| Shades of Death Road |
| "As the legend goes this miserable young guy lost his girl, his job, his dog, his keys etc...so he hung himself at the lowest point of the road from one of the trees that formed the canopy. He wasn't found for days. Now his spirit haunts there and if you're driving at night don't stop or someone or something will start chasing you. I have heard extreme cases of cars not starting in the basin, or people getting out of their car and hearing footsteps or unexplained breathing. In the 80's and early 90's rumors flew about devil worshipping going on there." (From http://urbanlegendsonline.com) Now for those of you familiar with us, and our investigations, there is one thing that we love almost as much as investigating paranormal phenomena, and that is urban legend debunking. This location was brought to our attention by two different people actually, via the web. The first thing that caught our attention was obviously the name of the road. However, Shades of Death Road actually is the real name of the road. We first began our investigation with the name itself. Why is it called "Shades of Death"? Was it because it's haunted and people die there...no, we didn't think so either. With little effort we were able to research the name on the Internet and we discovered that there are several other locations that share this ominous sounding name. A road in New Jersey, a wooded area in Westmoreland County Pa, and Hickory Run State Park in north-eastern Pa all share this name. The reason for this is that it was fairly common back in colonial times for colonists to give this moniker to areas with dark forests, swampy areas, and places with rocky, non farmable soil. These would not be ideal locations for a agricultural society to attempt to settle. The second thing the caught our eye was the legend itself. It is noticeably vague, as most of these stories are. There is no mention of specific time frame, or year, and no names. However, someone apparently knew that this man lost his girl, dog, job, keys, etc...but not his name? The idea of ones car not starting and of being "chased" is quite typical urban legend fodder as well. |
| Being of open mind, we decided to put the legend to the test. Three of us headed out there one night to do some investigating of the paranormal kind. We found the road with no difficulty, and it wasn't quite as remote as we originally thought. It does twist and turn all of the way down to the bottom which is apparently the lowest point of the road where this man supposedly committed suicide. It's true that the trees to create a canopy effect over most of the road, blocking out some sunlight. We conducted our investigation at this lowest point, since all accounts pointed to this as being the spot where the activity happens. We began our usual routine of EVP sessions, ITC work, monitoring EMF and temperature fluctuations, as well as video and photographic documentation. Since this unknown young man was to have hung himself over the road, we scouted the area for any possible overhead tree branches that were lower enough to be reached even with an average ladder and that would have been large enough to support the weight of an average adult male. We could find none that would fit those requirements. There could there have been something 10, 20, 30+ years ago, One this that was obvious was that this location created some unusual auditory effects. Since we were down in bottom of a rather narrow hollow, and perhaps because of all of the bends winding down to there as well, this spot created an odd echo effect. We first took notice of this when hearing several birds, an owl and a hawk (or similar size bird). The echo cause some reverb and making it even difficult to pinpoint how far away they might be. We then heard the distinct sounds of dogs off in the distance, also echoing. But, the most notable sound anomaly was cause by a plane passing overhead. The hollow amplified the sound from the plane and caused it to echo and seem to come from all around us. If not for seeing the place over head, had it been a cloudy night, one might have mis- taken this for a paranormal sound. Interesting enough, Tom works only a few miles from the Pittsburgh International Airport and even with being use to large commercial jets passing only a few thousand feet overhead he had never heard this type of effect on the sound from a plane before. We found a small steam that runs under this lower part in the road. This is relevant only because it's theorized that water helps to enable spirit activity due it ability to conduct electrical currents. Water is often found at many allegedly haunted sites. However, after our investigation and reviewing the evidence that did not seem to be the case here. We got nothing except for insects in our photos and video, no EVP on audio, or any interaction during our ITC work. In addition we had zero EMF spikes, temperature anomalies or even personal experiences. Even though we are not be able to account for any experiences that others have claimed to have had here, we have no reason at this time to believe that there is any type of paranormal activity going on here. We would like to put this out to everyone - If anybody has any addition infomation/facts about this legend; i.e., date, name, witnesses, etc...please contact us! We would love to know more and get any first hand accounts. |
| Jaimie manned one of the hand held cameras |
| Yes, that IS the roads' real name |
| The area at the lowest part of the road where conducted our investigation |
| Scott checks EMF levels before we break out the K-II meter for some ITC |
| There is a small stream which runs under the road at the lower part -this photo has been enhanced to show detail- |
| A ghost? No, that's just Tom -this photo has been enhanced to show detail- |
| Investigators on a mission |
| CAUTION: Urban Legend |