SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Our host; Dr.G had his first paranormal experience at only eight years old. With over five decades of storytelling, magic and paranormal story collection he is an award winning story teller on a mission to revive firelight and the telling of stories!
SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Where Does Belief End And The Dark Begin On Clinton Road
A lonely New Jersey road draped in a canopy of trees, a bridge where coins won’t stay thrown, and headlights that chase you until they disappear—Clinton Road is the rare place where folklore and firsthand accounts keep colliding. We take you mile by mile through its most enduring legends, weigh them against lived experiences from listeners, and follow the trail from Cross Castle’s crumbling stones to Dead Man’s Curve, where people swear they feel the weight of unseen eyes.
We start with the iconic ghost boy beneath Clinton Brook’s bridge and the two competing versions of the coin tale—one that returns your quarter and one that shoves you from danger. From there, the road gets stranger: a phantom hitchhiker who vanishes at your door, a spectral truck that becomes only a pair of charging lights, and the blue 1988 Chevy Camaro that appears when its fatal crash is retold. Add a cone-shaped “Druidic Temple,” rumors of rituals on an island in the reservoir, and emails about animal encounters—including a floating hound that paced a truck at 60— and the map starts to look like a catalog of American hauntings concentrated into ten miles.
Listener stories push the mystery further. Campers at Terrace Pond recall two calm park rangers who later prove to be impossible; records say those men died in 1939. A local warns that most tales carry exaggeration, but the baseline facts are well documented. We examine how darkness, isolation, and expectation prime the senses, how group dynamics shape what people report, and why some experiences remain razor-sharp even after sunrise. Whether you lean skeptic or believer, the draw is the same: the hope of brushing the veil between worlds and the question that lingers when the engine cuts and the woods go quiet—what exactly did I just feel?
If this journey through Clinton Road stirred your curiosity, share it with a friend who loves a good haunt, follow the show for more strange roads and stranger stories, and leave a review to tell us where we should investigate next.
Good afternoon, everybody. It's Dr. G, SpiritTalesandmagic.com. On that website, you can click podcast and wind up here. You can tell us your story, or you could even book Cassandra and I for your next event. We're going to talk today about a haunted road in New Jersey. It's Clinton Road. I've been on it myself several times. We have several emails about it and people telling their stories but not wanting to be identified. So we went back and did some research, and we're going to talk about Clinton Road. Clinton Road winds its way through a very densely wooded landscape of New Jersey. We're talking like Jason densely wooded. This road is renowned for being a hotspot for paranormal activity. They call it the enigmatic lore, if you will, of the Clinton Road. It's located in Passaic County, New Jersey. And if I am correct, it spans approximately ten miles, but it's really isolated, and it's very densely forested. The road itself is surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. It casts an almost perpetual gloom, if you will, especially during twilight hours. Clinton Road has a very, shall we say, ghastly reputation. It's the stories, the legend, and tales of supernatural encounters that leave its haunting legacy into its very fabric. We don't even talk about all of the things that are associated with this road. It would be hours of one thing after another after another. Some of the most endearing legends of Clinton Road center around the eponymous bridge over the Clinton Brook. So reportedly, if you toss a coin into the water from that bridge, the ghost of a boy who drowned in the brook will fling it back to you. Now, to be fair, there is another version of that exact same story where a young boy was walking across the bridge and he saw a quarter. He bent down to pick it up, and being that he was bent over, he was not able to be seen by an oncoming car that struck and killed him. In that version, if you throw the quarter, the boy will push you and knock you into the water so that you will not be hit by the vehicle. So whether that's fact or fiction, the story has captured the entire nation's imagination. It adds to the air mystery that surrounds the road. People actually do come there if they see that bridge from not only all over the state or all over the country. There have been visitors that have come from England, France, Germany to see this bridge. And others, I'm sure. But the Ghost Boy under the bridge is not the only paranormal resident of the area. It has a multitude of eerie tales that have kind of taken on a life of their own. And one of the most famous ones is the Phantom Hitchhiker. And you will hear this about other areas of the country, but this particular one, a young girl who is said to appear on the side of the road, thumb extended, as if she needs a ride. Many who have encountered her claim that when you stop she vanishes, leaving them with a sense of unease and disbelief. Some of the other stories speak of ghostly headlights that appear out of nowhere, chasing motorists down the road before vanishing just as quick as they came. Travelers have also reported strange animal sightings, unexplained apparitions, chilling whispers in the winds, people disappearing and reappearing. The Druidic Temple situated amidst a modern landscape. This cone-shaped stone structure is a ritual site of the Druids, a mystical and rather enigmatic religious group, started back in ancient times. It was constructed with reference and reverence to their spiritual practices. It echoes their connection to nature and to the cosmos. But that won't detract from the mystery. And it disappears just as mysteriously. Witnesses claim to have experienced eerie encounters with this spectral vehicle. It says it relentlessly relently chases and terrorizes those who cross its path. And frankly, sometimes there's no truck at all. Just a sinister pair of headlights careening towards you from the darkness. Unexplained cold drafts. Of what people claim are disembodied voices. Those have all been reported by the daring enough to explore the decaying foundation. Started as a private resort, which was originally constructed, I believe, in 1905. One legend states that Cross Castle rebuilds itself every October the 30th. And the KKK sacrifices a goat. You can't make this stuff up. That's a legend. Person that sent this in said, I'm scared every time I go down that road. Because the one time I went down there, a strange figure chased our truck all the way out of Clinton. When I got a good look back at it, I screamed, told my friend to drive faster. It was a dog or that sort of beast. But it seemed to be floating, not running. Another one, another person writes in, is there anything not in the woods of Clinton Road? One night my sister and her friend were driving down Clinton Road. When my sister's friend says, What on earth is that? My sister looked out, and there was a monkey. They were both freaked out. Monkeys are not common. Twist Milford. This ten mile road, we went all the way down, all the way back. Nothing happened. So a listener says we went back and checked out a dirt side road. Nothing was really around except for really dense woods. But it felt very eerie, and the trespassers will be shot on sight time did not help to ease my mind, not even in the least. That's when I noticed something walking toward our car. There were eight of us. We all saw the same thing. An animal of some sort. We jumped in the car and drove away as fast as we could. We went 60 miles an hour down this off-road with this animal on our back. Finally we turned the hard right back onto Clinton Road, and we got pulled over by a cop. Of course, the minute that the cop's lights came on, the animal seems to have vanished. People say it could be a hellhound or even the Jersey Devil. All I know is it was not human. The ghosts of the dangerous curves, the ghosts of the dangerous curves are said to be visible. If you drive up to one of the curves around midnight, then you turn off your car lights. It's also said on the island in the center of the reservoir, there are many satanic rituals performed, including KKK happenings taking place that involve animal sacrifices. If that's not enough, there's the legend of the ghostly Camaro. It's about a young lady who was racing down Clinton Road. She was in a blue 1988 Chevy Camaro. She slammed right into the cement divider on the sharpest turn of Clinton Road. She would be killed instantly. Legend has it if you tell someone else the story of this accident while you're driving down Clinton Road, you will see a blue 1988 Chevy Camaro drive by you. I've heard this next one repeated several times. The ghost rangers patrol the forest. These people were hanging out at the old castle, and they said it was great. A little further up the road on the right, there are trails that go up the mountain to a lake called Terrace Pond. I've been to Terrace Pond. It's actually pretty cool. The pond was very crystal clear and great for swimming. I can not say that I've ever swim in it. We used to camp there. We had a really weird occurrence. We were camping one night. It was around 1 a.m. Two park rangers noticed our fire and walked over to us. They said they were concerned about fire, drinking, and things that teenagers do. After talking, we asked them if our vehicles would be okay where they were, and asked, would they be ticketed? They said they would be fine. There's no tickets that get issued here. And in the morning we ventured down the mountainside and approached our cars, and they had two summons per car. West Milford Police and Newark watershed authorities approached us and we asked them about the park rangers. Looking bewildered, they had us explain it two times. When we told them that we were speaking with those two young men earlier, they said we were okay. It was all right to camp, and that our vehicles were fine, that we would not be ticketed, that there were no tickets issued here. One of the Norwick watershed authorities replied, What did these alleged park rangers look like? What were they wearing? We described their appearance and the authority told us that there were no park rangers patrolling this property anymore, and the two men that we saw that night were killed on patrol in nineteen thirty nine. We did not know what to say. Did we imagine these people? Why was the authority questioning us about the description, and why was he so calm about it and didn't ask any other questions? Did he know these men when they were alive? Are we the only people that have encountered these rangers? Or has he heard it so many times that it no longer surprised him? If the tales of spectral figures and haunted bridges aren't enough, Clinton Road is also associated with a sinister spot. It's known as Dead Man's Curve, and you're gonna find those in a lot of places in the country. But here it is said that a group of witches andor Satanists gathers at night to conduct rituals and ceremonies. Hey, here's my two cents worth. Would you please stop shoveling the witches into the Satanist category? Untrue. The area around Dead Man's Curve is often cited as a hot spot for paranormal activity, where visitors have reported bizarre noises, flickering lights, and the sensation of being watched by what many have called the weight of unseen eyes. That's pretty good. I'm going to steal that one. So what is it about Clint Road that draws people from near and far? They want to come and experience the mysteries of it firsthand. I guess the answer would lie in the allure of the unknown. There's a magnetic pool to the unexplained. There always has been. And we humans have uh, if you will, an intrinsic fascination with the supernatural. It's uh yearning, if you will, to touch the veil that separates our world from the realm of spirits and phantoms. For thrill seekers and adventurers, Clinton Road's a unique opportunity to step into the realm of the uncanny, to face the inexplicable head-on. Ghost hunters from all over the country, armed with EVP recorders and electromagnetic field detectors, brave the road's twist in turns in hope of capturing evidence of the paranormal. Curious travelers and amateur investigators set out under the cover of darkness, eager to experience the road's legend for themselves. They say you can touch the veil between worlds. As the night settles over Clinton Road and the moonlight filters through the trees, the question remains are the haunting legends real? Or are they product of an overactive imagination? Could there be just a collective desire for a brush with the supernatural or the paranormal? And if so, when the instance in question involves a group of people, is it a group hallucination? Skeptics argue that the power of suggestion and the stories passed down through generations are the only things contributing to the road's reputation. However, I will say for those who experienced the inexplicable or the other phenomenon on Clinton Road, skepticism may give way to a sense of wonder, only a glimpse into the unknown. Whether the eerie tales are rooted in history, urban legend, or maybe they're a combination of both, they persist in inviting brave souls to venture into the shadows and explore the mysteries that Clinton Road could possibly hold. About three or four-ish years back, I did a piece for uh a magazine that's no longer in published about the boy at the bridge at Clinton Road. Sometime between then and now it came to me, and it's what we call snail mail, the regular mail service. I've been a resident of West Milford for practically my entire life. I have a lot of eyewitness info on Clinton Road. The first and foremost important thing I feel compelled to say to you and to anybody that you talk to, this road is not big capital letters, not a joke. Many of the stories you hear are not rumors. In fact, most of them are true. However, every story does have exaggeration. But I can assure you that the baseline facts are very well documented and 100% rooted in truth. We get one shortly after that. Wow, this place is scary. I was there a few times before and it really wasn't that bad, but then I got a flat tire of right about the center of the ten mile road. And I want to tell you, it was one of the scariest things. I don't know if I had myself freaked out or what the story was, but when the cop came he asked, What are you guys up to being out here? What are you doing? We lied. We asked why he was on such a scary road himself. His reply was, I'm only out here because you called me and because I have a gun. When dawn finally breaks and the first rays of sunlight pierce the misty veil that surrounds Clinton Road, its secrets endure. Whether the tales are true or not, one thing remains certain. One of the most haunted roads in the US will continue to captivate the curious, and beckum beckon them into its twilight embrace. Is it a place where reality and the supernatural intertwine? Remember, there is indeed a world unseen. It's a world that exists all around us all the time. And every now and then, for whatever the reason, we catch a glimpse of it. And the dead get in. Thank you for sending us your stories and for listening and for sharing and following. Please keep that going. Tell your friends, it's the only way we can continue to do this. And hey, tell a ghost story. Even if it's about a floating dog.
