What is the Bridgewater Triangle?

200 square miles of high strangeness jampacked with enough phantom lights, bizarre creatures, and ghastly apparitions to make Charles Fort cry.

If you live in southeast Massachusetts and you consider yourself an amateur Egon Spengler, you're in for a treat. Originally defined by Fortean investigator Loren Coleman in his 1983 classic Mysterious America, the Bridgewater Triangle is probably the most concentrated area of paranormal activity in all of New England.



Do you live in either Abington, Rehoboth, or Freetown? Then it's your stroke of good fortune to live at one of the Triangle's three angles.

Or do you call Brockton, the Bridgewaters, Taunton, Raynham, Norton, Mansfield or Easton home? If you do you're lucky enough to actually live inside Massachusetts' premier supernatural hotspot.

The source of all this bad craziness is widely believed to be the Hockomock Swamp, which is located smack in the Triangle's center. The Native Americans were well aware of all this bad juju long before we figured it out for ourselves - "Hockomock" is derived from an Algonquian word that means "devil" or "evil spirit." Currently the swamp is designated as a chief area of environmental concern and is home to a dozen rare and endangered species, including the blue spotted salamander. It also seems to be the favored vacation spot for flying saucers, spooks, spectres, and even Bigfoot.

Just check out this small sampling of unexplainable encounters:



Got UFOs?

October 31st, 1908 - Two undertakers, John E. Flynn and Phillp S. Prophett, spotted a strange light in the sky while driving their carriage into Bridgewater proper around 4am. Flynn described it as "not exactly a searchlight but an unusually strong lantern of some sort," that hung below a balloon shaped object. The light reportedly descended towards the ground rapidly, and then ascended just as quickly. Both undertakers watched the light for forty minutes as it traveled perpendicular to the ground, steadily and silently, until it finally disappeared over the skies of Plymouth. The Manchester New Hampshire Union newspaper reported that on October 31st "all of the balloons in which ascensions are made in this [Massachusetts] state, were accounted for." Flynn himself asserted "that a hot-air balloon could not move in a circle or perpendicular, as this one did."

March 23rd, 1979 - WHDH radio news reporter Jerry Lopes encountered a strange craft hovering over the junctions of Routes 24 and 106. Lopes described it as being "shaped like home plate on a baseball diamond, with a bright red light on its top, a powerful white 'headlight' at the point on the bottom, and rows of white and red lights around the edges" (Coleman,36).

1973 - Folks dining at Joseph's Restaurant on Park Street in Rehoboth experienced a Close Encounter of the Second Kind. After suffering a brief power failure the owners were surprised to find two perfectly formed circles in the dirt behind the establishment. Is this the first case of a flying saucer stopping to pick up some take out?

Ain't Afraid of No Ghost?

The Phantom Hitchhiker of Route 44 - Many people have encountered the spectre of a long dead hitchhiker along the wooded area of Route 44 while driving from Seekonk to Rehoboth. The man is sometimes well kept, other times he is dirty with his clothes in disarray. A few details that remain constant in every encounter: his hair is always red, and he's always dressed in a plaid shirt. One woman reported running over a man fitting that description late one night. The man seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and the woman, taken by surprise, had no time to prevent a collision. When she jammed on her brakes, and leapt out to investigate, she found no evidence of anyone being in the road at all. She did hear, however, a cackling laugh emanating from the woods alongside her. Frightened, the woman returned to her car and continued on. A few minutes later, the same thing happened again. The man appeared, and once more she hit him. Too frightened to leave her car, the woman rolled down her windows to inspect the road. As before, there was nothing or no one to be seen. The disturbing laugh returned, this time much closer, as if a few feet from the car. Sufficiently terrorized, the woman peeled out at full speed.

Rehoboth Village Cemetery - Many Rehoboth residents have reported seeing a strange and disturbing apparition in this graveyard's southwest quadrant. The manifestation has been repeatedly described as an elderly man, with a large hooked nose and a strange grin dressed in period clothing. He has been spotted both praying and alternately crying and laughing near one grave. He's also been known to make suggestive gestures with his hands towards female witnesses, and in one case even chased a woman out of the cemetery while yelling, "Catherine, Catherine, you bitch!" The woman, whose name is not Catherine, retreated to her car and quickly exited the cemetery. As she made her way out she witnessed the entity beating a ghostly young woman who was kneeling at his feet. Seconds later, both apparitions vanished completely.

Monsters in your Backyard?

April 1970 - Cryptozoology's favorite son, Bigfoot, has also been seen skulking around the Bridgewater Triangle. In April of 1970 Bridgewater area residents complained of a huge "bear" walking upright around their houses and in their backyards. Local farmers even reported cases of shredded livestock. Tracks were also found on April 8th after a sighting of a seven foot tall creature. The police investigated these accounts time and time again to no avail. One officer, while on a stakeout for the monster, was taken by surprise when something picked up and then violently dropped the rear of his patrol car. The policeman turned the car around to investigate and witnessed a huge bipedal "bear" running off between houses.

1976 - For several weeks the town of Abington was terrorized by a real life hellhound. Reportedly a huge black dog was spotted mauling two ponies on a local farm. When firefighter Phillip Kane arrived on the scene he witnessed the dog standing over the animal carcasses, chewing on their throats. The hound eventually bounded off into the night, and eluded an exhaustive police search for many weeks. Following the sighting Abington Police were flooded with calls from people claiming to catch a glimpse of the beast. The last known sighting of the phantom pooch was by Police Officer Frank Curran, who spotted it along some railroad tracks. Curran fired at the dog, but missed. Unconcerned, the hound turned away from the officer and slowly walked into the nearby woods. It was never seen again.

Summer 1971 - While driving home late one summer's night, Norton Police Sergeant Thomas Downy was confronted by a prehistoric creature on a stretch of road near "Bird's Hill" in Easton. The Sergeant reported seeing a six foot tall bird with a wingspan of at least eight to twelve feet standing in the middle of the street. Downy brought his car to a stop, and watched amazed as the bird flew straight up (like a helicopter, and similar to the sightings of the Mothman in Point Pleasant), and disappeared over a nearby wooded area. The woods were searched by Easton police, but no large birds were to be found.

My aim for this site is to provide a forum where local people can share their encounters with the paranormal and learn more about their haunted homeland. Here you will also read about my experiences in haunted New England, focusing mainly on the Bridgewater Triangle. Do you live in New England and have a strange and unexplainable story to tell? Share your experience! Don't waste another minute, I'm dying to hear from you (pun intended).

Sources: Myserious America by Loren Coleman, What is the Bridgewater Triangle by Christopher Pittman, UFO Roundup Volume 2 Number 41 edited by Joseph Trainor, UFO Historical Review Issue #4 by Barry Greenwood, and The New England Ghost Files by Charles Turek Robinson.