- A Final Resting Place. Rumored to be haunted.
One of the most interesting things about East Tennessee may be the legends and folklore that accompany many houses, churches, streets and schools. There are many roads I have traveled, where I have seen glimpses of the “unexplained”, or sensed that there may be more there than just myself. Without a doubt, some roads are eerie, even in daylight. At night, you better believe I would not want to break down on some of these roads. And it wouldn’t always be humans or wild animals that I would worry about.
Copper Ridge Rd., in Knox County, TN is one of them. A narrow, winding road, with a lot of “blind” spots. It is a road that deserves respect, of that I am convinced.
Though I didn’t take footage of the road, I did visit the cemetery, which belonged to a church long since gone. If you don’t know the history, I will direct you to some of my favorite sites at the end of this blog, hopefully the links aren’t dead. (Pun intended.)
One thing I can’t determine, and am seeking an answer to; was the church/grounds cursed, blessed, or haunted? Is it possible it was all 3? Maybe that is why the church is gone. After all, there were documented miracles, documented blessings, and documented evil.
I did experience something “abnormal” at the graveyard. Was it paranormal? I am unsure. Upon entering the graveyard, I didn’t sense anything “special” right away. Don’t get me wrong. I like older graveyards; I enjoy looking at the stones. But since I wasn’t sure where the church had been, exactly, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
The “video” portion of the cemetery tour is taken from my digital camera. I didn’t intend to do video that day, so I didn’t take a video camera. I only wanted the pictures. Many times I have caught things in pictures I didn’t actually notice in person. However, when I was taking pictures, there was one area of the cemetery that intrigued me. I kept seeing something “white” and misty in the camera, I would look beyond the camera and not see anything. I would snap the photo, but didn’t pick anything up. That is when I elected to use the motion part of the camera. It was a very windy day. (For the sanity of youtube viewers I muted most of that wind.) Suffice it to say; when I focused on this specific area, where I kept catching glimpses of “white”, the wind seemed to intensify. It was quiet spooky. Maybe mother nature was the only thing I captured, because I also noticed that the sun, directly behind me, kept casting diffused light “shadows” and such in that same area. I am not a photographer, I am not saying it was “supernatural”, I am acknowledging that it could have been a play of light. But it wasn’t just the wind, or the light shadows. I had my family with me, and I firmly believe children sense and accept more than most adults will even willingly comprehend. My family toured the cemetery at their leisure and left me alone. It wasn’t until after we left that my daughter told me she had wanted to visit this one “area” of the graveyard, but she had a bad feeling, and wouldn’t go there. No surprise, that was my favorite area. The area where I thought I saw a “white”, “misty” shape at least a few times, the area where the wind intensified every time I lingered there.
I found charred remains of a building, not sure if it was the church, or another out- building I read so much about, but it saddened me to think it could have been the church. Definitely, there had been vandalism, occult activities on those grounds in the latter days, and reported animal sacrifices.
I sensed many things, and not all were “good” feelings. So maybe that is why I awoke around 2:00 am the next morning, with a strong smell of burning wood, and alarming my poor husband, crying out that “something was burning”. He thought I was having a nightmare. I couldn’t recall a dream. We did check our home, everything was fine. But I definitely continued to smell the distinct aroma of “burning wood” for at least ten minutes after I awoke.
You know, I didn’t fall back to sleep very easily that night. Lately, so many “odd” things have been going on. And I even thought to myself, “I am never doing this again.” The meaning behind that will surface as I continue to blog about the many other experiences I have had. But do you want to know the most unexplainable part of this story? A couple of days after the visit to Copper Ridge Rd., a day after I awoke to the smell of burning wood, my family and I were awakened by the fire alarms going off. Startled to say the least, we jumped up and checked things out. Our alarms are electrically wired, and the battery back up was recently changed in the Spring. The alarms all went off for just a minute, paused for a moment and did it again. Then they stopped, our house was fine, thank God, and we haven’t had any more alarms since.
Check out my Youtube video for scenes of my visit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi4PinLzf6o
A paranormal site to visit for more info on Copper Ridge Rd: http://www.johnnorrisbrown.com/paranormal-tn/copper-ridge-rd/index.htm
For more info on the blessings and miracles visit: http://miracles.mcn.org/curidge.html
http://www.share-international.org/ARCHIVES/crosses/cr_bp19.htm
Instantescape's Blog 
What, if anything, do you know about the boys who caught the girls voice on tape? How did you hear about it? I was there on halloween night in 1995. It was me, my brother, a guy named Mike and his sidekick we had nicknamed Solway. There were also two girls with us that night as well. We had taken one of those small recorders that used the mini cassette tapes, and we had recorded some pretty realistic (and various) noises on it in hopes to frighten the girls. We distracted them and my brother went and placed the recorder behind a tree and pressed play. Apparently the alcohol had impaired the girls hearing because they didn’t hear jack, and our trick was spoiled! …..that is when we had the bright idea to go into that crazy church, or whatever it had once been. Crazy (yet fearless) Solway took the player inside…nobody else would do it. We did leave it in there for awhile, but we took it with us and listened to it on the way home. i don’t know if any of us went back to tape more, but the child’s voice was recorded that night…as well as the footsteps (in silence). That is how we know it wasn’t Solway because we were all laughing and talking to him through the broken windows. When Solway picked the recorder up, it had already been cut off! We didn’t think anything of it until we played it back and heard the little girl.
one last comment….years later, I became interested in geneology and discovered that my GG Grandmother was buried there. I had no idea of this on 10/31/1995. She was buried there in 1911 with her youngest son who died on the same day in 1911. I have no idea how they died….still a mystery.
But I have never told this story to anyone…so maybe solway or mike did, or one of the two girls? who knows?
Roger
Thank you for sharing that story. I want to go back there at dusk with the right equipment, in case I pick up some possible EVP. I only planned on photo’s that day. It was when I caught a glimpse of a faint, white shape that I never caught in pics that I tried the video on the digital camera. Still, I didn’t catch anything.
I have read online in various places about many people hearing voices in and around that cemetery. And seeing a little girl. I hope more people will share their stories with us.
I have collected many pics and some video’s of many local places with some neat phenomenon. Coming very soon is my experience with Cherokee Caverns.
I had to post about the voice I captured on video and didn’t realize it until I was going through unused clips. At this very cemetery! How exciting. You can hear it on my youtube channel, instantescape, check it out.
I do find it interesting that we were there on 10/31/95, only eight days before the brilliant lights/crosses appeared for the first time at the church.
There is defintely something strange about that place. I went back 2 weekends ago at dusk, to take an actual video camera with me so I could try to capture something on film, and my video camera did not record one single thing… even though I checked it before I exited my car, and it was working and fully charged. I thought I was recording at the time. But when I got home; Not a thing.
Did you see my post about the voice I accidentally caught in that graveyard my first time there? didn’t even know I had it until I almost scrapped that small clip. I put it on Youtube, too. (That is my way of sharing some things I’ve encountered.)
I don’t know how else to explain it, but I think there is something odd about those grounds. I will try again, just not sure when. I appreciate your comments.