Weird Idaho

Those traveling through Owyhee County can take comfort in knowing they are not alone.  Owyhee County, which consists of the southwest corner of the state, is home to many unique legends, not the least of which are the spectral horses said to appear in times of need. Acording to legend, if you ever find yourself lost and alone in the wilds of Owyhee you should look to the sky.  There it is said a white stallion, with a mane of wispy clouds and hooves like thunder, will part the clouds and descend to the horizon, followed by a surging herd of ghostly pale horses.  The stallion will lead the herd across the sky, and the traveler need only follow to be led back to safety.

The town of McCall, Idaho is one of the primary tourist destinations in the state for skiing, boating, and outdoor recreation, seated on the edge of beautiful Payette Lake.  But few realize the lakeside resort holds a strange secret; Sharlie, the dragon of Payette Lake. McCall started it's time as a logging town, pulling trees from the abundant forests of the area to process in the sawmill, but it was during this time of it's history that Sharlie first made her appearance.  Loggers were working on the bank during the 1920s when they thought they saw a log surface and begin to float on the water, which was hardly unusual, until the log began to move with a life of it's own and resubmerged into the lake. The strange creature reappeared in 1944, when several distinct groups of people began making reports of a large animal, 30-35 feet in length, with a brontosaurus like head, pronounced jaw, camel humps along it's back and a hard, shiny, shell like skin risin

Once the largest water park in the North West, Wild Waters in Cour d'Alene was the summer destination for decades before quietly closing its gate in 2010.  The park has sat abandoned now for eight years, and for those who remember it in it's heyday it is an eerie ghost of its former self. This 2016 urban exploration video by Adam the woo shows what remains of Wild Waters.

The Asotin County Fair comes to the town of Lewiston every spring, bringing with it the Hells Canyon Rodeo and the start of the planting season.  But some residents still remember the spring of 1979, when a 12 year old girl named Christina White disappeared and the Snake River Killer began his reign of terror. On the day of the fair Christina visited a friends house complaining of a headache, and was offered a cool cloth and use of the telephone to call her mother for a ride.  The home belonged to Patricia Brennen, who asked Christina to wait for her ride out on the porch.  They had thought her already picked up and home when her mother arrived over an hour later to retrieve her, and she could not be located.  At the time, Patrica was dating a man named Lance Voss, who would soon enough become her husband, and a suspect in the case. For two years parents locked their doors and children were kept inside, but as the fear began to ease tragedy struck again.  In the summer

This footage was captured in 2015 in Boise, Idaho, supposedly showing a pterosaur flying over the treetops.  Pterosaur sightings have been occurring since the discovery of the creature, with one notable case being during the construction of the New York City subway tunnels, when workers claimed a pterosaur like creature fell from a hollow in the stone, struggled briefly for life, and then began to decay rapidly.  This account is similar to other reports of frogs who hibernate so long in the mud they become sealed in, and when the stone is removed from around them they begin to decay and die. Pterosaurs have more recently been sighted in several states, including Texas and California, though the bulk of reports come from Africa.

A string of shockingly similar UFO sightings have shocked Idaho this year, with numerous reports and videos of strange glowing orbs flying over Caldwell, Moscow, Tamarack, and Boise.  These orbs were seen moving autonomously and reacting to their environments.  Investigation into the sightings point to a culprit: Google's secretive and ominously named research and development team, X. The pictured balloon is part of a program called Project Loon, which is an experiment in which large self illuminating balloons capable of beaming wifi signals are flown over isolated areas.  Google received permission to test over the state of Idaho last year, which has a wealth of rural territory devoid of internet access.  These otherworldly vehicles look alarming when sighted in the night sky, but we can all rest assured knowing they are no more harmful than the common weather balloon, which is to say, not at all. If the program succeeds we may be able to look forward to skies

In this video a man describes an encounter he had with a bigfoot several years ago in the mountains outside Burley, Idaho.

Ten miles south of Lewiston, Idaho lays the beautiful shores of Lake Waha.  Now a poplar fishing spot, Lake Waha holds a special significance to the local Nex Perce tribe, who once used it as the setting of 'spirit quests' for their young men.  But this isolated lake holds a more ominous secret; the ghost of the Indian Maiden, who walks the lake's shores. According to legend a young woman went out to forage for food with her baby strapped to a cradleboard, as was customary.  She dug for roots along the shores of Lake Waha, and as the day became hot she stopped to rest and refresh herself and her child in the cool waters of the lake.  That was the last the woman was heard from. The next day her family searched the lake shore for her, but all they found was the cradleboard, now empty, and the woman's buckskin dress.  Afraid a creature in the lake had seized her, they kept away from the waters. Earlier, the lake had taken another victim.  Legend says a Nez P

Massacre Rock outside Pocatello, Idaho is the home of many myths and legends, not the least of which are the water babies, who lurk below the surface of the river, waiting for the unwary traveler. Before this patch of land was a stop on the Oregon Trail it was native land, and the legend goes that one year the native tribe was facing a horrible famine, and there was not enough food to go around.  Starving and unable to nurse, new mothers were told to go drown their babies in the river so they would not starve to death.  This terrible attempt at kindness backfired, as the babies, still starving in death and furious at their fate, lingered at the river.  It is said that if you sit in stillness at the banks of the river you will hear the faint sound of babies crying and bawling for food.  Those who go to investigate those sounds find themselves on the menu, as the babies pull them under the water and feast on their remains.

In August,1979 a family outing to Craters of the Moon, a volcanic field and national park in southern Idaho, took a turn for the macabre as the family dug for arrowheads in Buffalo Cave, one of over 500 caves discovered so far within the park.  While excavating the cave floor they found not artifacts but the remains of a adult man, his head, arms, and legs severed and missing and resting in a shallow grave. The torso was shrouded in burlap and wearing a pink shirt with a maroon sweater.  Authorities had difficulty identifying the man, though he was suspected to be an alcoholic shepherd named 'John', who had gone missing.  With no leads or way to identify the body, the case went cold. Over a decade later a young girl exploring the same cave made another gruesome discovery; human limbs wrapped in burlap, buried shallowly in the floor of the cave.  This time the cave is searched thoroughly in hopes for finding the head, but all that is uncovered are the bones of a

In the small south Idaho town of Sugar City, the ghost of a young boy supposedly repeats his final moments over and over on the Beaver Dick Bridge. According to legend, in the early 1970s a group of teenage boys were proving their courage on this small bridge, daring each other to jump down into the chilled waters below.  One boy took up this dare, ad leaped head first into the water.  He surfaced without incident and returned to his friends, who were impressed but alarmed by his actions.  Determined to prove himself the boy jumped again, and this time nothing surfaced. Without even bubbles the teenagers ran to get help, and the waters were searched, but no body was ever recovered. If you to the bridge in the twilight, or on nights of dense fog, you can see the pale figure of a teenage boy run from the center line to the railing and jump.

Officially known as the Centennial Tree, the Brundage Bra Tree sits at the base of the Centennial ski lift at the Brundage ski resort outside McCall, Idaho.  For reasons unknown, female skiers discard their bras into the branches of this small tree as the lift passes overhead.  The tree an be viewed by visitors and contributed to by anyone willing to remove their clothing on the Centennial ski lift.

The Giant Palouse Earthworm has long been a mystery of North Idaho.  Reports from the 1890's claimed the presence of an enormous worm under the prarie grasses, three feet long and shock white, with the ability to spit mucus in self defense and shrouded with the strange smell of lillies.  Isolated to the Palouse (a prairie region in north Idaho) the worm was claimed to be abundant in the 1890s, but no specimens were ever presented. A summer research project at the University of Idaho changed all that. In 2010 their quest for the white worm was rewarded when two of these strange white worms were pulled from the hills outside Moscow.  They are being studied at the University, but so far the real article doesn't quite live up to the legend, being somewhat ordinary, if a little large. Their presence presents a dilemma for local farmers, who fear the worm achieving protective status and making them unable to till their fields.  It's presence is denoted by deep smooth