Philadelphia Weirdness

The Unnameable!

Often, the greatest mysteries of all are those never solved, and those which run for many years as mere whispers on the tongue, or as the chill that caresses the backs of a shivering group of campers huddled around a flickering fire, the orange glow lapping at their cheeks like the tongue of a woodland serpent—or like an innocent tree-branch.

There is a vague, foggy legend said to lurk in Lehigh County, mainly in the vicinity of the Bake Oven Knob Shelter, a log cabin like those featured in many a stalk 'n slash horror film, and said to be an ideal stop-off point for campers and the like who've spent many a weary day trudging the Appalachian Trail. No one knows whether it is a ghost that loiters in the Kittatinny area (there is legend of a spectral hiker said to walk the pathways) or some kind of escaped pet. It's appearances are accompanied by peculiar, eerie noises; many who have been terrified by the unknown visitor claim to hear murmurs and whispers, unsettling in nature.

During the 1970s a small group of campers claimed to have observed a creature so incomprehensible and mind-boggling that it simply became known as "it." Descriptions, if you can call them that, suggested something nondescript, or maybe even non-existent, if that makes sense! Whatever it was that prowled close to the camp, it horrified the group so much that they left in the middle of the night. But despite the haziness, the legend is said to predate European settlers, and appears to have been mentioned in Indian lore.

So many urban legends and boogeymen from the hills, the skies, the darkest corners and the eeriest bridges, can take on any form, often determined by our own personal fears. For some, the beast of the Bake Oven Knob Shelter could well be Bigfoot, an elusive, red-eyed humanoid said to stand over seven-feet in height. Or it could be a misty apparition. Much of its substance depends on who frequents the area, and who fears it the most, and it's usually those campers huddled around the dancing flames who create such night terrors...

Image Credit: Flickr user Mararie