New England Folklore Series

Champ is by far the most popular cryptid from New England. Known as "America's Loch Ness Monster", the plesiosaur-adjacent creature has been reportedly sighted since before American colonization. The Abenaki and Iroquois  people, indiginous to the Lake Champlain area, have stories of a lake-dwelling  monster in the form of a giant snake, even reportedly warning explorer Samuel de Champlain of its wrath, should they disturb the waters.

In 1819, Captain Crum sighted Champ according to the Plattsburgh Republican newspaper, describing it as having a head like a seahorse, a red band around its neck and eyes like peeled onions.

P.T. Barnum, not one to miss out on a possible cash-cow, offered $50,000 in 1873 for Champ's hide to show in his World's Fair Show.

Since then, sightings have piled up, including the famous and contentious 1977 photograph taken by Sarah Mansi.

The Vermont House of Representatives decided in 1982 that Champ should be protected from "willful acts resulting in death, injury, or harassment."  

In Burlington, Vermont, Champ is somewhat of a local celebrity. Statues and monuments depicting the elusive animal can be found throughout the town, one even reading that it is dedicated to "those people in Vermont who have sighted Champ and are in search of Champ." Regardless of the veracity of the Champ legend, it certainly lives in the hearts of Vermonters.

Spontaneous human combustion is a phenomenon where a human being supposedly ignites without heat or spark from an outside source. Whether or not spontaneous human combustion is actually possible is up for heated debated, however, there are dozens of historical accounts dating back to 1600s. 

Scientifically, the large percentage of water within the human body makes the possibility of spontaneous human combustion rather far-fetched. But stories of human bodies burning to ash without the fire affecting the surrounding area makes some people question whether it's truly an impossibilty.

There have many numerous cases in New England alone. In 1943, a man named Allen M. Small was found deceased in his home located in Deer Isle, Maine. He was engulfed in flames and reduced to ash, remarkably leaving only a small scorch mark on the floor. In Ayer, Massachusetts, 1890, one Doctor B.H. Hartwell and a small crowd of witnesses saw a woman's back explode into blue flames over a foot long, resulting in her death. Even more go officially unreported, according to some accounts.

Regardless of the scientific veracity of spontaneous human combustion, tales of bizarre flame-related deaths in New England are not as uncommon as we may hope.

While catamounts (more commonly known as mountain lions) used to roam the wilds of Vermont, the last one was reportedly killed in 1881. The large cat's body was taxidermied and placed on display in the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier, VT, where you can still visit it today. However, a large amount of Vermonters still believe that the catamount is not quite extinct in the Green Mountain state. In middle Vermont specifically, the tale of the black-furred catamount has been passed down for generations.

Raymond Usle, my grandfather and former Barre local, remembers the history of the black catamount during his childhood:

"Being brought up in a small granite town, the children would be out after dark, playing. Then one night, someone saw a panther up in a tree and that story spread like wildfire through the county. The possibility of it scared the hell out of everyone."

More recently, Chad Chaloux, my stepdad and current Barre resident, claimed to have actually witnessed the beast outside his home in Barre City. 

"We were sitting outside and Spruce (the family dog) was sitting at our feet. My dad noticed some grass and foliage shaking in the wooded bank nearby. Spruce alerted to the noise and we kept looking, we figured it was a fox, but all of a sudden we see the thing coming out of the grass chasing something. It was huge, it wasn't a bobcat because it had a long stick tail, and it wasn't a fishercat because it was distinctly feline. I swear it looked just like a panther, or like a catamount with black fur. The next day, our neighbor asked if we saw the big black cat in the bank."

While scientists claim that the catamount population in Vermont has been completely wiped out, eye witnesses still protest that the big cat still lurks in the dense forests of Vermont.

In 1837, an unusual bright red aurora borealis was visible from Orford, New Hampshire, beginning a series of strange events in the small town. A local doctor by the name of Hosford heard tale of a strange biological phenomenon displayed by an otherwise unremarkable woman, a phenomenon he investigated and submitted to the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1938.

The woman, an anxious and quiet individual, was inexplicably charged with electricity, to the point that whenever she passed within a certain distance from metal objects, a visible spark would extend between her her and the object. Sparks almost an inch in length could be felt by those who got too close, and the sound of the spark transferring from person to person was audible. She could produce sparks at a rate of 4 a minute, seemingly from nothing.

While this might sound like an incredible super power to some, the phenomena was quite disturbing to the woman herself, as she was subjected to rather powerful static shocks throughout the entire day. As an already anxious individual, she was developing a fear of touching anything in anticipation of a shock. The phenomena ultimately lasted from early January to early April, before the woman returened to normal as if nothing had happened.

This weird story is not the only account of strange bio-electricity in New Englanders, as Joseph Citro recounts in his Weird New England book. A woman from his past could not wear a mechanical watch as it would always stop minutes after being placed on her wrist. However, this is not as rare an occurrence as one might think, with Kristine Usle and Linda Usle, Vermont-raised New England residents and my mother and grandmother respectively having the same affliction. Kristine had to say:

"I am unable to ever wear a watch because it will stop within a month or two. I have tried many different ones, I asked my doctor once and they mentioned body chemistry as a possibility. My mother also has the same issue."

We may never know the cause of the Electric Lady's static charge, but we can observe as other strange happenings play out in New England in the current day.

Betty and Barney Hill were a married couple on their way back to Portsmouth, NH from a vacation in Montreal, where they claimed to encounter the unthinkable. Just south of Lancaster, NH, the couple reported seeing an alien craft, described as a flying saucer at least 40 feet long erratically move through the sky, even passing by the iconic Old Man of the Mountain near Lincoln, NH. According to the couple, the craft followed their car, and Barney used binoculars to peer inside, noting several humanoid figures wearing black uniforms and hats. However, Barney insisted the figures were not human at all.

As the Hills got home early in the morning, several odd things happened. Their watches broke inexplicably, the clothes Betty was wearing during the sighting were covered in a mysterious pink powder, and the trunk of their car was marred with electro-magnetic circles that would make compasses act up when placed too close. Strangest of all, the Hills realized they had "lost" three hours of time during their trip, with a four hour drive taking seven hours instead, with no explaination from either half of the couple.

In 1966, The Interrupted Journey, a book detailing Betty and Barney's claimed experiences was released, bringing country-wide interest in the case. While some believed the Hill's experience to be a true alien encounter, others believe it was a hallucination brought on by a combination of sleep deprivation, the stress of being an interracial couple in the 1960s and an episode of a science fiction TV series being aired at the time. Whatever the truth of the matter is, the Hill's account has become an iconic and culturally significant  story shaping what the idea of  what "alien abduction" looks like in media today.

The Gold Brook Covered Bridge, more commonly known as Emily's Bridge, might just be the most haunted locale in Vermont. Stories of ghostly wails, unexplained scratches and strange lights are common among visitors of the bridge, supposedly the work of a sprectral scorned bride, the eponymous Emily.

The bridge was built in 1844, and while stories differ about the exact nature of the spirit haunting the area, the most common story goes that a woman was supposed to meet her lover to elope on Gold Brook Covered Bridge, but the groom-to-be never showed. Striken with grief, Emily took her own life. 

Tales of ghostly phenomena persist to this day, with claw-like gouges marked on the sides of passing cars, unexplainable lights and even claims of a feminine voice wailing from the rafters.

Despite Emily's infamous hostility, Emily's Bridge is a beloved Stowe attraction, with visitors from all over visting to see the quaint little bridge and maybe even the ghost that haunts it.