Files From the Edge (14 page)

I returned to check out the area two weeks later. In order to avoid the “No Trespassing” signs, I decided to try and find my way through the opposite side of Route 22 in Brewster. I parked my car near the side of the road and walked into the woods. It was difficult to approximate where the location of the top of Upper Magnetic Mine Road was from my position in the woods. After walking for thirty or forty minutes and periodically checking a map, I came to a ridge that overlooked a driveway with a small house and a number of smaller buildings surrounding it. My position was about a hundred meters away and located high enough above the house, allowing me to see all of the roof and most of the structure.

As I pulled out my binoculars, a jeep drove up the dirt path and parked outside the house. Two professionally dressed men got out. They had short hair and looked like police or federal agents. I was able to get a good view of them using the binoculars; my impression was that they were military or government types. The men entered the house, which from my view point showed no signs of drapes or other things that would indicate a home. There were no plants or flowers in the yard and the entire property appeared quite bland, even sterile. My first thought was that it was a well-hidden “safe house” being used by federal agents. It was strange to find a house so deep in the woods on an isolated dirt road with only one way in and out. I discovered later that this dirt path connected to Upper Magnetic Mine Road. The jeep did not have a New York or Connecticut plate; it was blue and white in color with just a number I could not make out: this type of marker is typical on vehicles a government agency uses. The jeep itself was white and appeared more civilian than military but then again, intelligence organizations like the CIA and NSA use modified vehicles of a similar nature.

I also noticed a number of power lines and telephone cables on poles running to the house and the small buildings that surround it; someone had gone through a great deal of trouble and expense to maintain this installation. As I continued to watch, two large dogs came out of the house and started patrolling the area. They came to the bottom of the ridge where I was lying down and started looking in my direction. Although the dogs were too far away to definitely identify, they appeared to be two large Rottweilers. I was a little nervous since the dogs seemed to know I was there and started barking. At that point, one of the men came out of the house with binoculars and started scanning the hill where I was hiding. As he scanned across the ridge, he stopped and locked in on my position.

For a brief moment, it looked like were were staring at each other—remember, I was using binoculars too. I felt very uneasy since there was no way he could have gotten a visual on my position because I was camouflaged by the brush. The man must have been using some type of high-tech thermal detector because my feeling was that this person definitely saw me. The man quickly ran back inside, and the dogs continued to bark although they did not advance. I knew I had to leave the area, so I carefully and quietly made my way back through the woods to my car. I guess my military combat training paid off that day—I was able to obtain information and slip away without getting caught. I wondered just
who
these men were and why the local police went out of their way to make sure no one traveled up that road. Most importantly, what was it they wanted to keep secret? I decided to let some time pass before trying to check out the location again, but a number of personal family matters prevented me from returning to my research for some time.

A Hidden Underground World

On a hot summer day one year later, I decided to walk up Upper Magnetic Mine Road again. It had been some time since the warning from the police officer, so there was a good chance that if caught I would not be arrested. Besides, the fine for trespassing in Putnam County is only fifty dollars—a fair price to pay to see what was on top of the trail. This time I was not alone; with me was Marianne Horrigan, a fellow author who has worked with me on a number of paranormal investigations. We made it all the way to the top of the dirt road without harassment and there was no indication that anyone was around—even the “No Trespassing” signs were taken down. As we continued, the dirt road turned into a trail and we began to feel a cool breeze. I knew the breeze was caused by an opening inside the earth; during my spelunking days I learned cave openings hidden by brush were often found this way.

I began to notice signs of occult activity everywhere: symbols such as inverted pentagrams and the names of fallen angels were painted on the larger boulders and exposed bedrock. We then turned a slight corner, saw the opening of the Croton Magnetic Mine, and stopped dead in our tracks. The mine adit was an amazing sight and looked like something from a science-fiction movie. Alongside the mine entrance were the names of Satan and his fallen angels in red paint. It was now very apparent to me why locals called this old mine “Satan’s Cave.” Here was the exact location where the cult known as the Fallen Ones performed their demonic ceremonies at the turn of the twentieth century.

The mine entrance was partially sealed with rocks and dirt, but this didn’t stop us from digging it out. As I opened up the adit, we noticed the main tunnel went underground about 10 feet and was flooded. There was no way that we could explore this mine today—the water was so deep that we’d need a raft. I turned my attention to the house where I had seen the dogs and the two men. According to my notes, it was just above the trail to our left, less than 200 meters away. We walked up the trail and saw the house; it looked abandoned and the smaller buildings around it turned out to be storage areas. We went inside the house and found it trashed. It was as if someone wanted to get out of there fast and destroyed any evidence that would connect the structure to any agency or operation.

We left the house and explored the grounds. I found an electrical power junction box with circuit breakers rated at several hundred kilowatts. I wondered who could use that kind of electrical power and for what purpose? It was possible that the house was used as a base of operations for some recent activity in the mine. The next step in my investigation was to purchase the proper equipment and, I hoped, return a week later to explore the mine.

The Gateway to Hell

The next few days were spent looking through old mining journals; Marianne and I even made a trip to the New York City Public Library where we found articles in scientific journals about the mines and a layout of tunnels dated 1901. I wanted to get as much information as possible before venturing back where no one had gone in almost a century. This was an investigation in which I needed some help, and Marianne was more than happy to journey with me inside the mine. After purchasing rope, proper clothing as well as an inflatable raft, we were ready to start our adventure. We arrived at the adit of the Croton Magnetic Mine early in the morning and noticed a mist coming out of the entrance; I learned later the phenomenon was known as “the devil’s breath.” It actually has nothing to do with the devil and has a scientific explanation: the mist is formed when the cold air coming out of the mine hits the warmer and humid air outside, causing condensation.

We inflated the raft and dropped it into the water. After we were properly seated, I took the front with the light and Marianne used the paddle to propel us into the darkness. The water in the tunnel was red due to the iron ore being turned into rust and reminded me of blood. As we approached the main chamber, I shined the light on the wall ahead and noticed writing: “ABANDON HOPE YE THAT ENTER—THIS IS THE GATEWAY TO HELL”. The words were painted in white and judging from their position on the wall in relation to the water level, were written before the mine flooded. Marianne and I spent five or six hours exploring this mine; I could fill several chapters describing geologic wonders we saw, but perhaps most interestingly, we found tunnels that were
not
in the 1901 mining journals. These tunnels seemed recently made using modern equipment. We also noticed that many of these new tunnels only extended 20 or 30 feet and were sealed off by rock and dirt. The sealing also seemed recent, and it appeared as if someone went through a great deal of trouble to cover their tracks.

The tunnels were so dark that when the flashlights were turned off nothing could be seen. It was quite an unsettling thought that someone could be standing right next to you and unless you shined the light on them you wouldn’t have a clue! As we explored the tunnels, we often stopped just to listen to the echoes. The entire time we were in the mine, there was a sound coming from the water behind us as if we were being followed the entire way. Also, when we stopped and listened, we could hear a moaning sound from the darkness ahead. Was it the ghost of a miner, or just the wind? We never found out for sure. Although we did not see any hooded beings, spook lights, or aliens that day, I did confirm much of my research concerning the occult connection with the mine and that the house was used for some type of covert operation. Over the next year, we explored the other mines and found new tunnels and other evidence to indicate that someone was using them long after the mining days of Brewster ended.

The Ellenville Tunnels

Although the strange occurrences mentioned so far took place on the east side of the Hudson River, equally mysterious things were being seen or discovered on the western side as well. In Pine Bush, New York, a great number of UFO sightings and paranormal phenomenon took place beginning in 1983 and continue to the present. However, it is not the scope of this book to cover these events in great detail. If the reader is interested, I recommend reading
Silent Invasion
by the late UFO researcher Ellen Crystal. In
Silent Invasion,
Crystal mentions underground tunnels and caves in the area where she claims a secret agency in the U.S. government has a joint operation with an alien intelligence. These tunnels are located outside the town of Ellenville, New York, and, unlike the tunnels in Brewster, there is no historical record of who made them so they remain a mystery to local historians. One theory suggests that Dutch miners looking for pockets of minerals carved the tunnels into the mountain, but no evidence has ever been found to support this conclusion. The two things the Ellenville tunnels and Brewster tunnels have in common are how they were made and the number of paranormal events that have taken place in and around them. The most-reported phenomenon seen near the tunnels is spook light. As in Brewster, the lights are referred to as the ghosts or UFOs of Ellenville and have been seen since the early part of the nineteenth century.

Tunnels To Nowhere

I visited the Ellenville Tunnels on September 10, 2001, to get a better understanding of what they looked like and how they were similar (or dissimilar) to the underground tunnels on the eastern side of the Hudson. Although I found only three of them, they were very hard to explore; the water was at least knee-deep. The only tunnel that seemed to have a modern look to it was the one located near High Point Mountain.

The High Point Mountain tunnel was first discovered in 1905. In 1907, a water company bought the land and used the natural springs to sell bottled water. The water company went out of business several years later, but activity there did not stop. In the mid-1980s, local residents claim to have seen military vehicles traveling up the road leading to the tunnel opening. Some of these people speculate that the government may have had some type of underground operation there sometime in the past; this may have been the basis of Ellen Crystal’s claim in
Silent Invasion
.

Although I explored all three tunnels, my investigation was short compared to the research done in Brewster. I found evidence of chisel and drill marks on the walls that appeared to be made by tools used in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At the end of each tunnel, I noticed a great deal of rock and dirt as if someone collapsed the walls to seal off what lay beyond. It is my opinion that the tunnels of Ellenville were originally made in the eighteenth century by colonial settlers looking for iron ore. However, who or what took them over in modern times is unknown. Pine Bush and Ellenville have many mysterious secrets and in the years to come, my pursuit of High Strangeness would take me to these two towns repeatedly.

My Continuing Investigation of the Spook Light Phenomenon

It’s interesting that spook lights are a worldwide phenomena. Many locations around the United States have their own variation of the phenomena. As a science educator for the past twenty-seven years, I have a considerable amount of free time to pursue my passion in the summer, so I made it a point to visit states in which spook light has been well documented. Spook light seems to be associated with areas that have had a great number of UFO sightings and underground tunnels or caves. The connection is still unclear and speculation differs: some feel the phantom lights are probes from extraterrestrial spacecraft, some say they are disembodied spirits, and others think they come from the lower levels of the earth’s crust and are released into our world during mining operations.

The Hornet Spook Light: Joplin, Missouri

Just southwest of Joplin, Missouri, near the old town of Hornet is an isolated countryside road where a ball of light has been seen for the last hundred and fifty years. It has been called many things, including the “Devils Promenade,” “Hot Devil,” and finally, “The Hornet Spook Light.” It has been reported to spin down the center of the road at great speed then rise into the air and disappear. Local legend says that the light is the collective spirit of the Quapaw who died in the area many years ago. Others believe the light are the ghosts of a miner’s murdered children. Whatever the explanation, the Hornet Spook Light is very similar to the Reservoir Road Spook Light in Brewster, not only in appearance, but also that it is reported near an old mine entrance. In August 2001, I made a trip to Joplin to track down this phantom light. Over several nights, I parked alongside several dark secondary roads off Route 43 near Hornet, Missouri. During my time in the area, I did not see the light(s) despite spending several days there, but I did talk to a number of people who witnessed the phenomenon—one person even claimed he took a shot at it but the bullet had no effect.