Moodus Noises - Icon # 1 EHMT Map

In 2012, I spent a year living in Higganum, Connecticut on Beaver Meadow Road. The house abutted the Cockaponset Forest and I recall many nights sitting on our back deck staring up into the dense tree canopy wondering what lurked deep in those woods, keeping an eye out for a Bigfoot or Mothman sighting. I was never granted my wish to meet either of these chaps, atleast not in Higganum, but I was lucky enough to experience the legendary Moodus Noises I had heard about for many years.

The town name of Moodus was derived from the Indigineous name for the area Machit-Moodus or "Place of Bad Noises". The State Park that resides within the village of Moodus is now known as Machimoodus and offers some of the prettiest trails, meadows and river access one can find in Connecticut. It also hosts some incredible and long-standing legends that are infamous in Connecticut tales of spooky.

Though the facts around how the noises are created and when they began are a long standing Connectict mystery, it has not stopped them from occurring for many centuries in the area.

The night I experienced the thundering rumble, I was only about 4 miles southeast as a crow flies across the Connecticut River from the Machimoodus area. I was standing in my bedroom, folding laundry and the house was quiet as noone was home but me. That house always unnerved me when I was alone there. In fact, the road and the surrounding forest had an exponential creep factor. This particular night however was peaceful until I got a strong and sudden uneasy feeling, and the hair stood up on my neck. I remember stopping what I was doing and looking around me, hyper focused. And then, the entire house shuttered and a rumbling noise like thunder followed it until it settled. It was visible and audible. The glass of my windows shimmered in the movement and I think I may have let out a high pitched squeal.

Having lived in California in the eighties, I recalled what earthquakes felt like and even the heeby jeeby feeling I would get just before they occurred. That feeling is distinct and memorable. I went through atleast a dozen earthquakes including the 1989 San Francisco 6.9 roller that caused death and destruction during the World Series that year. There is a reason I don't live in California anymore, nice weather and scenery be damned.

This night in Higganum was no different. I was sure I had experienced an earthquake.

The following day, there was murmurings in local town shops that yes, others had experienced the same rumbling but we were all suprised to find the news did not pick up the story. There were no official reports of an earthquake having happened in the area or in surrounding states that night. No story came later either.

It dawned on me that I must have experienced the famous Moodus Noises! My in-laws who have lived in East Haddam for twenty-three years had told me about them years prior when we were forming the Connecticut Ghost History of Shoreline Towns group in 2007. They had experienced them only a few times in all those years, and again no reports of correlating earthquakes.

In 2017, I moved to East Haddam and stared exploring the Machimoodus State Park area more extensively. The Moodus Noises legend was well known, though it's source story is hard to pinpoint. In the late 1700s, the story of the noises attracted an unusual stranger to town from Europe in search of their source. He claimed he thought the noises were created from a great and growing Carbuncle of immense mystical power buried in the river. Upon unearthing the Carbuncle and taking it back to Europe with him (though he never made it because his ship sank en route) he relieved the area of the incessant oddity of rumbling that the locals attributed to the Devil's work.

Remember, early colonialists were superstitious and deeply religious. As their ways of life collided with the local Indigenous cultures whose customs and spiritual traditions were so foreign and frigtening to them, they often cited that the natives were in league with the Devil. The lore that negative haunted locations are founded on Indian burial ground finds its roots in these beliefs. Remember Poltergeist?

I am of indigenous Wampanoag descent. I may also have some plans to angrily haunt a few people after my demise!

Apparently our local angry Indian God was named Hobbamock in the 1800s and he had a taste for human sacrifice in his honor. In a great battle to save a young sacrifice from her immindent death, the Christian God unleashed a roaring sound from the earth that was so raucous, it frightened the natives and Hobbamock away for good. Legend states that the noises continue to be heard by anyone with sinisiter intentions.

Uh-oh. I've been found out by the Gods.

As the telephone game of the Moodus Noises rolled through the wires of time, many versions of their sources were added to the legend. Local newspapers in the New England region often weighed in, usually with false and incredulous additives, but ones that had indelible affects on the beliefs none the less. Think early version Enquirer.

Having lived in town, I can attest to this. By the time my family shared the story with me, more than two centuries after its inception, town myths were being all rolled into one story. The Witches from Devil's Hopyard (another stop on our map) were rolling large carbuncles at each other in an eternal fight between good and evil on either side of the Connecticut River. They all lived happily together under Mt. Tom and the Devil from the Hopyard was throwing raucous parties for everyone.

I knew I loved East Haddam. My kinda stories!

Whether it's micro earthquakes or a supernatural occurrence, I know one thing for sure. Something is rolling around in the ground up here in East Haddam. Since that night in 2012, I have felt and heard the Moodus Noises one more time in my current home on Bogue Lane. Just around the time I moved in, I was sitting on my deck and the same experience came upon me. It was a perfectly clear fall day, but it sounded as if thunder was rolling through the valley. I likely was up to something sinister that afternoon as well. Suprise I don't hear them more often ; )

To get to Icon #1 on the EHMT map, gps yourself to Moodus, Connecticut or Machimoodus State Park. Rt 149 and Rt 151 are local roads in this area. There are different areas of the park, with the upper portion having clearly marked trails and a level parking lot with easy access to trailheads that lead to woods, meadows and the Salmon River. If you manage to experience the noises, I would love to hear about it at ctriverlore@gmail.com