Slightly Odd America

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them weekly, and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following me at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the unexplained story! DID YOU KNOW the Quabbin has a white sasquatch? The White Sasquatch of the Quabbin has all the classic traits of a legendary cryptid: enormous, mysterious, and deeply committed to never being in focus. Unlike its moss‑colored cousins out west, this one looks like it was carved out of a snowbank and then told to go stalk the nearest watershed.   Sightings usually begin with someone insisting they saw “a huge white thing,” which is also what she said. Witnesses describe the creature as seven feet tall, ghostly pale, and bipedal. It’s been spotted near old cellar holes, along restricted trails, and once, according to a fisherman, standing on the shoreline “like it was judging my casting form.” ...

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that New England ghosts are just people who died and still can’t mind their own business. Some scream, some throw things, and some just stand in the corner like they’re waiting for you to apologize for breathing. But every now and then, you get a ghost who isn’t here to terrorize anyone. He’s here to supervise, judge, and to make sure you’re not touching the antiques. Today that ghost we're talking about is the Yarmouth Sea Captain of the Captain Bangs Hallet House on Cape Cod . The Ghost of the Captain Bangs Hallet House How could I NOT be haunted!? I have a creepy, old photo! The Haunted House Yarmouth has a fully documented summer ghost who shows up like a seasonal employee. This guy has been spotted for decades, and he’s not subtle about it. Footsteps are heard, doors open, and witnesses share the distinct sensation of someone from the 1800s silently evaluating their life choices. It's really classic Cape Cod haunting behavior. ...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them weekly, and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the unexplained story! DID YOU KNOW The earliest documented Bigfoot sighting in Massachusetts occurred in 1765 in Berkshire County? According to historical reports, explorers in the Great Barrington area encountered a "monstrous" creature described as having long, dark brown fur and human-like features, often referred to as the " Beast of Barrington ".  Detailed in The Berkshire Edge , the incident featured a creature wearing a hide resembling a large bear. “Built like a horse!” the headlines screamed, “Farmers terrorized!” Fun, right? What do you think? Leave a comment below!

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Now, to be fair, these are all "know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy" stories. I can't verify a single one. Still, DID YOU KNOW Leominster has a haunted park? Leominster, Massachusetts, holds tales of the supernatural, particularly in Barrett Park , where fellers and fellettes whisper of two spirits said to haunt the area. The most well-known is the “Lady in White,” believed to be the ghost of a woman who drowned in the park's pond in the early 1900s. Witnesses describe seeing her spectral figure wandering the water’s edge at dusk, her flowing white dress glowing faintly in the twilight. Some claim she appears to be searching for something, or someone, lost to the depths. An...

Watch the video above or read the article below! This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW there’s a Christmas ghost of Route 2A ? Yeah, so, the stretch of Route 2A between Acton and Concord already feels like the kind of place where a ghost might wander out of sheer boredom, but every December it becomes home to a haunting that locals mention. They call him the Christmas Ghost of 2A, though older residents still prefer the name Lantern Man , as if giving him a title makes him easier to live with. The story traces back to the 1920s, when a traveling tinsmith named Elias Cutter vanished during a Christmas Eve snowstorm. He’d been walking the long road between towns, carrying a lantern he’d crafted himself, the sort of sturdy hand...

Watch the video above or read the article below! This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchbur ! Now onto the odd story! DID YOU KNOW the human soul was discovered right in Haverhill, Massachusetts ? Well, as long as you cross your eyes and squint hard enough, anyway. Dr. Duncan MacDougall was his name, and soul searching was his game! He set out to document the weight of the human soul back in 1901 , and his results have been a part of the public consciousness ever since. Duncan’s method was simple. He found six nursing home patients on the verge of death and put them on scales to measure their body weights at the moment of their expiration. His theory was that they would lose weight as their souls left their bodies and his results were, well, mixed. Four were suffering from t...

Watch the video above or read the article below! This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story!   DID YOU KNOW that Pittsfield, Massachusetts has a ghost train? Back in 1958, a guy by the name of John Quirk was in the Bridge Diner which sat right next to train tracks. He was just minding his own business when a phantom train drove right by the place. He got a good look at it and told people it had five or six coaches, a baggage car, and a tender with coal in it. The same thing happened one month later at 6:30am and he contacted railway officials about it. They looked into what happened, since they had no idea why a steam engine was using their tracks and confirmed that a train running on coal hadn’t operated on them for many years. The whole th...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW the USS Salem is hella haunted? Commissioned in 1949 as a heavy cruiser for the U.S. Navy, the USS Salem wasn’t just any ship. It was the flagship of the Sixth Fleet which is, you know, fancy. This 717-foot-long hunk of ship patrolled the Mediterranean during the Cold War. Although the Salem never saw combat, it had its fair share of dark moments. It served as a floating hospital for victims of a devastating 1953 earthquake in Greece. Hundreds of wounded and deceased were brought aboard, beginning a spectral legacy that ghost hunters just can’t ignore. The ship was decommissioned in 1959, but its story was far from over. In 1994, it became a museum, and that’s when the weirdness began. Visi...

  Watch the video above or read it in article form below! Fitch Bits: The Gloucester Sea Serpent DID YOU KNOW that Gloucester, Massachusetts has its own sea serpent cryptid? The waters around Gloucester and Cape Ann are said to be home to a 60 foot long, serpent-like creature with the head of a turtle! These sightings have been going on for many years, with the first occurring in the 17 th century. In 1638, just 18 years after the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock , a feller name o’ John Josselyn made the earliest sighting. If you don’t know who that is, well, you’re not alone, but he was well-known in his time. He was a traveler to New England, and he wrote about what he saw and heard “with credulity.” Then there were a few hundred years’ worth of additional sightings, with the creature’s highest activity being recorded in the years between 1817 and 1819. These sightings were reported by fishermen and sailors with the descriptions always being pretty much the same. Sometim...

  Watch the video above or read it in article form below! Fitch Bits: The Last Salem Witch Trial DID YOU KNOW that the last Salem witch trial took place in 1878? "Witchonthefloorsayswhat?"   Yeah, so most people think the Salem Witch trials ended in 1693 after 19 women and one man were executed, but think again! Just because one kind of crazy gets shut down doesn’t mean another one doesn’t take its place. So, it all started in May when a woman named Lucretia L. S. Brown decided to accuse a feller name o’ Daniel H. Spofford of “attempting to harm her through his ‘mesmeric’ mental powers.” That kind of sounds like he was trying to seduce her, but that’s not the case. You see, both people were Christian Scientists, and that’s where most of these shenanigans started. "Yes, my name is Lucretia. You got a problem with that?" Christian Science was founded by a hot little minx named Mary Baker Eddy. She also wrote The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Sentinel, T...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now on to the odd story! DID YOU KNOW that six pirates were all hanged, on the same day in Boston, back in 1717? The whole thing revolves around the Whydah. That was the pirate ship captained by a feller named Black Bellamy. He and his crew of around 110 were transporting a stolen cargo of 20,000 LBS of gold which is, you know, a lot. Anyway, legend has it that Black B. had it bad for a woman named Maria Hallett of Cape Cod. He was supposedly stopping by to get his doubloons polished when a fierce storm rose up and sank the ship, along with its gold and crew. Black Bellamy, along with over 100 of his pirates were swept into the ocean and drowned. How do we know that? Well because the bodies washed up on the shores of...