Alli Palmgren is the Technology Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Alli’s column in the April 19, 2018 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.
A few months ago, my husband and I were having dinner at my sister’s house when my sister floated the idea of buying a family vacation property. We gave her some grief about buying a Kennedy-esque compound on Nantucket Sound so we could “summer,” until she said, “No, I’m serious. Let’s buy that Vermont house you always wanted. Life’s too short, let’s do it.”
This dinner conversation started us down the road (a loose term in this case) to cabin ownership. Over the next few weeks, we scoured the internet for available properties in the Northeast Kingdom, spoke to realtors, and had one memorable stay with a very kind, but very odd Airbnb host named Carl on a weekend trip to walk land and see houses. After some harrowing drives up steep grades and trying to get the feel for land buried beneath thigh-deep snow, we finally selected a rustic home at the end of a unpaved mountain road.
Our new abode is minutes from the best mountain biking New England has to offer, has an incredible view, was surprisingly affordable, and most importantly, has no cell coverage or high speed internet. It is the ultimate getaway…except that this area has a history that reads like an X-Files episode.
While trying to locate the phone number for the town clerk online, I found that an abandoned Air Force satellite tracking station occupies the summit of the mountain our new house sits upon. While this may not be exciting in itself, it is purported to be the first station to have detected the presence of a UFO that supposedly abducted Betty and Barney Hill in while they were driving along Rt. 3 outside of Lincoln, NH (now the site of a historical marker detailing their claims).
Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of suspicious activity on the mountain, which ultimately included two tragic deaths. Researching these events got me thinking about how every community has its own strange history. Luckily, there are oodles of resources on the topic.
The first book I picked up, Fantastic Folklore and Fact: New England Tales of Land and Sea by Edward Rowe Snow, deals with classic New England lore. Even familiar stories, like that that of the Willey disaster or of Lizzie Borden were riveting. It isn’t a new or pretty book, but neither are the stories and they are still as spine-tingling as ever.
For a more lighthearted tour of some of the strange things that New England has to offer, I took a book off of my own shelf, Weird New England: Your Travel Guide to New England’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Joseph A. Citro. This title covers everything from the paranormal, to ancient mysteries, to the best roadside attractions. This one is a local road trip must have.
In an effort to understand why I was so unsettled by the idea of living just down the mountain from a site that supposedly was home to paranormal activity, I took a look at Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture by Christopher D. Bader. This book does not look to prove of disprove the existence of any of these things, it is an examination of the people that do believe and the impact their belief has on their lives and society as a whole.
I couldn’t write about unexplained occurrences or even things that go bump in the night without recommending my favorite podcast, Lore. Host, Aaron Mahnke, tells creepy true stories in each episode, with many set in New England. If podcasts are as mysterious to you as little green men, please make an appointment with me and I would be happy to help you get started.
For the record, I wasn’t kidding about this place being able to supply the X-File with plot lines. The episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” was based on the “abduction” incident involving Barney and Betty Hill. Check out The X-Files, the complete third season to watch the episode. While I have really enjoyed delving deep into the local lore of the area, I am happy to report that not much has happened in this little corner of Vermont in the past couple of decades, which suits me just fine.
