Where the veil is thin
When we think of the supernatural, we might think of distant forests and lakes, crop circles or mysterious far-off places. But right here in the Capital Region and as far as the Berkshires, we’re surrounded by ghosts and mythical creatures and even (seriously!) aliens.
Robert Oakes, an author and storyteller who leads ghost tours in the Berkshires, believes ghost stories do more than entertain — they’re “a useful container for these mysterious experiences, quite difficult to know or talk about.” He’s seen how these encounters turn ordinary people into storytellers: “When they have this experience, they say, ‘Let me tell you that story.’”
Oakes’ frequent ghost tours at the notoriously haunted Ventfort Hall mansion in Lenox, Massachusetts, for instance, take visitors room by room through the estate as he shares chilling stories of its reported hauntings. The 28-room so-called Berkshire “cottage,” completed in 1893, was commissioned by Sarah Morgan, sister of J.P. Morgan, and her husband George Morgan, whose spirits are said to linger in the hallways and rooms of the 28,000-square-foot seasonal home.
Local historian and archaeologist Don Rittner knows this firsthand. At 16, walking down Congress Street in Troy, he saw a large triangular craft hovering silently overhead, his hair standing on end from static electricity. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told this,” he admits. Rittner says supernatural beliefs often emerge from “the fear of the unknown.”
From Schenectady’s ghostly woman in white to spirits said to haunt Union College’s Jackson’s Garden, our region’s supernatural tales reflect something deeply human. As Oakes puts it, “‘Spirit’ and ‘inspired’ are the same word … there’s something moving in them that’s invisible and hard to express — but it’s there.”
Here’s a roundup of some of our most intriguing and notorious tales.
Bigfoot (seriously!)
According to the local website ADK Taste, Sasquatch himself has left his mark across New York’s Adirondack region. Whitehall, New York, in Washington County, is actually known as the “Bigfoot capital of the Northeast.” One of the most credible modern sightings occurred in August 1976 when Whitehall police officer Bryan Gosselin and several colleagues claimed to witness an unexplainable creature on Abair Road, described as standing 7 to 8 feet tall and weighing around 400 pounds, with glowing red eyes.
Sightings aren’t limited to Whitehall. In 1996, campers near Pine Pond at the base of Ampersand Mountain, in the High Peaks Wilderness Area, reported observing a dark, towering figure that initially appeared bearlike before rising to reveal its 7-foot stature and humanlike gestures. The creature, they say, studied them for several seconds before darting into the woods.
Whitehall has even declared itself “the official home of Bigfoot,” featuring the creature on its town seal and hosting an annual Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest each September. Whether you’re a believer or skeptic, the Adirondacks’ “forever wild” designation takes on new meaning when considering what might roam these ancient forests.
Champ: Lake Champlain’s Own Loch Ness Monster
Lake Champlain’s beloved lake monster, Champ, has been making waves for centuries. According to the Lake Champlain tourism office, long before European explorers arrived, the Abenaki people warned French settlers about Gitaskog, a massive horned serpent lurking in the lake’s depths. While Samuel de Champlain gets credit for the first “sighting,” he actually spotted his creature near the St. Lawrence River (oops!), describing something that sounds suspiciously like a really, really big fish.
But Champ wasn’t about to let technicalities stop him. By 1819, a captain claimed he saw a 187-foot black monster with “eyes the color of a pealed [sic] onion” and a jaunty red belt around its neck. The sightings kept coming — by railroad workers, sheriffs, even steamship passengers who got up close and personal when their boat literally ran into the creature in 1873.
P.T. Barnum was so intrigued that he offered $50,000 for Champ’s hide (thankfully, no takers). Fast-forward to today, and our scaly friend has racked up nearly 600 witness accounts, plus photo evidence that’s as hotly debated as any Loch Ness Monster snapshot.
The Bloody Pit: New England’s Most Haunted Tunnel
The Hoosac Tunnel, a 5-mile railroad passage through Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills, has earned the nickname “The Bloody Pit” for devouring an estimated 200 lives during its 22-year construction. What started as an ambitious 1851 project became America’s first major experiment with nitroglycerin — and a master class in why you don’t want to be a pioneer in explosive technology.
The tunnel’s supernatural reputation stems from genuine tragedy. As Oakes explains, “People became really superstitious about it at the time — there were sounds, voices in the mountain when they were cutting through. The people there believed the ghosts of their colleagues were in the mountain.” The most famous incident involved three explosive experts: One of the men accidentally killed his companions, disappeared for exactly a year, then turned up strangled at the precise spot where his friends died.
Even approaching the tunnel today feels ominous. “You stand near the edge of it, you look at it and you just see this unnaturally dark opening,” Oakes says. While he strongly warns against entering the active railway, the tunnel’s legacy as a “container for mysterious experiences” continues to captivate visitors drawn to this engineering marvel turned supernatural hot spot.
The Spooks of The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Ghostly Estate
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton didn’t just leave behind literary masterpieces when she died in 1937. She apparently also left a piece of herself at The Mount, her stunning Lenox estate. This National Historic Landmark became the backdrop for both her greatest creative triumphs and her marriage’s painful disintegration as her husband Teddy’s mental health declined.
Oakes, who has led ghost tours at The Mount for years, believes it’s actually Teddy who haunts the estate. “For me, Wharton was such a progressive spirit in life. I feel like she wouldn’t have come back,” he says. Instead, reports of cigar smoke, taps on shoulders and shadowy figures suggest Teddy’s troubled spirit remains attached to the home where his marriage unraveled.
The paranormal reports aren’t surprising, given Edith’s complicated relationship with the supernatural. Battling typhoid as a child, she claimed to be “haunted by formless horrors,” eventually channeling these experiences into her own ghost stories. As Oakes notes, there’s something particularly haunting about the shadow figures frequently spotted at The Mount — perhaps echoing Wharton’s own description of “a dark and indefinable menace lurking and threatening.”
Kipsy: the Hudson River Monster
This lesser-known cryptid gets its nickname from Poughkeepsie, where most sightings occur, and even earned the No. 17 spot on Atlas Obscura’s list of “Lake Monsters of the United States.”
Unlike Bigfoot or Champ, Kipsy keeps things refreshingly low-key. According to the radio station WRRV, recent “sightings” include mysterious shapes spotted near Poughkeepsie’s Pirate Canoe Club — though whether these represent an actual river monster or a piece of particularly ambitious driftwood remains hotly debated among witnesses. The creature doesn’t have the extensive folklore of other lake monsters, but that almost makes it more intriguing. There are no elaborate aboriginal legends, no grainy photographs analyzed by cryptozoologists, just the occasional “Did you see that?” moment from Hudson Valley residents.
UFOs over the Capital Region
Forget Area 51 — apparently, extraterrestrials have been checking out New York’s Capital Region. According to News 10, Albany is the fifth most supernatural location in the entire state, racking up an impressive 93 ghost and UFO sightings that helped propel New York into the top five most paranormally active states nationwide.
Rittner’s own close encounter story left him puzzled for decades, he said, though he continues to take a measured approach to the unexplained, asking: “What about civilizations that are millions of years older than us in other parts of the galaxy?”
Whether you’re a skeptic or believer, Albany’s supernatural credentials suggest there’s more happening in the Capital Region than meets the eye.
