're out. Ruining it for me, Jamie.
Boat Bumps And Swimmer Encounters
Speaker 6That's what I do. Okay, so now we're gonna start going into like the sightings that people have been experiencing. So a more modern but chilling account comes from the early 2000s, reported by two fishermen working near the center of the lake. Okay. Pretend you are one of these fishermen, okay? This would scare scare you so bad. Okay. As dusk settled, they spotted a small, primitive white raft, barely more than a piece of styroform or plywood, floating in a high traffic area. Sitting on it was a man wearing a dark, heavy hooded parka, which was bizarre given that it was a humid Georgia summer night. The fishermen pulled their boat alongside to warn him that he was in a dangerous spot for large vessels. The man didn't look up. His face remained obscured by the hood. When they called out again, the man suddenly stood up. Instead of asking for help, he jumped into the water and started swinging. Swimming towards him, towards them, and then suddenly it disappeared. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not fishing out there anymore. Right? And then just as the white raft was about to come in contact with their boat, it vanished. Oh, that's crazy. But there was no splash, no ripple, no debris. And both men reported that the area where the raft had been was suddenly dead calm. Weird. Another encounter, um, the campers at the park had reported seeing a white shape drifting under the moonlight. When they shine a spotlight on it, they see a man in a hood. Every time a light fixed on him, the man immediately rolls off the raft into the water. Witnesses rush to the shore or launch boats to save him, but the they never find a body. A raft or even bubbles. It's as if the event of his drowning is being projected onto the water like a movie. Oh, so it's just replaying like replaying like resilience again. In twenty eleven, during a period of low water levels, a local resident reported finding a quote, shredded, ancient-looking white raft snagged in the branches of a submerged tree that had become exposed. The raft was made of materials that looked decades old. When the residents returned the next day with a camera to document it, the raft was gone. Even though the water levels hadn't risen and there had been no wind to move it. There is no record of a man on a white raft dying in the lake. However, paranormal researchers have two chilling theories. One, some believe the man was a resident of Oscarville, who may have been trying to flee the night riders in 1912 by crossing the river on a makeshift raft before the valley was even flooded. Which is very possible. Very possible. Plausible. Or two, between 1950 and 1960, record keeping for the lake was chaotic. You know, because like it's new, right?
Speaker 4Yep.
Speaker 6Many people believe he was a solo fisherman who died in the early days of the lake. And because no one was looking for him, his body and his raft just became part of the unrecovered statistics.
Speaker 3I I I don't know, I kind of gravitate towards the first theory. I do too.
Speaker 2I do too. A couple things. One, if he was to roll off the raft and just into the water and disappear, that's almost like he got shot.
Speaker 6Or like a heart attack.
Speaker 2Or a heart attack.
Speaker 6You know, or like a something like a stroke, you know, or an aneurysm or you know, something like that.
Diver Reports And Underwater Church
Speaker 2Well, because these night riders were gonna go out and shoot people. And so I could see that it you you're actually seeing his death on the river, where he jumped into the water. Oh, very well. Shot. Or he was shot on the raft and jumped into the river.
Speaker 6Totally. Yeah.
Speaker 2But either way, I mean I don't know how wide the ch um the river is.
Speaker 6Lake Lanier or the river that's the river that was there.
Speaker 2The river that was there before.
Speaker 6Um Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2And so, like, or how you know how long how wide it was there when it was there type of deal.
Speaker 6So I don't know.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6Interesting. But like I have witnessed, you know, reoccurring things like that. And like I have heard a lot of stories of where, like, and I think we've talked about this before in recent or not maybe not recent, but in podcasts, where these residual spirits will do the same routine, walk into their house, walk down the hall, go into their room, or whatever. But where um I watched one where the floor was lifted up like three feet. Like they raised the house. And the spirit actually walked through the floor, like at the waist, was through the door because the original house was low.
Speaker 3Right. And since they raised it later on, and that spirit still takes that walk, it's taking it on the original level of the floor.
Speaker 6Yeah. And it goes right through the middle of the floor. That's crazy. Right?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 6So I mean, I I personally would feel that it was a residual thing. It sounds very residual.
Speaker 2It sounds extremely re residual.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 2And the fact that it happens at night makes me think of the first one.
Speaker 6Right.
Speaker 3Right. Because a lot of them try to flee.
Speaker 2They were they were trying to flee, but they were probably more than likely getting caught at night.
Speaker 6Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it's not like they were keeping records of that.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 6They have zero records of anybody dying. Zero. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. They're not gonna. No. Because they don't care.
Speaker 6Nope. Nope. So the reason why it's scary for swimmers is because they have a thing called, quote, the vanishing man. And it's often blamed for the unexplained bumps that they'll get at the bottom of their boats. Boaters at the Mary Alice Park often frequently report the sensation of hitting a large object in open water only to find that nothing around them and there's no damage to their propellers or anything.
Speaker 3Interesting.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 2Weird.
Speaker 6No trees, no anything like that, but they'll feel a poof.
Speaker 2And you're gonna know, like you hit something in a in a boat, you're gonna hit something.
Speaker 6Think about it. When we go ghost hunting, we often hear knocks or bangs. Yep. And they can be really loud. People in their homes, when they have hauntings or anything like that, a lot of the times they'll hear a huge crash, but there's no evidence of anything tipping over, falling over, nothing. No furniture being moved.
Speaker 3Opening and shutting all over in the basement, and then you go downstairs, but everything's the way you left it. Yep.
Speaker 6So I mean But there's no two by four. So I can I personally can understand that this happening. Sure.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 6Because I can't say that it can happen outside of water and not inside water. Right. I I couldn't say that. Featured in a paranormal investigation like Expedition X. This account comes from a local athlete named Rachel, who was training for a triathlon at the lake. While swimming long distant laps in a quiet cove, Rachel reported seeing or feeling a sudden intense cold spot in the water that didn't move with the current. As she reached out during a stroke, she felt a human arm brush against her own. Rachel felt a sudden localized drop in temperature again. In the murky water, she then felt what was described as multiple hands brushing against her legs. When she looked underwater with her goggles, she saw a figure in a blue garment drifting just below her. Terrified, she swam for the shore, but she felt a distinct pulling sensation on her ankle, as if something were trying to keep her from leaving the water. And that it was not like being stuck on one of the trees. She eventually made it to the land, but refused to swim in the lake again, citing the feeling that the entity was watching her from the tree line.
Speaker 3No thanks.
Speaker 6Creepy.
Speaker 2So that is the thing of my nightmares.
Speaker 3Oh yeah.
Speaker 2I would I used to swim in lakes and stuff, and that when I'd swim out into deeper water, I mean we're not talking deep water, right? Like foot, twelve foot deep water.
Speaker 3Dark.
Speaker 2Dark, murky.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, a lot of the lakes I swam in were algae lakes, so like it was always murky.
Speaker 6Well, that's how they describe this lake as murky.
Speaker 2That's what I always like terrified of when I was swimming back. It was like someone's gonna grab me. Ah, you know, like you'd brush seaweed.
Speaker 5Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2You know, and you're like, oh and you're freaking out that it's a hand, but then to look underwater and see a body floating pacing you.
Speaker 6Yeah.
Speaker 2Nope.
Speaker 6Freak. I was scared of fish touching me. Let alone same here. A freaking body.
Sonar Tech Mapping Ghostly Figures
Speaker 3Yeah. Body's not the first thing that came to my mind when I swam in lakes and the ocean stuff. It was always critters. But it definitely would be on my first thought if I was swimming here.
Speaker 6Oh yeah.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 6For sure.
Speaker 2I wouldn't swim there. Nope. Let's face it. I would not. Getting in that water.
Speaker 6Whatever. Josh, we got it. We're gonna take you and we're gonna dump you in and we're gonna see what you experience.
Speaker 3We're gonna row you out to the middle of the lake in a boat and we're gonna toss you over. Perfect. No life to film it. We're gonna film it.
Speaker 2Okay, perfect. And then uh you can call for an ambulance and haul my corpse out of your tongue.
Speaker 6If we ever find it.
Speaker 2If you ever find it.
Speaker 6We'll tie you, we'll put a rope around you.
Speaker 2A rope.
Speaker 6Safety line.
Speaker 2And to make sure that you don't get lost, we'll put an anchor, we'll put a weight on it. Just just to make sure people find you again.
Speaker 3And we'll also give you a really long 50-foot rubber hose. We'll keep one the one end in the boat and you take the other end down with you.
Speaker 6We'll just put a buoy when he's when he hits bottom. We'll just put a buoy and just then be like, okay, that's where he is. We'll come back later. You got your hose, right?
Speaker 2Don't worry, it's you're in 100 feet of water.
Speaker 7You're good.
Speaker 6Just don't breathe, okay?
Speaker 2We'll be back in an hour. Finish your EVP session.
Speaker 6Let us know what you get. So now we're gonna go into um divers. So, like Josh, like what you were saying earlier with divers going into these houses, you just wait. So a diver reported grabbing what he thought was a submerged branch to steady himself, only to feel that the branch wrapped its fingers around his wrist. Ah. He panicked and surfaced so quickly that he suffered from the decompression sickness. The bends. Yep.
Speaker 2Ooh, he was he was hauling. He was down at the deep end of the lake.
Speaker 6Yeah. He swore it wasn't a limb of a tree, but a hand that was warm to the touch. Warm to the touch.
Speaker 2Warm. Yeah, and you're gonna know a depth.
Speaker 6You're gonna know, yeah. Cause I have been in bed and had my ankle grabbed, and you feel the fingers.
Speaker 5A hundred percent you feel fingers.
Speaker 2I don't think I've ever had that happen. I've had my face blown on and it was ice cold.
Speaker 6But you're like, oh, okay, I'm going to sleep. I feel so good.
Speaker 2I did. I was like, oh, that air conditioning is great.
Speaker 3But there wasn't any. No, I've I've had someone grab my ankle and pull it out of bed. Felt myself being pulled out of bed.
Speaker 4Here?
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 4Okay.
Speaker 5Was was it at the lakehouse?
SpeakerOh, that I can believe. That place was haunted. Yeah.
Speaker 6Too bad we can't go investigate there. Okay, so the second one, in the 1980s, a diver exploring a deep section of the lake near the old town site reported coming across a structure that looked like a stone fountain. Fountain. It's a foundation, guys. Not a fountain.
Speaker 3Not a fountain.
Speaker 6It'd be a little weird, really. As he moved his light across the silt, he saw what appeared to be rows of wooden benches, like pews, still bolted to the floor. And he described seeing, quote, shadowy figures sitting in the pews. And when he moved closer to the figures, they uh dissipated into clouds of silt. Wow. Paranormal researchers suggest that this is another residual haunting. The spirits of Oscarville, the congregants refusing to leave. Very possible.
Speaker 2Very possible.
Speaker 6Yep.
Speaker 2There have been other places that they've taken pictures in old churches where there's um they get not necessarily shadow figures, but like white figures or just Bannock's one of them.
Speaker 3Yeah. In the church in Bannock in Montana. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2So pretty cool. That is pretty neat.
Speaker 6When searching for a drowning victim, divers have to fan the silt at the bottom to see what's underneath it. Multiple divers have reported the sensation of their fingers getting tangled in long flowing hair in areas where no body was ever f ever found.
Speaker 3That would scare you a little bit.
Speaker 6Right? One recovery diver in the 1990s claimed that he had a head of hair and began to pull thinking he had found a victim. Instead, he pulled up a handful of thick black hair that wasn't attached to anything. And when he brought it to the surface to show his partner, the hair had vanished, leaving only a foul-smelling black sludge in his glove.
Speaker 5Gross. Yeah.
Speaker 6I mean, I understand the foul smelling. Because you know, like when lakes, when they recede, but it smells so bad, right?
Campsite Hauntings Around The Lake
Speaker 3I wonder if it wasn't something that when it's under the water, it's like hair. Right. And then when you expose it to the air and it just turns to like slime and sludge. There are like um plants or whatever in the water or whatever uh seaweeds and stuff. I I forget what they're called that do that. Probably it's like seagrass, but but I don't know if that would be in a lake.
Speaker 2No, I think that would be like uh giant squid will do that. But those are like deep, deep, deep.
Speaker 3Well, yeah, but and that's not a lake. That's the ocean.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Big difference. But yeah, I don't know. That's the only thing I can think of, because there's some things that will be like it looks like hair, it's really fine, and you know, and you get it to sort of pull it up and it's just like goop.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6So I wonder if it's not some sort of uh see that's where I kind of mean some kind of vegetation, like maybe it looks like some like rutted you know, or something. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how that works.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's tough too, because you can't really see, right? But and let's face it, like if you get any organic rotting material at the bottom of a lake or a swamp, yeah, and then you bring it up to the surface, it's gonna stink the big thing. It's gonna stink. Oh, absolutely. It's gonna be nasty.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Um But you would you would think experienced divers would know the difference. They would know what they're touching.
Speaker 6Unless it's something they've never come across before.
Speaker 2It's true.
Speaker 6Well, and if you think about it, it's it was a freaking city.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 6That still had all their stuff left. Right. How often do you come across an entire city underneath the water? You don't. There's gotta be other type of chemicals, other type of things that just happen down there that isn't normal to lake beds. Yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 6The natural growth of things. Yep. Because they had oils, they had gas, they had all sorts of things. Yeah. You know, chemicals down there that I mean, granted, this was a long time ago.
Speaker 2But there still would have been compounds, organic or otherwise. Right. I mean, who knows? Maybe it was a bunch of horse hair.
Speaker 6Totally could have been.
Speaker 2You know. And then you grab it and it's kind of partially decayed. So as you bring it up, it because of the definitely because of the pressure difference, right? It's just turns to mush. It just turns to mush.
Speaker 6Well, and also, too, it's sludgy under at the bottom. Yeah. They it they say the whole bottom is covered in like a sludge.
Speaker 2It's a yeah, it's like a mud bottom lake.
Speaker 6Yeah. And it's not your typical bottom of your lake.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's gonna be nasty.
Speaker 3So while it was of resembled the look of hair in the water, when you brought it up, it takes it just disintegrates and turns to sludge.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Definitely adds to the mystery of everything, though, because it's But if you did enough study and stuff, you could you may be able to figure out what it is.
Speaker 2Right. You'd have to take it back for a composition test. Yeah. And that's But let's be real.
Speaker 6I guarantee you they were like not even thinking about that.
Speaker 2Oh, they were you know what?
Speaker 6Honestly, it stinks so bad.
Speaker 3Yeah, honestly, I wouldn't have thought about it either.
Speaker 2I wouldn't have no because you're there, you're there looking for a body. You're not there to look for answers to other things. And so you're just gonna chalk it up of, well, that was weird. And gross and gross and stinking. I'm out.
Speaker 6So also under there is called the Gainesville Speedway. It's a submerged racetrack. And it's a hot spot for these encounters because the concrete grandstands are still there. Divers exploring the grandstands have often reported feeling hands pushing them from behind or pulling at their oxygen tanks. Okay, every time I was researching this of with their oxygen tanks, I was thinking of like old people dragging their oxygen tanks.
Speaker 3The things in their nose.
Speaker 6On the little wheel. Why would they do that? That's so mean.
Speaker 2Swimming, holding the oxygen tank behind you.
Speaker 7Pulling it on your little car with the little wheel.
Speaker 6The little things in their nose. So dumb. It literally that was the first thing I thought of, and I had to like correct myself every single time I read it. So one diver reported that his regulator, the piece that allows him to breathe, was repeatedly pulled out of his mouth by an unseen force while he was near the finish line of the old track. And every time he replaced it, he felt another sharp tug again, forcing him to abandon the dive.
Speaker 3It didn't want him to cross the finish line and win.
Speaker 7Yep. So it kept pulled. Pulling it out.
Speaker 2That's freaky though. That is scary. That's something you hold with your mouth with your. I know.
Speaker 3Yeah. Well, and that's your obviously that's your lifeline. And someone keeps pulling it out. At a hundred and a hundred feet down. Yeah, that's freaky.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3I I would have abandoned the dive too.
Speaker 2And let's figure face it, it's above a speedway, which means there's no trees, there's no like debris that would get in the way that you would hook it onto to yank it out of your mouth.
Speaker 3Right. Yeah, that that's a little unnerving.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6So on the lake, they also use side imaging sonar. Unlike traditional sonar that suits just like a single beam straight down. They call that a fish finder. The side imaging, or they call it SI, sends out a razor thin beam to the left and to the right, covering about 400 feet on either side of the boat. And it creates a 3D-like sonogram at the bottom of the bottom. And it doesn't just show blobs, it actually shows the shadows and 3D shapes of objects, like the rungs of a ladder or the branches of a tree. So I've actually seen these, and I've seen where they have found bodies, and you see the bodies, and they are distinct.
Speaker 3Yeah, like arms, legs, head, torso. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I saw one on a reel where they found a body and the hands up like this. Yeah.
Energy, History, And Why It Lingers
Speaker 6Yeah. Tell clear as day. And you can tell cars, the shapes of the cars. So these make it perfect for body recoveries because Lake Lanier's visibility is near zero, often called the like diving in chocolate milk, which is so gross. Why would you want to swim in that? I wouldn't. If this is one of the most popular lakes, why would you want to go to like I would want to go something more like a clear lake? Right? Where you have some visibility.
Speaker 2There's not a lot of clear lakes though. Like growing up, the lakes, all the lakes I swim in were like murky. Were murky like that. They were, I mean, it wouldn't say chocolate milk because that things makes things of brown, right?
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 2But it was green. It was just full of algae. And as you're swimming through it, you know, you can't see anything.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2You put your hand down into the water and it's gone.
Speaker 3Yep. That's what Long Lake's like.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6Where we used to live. Yeah. Structural mapping researchers use it to locate the remains of Oscarville. They have successfully mapped the Gainesville Speedway. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the DNR, used the SI. Okay, are we gonna like keep up with this, guys? To find drowning victims. It is the only way to see through the silt and the vertical forest of standing trees at the bottom. Structural mapping, the researchers use it to locate the remains of Oscarville. They have successfully mapped the Gainesville Speedway, old bridge pilings, and the foundations of houses that were never demolished. Side imaging sonar often picks up the humanoid shapes standing upright on the lake floor near the old Oscarville home sites. When divers go down to check out those exact coordinates, they find nothing but flat mud.
Speaker 2Okay, now that's cool.
Speaker 7Right? I would love to see that. Then I'd be like, can I take a recorder down somehow?
Speaker 3Get one of those little underwater vehicles.
Speaker 6Yeah. In several documented investigations, including episodes from Expedition X and local research groups, sonars have picked picked up an upright humanoid figures standing in what used to be the streets or doorways of Oscarville. These aren't just logs. Logs lay flat or on angles, and these targets show a head, torso, and limbs standing perfectly vertical on the lake floor.
Speaker 3Kind of like they're just doing what they used to do back in the day. Yeah. Just carrying on.
Speaker 6I honestly would be totally fine just being on a boat doing the sonar just to see if I could find one.
Speaker 3Oh yeah. Right? I would do that.
Speaker 6I don't need to dive.
Speaker 3I just want to do the sonar. I won't go in the water, but I'll go out in the water and sonar.
Speaker 2I think it'd be awesome if you got a hit on that and then drop an ROV right away.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And then you because you can get an ROV there real quick.
Speaker 6Explain what an ROV is.
Speaker 2Uh remote operator operated vehicle. So it's the submersibles that they use.
Speaker 3It's kind of like a drone for the water.
Speaker 2Yeah. And they got cameras. You the cool thing is they got cameras, they got aquaphones, they got lights, and you can rig them with speakers. So you could technically with the audio phone ask questions. Yeah, you could actually do it. And record.
Speaker 7Oh no way. That's weird. Like an under-the-water EVP session. That's so cool.
Speaker 2You could. That would be amazing. I don't think anyone's ever done it, but it would be neat. Oh, somebody needs to do it here.
Speaker 6Yes. So um, and sometimes when a diver is sent down to the exact GPS, they find the nothing but the flat silt, right? So then the boat goes back over it, over the area, and the figure's gone. So cool.
Speaker 2That is so cool.
Speaker 6I would love to see something like that. Oh my gosh, me too. So it kind of reminds me of like an SLS. Yes.
Speaker 2Well, yeah. In a way, right? It's like an SLS. It's like any of the IR stuff that we use.
Speaker 3Right, yep.
Speaker 2Um, because it's just it's picking up I mean, it's picking up an image of some sort, right? But the the part that's interesting is that the side scan sonar that they're using, in order for that image to show up, the sound has to bounce off of it. So it would be interesting if we could find a way to use that in investigations. Um and use that like a sonar type device in a room.
Speaker 6Oh, that'd be so cool.
Speaker 2To see if you could get mappings uh coming back. Much more like like you would, like a bat would use.
Speaker 3Right. Where the sound bounces off of it.
Speaker 2Yep, and then comes back, and then you have the piece. So the technology's there. I just don't think anyone's ever used it that way.
Speaker 6That'd be so cool. All right, somebody get on it. And don't keep it. Don't make it cost five thousand dollars. Yep. Get on it. So during a 2024 scan near the Jerry Jackson Bridge, researchers reported a target that looked like a person suspended in the water column. So neither at the bottom or at the surface. The sonar shadow, which is often more accurate than the image itself, showed a figure with arms extended. Chillingly, the shadow of the arms appeared to end in stumps. Oh, jeez. Matching the handless description of the lady in the blue dress. Crazy.
Speaker 2That is crazy.
Would You Visit Lake Lanier
Speaker 6DNR and recovery teams have noted that when they scan the foundations of the old flooded houses, they often see multiple signatures inside the structures. Skeptics say that these are large catfish or schools of striped bass. Divers who have gone down to these fountains describe an oppressive feeling as if they're being as if they're trespassing in someone's living room. The sonar picks up these shaped clusters together in corners, the behavior not common for fish in open water.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, and the thing is, is like the the images I've seen from sonar are pretty like vivid and accurate.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2I don't see how a school of fish would show up as uh arms, legs, and a head and like a like a person.
Speaker 3They're like down there, like, hey, let's screw it these people.
Speaker 2Oh, is it like the ones uh from Finding Nemo that could like you know do shapes?
Speaker 6That's what I'm saying. Divers in the area of the old Oscarville foundations sometimes report seeing a faint shimmer or a bobbing light, like a lantern under the water. In local lore, some link the shimmer to the pocket mirror found in May's uh crime scene, like someone shining the light reflecting it to reflect it back at you. Paranormal researchers often argue that the lake isn't haunted by May herself, but by the collective trauma of the 1100 people who are violently displaced because of her death. The unseen hands that swimmers report feeling are frequently attributed to the unrest of the people of Oscarville whose lives and land were stolen. Now, let's be real. There is an energy that happens in things like in traumatic events.
Speaker 3Absolutely. There was a lot of emotion, fear, anger, so many emotions, and very strong. Oh, yeah. From a lot of people.
Speaker 6On both sides. On both sides, that's right. So if you think about it, those 2,000 people who went to the jail, those 5,000 people who 5 to 8,000 people who went to witness the hanging, right, plus the 1,100 residents of Oscarville. That's a lot of people. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. It's a lot of emotion being thrown into the environment.
Speaker 6Yeah. Yeah. So I don't doubt that there are things that happen because the energy is just available.
Speaker 2And you said there was Civil War burial sites. So on top of that, now you're also throwing um Civil War battles in that mix as well.
Speaker 3Well, what was the burial mound that was down there? The Cherokee for Native Americans or Indigenous indigenous people. So you have that. You have that as well. Like there's a lot there.
Speaker 2There's a whole lot of that's a lot, Tom Pack.
Speaker 6Yeah. That's a lot. And we all know that you do not disturb Native American burials. Absolutely. They are so sacred. That's right. For them. Like it's like you don't touch those. Nope. You don't mess with them.
SpeakerWhy don't we feel the same?
Speaker 6I don't I don't think we care as much. I don't think we care as much about our dead bodies. Now we have campsite hauntings. There's just so many guys. So many. So while the water gets most of the attention, the campgrounds surrounding Lake Lanier are notorious among locals and park rangers for activity that feels more predatory than the sightings of the open water. These accounts often center on the areas built directly over the former sites of Oscarville and the unrelocated cemeteries. Shady Grove Campground is one of the most popular spots on the lake, but it is also a hot spot for physical hauntings. A frequent story from campers involved being woken up in the middle of the night by a sensation that their tent is being violently shaken. Okay, that would freak me out.
SpeakerNo kidding.
Speaker 6I'd I'd I'd pee. One camper reported that at 3 a.m. they felt someone grab the corner of their sleeping bag through the tent fabric and pull it towards the lake. When they screamed and unzipped the tent, the campsite was empty. The fire was still smoldering, and there were wet footprints, not of human, but of something webbed, leading from the tent directly into the water. Rangers often hear complaints of kids playing pranks, but when they patrol the area, they find nobody nearby. Some people believe that these are the spirits of the children that were lost in the 1964 Christmas Day crash seeking playmates.
Speaker 3That's like so sad. That's so sad. The web thing. So now we're we're talking like web uh like a lake monster now. Frog people. Frog people.
Speaker 6They're getting they're getting acclimated to the water and changing into mood creatures, apparently.
Speaker 2Right. So yeah, exactly. So they actually didn't die. They just evolved.
Speaker 3They just morphed into frog people. So when they grab your feet and stuff, it still feels like fingers. That's what that mermaids, guys. Mermaids. There you go.
Speaker 2So they're well, yeah, they're not quite mermaids because they don't have fishtails. They got frog feet.
Speaker 6I know, but I'm saying like mermaid. Hands unseen. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's mermaids.
Speaker 6Mermaids, man.
Speaker 2It's frog people.
Speaker 6Telling you. Freshwater mermaid mermaids. They can navigate those trees. Yeah, they could. The second one is Mary Allison Park. It's located near where some of the deepest parts of the Old Town Foundation sits. A group of teenagers camping in the late 1990s reported seeing a thick localized blue mist rolling off the lake onto their campsite. Unlike regular fog, this mist stayed low to the ground and seemed to glow. Inside the mist, they saw a woman in a long dress. She didn't walk, she glided. One of the campers claimed that the woman approached their cooler, looking at them with black pits for eyes, and then let out a sound like a high-pitched whistle before vanishing. The next morning, all the electronics in their camp, their phones or flashlights, were completely drained of battery. Oh, jeez. Now that's very common when you have a spiritual phenomenon like that. They're pulling the energy. They pull energy from phones, your flashlights, your gear, they drain it, your cameras.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 6Like it's happened and it's happened to me quite a few times.
Speaker 2That's why we carry extra battery packs just in case.
Speaker 6Lots of extra batteries and battery packs. Because sometimes it happens more than once. And I will go through my equipment before I even investigate, make sure my batteries are all good. Yep. If they're even just low, I'm gonna change them out and I put new ones in. That's right. So the third campsite is Van Pugh North Park. Van Po P-U-G-H. We're going with Pew because that just sounds better.
SpeakerPew.
Speaker 6Pew. It's named after a man whose land was seized to build the lake. Well, that's terrible. It is widely considered the most aggressive campground. A solo camper reported hearing the sound of heavy wet boots marching in a circle around his tent for three hours. The camper described the sound as rhythmic, like a soldier or a farmer walking through mud, and every time he yelled, Who's there? The walking would stop instantly. So intelligent, maybe. The most terrifying moment came when he felt a heavy weight lean against the side of his tent, as if someone were sitting down right next to his head. He felt the warmth of a body through the canvas. But when he looked outside with this spotlight, there was nothing but dark woods. Creepy. Creepy. The fourth one is Don Carter State Park. This park is on the north end of the lake where the Chattahoochee River enters. See, and I wonder if this is one of the rivers that they're talking about that they were trying to cross. Possibly, yeah. This area was heavily affected by the 1912 Night Riders. Boom, here we go. Boom. Hikers and campers have reported that the trees in this area don't sound right. So during storms, instead of the whistling of the wind, people claimed to hear human screams coming from the canopy. In 2018, a couple camping near the shoreline recorded audio of what sounded like a mob of people shouting in the distance, despite being the only people in that section of the park. I bet that was residual.
Speaker 3That's gotta be residual. That would be really frightening to hear, though.
Speaker 2That'd be tough. Especially if you're not looking for it, you're not expecting it, and you're hearing people yelling and screaming and one or two of them.
Speaker 3Right. It's a it's a group, but it that would it'd make you wonder what's going on.
Speaker 2Right?
Speaker 3Yeah. Especially if you don't know the history of the area.
Speaker 1Exactly.
Speaker 6Yeah, so this is often attributed to the night rider raids. And believers say the land recorded the screams of the families being driven out of their homes, and the atmospheric pressure of the storm plays the recording back. Which honestly makes sense because it makes a lot of sense, actually. One, you have water. Yep. Two, you have a storm. Yep. Which both create energy.
Speaker 1Yep. Yep.
Speaker 6And whenever we investigate, we love when there's a storm. Absolutely. Because it's like a fuel.
Speaker 7Well, and it amplifies. Yeah. Very much amplifies it.
Speaker 2It adds all that nice good energy into the air.
Speaker 6That's right. It's like the perfect paranormal soup. It's like charged. Yep. Okay, the fifth one is Old Federal Park. It is near a submerged ghost bridge and old road beds. A family camping in a motorhome reported seeing an old man sitting on their picnic table at dawn. He was dressed in overalls and a straw hat holding a fishing pole. And when the father stepped out to greet him, the man pointed toward the water and said, They're still down there. Before dissolving into a cloud of gray smoke. The family later found out that their campsite was relocated directly above an old cemetery that had been partially removed during the flooding in the 50s.
Speaker 3So that guy, they're still down there, meaning they never moved those bodies. They're still down there.
Speaker 6Wow. That would be I don't I think that would be a really cool experience.
Speaker 3I think it would be cool. And but if you know what's behind it and what he's talking about, it's sad. So it's it's a little bit of both. Well I just wouldn't find that as scary to me. I don't think it would be scary.
Speaker 2It depends. If you're investigators like us, it's both sad and exhilarating.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2If you're just a family that Don't really believe in ghosts, or has never experienced anything, or never experienced anything, and you're just sitting out there, and there's a dude that one vanishes, and two is like they're still down there. You're like, what?
Speaker 3That's something straight out of a horror movie, you know.
Speaker 6Yeah. Because I mean, I'm sure a lot of these people that are visiting are visiting from far away. Sure. Yeah. So especially if you're in a motorhome.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 6You know, you're generally not coming from down the street or the town over. You're not local. Most of the time, you're traveling a pretty far distance. Yeah. So you're generally not going to know the history behind the lake.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6I mean, it's not like I'm looking up the history of a lake before I go visit it. Right? I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2Maybe we should.
Speaker 3After this. Just so we know what we're getting into. Right.
Speaker 6So campground spirits are often described as intelligent haunts, and they interact with the campers, they touch their belongings, and they seem to be to respond to being noticed. Many campers report a sudden silence from the birds. They stop chirping and insects stop buzzing just minutes or seconds before a sighting occurs at these parks, which also happens. I have been out in the woods where everything stops. It's dead silent. And you're like, hold on, what the heck? The air changes, it feels thick, like the feeling feels not right. And it like something shifts. And that's when you're like, okay, I'm getting out of here. Right? You know? Especially if you're alone. Yeah. So whether you decide to swim or camp, be cautious and be ready for the unknown. That sounds like that.
Speaker 7That's awesome.
Speaker 2I am pretty certain we've been very close to that.
Speaker 3How do you mean?
Speaker 2Well, it's in Georgia.
Speaker 3Yep.
Speaker 2And it covers the Gainesville Speedway.
Speaker 3The old Gainesville Speedway. The old one.
Speaker 2The old Gainesville Speedway.
Speaker 3Yeah, we were right.
Speaker 2We were nearly Gainesville, Georgia.
Speaker 3Didn't think about it. Did you know?
Speaker 2I have a feeling we were right near that lake.
Speaker 3Possibility. Very possible. I kind of want to look it up and see. Yeah.
Speaker 6That was cool though. Where's Gainesville to see if it's around?
Speaker 2There is definitely some intrigue to that lake.
Speaker 3There is. Um but with all the terrible things, I don't know that I'd actually want to go there. I think maybe camping there would be okay. I'd 100% camp there.
Speaker 6Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3I'd totally do it. Yeah, I think I'd be willing to camp there. I don't think I'd want anything to do with the water and going out in it necessarily.
Speaker 6So Gainesville is a city right along the lake. Gainesville's right there.
Speaker 5Like the upper right side. Like the northeast side. Yep. It's not part of like the big, big part of the lake. Right.
Speaker 2No, it's part of part of it. We're close to part of it.
Speaker 6So we were near it.
Speaker 2We were very near it.
Speaker 6Like right there. Probably drive f five minutes.
Speaker 2No, we drove right by it. We drove right by a portion of it.
Speaker 3Didn't even realize that that's what it was.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 2Yeah, we drove, we we that lake is massive. It is massive. Um, so we weren't anywhere near Oscarville.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 2We were um different parts on one of its like many parts of its arms.
Speaker 3Gotcha.
Speaker 2And I think that's I and I think that that's part of the issue, right? Is like that lake, when we think of a lake, we think of um I mean a fairly large body of water. Yeah. But something that we can, you know, overlook a valley, kind of like um Bear Lake. Right. I mean Bear Lake's massive. Sure. But it's not, you know, enormous. Uh lake this lake goes everywhere. It goes all different ways. So many different arms and offshoots of it. And so where Oscarville is, it's on the main lower part of the lake.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2And so I wonder how much is really centered around the Oscarville area unless those upper out-of-the-way spots. Other than that one with the the guy walking around the campsite, which is bite or the screams.
Speaker 3Yeah, I I don't know. I I would I would suspect that a lot of it has to do with the town.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 6Well, I think that's where it's focused. But also I think it branches out in other areas. I think it also branches out because there's so many people that die there every year. Yeah. Why would that energy not be there? Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Well, and I just think it's more concentrated in some areas versus others. Yes.
Speaker 2And we talked about already, like, I mean, we talked about the the actual battles being fought in those areas. So you got civil war fighting, um, you've got the Cherokee in you know, burial mounds.
Speaker 6Yep. You have the Knight Riders.
Speaker 2You got the Knight Riders, right? You've got the clan, the clan operated in those areas. On top of that, underground, you've got precious metals, gold, quartz, all of this stuff that's amplifiers under the ground, under the water. One of the richest gold mines in the country was found in Gainesville.
Speaker 6Oh wow.
Speaker 2So like you have all of this stuff like in that area. Just a hot bed, a soup of paranormal fun.
Speaker 3There's there's a lot to it.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 3I would totally go.
Speaker 2All right, road trip to Georgia.
Speaker 3Let's add this to our list.
Speaker 7Maybe not this year, but it's on the docket. How's that?
Speaker 2It's on the docket.
Speaker 7We'll get an RV.
Speaker 6Go to a campsite.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6No, you guys get an RV. I'm gonna get a tent.
Speaker 2We don't need a tent. We got our tent. We'll take a look at the biggest. It's like a small house. Yeah.
Speaker 6But your tent, it can't be pulled to the lake.
Speaker 2You want to be pulled. Well, look, if you want to be pulled to the lake. So look, yeah, but he's in the tent. To make it easier for you. We'll put you on a um an air mattress.
Speaker 3That way, if they pull you out there, you'll float. Yeah, exactly. Hey, sweet.
Speaker 2An air mattress with uh with a little rope on it so they can pull the rope. You can sleep on a sleeping bag.
Speaker 7Scrap me to the mattress. Right. And then we'll put wheels on the bottom of it so I can roll.
Speaker 3Easier for them to roll.
Speaker 2Well, how about how about this? To really make it interesting, they have those inflatable tents.
Speaker 7Oh, yeah. Have you seen those?
Speaker 6Yes. And I'll just be out on the lake all right.
Speaker 2We'll just push you out on the water.
Speaker 6And then watch the next time. Or in the morning, there's no tent.
Speaker 2There's no Where'd Lisa go?
Speaker 3I'm just going. No, what's going to happen if we do that and get one of those tents is they're going to flip it over so the bottom is the top and the tent's under the water. And Lisa can't Lisa can't get out of that tent.
Speaker 2And we're going to be dead asleep in our RV. We're not going to hear a thing.
Speaker 3Not through your snoring. Yeah. No, we're not doing that. Okay. We're not putting her out there. No. She wants to go. No, no, no. No, no, in the lake, guys.
Speaker 7Let's let's just be clear.
Speaker 2She wants to be on the lake in the tent, sleeping.
Speaker 3We should get one of those big inflatable balls that you go out in the water in. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2See, there you go.
Speaker 3Then you can just walk around, run back.
Speaker 2You could just not really. I've tried doing it. It does not work very well.
Speaker 6It's hilarious, though.
Speaker 2That was like eight inches of water. It was so exhausting and so much fun.
Speaker 6Can you imagine what the spirits would think with that?
Speaker 7They'd be like, what the heck is this?
Speaker 3They're all gonna have to get together and have a meeting on how they tackle this floating thing. Like, all right, volleyball, let's go. Half over there, half over here. Let's kick this around.
Speaker 2Could you imagine being in that and just having it like feeling it pushed and thrown side to side?
Speaker 6Or like like they were having under with the boats bumping underneath it. Right.
Speaker 1So bumping hands.
Speaker 6And clear clear. So you could see it. See the hands touching the boat. Guys, I feel like we need to do an experiment. It may be your last. Again, tie a rope to me.
Speaker 2We'll just pull her around the lake and just drop her off an Oscar ball.
Speaker 7Alisa, what are you saying? Can you see anything down there? She's down there with her face at the bottom of the ball. Make sure I see a lady in blue. No hands.
Speaker 1Wait, wait.
Speaker 7She's got nubbins.
Speaker 1Lady in white.
Speaker 3Yeah, there's always a lady in white, isn't there?
Speaker 6I you know what's funny? It's a lady in white or a lady in blue. Yep. Every time. Every time. But I mean, I honestly understand the lady in white because of nightgowns. Yes. Right. That just takes the cake.
Speaker 3So nightgowns, especially back in the days, were white. Yep. Yes. White and flowy and kind of like wedding dresses. They were actually beautiful back in the day. I know. Some of those. I wish we still had those.
Speaker 7There's a place you can get them.
Speaker 6Oh, I'm sure there is, but they're probably way expensive.
Speaker 3Way expensive, and I don't know how comfortable they would actually be.
Speaker 6Do you remember the show that um Jennifer Love Hewitt was on? Which one? She Ghost Whisperer.
Speaker 3Oh, I have that whole series. Yeah.
Speaker 6Her nightgowns were gorgeous.
Speaker 3Yeah. I need a nightgown like that, honey.
Speaker 2Deal. I need one too.
Speaker 3Okay. We can be twinsies. That's right. But you have to have a cap. The little nightcap.
Speaker 2You have a long one?
Speaker 3Yep.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3With a little ball at the end.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 3Heck yeah.
Speaker 2All right, everybody. Let us know if you would camp there, swim there, dive there, or boat there. Or if you have. If you have, that'd be great.
Speaker 3Let's hear your story if you have a story.
Speaker 2Um but as always, stay ghosty, my peeps.
