SHADES OF DEATH ROAD
This Page is an explanation of the Shades Of Death Road in Hope, NJ. The Shades Of Death Road(SODR) is a truly haunted road. Since it had a
bad reputation, this was the spot for the filming of the Friday the 13th 1&2 (at the lake located at the side of this road). There are many legends
of this road and it has a very vivid background. The first story of this road was about a pot and pan salesman who used a horse and buggy
before cars were invented. Apparently, he murdered his wife up on the road and even to this very day, you can still hear his pots and pans
rattle in the wind as he looks for his next victim. This is not the only ghost this place has. There is also a lady in the lake. She appears on a cold
night and rises up out of the lake and will walk toward you. She will then disappear. She was a victim of suicide. She jumped off a cliff and into
the lake because her soon to be husband was killed and she killed herself because of the overwhelming grief. The next ghost that can be seen
is that of a nine year old girl. She walks up and down on the side of the road. If you should stop your car and she sees you, she will come up to
your car and ask you one question, which is where her parents are. If you do not say anything or you drive away, you will die in 40 days. You
must answer, even if you don't know, just point off in some direction or something, and she will be on her way. We do not know what
happened to her that made her a ghost, but we suspect that she was kidnapped from her parents and killed there. They called this place the
Shades of Death becaus the forest was so dense that the trees blocked out all light and even at noon it looked like night. It made it hard to see
for the weary traveler, and caused many deaths because no one could see, even with their lights on. I shall now tell you of our recent
expedition to this haunted road. We all agree that really weird things that are unexplainable at night. Nothing will happen to you during the
day, you have to go at night. We went up to this road at midnight, the witching hour. As soon as we hit the haunted mile of this road, it got
incredibly cold for a summer night, a real nasty chill, like a precence of something there. There was this smell too. It smelled musty and moldy,
like a tomb, it almost suffocated us. We saw something really disgusting on the road--- three decapitated geese....they weren't run over by a
car, and we didn't understand what happened to them. We stopped the car at the lake. We tried taking pictures (as soon as they are developed
and I get a scanner I'll post em in here if there's anything worth seeing). We also played a tape recorder to see if we could pick up anything. As
soon as we stopped and listened, strange things began to happen. We began to hear singing around 1:00 in the morning, it was faint and not
understandable by our ears. We heard footsteps all around the car, but we didn't see anyone. The footsteps stopped at the window, and then
walked around the back of the car....we saw a strange light... and then we felt something bouncing the car up and down from what felt like the
bottom. I looked to the lake and I saw the little girl. She didn't see us because she had her back to us, and was facing the lake. The Next night
we went, we got out of the car at the lake, I took some pictures all around the lake. We had to hide behind trees to avoid being seen by cars
that traveled the road at night. (we didn't want to be asked what we were doing at the lake at this time of night.) When I hid at the lake, I was
too close to the lake, and by this tree I heard this breathing...a deep breathing, but there was nothing there when we checked the bushes
around it with the flashlights and everything. We walked back to the car and hit the recorder again. All of a sudden there was this cold air
around us, and it smelled really foul---like something that was dead and rotten...not wanting to come in contact with an evil ghost we drove
away. I began to play the tape back...first it was my commentating on the tape, and then there was a brief waiting period for about 5 minutes in
which we tried to pick spirits up on tape. We did pick up the singing(barely) and we picked up something else. Something we did not hear with
our ears, and something that the car could not make (we shut the car off so it did not interfere). It was this tapping/plinking sound. First it
sounded like a tapping of something like wood or somethin...like a wooden spoon or somethin, and then this plinking sound like someone
flicked their finger on a glass or tapped a small metal pan or somethin. We have no idea what it was, but it is to our belief that we were visited
by spirits, some evil, and some good, but it was hard to tell the difference. This is our account of this truly scary place. If you have any
questions, comments or haunted places please feel free to email me at the bottom address.
UPDATE ON SHADES OF DEATH
IN the year of Our Lord January of 1998, we the Ghost Hunters have found some new key information regarding the Shades Of Death Road in Hope, NJ. We have found that the vines on the trees look like nooses and naturally grow this way. Although this seems truly bizarre, we did some research and found that when the Indians used to live in these parts of New Jersey, these vines were used as nooses to hang criminals and also people who were tried as witches. We have also found from a reliable source that a cult had once lived up near this place and used to hold their ceremonies at the lake. However, there are no cult members left for they commited suicide much like the Heaven's Gate cult, but we have no idea why and do not wish to know.
Also according to my father, an also reliable source (having been to this road more times than I have when he was young). Has blessed me with what he knows of the road. According to him, not only is the stories above true, but also there are some that he knows we did not. According to him there is another child that goes up and down the road on a bike. We have not seen this phantom yet but we hoipe to in the near future. We also know from his knowledge that a man was beating his wife up all the time, and she was going to tell the authorities. She was also going to file for a divorce. However, he learned of this early and he grew angry, and kicked her down the basement steps shut the door and locked it, leaving her imprisoned in the basement. Then he tore the house down leaving her buried alive.
No one to this day has any knowledge of where the house once stood or where she is buried, or what happened o the man living there. Also according to my father my cousin Brenda was murdered on this road. This happened when she was 15 and before I was even born. Apparently she was dating this guy who was trying to get into West point, but he had a lot of mental problems, and one night he was with her on this road with Brenda's friend as well. They decided to go hiking in the woods, and this guy decided to try and score. Well Brenda did not want to so he beat her up, and drug her off into the woods. Her friend managed to get away and tried to call for help but seeing how the place is the middle of nowhere no one came. Brenda was unable to escape this scum bag,and he raped her. Knowing that she would tell the authorities, and knowing that he would ruin his reputation and never get into West point he took a knife and stabbed her killing her.
Needless to say the man was caught put to trial anyway and to my knowledge is still serving a life sentence. My father also has told me of a haunted house on this road. His account is as follows...He was going up to SOD to visit a friend (his friend lived on the road). His friend told him it was the first house on the left and that you couldn't miss it. Well, he drove to the first house on the left and he saw a house with all it's lights on but no cars in the driveway, and also a dirt road leding off somewhere behind the house. My father, knowing his friend drove up only a few minutes before him knew that it couldn't be his house so he jumped back in the car and drove to the next house. Sure enough it was his friend's house. My father asked him why he said it was the first house when it wasn't, and his friend replied that it was. My father looked at him strangely a moment. His friend said that there used to be a house where my father pointed out, but it had burned to the ground and all the people who lived in it were killed, and that all that was there now was an empty field. My father went back to th same spot the next day and he saw only an open field and the remains of a foundation and the road that was behind the house was gone. My father told his sisters about this and they told him that not only did they see te house but also took the road behind it and wound up in Hackettstown in 20 minutes...(now those of you that have been to hope and hackettstown NJ know this is not possible taking the highway, thatbit takes almost an hour to get there)....Finally, we, the wolf pack, have bore witness to some things as well. One night we were sittin by the lake checking the area out in the car we had the engine shut off, the car in neutral, the emergency brake on and on a flat bed of road, when we began to see shadows in the trees with sickles and sounds of them swoshing. We heard footsteps and all of a sudden we felt the car moving slowly backward down the road. All of us saw it, felt it, and could barely believe it. So I, Ryan, decided that if we were witnessing this that it would happen again if we came back the next day. I had a plan but I was not sure if it would work or not. I decided we put common baking flour on the car's front and back at the bridge and proceed with caution. We heaped the flour on enough so that it wouldn't fall off and went to the spot wear it happened at exactly the same time. Sure enough, we saw the sickles in the shadows, heard the swoshing and the footsteps, but we also heard scraping on top of the car, and also felt the car moving. Dave turned on the "whip" and we drove off. Rich being the fearless young man that he is cursed at whatever it was and we stopped at Hot Dog Johnny's parking lot (which was not far maybe a few miles down the road). we stopped the car and took out the flashlights and inspected the car. Now we knew the flour on the front would blow off, but to our surprise, the flour on the back did not. On top of the car we saw some fresh scratches like it was done with a knife or something sharp of that nature. We looked in the flour and saw markings of some kind... they were truly frightening and scary. One was a picture of a skull with horns. the one next to it was an ordinary skull. The third was a flower, and the last thing that was odd was Hell was written after the markings. Not only was it scary, but we decided to stay away for awhile because our car was marked as a warning. (there were only three of us and three symbols we perceived that two of us were going to die and go to hell the other would not). The Whip was marked. The next time we went back there was on a dare by Rich. It was just Dave and I. Well dave began to see the sickles but I did not. However, I saw something else and I signaled him to burn rubber. I saw a tree shaking as if a violent wind picked up, but I looked at all the other trees and they were all still. It got considerably colder, and heard something coming up the hill toward the car. Not wanting to meet this tree shaker, we left. We have alo seen at the lake there is a tree where someone hung himself last year. On this tree there is no bark... it is completely stripped and looks just about dead..... on this tree there is white paint and some strange markings... we suspect he was into satanic rituals because the one symbol I recognized was an upside down cross and also a pentogram. Now we have also gotten a spirit in our car as well. Rich somehow brought it in. We saw it holding on to the back of the car and he decided to bring it in. Well it got in and came through the window I felt it come through and my hair standed on end. It sat next to me in the back seat. However this thing could not be seen normally, one had to look in the reflection of the glass and one saw a headless spectre sitting next to me. But this thing was rude and nasty. It began trying to hit Dave in the head from behind so we would crash. However, Dave didn't feel a physical blow but his hair kept standing on end and he complained he was cold. Rich and i saw what was going on and told it to knock it off. Instead it kept on tormenting Dave and finally we had to try to get rid of it. We told it to leave for many long minutes (we didn't use a bible or anything we just told it to leave) eventually it stopped, and was on it's way. It was very strange.... I shall reveal more as it happens of our continuing adventures at SOD.....
