What Lurks in the Bridgewater Triangle?

They continued to close in, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold out. His son crouched behind him, cowering in his wife's arms as he died out of sight. More eyes than he could count stared into his own as he could see the fear, the sheer terror that filled them. How did things get this far? It felt like just yesterday he took over his father's place as chief of the Wampanno had tried. How hopeful he had been, thinking that he would be able to finally secure lasting peace between his people and the white men. He had been settling in many of his neighboring tribes territories, and one near his tribe was no different. Plymouth. That's what they called themselves, or was it their home. Either way, it was of little consequence. He had tried every means to prove to the new men that they were of no threat. First, he had tried to establish a trade agreement between the two of them, thinking that they would be unable to turn away from the materialistic goods. In addition, he even adopted their culture, from purchasing the types of clothes they wore to choosing a name in their honor King Philip, But it was not enough. The men just wanted more and more, and they became greedier and greedier. After years, they even forced him to surrender most of his tribe's armament and ammunition. Fearful of making things worse and more hostile than they had already evolved to be, he agreed that they were subject to English law without a fight. But no matter what he did, no matter what he conceded, it was never enough. Things had inevitably turned hostile between the two of them. He had tried to stand his ground and fight back, but unfortunately not only a year later, he was already stuck in this position. The sudden realization of tears running down his own cheeks quickly dragged him back to reality, leading his palms to brush them away before anyone else saw. He could not show weakness, he could not show fear. If he faltered, they faltered, and if he fell, they fell. That was not an option. If he was going to go out, then it would be as a fighter, not a coward. Turning away from his wife, he moved to stand, slowly, dragging himself out of the brown, murky water, one foot at a time, But as soon as he heard the sound of the horses, he knew what he had to do. They were there, weapons in tow, riding in large beasts that they seemed to take everywhere. Their numbers seemed to grow the closer they came. They got closer and closer. Their screams were growing louder and louder. Reaching for his weapons, panic fluttered in his chest when his hand grabbed nothing but a pile of soggy leaves. Now shaking, he fumbled around in the dark for his weapon, with nothing to guide him but the faint light of lanterns carried by the approaching men. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. They were close. He turned left right, squinting to try and see his weapon in the dark, and just when he thought it truly had disappeared, he could feel it, cool and smooth. It fit perfectly into his hand, as if it was calling out to him. Thank the Gods, now he had a chance. He could protect his loved ones and his followers. Finally he could, unsure of what it was. He looked down at himself to see what had happened, but it was of no use. It was too dark. The warmth slowly turned into pain, pained more intense than anything he had ever experienced in his entire life. It was then that he looked up so he could see the man that had cost him everything, and the eyes he met were the last pair he ever expected to see. It was him, the traitor, John Alderman, at least that's what they called him now. Their eyes only met for a second before both pulled away, and it was only then, by the light carried on John's beast, was he finally able to see his chest, blood soaked through his robes As he fell to his knees, Hans caught his head before he hid the soil, unaware of who was holding him. As he closed his eyes, the tears he had been holding back came flooding out all at once, like a damn being washed away by the strong currents of a river. He had failed every single one of his followers. While taking his dying breath, he cursed those men, and he cursed the land. It would never be peaceful or prosperous, and they would no suffering just like his people had. This land was going to pay. Chief Medicomet, or Chief Metacom, as he's known, is a narrator of our story, and he was a chief of the Wampanoac tribe. After the death of his father and older brother in sixteen sixty two, Medcom was thrust into the responsibility of being chief of his tribe. And after the European colonists came to America and got themselves into the indigenous territories, Medicom stepped aside and made multiple concessions to avoid violence breaking out between the two. Unfortunately, things took a hostile turn in sixteen seventy five and Medicom was forced to take action to prevent Puritan expansion. He brought forth what is now called King Philip's War, which was a losing battle to begin with, since not even a year later he found himself shot and killed in the Misery Swamp on August twelfth, sixteen seventy six. The shooter was a praying Indian named John Alderman, which means he was a Native American that converted to Christianity. That wasn't even the worst part. After his death, his wife and nine year old son were both sold into slavery in Bermuda. Metacom's body was cut into different pieces and his head was mounted onto the Pike at the entrance of Plymouth, Massachusetts for over two decades, and the rest of his body was cut into quarters and hung from trees, but his right hand was severed and given to Alderman as a trophy for his kill. Now, all of this is based on facts passed down by historians. But what about legend, Because as the legend goes, right before he took his dying breath, Meticon cursed the land that he once called his own, that land that was taken from him. That land is now home to nearly hundreds of strange and unexplainable occurrences. With that, I'd like to give you a warm welcome to the Bridge Water Triangle. My name is Edwin, and here is a dark memory located in southeastern Massachusetts, about thirty miles south of Boston. This area that covers about two hundred square miles, has seen more than its share of bloodshed and creepy sightings. And in this episode, we will delve into the haunted history that looms over this area. From a long list of uf Foux sightings to suppose it Bigfoot encounters in the nineteen seventies, I personally have no doubt that something is definitely wrong here. But what really caught my eye were two separate and rather bloody incidents that occurred. Starting in the late nineteen nineties, the police began to find a series of dead cows now dead livestock, like, what's so strange about that? Well, not only were they dead, but they were also mutilated, some almost completely drained of blood. And due to this rather alarming phenomenon, the police suspected that they were used in some sort of ritualistic killings in the area. When it comes to everything that has happened here, unfortunately this only skims the surface. You see. In late December of twenty fourteen, on the outskirts of Ames Noble Park, which is on the border near Brockton and Abington, Massachusetts, the bodies of two women were discovered. It was December twenty eighth, and they were found by a young man walking his dog in the woods that was close to his house. Needless to say, his morning was ruined when he stumbled upon a pile of severed body parts. In the local paper, the man stated, I saw something pink and I thought maybe it was a dead animal because there's lots of poaching back here, or maybe insulation because it was pink, and a lot of people dump trash back here. The severed parts included a foot, calf, part of an arm. The poor man was terrified because it seemed so recent. As he described for the reporters, he said, quote, when I saw it, I didn't want to stay around here that long because there was no rot to it. It was all chopped up. You could see the limbs, how nice and neat they were cut. The guy that put it there put a fold up chair on it and then put a bunch of wood on it so you can't see it from the main path. All I know is I didn't want to touch anything. I went in the house and told my sister and I dialed nine one to one. Police later identified the body on top as twenty year old Brockton local Ashley Milets, who had disappeared four weeks prior to the discovery of the bodies. The one on the bottom was identified as fifty one year old Linda Schufett, who had been living in Quincy, a neighboring town, when she disappeared all the way in July of the previous year. Both women had a history of heroin abuse and disappearing for length at a time, which is why their families weren't initially alarmed by their absence. Their killer was never found, and their case remains unsolved to this day. Not much was ever even inferred about possible suspects. Unfortunately, areas like this and the Freetown State Forest are home to many true crimes. This place is also home to many urban legends and stories passed on from people that live in or visit it. From the accident ledge that supposedly lures people to jump off, or the multiple reported sightings of apparitions lights phantom fires that appear here, the Bridgewater Triangle is full of ghosts and legends to explore. The first story that set out to me was the haunting of Taunted State Hospital, a place for the mentally ill. It began housing patients in eighteen fifty four. Some of its more famous residents included Anthony Santo and Honora Tappin, an Italian American man. Anthony Santo was taken in because he started having hallucinations after his brain was damaged from a severe case of scarlet fever. It was forcefully admitted, though, because his hallucinations had caused him to murder two of his cousins and year old girl by luring them into the woods and then killing them with the knife and stoning the little girl. As bad as he was, what was almost worse for the crimes committed by someone else who took an oath to not do harm, but apparently it meant very little to her. Honora Tappin, also known as Jolly Jane, was a nurse that worked at Taunted. She wasn't much of a nurse though if you asked me. She would conduct painful experiments on her patients and killed her landlord and even four elderly members of a family she worked for. Once she was finally arrested in nineteen oh one, she confessed to at least thirty one different murders. Talk about a real life nurse ratchet, but she wasn't the only one who wronged her patients. Reports of many other doctors and nurses torturing the residence quickly spread after the place was shut down. Unfortunately, the barbaric so called treatments that they use on the patients included submerging them in water, keeping them out in the cold for long periods of time, electroshock therapy, and plebotomies, so they're just terrible. It's no surprise with the gruesome events that the abandoned hospital has now become one of the most haunted locations in the Bridgewater Triangle. The Gost building, the ghost of a man in white is known to appear on the third floor, and people report seeing the spirit of an elderly man walking on the grass of the grounds from the woods during the night. People can hear banging, screams and moans from inside the building, or see hazes shadows in shapes of people inside the buildings stop it all off. Patients and staff tell stories of cult activity, from strange markings in the basement to suicides being made in the name of the devil. If you want to see for yourself whether or not these people are aligned, the grounds for the Taunton State Hospital in downtown taunted and still be visited today. Now, if you're dead set on absolutely not stopping at any of these locations and letting the Bridgewater Triangle be just a fleeting moment in your road trip, then make sure you don't stop for anything or anyone. Because countless of traveling drivers had told the story of a phantom hitchhiker with red hair on Route forty four. Not one person has had a good experience with this phantom, and all of their experiences seem to follow a specific formula. The radio plays softly in the background as you lean against your window to feel a nice, gentle breeze glide across your face. You've been driving for hours, and with the sky now pitch black, you're thinking it might be time for a coffee break, so you grip the steering wheel as you keep an eye out for any signs of a restant, and suddenly you see him. Standing on the side of the row is a man. Your headlights bounce off his long, ginger hair as he stands there, completely still alarmed. You glance at his clothes, a played flannel shirts, jeans, and boots. Well, how harmful could he possibly be? You start to slow down and notice that he's standing right under a marker that reads Rehobeth and Sea Conk Town Line. You pull over next to him and roll down your window. You attempt to make eye contact with him, but his dark, soulless eyes make he pulls yours away faster than you intended. Nervous, you try to make conversation, Hey man, are you okay? Do you need any help? Nothing? He just stands there and continues to stare at you. Sweatbeans start to form on your forehead. Listen, do you need to use my phone? Or can I give you a ride somewhere? Still nothing, although this time at the mention of a ride, he reaches for your back door and slides into the back seat, saying nothing. He looks at you in the rear view mirror. So where two? Still nothing creeped out. You slowly take your car out of park and start to drive forward. The next minute, you spend it in complete silence, the only noise being a radio. Suddenly, the radio starts to crack them. It jumps from station to station. What the hell? You whisper to yourself. You sigh, I notice that you can see your breath. A sudden drop in temperature sends chills down your spine. With everything happening, you become almost unaware of the stranger in your car until you hear it. It's laughter. It strikes a nerve. You still resist the urge to yell something you'll regret. You bite your lip and keep driving, but it starts getting louder. And louder, almost maniacal in character, which, like the joker freaked out, you finally blurt out, making sure to avoid looking at him. Look, man, you need to stop or get out of my car silence. Disturbed by the sudden change, you finally work up the nerve to look into your rear view mirror and slam on your brakes. Stunned, you just sit completely still. Your heart is practically beating out of your chest with anxiety. You glance at your back seat empty, not a trace of another living person inside the seat looks completely undisturbed. What just happened? Did you hallucinate the entire thing? I mean it is late, Yeah, that's probably it. You're just exhausted and neat a coffee, so you start driving again, trying to put the last ten minutes behind you. The next five minutes pass by smoothly and without incident. Begin to relax again and lean back into your seat, attempting to switch lanes. You glance into your side mirror. I wait to see the hitchhiker der Range smile looking back at you. Remember when we mentioned UFO sightings earlier, Well, the list is surprisingly long for one single area. Normally, when people imagine UFO sightings, this isn't the first place they think of, But in my opinion, there should be, starting all the way back before everyone knew what UFOs were. The first sighting was reported in both Roxbury and Bridgewater by multiple people in seventeen sixty. Fast forward a couple centuries to July third, nineteen seventy two. Not one, not two people, but at least twenty six people confirmed to have seen the triangular object in the sky near south Shore. Fast forward again two twenty eleven, police received twenty one separate reports of people seeing a sphear of fire in the night sky. Just what were they seeing? What was anyone seeing? And these aren't the only strange sightings that people ever ordered in the Bridgewater triangle. It was nineteen seventy two different police officers had a strength encounter it claimed it was a large creature in the woods and it looked very much like Bigfoot. In nineteen seventy one, another police officer claims to have seen a thunderbird. And what's a thunderbird? You may ask, Well, a thunderbird is a mythological creature from North American indigenous people's culture. It was considered one of the most powerful beings, and this was because it could create thunder by flapping its wings and lightning by flashing its eyes. Throughout this entire episode, it turns out that Native American culture plays a big part in the Bridgewater Triangle. Take the Dightoned Rock for example. It sits in Berkeley and weighs nearly forty tons. It was originally located in the riverbed of the Taunton River before it was moved in niineteen sixty three to a nearby museum to preserve it while they were constructing a dam. What made it fascinating were the strange carvings of different drawing symbols and writing. Historians identified them as petroglyphs, which are stone carvings that are made by pecking on the rock surface with the stone chisel and hammerstone. However, other than the fact that it was carved in around sixteen eighty, historians are pretty much unsure of its origins or meaning. No one has been able to decipher the language or culture the markings came from, but some do propose that it could either be from Native Americans or the Phoenicians. The good news about this, though, is that if you want to visit it, then you're in luck. It is still open to the public. Today, areas like the Bridgewater Triangle don't get as much media attention as some other locations in America. I'm not exactly sure why, but perhaps it should tell your friends to your family. Maybe it's kind of a friendly warning because one night, while driving around there, they too may find themselves driving on a dark road with nothing surrounding them, with the dim, foggy outline of a red headed hitchhiker. This episode of A Dark Memory was researched and written by madel Inguera and produced by me Edwinko Arrubias. If you know of a creepy event or mystery, send me an email at Hello at a dark Memory dot com or on our website of next be sure to check out the stories that I write over on Scary Story Podcast and find me on Instagram at Edwin Cove. That's e ed Wi nco V. Thank you very much for listening, See you soon.