Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Legendary Places in the US





Hey legend trippers,
       One of my favorite things to do during my vacation trips is to look for those odd mysterious road side attractions along the way. My wife said that I’m the ultimate tourist and I can’t drive by one of those places without stopping to look. There are a whole lot of mysterious places on this planet. Heck there are a whole lot of them in the United States and Canada. If you don’t believe me just look it up on the internet. Now when it comes to legend tripping I always like the mysterious places that are free or not expensive to go see. In this post, I picked out some of my favorite mysterious places. Most of them you have heard of, some of them maybe not.
The first one I want to talk about is Pennsylvania’s Ringing Rocks Park. In this unique place, located deep in the woods of Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania, is a large field of mysterious boulders that, when struck, sound like bells, as if they are hollow and made of metal. Each summer, hundreds of visitors flock here, hammers in hand, to perform their own “rock concerts”. While scientists have determined the stones are made from a volcanic substance called diabase, there’s no explanation for their unusual ringing properties, nor for the eight-acre field itself, which is situated high on a hillside, not at the bottom, ruling out that it may have been formed by a glacier or avalanche. This is the only place on earth where this phenomenon happens.  
I’ve visited this incredible place during my visits to Pennsylvania. It is free to visit the site, but you need to bring your own hammer. There is also a waterfall near the rocks.
The next mysterious place is Coral Castle. Made from 1,100 tons of megalithic-style limestone boulders—some heavier than the Pyramids’ and bigger than those at Stonehenge—this unusual structure, located in the town of Homestead, just 25 miles south of Miami, built from 1923 to 1951 by a single man, a diminutive Latvian immigrant named Edward Leedskalnin, as an homage to the love of his life who left him on the eve of their wedding. But how did he do it? Leedskalnin claimed he knew the secret to the Great Pyramids’ construction, and was once witnessed levitating stones. Other construction details—no mortar, precision seams, impossible balancing acts—have also stumped scientists for decades. This mysterious place has been featured on numerous television shows like “In Search of”, “Unsolved Mysteries”, “That’s Incredible” to name a few. The price for admission is $15.00 for adults and $7.00 for children. There are holiday special deals to I recommend you check before visiting.
Mount Shasta is located right outside of Redding, California, lies this beautiful and stunning snow-capped peak, which is part of the Cascade Mountain range. The mountain located 60 miles south of the Oregon border, has long been considered one of the planet’s great “cosmic power spots,” luring everyone from Native Americans to Buddhist monks and hippies.

This mountain of mystery is has long been a hotbed for legends and the unexplained. Along with numerous UFO sightings, there are stories of alien races living inside the mountain in underground bases. The two alien races associated with the mountain are the Lemurians, surviving members of a sensitive super-race some believe existed 12,000 years ago during the time of Atlantis and the Reptilians. The idea of aliens living in Mount Shasta was used by author Alexander H Keys for his book “Escape from Witch Mountain” with Mount Shasta being changed to Witch Mountain. There are tales of lost treasures and crystal caves in the mountain's long history. There has also been numerous Bigfoot sightings along the mountain, making it a hotbed for crytpozoologists.  There are numerous hiking trails along the mountain. Unfortunately there are also reports of missing persons, so don't go there unprepared or alone. The mountain's mysterious past was featured on the popular television show “Ancient Aliens”.
The Winchester Mystery House is without a doubt the creepiest house in Silicon Valley. It was built in 1884, and was built by Winchester Gun heiress Sarah Winchester – widow of William Wirt Winchester, son of the first president of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. For over a forty year period, construction continued up until 1922 when Miss Winchester died. A veritable hive of 160 rooms, the mega mansion is a 6-acre labyrinth of false doors and stairs that lead absolutely nowhere – ad-hoc additions reportedly made by Winchester to confuse the evil spirits of people shot and killed by the firearms of her dead husband's namesake. There are tours offered daily and an annual ghost investigation during the month of October. The price is $26.00 for admission with price specials on holidays.
Bell Witch Cave is mysterious cave and is located in Adams, Tennessee near where the Bell Farm once stood. The cave is approximately 490 feet long and has been associated with the famous Bell Witch haunting of 1804. It was during this period that paranormal events happened to the Bell Family which some say was caused by the Bell Witch. The cave is located on property once owned by the Bell family. Many believe that when the witch departed, she fled to the sanctuary of this cave. In the particular legend in which the cave is featured, young Betsy Bell and some of her friends had gone to explore the cave. While they were there, one of the boys crawled into a hole and became stuck. A voice cried out, "I'll get him out!". The boy felt hands grasping his feet, and he was pulled out of the hole. The Bell Witch (still invisible), then gave the young explorers a lecture on reckless cave exploring.
There has been no written evidence to back up this story on the cave, but ghost hunters have been conducted investigations in the cave with surprising results. One group filmed mist that mysterious appeared out of nowhere and was caught on film. There is a replica of the Bell family cabin nearby where the poltergeist incident happened. The price for the tour of the cave is $12.00 or $18.00 for both the cave and the cabin. The cave was featured on the popular paranormal show “Ghost Adventures”.
 
Oregon Vortex This curious site in southern Oregon has attracted visitors since the 1930s. Measuring 165 feet in diameter and is known for producing intense feelings of vertigo. Native Americans referred to it as Forbidden Ground. Here, balls roll uphill, brooms stand on end, and people appear to grow and shrink inside its centerpiece, a former gold mining outpost called the House of Mystery.
The Vortex’s strange phenomenon is well documented, and animals still refuse to enter its sphere. Skeptics state that the whole thing is an optical illusion with other mystery houses around the United States using the same gimmicks as the Oregon Vortex. This is not true. Not all the strange things that happen there are seen in other mystery houses or can be logically explain. Which is why every year thousands of visitors come to the Oregon Vortex. The average price of admission is $12.50 for adults, children 6-11 years of age is $9.00 with 5 and younger are free. The attraction has been featured on “That’s Incredible”, “SyFy’s Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files” and “Ancient Aliens”.  
Roanoke Island: is an island in Dare County on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States. It is known the abandoned settlement as "The Lost Colony." The island was named after the historical Roanoke Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English exploration. In 1587, the English again tried to settle Roanoke Island. John White, father of the colonist Eleanor Dare, and grandfather to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, left the colony to return to England for supplies. He expected to return to Roanoke Island within three months. Instead, with England at war with Spain, all ships were confiscated for use of the war efforts. White's return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590, by which time all the colonists had disappeared. The settlement was abandoned.
The only clue White found was the the letters "CRO" and the word "CROATOAN"  carved into two trees . Before leaving the colony three years earlier, White had left instructions that, if the colonists left the settlement, they were to carve the name of their destination, with a Maltese cross if they left due to danger.
"CROATOAN" was the name of an island to the south (modern-day Hatteras Island), where a native tribe friendly to the English was known to live. Colonists might have tried to reach that island. However, foul weather kept White from venturing south to search on Croatoan for the colonists, and he returned to England. White never returned to the New World. Unable to determine exactly what happened, the fate of the people is become a source of legend. The price for a tour of the original settlement and museum is $10.00 for adults and $7.00 for children.
Georgia Guide stones is a granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia. The structure is sometimes referred to as an "American Stonehenge". In June 1979, an unknown person or persons under the pseudonym R. C. Christian hired Elberton Granite Finishing Company to build the structure.  A set of 10 guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages (English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.

3. Unite humanity with a living new language.

4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.

5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

8. Balance personal rights with social duties.

9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.

10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

A shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient language scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
To the west of the monument, an additional granite ledger has been set level with the ground. This tablet identifies the structure and the languages used on it, lists various facts about the size, weight, and astronomical features of the stones, the date it was installed, and the sponsors of the project. Each side of the tablet is perpendicular to one of the cardinal directions, and is inscribed so that the northern edge is the top of the inscription. At the center of each tablet edge is a small circle, each containing a letter representing the appropriate compass direction (N, S, E, W). It also speaks of a time capsule buried under the tablet, but spaces on the stone reserved for filling in the dates on which the capsule was buried and is to be opened have not been inscribed, so it is uncertain if the time capsule was put in place. The guidestones were featured on Travel Channel’s "Mysteries at the Museum” and History Channel's "Brad Meltzer's Decoded".  Brad Meltzer contained that the guidestones may have been intended as a message to the possible survivors of a World War III as the stones were built in 1979 at the height of the Cold War. The engraved suggestion to keep humanity's population below 500 million could have been made under the assumption that it had already been reduced below this number. Though the monument is free to go visit, there are security cameras set up to deter any more acts of vandalism on the stones, which unfortunately has happened numerous times.  
Remember legend trippers, there is a whole lot of mysterious places to visit. Now get up and go out and see them.

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