Weird 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...

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 ...

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 ...

In the 1950s, parachuting beavers rained down from the skies of Idaho. Beavers play a crucial role in the management of flowing freshwater.  By creating pools and ponds the beavers hold water on site, leading to lusher habitats and fewer droughts.  In an attempt to redistribute beaver populations and rehabilitate the waters, the Idaho Fish and Game Department devised a program in which beavers were trapped from overcrowded locations and relocated by airplane. In this recently recovered footage from the department we can see the beavers parachuting, as well as vintage footage of Payette Lake in McCall, where Sharlie the water dragon is rumored to reside.