Episode 34 - Lights in the Mountains and Shadows on the Road

Deep in the mountains of North Carolina, strange glowing orbs have puzzled witnesses for more than a century. Known as the Brown Mountain lights, these mysterious flashes have inspired tales of lost spirits, Native American legends, Civil War ghosts, and even UFO encounters. While scientific investigations have pointed to distant headlights, train lights, and other natural explanations, many visitors still swear they've witnessed something that defies logic. In this episode, we explore the history, folklore, eyewitness accounts, and ongoing mystery surrounding one of Appalachia's most famous paranormal legends. 

Then we travel to the eerie backroads of New Jersey and the infamous Shades of Death Road. Stretching through dark woods and isolated farmland, this road has earned a reputation for murders, ghost sightings, phantom lights, cursed swamps, and unexplained encounters. From tales of highwaymen and hanging victims to the legends of Ghost Lake and mysterious apparitions, we'll uncover the chilling stories that transformed an ordinary country road into one of America's most haunted stretches of pavement. Is there truth behind the legends, or has fear created a haunting all its own?

Send in your own creepy stories to twofilthyhorrorspodcast@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

New episodes every Monday! 

If you enjoy the podcast, please rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! 

If you got it, haunt it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Alex, and I'm Megan, and we are your two filthy whores.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

You're all beyond the veil now. Welcome to Happy Hour. Thank you. Well, I wanted to say, I wanted to start off saying happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. Um it is it is coming up right before the next episode, so we wanted to say it now and be early instead of late, because a few times we were late because Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

We didn't realize. But happy Daddy's Day. Oh. Yep. Your face.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

We were like, Imagine that.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I don't know, like, really. Like, obviously, we definitely like need to show like camera because we do stupid shit, but like at the same time, I'm like, are we really ready for it? Because we make the dumbest facial expressions.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Oh, we're not. We're not ready for it. But when it happens, full swing. I hope you guys are ready for it. It'll be great. I think they'll appreciate it. We'll be fucking like embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I know I'll be embarrassed. I think you have cute faces, but I make stupid things.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Like I think you make cute faces. My faces are not. I don't know. That's maybe we're just biased of one another.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

I don't know. Um, yeah, it has to be that. So uh well, I know this is like obviously coming out a little bit later, but today is Ben's last day of school, so yeah, for summer. He's gonna drive me nuts now, but in the best way possible. So I'm excited to have him home. I'm excited for summer to start. Um, even though I don't get a summer vacation, but it's nice to it's still ha nice having your baby home.

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yeah. So I'm very excited about that. I'm excited for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah, and I don't know, besides that, like I just have listed here, I didn't put anything really in for Yappy Hour, like from for me. I don't really know if I have anything new right now. Uh just um that like summer plans. You know, I mean I just wrote down summer plans, like I don't really know everything I'm gonna be doing for summer yet. Um I know we got some races in the books and obviously birthday parties, uh maybe a trip here or there. Like, you know, we we might go to Deep Creek or like Erie or something for a little trip. Uh we might be able to go to Hershey, uh take Ben to Hershey this summer too. Uh my in-laws got a camper and they said they wanted to go too, which would be perfect because then we like because Hershey's so far away from us now where we live that we would have to spend like a whole whole weekend there pretty much. Uh so we might go and like camp out, you know, in the camper. That'd be like fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Yeah. And then you don't really have to spend I mean, if you think about it, that's what your like travel and lodging like that's great. That would be so nice to have.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah. Yeah, it's uh uh my mother-in-law suggested it because I was tell telling her about how I really want to take Ben Hershey soon. And uh because I would like to go whenever you know I still can like experience I don't I don't know. I don't plan on like one day not riding roller coasters until I'm like told I can't. Uh-huh. But I don't you never know what's gonna happen, and I don't want to uh like wait and push it off and push it off and then not be able to ride the rides with Ben. So I'd like to go when he can ride the rides and I can ride the rides and you know, we just experience and have fun.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah, like with him and stuff. I didn't realize the amount of things that you can't do when you're pregnant. I think like I can't ride roller coasters and I can't eat deli meat. Like the like that kind of sucks for me, but I'm also just happy to be experiencing it, so but yeah, you should definitely go ride the roller coasters, do the things.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, it'll be fun.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

And hey, you like my cup?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

I do. I was gonna get it like do mine too, but I just finished coffee and I didn't want to have more coffee.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Now, did you eat breakfast? Oh shit, I didn't. Let me go get a yogurt real quick. Alright. Oh my gosh, dad walked in today and he was he came in the door and he had like this shitting grin on his face. And I look at his shirt and it says proud father of a few dumbass kids, and I was like, Oh, you think you're funny.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

And then he was like that.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Oh yeah, I sure have been and he was like he was like, Yeah, I'm proud though. And he was like, Okay, I'm gonna go change now. I was like, you literally put that on to get my reaction. He was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Sorry, like choked on yogurt, but uh, I like unmuted and then choked, so you might hear that. I'm sorry. Uh no, that's gonna be like his holiday shirt now. Like he's gonna wear it according to Christmas.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

I would die. Well, while Megan is eating and drinking, I don't really know what to call that. While she's consuming a beverage slash protein joke yogurt.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

It's a protein yogurt. It's 23 grams of protein in this little thingy. So oh wow, that's really cool. And it doesn't taste bad. Yeah, these are this is the I think it's pronounced Oikos. That's how I pronounce it. So it's not don't come for me, but uh it's that oikos pro with 23 grams of protein and zero sugar added.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Nice. I drink the Chibani ones. The mixed berry vanilla is my favorite, but I've only ever tried the strawberry aside from this, and it this is just it hits different, but those are the ones I I did use before, and then I saw these ones with more protein, so I jumped on these instead. Yeah, I mean three more is definitely more, so I would also jump on that. But honestly, for me, I don't have too much. I um I went kayaking yesterday and that was fun. Like it was nice to just do something on a workday because I don't really do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

It looked so refreshing and uh relaxing, I guess, is the best way to say that.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

It was like it took a little bit, like it took longer than it will next time because this was our first time doing it. Like we never really loaded our kayaks up before on the truck because Tyler just got the truck, and then we um we didn't really know where to go to get the kayaks out, and so we had to like find out where to park and like how to do everything, and then we finally got out there and it was so much fun. We were out there for a little over an hour and we just talked about life and you know the baby and what we want to do and if we want to have another kid and when and how that will probably change once we have her, because I personally feel like once she's here, we're gonna be like, Fuck other kids, like we just want to spend time with her, you know what I mean? Like, I fear that that's probably what's gonna happen, and then I'm gonna be in my 30s having more, but I don't really care.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

A lot of people like in the very beginning of the newborn stages, they're like, No, I'm good just right right here. Yeah, and then like about a year after that, you'll start getting like the um like itch for another one, probably. But I mean, hey, if you don't, you don't, who knows? Who cares?

SPEAKER_03 7:11

I mean, not who cares, we talked about it, but no, for real, yeah, you're right. Like, who cares, honestly, as long as like we're good. Um, but we did talk about it, and you know, we are fine with just one, like, because he he doesn't care about like the whole like we would like her to have siblings, especially like sisters, because I have that. Yeah. Um, and I could not imagine my life without you guys. But he's also like, yeah, whatever, like we we would like her to have siblings, but if we come to it and it's just like we're happy, then whatever. But anyway, it was just a really good time, and then we we left and got Subway, and I know I'm not allowed to have Subway, guys, but I didn't have anything with deli meat. I got the grilled chicken on flatbread with the Sriracha, the creamy sriracha, I think, and then provolone cheese, and I know it's weird, but that shit has been my fucking craving.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And I've tried to nut case with your sriracha lately.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Like your hot sauce and shit. I know, dude. I was my mouth was on fire, and Tyler was like, Can I have a bite? And I was like, sure. He was like, Can I have a real bite? And I was like, Yeah, because he takes the biggest fucking bites out of things, and so he took a bite and he was like, Hmm, that's no joke.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

I was like, no, it's not, it's like the hottest that they offer, and I'm like obsessed with it. Like, give me it all. Well, I just realized that I've been on like a like buffalo sauce kick, like hot sauce and buffalo sauce. So I wonder if I'm getting like your cravings or something. But I just think you're crazy because like when I was at this point in my pregnancy, I had the worst heartburn. And I know you've complained about it too, so I'm like curious why, like, how you're able to trust me, I know the cravings you can't you can't stop them. I get that, but I'm curious like how you're able to battle that, I guess. Like crave the hot stuff while having heartburn.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

I take 40 milligrams of omeprazol every morning, and because I have really bad, I have a hydal hernia that they will not take out. They just refuse to do it. They said I'm not old, like I'm not like decrepit, like it there's just I shouldn't be doing that. So they slap a they you know, they slapped a band-aid on it. They were like, here, take this. And I'm like, you know what? Fine. So I'm taking that. It's supposed to help over time, I don't think it is, so I'm gonna make another appointment in the near future about that. So I take that. That sometimes helps, but sometimes I have to take Tums at night too, depending on what I eat. But I specifically last night was like, okay, now that I mowed this entire sub, I need to stand up and walk around because if I sit down, oh my god, it's game over. I will be like asphyxiating. Like I cannot, like if I try to burp, I will I will burp liquid. Like it's disgusting whenever I eat something spicy. It's or like milk. Like I was I've been fucking obsessed with cereal recently, and especially Captain Crunch, and I was eating it with like I think just regular 2% milk, and then I I was getting really bad like acid reflux.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

And but it didn't burn, it was just like indigestion mostly, but it it was like really, really up there. Sorry guys, TMI, I'm almost done. But I switched to almond milk, and it's still doing that, and so I don't really know how to combat that. I'm just gonna suffer through it because I can't not eat Captain Crunch right now. So I have it like once a day. It's ridiculous. But I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And cereal is like a huge craving, like that a lot of pregnant women. I think I heard it's like universal, yeah. I pr I believe it's um because cereal is like fortified, so it has like iron a lot of it is and it has like iron in it. And when you're pregnant, you get like anemic. So because the baby takes everything from you, everything from you, yeah. Yeah, so I think that that's why it why it is, but it is like every pregnant woman I've ever known really like is obsessed with cereal.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

I saw like some Facebook posts a while ago, and it was like, when that cereal starts hitting, you gotta take a test. I was like, dude, that's so real.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Like the only person I don't question that with is like Barb because she like she's just a cereal drunky, she loves cereal, so like she'll like any day she'll pass like not that she hates cooking, but she'll like pass cooking like to eatable cereal. Like if nobody like yeah, like nobody's home, she's like, Well, I ain't cooking, I'm I'm eating cereal. That's really funny, girl. And she and it doesn't like yeah, like some people are like, No, I don't want cereal for dinner, and she's like, that's like a treat for her, like she loves it.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

That's hilarious. It doesn't fill me up, like I get hungry pretty quickly afterwards just because there's like nothing like filling in it. Um, but yeah, so that conversation got away from me. But tonight I think we're gonna finally, because it's been like two weeks, we're gonna sand the bathroom vanity. And I do think we can get a coat of paint on the drawers today, so I'm excited to see how that goes. That's so exciting.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Uh, did I tell you we're painting our front porch this summer? Or we're gonna we're trying to at least, yeah. Depends on how much the paint's gonna be. Um, probably like a dark brown.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Ooh, I like that. It'll look nice with your door. Are you gonna keep your door the color it is? Are you gonna do red?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

For right now. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

I know you like the red door, or is it yellow?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

No, red. I do want a red door. I think they look really nice.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

They do look nice, but I also love the color of your door. I wanna like swatch it and take it. Like I just go for it. I wanna like take your door to Lowe's and be like, hey, can you guys like color matches for me and then get the paint and take it to my house?

SPEAKER_00 12:38

I honestly I think it's gonna be impossible or way too expensive to do. But when we reside the house and like do the wood accent and stuff, I really want to have like a wooden door that matches the wood accent instead of like a painted door. But I don't think I'll be able to do that. Like, I just don't think because it's gonna be our door size is like custom already, so I'm gonna have to get it custom, done, custom like wood, whatever, like to match it. Like, all of it's gonna be like I think it's gonna be just like outrageously priced, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Have Dylan DIY it.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

That's possible, yeah. I didn't think about that. We might be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Put him to work. What's he good for?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

No, just already gonna be he's already probably gonna be signing the house unless he finds the other because I told him I was like, by the time we do that, like by the time that project's going, like our dads are not gonna be able to help us. Like, can you imagine? They're not gonna be able to get up a ladder.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

It's my favorite thing to say to like dad or like my husband or any any of our husbands is what are you good for? Like it's so mean what are you good for? Because they're good, they're good for so much, but I just love like cutting them down. No, I'm just kidding, that's not a bad, but I do love just kind of like throwing a little spicy.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I honestly, I honestly, so there's this uh like I just got one last night. Like I ordered Dylan ordered one for me. Uh it's like a hat shop. I will send you a link if you want to look at it. I um I haven't gotten the product yet, so I don't want to like say company or anything like that until I like check it out, but everything seems really cool. But anyway, and you can take this out if you want to. I just wanted to let you know. Um they have a hat, like a saying on there, it's like well read and mean to men, and I honest to god should have gotten you that hat.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Oh my god, I have a sh I have a hat that says well read. Like that's just the well-read. I took it to the beach with me last weekend.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, I got um there it was I was torn between spicy spicy books and spicy attitude or spicy attitude and spicy books. I think it's spicy attitude, spicy books, spicy attitude, I think is what it says. Nice. Uh or uh Enemies to Lovers. And I uh I went with the spicy one. Dylan helped me pick. He was like, he's like, go with that one. I was like, okay, okay. Um, and if I love it, maybe I'll get a second one that says uh enemies to lovers.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

I love that you thought of me. Thank you. I take pride in that.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah, I thought of you and and my sister-in-law. I was like, those two would be great for that. That hat.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

It must be the age. I don't know. Because we are very I think we're close in age. She's a little bit younger than me, but not by much. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. The only other thing that I wanted to say is that when we spin the wheel next week, Megan's gonna be the guinea pig. We're gonna have new topics on it.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Oh my god, I hope you guys are ready. I'm so excited. I'm not, I'm just kidding. I am, I'm so excited. You've been ready to be. I'm nervous too, though. Yeah, I know I'm like the end of an era wheel, right? We're updating, we're changing things. Okay, so I think that's all I have for yappy hours while you're ready to jump in.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

I am. I'm gonna grab my bowl of ice cream. Just kidding, it's not ice cream. I'm eating yogurt, blueberries, and almonds with some honey on top, and Megan was like, Are you eating ice cream?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

And I was like, No, it like looked like mint chocolate chip ice cream to me.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

It definitely did. Like, I I can see that.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Deep in the Pisgah National Forest of North Carolina, which I hope to god I pronounced that right because I didn't look up the pronunciation. The Blue Ridge Mountains hold a secret. By day it's a landscape of breathtaking peaks and ancient trees. But when the sun dips below the horizon and the valleys fill with ink blank ink motherfucker. But when the sun dips below the horizon and the valleys fill with ink black shadows, the ridge line changes. It's like dot dot dot the red line. Ridge line. I just can't say ridge for some reason today. I keep saying I don't even know. The red line. Yeah. I hate myself. Okay. I have enough love for you, it's okay. Okay. Thank you for sharing. They appear without warning, glowing orbs of pale blue, fiery red, and ghostly white. They rise above the dense pines of brown mountain, they hover, they fade, they dance in a silent rhythm that nobody can explain. Are they pockets of natural gas, car headlights reflecting off the mist, or are they something far older? Something or someone before the cars were here. Cherokee legends speak of a great battle fought in these slopes, saying the lights are the torches of spirits still searching for their lost loved ones. Others whisper of phantom soldiers, extraterrestrial visitors, or something altogether nameless waiting in the dark. Scientists have brought telescopes, cameras, and Geiger counters. Is that how is it Geiger? I don't even know how you spell that. Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Okay. Dylan just pops around the corner.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah. Okay. I'm just like, I know that. I knew when I was writing this, I was like, yeah, that's how you say it. And then I say it out loud, and I'm like, no, how do you spell that? G-E-I-G-E-R G-E-R. But listen, do you ever like write it out and then like you're like, yeah. And like when you're I have to say it out loud sometimes. So I'm like, like, literally, I'll be typing my notes and I'm like, say it out loud. Bro, delete it.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Make sure like it sounds good. Crawled behind you as if we were on live video.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Like it's funny. He's like, I ain't fucking taking any chances of the music.

unknown 18:08

Yo.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Anyway. And the scientist walked away with empty hands and unanswered questions. Sorry about that. That's okay. I'm like uh out of pocket today, if you will. Me too. If you drive down Highway 181 in Burke County, North Carolina, past the winding curves where the cell service begins to drop away, you'll find a gravel pull-off. It's marked by a simple wooden sign, Brown Mountain Overlook. On a clear autumn night, you won't be alone out here. You'll find lawn chairs unfolded in the beds of pickup trucks. You'll see people peering through the binoculars into the vast dark gorge of the Piscah National Forest. They're waiting. I'm standing at the overlook right now. Ahead of me the train drops off into a massive pitch black basin. Across the gap sits Brown Mountain, a long, flat-topped ridge that looks I said it! That looks entirely ordinary by day. Not the ridge, huh? But at night it feels But at night it feels like l less like a mountain and more like a stage. And then it happens. Just above the tree line, a pale yellowish white light blinks into existence. It doesn't flash like light light l It doesn't flash like lightning, and it doesn't move with the steady glide of a drone. It swells, brightening until it looks like a floating lantern. Hovers for a uh hovers for three seconds and vanishes a moment later. Two more appear further down the ridge. One a faint ghost ghostly blue. I keep putting L's in everything today. The other is a fiery orange. They bob up and down, dancing a silent duet across the valley before winking out into the fog. You rub your eyes, you look at the person next to you to make sure you didn't imagine it, but their jaws drop too. You've just witnessed the Brown Mountain lights, and for over a century they have defied every attempt by modern science to explain them away. Human beings hate mysteries. Maybe that's too drastic, but we do want answers. So naturally, when reports of these lights started gaining national attention in the early 20th century, the government stepped in to solve it. That happens to me all the time with those. In 1913, the United States Geological Survey sent a scientist named D.B. Sterrett to the overlook. Armed with a map and a clear mind, Starrett watched the lights and came to a swift, confident conclusion. Headlights. He claimed people were simply seeing the locomotives of the South Southern of the Southern Railway or early automobiles winding through the distant Cattawa Valley, refracted by the mountain air.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

He's wrong.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

It's UFOs.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Case closed, right? No. Wrong. Wrong.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I'm leaving that. No, I hate myself. Stop it. That was so stupid. No, it wasn't. No, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Just three years later, in July of 1916, a cas catastrophic oh my god, why was that word so hard to get out? Flood swept through western North Carolina. The catawaba cat catawha. I think catawa. That's how you pronounce it. I don't know why the fuck I can.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Listen, I felt like Ben, like Ben will just like say something like bigger words. He'll try because he's, you know, gaining confidence with his reading and he's trying to read bigger words now, like that he just sees places and he'll say it with so much confidence. Oh. And it'll be like so wrong. Or like completely like a totally different word. And um I just felt like him when I did that.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

So fucking funny. That was my favorite, I think, like verbal fuck up you've ever done.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I literally felt like Ben. Cataw.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Okay, okay. I lost where I was though. A catawapla. The disaster completely knocked out the region's power grid and washed away the mountain roads and twisted the railroad tracks into scrap metal. For weeks there were no trains running, there were no cars driving, there wasn't even electricity in the valley. The lowlands were completely plunged into darkness. But on the ridge, the lights kept dancing. Baffled, the USGS sent another team in 1922. They tried explaining them as marsh gas pockets of methane rising from decaying matter that spontaneously ignite. But Brown Mountain isn't a swamp. It's a solid, dry ridge of rock. Others suggested Hold on. I know I put this in here how to pronounce this. Let me find it. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I believe in you.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Piezo Plasy.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

This sounds good to me. Hold on. Hold on. Let me just copy and paste this up here so I can read it side by side. Others suggested piezo plasticity, which I will provide more details in a moment, but the theory is that an immense pressure of tectonic plates grinding together creates electrical discharges. Yet the lights don't correlate with the seismic activity. To this day, every time a scientist brings a new piece of technology to the ridge, the mountain seems to mock them. The lights remain erratic, unpredictable, and entirely unbothered by physics. Which I honestly think is hilarious. I love that. When you peel back the ghost stories, the actual scientific data surrounding the Brown Mountain lights gets deeply fascinating. Because scientists couldn't just explain it away, they had to start throwing some pretty advanced experimental physics and geology at the mountain. The modern research is led heavily by the scientists and astronomers from Appalachian State University, which I didn't even know was a thing.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

I didn't know that either. That's interesting. I want to go to there. Mika went nuts, I'm sure you heard her. I did. I also heard Dylan clinking his fucking spoon off his bowl like seven times. Oh my god, you should have said something. I would have yelled at him. It's okay. He's eating. I'm not gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

No, he's not allowed to eat. What do you think I'll eat somewhere else? Uh so the State University, which I did you know Appalachian, there was an Appalachian State University?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

I didn't know that either. Uh they have gone so far as to install 24-7 automated cameras overlooking the Lynnville Gorge to catch the lights on film. I have three scientific explanations researchers have provided, and bear with me because one thing I am not is a scientist. LOL. Uh yeah, as you if you can't tell by uh my amount of not able as soon as science wards get involved, I'm like which I was great in science in school, actually, believe it or not. But regardless, uh, whenever uh science wards get involved, I start stuttering really bad, I think. So that's okay. The first explanation they gave is natural plasma or ball lightning theory. This is the leading unexplained theory favored by the Appalachian State University research team. They hypothesized that the mountain might be a natural incubator for ball lightning, which is a rare atmospheric phenomenon where a sphere of glowing plasma forms in free space. In 2014, scientists in China accidentally captured the first ever spectrum reading of natural ball lightning. They discovered that when lightning strikes soil, it vaporizes my mouth just kept going. It vaporizes the elements within it, specifically silicon, iron, and calcium. Uh this vaporized silicon condenses into a floating aerosol ball as the silicone cools and rapidly recombines with the oxygen oxygen in the air, it burns, creating a flowing, floating, glowing orb that lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes before vanishing. Uh because Brown Mountain soil is incredibly iron and mineral rich, it may have the perfect chemical recipe to fuel these plasma balls whenever electrical storms pass through the region. So that's like the you know explanation for that theory. Um again, it's obviously aliens, but they can pretend. They can pretend it's lightning.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

I'm saying, like, it's not anything other than that.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah. The second theory is lithium and alkali earth metal reactions. Uh, it's another localized geological theory. Looks at the it looks at the unique makeup of Brown Mountain itself. The mountain soil is filled with creek, sand that is heavily dense with iron and lithium. And lithium is an alkali metal earth metal, meaning it is highly violently reactive to moisture and humidity. Um this is all information I found on Google. Like, I don't actually know this stuff. Okay, I just want to make sure you know. Like, I'm not I I I'm learning with you. Uh some geologists suggest that other specific atmospheric conditions, like the high humidity or heavy dampness common in the Appalachian evenings, and the exposed lithium deposits on the ridge line undergo chemical reactions with the water vapor in the air, creating localized spontaneous combustion so that appear as glowing colored orbs from a distance. And the third theory, like main theory that they have here, is the piezoplasticity or tectonic battery. Um, and I did mention that a little bit earlier, as this is a little bit more detailed on it. If the lights aren't coming from the sky or the surface soil, they might be generated deep underground. This theory relies on the electrical charge that accumulates in certain solid materials like quartz and crystals when they are subjected to intense mechanical stress. The Blue Ridge Mountain sits on ancient fault lines, and when the tectonic plates deep beneath the crust shift, grind, or undergo immense pressure, it stresses the massive quartz deposits within the mountain. This intense friction can essentially turn the mountain into a giant battery, shooting bursts of electric currents upward through the rocks. When this current when the I'm sorry, when these currents breach the surface, they ionize the air, creating a glowing discharge of light, often called earthquake lights, right above the ridge. Which uh I didn't like I didn't know that that could happen. So that was kind of cool to learn, to be honest. I just wish I could say it a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

That's okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I think that's how you say it.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

You're saying the second half of that word beautifully. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

It sounds so professional. Plasticity. Yeah, and watch someone be like, that's not actually nice. I know. Just with all due respect. Okay. That's funny. If science can't give us a map, we have to rely on memory. And the stories woven into these mountains go back much further than the invention of the car. The oldest legend belongs to the Cherokee in Catawah nations. According to lore, a fierce bloody battle was fought near the base of the mountain around the year 1200. Hundreds of warriors fell in the dense brush. The story goes that after the blood dried, the women of the tribes walked into the valley at night, lighting torches to search among the dead for their husbands, fathers, and sons. The old people say that the women never stopped searching. The glowing orbs are those ancestral torches, still burning and still wandering the ridges centuries after the battle ended. I obviously did try to find more details for this battle, but unfortunately I was unable to, probably because it being so long ago. Um, but if anybody does have any more information on it, um, we would absolutely love you to send us an email or DM us to tell us more on it. But again, it's it's so old, it was very hard to find more details on that.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Right, right, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

As European settlers, settlers started back, moved into the hills, they brought their own nightmares to the ridge. One local tale from the 1800s tells of a plantation owner who went hunting on Brown Mountain and never returned. His loyal slave took a lantern in I that's what the details say. I don't you know, I I'm assuming that he was loyal to him, but he took a lantern and brave the treacherous terrain night after night, calling out into the fog until he eventually perished through the brutal winter. Local folk folklore whispers that the steady bobbing white lights are his lantern, still loyal and still searching. There's even more darkness on this mountain. Another story that leaves a stain on the mountain's history. In the eighteen fifties, a local man named Jim Shelton took his young wife up to a cabin on the slopes of Brown Mountain, not long after she vanished. He claimed she had packed her bags and ran off back to her family, but the locals started to grow suspicious. A search party combed the mountain but found nothing. However, shortly after her disappearance, a strange deep red light began appearing at a specific spot on the rocky cliffs. It didn't float, it burned in place like an angry wound.

unknown 31:31

My god.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Wow. You should read that real quick. Okay. It's fucking hilarious. Our sister Nika. Put in the punch buggy chat. She was getting a lot of punch bugs, so she took pictures of them this morning, and she said, I think my name is actually Dylan. My wife's name is Megan and my son is Ben. I like racing and building cars, and I like guy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

I was like so irritated. I was like, why? Every time we're recording, does something happen? I know it's always this chat. But that was worth it. That was really funny and cute of her. I know. Driven by superstition and dread, a group of neighbors returned to the exact cliffside to hidden beneath a deep rocky overhang directly below where the red lights always hovered, and they found her body. John Shelton fled the state, but the night Oh man, I love this line. I just fucked it up. Jim. I said John, I think. Throwing in fucking words at me there.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Your face, you looked very upset. I'm sorry. Continue this restart. Your face fell.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

I know, I'm like so irritated. Jim Shelton fled the state, but the lights never left. There are many accounts of people seeing these lights through many years. While tourist lookouts show the lights as a distant twinkling ball on the horizon, campers who braved the deep Lynnville gorge trail system often report the lights appearing right on top of them. One of the most famous recurring modern accounts involves campers waking up in the dead of night to a soft rhythmic clicking or buzzing sound. When they unzip their tense, which I don't even know if I would, to be honest. No. I'd probably just hide. Uh they don't they don't see a light on the distant mountain. They see tennis ball-sized sphere of pale blue or green light floating completely silently, just three to four feet off the ground, drifting directly through their campsite, which would be actually really cool to see. But I but if I heard kicking outside my tent, I'm probably not zipping my tent.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

No. No. I'm not in the tent. I'm not even there. Like, no, I don't camp.

unknown 33:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Hikers who have tried to approach those low floating orbs state that the lights behave almost intelligently. If you walk toward them, they slowly drift backwards into the thick brush, maintaining the exact same distance from you. If you stop, they stop and hover, bobbing slightly as if they were watching you back. When the U.S. Geological Survey came to investigate the ridge in the early 1920s, they interviewed local mountain residents who had lived in the shadow of the ridge for generations. One old timer's account stands out just for how physical and intense the lights could be. He reported that he was walking his horse along the base. I'm sorry, I pictured a horse on the base.

unknown 34:21

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Oh my fucking God.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

That is so funny.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Uh when he was walking, there was a massive, brilliant white orb described as the size of a large wash tub, and it rose directly out of a rocky ravine right in front of him. It didn't just shine, it made a loud physical pop, like an electrical transformer blowing out, accompanied by a sudden wave of heat that brushed across his face. His horse bolted in terror, and the man claimed that for hours afterward the hair on his arm stood straight up and the air smelled heavily of like ozone and sulfur, um, which is a classic physical telltale of localized static energy or ionized plasma. Wiseman's view is another famous overlook that offers a direct line of sight to the mountain. A common first a damn it. A common firsthand account shared by locals throughout the mid to late 20th century is the illusion of the ghost train. Observers would watch a bright singular light crest the ridgeline moving at a steady pace, exactly like a steam train chugging along a track. It could it would even cast a long sweeping beam across the trees ahead of it. The illusion is so perfect that people would swear that they were looking at a railway railway line. But as the light reaches the absolute highest, sheer cliff edge of the blue brown mountain, I'm gonna say blue, brown mountain, where there are no tracks, no roads, and nothing but a straight 2,000 foot drop into the rocky abyss, the light doesn't stop, it launches straight out into the open air, floats weightlessly over the canyon for a few agonizing seconds, and then silently dissolves into nothingness. So what are they? If you ask the researchers from Appalachian State University who set who set up the automated cameras on the ridge a few years ago, they'll tell you about ball lightning or rare atmospheric gases. If you ask the UF UFologist, they'll point to the strange magnetic, I think that's how you pronounce that, isn't it? Is it re-laught at me? Oh okay, okay, though you're laughing at me. It's just funny that there's a name to it. Yeah. They'll point to the strange magnetic anomalies of the mountain and talk about how the craft hold on. They'll point to the strange magnetic anomalies of the mountain and talk about craft moving through solid rock. But if you sit out here on Highway 181, feeling the cold mountain air bite at your face, watching those silent orbs defy everything you know about the physical world, the explanation starts to matter less. The mountain has been glowing since before we had words to describe it. It will likely keep glowing long after we are gone. Some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. They're just meant to be watched from the edge of the woods. So who knows? What do you think? Aliens.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Aliens aliens for the question. That's my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I mean, I could see like I don't know, some like like reaction to something. I don't, but I'm not a scientist to actually know that and study it. Yeah, I could see that. But the thing is, it's like they keep giving, they don't have like proof, you know what I mean? They're not saying like that's definitely what it is, they're they're just giving theories. So to me it's like obviously if you can't tell me that's what it is, then it's an alien.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Nice work. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Okay, so we all know that there are roads with bad reputations. There are roads where fatal accidents happen, roads where travelers swear they've seen things they can't explain. But then there's a road whose official name is literally Shades of Death Road. That's not a nickname or a local joke. It's an actual road on a map.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

Yeah. It's a lonely seven-mile stretch winding through the forests and farmland of Warren County, New Jersey. New Jersey.

unknown 38:11

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

For more than a century, stories have accumulated around it like fog setting into a valley. Stories of murder, stories of hanging trees, stories of phantom lights, ghostly apparitions, Native American spirits, a mysterious light called Ghost Like, and a strange white orb that supposedly chases cars through the darkness. The question is simple. Did the stories create the fear? Or is there something too real about this place that has been unsettling people for generations? Tonight we're driving down Shades of Death Road in beautiful New Jersey, and we're not stopping until we reach the end. The first thing you need to understand is that nobody really knows where the name came from, which is unusual because most roads have well-documented origins. But the history of Shades of Death Road has become tangled in rumor, folklore, and local storytelling, so it's just not clear. One of the oldest explanations involves a swamp. Long before modern drain long before modern drainage projects transformed the area, much of the land surrounding the road was marshy and mosquito infested, which we know how you feel about them, Mosquatoes. According to local tradition, outbreaks of malaria and other diseases swept through the region. So obviously, people became sick and some died. As a result, travelers began referring to the dark swampy area as a place of death. Another theory, this one is more sinister in my opinion. My dog just farted and she stinks. According to local legends, highwaymen once hid in the dense shadows along the road. Back then, travelers often moved through isolated wilderness carrying cash, valuables, or supplies. And the thick forest provided perfect cover for ambushes. The stories say that robbers would emerge from the darkness, attack passing travelers, and leave bodies hidden among the trees. Which honestly sounds like the beginning of a horror movie. Like I can literally picture that, and I fucking hate it. Like I feel like I've seen so many horror movies where just shit happens on the side of a dark road, isolated road. Like no street lamps, no nothing. Just literally straight darkness.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

As soon as you said the like road name, that's all I can think of. Like I was like, Do you remember when we're from the beach one time and we were like terrified that someone was following us? It was like with dad, like we were kids.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

No, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

We were like on a back windy road, and it was like the same car that was like behind us forever. Maybe it was Courtney who I was talking to, but I don't know, but it was wild.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

I'm not surprised that that was a thing. Oh yeah. Other versions of the legend claim the criminals themselves eventually met violent ends. Captured by angry locals, they were supposedly hanged from the trees lining the road. Their bodies were left swinging in the shadows as warnings to anyone who might follow in their footsteps. Whether any of that actually happened is difficult to verify. I tried. But like many haunted locations, uncertainty only seems to strengthen the mythology. The less people know, the more imagination fills the gaps. And on a road called Shades of Death, people have been filling those gaps for a very long time. As the years passed, the legends multiplied. Some stories pointed to a series of murders that allegedly occurred along the road during the early 20th century. One tale describes a robbery that ended in murder over a handful of gold coins. Another claims a woman killed her husband in blueberried parts of his body on opposite sides of the road. Yet another involves a local man named Bill Cummins, whose death became woven into the road's growing reputation. And the story of Bill Cummins is true. He was murdered anywhere from the 1920s to the 1930s, but it was a cold case. They never found the reason why he was murdered or who did it. Whether every detail of these stories is true is almost beside the point though, because the road's reputation was already growing by then. And once a place becomes known as haunted, every tragedy every tragedy becomes part of the legend. Every accident, disappearance, and strange event all become evidence.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Is that Tyler's hoodie?

SPEAKER_03 42:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Did you even get one for yourself?

SPEAKER_03 42:17

Yes, but it doesn't it's not as comfy as this one.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Okay. You need you're always wearing his clothes. The reason I'm asking is because you should start making him buy stuff just so you have it.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Like because you want it because it's his. Yeah, that's the only reason. And it's just like it fits me so much, like it's just so much bigger. Like I'm like, I gotta wear his stuff. I do, and it's nails.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I like Warren Dylan's stuff too. Sorry, I didn't mean to completely go on a tangent there. I was just like, that looks like it's Tyler's. Oh, it is, it sure is.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

I wear it more than he does. And I don't care. If Shades of Death Road wasn't already eerie enough, somebody apparently decided it needed a lake called Ghost Lake. The lake sits near the road and of course carries its own collection of legends. Ironically, the name wasn't originally connected to ghosts. According to local accounts, the lake received its name because strange mist formations frequently rose from the water during during cold mornings.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Is this real? Mm-hmm. Okay, I thought you were like trying to troll me. I'm like this.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Oh it seems like it sounds like someone has like a boat.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

No, it's real. Like I'm like not I'm like hanging on your every word, and I was like, I don't know what's going on. It is insane.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

No, it's literally insane because how are you gonna have a literal road on a map called Shades of Death Road? Oops, sorry, I hit my mic. And then you're gonna have a lake near it called Ghost Lake. Like what? But yeah, the vapor drifted across the surface in pale shapes that looked almost human. Ghost like, dare I say. So the name stuck because how couldn't it? Like, how would that not stick? But once people start calling a place ghost leg, supernatural stuff. Stories become almost inevitable. Visitors began reporting apparitions moving through the fog, shadowy figures standing near the shoreline and shapes that disappeared when approached. Which why the fuck are you approaching shapes? Like I don't no thanks. Others claim the sky above the lake looks strangely bright even during the middle of the night. People describe hearing voices in the footsteps that come with every haunted location. Several stories focused on an abandoned cabin across the lake. The cabin appears in countless local ghost stories. According to legend, spirits connected to the road's violent past sometimes appear near the structure. Figures can allegedly be seen standing in the windows. Watching, waiting, then vanishing. No. Mm mm. That reminds me of like year one from the battlefield that you just did, where um like we were talking about playing chicken and seeing who bitches first about the window because the apparitions just stand there and watch you. Yeah. And like they don't look away.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

I'd be the first one. I probably wouldn't even look in the window to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

No, gotta go, gotta go. You think you saw something? No, you didn't. That's the that's the thing here in Appalachia. One of the strangest stories involved a place called the Fairy Hole. The name sounds almost whimsical until you learn where it is. Near Ghost Lake sits a small skate Nope. Near Ghost Lake sits a small cave reportedly used centuries ago by the Linate people. Archaeological surveys found evidence of Native American activity in the area, including artifacts and tools. Over time, legends emerged claiming the cave sorry. Over time, legends emerged claiming the cave held spiritual significance, so some locals began referring to it as sacred ground. Others warned visitors not to disturb it.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Blink blink blink blink. Oh my goodness, someone's gonna disturb it.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

And as it happens, with many locations tied to ancient history, ghost stories followed because people fucking disturbed it. And I can't stress this enough. Quit doing that. There's no need to dig up fucking Cleopatra if and when we find her. That shit is for the birds. Back at the fairy hole, visitors reported hearing whispers, seeing movement in the darkness, feeling sudden drops in temperature, you know, the kinds of experiences skeptics dismiss as imagination. And believers interpret as something else. Something older, and something that doesn't appreciate being disturbed, such as Cleopatra, so leave her alone. Further down the road lies another hot spot of paranormal folklore, a narrow side road called Lenape Lane. At first glance, it doesn't seem remarkable, but countless stories have emerged from this isolated stretch. Sorry, the milk's getting to me.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

I was gonna say, what the hell was that?

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Indigoshian. Many involve a dilapidated structure that resembles an abandoned table. Nope, stable.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

I was like, man, she said that so well.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Not an abandoned table. Not that abandoned stable.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

I didn't even question it. You were so confident. I literally was like, okay, it's a table that nobody has nobody owns it.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

Nope, nope, not that. Visitors arriving after dark often report unusual fog gathering around the building. Sometimes the fog appears despite otherwise clear conditions. People claim to see apparitions standing inside and figures that vanish when approached. And again, why are we approaching them? Like I'm so like, who why is that your first instinct? That's so scary. I would run. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

I was just gonna see some people though.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

Some people's kids.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah, some people's kids. Some people's grandchildren.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

But the most famous story concerns a light. A glowing white orb to be specific. According to the legend, drivers occasionally see the orb appear near the end of the lane. At first it hangs motionless and then it begins moving, following, pursuing, chasing vehicles back towards Shades of Death Road. The legend takes an even darker turn. You like that? Turn in the road. Some versions claim that if the orb changes from white to red, death soon follows.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

Oh my god, no.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

An accident? An illness? Some terrible misfortune? There is, of course, no evidence supporting any of those, but ghost stories don't survive because they're proven. They survive because people keep telling them.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Okay, but what if you do go and then you see like a red or orange like, you know, g orb glow coming at you? And then you're like waiting. Yeah, you're like for the rest of your life, like trying to figure out how you're gonna die. I don't like that. I don't like thinking about that. That'd be so stressful. Because even if even if it's not like a proven thing, like you're still gonna do that. It's still something that's in your head.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Yeah, that's something that's always going to like you're gonna think about that all the time. And on Lonely Roads at midnight, even skeptics start glancing into their mirrors, just in case. And I will say there have been a fuck ton of accidents that lead to death on this road, so take that as you will. One of the accidents involves the Phantom Girl. The story varies depending on who's telling it, so I want to keep it as simplified as I can, but essentially, the story involves a fatal car accident from decades ago. A young woman dies after a dance or like a prom of some sort, and now her spirit allegedly walks the roadside. Still dressed for a night that never ended for her, she is done up to the nines, and drivers claim that they've seen her standing near sharp curves. Others report a woman in a formal dress disappearing into the darkness moments before their headlights reach her. I don't even know what I would do if I saw someone just like standing in the fucking road like that though. That's also horror movie-esque. I I can't that like and then like what if you're driving, you go right through her, then nothing happens. Like, oh I don't even like where do you go? Do you keep going on the road? Do you turn around? Do you stop? Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

What if you're just tired and your car like breaks down or something too? And then you're like sitting there terrified.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Jesus. I'm scared of my own house right now.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

You get a flat tire. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 50:13

Quit it. That's too far. You're going to like the worst place imaginable because you can't even get out if you wanted to. What do you do? You just hide in your car and cry until it's daytime. There's like no service on the road. You can't like call anybody. Oh my gosh. Okay, anyway. I feel like I'm freaking myself out like going up the stairs at night and the lights were off and you have to like run. Yeah, no, that like that's a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

And like Dylan was like, You're you seven. I think you're seven at the time, and Dylan's like, You're seven, you can do it. And I was like, Nah, actually, like when I go down there, I'm not sure. I'm 33. 33, right? Yeah. And I'll like I'll like bolt back up the stairs sometimes, especially if I turn the light out before I get up the steps. Cause sometimes I just like want to spook myself, I guess. I don't know. And then I'm like flopping up the steps. What is that about? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

You're like subconsciously, like, I want to be freaked out. It's so weird. I do it too.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

I'm gonna do if I get spooked. Like, if I go into my kitchen, because I have like a sliding glass door to my back porch, like from my kitchen, you've seen it, but like if a like if I go out there at nighttime, like a light will reflect off of it, and I'm like, don't look out the window. Don't like look out the door. Don't look like if I see anything out there, I'm literally going to have a heart attack. Like I will die.

SPEAKER_03 51:31

Will die like right on your kitchen floor, collapse everything.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

Sorry. This story, it's okay. This story reminds me of the Phantom Hitchhiker or the stories of the typical, you know, ghostly woman searching for home or a spirit trap between worlds, and somehow it feels perfectly fit for a road called Shades of Death. She belongs here, and um she can fucking stay there. Stay there.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

Yeah, stay there. Respectfully. No, please, yeah, I was just gonna say I mean meanly. No, no, no. Take it back. Just please stay at your home.

SPEAKER_03 52:06

Yes, please. There are also reports of stranger encounters. Ghostly deer, which I would love to see. I'd rather hit a ghost deer than a deer deer. Unidentified lights moving through the forest. Stories of spectral forms hanging from trees. There are even tales involving mysterious photographs discovered in the woods, like Polaroid photos. That was Kamiko. That was such a weird sound.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

It was. I didn't know what it was.

SPEAKER_03 52:34

Fucking freaked me out. One of the all oddest. I think I meant oldest, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

I know I found some typos in mine when I was reading too. That's why I had I like uh made a face every once in a while if you were looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

Yeah, it looks odd. But anyway, one of the oddest legends, I want to say oldest. There's no way I meant that. There's no way. One of the oldest legends claims that hundreds of Polaroid pictures. No, it can't be oldest, because it's in the Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

You're funny. Go with Oddest. What was that?

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Deco. I don't know what the fuck just happened though. Do you want to get out? Do you want to get out?

SPEAKER_00 53:15

The ghost girls in your house.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yo! Wait! Get out. Love you, bye. Okay, I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. Okay. One of the weirdest legends claims that hundreds of Polaroid pictures were found scattered near the road during the 90s. Some allegedly depicted strange scenes, and others supposedly show distressed individuals.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

Yeah, that's disturbing. Listen, have you ever played uh Choo Choo Charles or Choo Choo Charlie or whatever the hell it's called on Roblox? No. There's like you can like collect pictures for someone and you get like scrap metal or something to fix your train. I play that I used to play the game a lot with Ben. But that's what made me think of it because there were just like random Polaroid pictures like scattered throughout the whole train track, and then there's this killer train that comes at you. Oh if you you know it's like it'll come attack. It's meant to be like ominous, okay. Yeah, it's like spooky, it's scary.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

So no, I haven't played that. This story eventually became part of local folklore, though its details remain murky and heavily disputed. Still, it does remain one of the most unsettling stories associated with this area. And I do want to point out I did try to find this. I didn't find any police records of it, but for the sake of the story, I wanted to include it because it's part of the lore, baby. Okay, that's them downstairs. I was like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

I don't know. I keep hearing weird shit.

SPEAKER_03 54:45

So I think that dad and my mother-in-law are downstairs. Uh there's like almost done with the house outside. Like they they've been fixing it up and stuff. So this is like dad's last week being here. Um, I think he wants to come back though. I think he is gonna want to do like some bathroom and nursery stuff. So anything to keep him busy. Like as long as he's happy, I'm fine with it. But yeah, so that's what I have on this, and I do have a small story from Reddit. I wanted to keep it pretty small because that was kind of a lot of like in your face stuff. Okay, so the story on Reddit goes. Went out there a few years ago. I'm all for paranormal events and took the situation head on. We had a three-car progression and we all pulled off to the side of the road into a clearing of sorts and parked. We began walking toward the lake and a s and as I said, I was taking this head on, so I started to take my journey up a little hill to the right of my group about 20 yards from them. We all had flashlights and were having a good time trying to freak each other out. From the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a bright light from the opposite side of the lake. We were still making our way toward the lake, so it was hard to pinpoint exactly what I was seeing, but the cabin was already in view. After trying to focus on the light for thirty seconds or so, I hear a shuffle to my left, which was now where the rest of my group was trying Nope. Which is now where the rest of my group was relative to me. Again, I was still about twenty yards away standing up on the top of a small hill. As I turned to look, assuming it was one of my friends trying to spook one of the girls with us, I noticed a shadow dart across my friend's path just behind them. At first I thought maybe it was a friend trying to spook everyone, as I said, but it moved just a little too fast. No way any of my friends could move that fast and remain completely shrouded in the darkness. Just as I saw and heard it, they all stopped immediately and spun around because that's what you do when you hear something scamper behind you. We stopped and fell silent. About ten seconds later is when all hell broke loose. To the left of all of us on the other side of the path, we heard something move in the bushes and weeds. It sounded like something was trying to hide in them. Like I said, I'm an avid ghost and paranormal hunter, so my mind went into rational mode. Wind, moonlight tricks, still the possibility it was a friend I didn't account for. Sorry, introduced. As my mind went through all the possibilities, is when we heard the thump. And I mean we fucking heard a thump. We all did. It wasn't just one of us that said they heard something in an attempt to spook the rest of us. We all heard it. It sounded like, if you will, someone carrying a sack or something heavy. A body, for example, and then they dropped it. That's when everyone took off running back to our cars. Now, as I said, I take these things head on. I'm interested in the unknown and what the hell might be out there. So I instinctively got annoyed. We were only there for maybe 10 to 15 minutes and already everyone was taking off. The goal was to make it around the lake or at least to the cabin, so I started my descent down from the small hill taking my time to a certain degree. I mean, yeah, I was spooked, but at the same time I thought they were overreacting and now my fun was about to end. As I made my way down the hill and back toward my friends, I felt an uncommon breeze for the night. It wasn't windy. From what I remember, it was a nice clear spring or summer night. I got a chill and I felt a slight shove. That's the best way I can describe it. At first I tried to rationalize it that I must have tripped over a rock or a stick or something. But usually you can feel that in your foot, in the front by your toes. Like when you stub a toe or whatever. But after gathering my thoughts for a second, I realized the breeze was still coming over me and I didn't feel anything in my foot but more towards my lower back. Like someone had touched or pushed me. It's hard to explain. It was a very light feeling, but I know I felt it. That's when I started to get just a bit more spooked myself. When I get spooked, I do that thing where you kind of talk loudly to yourself. I called out to my friends and started to take a few steps toward them. After maybe seven or eight steps, I tripped again, and this time I knew I felt like I was touched in the same spot as before on my lower back. Just a gentle push. Then I heard it. Maybe it was the sound of the night mixed with my growing paranoia, but I heard someone whisper just behind me, leave. It almost sounded comforting. I feel it was more of a warning than a threat. That's when I sped up and got back to the group with a bit of a speed walk. So we all climbed back into our cars and made fun of each other as we were pulling out. Then my friend's car got stuck. A few of us jumped out to help so we could get out of their ASAP. We rocked his car and got him back on the road, just as myself and three other friends were jumping back into our cars. We all saw the same thing. We recounted it later as we sought for some food at a small hot dog place nearby. Just past our headlights along the path that we had just came from was a shadow. Just standing there watching. The shadows all around this shadow moved from the trees in the moonlight and so on. But not this one. I tried to make it out and it but it was just past our field of view and was almost blurry. But we all saw it. We didn't say anything about it to each other until we were at the hot dog place eating, making jokes about who was the biggest pussy and so on. But still it got kind of real. My friend mentioned that shadow. Just it didn't move. I didn't know exactly what it was, but I was almost tempted to move toward it. Which again, what the okay but whatever it was, it was telling us to leave before something we would regret would happen. So we got out of there and chalked it up to talking shit about New Jersey. A side note, the last car in our progression swore he saw a white light behind his car that followed him for a little while up the road. Everyone in the car said it was true, but of course our two other cars saw nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

That'd be spooky.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

I just don't get why we're moving towards it. Like or like why you want like I can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Especially somewhere like that. Like that's obviously a place that you want to fuck at things.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

Yeah, like what are we doing? Unless it's something like um whenever I did the lore about the windigos, like the windigos back in like the old lore, they would like persuade you to come out unless shadows are persuading people to come towards them. Like, why why is that your instinct? My instinct is to shit my sp my pants and run away.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

Shitting around, run while you're shitting.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:00

Oh my gosh, do you remember I told you yesterday about me peeing and then sneezing?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

Oh my god, I told Tyler about that and he was like, you did not. And I was like, oh no, I sure did. That's funny. That isn't what you guys think it is. It's funnier than that. I was on the toilet, okay. I didn't pee my pants while I sneezed, although that has happened before. As we reach the end of Shades of Death Road, I think to myself that what's fascinating about this road isn't any single ghost story. It's how many stories exist in one place. The most haunted locations become known for one legend, one ghost with one tragedy, but here the road functions almost like a magnet for folklore. Every generation adds something new: a new sighting, a new encounter, a new unexplained event, the mythology grows larger. Who knows? You might see the weaver of the red wood here. Just kidding. You won't find her here. She doesn't go about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

You won't find her here.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

If a road were called Pleasant Meadow Lane, nobody would expect to see ghosts. But when you're driving through a forest at midnight on something called Shades of Death Road, every shadow looks suspicious, every sound seems important, every flash of movement becomes a possible encounter, and maybe that's where all legends begin. Not with certainty, but with possibility, because somewhere out there, right now, on a lonely road in New Jersey, a driver is heading into the darkness, their headlights sweeping across the trees, ghost leg hidden beyond the woods, the fog beginning to rise, and just for a moment, they could swear they saw something standing beside the road, watching them pass. And maybe they did. And the next story is beginning.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Boom boom boom. Jade job jobs. Um can you see my glitter freckles by?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

Oh my gosh, I wanted to say something when you were freaking recording or talking earlier on yours, but then I was like, maybe it's just maybe it's just the camera glitching or something. Because I only saw on the one side, but now I see it on both. Now that I'm looking at you, Ellen.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Ben and I both have them on today, so he was super excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Adorable. I love that. Are they roll-ons or are they like you put like a patch on you press, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

It's like a tattoo. You like press it on here with uh cute.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:17

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Tinks. I actually I got them at Fiblow, so oh nice. Mm-hmm. I saw Amazon has them too, but I saw them at Fibelow when we were there the other day, and I was like, I mean, you get these.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Yeah, they have like these are mine?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:29

Yeah, pink ones, silver ones, then gold. I got gold because I thought it would look nice in my tan. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:35

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

Mm-hmm. Tinks. Alright, you spin that wheel. Yeah, girl, go ahead and spin that shit. You spin it, don't you? I went first. Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

That's embarrassing. I'm like, yeah, spend.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

I'm like sitting here waiting for you for no good reason whatsoever.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

Oops. Alright, guys. We gotta get it. We gotta get it. I kinda wanna like wait a little bit and see if I can get it if I hit it at the certain time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

Oh, why have we never thought that?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

I don't know. And smack.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

Okay, okay, okay. Smack it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

Ah, damn it. Oh, okay. I definitely don't think we've done this in a while. It says abandoned hospitals. Yeah, it's been a while since. Oh my gosh. Yeah, wait, where's it at? Was it only episode two?

unknown 1:04:34

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

Hospitals. I thought we did it twice. Maybe. I guess so. Bro, we only see it in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

Yeah, no, we only did we only did it in episode two and it's now about to be 35.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

Here we go. You did see you. Your town and see you already. Okay. I just want to double check so I don't get the same thing. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Wow. So fun. I can't. I I like this one. This one um was one of my favorite episodes to ever record because it was I think we were so nervous and we got up one morning and we did it at like fucking six in the morning and it was just. Oh yeah, that was crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

My voice was like all raspy and stuff. I remember it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

And it was still really dark out too, and it was so spooky. Mm-hmm. I like that. Make sure to tune in next week. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to give us a five-star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:27

And follow us on Facebook at TwoFilthy Horrors Podcast and Instagram at TwoFilthy Horrors.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:32

If you have any stories or anything that you want us to cover in Appalachia Mountains or anything in Appalachia, Apple Agile, send them to us at two filthy horrors podcast at gmail.com. If you got it, haunt it.