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Hello, fellow students of the supernatural! Have you been to the state of Massachusetts before?
It might not be the biggest place in the United States, but it's an area chock-full of history. From serving as the home for a variety of Indigenous Americans to its colonization in the 1600s all the way to our current day, this New England state has really carved out its place in the books, whether for major historic events happening here or for some of the many mysterious occurrences that keep cropping up.
That last bit is the topic of discussion today, of course. There's a good reason that Lovecraft set his books in New England: The place has got supernatural phenomena out the wazoo! But there are few places where it is more concentrated than in Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials, Hawthorne Hotel, Lizzie Borden's house... When all of these places are right in your backyard, it's really no wonder that there's so much mystery and paranormal activity.
If you're a procurer of the paranormal and have a hunger for the horrible like myself, Salem and Lizzie Borden are like child's play to you (not the movie—that was in Chicago). If you're looking for a road less traveled and haven't lived in southeastern Massachusetts, chances are you have never even heard of the Bridgewater Triangle.
The Bridgewater Triangle is an area first theorized to exist in the 1970s by cryptozoologist and fellow paranormal enthusiast Loren Coleman who referred to the region as a "window area of unexplained occurrences". Right along US-44, the Bridgewater Triangle is a ~200 square mile region whose approximate boundaries are formed by the points within Rehoboth, Abington, and Freetown.
This place has got it all. Imagine just about any paranormal phenomenon and, chances are, someone has either seen it or seen something like it in the Bridgewater Triangle. Locals see it as their own personal Bermuda Triangle and take great pride in living there.
Some legends that have cropped up around the Bridgewater Triangle include:
- UFOs
- Zombies or other raised dead
- Pukwudgies—the Triangle is sort of the home of these creatures
- Giant serpents
- Bigfoot—though some eyewitnesses say that they saw Bigfoot's corpse wash up on a river bank!
- Thunderbirds
- Willow-Wisps
- Spectral orbs of light
- And, of course, ghosts... ghosts... and MORE GHOSTS!
The Bridgewater Triangle is like if they made a paranormal wiki into a physical place. It really and truly has it all if you search long enough.
On top of just the popular legends that lurk here, several paranormal landmarks find their home in the Triangle. Take, for example, the Freetown-Fall River State Forest... over 5,000 acres of land... and so much of it is haunted! Among everything else in the forest, people have found odd situations ranging from several murders to mysterious escaped animals to cult activity. Additionally, a large boulder known as the Profile Rock lays within the forest. When viewed from the side, the shape of the rock looks just like a face:
It's said that the ghost of the Wôpanâak chief Annawan can be seen on some nights, sitting on the rock with his legs crossed and arms outstretched. Annawan is said to have received a lost belt of wampum from Metacom, or King Philip, here.
Speaking of Metacom, he ties in to one of the primary factors that Bridgewater Triangle specialist and paranormal investigator Jeff Belanger cites as the reason for the Triangle's existence. In 1675, Metacom's War (more commonly "King Philip's War") began. This ended up being the bloodiest war per capita in U.S. history. When the war ended, Metacom was beheaded and his head was displayed in Plymouth County on a stake for the 200 years following.
With a history like that, it's pretty easy to understand why some link this war to the continued presence of ghosts, creatures, and strange happenings. Belanger likened the event to a stain that you can't get out easily.
Belanger has also attempted to explain why the areas surrounding the Triangle are also seemingly filled with paranormal activity: Building off of Coleman's original theory, Belanger states that there isn't a harsh boundary to the triangle but, rather, that it is a hazy region that sometimes "seeps out" into the surrounding towns. That explains why so many people experience such weirdness in places like Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and the other areas of southeastern MA that lie outside the Triangle's boundaries.
That's all that I have for you all today! There's so much more to talk about, but it could hardly fit into a single post—on top of the fact that I only have so much time in the day to procrastinate doing schoolwork at my job!
Speaking of doing schoolwork, I think it's important to note that the school I go to is commonly believed to be within the Bridgewater Triangle! Unfortunately, I'm not close enough to take public transit to Bridgewater proper, nor do I have a car to avoid the struggle of taking buses and such over, but I can get to Taunton, a town that's pretty close to the middle of the Triangle. If I can find a friend to bribe into driving over to Bridgewater for a tour of some more paranormal sites, you all will be the first to know!
That said, in my time at this school, I've already experienced some odd paranormal activity. The culture around ghosts here is pretty vibrant all things considered, but I haven't quite found the people to get into contact with to learn all the ins and outs. Would you folks be interested in me talking more about my experiences? I might have a few photos lying around of odd things I've seen...
I'm getting ahead of myself though! I can't confirm yet what my next post will be about, but I'll definitely have something good for you all on Halloween.
Until next time, this has been The Winter Watcher!
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