Ghosts in the Pines?

Todd Hansell

New Member
Sep 15, 2016
11
4
Roslyn, PA
I was born in South Jersey in the early 1960s and raised as a bottle digger/collector. My father Lee Hansell and his friends Dick Watson, Eddy Glassman, Boyd Hitchner and others used to use old topo (and other types of) maps as well as Beck's very famous books to locate old towns around the pines. We would spend HOURS driving dirt and sand roads discovering pits, privies and places where people would dump their trash. We wold dig these areas and collect the bottles and stuff... I had a love for the pines almost since my birth. Years passed and I would explore the Pines myself with friends or other bottle diggers or geocaching companions.

Sometime around 2003 a couple of friends and I found a road near the Batsto Lookout Tower that we decided to investigate. My memory is a little sketchy about how close to the tower the road actually was. It was paved, at first, then turned into a hard seemingly well traveled dirt road. It seemed to go on for miles but nothing of huge interest was found. We decided to find a place to turn around and head back. It was just starting to get a tiny bit dark and way up in the distance I could see the tail lights of another car. Se we were discussing that they were on one of the cross road and were heading out before it got dark... so I remember focusing on the taillights when all of a sudden something big and dark crossed the road infront of us... I remember that for a second it blocked out the tail light of the car ahead... I stopped quickly first because I thought I was going to hit it and secondly my brain wasn't processing what it was. I asked my friends if they saw that and the guy infront said yes but the girl in back said no. She asked what it was and I said I wasn't sure... I pulled ahead a tiny bit to where it crossed and there was no crossroad, path or trail... there was nothing to indicate that something was just there moving... I remember saying that it was fast like a horse, but that it appeared to be... well... a big black mattress... like someone was carrying it across the road BUT FAST! But no one was around and no one could have gotten out of sight that fast. It wasn't dark enough that they could have ducked down without being seen.

So to this day I have no idea what that was.
 

manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,549
2,461
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
The road it sounds like you were on is Batsto- Godfrey bridge Road.It starts as blacktop but that veers right and heads to Tylertown/Bulltown and Godfreys bridge road heads straight off the bend ,straight as an arrow for maybe five miles to Washington and then starts zigzagging the last two miles to the bridge.They are getting ready to widen that road for a fire break so the beautiful tunnel like effect I have always enjoyed is about to become history.I have no problems with fire breaks just don't know why they need it in the middle of the forest.I"d wrap one around the back of each settlement and if people want one behind their house let them pay to have it made. I have what can't be replaced in a couple of fire boxes ready to be grabbed at a moments notice.I"d suggest anyone who lives in the pines do likewise and keep their fire insurance paid.My house is insured for twice what it's worth.Long as I get the Momma, the dogs and the snake I"ll be fine.
 

slingblade

Scout
Sep 15, 2016
52
62
MakePeace Lake NJ
Same story, but different.
One clear night, maybe in '78 or '79, a few of us were in our trucks climbing hills in the Frankfurt Ave gravel pit. When my truck was climbing one straight-up hill, my lights lit up a circular object, maybe several hundred feet above. Everybody in the pit saw it. But the object was gone when the next two trucks climbed the hill and their lights shined straight up. I like to think it was a weather balloon, but everyone else that was there that night will likely say different.
 

smoke_jumper

Piney
Mar 5, 2012
1,504
1,019
Atco, NJ
Twice I've almost hit an owl or large bird at least. It went over my hood and nearly blocked out my entire windshield. The first time it happened I saw it take off from a mailbox. The second time it came out of no where.
It's not as exciting as saying I saw the Jersey Devil.
Back in the day though, I may have taken few girls to search for the JD. I miss those days :)
 
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Todd Hansell

New Member
Sep 15, 2016
11
4
Roslyn, PA
There are also wild turkeys and vultures... vultures like to stand on tombstones and can be quite odd looking upclose. I remember seeing pictures of a cemetery in Mt Holly that had vultures on the tombstones. Whatever I saw that night was translucent and very dark. But it wasnt right at my hood I would say it was about twenty feet infront of the car but was huge.
 
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manumuskin

Piney
Jul 20, 2003
8,549
2,461
59
millville nj
www.youtube.com
Same story, but different.
One clear night, maybe in '78 or '79, a few of us were in our trucks climbing hills in the Frankfurt Ave gravel pit. When my truck was climbing one straight-up hill, my lights lit up a circular object, maybe several hundred feet above. Everybody in the pit saw it. But the object was gone when the next two trucks climbed the hill and their lights shined straight up. I like to think it was a weather balloon, but everyone else that was there that night will likely say different.


Nice name!.... I like the way you talk!....HMMMM!
 
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