; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Thursday, October 24, 2024

BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMS Echo Out at Wisconsin Campground!

A Wisconsin camp worker heard continuous screaming on a trail behind his cabin. Later, while on a 'spirit walk' with other employees, the screams were heard again. It didn't end there!

I received the following account:

"I've had this story on my mind for a long, long time. I've always been a fan of the supernatural and cryptids but never had any stand-out experiences myself. I've lived in the Upper Midwest, my whole life, Wisconsin to be exact, and have come to appreciate the local lore that comes with it.

In my late teens, I worked at a camp for a few summers. The camp was massive, with only about 1/5 of it being equipped for hospitality (dining hall, cabins, shower houses, etc) and the rest being wilderness. The land had 6 lakes on it, all connected by small rivers. What made this camp particularly eerie, however, was it was actually built around a Potawatomi burial ground. I won't get into the legends around the burial mounds, but overall, this place checked all the boxes for a B-List horror movie.

Now, my job at camp was sort of a catch-all. I was a program director, lifeguard, cook, and gift shop manager, basically if they needed a role filled I was the one doing it. It kept me busy, and I had many long days. I would close the gift shop at about 7 PM each night, then head upstairs to the kitchen. I could walk back to my cabin if I wanted, but the cook hated the dark. So I'd help him with dishes and cutting fruit for breakfast and then walk him to his cabin. I have one rule though. No flashlights.

You can't see very well in the woods if your eyes are focused on a small beam of light. I hated the idea of people or animals sneaking up on us. So every night, in the moonlight, I would walk him to his cabin, then walk the public road to mine. My ulterior motive for taking the public road was, well, I'm a smoker, and we have to be good role models for the kids. No smoking in camp, but they can't tell you what to do on public property.

My cabin was right on the edge of the hospitable portion of the land. Miles of marshlands and forest sat behind my cabin and, fortunately or unfortunately, I had the cabin to myself. But the weird thing was that every night I would be smoking and walking the public road, and I would hear screaming in the woods. It sounded like a woman was being murdered.

I brushed it off the first night. There's a public access lake. People get rowdy. Sound carries. Could be a prank, or a fox, or an owl. It's the woods. But it kept happening, every night, as soon as I stepped onto that road. I decided not to let it bother me. I had to be up early every day. No sense in chasing noise in the dark. I would get to my cabin, spread some tobacco for the land, and sleep soundly every night.

Well, the end of summer came around. It was always bittersweet. You eat 3 meals a day with the same people for 3 months, and they start to grow on you. One goodbye tradition we kept up over the years was on the final new moon of the camp season, the ranger would take the staff for a 'spirit walk.' It was always good fun, he'd share the legends of the land with the new staff and try to shake them up. We would hike through the back of the camp, around the marshes and lakes, and see what kind of spooky things we would stir up.

We all met at the only street light on the public road that night, but that year the ranger had his rifle slung over his shoulder. We ran into a cougar the year before, and two wolves lived in the back property, so I didn't think much of it. The rules are simple. No flashlights. No jingling keys. No running. If you run, we might not find you. They were half to scare people, half true. The woods were thick and the marshes were dangerous.

Everything was going smoothly till we reached a river crossing not too far from the public road. It takes you to a clearing, just before the trail reconnects with the road behind my cabin. The moment we crossed the bridge, the woods went dead silent. You could hear yourself breathing. That, my friends, is one of the scariest things that can happen to you in the woods. Silence.

And then, just like every night before, a blood-curdling scream ripped across the clearing. One of the new staff was about to take off before me and another grabbed his arms. "That's the screaming I've been hearing," I told my boss. "That's the screaming I hear every night," The ranger shushed everyone. The scream came again, louder this time. The ranger whistled in the direction of the noise.

It whistled back.

Suddenly, the screaming surrounded us. Behind us, to the right, to the left. The group closed in, shoulder to shoulder, not daring to even breathe. The ranger, ever serious and calm, said barely a whisper, "We're turning around. Take the bridge back to the trail. We're going the long way,"

So, in hurried steps, we made our way back to the streetlight that we met under without muttering a word. Once we were in light again, I could tell that the ranger was actually shaken up. This is the same man who was charged by a cougar in the dark and brushed it off.

"I need a cigarette,"

"You haven't smoked in like 2 years,"

"I need a cigarette,"

I wasn't about to argue with the man holding a rifle, so I obliged. After a few drags, he muttered "I don't want to scare anyone, but I know only one creature that can mimic human voices like that."

"It's a Wendigo," I said, not even thinking. I was in shock. All summer I walked that road, and this thing was out there. Screaming. Trying to lure me in.

That's when he said that, yes, he thought the same. He first thought it was one of the neighboring property owners looking for their dog, calling out for them, so he whistled. Then, he explained the gun. All spring, he was finding deer strewn around the property. Not unusual, being the woods and all. But there were so many, and so brutally taken down. He said these things looked like they had been hit by cars. In the middle of the woods. Absolutely mangled. More bizarrely, no other animals would touch them. No tracks that said bear, or wolf, or cougar. He was worried, about something bringing big game down like that, so he brought his rifle.

No one said much after that. My boss got sage from her cabin and gave everyone who asked for one a blessing. We were shaken.

After that, I changed cabins. I didn't own much in general at the time, so I wasn't troubled in the least to get off the public road. Didn't even care that I had to row out in the middle of the lake to have a cigarette. I wasn't stepping foot on that road, and I'm a little sorry to say I never stepped foot back on that property. Call me superstitious or lilly-livered, but I couldn't bring myself to go back into those woods. Not even if you paid me." A

NOTE: I was later told that it occurred at the Indian Mounds Campground near Tomahawk Lake. Lon

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Hey, folks. Thanks for the congrats on 'The Mothman Revisited' episode on Unsolved Mysteries. As a result, we are receiving more sighting reports and are very excited and grateful for the new information!

I sincerely thank the Unsolved Mysteries team and Netflix for allowing us to tell the world about this phenomenon.

If you have information about this or any other cryptid or unexplained sighting or encounter, please feel free to contact me by email or at 410-241-5974. Thanks again! Lon

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Have you had a sighting or encounter?
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Noted UFOlogist Dr. Raymond Keller believes the idea of extraterrestrials and even ultra-dimensional beings from many different planets and alternate realms living and working among us clandestinely is more than just another conspiracy theory.
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