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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.

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Speaker 2: Author Mark Munsey with Us has written many books on

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Speaker 2: the topic of sci fi and horror. Host the Eerie

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Speaker 2: Travels podcast. Mark has been featured in many documentaries, including

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Speaker 2: the Course of Robert, the Hunt Doll in the Trail

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Speaker 2: of UFOs. Mark, welcome back. How have you been?

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Speaker 3: Oh great, good to hear you again. George. It's been

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Speaker 3: a while, so it is.

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Speaker 2: You concentrate a lot on Florida, but you're moving a

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Speaker 2: little bit into the Tennessee North Carolina area, now.

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Speaker 3: Huh, Yeah, the Appalachians called me back. I grew up

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Speaker 3: in West Virginia Kentucky area, right on that border, and

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Speaker 3: so that was the folklore of my youth. We moved

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Speaker 3: down to Florida. I was there for three decades or more.

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Speaker 3: But as I was doing these Florida stories, I kept

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Speaker 3: stumbling on all these wonderful Appalachian folk tales and the

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Speaker 3: cryptids up there, and more and more of the bigfoot

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Speaker 3: hunters and ghost hunters. We're talking about these amazing places

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Speaker 3: all along that. So that became my focus for the

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Speaker 3: next five years and now really deep diving into the Smokies.

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Speaker 3: And I've even moved here. I'm now in western North

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Speaker 3: Carolina in the Hills of the Smokies.

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Speaker 2: So I've got a live show coming up in April

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Speaker 2: in the Charlotte, North Carolina. It's a gorgeous area.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we love Charlotte. That's about mid state. It's a

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Speaker 3: beautiful We did a recent event, there was a Bigfoot

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Speaker 3: event over there that was a lot of fun. So

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Speaker 3: hopefully head back that way soon. We'll hope to catch

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Speaker 3: your show.

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Speaker 2: So absolutely. Now You've got a book coming out in

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Speaker 2: August called The Eerie Travel Presents Dark Side of the

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Speaker 2: Smoky Mountains, Right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what we've been working on for a couple

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Speaker 3: of years now. And my co host of the Pie Cast,

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Speaker 3: Eric Alance, She's chiming in on this one with fun

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Speaker 3: places to eat and fun places to visit while I'm

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Speaker 3: doing all the deep dives on all the spooky you

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Speaker 3: know and crazy stuff with the folklore, the legends, the cryptids,

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Speaker 3: the ghosts, all that fun stuff. And then my lovely

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Speaker 3: wife Carrie Schultz illustrating it like always.

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Speaker 2: How scary are the appellations.

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Speaker 3: Oh, if you really start deep diving into this, you

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Speaker 3: find that it is probably one of the darkest places

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Speaker 3: on the planet. I mean, it's the oldest mountain range

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Speaker 3: in the world. Everybody thinks of the Himalayas, the Rockies

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Speaker 3: and all that. The reason the appalations are kind of

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Speaker 3: smaller is they've been worn down by years, and so

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Speaker 3: there are these There are places here. One of the

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Speaker 3: forests is live in is the not Tahilia Forest, which

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Speaker 3: means land of the Noonday Sun, because at noon's the

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Speaker 3: only time the sun hits certain spots in these valleys

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Speaker 3: and these hollers and coves. And that's why there's so

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Speaker 3: many dark history and so many dark legends. And then

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Speaker 3: there's so much national forest out there that there are

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Speaker 3: things out there that we may never find, and that's

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Speaker 3: why it's beautiful. It's the last true wilderness.

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Speaker 2: Mark has sent us about six illustrations that we've got

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Speaker 2: on the Coast to Coast dam dot com highlight Reel website.

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Speaker 2: Just go take a look at some of those. Some

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Speaker 2: of those are pretty down scary.

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Speaker 3: Mark, Yeah, some are pretty creepy. We've got One of

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Speaker 3: my favorites is the lightning lady, which is a fun

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Speaker 3: story out of a place called Cade's Cove, which is

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Speaker 3: a pretty popular tourist spot. It's right in the near

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Speaker 3: towns in Tennessee. They call it the Sleepy side of

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Speaker 3: the Smokies. It's before you get to Bidge and Forge

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Speaker 3: and Gatlinburg and all the touristy spots. And they've preserved it.

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Speaker 3: It's like a historical area with old buildings and cabins

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Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And there was this legend of

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Speaker 3: this church there where a bride was being married and

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Speaker 3: on her wedding day, out of the blue sky she

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Speaker 3: got struck by lightning and died. And then these people

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Speaker 3: growing up in that area are terrified of it. And

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Speaker 3: there's this one lady who is so terrified of it

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Speaker 3: that she refuses to knit with metal needles, and she refuses,

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Speaker 3: he refuses to have metal furniture in her house, and

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Speaker 3: to the point where her husband's not allowed to have

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Speaker 3: a metal bed. And finally she gets sick, starts failing health,

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Speaker 3: and she tells her husband, look, you're gonna have to

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Speaker 3: remarry after I go, but never have any metal furniture

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Speaker 3: in the house. And he's like, okay. She dies and

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Speaker 3: he gets a new bride, and the new bride's like,

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Speaker 3: oh no, all this wood furniture's got to go. I

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Speaker 3: need a it's not comfortable. So he gets a metal bed,

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Speaker 3: and sure enough, a few days later, the young bride

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Speaker 3: is kicked out of bed in the night by an

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Speaker 3: unseen force and the bed is struck by lightning. So

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Speaker 3: now there's two lightning ladies of Cade's cove. And when

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Speaker 3: we went there to study the story, the park rangers

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Speaker 3: were asking him about it, and he says, funny, there's

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Speaker 3: something I need to show you. And he walks us

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Speaker 3: a little ways away from the from the church, and

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Speaker 3: there's a rock there that is covered in soot and

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Speaker 3: you touch it and he brushes it off and you

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Speaker 3: realize it's a copper vein, and he's like, and it

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Speaker 3: just gets repeatedly struck, struck by lightning. It's like a

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Speaker 3: natural lightning rod. So maybe that's why these ladies were

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Speaker 3: struck by lightning, as they were just so close to this,

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Speaker 3: you know, rock vein there.

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Speaker 2: So why does that area mark seem to be so

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Speaker 2: mysteriously haunted?

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Speaker 3: I think think I got to go back with the

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Speaker 3: whole John Keel and the Mothman prophecies that there's just

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Speaker 3: these windows that he called them, these hot spots, you know,

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Speaker 3: like the Bermuda Triangle or up near Point Pleasant, West

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Speaker 3: Virginia and all that, And that's part of the Appalachians.

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Speaker 3: I think the Appalachians, and this particularly the Smokies, they

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Speaker 3: have that the reason they're called the Smokies is that

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Speaker 3: mist that rises from them. It's a natural phenomena, but

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Speaker 3: maybe it's just triggering things. Plus, there's so many caves

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Speaker 3: and minerals. I mean, this was the gym capital of

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Speaker 3: the world, so there's crystals everywhere, constant crystal mining and

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Speaker 3: all that. So it's it's just I think that's what

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Speaker 3: triggers it all. There's there's there's more. I'm sure there's

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Speaker 3: science here that we don't understand.

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Speaker 2: Tell me the methodology you use to research the upcoming book.

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Speaker 3: Well, first things first is collecting stories. I talked to

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Speaker 3: a lot of local historians, but then I also talked

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Speaker 3: to Cherokee storytellers Cherokee historians, because they're you know, they're

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Speaker 3: big in this area. That's where they this was the

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Speaker 3: land they called home before we got here. But then

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Speaker 3: I also get out and go out with bigfoot hunters

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Speaker 3: and ghost hunters and UFO hunters, and I get their

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Speaker 3: stories and the places they the hotspots that they like

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Speaker 3: to go to, and then I'll tie all that in

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Speaker 3: with folklore and then true history. I'll dig into the

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Speaker 3: newspaper archives, historical societies and somehow I try to get

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Speaker 3: a piece it all together and get what I think

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Speaker 3: is an accurate representation of the hotspot or the legend.

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Speaker 2: Well, with Mark Munsey, we're talking about a haunted area

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Speaker 2: around the Appellachians, and we're going to get into a

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Speaker 2: lot of different things that have been happening out there.

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Speaker 1: What would you.

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Speaker 2: Say, Mark, might have been the scariest moment for you

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Speaker 2: when you were doing your research.

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Speaker 3: There's a row road in the Smokies that's called the

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Speaker 3: Tail of the Dragon. It's pretty famous. It's a lot

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Speaker 3: of motorcycle people and people with fancy cars love to

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Speaker 3: drive it because there's three hundred and eleven turns in

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Speaker 3: eleven miles. It winds through the Smoky mountains and it's

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Speaker 3: pretty high up and there are some deep cliffs right

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Speaker 3: next to the road, and a lot of people die

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Speaker 3: on this road. It's probably one of the most depths

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Speaker 3: in the United States every year on that road because

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Speaker 3: people always try to take it at record speeds and

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Speaker 3: all that. So it's a very dangerous road. And we

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Speaker 3: were on that looking for a story of a ghost writer,

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Speaker 3: like right out of the Marvel comic books, a skeletal headed,

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Speaker 3: headless horseman, but on a motorcycle. But while we were

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Speaker 3: on it, sure enough, we very close to falling off

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Speaker 3: of a cliff. So that was pretty terrifying, and I

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Speaker 3: think the real scare sometimes are scarier than any legend.

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Speaker 2: What is Spearfinger? What was that?

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Speaker 3: Okay, Spearfinger is one of those If you ask the

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Speaker 3: Cherokee about Spearfinger, they speak about her in hush tones.

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Speaker 3: She is the stone Witch, a shape changing creature of

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Speaker 3: ancient times that would has a very long finger that

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Speaker 3: was like a dagger, and she was made of stone,

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Speaker 3: and then she would steal your liver like Hannibal Lecter

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Speaker 3: Stylehe and the Cherokee actually banded together. Several villages that

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Speaker 3: had been at war with each other banded together to

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Speaker 3: hunt this lady. She would turn into an old lady,

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Speaker 3: or she would turn into a beautiful lady, and she

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Speaker 3: would infiltrate your family or your village and slowly kill

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Speaker 3: everybody by drinking their livers. So they actually had to

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Speaker 3: fight to stop her and the Ninaway, which are basically

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Speaker 3: like the higher beings of the Cherokee. They sent birds

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Speaker 3: to warn the warriors on where to strike her because

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Speaker 3: she was so impervious to weapons. And the titmouse comes

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Speaker 3: in and says, you know, cries to kill her in

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Speaker 3: the heart, but they keep shooting her heart. It's bouncing off.

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Speaker 3: They didn't realize her heart was in her hand. So

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Speaker 3: they send down the Carolina chickadee, and the chickadee points

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Speaker 3: to her hand and says he or here, and that's

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Speaker 3: where they are able to kill her supposedly, but her

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Speaker 3: spirit still haunts the land. But that's why the Carolina

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Speaker 3: chickty is supposed to be good luck. When you go

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Speaker 3: on a trip, If you see a Carolina chickadee, you're

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Speaker 3: gonna come back safe. So do that before you go

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Speaker 3: on the tail of the dragon. That's what I recommend.

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Speaker 2: Well marks wild as these stories are, there's got to

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Speaker 2: be some basis of truth behind the folklore, don't you think?

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Speaker 3: I one hundred percent agree? I think Spearfinger there is

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Speaker 3: real fear there when people talk about it, and if

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Speaker 3: you start looking into it, you realize the story of

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Speaker 3: Spearfinger is very similar to what we you know, the

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Speaker 3: Navajo called skinwalkers. It's very similar to stories that the

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Speaker 3: Apache had and the Creek and all these other Indians

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Speaker 3: and Native Americans. They had these same legendary creatures that

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Speaker 3: they were terrified of and had a dozen ways of

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Speaker 3: protecting themselves from. To them, these aren't stories. This is

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Speaker 3: history they did, you know, this is how they kept it.

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Speaker 3: And I think that there's something to it.

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Speaker 2: Something happened to these people for them to come up

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Speaker 2: with this kind of crazy, outrageous story. And I think

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Speaker 2: you're absolutely right, there was. There's some truth to all this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the Ninawe stories and they're almost when you start

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Speaker 3: hearing about them, it blends in with stories of the Ananaki,

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Speaker 3: the stories of the angels and the higher beings and

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Speaker 3: possibly aliens. When you start really looking into it and

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Speaker 3: you're like, Okay, this fits right in with ancient aliens,

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Speaker 3: This fits right in with some of these other stories,

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Speaker 3: and it's just that's that's that's their version.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to go through a list of these creatures

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Speaker 2: with you, Mark, and you can explain them to us.

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Speaker 2: The next one, who were the moon eyed people of

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Speaker 2: the Cherokee?

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Speaker 1: What was that?

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Speaker 3: That's right there. So the Cherokee talk about a race

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Speaker 3: of people who lived here before they got here, and

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Speaker 3: they said that they were pale skinned with blue eyes,

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Speaker 3: and that they were so unaccustomed to bright lights that

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Speaker 3: like they lived in caves maybe or something like that.

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Speaker 3: And they if you go to North Georgia, the Blue

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Speaker 3: Ridge kind of south of the Smokies, but still the

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Speaker 3: same sub range, there's a wall of stones there. And

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Speaker 3: the Cherokee elders back in the eighteen hundreds were telling

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Speaker 3: us that, oh, these we were built by the moon

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Speaker 3: eyed people. And it's like a three foot wall. It's

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Speaker 3: hundreds of feet long of stone stacked up in the

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Speaker 3: middle of nowhere on this mountain hill. And there's some

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Speaker 3: effigy mounds there, and they said the moon eyed people

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Speaker 3: made them, and that they went to war with the

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Speaker 3: moon eyed people and chased them into the earth. And

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Speaker 3: if you go to Murphy, North Carolina, there's actually an

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Speaker 3: effigy carving of what they call the moon Eyed people.

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Speaker 3: And if you look at that statue, it looks an

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Speaker 3: awful lot like we would call gray aliens today. It's

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Speaker 3: a crazy story, and maybe we drove them into the earth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, are some of the stories

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Speaker 2: that we were going to be talking about tonight's still occurring?

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Speaker 3: There are, yes, there are many that are still sighted

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Speaker 3: and there are many that bigfoot hunters going out looking

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Speaker 3: for bigfoot stumble on some of these things. And then

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Speaker 3: ghost hunters going out for ghosts sometimes stumble on other

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Speaker 3: things that they weren't expecting. So it's I think that's

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Speaker 3: what happens with everything. When you're looking for something, might

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Speaker 3: come across something that you didn't expect. So never really

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Speaker 3: just never put on your blinders right, keep open, keep

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Speaker 3: an open mind for everything when you're out there.

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Speaker 2: Let's pop over to Ashville for a moment. What's the

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Speaker 2: story of the haunting of Chicken Alley?

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Speaker 3: Oh, this is one of those. Ashville is full of haunts.

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Speaker 3: I think it doesn't get enough credit. I think it's

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Speaker 3: like Saint Augustine or Savannah or even Washington, d C.

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Speaker 3: With all the ghosts and everything. Ashville has its own

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Speaker 3: set of crazy ghosts. And one of my favorites is

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Speaker 3: this one. There's a road in downtown Ashville. They call

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Speaker 3: it Chicken Alley because there were always chickens there and

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Speaker 3: there were also several brothels there back in the day,

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Speaker 3: Asheville was kind of like the wild West in its

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Speaker 3: early days, and there was a doctor there who tended

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Speaker 3: to the poorer people and liked to tend to the

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Speaker 3: people with social issues and stuff like that that hung

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Speaker 3: out in these bars and brothels. I think he also

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Speaker 3: liked to participate there. He was noted for his top

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Speaker 3: hat and his cane, and one time there was a

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Speaker 3: bar fight and he got in the middle of it

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Speaker 3: to try to protect people and got stabbed and killed. There.

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Speaker 3: He was murdered several He stabbed several times, and his

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Speaker 3: murderer got away. And his spirit is still seen today

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Speaker 3: in Chicken Alley, walking with that cane and knocking on doors.

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Speaker 3: And the best part is is every once in a

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Speaker 3: while he bends down and pets a ghost chicken that's

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Speaker 3: still seen there. So I love that there's a big

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Speaker 3: mural of a giant chicken that when you're dry, when

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Speaker 3: you walk down that alley, there's a big mural of

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Speaker 3: it there, so can't miss it.

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Speaker 1: I love it.

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Speaker 2: And now what's chicken manga battlefield.

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Speaker 1: What is that?

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Speaker 3: Well? All right, So one of the bloodiest battles of

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Speaker 3: Civil War was right outside Chattanooga again, Blue Ridge Mountains,

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Speaker 3: the foothills of the Smokies. They the Battle of Lookout Mountain.

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Speaker 3: They called it the Battle of was it the Battle

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Speaker 3: above the Clouds because it was so high and it

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Speaker 3: was the Smokies were kind of doing their thing. But

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Speaker 3: it's also right under Rock City. You remember those old

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Speaker 3: Sea Rock City signs and all that. But they had

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Speaker 3: a creature that wasn't just like a Civil War ghost there.

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Speaker 3: I mean, they've got plenty of those there. They've got

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Speaker 3: a lady in white, they've got you know, go fantom

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Speaker 3: brigades and all this. But there was supposedly the night

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Speaker 3: of the battle, we're talking thousands of dead, many more

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Speaker 3: wounded and just littering the field from both sides of

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Speaker 3: the Civil War. And this creature with long, scraggly hair,

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Speaker 3: almost like a vampire, you know, just strolling amongst the

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Speaker 3: dead and draining them of their life or their blood.

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Speaker 3: And it had giant green eyes, and so he's called

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Speaker 3: Old Green Eyes. And people in that park, which is

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Speaker 3: now a National park, still see this thing, and it's

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Speaker 3: there's park rangers who have talked to us about, Oh

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Speaker 3: they're encounter with Old Green Eyes. They have to be

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Speaker 3: off the record, and we'll go on the record and

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Speaker 3: say it, but they'll talk about it. But they even

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Speaker 3: have an Old Green Eyes Festival now in Chattanooga every

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Speaker 3: October because they saw how much money Mockman Festival makes

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Speaker 3: up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. So they got to

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Speaker 3: have their own now.

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Speaker 2: So now there's a road that apparently goes nowhere in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the Smokies. What's that all about?

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Speaker 3: Okay, So Fontana Dam, which was made famous by the

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Speaker 3: great movie The Fugitive where he does the big jump

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Speaker 3: off the dam. It was built in the middle of

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Speaker 3: the Smoky Mountains and there's a lot of history behind it.

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Speaker 3: Most famously it was built to power Ashville, but it

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Speaker 3: was also secretly built during the War to power what

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Speaker 3: would become the Manhattan Project. It was the secret building

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Speaker 3: place right thinks south west and the desert. No, we

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Speaker 3: were building it in North Carolina up until they tested

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Speaker 3: it way out in the desert. But so this dam,

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Speaker 3: they built it up and they had to flood several towns.

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Speaker 3: They had to chase people away. So there was a

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Speaker 3: lot of emminent domain forcing people off their farms that

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Speaker 3: they'd had for generations. Some of these families have been

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Speaker 3: there since the Revolutionary War. And to make it up

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Speaker 3: to them, they promised they would build them this big

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Speaker 3: new highway that would take them to where they could

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Speaker 3: still access their old graveyards, they could still access the mountains. Well,

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Speaker 3: after about five years of building it, they just stop.

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Speaker 3: And so it's this big highway that ends in a

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Speaker 3: tunnel that just goes nowhere, and so they do call

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Speaker 3: it the road to nowhere. And there are many many

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Speaker 3: stories where that tunnel just ends, it goes in a trail.

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Speaker 3: You can still get out to those old cemeteries in

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Speaker 3: the old sunken towns or half sunken towns, the town

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Speaker 3: of Proctor most famously, you can when the water's low.

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Speaker 3: You can sometimes see the church steeples still up. But

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Speaker 3: there's also strange unusual lights that walk along there, you know,

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Speaker 3: like walking along the shore.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast am every weeknight at

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Speaker 1: one am Eastern and go to Coast to coastam dot

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Speaker 1: com for more