Strangeness In Our Own Backyards!

Tales of ghostly encounters, unexplained lights in the skies, mysterious monsters, and other bizarre phenomena are not often the type of events one imagines when thinking about our area, but the local history is rich with legends and lore of paranormal activity. One of the things I enjoy most is hearing extraordinary stories of unusual events that took place in our own backyards. Its one thing to see these experiences played out on television, or read about them in books, but learning about the local connections is much more interesting!

Whether people believe the whispers, or are just passing on what they’ve heard, each story is always captivating to listen to. Most of these experiences have never been shared outside of close groups of family and friends, and sometimes they’ve never even been discussed with anyone before. What adds to the intrigue of these stories are the people themselves. I have heard experiences by everyone from police officers to senior citizens, and these are far from people looking for publicity from what they have to say. Their experiences – whatever they were – have been ingrained in their memories and it is surprising how many people tell us they are relieved to find someone they can share with who isn’t going to think they’re nuts.

Our organization does conduct investigations and research into some of these claims in an attempt to see if anything anomalous can be found. We’ve done so at over 40 locations in the Orange/Bethwood area since opening our Library & Research Center last July. Sometimes we have come across things we believe are unexplained, other times we detected nothing unusual, but each case we handle or story we hear about gives us insight into things nearby that might otherwise never be known about.  In several cases, by conducting research on local history, our team was able to discover that there are things in the past that could be linked to the stories from the present.

 A road in Bethany where many people have reported seeing ghostly apparitions or feeling strange sensations when driving down has become known for the number of fatal accidents that have occurred there…
 At a home in Orange where residents reported seeing a man dressed in colonial era outfit was found to have been built on the site of a home owned by a man who was killed in the early 1700s in a fire there…
 A sighting of a strange object in the sky in 1982 that was reported from Orange to Bethany also showed up on local air traffic radar as well as was reported by emergency service personnel and remains unexplained to this day…
Strange stories of a mysterious creature being spotted in the Downs Road area of Bethwood can be traced as far back as the late 1700s and early 1800s…

These are only a small portion of the local stories that we have heard about here at SGRA, and more are added to our archives every day. Perhaps the most interesting of all is when multiple people share stories with us that they’ve never discussed with anyone else, but we get to tell them that they’re not the first person who has shared an experience of that particular place with us. Everyone is always surprised to learn that, although it may not be openly discussed, there are almost always more people who shared the same experience.

If you have a story to share, you can always feel free to contact us whether it happened recently or way back, we’re always excited to hear what local residents have to say! Remember that anything shared with our group is kept strictly confidential, so your information is never provided to anyone else. And anyone is welcome to share experiences with us!