True  Ghost Stories Of Chaos

Please send me your ghost Story. Only true experiences please ! chaos@netnitco.net

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Grandpa Ghost

I've decided to relate the Chaos family ghost story for your reading pleasure. Sit back and enjoy.

This happened in 1968 or 69 in Hobart. My cousin Scott was to be born and he was to carry the name of my grandfather Arthur as his middle name. My grandfather was really looking forward to seeing my cousin.

Things just don't work out sometimes and my grandfather passed away 3 days before Scott was born. I was only 2 so I didn't know my grandfather very well. They tell me he was a good guy.

The first morning Scott arived home from the hospital my Aunt and Uncle awoke to find my grandfather seated on a bench at the foot of their bed. The bench was next to the baby bassonet. They were both were both frozen and found themselves unable to move.

My grandfather Arthur was dressed in fine clothes with an overcoat and a hat that he often wore in life. He carried a cane as well. He arose and walked over to Scotts bassonet and looked down on him. After spending a couple minutes looking at Scott he sat back down in the bench and was never seen again.

To this day both my aunt and uncle attest to this happening.

Chaos Comment: Gramps really did care. I think he arranged with the big man upstairs for the opportunity to see Scott before he moved on.

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The Gravestone Ghost
 

 When i turned 16 i got my license and my sis was teaching me to drive in the cemetery. The cemetary is called  Patten Cemetary.  It is located in Laporte Indiana on McCollums road down at the dead end. As you go into the cemetary the trees grow over the road making it look like midnight during mid day.

Driving as reckless teens do, I hit a big rock or something. My sis said there was nothing there. It turned out I hit  eight grave stones. They were all piled up. We didn't know which went where so we put them back as best we could.
 

That night we were sleeping and I woke up. I felt something watching me My eyes popped open to see a hideous face, puke green hair and nails. They were more like claws. It was as if  the hair and nails never stopped grow growing after death. The thing was in my bedroom doorway. I could see it. It was like a dream but I knew it wasn't. I was terrified and couldn't move.
 
 

It reached out and raked me with its claws. The nails were crusty, curly, dirty and long. I remember screaming as loud as I could. Pulling my eyes shut until my mom ran in and started shaking me. There was blood all over my face from the scratch and she cleaned it off.  The next day I went back to where I had hit the grave markers. The stones were piled back up like they were the day before, right after I hit them.  I had my older brother help me and we fixed the headstones again.
 I was scared  that night. I didn't sleep at all. I was afraid it would come back and hurt me again.  Deep into the night, I  heard something. A Door slammed but no one was up ! I ran to my older brothers room as fast as I could and crawled into his bed. I hid under the covers for a few minutes hoping I had escaped.

Curiosity got the better of me and a few minutes later I looked out. There it was, the Thing from the last night ! I cried a bloodcurdling scream. When everyone woke up, it was gone. I had screamed  so  loud my neighbor called to see what was wrong.
 
 

The next day the stones were in a pile again. The same way they were the last two days. My brother wanted to put them back. I didn't know what to do but I knew that wouldn't work. The caretaker saw us and the grave stones. He came over and we told him what had happened.
 
 

He brought out the grave plots and it didn't surprise me to find out there was something strange about
one. One of the grave markers had belonged to a murderer. Someone who had been executed for his crime. I have never once returned to that place....

Directions  for those not afraid of ghosts ..... hwy 20 to michigan city to Johnson road. Right on johnson til laporte at the ONLY stop light cross street  cross street there is hwy 39 follow it to the third light which is Lincolnway left on linconway to second light which is Monroe Street aka hwy 4 down Monroe to the curve which McCollum  street comes out one Left On McCollums til it dead ends into cemetary.as you go in the cemetary the trees on both sides of the SMALL  road grow over it, making it seem like midnight  in broad day light.

 Related by Vixen, rewritten by Chaos
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High beams!!

When we were 12 , my sister and I were walking home from a friends We had to go right in front of cemetery and the gates are locked there at 8 pm every night...Suddenly  these super bright headlights came on and the car crashed through.  We could hardly see where we were going. It chased us the whole way home. The  police were called but the car was never found. Nor were there any sings of it One minute it was there, the next it was gone ...

 Related by Vixen, rewritten by Chaos
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 Fond Farewells...

My best friend Becky died in a car wreck. She hit a tree head on  She never got to tell either me or my other friend Sandy goodbye. I found out on my way to work in the morning after Becky hit the  tree. It was on the radio, I didn't quite hear the name though. I bought a paper and her picture was there. Her name was  in the obituaries.

I went to the funeral home for the showing and got into my car afterwards.  The parking lot was completely empty . I heard quite clearly  "good-bye Kay" ( a nickname used by my close friends). I know it was Becky's  voice.  It freaked me out completely.  I sat in the car and was afraid to move. When I got home, I was still shaking from it. My dad thought I was kidding......but I wasn't.

  I almost blew it off as a trick of the mind  until I talked to Sandy  the next day. She was in the bathroom at the funeral home about the same time, and heard the same thing. Only it was good-bye to her! We both were afraid to go into the funeral home the day of the funeral. We talked in the parking lot before going in . We did go in though. The scariest part was the look that Becky  had on her face. It was a troubled look the night before. Today, she looked at peace....Becky died during a rough  time in my life, in between my grandma & my dad dying. It's one year I'd like to forget but can't.....

 Chaos comment:  It is said right after a person dies their sprit may have a hard time moving on to the other place. Especially  if there are ones they left behind that won't let them go. The loved ones  call to them in their thoughts....

 Related by Anonymous, rewritten by Chaos
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The Music Box
 

This happened when I was young and it still gives me the chills. My uncles house is haunted by the ghost of a 7 year old little girl named Jenny. They found out through the neighbors and newspapers she had been run down by a car in 1973. Mom said Jenny was stuck in a state of limbo.  She would appear on occasion and walk into the nearby cemetery. They think Jenny went to visit her parents graves. She was buried next to them. My uncle followed her apparition into the cemetery one night and saw her grave.
 

 Jenny was a sad ghost. She stayed in what had been her old room. She would cry at night. She would call for her mommy and daddy .... and the music box.  It was the only thing her father had given her and it seemed she wanted it more than anything else.
  It got to the point my cousin Ann wouldn't go in her room because all she heard was the cries. So they got someone into the house to try and make Jenny leave. I don't remember who, but it didn't work. It just got worse.
 

She would cry out "daddy" all night long. My uncle grew bold and tried to talk to her. He asked her why she was there and what would make her stop crying. They were ready to move and  he felt sorry for her. She said she wanted her daddy and her music box. He asked where it was and she said in the attic but  she wasn't allowed to go there. He went up there and all her toys and belongings had been packed away. It  was there he found the music box. He left it on a dresser in her old bedroom and it was gone the next morning.

  That didn't make her happy though, somehow she destroyed the bedroom. It seems she wanted all her toys and to be able to play with them. So they moved everything to a little room in the back of the basement. My aunt and uncle lived there for many years afterwards and many times we went to their house and heard Jenny playing in the basement with her toys. A few years ago my aunt and uncle did move away. Till the day they moved Jenny was still around. You could not mistake the sound of the music box playing  in that little room in the basement.

Chaos Comment: The Aunt and Uncle have moved and the house is under new ownership.
I wonder if they have experienced anything?
 Related by Vixen, rewritten by Chaos
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Evil Sprits
Well, I have lots of stories for you...all true..some happened to family, others to myself...But just this one cause it is so long!

My cousin,Joan(name changed) moved out into an apartment with her husband in Hobart. Within a couple of weeks, strange things started to happen: stove would turn on, blinds would raise up, the TV would turn on, knocking,etc. She was worried about it, but it wasn;t harmful or anything and it was just minor things.
One day, my aunt drove by and saw a figure open the blinds and look out.She saw a man with a straw hat leaning against a wall by the door. This wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't for the fact that my aunt knew no one was home and there wasn;t a wall there. So, my aunt tells Marie this and she calls my mom. My cousin hadn;t talked to my mom in years so they spend a bit of time catching up. As soon as she starts to talk about the strange things, the phone goes dead. She calls back and same thing. Well,finally, they get to talking about what was going on. As they were talking someone knocked on the door. My cousin has lived in East Chicago and Lake Station most of her life so she know then to open the door to strangers. Well, as she is talking to my mom she answers the door. My mom can hear a man talking in a very melodic like voice and my cousin begins to answers all the questions he is asking and doesn;t say anything to my mom. He asks to come in and my cousin says,"Ok" and starts to open the door. My mom knows that something bad is going to happen and starts screaming,"Joan!!!Close the door!!!" at my cousin.
She yells this for a few minutes before my cousin finally responds and suddenly shuts the door on the man's face. All she remembers of the man is that his eyes were black. No white or color at all, just black. She also remmebrs that he just sort of floated there, weaving back and forth as he talked to her, almost putting her in a trance. Luckily my mom's voice got through to her or she would have let him in her house.
Well, my cousin tried to take precautions to protect herself, she hadalready converted to catholicism when she was married so she used thatas protection of sorts. Because she and her husband, who is very skeptical, had both been feeling something watching them as they slept, she set up a shrine of sorts in the bedroom to protect her.
One night as she slept, she woke up to the same being watched feeling. When she satup she looked at the corner where she had her altar setup. She started to hear voices and woke her husband. They both watched as billows of black smoke-like substance beagn coming up the wall and out towards them. Needless to say, they grabbed their stuff and got out of there.
While at her mother's house, she could hear it yelling at her. Then all of a sudden, she had a vision. She saw a blonde haired man standing in front of Taco Bell. She could see me standing at the counter. She heard the man say,"I;m gonna f* with her car. I am gonna f* with her at work".
Well, my cousin call my mom right away and told her all this. My cousin didn;t even know where I worked. My mom called me and told me about a blonde haired man coming in after close. I told her that I had just locked the doors 3min ago and don;t worry.
Well, as I said this a blonde haired man,one of the employees and the manager, both off duty, walked in the back and said the door wasn;t locked. I know it was, *I* had locked them myself. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked and made sure my brother, who worked there too, followed me home that night.
About halfway home, my "service Engine Soon" light came on. I never had any problem before and this was the first time I had ever seen this light. I pulled into a gas station and checked my car out. Nothing
seemed to be wrong. Well, I made it home fine and went into the house.
It was about 3 or 4am at this time and my mom begins to tell me about everything that was happening to my cousin. As she is telling me this Iam thinking in my head," Don't f* with my cousin. Don't f* with my cousin." until I hear a male voice say," Okay, I'l f* with you." At that point I could feel someone looking over my shoulder.
I was sitting on the couck at the time and the back of the couch was against an outside wall. I told my mom what I was feeling and tried to ignore it. I was looking away from the wall into the kitchen talking to
my mom when I looked down at a little statue we had of two kittens. The one cat had its eyes opened and when I looked at it, the eyes changed colors and became almost human like. The eyes just stared at me with the same intensity that I had felt it over my shoulder. I asked my mom to kick over the statue. She did, to my relief..
As the night went on, I could still feel the presence over my shoulder.
We talked about what was happening, why it was happening. I began telling them things that I shouldn;t have known. Such as details about what the man at the door looked like, neither one had told me. At around 6am I freaked out because I knew that if my cousin and her husband went back that day, it was going to be bad. My mom called my aunt's house and found out they were planning on going back to the apartment to get some things.
The next day we met at the Seven Dolor Shrine. We sat on the bench on the bridge that goes over the creek. I didn't want to sit there, but we did anyways. We talked about what was going on and why we three, who rarely had ever talked before, were brought into this.
We figure out that he/it is mad at my mom for thwarting him at the door and the only way to get to her is through me. As we are talking, my cousin can hear something whipping about her yelling profanities at her. I told them to move down and go by the monk hill.
There is a little circle of shrines there. As we are walking towards it my cousin is telling us how the demon is yelling at her not to go down there. As soon as we walk into the circle, everything is calm, the tension in the air leaves and silence. We sat there and talked.
My cousin moved out immediately and they got a new place. My mom stopped by the old place to pick up her mail. My cousin had one of those mail things on the side of the building. My mom, who is a very spiritually powerful person, was scared when she could feel a very evil presencepush out from inside the house.
That was pretty much the last time anyone went to that house.
This is true.
Luci
 
 

Eye's are said to the the window to the soul ..........
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Eye's of Darkness
This is my story (it's long), and I will swear it's true until the end of time.
I've always believed in ghosts and spirits, and have been creeped out on
uncountable occasions - feeling someone watching when nobody's there, seeing
things in the middle of the table when I'm sure I put them on the corner...
this is nothing new to me. The time I actually saw my first ghost was
something new, and it scared the living daylights out of me. It's now 8
years later, and I can still remember it clearly enough to get creeped out
all over again. To start, I was at my best friend's house, and let me just
say that my friend's family background is Lakota Sioux Indian, and she and
her mom are no strangers to wierd occurrences around the house. Her mom has
told some pretty incredible stories about ghosts and Indian Spirits that she's seen.
When I was 15, my best friend and I were sitting in her room just off of the
garage. There was her doorway (no door), a stairway up to the living room
(the door at the top of that was closed), and directly across from her
doorway was a white (closed) door that led into the garage. It was sort of
laid out like an H, if you can picture it. Anyway, her bed was against the
wall facing the doorway, and we were talking about the things we'd been
hearing earlier in the day. We were the only ones home, and while watching
tv earlier, the unplugged toaster had decided to pop it's handle up and down
and the glasses were rattling in the cabinets. I was freaked out, and we'd
decided to go downstairs to her room. We were sitting on her bed for about
1/2 an hour, and I was finally calming down and forgetting about being
scared. She was a lot calmer than I was, and it was helping. It was a sunny
day out, and I was sitting in a beam of sunlight that was filtering through
the curtains onto the bed. It started to fade and get a little chilly, so I
looked at the window and, because of the way I was facing, had to turn my
head past her doorway. I never got to the window. I don't think I've ever
been so scared or screamed as loud as I did when I saw what was in the
doorway. He had darker skin, was really tall, almost to the top of the
doorway - I could just see the top of it over his hat. I could also faintly
see the door through him. He was dressed in old fashioned clothes (no
history expert, I'm guessing late 1800-really early 1900's) - he had on a
dark coat, pants, and muddy boots that were kind of hard to see the details
on. What did stand out were his white shirt, string bow tie and flat brimmed
hat. He was just standing there, filling the doorway, his arms flat at his
sides. His hair was silvery gray and stringy under his hat. It came down
just to the top of his square shoulders. The worst part was his face. He had
this square jaw and his mouth was pulled down in a scowl that looked nothing
but menacing and he was facing me. His eyes were fixed right on me, and I
swear they were nothing but black. If they were any color, I couldn't see it
or the whites. Just dark. I closed my eyes, and grabbed for my friend, who
had gone really pale, and was staring at him too. By the time I opened my
eyes again (which felt like forever but was probably only seconds), he was
gone. She grabbed my hand and literally had to yank me to the doorway and up
the stairs so that we could get out of the house. Ordinarily, I'd have been
the first one out, only we had to pass the same spot where he was standing.
We got outside, and I was so scared, I just broke down and cried. It felt,,,
evil. Since then, I've only caught glimpses of what may or may not be ghosts,
but I've never had that feeling of hate accompanying them. I hope I never do again.
Amy

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Theatre of Horror

 I work at a theatre called the Lido in Manitoba Canada.where a number of weird things have happened.
 The first strange thing I remember is when my friend Andy and I were working one day, and  heard a big f**king noise behind the screen. Kind of like something fell, so we went to check it out. The back exit door was wide open ( and it is always  locked ).  There is another door right beside the exit that is always  locked too, and it was opened. We just closed the doors and never thought anything of it. I'm not sure if it was ghost, or just a damned strong wind,  but now that i think about it, it gave me a creepy feeling.   Another time Andy and I were working and listening to  music, all of a sudden the tape stoped in the middle of a song . Right at the moment  the tape stopped, the phone rang. When Andy answered the phone no one was there ...
Working alone once I kept on hearing these banging noises in  the basement. They sounded a lot  like things getting thrown around. Of course  I was way to scared to see what was going on down there. When I checked later on that day nothing was out of place. Another time  Andy and I were in the balcony having a smoke, when the back doors flew open again. We paused for a moment then slowly crept up to the doors. Out of the corner of ours eyes we saw this shadow like thing  go by us,  and we ran like hell.  Another time  I  remeber I had just gotten to work, and  had to go to the  projector room to turn on the lights. When i got up there  the  projector was spinning like crazy. No one had been there for hours.
Once Andy and I  were working and we could see  little windows in the projector room from where we were sweeping. I looked up at these windows and saw a faint blueish light coming from the far left one. Andy saw  the light too. We both went up to check it out. There was nothing there and the light was gone.  The owner and manager both believe that there are ghosts here. They have claimed to have had strange occurances ( things falling off of  the desk, weird  noises, the strange feeling that someone is in the room).These are all true stories, I'm not sure if it was a  ghost, goblin, or ghoul, or if  maybe it's just a bunch of coincedences. Anyway, sleep with the lights on tonight,   later man, -suEcide

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Edgefield Manor Hauntings
Hello, I haved lived in a 140 year old place called Edgefield Manor for the  last 14 years. What I am about to tell you sounds like the classic ghost story but its not. I have had many experiences here. One of them was last night. I was turning out the lights to the parlor down stairs, when suddenly i saw a figure glid across the hall. I was scared, but later one that evening I would be beyond scared. I was in bed, suddenly I looked in the corner and there was a pair of glowing red eyes. I just freaked! There was also a case when I went into a room and like always the grand piano was in the corner. I went out for five minutes and when I came back in the piano had been moved 23 feet. Tell me. Do you know what did that? Well I have plenty of other things I could tell you if you want to hear them. - DAllen

Chaos Comment:Yes DAllen, Anything at all you would like to send,.

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The Apartment me and my wife rented about 20 years ago in Salem,Mass. It had an extra room upstairs and the man who rented it to us told us use it for anything you want but don't to use it as a bedroom.  So we used it for storage and hung clothes up to dry in the winter and every time I went up there I had a strange feeling that I was being watched but I still went up and did what I had to do.  After a couple of weeks my wife told me that it felt creepy every time she went upstairs. Then when we went to sleep we were being woken up by someone walking back in forth upstairs.  I am getting chills while I'am writing this even it being 20 years ago.
We never went up to investergate these foot steps we were to scared and we lived on the top floor so no one lived on top of us. so this kept on happing for about 6 months.We never got used to this and we were in the process of looking for a newplace.
One day I was laying on the sofa at home alone with my face looking to the backrest the room got very cold and I felt someone walking up next to me I had a chill it was creepy I did'nt move felt like I could 'nt move but I felt it getting closer and then as quick as this happened all of a sudden the room was warm again and who ever was behind me was gone and we never heard the footsteps any more or felt like we were being wached we moved out about 60 days later. We feel that there had been a ghost in there we never seen it but we felt it and heard the foot steps but I had the feeling after the room went warm it had left also we both felt it was a man and just talking about this still gives me chills.
Steve
Chaos comment -  If you ask me Steve, I wouldn't have spent too much time in this place myself !

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Submitted by Dawn....
I have recently started working for formerly called "Inland Steel" now known as Ispat-Inland, let me tell YOU !! It has may spirits roaming
about, i have seen an old man who whatches me from behind some of the machinery two times in in two days....  Creepy..

On Thursday afternoon myself and two other ppl. both new hires with me, were talking about things they have sensed out here at "Inland".
One of the guys told me he felt that there was someone whatching him, about that time he felt something  his right thigh, jumped as it
happeded.... He asked if if we saw him jump, we did, because we were looking at him listining to what he was telling us. He explained that
it felt like something just grabbed his thigh, about that time the same thing happeded to his left thigh, he jumped even higher this time.
Told us that it just happedned to his other leg in the same place as the right one was.

We looked at him and giggled and told him to stay sitting down or its gonna grab his butt.....  LOL. he laughed as did we...

But there is something that happedned.... The place we have our breaks and meetings is called a "shanney" it is constructed of steel
lunch tables,steel doors(three) and very hard to open latches...... It takes both hands to open and close these doors is what i am getting at
okay..

After we made a little joke of the spirit grabbing Adams butt, the door openend on its own, and didnt even make a sound, we have to kick it
to get it to get the bottom part to budge, along with a good sholder shove.
So for the door to just unlatch and swing open with compleate ease... HUmmm made us shiver......

Chaos Comment: I worked at Inland for 13 years. There was one story I found online about an Open hearth Ghost that was seen when molted steel was poured. I guess this was a worker the fell in many years ago. Over the years there have been a number of deaths. While working out there I never heard any stories from coworkers. The number of years Inland has been in exsistance coupled with the number of people that have worked there, lends itself to this possiblily though. Some of those people worked to live and lived to work and knew nothing else in their lives outside of the mill. If there is a presence I'm sure he considers Ispat- Inland his home.

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 The caretakers and campers of Woodsmoke Ranch believe different things about The Ditch Devil. As they sit around the dying coals and embers of a campfire with
   their backs to the dark, forested ravines, their instincts tell them what to believe. It depends on whether or not they see a tall shadow peering around a tree. It
 depends on whether or not the night suddenly becomes too quiet, and too still. It depends on whether or not a prickly, petrifying chill running up their spine prevents
them from turning around to see if it is floating right towards them.

   Research has provided the following incidents. They come from different sources. They span nearly 200 years. They bear witness to consistent behaviors and
    settings. The summary found at the end of these accounts provides possible interpretations.
 

  1811

 The oral traditions of The Potawatomi Native Americans speak of a spiritual experience in their “old lands.” It is the original source of The Ditch Devil legend. One
  of the last true Potawatomi settlements was in north central Illinois before they were removed to the reservations out in Kansas. In the winter of 1811, a band of
  Potawatomi were camped on the bluffs overlooking the Illinois River. And it was at that time that the great New Madrid earthquake struck in far southern Illinois,
 shaking the heartland to such an extent that it reached northern Illinois with fury. The Potawatomi were taken by surprise, as they never experienced an earthquake
 before. They gave thanks to The Great Spirit for keeping them from being shaken right off the bluffs.

  However, they once again had to appeal to their God some days later, because Mother Earth was still not happy. Ever since the earthquake hit,  there had been
   strange weather about half a day’s ride away to the north, right over what is currently Woodsmoke Ranch. It was a permanent cloud formation which boiled,
  produced small tornados, had crackles of lightning, and loomed above foggy ground. The elders of the tribe decided that it was a spiritual sign and that, as tribal
   custom commanded, the young braves were given the opportunity to experience the event so they could prove their maturity and wisdom. Their mission was to
 inspect the area under the strange weather clouds.

 Six braves set out on their ponies with supplies for a couple of days. It was a mild winter that year and the ride across the dry, brown prairie was easy. There was a
 full moon that week. When they arrived, they found that the area under the strange cloud weather was partly forest and partly scrub brush. As they made their way
 in, they found that there were many ravines, gullies, and ditches. And all along the bottom of these depressions were open fissures and cracks that had opened deep
 down into the earth. The braves inspected all along these ravines, noticing that there was heat rising from the pitch-black abyss into the earth. Even more frightening
  to them was the occasional lightning strike which would go straight into those open fissures and cracks. The braves were excited with their discovery, thinking that
 they were chosen to witness the powers of The Great Spirit. They decided to spend the night with a sacrificial bonfire to the heavens.

 And so as the set, the moon rose. They conducted their spiritual campfire and then prepared to sleep. One of the braves went near the edge of the ravines to call for
  his dog, but instead gave out a war-cry call to his comrades. They came running to his aid. When they arrived, he simply pointed downward. There, all along the
bottom of the ravines. were tall, thin, shadowy figures rising out of the chasms and drifting in a lifeless state. They seemed to congregate in the direction of the passing
 moon. The shadow creatures did not seem to sense anything around them. The braves watched this in silence for a very long time. Then their leader gave the signal
 to retreat and assemble back at the campfire.

 Once they were back, they were in a state of ecstasy, finding themselves blessed once again to witness a spiritual event. They decided to leave right then and there
  during the night, as they wished to share their experiences with their families. The moonlight was bright and the winter air was dry. They had a happy, boastful ride
 back to their settlement on the bluffs.

  The camp dogs greeted them as they let out their warrior prayers in the peaceful night. The elders arose quickly and came out with mystified looks on their faces.
 They knew that they sent the young boys into the unknown. The braves quickly dismounted and boasted of their spiritual experience, and claiming special blessings
 to their family names. However when the elders heard the whole story, they frantically consulted the tribe healer and priest, who then perform a ceremony over the
 now confused braves.

   The elders knew the boys had a spiritual event, but with the dark spirits. They then realized that the earthquake had opened a passage to hell, and that the boys
  actually witnessed devils roaming the earth. When this was explained to the young braves, some vomited, others became withdrawn, and one even threw himself
  over the bluffs to his death saying that he may be possessed. The ones that lived worried that the dark shadows of the abyss may have followed them back to the
 tribe.

 There seemed to be a soulful wrenching in the tribe that early morning. The women wailed and the children cried. Later in the day, the tribe packed up the camp as
   fast as they could and moved west along the river to a larger tribal settlement near what is now Ottawa. The Potawatomi, the “people of fire”, took with them a
         legend that is passed down by their priests from generation to generation as they teach their braves to interpret the good and evil of the world.

 1846

 Remnants of old personnel records from the I&M canal project reveal the second documented account of the entity. The I&M canal was built by a hardy group of
 immigrants in the first half of the 19th century.  As they made progress out of Chicago and past Joliet, the countryside really opened up. One spring day, the foreman
 of the Irish crew decided they needed a break.  He led his boys off to go hunting in the surrounding prairie. They took the chuck wagon, some dogs, a few horses,
and many jugs of whiskey. It was to be a good time to be had by all.

  The prairie was bountiful that day. They took all the deer, pheasant, and rabbits they could carry, so they decided to camp in the brushy, forest hollow in what is
  now Woodsmoke Ranch. They pitched their tents, dressed out the game, and had a great feast. As the fires began to fade, the  foreman decided that they would
 have to take turns standing guard and tending the fire of their game that was being smoked. He didn’t want the dogs or any wild animals to steal it during the night.

   That evening the moon was about half full, but very bright.  There was some occasional passing cloud cover which made it quite warm for the season.  About
 halfway through the night, the crew foreman took his turn to guard the meats. After awhile he went to the chuck wagon to get a biscuit for a snack. When he turned
  back towards the makeshift smoke hut he saw the hunting dogs whimpering and dragging themselves on their bellies away from the nearby ravine and toward the
    tents. Confused and tired he called to the dogs, but with no response. As they dragged past his feet, he squinted at the opposite side of the glowing fire coals
 expecting to see a marauding coyote or wolverine. But what floated out of the darkness was the size of a tree trunk.

 He froze in fear, as if in a nightmare. The inky, two-dimensional figure was about 10 feet  tall, and a foot and a half wide, with a slight form of a head and torso, and
     a tapered tail. It floated just above the ground, headed not for the fresh meat, but to the glowing embers of the dying fire. It hovered above the coals just
momentarily, darting its tail in between the chunks of wood coals. As if confused, it floated around the fire, and tried once more to find its way to some opening in the
 embers. In a matter of seconds it quickly floated back out of the firelight glow. The figure was so black, it could be seen through the night, disappearing from tail to
 head as it descended over the ridge of the nearby ravine.

  As soon as it was gone, the dogs started howling and woke the entire hunting crew. Lanterns were lit, guns were produced, and questions flew. They wanted to
  know if there were Indians or animals after their meat. Even in the yellow glow of their lamplights, they could see that their stiff and silent foreman was as pale as a
 ghost. They checked the meat to find everything in order. Once they got their boss seated and primed with whiskey, they got the story. They all tried to laugh it off in
 front of each other, but just under the surface, they all sensed something evil about them. In their homeland there were many legends of things in the forest, and this
 could be just as real in this new land of theirs.

 When they got back to the canal project, the foreman told his story as a precaution to others. When they heard of his encounter, they sensed his real terror through
  the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice. Once it got around, though, the supervisors feared they would lose entire crews of the suspicious immigrants, so they
wrote up his story as instigating labor troubles, and fired him.  The canal moved on without him. He returned to the young settlement of Chicago with a deep secret in
his troubled soul.
 

1880

  By the year 1880, the pioneer farms were well established in La Salle County. Farmers in the Woodsmoke area used the forested ravines as their woodlot. They
 heard of the supposed haunting of a “gully ghost” in there and just in case, tried not to ventured too far in near the ditches. Over the years, they had slowly harvested
  the trees until the wood line was close to the ravines. That winter was a damp, chilly one. Farmer Stanton and his teenage son planned to go into the ravines with
 their draft horses to pull out some prized oak trees they had chopped down that autumn for a new barn. This greatly upset Mrs. Stanton, and the neighbors were all
 suspiciously unavailable to help with this initial phase of a barn raising.

 The day was not very productive. Chains broke, the snow started to melt, and Farmer Stanton  started to get sick. Because of these delays, they had to work right
 up to dusk. They started off for home as the sun was setting, but in their haste and exhaustion, the father forgot his rifle down in the ravine by their fire pit among the
 tree stumps. In his feverish condition, he told the boy that he would have to take the lantern and go fetch it by himself.

 When the boy reached the ridge of the ravine, he could just make out the pulsing glow of the ashes of the fire they made for warmth and cooking that day. Just as he
 was tying off a rope to help him climb back up the steep, snowy ravine, he saw something moving far down the gully in the thickly wooded forest. It almost seemed
 like a tree was moving. He turned down his lantern so he had better night vision, as the moon was bright enough.  And then it appeared, skimming the snowy surface
 in a steady, slow pace; a thin, black figure that was at least 10 feet tall. It made its way to the orange ashes of the fire pit in a manner quite lifeless and indifferent to
 the world around it.

   The teenager had seen many types of wildlife on his farm, but this was nothing of nature. His jaw dropped and his eyeballs turned in their sockets to follow the
  movement of the entity as it floated over the ashes and then stirred them up with its pointy tail, exposing the pulsing orange coals underneath. It did this for only a
  minute until it was satisfied that nothing was there as it had thought. It hovered back the same way it came until it was out of sight. The deep black contrast of the
   ghostly apparition against the snow made it seem like he saw it in plain daylight. At that point a barn owl shrieked, shaking the petrified boy back to his senses.

He stumbled back to his father without the rifle. His zombie expression frighten the seasoned pioneer father. There was nothing to be said….he couldn’t bring himself
  to explain his behavior. His dad managed to get him home that night, but for many months, the boy was as helpless as a baby around the farm. He still wouldn’t or
   couldn’t explain that night, and started to have occasional spasms, nightmares, and babbling when he did try to explain that night in the ravines. The father could
obviously see that something horrible had happened to his only son, and he became very distraught.

 Mrs. Stanton could no longer stand the crippling effect of the incident on her whole family and discussed the matter with her church minister.  He immediately called
 for the district bishop to come and investigate the situation and possibly perform an exorcism. When the bishop arrived, he asked to be taken to the ravines where it
 all began. They walked together along the bottom of the ravine, until they came across a small fissure in the soil that was pitch black.

 Almost instantly, the minister and bishop stepped back in simultaneous prayer. These strong men of god were obviously taken aback by the discovery. They pulled
 the father away from the open crack where he had bent down and had his face right down near it trying to look in. They nodded for him to join in the Lord’s prayer
 as they lead him away. When they got to the top of the ravine, they told him that evil lurked in that opening; something not of the living and not of the dead. They said  that this most assuredly had something to do with the boy’s condition. They all agreed that whatever the encounter was, it certainly needed a spiritual intervention.

 When they got back to the farmhouse, they performed their ritual of exorcism upon him. For whatever the reasons, it worked. He finally came out of his state, broke
 down, and recalled what he had seen. The family was forbidden to go near the area again, and directed to conduct special ceremonies and prayers in the future. The
 “exorcism” was secretly entered into the files of the parish records, where this account was found.
 

  1921

The archives of the La Salle County Sheriff’s Department contain yet another reference to the specter in the Woodsmoke ravines.  Seneca, or Crotty Town as it was
 called in those days, had its share of adventures during Prohibition. One such story involved a peculiar man who lived in a shanty by the grain elevators, in the area of  the railroads and canal. He was known to all as “The Crazy Man of Crotty Town”. He was the one who did odd jobs around the town; the man who “wasn’t quite right.”

  One day, fortune seemed to smile on Crazy Crotty when he met up with a hobo who was riding the rails. This hobo knew a sucker when he saw one, and offered
 Crazy Crotty an opportunity to make big money and fast. The plan was to become moon shiners. The hobo knew the trade, but needed help to set up and operate
   the still. He asked Crazy Crotty if there was a place out in the country where people wouldn’t go poking around. Realizing the risk, but not wanting to miss the
  opportunity, Crazy Crotty told him about the ravines in the Woodsmoke area. However, he did not tell him about the legend of The Ditch Devil.

They established a plan and divided the duties. Crazy Crotty cleverly volunteered to do “the risky work”; steal corn and wheat from the grain elevators, bring it out
 to the still, and return the booze into town to sell it. The hobo would stay out at the still and run the operation. When they first went out there together, they found the
 deepest, steepest ravine that was covered by trees, weeds, and brush cover. Then they got started by building a home for the hobo. It was just a shack with an
 outhouse to the side of it. Next they constructed the stills out of junk scrap metal parts. And when they got the first batch of hooch in production, Crazy Crotty went
 back into town.

  Over the following months, they produced several profitable batches of moonshine. However, as time went on, the hobo began to share his concerns with Crazy
 Crotty. He said that he saw shadows in the ravine that he couldn’t explain, and thought that the sheriff or special agents were spying on the operation. Crazy Crotty
   broke into a nervous sweat, but couldn’t reveal what he knew to be the apparition of The Ditch Devil. It would mean revenge on him it the hobo found out that
 Crazy knowingly put him in harm’s way. Besides, if anything happened to the hobo, the profits would all be his. Crazy Crotty showed his concern by getting hold of
 a Tommy gun for the hobo to protect their still.

 With that new sense of confidence, the hobo continued the solitary operation. Some days later, the hobo decided to stay up all night with his machine gun and try to
 rub out any spies near his still. He got out his chair, some snacks, and a few of his big cigars. The moon was nearly full, so he didn’t need any light. After just a few hours of no activity whatsoever, the hobo decided to call it quits for this watch. But he decided to have one more of his big stogy cigars before he went into his shack for a night’s sleep. He lit it and was puffing away in peace, soothed by the large, orange glow at the tip. At this time, cloud cover was passing above and blocked out both the starlight and moonlight. He continue to puff on his cigar, making it appear as a pulsing beacon in the pitch of the night. Just then the hobo noticed that creatures of the night were silent. He sensed trouble of some kind, but felt cocky and confident with his machine gun in his lap.

 And then there, silently and purposefully coming at him from behind a nearby tree, was a huge, jet-black figure floating above the ground. The towering, lean entity
  was lifeless and cold. It had a pointed tail at the bottom and some resemblance of a belly and a head. The hobo hesitated as the shock took the air out of him, but
 then started spraying machine gun fire right into the entity. It had no effect. It kept coming at him, so the hobo started stumbling backward, his cigar falling out of his
mouth to the ground.

   He kept moving until he was backed up against his shack. He gasped for breath to scream, but could do nothing but accept his fate at the hands of this ghostly
 presence. To his relief, the entity stopped about nine feet short of him, right where he dropped his glowing cigar on the ground. The faceless apparition lowered itself
  until the very point of its tail could reach the glowing tip of the cigar After a second or two of what appeared to be poking and probing at the orange ash, it glided
 backward the same way it came; a lifeless, two-dimensional form in slow motion. The hobo collapsed in terror.

  The next morning, Crazy Crotty was at the general store and overheard one of the local farmers saying that he came for the sheriff to investigate gun fire during the
 night in the ravines.  Crazy Crotty tried to get the jump on the sheriff and stole a pickup truck to make his way out there first. He got out there to find the hobo in a
  hysterical state. When he finally got him calmed down, the hobo started to rattle off his story. Crazy Crotty tried to tell him that they had to escape, but he would
 calm down to realize that they were about to be caught. In all the commotion, neither one paid attention to their surroundings as the sheriff arrived shortly coming up
the back way. The sheriff, his deputy, and the farmer hid in the brush and heard the whole story.

  They were arrested for moon shining, but everyone agreed that the story of the gully ghost would not be discussed, as it would taint their reputations and scare the
 locals. If it got out, they would say that the hobo was drinking the profits and was seeing things. Only the arrest record would contain the sheriff’s full, official report
 of the Ditch Devil encounter.
 

1960

 In the basement vault of the old Rockford armory is a classified file that is both intriguing and embarrassing for the military. The year 1960 saw the escalation of the
 Cold War. The military was in full ranks and constantly training for a third world war. Even the Reserves were on special status. It was in this time of high alert that
there was another encounter with The Ditch Devil.

 The nearby town of Marseilles had a large training area for the Illinois Army National Guard. Units from as far away as Winnebago and Cook counties came in for
 their infantry training. In this case, “B” Company from Rockford was in one autumn weekend for maneuvers and was bivouacked on the far eastern edge of the land. They were there to conduct night time search and destroy operations.

 The training involved sending one “enemy” platoon out early on Saturday morning to set up a camp, and then send another platoon out to find and engaged them that night. The enemy platoon was lead by a 20-year-old ROTC cadet from Northern Illinois University. He was green, and to compound things, cocky. He promptly  lead them far off course, stating that the other platoon would never get the jump on them, even though that was part of the plan. This error in judgment took the enemy platoon far out of the training area along a creek bed that lead them miles across the countryside, and straight into the Woodsmoke Ravines. The young  lieutenant was impressed with the cover and concealment of the gullies, and ordered his men to dig in for the night just as the sun was setting. As they were setting up their tents, one of the young privates told his sergeant that he had a cousin in the nearby town who told him once that there was some kind of ghost legend in the township north of the bluffs. For divulging such immature information, the sergeant awarded him with double guard duty that night, and ordered him to keep such nonsense to himself. All of the guards were then instructed to set off the ground flares in the other platoon came sneaking up on them during the night.

   The rest of the platoon had the last of their smokes, put out their bonfires, and went to sleep thinking that with the bright moon that night, nobody could come
 sneaking up on them. On the third watch, at about 2:30 a.m., the guard on the northern border went over to a small fire he had hidden behind some large rocks. The
 flames had died down, so he went over and began to stoke the fire so that the popping embers flew up into the air and the coals glowed to life again. Satisfied with
 his efforts, he walked back to his post near the flare triggers. Suddenly, his visual scan caught movement up the ravine. Straining his eyes, he thought he could make
 out a very tall figure, almost as tall as the trees around it.  The guard was excited that he was the first to spot the “enemy” and would be able to light them up for easy shooting. He lost sight of the shadow for a minute as it went through the brush, but it was straight on course to his small fire.

 His plan was to set off the flares as soon as they came out of the bushes. At first sight of the shadowy enemy, he triggered the pulsing, white flare in front of a tree at
 their defensive perimeter. To his horror, it was no weekend warrior buddy, but a floating,  solid black, imposing creature of great height and slender build. The
 apparently figureless ghost kept on course for the fire pit coals, and in doing so, passed straight through the white-hot flare. Confused and frightened at the same
 time, the guard started to yell for his fellow soldiers to wake up. In these few seconds of terror, the entity drifted  among the rocks right on top of the small patch of
  embers and dragged its snake like tail in a stirring motion sending up more sparks. And then, as if disinterested, it floated back into the brush and up the ravine,
  fading here and there among the tree trunks.

As soon as the others awoke they started shooting their blank rounds and setting off sky flares. It was one of the sky flares that illuminated the entity for all to see as
it cleared the drop-off into an even deeper ravine. The gung-ho young lieutenant mistakenly went charging after it, only to let out a blood- curdling shrill as soon as he disappeared into the other ravine. When he returned in a babbling state, there was a eerie, awkward silence in the camp. No one spoke of the sighting, except the
quivering ROTC cadet, who swore that he saw a ghost. Back in Rockford, the naive lieutenant filled out an incident report against the captain’s orders, and then filed
it in the vault himself in an unmarked folder. Not one of the men ever backed his story, though in their souls, they knew they had encountered an enemy that couldn’t
be beaten with weapons.
 

1997

  As posted on FreakyLinks.com, this is the most recent encounter with The Ditch Devil that has been documented. The record shows that the weather that Labor
   Day weekend at Woodsmoke was beautiful. As was customary, there were many back to school celebrations. In this case, a group of five freshman had been
 celebrating their start of high school. The three boys and two girls were together all that Saturday. They took one last swim in the pool, had a game of softball, grilled cheeseburgers, and then hung out at the pavilion. The big plan that night was to have a dance party at one of the park model trailers. They got a ride into Ottawa and bought all kinds of supplies. They got music CDs, snacks, party favors, glow sticks, all kinds of soda.

  They all went back to their families in the late afternoon for supper and then returned to the party trailer at about 8:30. The party went on with the eating, dancing,
 singing, card games, and all the rest. They had to close down the party at 11:00 pm because of the strict ranch association rules. But those kids still had much more
  party in them, so one of the boys suggested that they go for a walk and hang around somewhere. Just as they were about to leave, the boy who was hosting the
 party had an idea. He suggested that they take all of their glow-in-the-dark necklaces, head crowns, bracelets, and sticks with them so they could see each other in
  the dark. So off they went down the small, quiet streets like beacons in the night. The breeze picked up, the clouds moved over the moon, and the leaves rustled
here and there as if the wind itself was taking a stroll through the ranch.

It was about 12:30 am when the girls said that they were tired and wanted to go back. The problem was that they were far away from the party trailer, nearly at the
northwestern edge of the campground. When they realized it would be a long walk back, they agreed to sit down for a while. The boy who was hosting the party
said that there was an abandoned park model nearby. The story goes that the very first owners “didn’t have a good feeling about the place”, never came back, and
were unable to sell out either. Through the stifling darkness, the exhausted teens started up the street. The trailer was located at the top of a small hill, at the end of a
court, with empty lots on both sides it. The location was heavily wooded. It seemed strange that these lots weren’t all bought up and used by people. It had all the charm of what Woodsmoke is supposed to be. In addition to the remote location from the pools and pavilions, the lots were all backed up to a very steep ravine,  requiring expensive staging to set up and build around the larger park models. Beyond this ravine were acres and acres of scrub trees and bushes on private
farmland.

 The boy who knew of this place said that kids hung around here all the time because the people never showed up and it is far away from the rest of the campers. He
 led them down the gravel driveway, glow sticks above their heads, until they got onto the deck and walked around to the back patio. Just as they turned the corner,
 the Woodsmoke Security pickup truck pulled into the court. The Ranch Association knew that on a busy weekend, there would be some loitering at “the old Foslar
 place.” Quickly, they hid their glow sticks and silently pressed up against the back of the trailer. A spotlight slowly passed across the front yard and then shut off. In
 the blackness, the tail lights of the security truck could be seen as it wheeled back down the court. The girls burst out giggling, having been thrilled by the close call.

There was no backyard; the large, wrap-around deck actually had to be built right out into the ravine. A large picnic table was near the edge by the railing. The kids
all sat down with a sigh of relief. Just then, the sky cleared to exposed the nearly full moon and for a second the moonlight and passing cloud made a surreal dance of
shadows with the trees and brush directly below them in the ravine. The wide gaps in the floor decking made it possible to see the steep drop off. The forest was
alive with the sounds of nature; owls hooting, crickets chirping, raccoons scampering. There were few mosquitoes at this time of year, so the setting was perfect.

As they sat around chatting and resting, one of the boys said he had an idea: put all of the glow sticks in the middle of the picnic table and make a fake campfire. And
this they did. The glow necklaces went down first, then they propped the glow sticks against each other like kindling. It had a real effect, and they were pleased with
 their creation. The fading green and red chemical lights gave the effect of coals and embers in an ebbing fire. They went on talking and laughing around their
 glow-fire. But just as someone was about to suggest that they head on back, one of the girls who was from the city told everyone how beautiful it was out in the
 country- not a sound to be heard. And in fact, all of nature around them was silent. The clouds had long since covered the moon. The breeze had stopped. The
 stifling night closed in on them with their backs to the unknown and unseen. They were  barely able to see the features of each others faces at the table. One of the
 boys who lived on a farm, told everyone that this silence was rare, only happening when there was a predator on the hunt nearby, like a coyote or wolverine.

At this, a boy and girl who had been holding hands and snuggling both felt Goosebumps break out on each other, followed by a cold sweat. You could almost sense
the spine-tingling reaction in the small group. The party host, voice cracking and trying bravely to move slow, got up and said that everyone should follow him back
out down the driveway. The others agreed and got up, not even bothering to retrieve their faint glow sticks on the picnic table.  Just as they stood up, one of the girls
who was sitting at the end of the picnic table grabbed the boy’s arm next to her and started to dig in her nails. When he turned to see what she was doing he saw her head turned sideways toward the ground. There, through the cracks of the floor, they saw something slowly shifting back and forth under the deck; something so
inky, pitch black, that it could be seen in the normal darkness of the night. The boy started to mumble as he forcefully grabbed the girl’s arm and in a weak, slow
motion began to pull away. In doing this, he stepped right on the foot of his already anxious friend, who let out a frightened yelp.

When this happened, everyone in the group turned to see what the commotion was about. What they saw froze them in their tracks. There on the floor about six feet
 away from the end of the picnic table, the flat-black form began to rise through a crack in the decking. It had something like a head, and was about two feet wide.
 When it was about halfway up on the deck, and already six feet high, the group bolted to the end of the trailer. In the rush, the boy and girl couple stumbled in the
 dark and fell. As they gained their bearings and were about to get to their feet, the saw the 10-foot tall, black entity hover up higher, and then begin to float towards
 them, directly over the picnic table. They both froze and screamed, expecting to be some kind of victim of the creature. However, it stopped right above the
 “glow-fire” they left behind. Just inches over the glow-fire, its pointy tail dipped down and started to poke down in between the glow sticks. It touched the lean-to
 creation and they all toppled down. The tail then flicked at the sticks, sending them off the picnic table as the faceless entity floated over the deck railing, and then
 slowly sunk straight down into the ravine.

As soon as it was out of sight, the couple spun around back towards the driveway to see the silhouettes of the others hiding around the corner of the trailer. They all
ran screaming and hollering at the top of their lungs all the way down the court and onto a main road. An elderly couple was up late watching TV, heard the screams,  and called Woodsmoke security, who eventually found the teens running down the street towards the well-lit ranch office, sobbing and exhausted. The teens told  them exactly what the had seen, and said that they should warn everyone to stay away from the old Foslar place. The management, security, and realty broker humored them and sent them on their way, and then quickly convened to a secret meeting. The next day, several campers who had also heard the commotion the night before came to office to find out what had happened.  They were told, “It was all just some typical teens having one last fling before settling in for the school year….you know how it is with kids..…go on back now and enjoy the peaceful, carefree surroundings of Woodsmoke Ranch.…..”
 

Author’s Summation:

The New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 shook the earth so violently that it opened a chasm along the bottom of the Woodsmoke ravines. This narrow fissures went
clear down towards the center of the earth. It opened into a cavernous chamber where a colony of primitive, plasma entities had been existing for millions of years
near the molten core of the planet. The deep chasm caused an imbalance of the magnetic and chemical environment on the earth’s surface. The resulting energy conflict immediately created a sustained, localized weather phenomenon of boiling clouds, fog, small tornados, and lightning.

Days later when the moon was bright, the physics of the universe were such that it lured the plasma entities to the earth’s surface. Once on top, they would hover in a
congregation just above the ground and slowly turn to follow the path of the moon, as if by magnetic force. Once the moonlight became weak, they would slip back
down into the chasms and return to their colony. On those rare occasions, when the moon shown in daylight, they would rise to the surface, but not leave the
                                                           fissures.

When the second New Madrid Earthquake hit a month or so later in 1812, it closed the very chasms it opened. The weather phenomenon ceased and all seemed
back to normal in that region. But the timing was such that one of the entities was trapped on the earth’s surface. The lone Ditch Devil found its way into one
remaining crack that didn’t seal up all the way to the surface. The remnants of this chasm was about three feet long, 1 foot wide, and went down about 80 feet to the
limestone bed. To this day, the fissure exists hidden under thick, thorny scrub brush.

When the moon is more than half full, the plasma entity is once again lured by that strange lunar instinct. Once the ditch devil is on the surface, it is attracted to
anything that resembles its home, the molten cradle of inner earth. Hence, the sightings by campfire coals and embers, where it unsuccessfully tries to find its way
back to its natural habitat.

The plasma entity goes by many names, such as “gully ghost”, “plasma phantom”, and “chasm shadow”, but “ditch devil” stuck because the lifeless, black specter scares people and they usually say that it was seen floating in a ditch.

They say that if you see it coming or lurking behind trees, just put out all light sources, or get away from them. No one has reported being threatened or harmed by it.
Witnesses agree that the size, silence, and lifelessness of the entity is what petrified them, and not a sense of aggression or harm.

Scientists theorize that it is some type of primordial life form that began in a state of plasma. Somehow it could not evolve as all other life forms do and became stuck  in the embryonic phase as it exists today. On the other hand, religious leaders have full faith that it is an evil presence, sent by the Lord to test “the lukewarm.”
Finally, and most importantly, those Woodsmoke campers who have experienced that prickly, petrifying chill running up their spine while sitting by a fading bonfire say that your instinct will tell you when it is close..….

 Chaos Comment -  WOW ! Watch those evening bonfires people !