LAKE LANIER | AMERICA'S MOST HAUNTED LAKE & The Town Buried Beneath | Paranormal Podcast (Ep 360)

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You continue to tread as you feel every finger wrap around your ankle and then suddenly boom, you're pulled under. So today we are revisiting the stories of Lake Laneir, a topic that we did cover in episode 129, but we are going to dive a lot deeper into the drown history today.

Yeah.

Very spooky.

Hello.

Hello. Welcome everyone. This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

Two Girls, One Ghost. And we are your ghostesses. That is Karen and I am Sabrina. And we've approached that time of year where sickness comes in. and always be sick.

We try not to get each other sick, so we

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record.

Sabrina is quarantined from me, although there's a chance I still get sick cuz we were together yesterday as your sickness hit.

We were like mid-recording and all of a sudden you were really nasely and I was like, wait, are you sick?

I was like, I guess so.

Whoopsie.

Yeah.

Anyho, we're going to try to not get sick. And this is a great episode for you to be sick for, Sabrina, because you don't have to do much talking in [laughter] this one.

I thought you were going to talk about how it's going to make me even more sick because it's so sad.

It is extremely sad. Okay. Well, so to preface, five years ago, there was an episode of Two Girls One Ghost where I covered Lake Laneir and our the title for that episode was, "What are these ghosts up to?" [laughter] She was like, "Oh my god." That was when we were naming everything like trying to make it all.

Yeah.

Anyway, in my coverage of Lake Lineer, it focused pretty much primarily on the idea of the paranormal and the curse

and very little on the back history of

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the town that was flooded to create Lake Lineer.

Yes.

And so we're going to correct that today. And I really wanted to do it for years, but what better timing to do it than for our first episode that comes out during Black History Month. Woo. Also, I I mean I it is wild to think that that was five years ago and how far the internet has come and how far like yes our knowledge has come because

yeah when we first did that episode when you looked it up I mean it also I think speaks volumes to our society but it only focused on the hauntings the curse and the history the real history that you're about to share with us was kind of erased and not ever mentioned.

Yeah. So today we're going to talk about Lake Laneir's deadly waters and drowned history.

Yes. Resurrecting. Okay. We're going to paint a picture. Ready?

Yes, I'm ready.

0".Lake Lanier

It's a sweltering day in Georgia. Gh, I'm already actually that sounds really

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nice right now cuz it's so freaking [laughter] cold up here.

I want to be sweating. The sun is beating down on you. The humid air grips to your skin as beads of sweat sit steady around your neck. You make your way down to the water's edge, squinting as the sunlight glitters off the surface of the water. Your feet touch the water. [sighs and gasps] Instant relief. You make your way past the squealing children and the koozie hugging adults deeper and deeper until you can tread. The sweat around your neck now lapped away by the cooler water. You look out towards the hundreds of miles of shoreline and take a long deep breath. Lake Lane Lenir is beautiful. It's the weekend playground for millions of people and you have been here plenty of times before. It's a welcomed rest bit, a way to survive the hot summer days in Georgia. You tread water, letting your mind wander as you face away from the shoreline. Your toes brush against a pocket of icy cold. And then

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there's a sensation, a grip, firm, distinct, human. You continue to tread as you feel every finger wrap around your ankle and then suddenly boom, you're pulled under. So today we are revisiting the stories of Lake Laneir, a topic that we did cover in episode 129, but we are going to dive a lot deeper into the drown history today.

No pun intended.

Oh, pun was very intended there. [laughter] The stories of Lakelander are not just campfire stories because they are very much warnings. Beneath the calm surface lies a graveyard of people, of a town, of a black community who was violently displaced and erased, of homes with dinner plates still stacked in the cupboards, of a racetrack where the grand sands still loom, and of petrified trees turned into jagged spears just below the surface.

It's absolutely wild.

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I know. And it's also it's like when you look at pictures and if you're watching on YouTube, I'm going to have like pictures intermittently throughout this episode. But it's so beautiful. So like I would look and I'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I want to like jump off the boat into the lake. I want to go tubing. I want to float with a beer in my hand." You know, like that is the vibe that it gives.

Yeah.

And I think so many people do that.

But it's also one of the deadliest waters in America and the world. And we'll talk about that. It's also just so surreal to think about this idea that so many people do go there and vacation and are just like drinking beers, having a having a laugh, but all the time beneath their boat and beneath their feet, there's like an entire civilization that's just like literally was wash like covered up and erased. Well, and too, I feel like most places that are like said to be haunted or cursed or something like like Lineer is, when you do a Google image search, there's always like edits or whatever to make the place look really creepy and scary.

That does not exist here. Like it is

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like people grilling like the beach setup. It looks so lovely. And even I was like, "Okay, Lake Laneir at night cuz I was like, maybe it's creepier than

trying to find creepy photos." I was trying to find creepy photos and you can't even find that because like and I I referenced it in the original coverage of Lake Laneir five years ago, but they have the world's largest light show for like part of the year. So even when you look up like Lake Laneir at night, it's just like it looks like a Christmas village. [laughter] There's like beautiful lights everywhere

strung up. And so yeah, it does not give the appearance of a scary place with a terrible bloody history.

Jeez.

Yet it is.

Since Lake Laneir's creation, over 700 people have died here. Cars drive off bridges with no skid marks. Experienced swimmers sink like stones. Boats catch fire. And every time the water levels drop, well, it seems like the lake spits something or someone back out.

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Jeez. a reminder of the past and why this lake is not just bad luck. It is actively haunted and seeking vengeance

with good reason.

the most cursed lake in America

Yes. All right. So, now we're going to get into kind of like the heavier heavier part part, the history. Okay. So, we've talked about a lot of heavy places on this podcast, but there is something about Lake Laneir in its current state that feels very predatory. And it's almost

I feel like it almost mirrors what happened to the black community here where they were basically like prayed upon.

So, this feeling is very active. It feels very hungry. And when you and I first discussed this, Sabrina, we were like, we will never step foot in Lakeland ever. But there's some I think originally when I had covered this 5 years ago, it was something like 8 million visitors every year and I think now it it's closer to 11 million

Oh my gosh.

visitors every year.

Wow.

Uh so there are tons of people who go

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and it is massive with 692 miles of beautiful shorelines, many public parks and beaches.

692 miles.

Yeah,

that's massive.

I mean it's very like squiggly.

Sure. But that's still big. like it's not just like a circular pool

or something. But yeah, no, it's it is massive, especially when you think about like the fact that it was a town that was flooded.

Yeah.

It's wild to think of just how large this lake is. And this lake is also universally known by locals to be cursed. The reputation of the lake is so bad that there are people in Georgia who refuse to ever dip a toe in there. They won't boat out. They won't drive over bridges because the death toll is staggering. So we're talking about hundreds of lives lost.

But that's like such a small fraction. I mean, if you're saying 11 million people visit there annually, like

true.

How many people have no idea what's beneath them?

Yes. And we made this argument 5 years

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ago, too, being like, okay, well, think about how many visitors go and like is that number really surprising? It is because you can compare it to other lakes.

Yeah.

And there are not nearly as many deaths and just as many visitors, if not more.

Yeah.

Just from 1994 to today, there have been more than 200 deaths on this lake.

Jeez.

And the way people die here is not always just like, okay, they drank too much. They weren't wearing a life jacket, a freak accident, like you know, someone had a heart attack while they were swimming,

right?

Yes, that does happen in this body of water. It happens everywhere. But there are also reports of some freak things happening

like boats exploding, people jumping in and just never resurfacing, or their bodies found in places that seem to defy physics. There are also survivors, people who claim that they were pulled under by human hands.

We have a listener story.

People have seen

very similar to that.

Oh my god. Okay, I'm so ready for that.

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People have seen the lady of the lake, who is a spectral woman wandering a bridge without hands, and some underwater people, too. Apparently, divers see some really weird strange things under under the water, and it's very spooky.

Wow. But to understand why this lake is so angry and to understand potentially like what it's covering up, what's below the surface, uh we have to look at the history because Lake Laneir is is a cover up in a way.

100%.

It is a man-made reservoir created in the 1950s by the US Army Corps of Engineers. And when they built it, they didn't just dig a hole and fill the hole with water. They flooded an entire valley. They flooded communities. They flooded history. specifically, they flooded a place called Oscarville. And the story of Oscarville is one of the most heartbreaking and violent and just like infuriating chapters in American history. And it's like, you know, again, we've researched this or I

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researched this 5 years ago

and it didn't come up. And actually, you know what? No, both of us researched this cuz when I was listening back to that episode, I was saying that you had originally started all the research on Lake Lineer and then I wanted to do it and we like shared our resources and neither of us had come up with information on Oscar.

That is so funny cuz I was trying to figure it out because in my mind I'm like why do I feel like I wrote research on Lakeer but okay that makes sense if I if we

Yeah. You had started and then I Yes. H handed the baton.

So this is a story of racial cleansing and organized massacre. Yeah, the energy, the trauma, the things that happen to these poor people is believed to still be trapped under the billions of gallons of water. Water, which like we've talked about it, water's a conduit to spirits, right? So, like it makes sense that the energy is still there and that it can manifest in this kind of like deadly way literally in death. And also, they didn't relocate the town. They didn't re, you know, it's it's like the energy

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of the people, the like history, the lives that they lived is 100% still there in combination with the fact that water is a conduit.

Yes. I wish like we could talk to someone whose family was

I know had experienced this. It's so sad.

Well, if you're listening and you are said person, please email us. We want to hear your story.

Yes. Okay. Okay, in a very public speaking format, I wrote my like three things I'm going to talk about.

So, I'm going to talk about the lynchings of 1912, the engineering of the lake, and then of course the spirits and hauntings of the lake because this is a paranormal podcast before there was

the history of Oscarville and the 1912 racial cleansing

a man-made lake. There was land and on that land was the community of Oscarville, a small farming community in Okay, I had to like go on Reddit to I because the county is called Forsight, but on Reddit apparently locals say Forsight. So, I'm going to say Forsight and then maybe I won't get yelled at.

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Okay. But Oscarville was a small farming community in Forsythe County, Georgia. And contrary to what you might expect for the deep south in this time in the early 1900s, it was not the normal place of struggle that you would think of. It was actually a beautiful symbol of black resilience.

By 1910, about a quarter of black households in First County owned their own land, which is incredible.

Yeah.

And we are talking about families who like less than 50 years ago were for many of them had family members or themselves were enslaved,

right? And now they had built lives. They were owning land. They were building community businesses. They were carpenters, blacksmiths, teachers, clergy. They owned hundreds of acres in this area and just like built this world for themselves and were really on the up and up, which makes this story even more infuriating.

It's like see 100%. It's like society couldn't handle black people having success, so they

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ripped it away from them. It's like you had to choose this area specifically.

In 1912, that world was basically burned to the ground. It started, as many of these things did in this era, with a pointed finger and an accusation.

September of 1912, two separate white women were attacked. On September 5th, a woman was at home alone while her husband was away for work, and she claimed that a black man had entered her home at night and assaulted her. 22-year-old Tony Howell, a black man, was accused alongside four others, Isaiah Perl, Joe Rogers, Fate Chester, and Johnny Bates, claiming that all of these other men were accompllices. I don't know what their involvement was, but apparently that is who was taken to the jail in [ __ ] which is like the like downtown area where uh the courthouse was. a mob of angry white people formed outside of the jail and a local black preacher, Reverend Grant

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Smith, he went to the scene of the mob. He made some like remarks that were not viewed as favorable, I guess, like from the white mob. And so they turn on him, they attack him, they whip him. Police have to like save him from this mob. They actually stay with the reverend locked in the church overnight to protect him from the angry mob of people. And if you're watching on YouTube, there's actually an article clipping that I included that references this event and basically like how the mobs of white people would continue to um basically like harass both the accused men who likely were innocent. Yeah.

Um and also just like anyone who was black.

Like they were just like showing up to barbecues and like breaking them up. just racism.

Yeah.

Yep. It was so bad the National Guard had to be deployed.

Jeez.

Then a few days later on September 8th, 1912, 18-year-old May Crowe, who was a white teenager, she was found in the

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woods near Oscarville. She hadn't returned home after visiting with her aunt, and this triggered a search party. And right outside of her home in the back of the woods, May was discovered. She had been brutally beaten, sexually assaulted, and left unconscious in the woods. Um, she was taken to the hospital, still unconscious, and I believe she did die from her injuries. I'm not sure that she ever woke up again. Jeez. The white community in First County immediately turned on their black neighbors. And very quickly, Sheriff Bill Reid arrested three black men for the crime against Merrow. Rob Edwards, who was 24, and two teenagers, Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel. They were just 16 and 17 years old.

My gosh.

Rob Edwards was connected to the crime.

It's kind of weird. Okay, so I found like two differing like reasons why he was picked up. One of them said that he was found in the woods like somewhere in that same woods. Okay.

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But it didn't say like how close. Like he could have been miles away. I'm not sure. So one said that he was in the woods when they had discovered May somewhere.

Okay.

Another report had said that he was connected to the crime because a small pocket mirror had been found in the woods somewhere nearby. Again, the proximity wasn't disclosed. And it was believed or like said that that small pocket mirror was connected to Rob. That like he had recently purchased it. And so they knew it belonged to him,

which obviously this crime is horrible and no woman no one should be attacked, right? But I feel like they were just they wanted to accuse the black people of these crimes.

Well, it's like whether or not none of the aspects are white.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't know how the teenagers were tied to the crime, but I will give you this statistic, which is just more proof to what you were saying. In this specific area of the county, only 37 of the 513 residents were black. So that means three of the 37 black residents

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were accused for this crime.

Right?

And I want to be very clear about what I'm going to say next because we're going to get into some of the like very gruesome things. Um, but we do have to witness the history in order to kind of understand the hauntings and also just to do this story and this

community and this area justice in telling and telling the story. It wouldn't be fair to to

no glaze over it.

And also like I just feel like generally today in our society it's important that we acknowledge our history. Our history is not

always pleasant and beautiful sunshine and rainbows but it's a part of our history and we can't just ignore it and erase it

at this time in the south. Quote whites regularly used lynchings to control the black population.

I hate that is a direct quote a sentence I took from the atlena historycenter.com.

I'm speechless.

Rob Edwards, one of the accused he was the he was the only adult, right? He's

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the 24-year-old. He was taken to the jail in downtown [ __ ] but he never made it to trial. And this is where I give a huge content warning because this specific section is going to discuss racial violence, lynchings, and very graphic and like brutal acts against black men.

Yeah.

On September 10th, 1912, a mob of white men, some estimated to be a thousand men and then other sites said that it was at least 2,000 men. Anyway, a a thousand plus men stormed the jail. They dragged Rob Edwards out of his cell. They beat him with crowbars. They dragged his body through the streets of town. I One report said he was naked.

Oh my god.

And then in the town square, they lynched him from a telephone pole and he had just been brutally beaten without fair trial. Very much could have been an innocent man, but that was not enough for the angry mob. So they they hung his body, lynched him, and then fired

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thousands of rounds into his body. So he's he's dead, and they're still shooting his corpse.

It feels so archaic, but it's not that long ago.

No, not at all.

It's disgusting.

Yeah. This happened on the land that now borders this lake. The other two boys, Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel, the teenagers, they were given a quote unquote trial, but it was definitely not a fair trial because the entire jury w it was white. So they were white, so it right. Like

Yeah, that was not at all fair.

Yeah.

So they were both convicted by an all-white jury in a single day and sentenced to death. On October 25th, 1912, they were hanged and a crowd of 5,000 people, well, pretty much all white people came to watch and treated it like a festival, like a celebration.

Literally archaic. It feels like the Hunger Games in a way. I'm like,

and just like medieval times.

Yeah. Like when in Berlin and, you know,

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the kings were killing all these people. Like it just feels right. like it should have been. It's something that should have taken place centuries and centuries ago, but it's one century ago.

I'll bite my tongue about everything happening today, but

yeah.

Yeah.

Uh so this is basically the start of the end for this area. Following the lynchings and the executions, bands of white vigilantes formed what they called the Nightriders. So they had like this club that they called themselves the Nightriders and they began this campaign of terror to drive like every black person out of the county. They used arson, they used dynamite, they fired guns into homes at night and they posted notes on doors or just like literally went up and like beat up and roughed up and threatened families, black people, and said if you don't leave within 24 hours, you die. So of course they're going to flee, right? They're terrified. And this actually as I was reading about this I was like God this reminds me so much of what happened to people after Hurricane Katrina. It's like we're

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talking about things that happenedund years ago. Guess what? A decade ago this happened too or a couple decades ago like a version of it.

Yeah.

So for the black residents this intimidation, this violence and murder, it did drive them out of their homes. In 1912 there were 1,098 black residents in the county. By 1913, so one year later, there were almost none. It was total racial cleansing, a forced exile. That's over a thousand people forced to leave everything that they had built, their homes, their farms, their friends, the graves of their ancestors, their hope, all of their resources, everything they built.

Their finances are tied to this area. It's not like they're being paid to leave,

right? And like you're saying, they're being threatened that their whole entire families are going to be murdered. So they're not taking their sweet time, packing up their things, being able to sell their home, relocate. No,

they're they're literally picking up.

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They're running for their lives.

Yes.

Their clothes on their back.

That's what they're doing.

Who took the land?

Well, the white people, the neighbors, of course.

So, the land was seized or sold for pennies on the dollar under duress. And it was basically just like the theft of the black community on this massive, massive scale.

Jeez. And it didn't matter who it was. Plenty of black people in this community had held positions of power and it didn't matter like whoever they were. If they were black, they were targeted. They were forced out. They were given basically zero rights or zero say. And there are quite a few stories actually about some specific people and families who fled and what happened to them.

And I mean, people can read about it online. There's plenty. But I did want to say that there was one that I was like, "Oh, I I do think that this is kind of like a a lovely turn of events given the horrors that happened." Uh, but one family, the Merritt family, they had been forced to leave their town violently.

And this inspired their son, George Ed

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Merritt, to grow up to be a civil rights leader. And he was the first black member of the school board in Buford, which is in that county.

Oh wow. So even though citizens were forced out, their anger, their search for justice, their motivation to make the world right and fair, it did stay with them and certain generations to come after did a lot of work to help like bring that back.

So all of this happens and people are trying really hard to cover up what happened here. So, a thousand plus people screaming and chased out of their homes. The blood of their friends and neighbors soaking into the soil in the town square after being lynched and shot. Oh, that didn't happen, right? The land is simply used to create a reservoir. Everyone left willingly. Everything is legal. This is the good place, right? No. I have been dealing

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the construction of Lake Lanier

Fast forward 40 years. It's the late 1940s and the land is now owned mostly entirely by white families who had taken it.

Mhm.

But soon they are going to be asked to leave too because the US Army Corps of Engineers comes in. They have a 100 billion dollar project proposal to provide hydroele electricity navigation and control the flooding of the Chattahuchi River. It was like help flooding create power and water for the growing city of Atlanta nearby. And like that's the whole plan,

right? So, I guess like location did somewhat matter, but also like kind of good karma that the white people are also now kicked out of these houses. Like, yeah, but they get paid.

Oh, that pisses me.

To leave. [laughter]

Of course they do. They get paid. They get time. They get a lot of opportunity

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uh [clears throat] in that move. So, the army decided to create a massive reservoir, Lake Sydney Laneir, named after a Confederate poet.

I did not know that.

Yeah, neither did I. I didn't say it in the first coverage of this either. So, in order to build the lake, the government used eminent domain to seize 58,000 acres of land. And this is where the drown town myth gets a little complicated because there's popular legend that basically says the government flooded Oscarville while black people were still living there and that they just like opened the floodgates and like people were running and you know everything had to be abandoned really quickly and like [clears throat] people were drowning or whatever.

That's not true. In reality, the black community,

which thank goodness that's not true, but yes.

Yeah, they were run out of town and had no time to grab anything, but they had already been chased out in 1912.

Right.

By the 1950s, the land was occupied by white families and it was primarily farmland.

However, the ruins of the black community were still there. So, while a

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lot of land was taken, there were still a lot of like businesses and homes that people had to abandon that weren't ever

What about cemeteries? Like,

oh, we're going to get there. Okay, so the Army Corps of Engineers, they displaced about 700 families to build the lake. It is said that land owners were offered $30 per acre and many of the residents did accept this payment. Some of them actually, so this is like where it becomes unfair because they're paid and then also they had enough time and preparation where a quite a few of them had their physical homes picked up and moved. So they like had time to like find a new plot of land, pick up their actual home and go have it driven to this new plot of land somewhere else and placed down.

Yeah.

Some people didn't do that. Some people probably didn't have the money or resources or it just didn't work for them. So there were plenty of structures that were left,

some businesses abandoned, some structures and roads and just infrastructure that people moved on from, but plenty of people did get to

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move their stuff. So what happened to all the structures that were left? Well, rather than demolish all of them, Lake Laneir was simply filled in on top of the town. If a building was over 35 ft high, it was removed because then it would extend above the depth of the water in many parts of the lake

because a lake, I guess, like compared to other lakes, it's relatively shallow. There are plenty of pockets that are like 100, 200 feet deep, but a lot of it is shallow.

Okay.

So, plenty of the buildings and structures were kept because they were lower than 35 ft. So they wouldn't peek out above the water and it gave enough clearance above the water essentially creating an underwater ghost town.

Damn.

Apparently you can see some like 160 little tiny islands every once in a while like across the lake and these exist because this area was quite hilly and a lot of the hills were used in farming and stuff and so when it was flooded these like little tiny hilltops created these little islands all about.

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Jeez. Records show that in preparation for filling Lake Laneir, they relocated about 20 cemeteries.

Okay, relocate.

The thing about relocating, this is 20 cemeteries that they relocated and they certainly missed quite a few, right? Because people had private cemeteries on their properties. There were a lot of, we're talking about like a marginalized community. We're talking about land that has seen a lot of blood in the past. And so

there were a lot of unmarked graves. There were slave burial grounds, private cemeteries, and so while yeah, 20 cemeteries were moved, there were plenty that were not. Countless bodies left behind and the spirits of those unclaimed bodies did not move on.

Mhm.

And then also there's the infrastructure. So again, they just like flooded on top of some of the buildings. Uh and divers will go down into Lake Lineer today and report seeing like super creepy surreal things. So they can see bridges that just apparently like

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end in in darkness. Though I couldn't find any photos. So it's like sometimes it's hard to to know what's real and what's still lore of like what's underneath. But there's foundations of houses. There's some structures that are like still perfectly preserved where like you can look in the windows. You can probably go inside of the home. It kind of reminds me of Mary King's Close and like the Closes in Edinburgh and how they kind of like built on top of them

and [clears throat] they still exist and you can kind of see like the houses and everything. Although I feel like the clothes is like hidden layers of buildings whereas this is just like water on top [laughter]

like diving in a sunken ship basically.

Yeah. Yeah.

So there was also uh it was called the Looper Speedway. I think now they call it the Gainesville Speedway, but like basically there was a racetrack that had a bunch of like bleachers and and

like stands for the crowds that that was all flooded too. So you can also when you're diving see the racetrack

and if the lake goes through prolonged periods of drought, there's like quite a few steps that you can visibly see from

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where the crowd used to sit that will appear, which is another thing. It's like when the water levels go down

because they were they had this like threshold of what I say like 35 ft or something. When the water levels go down sometimes like structures or or little bits that were left underneath become visible again. You get like peaks

of the town. Part of me really wants to get my scuba diving certification for like things like this. I just think things that are underwater in the ocean, too. Just it's

there's so much that you don't know what's underneath there,

but it's also very eerie.

Well, the visibility is not very great for most of it either. So, I don't think I'd want to go down there cuz [laughter] like most of the time you don't actually know what's 5t in front of you.

Yeah.

So, when they flooded the town, there was also plants, right? Like people had bushes and trees and grass and vegetation,

right? Most of that just died underwater, right? But there are trees

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still left standing because the bottom of the lake is so cold and like basically well it lacks oxygen. So a lot of these trees just petrified.

Oh, it's basically like this whole town tree like spooky trees. Everything is just frozen in place. Oh, Leia. Oh my gosh, we haven't gotten to see her in so [laughter] long.

I know. That's true. She's

That almost felt like a haunting. I was like, [laughter]

"Are you with us?

Been h she's been sitting by the radiator staying warm, but now she's joining us.

Thanks for joining us." Like,

so cute. Do

you have anything to say? People have wanted to hear from you.

She talks when she wants.

Wonderful input. We love that. [laughter]

Okay, so now you have this body of water that basically is is frozen with things in a certain time period. the stolen land of Oscarville, the bodies of the unrelocated dead, and you have the physical remnants of the civilization.

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So, you have roads, bridge, racetracks, it's all sitting there. I also think about pets, like the pets that were buried in backyards and stuff, you know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pet cemeteries. Totally. So, all of that is beneath this like reservoir, but on the surface there are people boating, tubing, swimming, fishing, cooling off to beat the heat. Peace on Earth. Right. Until the dead want you to take a little vacation, too. So, the restless spirits

the lady of the lake

of Lake Lineer have moved across the bottom of the lake along the abandoned roads and the crumbling structures, continuing life as they had before the lake. But they don't always mind their own business. Sometimes they come to the surface. There is one spirit whose presence sort of like dominates the lore of Lake Lineer and that is the lady of the lake. And I guess we could call her the blue lady because she's wearing a blue dress.

Okay.

But contrary to a lot of other spirits

35:00

haunting areas and like lakes or like land or whatever, we know exactly who she is and it's a very tragic story. Um, and it actually happened after the lake had already existed. We know who she is.

We do. So, it was April 1958, which I think is about 2 years after the lake had been filled. Whatever the terminology, two women, Susie Roberts and Dileia May Parker Young, were heading out for a fun night of dancing in Dawsonville. They took Suz's 1954 Ford sedan, and they never returned. In search for these two women who just seemed to disappear without a trace in the night, police discovered that they had actually visited a gas station, seemingly left the gas station without paying. And then further along the road, there was a set of skid marks that went across the lane and off of the bridge heading directly

down into the water. And the direction

36:00

of the skid marks also indicated that the car was traveling in the direction of Dawsonville Highway, which was the direction that they believed the girls would have been traveling to go home.

Okay. Well, this is where it's confusing because like some reports say that they were on their way to the dance and others say that they came it was after a night of dancing and then they like stopped at the gas station on the way home and then they went off the bridge.

Gotcha.

So, I don't know if it was to or from because the reports vary. Uh but anyway, it whatever it was, police were like, "Oh, we suspect that that is what happened." Like the girls drove off of the bridge.

Jeez.

So they're like, "Okay, this is possible. Susie may have lost control in some way. The careened off to the right of the bridge, plunged into the water, and the girls and the car have now disappeared into the dark water below. So, we need to go look for them." They sent divers down into the water in search for the car and for the girls. And while the lake isn't very deep in most parts, it is extremely murky like what I was saying before. So visibility is so poor that divers I think like you

37:00

can barely see your hand in in some parts in front of you.

And when they went down there to search, they basically turned up empty-handed. They didn't find a single thing.

So the investigation continued. The search for these girls continued, but basically they were like, "We can't find anything, so we don't really have any more leads." right until 18 months later when the first real clue linking the girls to this site where a car clearly went off the bridge is basically like discovered app or proved

18 months.

18 months. And this is like not just a clue. This is this is proof.

Okay. A fisherman named CA Simpson witnessed a body float up from under the water. He's like like picture that he's fishing. I don't know if he was on a boat or if he was like on the bridge fishing off the bridge, but he's there and then suddenly a body submerges.

That's not the day he thought he was going to have.

So, this body was badly decomposed. It

38:00

was missing two toes from the left foot and both hands.

Oh.

They were unable to identify the body, but it was suspected that this must be one of the girls who had disappeared 18 months earlier. So, Susie Oria. They ended up burying the Jane Doe in an unmarked grave in Alt Vista Cemetery, leading everyone to wonder, is this one of the girls? And if it is, which one?

Also, how could they not identify her? Cuz they knew the two girls that had gone missing.

She was just so badly decomposed.

But isn't there still DNA? And like,

not at this point in time. This is the ' 50s.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And then sightings start happening. M the body floats up and now people are seeing a spirit. People driving across the line bridge at night begin to report seeing a woman walking alongside the road.

She's wearing a blue dress which happened to be the same color dress that Dileia was wearing that night. So it's believed that this person was Dileia.

Yeah.

And the woman looked lost. When drivers

39:00

slowed down to ask if this woman needed help, they realized that this woman had no hands.

Oh, this is so sad. Yeah, but exactly like the body.

Yeah.

That was just found.

Which also just breaks my heart thinking about the afterlife. Like a spirit being so confused

and showing up not cuz like there's also encounters where someone shows up like their childlike form even though they passed away when they were much older. But this is a spirit who's appearing in the way her body was found. Like she is that she's so confused. It almost makes me think that like she was somehow frozen in the lake.

Like her consciousness and her her like spirit, her soul just like was awoken when she was found.

Right. Right.

So some people said that when they saw her, she was trying to flag their car down. Some people said that they saw her staring over the railing down over like

40:00

over the bridge into the water. And some versions, and I don't believe this version of the legend, but some versions of this legend says that she tries to lure people to the edge and pull them over.

I don't believe that either. She just seems like very confused and maybe her presence is intriguing and people approach her towards the edge.

Right. They're Yeah. They're pulling over, they're walking, they're willing.

So, these sightings go on for decades. And she has the nickname the lady of the lake now.

And lady of the lake became the most famous ghost in Georgia apparently.

Interesting.

Or I guess at least at Lake Laneir.

Yeah. 32 years later. 32 years later. Lineer bridge was under construction to widen the roadway. Construction crews start digging at the bottom of the lake to set a new pillar when they hit metal.

[sighs and gasps]

They pull up a rusted, mudshocked hook of metal, and it is a 1954 Ford sedan,

41:00

which Susie had been driving that night.

Oh my gosh.

Inside of the car were remains of a human body, presumably Suzie, because the body still had a purse, rings, and other belongings that all were linked to Susie Roberts.

And just one body. So like indicating that

just one body.

Yeah.

Yeah. It would indicate the other body was Dileia May Parker Young.

Yeah.

For over 30 years, Susie had been sitting in that car 90 ft underwater, trapped in the dark, while people drove over her on the bridge every single day. Her friend Dileia was walking the bridge above, waiting for her friend to be found.

Did Dileia's ghost stop coming or do people still see her? Some people say that they do, but I think the sightings definitely

went down. So, I'm not really I'm not really sure. Basically, so like the two girls, so remember Dileia had been buried in that like unmarked well, it

42:00

wasn't unmarked, but like unidentified like Jango, right? So, when Susie was discovered, they then buried her right next to Dileia and they changed the headstone so that Dia was identified. So, like the two girls got to be buried together. Oh,

so like part of the reason why they weren't found and the car wasn't found initially when divers went down aside from the visibility was that the where the car was found, it was like on a hillside like an embankment that was like pretty steep and specifically in that area. It was a very difficult place to explore and to dive and the visibility again was in that specific area 6 in in front of you. So the likelihood of a diver like literally one foot away from the car swimming by and not seeing it existed.

No, it would have to very well have been right there. Yeah.

You have to basically bump into the car to find it.

To find it, which is how they found it. They literally bumped into it.

Yes. Literally. So while the sightings of Lady in the Lake, the lady in blue, Dileia, have definitely not been as frequent, some people still say the Lady

43:00

of the Lake exists over here.

Yeah. I hope she's no longer confused. Like that part makes me really sad.

I know. I hope it's a residual haunting.

Yeah,

if it is one. Like she's not actively there at all.

Right.

deadly ghosts beneath the water

So obviously, yeah, Lady of the Lake is very sad, but there's something kind of terrifying underneath the water. It's the hands that people feel.

Yes.

Wrapping around them as they swim and pulling them forcefully down. And it seems like everyone who's reported this says that it seems like there's one goal and it's basically to drown them.

To pull you down under. Yeah.

Yes. And it like makes people wonder about all those strong swimmers who never returned above the surface, who seemingly just like floated down underneath the surface and never came back up. It was like, was it cuz they were being dragged under? Were they just victims? Like cuz you know, we're only getting the reports of the people that survived,

right? And they're saying that they felt something grabbing them.

Yes. Some people say that it feels like just a fully formed human hand. Other

44:00

people said it feels like a skeleton.

It feels like the bones of a hand wrapping around you.

And when they look down, if they're like still on the surface and they look down, they don't see anything. Like the sensation is there and they feel themselves being tugged, but you can't physically see a hand or anything.

Damn. Well, but also the visibility in the water. Like, would you even be able to?

True. So, some people connect this type of haunting back to Oscarville and that it's the spirits of the unmarked graves that never got to move on, never got to be acknowledged, that are like reaching up for from the bottom looking for justice or maybe looking for company or even like let's not put it on these people who were so wrongly treated in life. Like what if it's just the amalgamation of the toxic horrible energy of everything that happened there and it's like not even human anymore.

Well, and also I don't know who who was in the graves,

right?

Too,

right?

How many people are down there? Who were they? What happened to them in their

45:00

lives? Like

we have no idea.

That's true.

I referenced this on the last episode too that we had covered a bits of like lineer. There are giant catfish. So, there are catfish that have [clears throat] been caught that are like 50 lb, but catfish that have not been caught, but have supposedly been seen by divers are the size of a Volkswagen beetle. So, like the size of a car. Um, huge, massive.

When Meredith and I were in Chattanooga, we went to the aquarium, which blew our minds. Like, a couple people had messaged me like, "Oh, you should go to our aquarium. It's not that big, but we're mighty proud of it." The River Aquarium truly blew my mind. And they had massive catfish in there. How big were they? Not Not fully the size of a car, but massive. Okay, because I was looking cuz I was like, "Wait, how big do catfish get?" And apparently they're like kind of like turtles in a way where if they have unlimited space to grow,

46:00

they just keep growing.

Damn. No, they were big.

Yeah. So, local fishermen and divers have reported seeing catfish up to 7 feet long, and it's rumored that some have swallowed dogs and attacked swimmers in Lake Lineer.

Imagine being attacked by a giant catfish. I couldn't.

Yeah. No, I would for sure feel like that was like a a lake monster,

right? [laughter] Totally. And so the divers like there's plenty of people who dive and and see weird things and you know like Reddit has a lot of stories. People have their own blogs and I think a lot of people report just like how creepy of a feeling it is down there which makes sense cuz you're like going through these ruins like you don't know what's going to pop up like right in front of you. There's literally cemeteries like there's a lot of creepiness down there. But apparently some people have reported like suddenly seeing people

Oh underwater like catching like thinking they see someone

like a town is still living. Yeah. Or like they're being watched. Ooh, creepy.

47:00

So, we have the lady of the lake. We have the hands pulling swimmers down. We have strange things below the surface. And now we have the supposed curse of Lake Lineer cuz it's not just haunted. It is cursed. Yeah. As a woman, every

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recent deaths & the 'curse'

Some people have reported seeing some strange things on the lake at night. A few reports have been made of a mysterious raft that appears and is driven by a shadowy figure that uses a pole to push the raft along. So, it's like there's a big pole. There's not like an ore or paddle or anything at the bottom. The ore or the pole is being used to touch the bottom of the lake and like drag the raft along.

Wait. Okay. I'm excited for the listener story I have.

49:00

Ooh. Okay. So, this figure, it's very shadowy. You never truly see any discernable features. And there's a lantern attached to the pole. So, you just see like the shadow of a person.

So creepy.

A raft on the surface, a pole being used with a lantern on top. So, like there's a light that's just moving and that is how you're able to see it. So, it is so dark people only see it at night. It appears very, very quickly. And just as quickly as it appears, it can also disappear. But sometimes the sightings are a lot longer. And I have an example of one that is so so scary. And I think I have an example of one too. [laughter] Okay. So, while many people spot this mysterious raft from the shoreline, there are two fishermen who happen to have spotted it from the water when they were on a boat themselves. It was an autumn night, cooler on the water about 1:00 a.m. And these two guys are out fishing and they spot about a half mile away this raft. and it's in an area of

50:00

the lake that's about 45 ft deep. So, they like see the raft and then immediately once they realize that the raft is being propelled by just like a stick,

they're confused, right? Because there's no bottom of the lake to touch and like push along.

It is 45 ft deep here. So, the pole cannot touch anything. So, they're like, "hm, this is weird." And they start observing this raft. And it's also 1:00 a.m. So, they're floating there watching this thing when the figure on the raft suddenly seemed to notice that it was being watched and it calls out to them like it says something.

Oh my god.

But the words

they can't make it out. It's too far away. So, they're looking at this thing that like someone just tried to talk to them from the raft. Like, does this person need help? Like, what what did they say? And suddenly, as they're looking in the direction of this figure on the raft, the figure leaps off of the raft into the freezing cold water and begins to swim towards them.

51:00

You know, this is horrifying.

Yeah, they're freaking the [ __ ] out, right? They're like, "Hell no, we got to get out of here." But that person's a half mile away. So, they're like, "Okay, we're not in imminent danger. We definitely have time just to like get our boat up and moving and pull away."

Yeah. So then they look back to the raft and the lantern that was hanging from the pole just goes out. So now they're in con [clears throat] horror movie. [laughter]

The fishermen grab their spotlight and they shine it in the direction of the raft like in the water to try to see like, oh my god, where is that guy that's like swimming at us? What happened to the raft? Like what's going on? Nothing. No raft, no lantern, no pole, no shadowy figure, no one in the water. Not the slightest bit of like rippling in the water either to indicate any movement of like someone swimming or just a a craft being in the water. Nothing.

It was like it had never existed.

So what that is, what sort of haunting that is or if that's like part of this like curse and like just this being and

52:00

presence that is now controlling the lake and like who dies. No one really knows. But Lake Laneir is statistically one of the deadliest lakes in the US since it was built. I said this earlier, but like over 700 people have died since it was built.

It's a very high number.

Yes. And so this is kind of like again where the idea of the curse existing comes from. People who have survived some of the accidents on the lake seem to report similar and odd details. H.

So, not only is the number of accidents and deaths staggeringly high in comparison to other lakes that have the same sort of activity, same number of visitors, but the actual events that occur all have these weird details. The swimmers who are suddenly disappearing below the water are strong swimmers swimming in very calm conditions. So it's most of the time there's no weather incidents, no odd currents, nothing that should warrant

right

53:00

that accident at that time

which accidents do happen like strong swimmers drown all the time but like to the extent that it is happening at Lake Lineer is why it's

suspicious. So from the people who have survived we've heard that they feel like someone is dragging them like holding their legs and dragging them down. But those same survivors also have said that the air in their lungs suddenly seems to dissipate, making them feel lightheaded and disoriented. Oh,

during this sort of event. And what's more odd is unfortunately for those who have drowned and the bodies that have been recovered because again there's plenty of people who have died and gone missing in Lake Linear who have not been found either. Bodies that are not recovered.

Yeah.

Uh but those who have been it said that they are found much further away than expected from their initial entry point. So yes, the lake is large. There are definitely currents that happen in the lake, but like the knowledge of like the currents and where people should be, they're much further from that point. So people are saying that basically like

54:00

it's as if they were dragged underwater much further.

Interesting. I wonder if there's like a common place where bodies are dragged to.

Oh, yeah. Interesting. Like a certain cove or like

Yeah.

Yeah. Boers who have survived boating accidents have reported strange things. They report that their boat hits something in the water and when they've circled back there's nothing there. There's no debris, no logs, no visible obstruction anywhere. And there have also been reports of boats capsizing for no apparent reason at all. They just suddenly flip over. And plenty of people have also reported rogue waves coming out of nowhere, rushing towards them. Whether they be in boats, kayaks, paddle boards, it's like a sudden wave that just exists and comes up and tries to knock them overboard into the water.

Geez.

Just a few years ago in 2023 alone, there were 13 deaths. That's more than one death a month.

Yeah.

A lot of the accidents that you do read about it, they they appear like tragic

55:00

accidents, right? It's like someone falling overboard, not coming back up, someone like slipping off the dock or like some sort of accident when jumping off of the dock. There's examples of being electrocuted in the water, which like, you know, I grew up on like Champagne and there were examples of that, too, where it's like, you know, there's some like freak thing with like electricity or something at a marina. Someone jumps in right at the marina and suddenly they're being electrocuted in the water. So, it does happen. also being struck by another watercraft. Like there's a lot of things that when you read it, you're like, "Oh my god, that's just like, you know, that's a freak accident. That's a terrible thing, but it makes sense on a lake."

Yeah.

So, yeah, I think like on the surface level, a lot of these things do appear to just be freak accidents and it's like what's going on at Lake Laneer that it just seems to happen more frequently than other places, right? But there's all of those examples of people who have survived or just like the added lore of the paranormal that makes people question whether this lake is cursed and

56:00

if the spirits have anything to do with the high number of deaths on the lake.

Well, especially with like this number has been climbing in years. Like it's not like oh the one year a lot of people unfortunately passed away in tragic accidents. It's like continuously. So, you would also think people who are going to the lake are a little bit more aware and

Yeah.

like there's some type of caution people go into or have going into the lake, but it's still happening.

It's still happening. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and yeah, it's just weird. But, okay, so here's some non-p paranormal things that could be contributing to the high number of deaths. So, remember we were talking about those underwater petrified trees.

The water's very murky. Visibility is very poor. So if you jump off of a boat, you may land, depending on where you are, on a tree limb just below the surface that's like basically like landing on like a knife that you can't see, right? Like you didn't know it was

57:00

there. So people have wondered if like maybe that's something or when people are swimming if they get tangled in like a petrified tree or just like some sort of like debris that has like snagged and built up. People were like, "Okay, these trees exist. Could there be fishing lines and stuff that are like almost creating like a net that people's legs get caught in and then they're fighting and then they're like being dragged under, which is horrifying to think of. And I almost feel like if that's a concern,

I I don't know who oversees the lake and like the activities that happen there. But doesn't that feel like it's someone's responsibility to make sure that there's not dangerous things that people could be jumping into?

I don't know. It's hard cuz it also just like kind of goes with like lake safety.

Yeah, true. and just like the way that you behave in a lake. But yeah, you'd think like if you're in the middle of the lake that you can just like

jump off your boat

and jump off.

Yeah.

Which you can if you go to the areas that are 100 or 200 ft deep,

but if you're in an area that's like, you know, 45 ft deep, I guess there's still risk in jumping off.

58:00

Scary.

Yeah. The temperature is also thought to play a part. In many areas, the water surface can be like 80°, which probably feels so good, right? like it's still warm enough to feel good but like cool enough to feel refreshing.

So on the shoreline and the beach like that is great but if you fall in and sink just 10 feet below. So like if you were like cliff jumping or like jumping off of a boat or something and you go 10 ft under the temperature can drop 30 to 40°

which can send you into a cold shock and make your body gasp involuntarily. And if you're 10t underwater and you suck in all the water,

there you go. like a good chance you panic and drown. Yeah,

that to me when I heard that I was like, "Oh, that makes sense." Cuz actually one of the scariest moments I've had on a lake, which I've had like plenty growing up on on lakes like Lake Winnipegasi and Lake Champlain was actually at my wedding um [laughter] on the Sunday when we were like all on the lake and there's the trampoline and everyone was hanging out there. It was

59:00

freezing cold cuz it was May, but like a freakishly hot day in May. But the the water is still really cold and I jumped off a little like too aggressively from the trampoline to swim to the dock. And I went down a bit far

and I like my body like kind of seized for a minute and I was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to have a heart attack." And I like really kind of struggled to get my limbs to like swim to the

And it's such a scary moment.

And I had a lot of alcohol in my system. So like my blood

I was just going to say I wasn't going to out you but I feel like and that's a

no but like in my mind I was like well I almost thought like it would it would help me you know like there's all those like examples of people who you know someone had enough alcohol in their system that when they were like outside in the freezing cold for far too long it like kept their body alive. So like in that moment I remember being so shocked.

But then there's the other side of it and like you know people do go to lakes and like have a couple drinks and enjoy themselves. Like there's the other side where unfortunately alcohol makes it difficult for you to do all the normal

1:00:00

functions and if you're swallowing water

and you're drunk. Yeah, maybe that adds to the number of deaths too.

Yes, I definitely think that that probably is a is a big thing. Um but regardless of what it is and what is happening, the result is the same. This lake is swallowing people. It is taking lives. And if you believe in ghost stories like we do, Lake Claneer is proof that you cannot wash away history. You can flood it. You can rename it. You can drive a boat over it, but the memory of what happened is still there. So, if you decide to go to Lake Lineer, please wear a life jacket. Do not drink and drive on the boat or drink and jump into the water from your boat. Be hyper vigilant when driving near the lake at night, but safety first. And if you ever see the lady of Lake Laneir, you better be emailing us our this story.

Absolutely.

And that is the real history and

1:01:00

hauntings of Lake Laneir and the drown history of Oscarville and the black community there.

Wow. Good job, Karen. Thanks.

Can you believe like none of that was included in my first

I was like that's most of the story. But I it also makes it proves to to me that there's so many topics that we covered in the past that we could go back and revisit and have the same experience where there's so much more information.

Yeah, you did.

I should shout out the listener, but I feel like there's no way I'm going to find the email now because it was like not long after we did that initial coverage of like linear and someone was like, "Oh, you didn't cover any of the black." You'll probably find the displacement.

There aren't there surprisingly aren't that many like linear emails. Yeah.

Okay. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, okay. Okay, so shout out to Christina. She had emailed and like basically brought more attention to the fact that it was the town of Oscarville and just like the things that happened there. And I think a few other people emailed too. So shout out to you guys.

Yeah.

For bringing this to my attention.

listener stories

1:02:00

Well, also thank you to the couple of people who have sent us emails because there are two things that you talked about in this episode, Krin, that

people have experienced and have emailed us.

Ooh. Okay, so the first one is super short and it's from our listener S and it is about the hands. Okay. Hey girls, I love you both so much. This is a short one, but I grew up in the suburbs of Georgia, meaning Lake Laneir was the lake we grew up around. I remember going there from when I was a child. I've gone camping there. Yes, I've literally slept in the woods of this lake. I've gone on boats and even skinny dipped here. So, one summer day, I was invited to a boat party on the haunted lake. See, I know this looks like the worst idea ever, but I was having a hot girl summer, and going on a boat sounded like fun. I was definitely not going to go in the water. I promised myself before the party I would not go in the water. So, we get there, vibes are good. I end up meeting

1:03:00

this boy called Be. We hit it off. We're hanging the whole time. Drinks are flowing. Of course, a DD is driving the boat, but I find myself having to go to the bathroom. But the thing is, there was no bathroom on this boat. So, I came to the conclusion that I either have to go into this haunted lake to pee or pee my pants in front of everyone. [laughter] I decided to take a quick jump into the lake with a life jacket. And as soon as I jumped in, I got the eeriest feeling. Something did not feel right. I peed very quickly and I started paddling back to the boat and that is when I felt a tug at my leg. Sure, it could have been a fish or a plant or maybe it was a lake demon. I don't know, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out. I swam for my life and flopped back on the boat. But it was truly one of the scariest moments of my life. It really felt like something was grabbing my ankle. Uh yeah, I bet. But the one upside of the story is I did meet my future boyfriend. be ended up becoming my boyfriend on

1:04:00

this boat. So maybe it brought me love. Maybe you survived. That is huge. Yeah. But it makes me wonder too like the idea of going to the bathroom and like I am a body of water peer. I confess. So like people have their opinions about it. But like I wonder if the spirits are like no no we don't like that.

Well I don't pee in a pool but like if you're in a lake or an ocean oh I'm peeing.

Yeah for sure.

I pee.

Yeah. But maybe the spirits are like, "We don't like that here."

Yeah, could be. Okay. But like they continue to go back, right? Like this is this is their spot. This is their lake.

But I I too would especially at night be very hesitant to go into that lake like that. I mean, going into bodies of waters at at night in general scares me.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, this one, remember back to the ominous figure in the boat? This is from our listener, Brody, and this was sent in 2020. Hi ghosties. My name is Brody. I'm an 11-year-old girl from

1:05:00

Georgia and I've been in love with your podcast since March of this year. I do a lot of artwork for my own YouTube channel and I have three ghost stories that I want to share with you, but I'm just going to read the one from Lake Laneir. So, as you know, Lake Laneir is a lake in northern Georgia and I actually have my own experience from there. Me and my parents went there without my brother since they were too young and we went fishing in the lake just for a small day trip. It was around 6:00 p.m. and it was getting dark. So, we start rowing the boat back to shore and I look over to the other side of the lake and I see a raft and there's a very tall lanky shadow standing on it and rowing towards us. It was getting closer and closer at a rate of speed that a human pushing a raft could definitely not go at. And I heard some

Oh, this just makes me think of the fisherman with the

100%. It can move the raft that fast. Imagine it swimming.

And in that story you shared, they heard the thing muttering something, but they

1:06:00

couldn't understand what.

Mhm.

Brody heard what it was saying. They were saying

chills already.

Something like, "The end is near. The end is near. The end is near." Getting louder and more aggressive as each word was being said. I told my parents.

Oh my god,

this gets crazier. I told my parents and pointed at them in sheer terror. My parents turned to look and they don't see anything.

What? They thought I was just tired from being out in the hot summer July sun all day. But this raft and this person got so close that it was basically almost climbing onto our boat. But luckily, we got to shore just then. And I ran screaming out of the boat. Oh my god. So Brody could see it the entire time, but her parents could not. To this day, my parents still deny this experience and say there was no one there, saying it was just the heat that got to me. See you on the other side, Brody.

Nope. Nope.

Unreal.

That's so scary.

Horrifying.

Oh my god. I choose the hand. [laughter]

1:07:00

100%.

Oh my god. It like being so close to almost boarding the boat. Like what happens if it gets you?

I don't want to know. I don't think people will ever find out because if it gets you, it gets you and you don't get to survive to tell the tale.

Yeah.

Horrifying. The end is near. The end is near. It does feel very like grim reaper but like evil grim reaper.

Yeah. I assume that's definitely what it was trying to say to the fisherman,

right?

But dang, Brody has experienced like two of the big things on Lake Laneir.

Well, the first story is from S and then the second story is from Yeah.

So, there definitely are more people who have experienced stuff on Lake Laneir. It's not just us% and these fishermen like yes people please email us. I mean if millions of people are going here every year

there are probably countless people who have stories who either don't want to believe what they experienced or are keeping it to themselves or telling their friends. Get them to email us. We

1:08:00

want to hear these stories please. It's like legally the pictures are so beautiful. Also, even though I know all of this, I'm like, I'm going to go in by the beach, but I'm not going to go in past my waist.

And I think it's just a lot of respect.

But then if you if there was an inner tube, I'd also be like, well, [laughter] I can float.

See, this is what happens.

I know.

You get lured in by a summer day and the sweet relief of a beautiful lake.

Yeah. And I don't think you necessarily need to boycott Lakeer, but I think it's important just to like share the story. If you go sit around the boat and tell everyone the story of Oscarville and this entire society that was displaced and respect respect it

and then revisit some of the safety when it comes to swimming and boating and being on a lake.

Wear a life jacket and maybe don't pee maybe don't pee in the lake. [laughter]

Save peeing in bodies of waters for the ocean.

Yeah,

I say that but I literally can't control it. I get into a body of water and I'm like, "Well, I have to pee." You just got to pee.

1:09:00

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, do you pee in lakes? Let us know.

And come back next week for another story that Sabrina has picked out to celebrate Black History Month that is a little bit less pressing.

It definitely has its depressing elements, but it has such an uplifting message that

Yeah.

you'll leave it feeling inspiration.

Yes. Please email us all of your ghost stories, any paranormal encounters you've had or just like really cool things you want to share with us to two girls onego podcast@gmail.com. You can join us on Patreon for episodes one week early and ad free plus bonus content and book club and live campfire stories where you can share your ghost stories with us live on Zoom and so much more. Shout out to Jamie Ryan and Emma Venture for producing our podcast and thank you to all of you. We love you and we will see you on the other side. It's very hard to whisper when you have a cold. [laughter] Very spooky.