Hauntings of Whitefield House

As a lead-up to Halloween, the Express-Times included an article teasing ghost stories of The Whitefield House in Nazareth.

The spookiest tale comes from Kelly Givens, business manager at the Whitefield House, who is the only person to have actually seen a ghost.
Givens said that about two years ago she was alone at the house during the afternoon and walked up the stairs into the museum and passed a woman who she initially thought was a visitor. Then she realized the woman was dressed as a Moravian nurse of the period from when the children were at the nursery.

The Whitefield House Museum, 214 East Center St., is open to the public 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday through Saturday. The cost is $5 for adults and $3 for students and children to visit. For information, call 610-759-5070.

Mysterious Twine Plagues Nazareth

As the Morning Call reports (read here) areas of the borough have become entwined in an unexplainable tangle of thread. Sandy Remaly noticed the string over her home near Chestnut Street. She claims that the string stretches almost 8 blocks including the area all the way over near council chambers.

I had to see this for myself and swung by there on my morning bike ride. At this point the string is gathered around a clothesline pole and stretches up to a nearby tree. But it seems to stop there. I examined the string myself and can tell you it is probably not of this planet. No human could have produced a string that light and strong. Although, it could be a new type of guitar string developed by Martin Guitars. One of the many strong storms we've had lately may have blown it out of one of their huge smoke stacks and over the borough. What do you think the string is? Check out the video and comment below:

Remembering the Washington St. Ghost Owl

Way back in 2007 I posted a picture of the Ghost Owl of Washington Street after I sumbled upon it while out for a walk. It was the first thing I ever posted on this site and it is the reason this site exists. Sadly, the Owl has been destroyed. It's sad, tattered remains are still attached to the branches. What was once a proud symbol of Nazareth weirdness is now a broken shard of plastic. Goodbye, old friend.


I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

Alien Invasion over Nazareth and the Cloud Cover-Up

View over Kraemer's Textiles on the morning of October 22

They came without warning. In a sky blanketed with small puffy clouds, holes appeared, huge holes with feathery clouds inside them. It looked as if enormous flying saucers had descended to the ground somewhere nearby, piercing the cloud cover and leaving straggling remnants where the clouds had been.

Over Washington Park--note the way the cloud streaks downward and toward the left

There were several of these holes. The largest seemed to be almost right over Nazareth and there were others to the north and west.

Recently similar clouds have been seen over Moscow and in Romania, and as you can see here, some people thought they were seeing an alien invasion. Certain UFO enthusiasts still say that the scientific explanation is a cover-up!

This photo by Scott Werkheiser shows that I wasn't the only one to notice the odd formations.

But for those of you who are blinded by science, here is what they are. They're called fallstreak holes or hole punch clouds, and they happen in water vapor clouds that are supercooled. When one bit of vapor crystallizes, the ones around it do, too, and the effect continues outward from that center in every direction, leaving a visible hole in the water vapor clouds, a hole that has a mass of ice crystals that are heavier and therefore sinking slowly, creating that feathery effect.

While it isn't really rare, this is an unusual atmospheric phenomenon, and we were lucky to observe it. You can see a variety of Fallstreak holes on the website of the Cloud Appreciation Society, here.

So it appears that no space ships landed in the greater Nazareth area on October 22, and we should be safe for now. But be sure to let us know if one of your family members starts acting strangely. If there really was an invasion, they may have been abducted and replaced by an exact double who secretly records your lives for alien reality TV. We're told that humanity provides much of the rest of the universe's comic relief.

Old Car at Jacobsburg

Here is a fairly well-known Jacobsburg oddity that we haven't been able to find a lot of back story on. Not too far from the creek, in the Eastern most part of the park, there is a very old decaying automobile in the middle of the woods. I first discovered this in the early '90's when I first started coming to the park and haven't seen it since. So I decided to take a trip over there to snap some photos.

I surprised myself by finding the car so quickly after all these years. It's not difficult to find. In fact, on a sunny day you can see it from the main trail (Blue blazed; Henry's Woods Trail; just past the bridge) because the sun reflects off of the chrome bumper. It has decomposed quite a bit since I remember and has become covered in etchings from various visitors over the years. I didn't notice any that were older than the late '90's but it may be that the older ones have rusted over.

I wanted to try and get some clues as to the kind of vehicle it is, how long its been there, and how it got there. There was a marking on the engine block that said "Firing Order 18736542." From the little I know about cars I knew that this only told me it is an 8 cylinder (it had eight digits) and told me noting about the model or age. On the front bumper, there was a hand painted code that read "N4046.614W07517.189." At first I thought this may be something like the magic numbers in the TV show LOST. But after I stared at it long enough I realized that these might be coordinates. After a quick Google search I confirmed that Jacobsburg park is located at N4046 and that these are the waypoints for the vehicle and that geocachers may be using this as a stash point. Based on what I had gathered I found nothing to suggest the model or year of the car. Best guess is 1950's or early 1960's model.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

As far as how it got there, it clearly made its way down the embankment from the main trail area and smashed into a tree. The front bumper is bent around the tree. I saw no clear path from the main trail to the resting spot; it was littered with old growth trees. Also, the forest floor was pretty deep around the wheels. This suggests that the car has been there quite a long time. I might guess 30 or 40 years...maybe 50.

It's a pretty interesting juxtaposition of nature and machine to see a car in the middle of the woods. So if you have the means go check it out. Surely, there is someone reading this that has more information about this automobile and what its story is. So drop us a line at weirdnazareth@hotmail.com

Scarecrows at Center Square

Autumn is in the air. And that means that it is time for some of the local Girl Scouts to make one final attempt to rid Nazareth circle of those annoying crows before Winter. This year's group of scarecrows are particularly creative...Scuba Sue, Hippy Chick, and even a public-service-message regarding the H1N1 virus. They're all really good.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

As I was taking some of the pictures I noticed a group of girls and their group leader engrossed in a discussion about the bet place in the circle to put their scarecrow. Everyone had an opinion: it should face a stop sign, it should be near the mail boxes, it should face the church... It was interesting to see the amount of thought that the girls put into not only the design of the scarecrow, but the placement of the scarecrow within the circle.


Hey, don't forget to snap a photo of your Jack-o-lantern and e-mail it to us for our Contest!

Wil. E. Coyote Forgoes Acme Corp. for Sears in Lower Nazareth

From the Morning Call:

"Wildlife officers removed a coyote from the Sears Appliance & Hardware store in Lower Nazareth township this afternoon.The animal had been inside the main vestibule of the store located along Route 248.It was tranquilized and carried out of the store in a pet carrier by Northampton County Wildlife Conservation Officer Bradley Kreider and Deputy Officer Kevin Halbfoerster. A representative from the Pennsylvania Game Commission confirmed the animal was a coyote."

Photo: Harry Fisher/The Morning Call/December 8, 2008

Nazareth Hot Dog Guy

You may have seen the hot dog guy at center square, at little league games, or community events selling his dogs. You can't miss him because of the weird hat.

He is Ray Arthur of Ray's Rocking Dogs, a business he started after abandoning his trucking job. When you get a chance, visit Ray and get a hot dog.

Martins on Main Street

The community of Nazareth celebrated the 175th anniversary of Martin Guitars in the downtown area today. It was a nice event. However this was the only weird thing I saw.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jay

Tepees at Black Rock Woods

A borough resident built huts of bark and branches throughout the park. The authentic-looking bark-covered tepees started appearing, one by one, in Black Rock Woods at the Borough Park in early 2008. We found three tepees during our visit to the park.

Know the whole story of these tepees? Leave a comment below or e-mail us.

The Ghost Owl of Washington Street

Perched in a tree on the corner of Washington and Mauch Chunk Streets is a white plastic owl that just sits motionless and stares northwest.