Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

I live in a small town in Lenoir City, Tennessee. One night I was fishing at Fort Loudon Dam. Alone. I was very close to the dam, maybe 15 feet away. I had heard the catfish bit better closer to the dam when the water wasn’t running. I had been fishing for about three hours, with no interruptions.

About 2:15 am I turned to my left to get a drink from my cooler when, to my shock, I found myself no longer alone. There was  a man in worn clothes sitting right on my cooler. He just sat there staring out over the water. He seemed to ignore my every attempt to engage in a conversation. He simply seemed happy with my company. We just sat there for about 45 minutes.

I had given up trying to get a name or anything from him, let alone talk. When out of the blue he said, “sure’s been a long’en”. Shocked by the break in the silence, I turned to him to say, “yep,” and he was gone. He literally had vanished. I believe it was the spirit of one of the many workers who died building the dam some 70 years ago. Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

I had no one with me that night, no witnesses. My dad didn’t seem to believe me. I didn’t want to feel crazy. I had had one other ghostly encounter, but I was a child then. No one believed me then. They said it was my childish imagination. And I let myself believe them. But not anymore.

I decided to ask around at the old baitshop to see if any of the other fisherman had had any similar encounters. Two older men shared the same encounter at about the same time at night years earlier.  They recalled the worn clothes and the silence. Even the vanishing act.

My grandfather helped build the dam and recalled some 150 men dying while building it, some even buried alive in the cement, on account of they just didn’t have the means to rescue them when they fell “in those days” he said. I’m convinced it was the spirit of one of those good men who by lack of resources, was buried alive.

Sent in by Joe, Copyright 2009 TrueGhostTales.com