Lore - Legends 1: North Carolina Monsters

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

The world is a big, scary place, and that’s mostly because of the people around us. But if the legends are true, there are darker reasons to be afraid, and they are lurking in the shadows outside our homes. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Harry Marks and research by GennaRose Nethercott. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ———————— This episode of Lore was sponsored by: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring for just $15 a month. No contracts, no salespeople, just simple and easy security. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore to claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off your order with Interactive Monitoring. To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.   ©2023 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

One of the biggest truths this show has explored over the years is just how packed with amazing stories our history books really are. Real people in real situations who have encountered something strange, deadly, or unexplainable. But that's what makes this episode different because some stories lack the historical roots and proof but are just as powerful, entertaining, and downright chilling. Stories that are integral parts of our local communities but that lean a bit closer to fiction than fact, and just because those stories lack proof, doesn't mean they should be ignored.

Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark even if they can't always be proven by the history books. So if you're ready, let's begin. The Untamed Frontier is still there, beyond the towering skylines and the windswept canyons of the city. Just past the well-manicured suburban lawns, there are forests and rivers and lakes just waiting to be explored. Nature can be calming as any photo of the autumn foliage in New England can prove.

Some people love to be near the ocean amidst the crashing waves and the scent of salt air, and a walk through a dense forest with birds chirping above and critters rustling in the leaves at our feet can remind us that we are but one small piece of a much larger puzzle. But behind the lush greenery and beneath the soothing waves, there is also danger. It can come on strong like the neck-breaking winds of a hurricane, or it can be as silent as a shark gliding through the water. Unfortunately for us, we rarely recognize we're in trouble, until it's far too late. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends.

In the middle of North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, sits Chatham County. With a population of 76,000, it's a predominantly white part of the state with a deeply problematic history, as black lynchings were common during the 19th century. It's also home to one of the most famous rivers in America, Cape Fear, which was the setting of a thriller novel by John D. McDonald published in 1957, as well as its two film adaptations in 1962 and 1991. The Cape Fear River forms where the Deep River and the Hall River converge at a shape of a Y. It was said to have been named during the 16th century by two explorers, Sir Richard

Grenville and John White, who nearly wrecked their ships on the Cape. Cape Fear flows through eastern North Carolina to the Atlantic for 191 miles and was one of the earliest economic hubs within the state. Ships would transport everything from goods to passengers along the river. In 1740, four Scotsmen from Argosher came to the area and planted roots. Their names were Duncan Campbell, James McLaughlin, Hector McNeil, and his brother Neil McNeil. Yes, Neil McNeil was his real name. They purchased several large tracts of land where the Deep and Hall rivers met and built

a town called Lockville. Lockville became the place to start a business, too, and with the influx of entrepreneurs also came the need for somewhere to grab a drink. So a man named Ambrose Ramsey, seeing that there was money to be made in this growing little bird, opened up his own tavern. He called it, appropriately, Ramsey's Tavern. It was built near where the river converged, not far from where new residents had put up their homes.

The tavern became much more than just a neighborhood bar, too. It was the most happening spot in Lockville, because it was practically the only spot in Lockville. Over time, the tavern also cemented itself as an important part of American history. The Revolutionary War brought British forces to North Carolina's shores in 1781. As they fought the Continental Army and continued to lose men, they retreated down the coast. Surviving redcoats commandeered Ramsey's Tavern and a nearby mill for a makeshift headquarters so that they can nurse their wounded and rest before resuming the fight.

But the tavern's role in America's origins went far beyond being an ad hoc infirmary and strategy room. It was also home to something else. You see, back then, one of the river's most prominent features was a big white sandbar. Late at night, after they'd filled their bellies with beer and whiskey, soldiers and townsmen would stumble out of the tavern and head home, passing the area where the rivers met. And there, beneath the glow of the moonlight as the water rushed past them, these men would

see mysterious creatures perched on the sandbar, combing their hair. Mermaids Unsurprisingly, the first mermaid sightings at the entrance to the Cape Fear River were not taken seriously. After all, who would believe a bunch of drunks heading home from the bar? But more and more, people started to see the mermaids lounging outside the tavern where the waters converged. But why there?

What had brought them out of the ocean and upriver? Well, the people of Lockville believed that the briny depths of the Atlantic had been damaging to the mermaid's precious hair, so they had swum up into the river to wash out the salt. Of course, the men never saw the mermaids while on their way to the tavern. They were only ever visible hours later in the dark after the patrons were good and intoxicated. Could they have been women from town out for a swim in the river late at night? Or the hallucinations of inebriated workers after a long day at the mill?

Anything is possible. Regardless of the truth, the people of Lockville started referring to the area as Mermaid Point, a name which still holds to this day. In Scottish lore, mermaids were seen as unlucky omens, their appearance foreshadowing some kind of disaster or death. And maybe the mermaids laughing and relaxing along the sandbar really were bad omens, because the town of Lockville, like the men emerging from the taverns and drunken stupors, couldn't stand on its own two feet forever.

It wasn't long before the whole operation collapsed, leaving Ramses as the last vestige of a failed entrepreneurial experiment. Sadly, its proximity to the Cape Fear River proved to be its downfall. A flood in the late 1800s washed the tavern away, and with it, any remaining traces of the once-booming mill town. And looking back, maybe the creatures the men saw every night really were mermaids. Because anyone who got too close, whether they were business magnates, tavern owners, or intrepid explorers, all ended up the same way, drawn to Cape Fear with promises of good

fortune, only to have it all swept away in the end. About 200 miles northwest of Cape Fear River lies Lake Norman. It's nearly 35 miles long and 9 miles wide, and covers a spread of 32,000 acres. It's not the largest nor the deepest lake in North Carolina, but it has a beauty and character that sets it apart from the rest. It's also referred to as the state's Inland Sea, complete with almost 60 small islands dotting its waters. But Lake Norman wasn't always a lake.

It had actually begun life as a river, home to the native Kataba people who had occupied the surrounding land for 6,000 years, and as usual, white settlers eventually arrived and drove the Kataba away, taking the land and the river access for themselves. In 1906, Duke Power Company installed hydroelectric dams to provide power to the region. Ten dams were created over the next five decades, with an 11th dam being the one to finish the river's conversion into a full-fledged lake. The nearby residents were pushed out and forced to relocate. By 1964, Duke Power Company had turned the river and 23,000 acres of the surrounding

land into the largest man-made freshwater body in North Carolina. They was named Lake Norman after a former Duke Power president. But what Duke Power didn't realize was that such a massive undertaking would attract some unwanted attention from the unlikeliest of places. Over the last 30 years, Lake Norman has been the site of no fewer than 20 UFO encounters. They've been spotted flying across the area since 1968, usually over the power plants owned by Duke Energy. Are they as upset as the former residents who were driven from their homes?

Or maybe just fascinated by seeing a mighty river tamed into a calm lake by human engineering? Nobody knows, but these reports have made North Carolina number four in the country for UFO sightings. However, the sky over Lake Norman isn't the only place where unexplained phenomena has occurred. In fact, plantations once stood on the surrounding land and even within the lake itself prior to its flooding, and the area's tumultuous history comes to life before visitors' eyes every now and again.

Visitors to the area have claimed to hear the sounds of children playing in the distance. The spectral bodies of enslaved people have been seen hanging from trees, ghostly remnants of the area's dark and violent past. And on some occasions, revolutionary war soldiers charge into an endless battle for the future of a country that they'll never get to see. But aside from the phantom soldiers and the UFOs, Lake Norman's most popular resident is that of a creature many have seen. He haunts its murky waters even though he's no ghost.

He propels his slender body with the help of his flippers and a tattered dorsal fin on his back, and he's known as the Lake Norman monster. The Lake Norman monster, or normie for short, has been described several different ways over the years. Some people believe he resembles a giant snake or an eel. Others claim he's an enormous catfish, while a few say that he's more of a nesty lake creature. Many sightings have only been reported over the last few decades, but they were frequent

enough for one local resident, Matt Myers, to record them for posterity. He's collected over 40 reports dating back to the 1980s, many of which describe an encounter with a massive creature gliding beneath their paddle boards or jumping onto their canoes. Fishermen out on the lake have felt something so big and strong catch their lines that it snapped them before vanishing into the depths. Other common reports describe enormous waves appearing in the lake on otherwise tranquil days. One scuba diver in 1980 had been 80 feet below the surface, searching for old bottles and

antiques in the buildings that had been flooded by the lake when he came upon a house. The windows of the home were still intact, and its front porch, although collapsed, was still attached. It didn't look like there was any way inside, though. The diver swam around to the side of the house where he came to a hole big enough to swim through. He peered into the opening, only to stop short at the site of a giant fish about 8 feet long with a mouth 3 feet wide.

The diver just floated there, watching the fish, which didn't seem to notice him, before swimming away. And one of the most descriptive encounters came from a witness named Hannah in 2011. She claimed that she had seen a 10-foot-long snake with large scales and a mouthful of teeth swimming in the lake. Over the years, numerous theories about the creature have emerged. Some believe normie to be nothing more than a lake sturgeon, a type of fish that can grow up to 6.5 feet long and weigh as much as 200 pounds.

It's also possible that normie could be a freshwater eel, or just a humongous catfish. Fishermen have caught large Arkansas blue catfish in the lake before, and rumors have spread concerning the human-sized catfish lurking in the waters near the dam for almost 40 years. One of the more unlikely theories is that normie is actually an alligator, though there have been no definitive gator sightings in Lake Norman. They have wandered onto the banks of other nearby lakes before. But Lake Norman isn't a natural lake.

It's a product of industry. And so it's not out of the realm of possibility for normie to follow suit. Hydroelectric power isn't as clean an energy source as some might think. The coal ash produced by Duke Energy has contaminated the water to dangerous levels for residents who rely on it for their drinking water. The company tried to cover that up, but the truth came out at a 20,000-page report in 2018. If they were trying to hide the effects on the lake, what else were they hiding and

what might have their pollution done to the animals living there? According to one witness, their best friend's father had worked for the power plant nearby. He had talked about how the contractors hired to check the underwater equipment would refuse to go down there because of the giant fish waiting for them. It sounds like something out of a horror movie, a soulless corporation ruining the environment and mutating an innocent creature into a terrifying beast. But until whatever truly lies beneath the waters of Lake Norman has been officially identified, we're left with a frightening reality to swallow.

Anything it seems is possible. There's always an exception to the rule. Not all that slithers is cold-blooded. And North Carolina's lakes and rivers aren't the only places that are home to mysterious and terrifying creatures. In Irodel County, north of Charlotte, a beast has been seen by hunters and farmers dating back to the late 1800s. It has been known to emerge from the woods and make off with livestock, from plump pigs

to 1500-pound cows. It leaves behind nothing but bones and footprints in the dirt, and it's called the santa. Witnesses say that the santa is feline in appearance, with reddish or gray fur all over except for its bald head. It sees through a pair of beady eyes and moves on long, spindly legs. Its front feet are said to be webbed, and its rear feet are like bear's claws. In fact, one footprint that was found measured 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, although it was unclear whether it had come from the front or a back paw.

The santa is said to hunt with the help of a long, beaded tail with eight hard knots embedded throughout its length. When it finds something that it would like to eat, it swings the appendage and knocks out its prey before carrying it off. And those unlucky enough to have heard its cry have described the sound as the blood-curdling whale of an infant. Reports of the santa first started to appear back in 1890. The Statesville Landmark, a paper out of Irdell County, began tracking the creature's

sightings in a series of articles that referred to it as the Glutton. A police officer from Statesville reportedly shot at the Glutton one Thursday night near the fire department. It had been chasing a dog. According to the article, its tracks were seen Friday morning in the branch below Mr. Joe Young's blacksmith shop. The following day, a hunter named John Colbert encountered the creature's tracks while squirrel hunting.

But he had never seen anything like them in all his life as a hunter. And his hunting partner, J.W. Brown, believed them to be from a catamount, a large wild cat that used to roam throughout several eastern states and parts of Canada. Meanwhile, a man named Major Pendleton had been frying some fish at his home when the Glutton leapt from the trees and approached his house growling its sharp teeth on display. The stories about the mysterious creature attacking people and animals throughout the county continued to pour in. Clint Summers claimed that it had eaten several of his pigs while a Dr. Mott had lost 15 cows

to the beast's hunger. But where had it come from? Rumors spread that the beast had escaped from a sideshow in Greensboro, which had been offering a $200 reward for its capture and return. Although if that were true, it would have made the sideshow the only venue that wanted the Glutton to stay alive. Someone else in Irdell County was out for blood. A local tannery offered a $50 reward, as did the county commissioner.

The speculation grew as residents and law enforcement tried to make sense of all of its features. Was it really a catamount? Or maybe it was a cougar? Some believe that the Glutton was just an antelope on account of its long legs. The press eventually gave the creature its official name of Santa without any explanation of the name's origin or its meaning. And then on, that's just what it was called. Another outlet, the Carolina Watchman, had a theory more in line with a monster movie

than a scientific fact. It suggested that the Santa could have been an ancient creature from the Senezoic, Mesozoic, or Paleozoic eras that had somehow been preserved in the coal mines beneath Asheville until its accidental release, an idea that clearly has a Hollywood feel to it, I know. The legend of the Santa took a major twist in 1894, when a witness came forward with new information on its behavior. The witness had allegedly seen the Santa glowing and, I quote, in a luminous body shedding its radiant light for hundreds of yards around.

And then he went on to describe how it turned into a black dog. Sightings continued well into the 1930s. Locals told the papers all about how they had heard animals scuffling in the night only to find that the Santa had killed and eaten their family pets. There were even occasional claims from hunters that the beast had finally been killed. Then when the dead animals were examined with a closer eye, they would be revealed as nothing more than common owls and raccoons. And of course, without fail, the Santa would always be seen again, reappearing a short time

later to enjoy another impromptu meal. The world around us is full of dark corners, shadows that hold countless mysteries for us to whisper about. In a country as large as the United States, one that still holds as many countless acres of untamed wilderness as it does, it shouldn't be a surprise that the hills and forests are populated with creatures that sound more like fiction than fact. Folklore is one of the things that humans do best. We love to answer mysteries with stories of our own invention.

We love to explain the unexplainable with tales that delight and thrill. And when it comes to the monsters of North Carolina, they fit that trend perfectly. And of course, it wasn't uncommon for the newspapers of the time to fabricate sensational stories to boost their sales. Most of the reporting on the Santa was done by the Statesville landmark, so it was possible that they had invented the creature and then the folklore had taken on a life of its own. But that doesn't explain how a similar creature wreaked very real havoc in North Carolina in the 1950s.

It began in December of 1954 in the town of Gladdenboro, about 40 miles south of Fayetteville. A string of animal killings had gripped the local residents with fear after a farmer had spotted a cat-like creature snatching his dog and dragging it away into the underbrush. Pretty soon, other dogs went missing, and they were found later, dead, with all of their blood drained, and their heads crushed in. A month later, a woman named Mrs. Kinla went outside around 7.30 in the morning and saw a giant cat-like monster heading toward her. She fled into her house and told her husband, who fetched his shotgun and ran outside.

But by the time he got there, whatever it was, had disappeared. Hogs, cows, and goats started turning up dead shortly after, and the common description given of the unholy beast that had done it, it had reddish-brown fur and made a high-pitched whine like the cry of an infant. A mob of 800 people formed a hunting party and went in search of the creature. All they managed to kill was a bobcat, though, but based on its size, they weren't convinced that it had committed those heinous acts on all those dogs in livestock. What it was, we'll never know.

Because to this day, the beast of Gladdenborough has never been found. North Carolina is a big state with even bigger legends, and we're not quite done telling you about them. Click around through this brief sponsor break for one more creature from the Tarheel state. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. So here's a question for you. How much time do you spend on other people in a given week versus the time you spend on yourself?

And maybe more importantly, how do you balance the two? It's so easy to get so caught up in what everyone else needs from us that we never take a moment to think about what we need from ourselves. I'm guilty of this just about every single day thanks to the demands of work and family. When we spend all of our time giving, it can leave us feeling stretched thin and burned out, but therapy can give you the tools to find more balance in your life so that you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

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Your next step fueled by our expert advice because ATB sees possibilities. So what impossible thing will you do today? Close on a major business deal? Get your kids out the door on time? Try ATB and let's discover what's possible together. The Santa and the Beast of Bledenboro aren't the only cat monsters stalking parts of North Carolina. Among the mountains and dense brush is another animal, one that has captivated an entire

region for hundreds of years. Its name? The Wampus Cat. The Wampus Cat is actually one of a few cryptids that have been known to extend beyond one area of the country. The Wampus Cat is ubiquitous throughout the South and the Appalachia, with multiple high schools using it as their mascot. It's also known as the Galley Wampus in Missouri, the Whistling Wampus in Arkansas, and simply

the Wampus in Appalachia. Its ferocity is specific to its location, though. Some places fear the Wampus Cat as they do the Santa, while others treat it with a tongue-in-cheek playfulness. The North Carolina Wampus Cat has been described as a half-cat, half-dog creature capable of running on all fours or upright on its two hind legs. It stalks its prey at night and lets out a terrifying howl. Its eyes have been known to be either yellow or green, and the soul-piercing gaze has driven

people mad. Those who have encountered the Wampus Cat have usually done so by accident after wandering into a labyrinthine swamp on their way back to camp. RS McNeil, a writer for the outdoor periodical Field and Stream, once wrote, and I quote, The trail of a Wampus Cat is invariably marked with torn and uprooted trees, mangled brush and tufts of bloody fur. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the deadly nature of this animal. The author went on to say that even a stuffed and mounted Wampus Cat was capable of tearing

its owner apart. Now, as far as where the creature had come from, it was believed that the Wampus Cat had derived from Cherokee legends, although some experts claim that the stories had not originated with the Cherokee people, but rather they had been told by settlers about the Cherokee. In 1939, a version of the Wampus Cat story appeared in a book by Henry H. Tryon called Fierce and Critters. Rather than depict a feral murderous cat-like hell-beast, Tryon's idea was more of a whimsical and imaginative one.

He described the Wampus Cat as having tufted ears and a quilled hide that was, and I quote, the color akin to a Christmas necktie. And as if that mental picture wasn't cute enough, Tryon also peppered his folklore with factoids like, if a Wampus wades a stream, the fish won't bite for seven days, or females may be killed only with a cross-cut saw, the males practically indestructible. He also wrote that their footprints can only be seen in solid rock. Meanwhile, another local legend told of an old man who stepped outside one day and saw a Wampus Cat sitting on his chimney top.

He looked up and asked it what its shining eyes were for. The Wampus Cat answered, to look you through. The man then asked what its sharp claws were for, to scratch your grave, said the creature. And your long tail, asked the man, to sweep your grave, the Wampus said. And then the old man asked one final question. What are those sharp teeth for? The Wampus looked down at him. To chop your bones, it cried, as it pounced upon the man.

And just as with the Santa, the Wampus Cat is said to have been killing livestock since the first half of the 19th century all the way through to the present. Everyone, from farmers to television hosts, have reported seeing its glowing eyes and razor-sharp teeth. So, were these creatures really prowling the North Carolina wilderness and eating livestock with wild abandon? Or were they simply stories told to scare children and drive up newspaper sales? No one knows for sure, but clearly North Carolina is the state where we might find the answers.

But if you go looking, just be careful, you might not like what you find. This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Jenner Rose Nethercott. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. Information on all those things can be found over at LorePodcast.com.

And for fans of video content, Lore is also on YouTube. Each new episode is released alongside the podcast but in talking head style video format. Be sure to subscribe and leave a comment. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.