Now, we all love ourselves some creepy stories, right?
And much like horror cinema, we serve to do justice to these terrifying tales of history
forgotten, by scouring our way across the planet and finding the most perplexingly paranormal
and darker aberrations of the human condition.
North America is a fascinating place--steeped with thousands upon thousands of years of
Native tradition--passed along through a sacred oral history, but in the times of Colonialism--the
very fabric of this fated continent weaved a much more sinister tapestry, painting a
bloody and macabre portrait of survival, hysteria--and the stark beginnings of a Brave New World.
In that case--I guess we better take a look.
Hello horror fans, what’s going on, and once again welcome back to the scariest channel
on YouTube--Top 5 Scary Videos.
As per usual, I’ll be your horror host Jack Finch, as today, we curiously take a look
at the Top 5 Creepiest Tales From North American History.
Roll the clip.
For the curious amongst you--of course, that clip was from Robert Egger’s 2015 New England
Folklore Masterpiece--The VVitch.
Of course it was, because this is a list about Creepy Tales from North American History--and
Bobby Egger’s depiction of the bleak, harsh, desolate and miserable landscape of colonial
New England is second to none.
It’s pretty pertinent to set the scene, right?
Kicking off at Number 5 - The Mad Trapper
And regardless as to whether the true fear of this tale is as apparent as some of our
other entries--nevertheless, the perplexing story of The Mad Trapper of Rat River is awesome--if
not an incredibly mysterious instance of forgotten history.
Now, Canadian History in particular is rife with tales of trapping and the fur trade that
came with it, especially in the more remote parts of the Great White North.
This daring portion of history has ushered in legendary feats of the mysterious men of
the mountain--all of which pale in comparison to the Mad Trapper, Albert Johnson--a man
with no history and no apparent record, save for one of the most impossible instances of
one man’s refusal to be captured.
As the legend goes, in early December of the year 1931, residents of the prime trapping
site of Rat River had complained to the Local Mounties that their traps had been sabotaged,
ruining their haul for the season.
The only suspect was the new man in town, Albert Johnson, who had mysteriously shown
up a few months before, without saying a word to anyone, and built himself a cabin from
scratch.
As several of the Mountie’s paid him a visit to see what the fuss was, Johnson wasn’t
in a talking mood--and suddenly shot one of the Constables without warning.
The man survived and the Mounties retreated, but returned a month later--this time with
more men, and also a boatload of dynamite.
When they thought they had the drop on him, the Mountie’s decided to blow up Johnson’s
cabin--but bad idea, because as they entered the wreckage to presumably remove his corpse--Johnson
emerged from a camouflaged fox hole and opened fire on the officers.
He escaped, and what followed was the most bizarre and impossible manhunt in Canadian
history.
The Inuit said of Johnson that at one point in the chase, he was snow-shoeing 2 miles
for every mile that their dog-sleighs could cover.
At another point, he scaled a 7000 ft mountain with zero climbing gear during a blizzard.
For over two months, he lived off the land in the dead of winter without once starting
a fire.
However, when he *was* finally cornered and killed--which took an airplane--and nine gunshot
wounds, no one *still* had any idea who this guy was.
Seemingly, he emerged from nowhere--and returned back to it.
But the strange legend of Albert Johnson lives on.
Coming in next at Number 4 -- The Ghost of Joe Baldwin
And any list of creepy tales from North America wouldn’t be complete without some kind of
ghostly yarn about the Great American Railroad--and perhaps none better, is the otherwise tragic
tale of Joe Baldwin--and the mysterious Maco Lights of North Carolina--a phenomena of orbs
and strange glowing lights that were seen near Maco Station for over a hundred years
up until 1977.
As the legend goes, Joe Baldwin was a veteran train worker and signalman, and on one tragic
night in 1867--he was asleep at the rear of the freight, when he was awoken by a strange
rumbling sound.
Joe realized instantly that his carriage had been detached from the rest of the train--and
quickly came to the stark realisation that his car was now coming to a stop on the tracks.
Joe also knew that a huge passenger train was due closely behind them--and in the dead
of night, if it careered into the stationary carriage--everyone on board would be killed
in a grisly collision.
In one moment of heroic sacrifice, Joe Baldwin clutched his lantern and climbed atop the
carriage platform--as the sound of the oncoming passenger train rumbled ever closer.
Trying to catch the attention of the engineer, Baldwin frantically waved his lantern in the
air--and thankfully, the engineer saw soon enough and slammed on the breaks, saving everyone
on board.
That is, save for Joe Baldwin--who was still stood on the carriage platform--and was gruesomely
decapitated by the collision.
Legend says that the force of the accident catapulted Joe’s head off into the murky
swamps that surrounded the tracks, but it was never found.
His headless body was buried with full honors as a hero who saved many lives, but for years
following the accident, the strange Maco Lights could be seen floating at night along the
bleak span of railway.
As the locals of North Carolina would warn for generations to come, it was the ghost
of Old Joe Baldwin--swinging his lantern, desperately searching for his own head.
Swinging in at Number 3 -- The Hooded Figurine
And for fans of long forgotten history, this one is equal parts bizarre and equal parts
overwhelmingly eye-opening.
Now, ancient North American history has been steeped in murky mystery and legend--particularly
when it comes to the involvement of the Norsemen of Greenland, with the acknowledgement that
the first and only confirmed Viking Settlement in North America dates back to 1000 AD, in
L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland, supposedly the only of its kind until later European
contact.
But in 1978, after an archeological dig of an ancient Thule Settlement in Baffin Island
uncovered a strange, carved wooden figurine--that proposition seemed to take a much more mysterious
turn.
At first glance, the hooded figurine seemed to depict a person in a tunic, with an etched
cross symbol on the chest--first believed to be the depiction of a Greenland Viking,
which seems to correlate with the ancient Norse Sagas of Helluland, a place that legend
states was visited many, many times by Viking Explorers--where they interacted with the
Native Peoples and perhaps even traded.
I mean, that alone is an insane enough notion--but this story has two parts to it.
Because several other researchers believe that The Hooded Figurine is instead a depiction
of the legendary Knights Templar of the 13th and 14th centuries.
Which, if true--would have staggering implications to one particular enduring legend of the Knights
Templar.
As the story goes, after the Order of the Knights Templar were condemned and exiled
from Europe by the Pope and King Philip IV in 1307--they fled to Scotland during the
reign of Robert the Bruce, where they later fought in the Battle of Bannockburn.
After living in exile for many years, the order later befriended a man named Henry Sinclair,
the First Earl of Orkney--who was said to have later sailed through the Atlantic, with
the Templars and their vast horde of religious relics and treasures, settling them on the
coastal regions of Canada, where they disappeared from the records of history.
Think what you will about this legend, and it’s important to note that at best, the
history is incredibly murky *BUT*--you’ve got to admit, there’s something strangely
fitting about the whole thing, isn’t there?
Next up at Number 2 -- The Bell Witch
Perhaps one of the most renowned and haunting tales of the historical American South.
In fact, the legend of the Bell Witch is perhaps one of the most notorious paranormal instances
of American Folklore--in the story of a malevolent spirit that tormented a Tennessee home over
200 years ago.
In 1804--a man named John Bell and his family settled on 300 acres of land, which is now
known as Adam’s Tennessee.
Here, they built a homestead, living relatively successfully off the land for over a decade--but
in the summer of 1817--things started to change.
At first it was odd noises--strange pounding of doors, slaps on walls--the erie rattling
of chains.
Sometime later, John Bell himself discovered an odd creature out in the fields--a strange
hybrid of a dog, a rabbit--and something not quite natural.
Soon enough, blankets began getting pulled from beds in the dead of night--people were
getting scratched, kicked and the hair twisted and pulled.
The Spirit soon identified itself to the family as The Bell Witch, a malevolent spirit that
offered many explanations to who and what she was, all of which served to confuse things
further--in some cases, she said her name was Kate Batts, and had been wronged by John
Bell in her former life.
In others, she claimed to be an ancient American Spirit who’s burial mound had been disturbed
by the family.
Either way, the Bell Witch legend gathered so much notoriety that General Andrew Jackson
himself paid the residence a visit--where on arrival, his horse and wagon suddenly froze
on the threshold of the Bell property.
His horses strained tirelessly to pull the wagon, but to no avail--before Jackson himself
cried out, *that must be the Bell Witch!*--and as legend goes, he heard a woman’s voice
whisper that they could pass freely, as they’d already amused her enough.
Whatever the case, the cause of the Bell’s torment over 200 years ago remains a complete
and utter mystery, wrapped up in a terrifying and mystifying historical account of the paranormal.
Maybe we’ll never know.
And it’s probably for the best that we never do.
And finally, coming in at our Number 1 spot -- The Starving Time
And the fact of the matter remains, we have to end this particular historical list with
one of the most violent, desperate and gruesome instances in Colonial American History.
Now, in the early years of the continent’s settlement--they were trying times nonetheless,
and for the first outpost of Jamestown, Virginia, the colonists there tried desperately to carve
some semblance of life, in order to survive in the New World.
For years, there have been whispers through legend that the earliest American colonists
had survived the harshest of conditions by turning to desperate measures--eating dogs,
cats, rats, snakes--even shoe leather to stave off starvation.
But as historians discovered in 2012--things were much, much worse than that--and after
unearthing a hastily constructed burial pit of a 14-year old girl, the first, concrete
evidence of cannibalism was discovered--leading to many later discoveries, and the stark realisation
that the Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism just to survive.
Historians have traced back the bleak passage of history to one particularly deadly winter--a
period known as The Starving Time, that happened in Jamestown between 1609 and 1610--where
settlers arrived during the worst drought in 800 years, catastrophically bringing fatal
food shortages for the 6000 or so people that lived in the Virginian Settlement at the time.
As history has found, it was a period of complete and utter misery, as the settlers were forced
to dig up corpses from their graves, in an attempt to eat when there was nothing else
left.
In one case, documented by the colony’s most famous leader, Captain John Smith--one
man murdered his pregnant wife in an attempt to salt and eat her--who was later executed
by the settler’s and presumably, eaten too.
Yeah.
It’s probably best that we end this one here.
Well, there we have it horror fans--our list for the Top 5 Creepiest Tales From North American
History.
What did you guys think?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Or have any more of your own to add?
Then let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any intriguing
insights of your own.
Before we depart from today’s video though, let’s first take a quick look at some of
your more resounding remarks from over the past few days.
Jimmy Key says --
Jack, Arch Demon Duke of terrifyingly fun tongue twisting introductions to obligatory
numbered list of top fives.
-- Well.
Wow.
Jimmy Key, that sounds like a tagline to me.
Kind of rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?
And finally, St Dan says --
DEMONS!
Got a fright there Jack, living up to the channel name I suppose--fair play.
-- Well, St Dan--I’m glad to be of service.
Hey, I can do scary when I need to, you know, even if it does come from a pretty cheap jump
scare.
Well, on that note horror fans--unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today's
video.
Cheers for sticking around all the way until the end.