Slightly Odd Fitchburg

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Now, to be fair, these are all "know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy" stories. I can't verify a single one. Still, DID YOU KNOW Leominster has a haunted park? Leominster, Massachusetts, holds tales of the supernatural, particularly in Barrett Park , where fellers and fellettes whisper of two spirits said to haunt the area. The most well-known is the “Lady in White,” believed to be the ghost of a woman who drowned in the park's pond in the early 1900s. Witnesses describe seeing her spectral figure wandering the water’s edge at dusk, her flowing white dress glowing faintly in the twilight. Some claim she appears to be searching for something, or someone, lost to the depths. An...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW there’s a Christmas ghost of Route 2A ? Yeah, so, the stretch of Route 2A between Acton and Concord already feels like the kind of place where a ghost might wander out of sheer boredom, but every December it becomes home to a haunting that locals mention. They call him the Christmas Ghost of 2A, though older residents still prefer the name Lantern Man , as if giving him a title makes him easier to live with. The story traces back to the 1920s, when a traveling tinsmith named Elias Cutter vanished during a Christmas Eve snowstorm. He’d been walking the long road between towns, carrying a lantern he’d crafted himself, the sort of sturdy handiwork that could survive anything except, apparen...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchbur ! Now onto the odd story! DID YOU KNOW the human soul was discovered right in Haverhill, Massachusetts ? Well, as long as you cross your eyes and squint hard enough, anyway. Dr. Duncan MacDougall was his name, and soul searching was his game! He set out to document the weight of the human soul back in 1901 , and his results have been a part of the public consciousness ever since. Duncan’s method was simple. He found six nursing home patients on the verge of death and put them on scales to measure their body weights at the moment of their expiration. His theory was that they would lose weight as their souls left their bodies and his results were, well, mixed. Four were suffering from tuberculosis , one from diabetes , and one from un...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchbur ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW the Chelsea Soldiers' Home is haunted? Yeah, so, the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home has the sort of quiet that doesn’t feel entirely empty, the kind that settles in old military buildings where too many men once waited for news that never came. Staff have been reporting oddities there for decades, long before ghost hunters started showing up with gadgets that beep at dust. Nurses talk about footsteps in the hall after lights out, steady and purposeful, the way a man walks when he’s spent a lifetime following orders. They check, of course, because that’s what you do, and find nothing but the long corridor stretching ahead like it’s holding its breath. One orderly swore he saw a figure in a World Wa...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW there's a hitchhiking ghost in Maine called The Girl in the Snow? Yeah, so if you’ve ever driven Route 2A through Haynesville Woods in northern Maine during the dead of winter, you know the kind of road we’re talking about here. They’re narrow, twisting, hemmed in by skeletal trees and just waiting for the next accident. It’s the sort of place where headlights feel more like flashlights in a cave than actual illumination. If you happen to be on this road in the winter, you might just meet the hitchhiker ghost that’s been terrifying truckers and travelers since the 1960s. The legend goes like that, on icy nights when the snow is blowing sideways and the thermometer has given up entirely, dri...

The Shrieking Thanksgiving Ghost This one brings us to Geneva, New York . That’s the state with that really big city that smells like the Dutch . Every other holiday has a ghost and Thanksgiving isn’t any different, it’s just a little surprising. I mean, nothing bad ever came out of that day for any person or group of people, right? Hold on, my producer is talking in my ear… Oh? OH! oh. Well, that was disappointing to learn. Anyway, let’s get into the ghost story! The When and Where Told you so. This ghost story takes place back 1902, a few years before the world was going to start having fun with the Great Worcester Airship Hoax . It was the night of Thanksgiving Day and a train was approaching Marsh Bridge in Geneva, New York. It's bad enough when you have to work on Thanksgiving, but things were about to get weird for the engineer and fireman driving this thing. They were both in the train’s… cockpit? Engine car? Driver’s seat? I don’t know, I’m not a train guy. By...

Most people don't realize that I'm a professional writer who gets paid to professionally write professionally. The work covers a lot of different subjects and keeps me in vodka and Pop Tart money. One of the best sites I write for is OnOurWayTo100.com and I really want you to check it out. It's an exploration of life as we all live it and it's always being updated with think pieces and information on everything from Healthcare to why AI is just the worst. I've written many of them with the blood of my Pop Tart enemies coursing through my veins and a vodka soaked tampon up my nose. Anyway, I'm telling you all this because I want you to check out the site and explore what it has waiting for you. Just to show you I'm serious, I'm sharing one of my favorite articles right now! It's not about ghosts or Pukwudgies , but I just think it's the bee's knees! I talk about humanity and how we all got here. Hey, that's the title of this article! Wha...