Ghosts and haunted places in North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – North Carolina is filled with tales of haunted places and ghosts.

The stories range from strange lights in the mountains to a favorite spot of the Devil to the ghost of an infamous pirate.

Brown Mountain Lights

Sightings of the Brown Mountain Lights date back more than a hundred years – tales of orbs of light moving across the sky in unusual ways.

The ghost lights have been spotted over the Brown Mountain area from the Blue Ridge Parkway near Morganton.

The U.S government has even investigated the phenomenon.

Scientists from Appalachian State University attempted to capture the lights on camera in 2016.

The Devil’s Tramping Ground

About an hour west of Raleigh in Chatham County lies the Devil’s Tramping Ground.

It’s a large round and barren spot on the ground that the Devil himself is said to visit.

Legends say nothing can grow in the circle as the Devil’s hooves burn life from the ground.

Soil scientists have studied spot in the woods – looking for a scientific explanation for it. Evidence of parties and campfire exist in the area but that’s not likely enough to explain stories of the Tramping Grounds from more than a hundred years.

Blackbeard’s ghost

Edward Teach, better known as “Blackbeard,” is one of the more well-known pirates.

Blackbeard roamed the North Carolina coast until he was killed in 1718 in a vicious battle with the Royal Navy near Ocracoke Island.

Blackbeard’s head was cut off and hung from Maynard’s ship. The pirate’s body was flung into waters near Ocracoke in an area known as Teach’s Hole.

Some say they have seen Blackbeard roaming the beaches at night – looking for his severed head.

Ghostly sightings of lights under the water’s surface in the area believed to be Blackbeard.

Fate of Virginia Dare

The disappearance of the Roanoke Colony is a mystery to this day. The colony was established in 1587 on Roanoke Island just west of what later became Nags Head.

John White left the colony to bring back supplies from England but was kept from returning for three years due to a war with the Spanish.

Once he returned, the colonist had vanished without a trace. Among those who disappeared was his granddaughter, Virginia Dare.

The North Carolina Department of Natural Resources said an obscure tale from the disappearance deals with a ghost deer said to be that of Dare.

A poem written in 1901 by Sallie Southall Cotten, “The White Doe, or the Fate of Virginia Dare,” says Dare survived to adulthood but was transformed into a white doe by a sorcerer to spite her lover, Okisko.

“Okisko shot her with an arrow, killing her. Some retellings of this legend say the ghost of the white deer can still be spotted at Roanoke,” NCDNR said.