The Paranormal Files: The Bridgewater Triangle

I grew up in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. It’s a suburb about 30 miles from Boston. When my family first moved there in 1985, it was a small, almost rural town of about 17,000 people. There were large tracts of farmland and far more churches than grocery stores. As people began to flee cities during the ‘90s, the town nearly doubled in population and much of that farmland was converted to McMansions. The town changed, so much in fact, that when I go east to visit I hardly recognize it. There’s so much more development. There’s a Home Depot now! But as much as the town has changed, one thing remains, the mysticism of The Triangle.

No, it’s not the Bermuda Triangle, famous for swallowing ships and aircraft into oblivion. But it does have a similarly dark and mysterious history. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. A lot of people who LIVE there don’t even know about it. It’s not something they teach you in school. It’s the kind of thing you only find out about if you’re a somewhat weird teenager with a fascination with the supernatural. I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of it, likely when I was about 13 years old. I would spend my afternoons after school among the stacks of the public library, reading about witchcraft, the occult, bigfoot, and aliens.

Let’s talk location. The Triangle centers on an area known as The Hockomock Swamp. It was a place revered by the Wampanoag, the indigenous people who lived in the area pre-European colonization. The name comes from an Algonquin term meaning "place where spirits dwell." Not only was it a bountiful hunting area, but it was also a sacred location for them. The colonizers called it “The Devil’s Swamp”. Today, it is also the home to many endangered and nearly extinct flora.

You can see the swamp on the map above just above the highway between the towns of Raynham and Bridgewater. The large body of water is Lake Nippenicket, which is where a number of the personal stories I have about the Triangle take place. It should be noted that the triangle’s exact shape is somewhat fluid. Within those boundaries, people have reported seeing a number of bizarre creatures, such as prehistoric birds with 10ft wingspans, alien spacecraft, Bigfoot, and a multitude of ghosts and spirits.

There is A LOT to unpack about the Triangle. Its history goes back hundreds of years. Much longer, in fact. Human artifacts have been discovered that date to 9,000 years old. The Wampanoag believed it was a place where the dead dwelled, overseen by Hobomock, the deity of death and disease. They also had stories about mischievous creatures known as Pukwudgie. They stood about 2-3 feet tall and were regarded as tricksters by the local tribes. As the lore goes, they were once friends and allies of the humans but something happened that made them turn against the natives.

As white colonizers began settling the area, conflict arose. King Phillip’s War erupted in 1675 and lasted until 1678. It began when colonists in Plymouth hanged three Wampanoag men. Battles were fought all over New England. And despite several native tribes banding together to fight off the colonists, they were quickly overwhelmed and defeated. This lead to the destruction of those tribes and the selling off of more than 1,000 native men into slavery. Because of this ill-fated war, the Wampanoag supposedly put a curse on the area. That’s where our story continues.

There’s an island in the middle of Lake Nippenicket. Local legends tell of it being one of the last refuges for the Wampanoag. One story I heard growing up was that in the early ‘90s, the state police conducted a raid on the island to bust people growing weed and during the raid, the police unwittingly sprung several booby traps that had been set by the last of the Wampanoag. This is probably not true but should serve to give you an idea of the kind of mystical hold the area has for people.

One area that gets a lot of attention (from paranormal investigators and historians alike) is Dighton Rock. It’s covered in petroglyphs. No one can agree on who is responsible for the markings. Some have claimed that there is evidence they were made by Phonecians, Vikings, and a number of native tribes. More recently, Gavin Menzies has said they were likely made by Chinese explorers in the 1400s. Which… probably not. Here is what the carvings look like:

Your guess is as good as mine as to what any of this means.

Another area of interest is a place called “Profile Rock” where the granite cliffs have the appearance of a face. In 2019, a large section of rock collapsed and it no longer looks like it used to. Here is an archival photo from a postcard in 1902 of what it looked like:

Pretty spooky! Looks like a face to me. And just for funsies, here’s a photo of me smoking a joint next to it from 2005:

What a cool dude!

Profile Rock has been a place where supposedly Satanic rituals took place, including the mutilation of animals and murders. Paranormal investigators have claimed that there is a lot of negative energy in this area and that some kind of evil force dwells there. Must be why I was smoking drugs! I wouldn’t do that if not for the influence of the evil spirits.

You might expect that a lot of the sightings and happenings were reported by crackpots. They weren’t! In 1971, it was a Norton police sergeant who spotted the gigantic prehistoric bird. In 1979, two reporters for a Boston television station (WHDH) claimed to see a UFO. Plenty of average citizens have made similar claims throughout the centuries. I am one of them.

The Nip

Lake Nippenicket is referred to by locals as “The Nip”. It’s a great place to go fishing. There was once a small beach where people could go swimming. It was closed at some point in the 1990s because of a number of drownings that took place there. The beach wasn’t just closed, it was covered in sharp, jagged rocks so no one would be tempted to even try swimming there. The weird thing about The Nip is that it’s incredibly shallow. Most of the lake is only about 3 feet deep. There are spots that go a bit deeper but a person could likely walk from one side to the other and never have the water get above their shoulders. Another local legend is that beneath the water, the lakebed is littered with cannonballs, fired out there by the military as practice during the Civil War. I have never seen one but I choose to believe they’re there.

One experience that I can report having had a firsthand account of is the “Blue Boy” who roams the shores at night. The story goes that the impetus for finally closing the beach was the drowning of a young boy, maybe 8 years old. As rumor has it, his spirit wanders the beachline, an eternal quest to find his parents. Let me tell you, I’ve seen him.

The Nip was a great spot to hang out in high school. We’d park our cars in the parking lot and either sit in the bed of someone’s pickup or just sit inside a car and, ummm… listen to music. One night, a group of us were packed into an SUV. That’s when we saw it. We’d all heard the legends of the Blue Boy and on that summer evening, we finally saw him. A blur of bluish light appeared about 30 yards from where we were parked. It slowly walked towards us, having the vague form of a small child. We all sat in shock as we watched it get closer to us. When it was 15 feet or so from us, the spirit suddenly disappeared.

We thought we were done with the Blue Boy. Nope. A few minutes later, we heard a sound that resembled something walking on the vehicle. It started on the hood and went over the top of the car. We initially thought it might be a raccoon or some animal so we all hopped out of the Jeep to scare it off. But there was nothing there. Later in the evening, as we sat in the car, the windows began to fog up from our breath. And wouldn’t you know it, the condensation that formed on the windshield revealed a track of footprints leading from the hood and over the roof. The prints were that of a small child.

There was no logical way for them to have gotten there. The owner of the SUV did not have any younger siblings. So unless a small child happened to visit his car and climb all over it, the Blue Boy must have been the one who left them. I get how crazy this story sounds and if it hadn’t happened to me I wouldn’t believe it either. But I was there and I know it happened.

That wasn’t the only weird thing we saw happen at The Nip. On the shore opposite the parking lot, there was a semi-secret beach, accessible only by a dirt road hidden at the end of a quiet residential street. Technically it’s called the Harry C. Darling Wildlife Management Area. Here’s a photo of it from Google Maps.

That little sandy area in the top-middle of the image capture is where our next story takes place. But before I get into that, a quick little aside. You’ll note that the dirt road is called Black Mallard Road. The legend behind that name is that many years ago there was a club that once stood along the shore of The Nip called The Black Mallard Club. I can tell you with certainty that SOMETHING once stood there as the foundations for a large building still remain. The outlines of the now-destroyed buildings are even on Google Maps!

So that much of the story is true. However, the local lore behind the club was that it was used as a hangout for gangsters traveling between Boston and Providence. It makes sense. The Nip is right next to a major highway that runs from Beantown to Rhode Island. Bridgewater is about halfway between the two cities. It is secluded and kind of hard to find. And before all the houses were built up around it, the Black Mallard Club (which is also a great gangster hideout name) would have afforded lots of privacy. Anyways, the legend goes that a rival group of mobsters found out about the hideout and burned it down, killing everyone inside. Is this true? Probably not. But again, having been there and feeling the weird vibes that abound I believe something happened there.

OK, on to my story. During the summer, my group of friends had a tradition of hanging out on that little beach, one that continued into college. One evening, we were sitting around a fire, definitely not drinking beer since we were all underage, when we noticed something strange emerging from the northernmost part of the lake. This is the area where the Hockomock Swamp drains into the Nip, so it’s kind of the confluence of two super haunted areas.

We’re sitting there, playing guitar and having fun when all of a sudden this bright white ball of light rises from the end of the Nip, directly from the edge of the Hockomock. It hovers over the top of the water and slowly begins to make its way toward us. Now, we’re all looking at each other, trying to figure out what it could be. At first, we think it might be a nighttime fisherman using a spotlight on his boat to navigate his way back to the boat ramp. It’s THAT bright. But as it gets closer, it’s clear that the light isn’t attached to anything. It’s just a ball. It gets closer and closer to us and we’re all in shock. The ball turns a bit and now the light is shining right at us. But when it gets maybe 20-30 feet from us, it zooms straight into the sky and disappears. Crazy, I know. But again, I was there and I know what we all saw.

Camp Titicut

The last story (there are LOADS more to tell but this post is getting a little long) that I’ll share takes place at an area within the Triangle called Camp Titicut. It’s a small reservation on the south side of Beech Street in Bridgewater. Much like The Nip, it’s a place that only locals seem to know about. There’s quite a lot of history at this one site, no bigger than a few thousand feet wide in all directions. Humans have inhabited this area for literally thousands of years. Native peoples of various tribes lived there and artifacts have been found that date back nearly 10,000 years. In the 1800s, it was a stop along the Taunton River where people built ships. Huge, mastless ships would be floated down the river and assembled along the way. In the 1930s it was home to a summer camp for boys. Then, in 1946, the area was excavated over the course of five years, unearthing some 6,000 artifacts. These ranged in complexity from simple tools to ornate jewelry and clay pots. Evidence for the existence of hundreds of homes was found as well. Needles to say, this is an area steeped in lore and history.

Our Boy Scout troop would sometimes camp there. During one such trip when I was in my teens, my group of scout friends and I experienced some really weird stuff there. For one, we all reported having nightmarish dreams each night. Nothing too unusual for kids sleeping in the woods. But then came the apparitions.

During the day, we’d go for walks in the woods. And remember, this isn’t a HUGE park, so it’s not like we were getting far off the beaten path. The camp is situated at the top of a hill. After a few minutes of walking into the woods, there’s a ravine that leads down to the river. Here’s a photo of it from another website:

Once we entered this little valley, we started to hear voices. Not the voices of our fellow scouts or any other campers. They were speaking in a way that sounded unfamiliar. They seemed to come from everywhere, usually in a hushed whisper. As we got closer to the river, a figure appeared on the ridge above. There was no detail in his visage, only a dark silhouette. It vanished as soon as we set our eyes upon it. Spooked but not scared off, we continued to walk down to the river. Across the water, we spotted a few more shadows, these of what seemed to be women. And again, they vanished as quickly as they appeared.

Feeling particularly weirded out, we started to head back to camp. We talked about how weird it all was, how the voices seemed to follow us to the river and how the shadows along the river kind of, sort of looked like Native Americans. On the trail ahead of us, a figure appeared. We thought it might have been a Scout leader who had come to look for us. We called out to the man but got no response. We decided to try and catch up to them so we started running. As the trail curled around a thicket of brush it seemed as though we’d reach him. But once we turned the corner he was gone. No sign of him anywhere. And there weren’t any other curves in the trail for him to potentially be hidden behind. The voices started whispering again and we high-tailed it out of there, determined not to find out if our suspicions of the woods being haunted would be confirmed.

I am far from the only person in this area who has experienced bizarre, unexplainable things. There have been books written about the Bridgewater Triangle. There was even a documentary produced a few years back. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube and Amazon Prime. If you’re into spooky stuff (and what better time of year is there to explore spooky stuff) I highly recommend it. If you want a quick 10-minute primer, here you go:

Clearly, whoever made this video is not from Massachusetts because they mispronounce a few of the town names.

I am not generally someone who cottons the paranormal or supernatural much. If you know me, I think you’d agree that I am pretty skeptical of stuff like this. But the Bridgewater Triangle is real. It even has a Wikipedia page! Just Google it and you’ll see what’s out there on it.

I have a lot more stories to tell about growing up in a crazy place like Bridgewater. Be sure to tune in to the next installment of The Paranormal Files!