Is There A Wet, Angry Ghost Here?

I am from Northern California, almost at the border of Oregon. Two summers ago my friends invited me to take a trip to Jellico Tennessee with them. They had made reservations to camp at the Indian Mtn Park. They had been there a few times before and had told me how nice it was, so I was excited to go along.

On the way there they began telling me all about how the park was once an old strip pit. Their grandfather had worked there in the 50's before it was transformed into the beautiful park that it is today. He had always told them stories about how one of the workers accidentally drowned in one of the ponds and has since haunted that area.

According to the story, this particular man was very difficult to work with. He was always giving the other guys a very hard time and nobody really cared for him. When the accident happened he was calling for help but nobody even cared to go check on him. Later his body was found in the pond where he had fallen and drowned. A few days later strange things started to happen at the strip mine. Workers would catch glimpses of the man standing around, soaked and dripping with water. Unexplainable sounds of splashing would come from the pond and wet footprints were showing up.

After the mine was closed down and the land was transformed into a park, the ghost apparently decided to stay at the place of his demise. I had heard this story many times from them and I assumed that they had decided to tell it again in hopes of creeping me out.

It was a long trip so I decided to search online for other stories about the park. I found a few rundowns from people who claimed that the haunting was real and had shared some of their observations and experiences. Most of the stories circled around the walking trail and the wooden bridge that leads to it. One person claimed to have seen the soaking wet mine worker standing on the bridge one night peering over into the water. Some claimed to have heard the phantom splashes coming from the pond (along the trail) and someone had even shared a photo of a ghost peeking out from behind a tree. I was intrigued, to say the least.

Once we arrived we began setting up our tents and taking in the beautiful scenery. We watched baby ducklings following their mother and seen squirrels bouncing through the trees. Two big geese decided to hang out with us and we decided to call them Jack and Diane. Why? Because the song on the radio was "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp. A worker from the park came by and had a nice chat with us, he was super friendly and polite. Before he left we asked him about the ghost and if the park was really haunted. He suddenly became very defensive and said "no, that's just a bunch of nonsense." I felt like he really didn't want to be having that conversation so we went on about our business and he left.

Later that night after the park closed, it was only us and one other set of campers left in the park (an older couple). I decided to walk across the field to the bathhouse and take a shower. While I was in the shower stall preparing for my shower (I hadn't even turned the water on yet) I heard someone else in there with me. Being a little self-conscious I waited for them to leave before turning the shower on. They had walked right up to my stall and stopped. I said, "Tammy is that you?" (Tammy being the name of my friend.) There was no reply. I waited for a moment and said it again. There was still no reply so I peeked out and there was absolutely nobody in there. However, there were wet footprints coming from the door all the way up to my shower stall. I was officially spooked and decided not to continue on with my shower. I quickly got dressed and headed back to the campsite.

As I was walking across the field I kept thinking that someone was walking up behind me. I stopped and looked several times, I just had that eerie feeling that made the hairs on my neck stand up. When I finally made it back to our tents I noticed that Tammy and her husband were in their tent asleep. I looked across at the camper down from us and there was no sign of movement there either, so who had been in the bathhouse with me? I crawled inside of my tent and buried myself under the blankets feeling a little unnerved.

Sometime later in the night, I was awakened by the sound of little pings hitting the side of my tent. It sounded like someone was tossing tiny rocks. I peeked out of the window and nobody was awake. I kept laying there listening and finally fell back to sleep. The next morning Tammy questioned me and asked if I was up in the middle of the night tossing pebbles at their tent. I said, "No, I thought that you were the one tossing rocks at my tent." We began looking around and we found tiny little brown stones laying all around both of the tents. We noticed the other older campers across the way so we walked over and asked them if they had heard or saw anything. They said that they hadn't seen anything but they had also been awakened by what sounded like pebbles hitting the windows on their camper. Sure enough, we found little brown stones around their campsite as well. We all came to the conclusion that some locals had most likely come into the park during the night and were trying to prank us.

We spent the day out on the pond riding paddle boats and fishing. When evening arrived we went into town and visited a pizza place for dinner. We drove a few miles up the road to Williamsburg to buy a few more supplies and returned back to the park. By the time that we arrived, it was closed, so I jumped out of the truck to swing open the big yellow gates. It was pitch black and so quiet that every tiny sound seemed to echo all across the park. I was keeping my eyes locked on that wooden bridge just across the way. I was feeling very uneasy about it like something was getting ready to pounce out of the darkness at any moment.

We built a cozy campfire and was sitting around it talking and having a good time. Suddenly we were startled by the sound of splashing and ducks going crazy. It wasn't coming from the main pond but rather from the wooded area. We never saw Jack and Diane again, which was really odd because they had been with us the entire time that we had been there. Being wild geese they probably flew on to another area. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help but wonder if something had happened to them.

Tammy's husband had the fun idea that we should take flashlights and walk around that spooky wooded walking trail. We were leaving the following morning so why not do something random and exciting on our last night there. Tammy jumped up and was in total agreeance. I had to decide if I was going to stay at the campsite alone or tag along with them. I decided to go.

We made it about halfway across the wooden bridge when we all three stopped dead in our tracks. There was wet footprints on the bridge, it was 2:00 a.m, nobody was inside of the park but us and even if they were, why was they walking around so wet and soaked that they'd be leaving big wet tracks? We all just looked at each other and took a few more steps. We didn't even make it off of the bridge when we heard "thump, thump, thump...like someone or something was running straight at us. We all three had big, bright flashlights and were swinging them around in all directions but we never saw anything. We turned and ran as fast as we could all the way back to camp.

Out of breath and huffing for air, we all sit down at the picnic table and just starred across the park into the darkness. "What was that?" Tammy finally asked in a low whisper as if she didn't want "it" to hear her. "Did it follow us?" I chimed in. "I don't think so, I don't see anything" her husband replied.

None of us slept that night, we sit awake wondering what was out there in the dark and imagining a big, wet, angry ghost. As soon as the sun came up we packed up and left. We noticed that the older folks in the camper were also leaving, even though they had told us that they were staying for a whole week. We never had a chance to talk to them again but we wondered if they had their own experience that night as well.