Weird Western Maryland

Oak Hill Cemetery in Lonaconing is the setting of this undated post at the Ghosts of America website, by a writer who identifies only as “Jeri”: This sighting occurred in the late 1990s. I told a few people about what we saw, but was [sic] received with skepticism. I finally just stopped telling the story. I stumbled across ghostsofamerica.com and decided to tell the story one more time. My husband and I were at Oak Hill Cemetery on a late afternoon in July. No one else was there. We drove around to the top row, parked the car, and got out to look for ancestors buried there. It was odd how quickly a strong wind started to blow. Both of us were looking down at the lower road, and a figure (seemingly oblivious to us) was walking in the direction of where it elbowed up to the next level. He was dressed as an old time miner. What he had on was very recognizable. He had on a mining hat and was carrying what looked like a lunch bucket. He looked like he was covered in coal dust. It was...

Georges Creek Boulevard and woods, today. Whenever I start explaining my Weird Western Maryland project, some student immediately says, “Oh, you mean like Bigfoot.” The modern legend of Bigfoot is certainly one of my research interests, as is the wider field of cryptozoology, or the search for unknown animals. Bigfoot also is one of the modern legends best known to my undergraduates, thanks to Hollywood and to decades of T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, chainsaw art, and other merchandise. And as Western Maryland is largely wooded, students tend to assume that Bigfoot, if it exists at all, abounds regionally. In fact, Bigfoot sightings are not all that common in Western Maryland. (Southwestern Pennsylvania, just across the Mason-Dixon Line, is an entirely different story, one we’ll get to later.) The only Allegany County sighting in the excellent database of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) took place more than 20 years ago and in a surprising, far-from-re...

  In late July 1976, U.S. Army soldiers stationed in the mountainous heart of Western Maryland -- now-defunct Fort Ritchie, near Cascade in Washington County -- looked overhead and saw some very strange things in the night sky. Moreover, those objects triggered some urgent, high-level Pentagon communications. We know all this from a memo signed by a brigadier general in the predawn hours of July 30, on the letterhead of the National Military Command Center in Washington. The text follows. 30 July 1976 0545 EDT MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD Subject: Reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) 1.       At approximately 0345 EDT, the ANMCC called to indicate they had received several reports of UFO’s in the vicinity of Fort Ritchie. The following events summarize the reports (times are approximate). a.        0130 – Civilians reported a UFO sighting near Mt. Airy, Md. This information was obtained via a call from the N...

St. Patrick's Catholic church in Cumberland is the scene of a classic Allegany County ghost story. Here's the earliest version I can find, published in 1900: During the Civil War Father Brennan had a number of painful experiences, the most painful of which was the execution of a young soldier with whom he became acquainted in his capacity of spiritual director. In July, 1864, Francis Gillespie, of the Fifteenth New York Regiment, was hanged near Rose Hill Cemetery, after trial by court-martial. The circumstances in the case were such as to excite sympathy for the soldier, but not sufficient to excuse or extenuate the horrible deed of which he had been guilty. Gillespie had been charged with violating some army regulation, and his lieutenant, William Shearer, had given orders to “ hang him up by the thumbs.” The soldier was left hanging in excruciating torture until he was almost dead. He swore vengeance on the lieutenant; and when the regiment was travelling from P...