This story is one related to me by Tom W., a friend of mine. At the time, I dimissed it as
the product of a great imagination, but later research confirmed much of what he had told me.
While I have taken the liberty of making his story more "prose-worthy," the facts are as they
were related to me.
Mt. Mansfield is the highest mountain in
Vermont. It is a very popular place to hike,
camp, and otherwise enjoy what Vermont has to
offer. It also has the odd distinction of being
on of the only mountains in Vermont which has
little to no traces of Native American habitation.
Back in the early 1970's (1973 I think)
Tom's uncle, aunt, and cousins were spending the
summer night in a lean-to on Mt. Mansfield after
hiking about 2/3 the way up the mountain.
The next morning at first light a Park Ranger came to the lean-to and asked if anyone
had heard any loud noises of seen anything odd. My friend's uncle said no, just that they had
seen two guys hiking down the mountain around 11. The ranger explained that he had been called
by the VT State Police and told that the Burlington Airport radar had lost a small airplane over the mountain and thought it might have crashed. The ranger was sent to look for it and to help any survivors.
Sometime later, the family made their way to base of the mountain where the police and park
service had set up a command post. It seems that the ranger had found the crash site about a mile
away from the lean-to but there were no bodies in the plane, only some blood. The police were
concerned that the pilot and his passenger may have been injured in the crash but had somehow
wandered off delirious.
That afternoon, while the family were
questioned again by the police for any sounds,
lights, etc. they may have seen, the state
troopers sent up a K-9 team to the crash site.
The two troopers and their dog were going to
follow any scent trails and find the pilot and
passenger in the plane.
Around late afternoon, the police grew
concerned that they had not heard from the K-9
team, but wrote it off to poor radio contact
(they were probably using old line-of-sight
radios which are lousy in mountains). At
twilight, however, that concern became panic as
the dog from the team came back to the base camp
without the two troopers.
The police immediately hiked up to the crash
site to start a search for the troopers. There,
in the front seats of the plane, they found the
badges of the two troopers placed squarely in a
patch of blood. Next to them were the wallets of
the two men who were supposed to be in the
plane. The ranger who found the site swore they
had not been there that morning when he found the
crash site.
This bizarre turn caused to State Police and
Parke Service to mount a full search of the
mountain. The police also questioned Tom's aunt
and uncle again, this time asking about the two
men they had seen hiking down the mountain.
After hearing the aunt's description, the trooper
questioning them stopped and presented them with
a stack of photos. Do any of these pictures look
like the men you saw, he asked. After flipping
through quite a few photos, the aunt and uncle
picked two pictures. The trooper looked at the
names on the backs of the photos and got his
lieutenant in a wicked hurry. The pictures Tom's
aunt and uncle picked were of the pilot and his
passenger.
They had seen the two crash victims.
To this day, the Vermont State Police lists
the two troopers, as well as the pilot and his
passenger, as missing. The wreck of the plane,
minus what what removed by the park service and
souvenir hunters, is still on Mt. Mansfield
(currently it has the names of hundreds of
teenagers carved into its aluminum sides.) Make
what you want of this story, but it scared me
enough that I haven't gone hiking alone on Mt.
Mansfield ever since.
MY GRANDFATHER AT CAMP KILMER
I am not sure if this qualifies as a ghost story, but I still find it a bit eerie.
My grandfather died early in my senior year of high school. I had not visited him for a while
prior to his death and I felt a bit guilty about it until something odd happened late in my junior
year of college.
I attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
NJ. It is a large campus, including a section
which was built on property purchased from the US
Army. This land, still known as Camp Kilmer, was
the largest processing center for troops heading
overseas and returning from World War II. When
the university purchased it, it tore down many of
the old barracks, but many still remain
throughout the property, as do some of the old
command buildings. One of those buildings was
the old Paymaster building.
Late in my junior year I was working for the
Rutgers Phonathon - basically soliciting
donations from alumni - out of the old Paymaster
building on the Camp Kilmer section of the
campus. This often caused me to be there late at
night.
For the first week or two, nothing really weird
happened, but about three weeks into my work
there I regularly found myself thinking about my
grandfather and missing him. This was not
something I normally did, but perhaps because I
did know his cavalry unit had been stationed at
Camp Kilmer during the war that somehow stirred
my thoughts. Anyway, I wrote it off as nothing,
but I still thought about him often.
A couple nights later, I went alone downstairs in
the building to the soda machine. While down
there, I heard hard, boot-like footsteps on the
linoleum floor. As it was winter, I didn't think
it odd to hear boots, but I recognized them as
work/combat boots (I was in Army ROTC at the
time).
After getting the soda, I started up the stairs
when I heard a man's voice softly say "It's ok
Richie." I dropped my soda and looked around
quickly. No one has called me Richie, except for
my little sister, since I was 10. No one but my
grandfather, that is. I ran upstairs and looked
around the phone room, thinking that someone
there was named Richie, but no one was. I went
home that night spooked, but not sure what had
happened.
Over the next month I wrote off the incident as
some figment of my imagination. But then it
happened again, this time outside the building as
I waited for the bus. I suddenly had this image
of my grandfather appear in my mind, and then I
heard softly in my ear "It's ok Richie, no harm
done." Again, I looked around, but there was no
one that close to me, let alone an older man who
sounded like my grandfather.
For weeks afterwards I had a hard time explaining
to myself what had happened, though I finally
felt some sort of peace over my grandfather's
death.
Fast forward to May of the same year. I was
taking a class on World War II and Rutgers (I'm a
military history buff) and we were examining an
old unit yearbook from Camp Kilmer. While
flipping through the book I noticed a picture of
the Paymaster building with a group of men in
cavalry boots standing in front of it. I asked
my professor if that was the Paymaster building.
Yes, he replied, but during World War II it did
not house the Paymaster but instead was the
headquarters building for units that passed
through the Camp. We then looked in the
bibliography and found the photo had been taken
by, and of, men from the 101st Cavalry Group in
1943. This caused my jaw to drop, for in 1943 my
grandfather had been a staff sergeant in the
headquarters troop of the 101st Cavalry Group.
While he had not been in the photo, he had served
with the men in the photo in that very building.
Ever since then I felt much better about the loss
of my grandfather, though I haven't been back to
the old Paymaster building since.
Like I said before, I don't know if this is a
ghost story or just a weird event, but I swear it
actually happened; I have not told anyone, even
my wife about this. Thanks.
Submitted from: Washington DC, USA
[Home]
The reason for this last fact is unclear,
though some say the local Abenaki tribe has long
regarded the mountain as evil because many
hunting parties went missing upon it long ago.
Nevertheless, Mt. Mansfield is still well visited
and looms large in the Green Mountains.
Sometime before bed, the uncle and aunt noticed
two men in street clothes hiking down the
mountain trail past the lean-to. In the dark,
they could just see their faces as they passed
within the lean-to's light. The aunt (who to
this day is a bit gossipy) asked the men where
they were headed at this time of night. They did
not respond, but continued down the trail. The
aunt and uncle didn't think much of it and went
to bed.
[Story Page]
[October 2000 Ghost Stories]