Clinton Hill Road
November 17th, 2009 | Published under General | No Comments
Clinton Hill Road in West Milford, New Jersey is famous for an extensive list of paranormal events over its history. Reported occurrences on the road include sightings of ghosts, strange creatures, witches, Satanists and the Ku Klux Klan. Some also say the area around the road is used by professional killers to dispose of bodies. Strange occurrences on the road date back to 1905.
Some of the most famous legends of the road are described on Wikipedia:
Ghost boy at the bridge
Supposedly, if you go to one of the bridges at the reservoir and throw a penny into the water, within a minute it will be thrown back out to or at you by the ghost of a boy who drowned while swimming below or had fallen in while sitting on the edge of the bridge. In some tellings an apparition is seen; in others the ghost pushes the teller into the water if he or she looks over the side of the bridge in order to save him from being run over as he was in life.
The Druidic temple
A conical stone structure just east of the road south of the reservoir was said to be a site where local Druids practiced their rituals, and horrible things might come to pass for any intruder who looked too closely or came at the wrong time.
However, the building’s origins are easily explained: It is an iron smelter left over from the 18th century when the ore was common in the area and needed for the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. It has nothing, at least not by design, to do with any religious observance. It is currently fenced off by the Newark water department to prevent any entrance and the liability for injury that might result.
Kidnappings by cannibals
Some area residents warn that if you travel down the road at night and encounter a fallen tree blocking the road, you will have fallen into a trap set by local natives and you must turn around immediately before they cut another tree down behind you. If you are captured, you will be eaten.
Who would be doing this is sometimes unspecified or varies, but it is most often attributed to the Jackson Whites, a pejorative name for the Ramapough Mountain Indians.
Phantom Pickup truck
Residents warn that if you drive the road late at night, there is a phantom pickup truck that appears suddenly behind drivers. According to reports, the pickup truck seems to come from nowhere; it is white and tailgates right behind you, sometimes slamming in your car. It continues to tailgate you until the end of the road, at which point its headlights turn off and it turns around.
Other legends
Besides the ghost boy, there have been other ghosts described by Weird NJ readers.
One claims to have seen a ghost Camaro driven by a girl who supposedly died when she crashed it in 1988 (any mention while driving the road at night is supposed to trigger a manifestation).
Another claims to have encountered two park rangers one night while camping with friends near Terrace Pond, a glacial tarn on a ridge accessible from the road by hiking trails, who in the morning turned out to have been the ghosts of two rangers who had died on the job in 1939.
Strange creatures, from hellhounds to monkeys and unidentifiable hybrids, have been caught in the glare of headlights crossing the road at night. If not of supernatural origin, they are said to have been survivors of Jungle Habitat, a nearby attraction that has been closed since 1976, which have managed to survive and crossbreed.
Some visitors to the area report also seeing people dressed weirdly at odd hours who simply stare at those who see them and do not speak. Sometimes these people disappear or are apparently not seen by those present.
Lastly, some travelers have reported a feeling of uneasiness or mounting dread as they drive down the road, sometimes so great that they have to turn back.
You can continue reading about Clinton Hill Road in the Wikipedia article.
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