Uwharrie Forest
Covering over 50,000 acres in Montgomery, Davidson, and Randolph Counties in North Carolina. Like many places of strange happenings, the Uwharrie Forrest has three rivers running through it: Uwharrie, Yadkin, and Pee Dee. Not to mention, the striking and mysterious Uwharrie mountains. Thousands of people visit the park every week and use it for a variety of things, from horseback riding to camping and everything in between. But some people know better than to enter the Uwharrie forest unaware.
Uwharrie Forest, like all good strange places, isn’t confined to just one legend. Instead, the area is rife with reporting of Bigfoot, ghost lights, ghosts, and unexplained happenings. While the area boasts beautiful hikes, camping spots, and more during the day…at night, it seems something shifts.
The Uwharries and surrounding areas were settled long before Europeans arrived in the Americas. It is surmised that it has been inhabited for ten thousands years, which is no surprise given the dense forests and lovely fresh waters. To this day their legacy and artifacts remain and are still being discovered. Things like arrowheads, pottery, campsites, and more.
In the late 1740s, German and Scot-Irish settlers started coming down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania and other areas looking for new lands to settle and farm. They found forests and rivers filled with game, the fur trade was popular, small towns were founded and, eventually, even gold was discovered.
And that was all before it became a national forest, though. And while there aren’t many widely circulated stories from these times, no doubt familial legends and superstitious rumblings remain.
But, for now, let’s get back to more of the spooky stuff.
According to the Courier-Tribune Ranger Mike Yates was on the graveyard shift many years ago what was then known as the “Interim Zoo,” while the North Carolina Zoo was being developed. “Looking out of the Security Office windows, Mike could see ground fog floating in like a ghost. His truck, parked beside the pond, was almost swallowed by the heavy fog.”
He went out to his truck to investigate, got in, and then decided to put it into reverse. As the lights flashed on he saw something that shocked him: an elderly woman. He did not see her before that moment.
Confronting her, he asked what she needed and she distantly said she was in the park to meet someone. That may have not been completely irregular…except that it was 3:00 am and she was dressed notably more formal than one would be for a trek through the forest.
Confused, but wanting to help Mike offered to take her to the gate. It was late and she would be safer with him. She complied quietly and got into the car. As they neared the gate, Mike was shocked…there was a seemingly impossibly old car parked right by the gate. The old woman exited his car and entered what he thought was her car.
Unsettled by the event and also worried about an older woman getting home so late in the night alone, Mike made the snap decision to follow her for a little bit. As he rode behind her, the road curved and the car, impossibly, vanished.
No sign, no trace, no nothing…and that is only one of the many sightings of potential ghosts or apparitions somehow, impossibly stuck in time.
Now that we’ve explored ghosts, it’s time to move onto one of the strange inhabitants of the forest: Bigfoot (or, at least, Bigfoot-like creatures).
Not all the encounters with this creature are visual encounters. In fact, they don’t seem to want to be seen. Often, strange reports of screaming, abuse to tents, missing food (especially candy bars), knocking, and even footprints are what people happen upon or experience.
According to Our State, “In 2008, Michael Greene saw a figure for a few seconds and had someone — or something — scuff his tent during a camping trip in the Uwharries. He heard breathing, deep and ominous, just outside his tent. He says it sounded like Darth Vader in Star Wars. The next year, Greene, 72, heard something again while camping. This time, it was a rustling in the woods. So, he turned on a thermal imager and digital video recorder right before midnight and left his campsite for two hours. He came back and found he had recorded a thermal image of a lumbering figure with long arms. According to Greene, the figure ate a Zagnut candy bar and took a squeaky toy that belonged to Greene’s grandchildren — a coiled rubber snake, nearly 3 inches tall.“
This infrared capture is known in the community as the Squeaky Thermal. To many in the Bigfoot World it is considered one of the most important pieces of potential proof for Bigfoot/Bigfoot-like creatures, captured in the last several decades.
Although the Uwharrie is one of the smallest National Parks, it is no doubt seeped in strange history and sightings.
The blog image comes from the Uwharrie National Forest Website