Strange Happenings on the Oregon Coast

By J.D. Adams
Amid the roar of the surf on the Oregon coast, there are moans from tormented souls who are lost in time. Departed pioneers, explorers, Native Americans, sea traders, loggers, and soldiers, tricked into death, reach out from their shadowy world to make contact with the living. These ghosts walk the beach at night, and float like mist in the inky darkness of the coastal forest, reliving their last hours again and again, seeking an answer to the hideous riddle that imprisons them forever. In this land where cultures clashed and the sea claims it’s own with windswept fury, the undead are legion, each with their own personality. Some are friendly, while others have a score to settle with the living. When the wind whispers your name, beware.

The ghostly inhabitants of the Lincoln City area are numerous and well documented, as this website will attest: www.oregoncoast.org. Ghosts walk in the North Lincoln County Historical Museum late at night, and gather at a round table to discuss future hauntings. At the North Lincoln Fire and Rescue Station a specter known as “Bob” takes his place on an old fire engine. And at the Wildflower Café in Lincoln City, an apparition has taken up residence to wish the staff well.

From this popular website: www.ghostofamerica.com, come reports of ghosts from Pacific City to Newport, occasionally headless or drinking blood, staggering at Salishan Spit, and drifting at Devil’s Lake. Native Inhabitants, who called it Skookum Lake, meaning place of the evil spirit, noted a strange tentacled creature there. A similar creature was seen by Stan Allyn, author and the original owner of Depoe Bay's Tradewinds sportfishing, who observed huge yellow tentacles reaching from the ocean onto the beach near his home. At Taft one can reflect on the history surrounding Schooner Creek, which flows under Highway 101. Some say that the ship this creek was named after still plies the water around Siletz Bay. I invite you to come and walk this beach - tonight.