The Rocky Horror Expedition Show

Haunted in the West

—DO TO THE IMPENDING SPOOKY NATURE OF ALL HOLLOWS’ EVE, YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED ACADEMIC SUBSTACK SERIES WILL NOW BE OVERTAKEN—

Warning: The spooky stories presented in this document are from real eyewitness accounts of the expedition crew members catalogued between:

08/18/21 @ 0800 hrs – 10/31/21 @ 1530 hrs

READ AT OWN RISK

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The two young women sat on a public park bench overlooking the sea of chartreuse that locals call The Siuslaw National Forest. The taller one, with a sun-bleached bandana and heavily worked overalls, looked cautiously at the woman sitting beside her. She seemed to be waiting for an answer to the question I had just asked. No, it was more than that. The fear in her eyes flashed with a longing to tell her story, an unmistakable terror of a person frozen in shock at what has happened to them.

The companion, with the large reading glasses and strings of silver hanging from her neck, chewed nervously on a withered wooden toothpick, her eyes hidden beneath a wide brimmed Stetson. She seemed to make up her mind and – first sizing me up, trying to decide if I was trustworthy - looked back at her friend. Without a word, she nodded to the woman in the bandana, and went back to chewing the poor small cylinder trapped between her lips. The companion perked up immediately and poured their experience out to me:

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RICHARDSON PARK CAMPGROUND – OUTSIDE EUGENE, OREGON

SEPTEMBER 2021

The air outside had turned chill, but not from a change in weather. Two of the expedition crew members, now identified as Mya and Andi, bundled in their tent, intending to settle in for the evening. A few other crew members could still be heard talking over each other around the campfire, less than 10 feet from where the women lodged. Suddenly and all at once, all current sounds outside the fabric enclosure ceased. Sucked out like a vacuum, all that remained was a static resembling that of an old television set. The women looked at each other in a panic. Their hearts dropped and their bodies tensed. At first, both Mya and Andi thought they were seeing people outside, possibly other students. But then the ominous illuminations, cloaked silhouetted figures, started spinning in a vertical orbit over the tent.

The women yelled over the static, “Who’s out there?”

Eerie ringing was all that could be heard back.

“Hello?” they called again. No answer.

The crunching static buzzing in their ears seemed endless while the whirl of light projections continued for another few seconds, changing direction and zipping about like a haunted circus. As quickly as the phenomena began, it came to a screeching halt. The figures had been swept away in the blink of an eye, the ring immediately replaced with the familiar voices of fellow crew members laughing and talking around the fire only a few short feet away.

When I finally finished taking notes, I met Andi’s gaze. Her eyes were still wide with terror at reliving the strange experience. Mya looked out into the sea of trees without a word. The toothpick was being picked apart in her hands now. We sat in silence for a few minutes until a familiar face strolled up to meet us. The tall figure wore an oversized jean jacket and a stylish cowboy hat trimmed with turquoise. She smiled upon arrival, but after feeling our tension, her face fell. Andi briefly filled her in on the topic of conversation.

“Y’all are talkin’ about Eugene?” The friend asked. “I told you about the night we stayed in the hotel, right? After that weird campsite?”

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EUGENE, OREGON

SEPTEMBER 2021

She fell into a deep sleep quicker than she expected. The long nights resting under the stars had unaccustomed her body to feel comfortable in a bed, even though the hotel should’ve been a rewarding break for living off grid for such long stretches at a time. In her dream world, Makenna recalls making the decision to not do something because she felt that a fire alarm was about to go off in the real world and it wouldn’t make sense to get tied up in a dream plot when she was about to wake up. She continued in her dreams for quite some time until being shocked into consciousness, back in the hotel, with a blaring alarm to greet her. Her roommate was startled at the unexpected fire alarm and hurried out of bed to get dressed. Makenna sighed and sat up, already mentally prepared to face the alarm that her dream had somehow prepared her for.

Strange and unexplained happenings have been reported across the nation since before colonizers inhabited the landscape. According to native storytellers, spirits walk among us as guests sharing this plane. Over the last 75 days, we have successfully travelled through 7 states in the American West; states divided by tradition and culture, politics and history; towns celebrated and towns forgotten.

Randy Lewis once asked our group, “If the stones could speak, what would they say?” The landscape has been here longer than any group of inhabitants. It was born before us, and it will live on long after we have gone. What has it seen? And what remains?

As we wander deeper into the desert, we are viewing it in a stage of renaissance, adapting and straining against human impact while also ruthlessly reclaiming itself. Dozens of unknowing tourists fall prey to the unforgiving horizon, underestimating her desert fury and overestimating the human ability to tame her. Have we officially outstayed our welcome?

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COTTONWOOD CAMPGROUND – JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER 2021

A day off in Joshua Tree. The crew was presented with options for day hikes to explore on their day away from schoolwork and van traveling. Everyone disembarked on their own journey throughout the beautiful, sun-soaked day, yet some did not return until almost dusk with tales of displacement in the desert. Five of the crew members ventured home to the site looking weary and ragged, each coming back from the same strange trail. Although they all hit the trailhead at different times, the same peculiar spot along the path spooked each of them. “If you lose focus, you’re done,” says crew member Makenna. Zinnia reports feeling “spatially off” at the site they individually spoke of. An experienced hiker who often travels alone, Zinnia was more prepared and excited than anyone to bound along the 9 mile out and back trail. On her journey however, this spot made her feel tense at her core. Disoriented, one could easily take a small step off the path and be lost for miles without noticing. She managed to catch herself almost slipping off the designated trail but successfully continued on her way over the pass. Coming around a bend, she glanced down at a gruesome sight: she had found herself stepping on the mutilated carcass of a baby coyote. Pecked and pillaged, it was still fresh enough to have been breathing not 30 minutes before. The desert is not a welcoming place to strangers and locals alike.

Along with unprepared hikers, other strange disappearances have contributed to the increasing number of disappearances in Joshua Tree National Park. An unofficial city, the park remains a vast and daunting western territory. Even the most experienced avid hikers and backpackers’ remains have been found. Victims of the desert? Or cover for a perfect crime?

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TEHACHAPI, CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER 2021

It had been a long and taxing day of driving for Kara. As program assistant, many daily tasks become overwhelming and tedious. She handles them with grace, but they are grueling nonetheless. And after being in and out of a car for 8 hours, she was more than ready to set up her tent and crawl into the warm embrace of her sleeping bag. She watched as the crew scrambled to quickly set up camp and decided she would go on a walk before the sun finally set. No one else was to be seen in the site, only the familiar voices of the crew members lifted into the ever-growing darkness. The voices drifted away as she walked toward a manmade structure void of any identifying markings. It looked deserted from where she stood. Curiosity got the better of her – off she went toward the mysterious building. Standing at only 5 feet, the door appeared daunting to the woman as it towered over her small frame. She placed her hand on the knob, unwavered by the magnitude of it. It was unsettlingly heavy as she pulled it open, the hinges creaking with a snarling whine. Kara peered inside the building and discovered nothing but shower stalls. A bit disappointed with the mundane nature of the discovery, she was about to leave when a metallic glow caught her eye. Squinting into the darkness she could make out the frame of long steel posts clustered together with jagged ends. A set of keys. They lay on top of what looked like a flannel shirt. She scanned the room again, silently cursing herself for forgetting her headlamp. Even in the echoing darkness, she knew nothing else remained of the unknown stranger. Not allowing the weighted door to close her in, she snatched the personal objects of the person she didn’t know to further investigate and stood with them in her hands, leaning against the open door. How long had they been sitting there? The flannel appeared brand new. The keys however were tattered and worn, aged with use. She tried to imagine what they unlocked, what they had the ability to keep hidden. She hadn’t previously noticed the small tag that was joined to the ring with the keys. Angling it in the moonlight she barely made out what the slip said in sprawling handwriting: Clear skies. Kara didn’t hesitate to drop the stranger’s belongings onto the floor of the empty shower room. She glanced at the deserted campsite; save the grumbling students unloading the trailer, not another soul was left alive that she could see under the fading light of the fall evening.

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SHEEP PASS CAMPGROUND - JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER 2021

The evening was warmer than it had been the night before. Ceci looked up at the moon, the eve before it was to be full, still bright enough to illuminate the high desert campground they resided in. Clusters of cacti and drooping Joshua Trees stood motionless in the starlight. A slight breeze brushed their bangs gently and settled them back into place. Not for lack of comfort, they couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Bothered from tossing and turning so much, they unzipped their sleeping bag, slipped into their sandals, tip-toed around their friends that were already lifted away into the dream world, and took a solitary stroll along a nearby dirt path. A few peaceful minutes went by and they again nestled into their sleeping bag, this time, finally able to join their friends in the astral realm. They stay like this for quite some time. Unbothered by troubled dreams or insomnia, the group of students lay in blanketed slumber.

As unannounced as a tsunami, a heavy whoosh blew over the top of Ceci, blowing their golden hair across their face and waking them with a start. They sat up wide awake as if they had still been up for hours, even though logic told them they had been in a deep sleep. Their eyes trailed and surveyed the site. None other of their friends were disturbed. Not a single creature, large or small, winged or ground dwelling, was seen roaming the landscape or flying overhead. Silence. Ceci’s only validation of the mysterious figure that blew over the top of them was the neighboring dog of a nearby campsite that had roused awake at the same instant they did and was barking loudly through the canyon. The dog reluctantly quieted down and joined its owner in comfort. The lone crew member shivered with an unease that while they may have been the only person visibly awake, they were not alone in consciousness.

Ceci states that when they often sleep outside, they can still hear the whooshing sound like great wings over their sleeping bag and can still feel the breeze across their face as it flew by.

If we wander lost on the earthen plane in life, who’s to say we wouldn’t in death too? The spirited fragments of those who have left us may very well be floating around the same untamed landscape we have been exploring ourselves.

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BUTTE, MONTANA

SEPTEMBER 2021

Just like characteristics we each hold onto throughout our lives, old buildings perhaps carry a personality themselves. Bizarre and historic, the crew travelled to a city trying to cling to its past. While meandering through the faded brick buildings we were led on a tour through a preserved brothel which then doubled as a home for transient miners. The moment I stepped inside, my chest grew heavy, as if weighted by the crumbling bricks holding up this weathered structure. The air was sucked out of my lungs and I struggled to breathe. No one else appeared to be bothered save Zinnia, who I noticed had an anxious look in her eye and was walking timidly through the exhibit of rooms. The rooms were decorated in memorabilia of the women of the night like a shrine: clothing, jewelry, perfume, photo albums. Black and white photographs of beautiful, mostly naked women splattered the walls. Staring into their solemn eyes, the haunting portraits held secrets. Do they remain here even in death? Are the souls of these resilient women trapped here in silent contract to the artificial landscape they spent most of their adult lives in? Do they watch as passersby peer into their worlds? As I stood dazed, I knew she was staring back.

Out of invasive curiosity, I ventured behind the building and realized why I had felt the need to come back there. What I found appeared to be a mass grave with five or six headstones in a rectangular cramped space, barricaded in an iron fence. What were they trying to keep out? Or perhaps keep in?

It wasn’t until we were almost five blocks away that Zinnia caught up with me and held tightly onto my arm. In sync and without a word, we both were finally able to take a deep breath for the first time in over two hours since leaving the brothel.

Out of 18 total participants on the expedition, a confirmed 15 crew members have identified “spooky, strange, or supernatural occurrences.” Two others have offered odd stories but deny a supernatural or haunting aura. A few cities were considered “universally spooky” for the group, including Newport, Oregon, Holden Village, Washington, Yuma, Arizona, Joshua Tree, California, and Eugene, Oregon. For each of these sites, more than five people found there to be vibes that prompted anxiety, nightmares, feelings of displacement, or an unexplained occurrence.

One student in particular has come forward with more accounts than she can count on one hand. Our investigation takes us outside Saguaro National Park in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona. After setting up camp, I meandered into Kathryn’s tent, where she was hosting poker night with fellow crew members Alhondra and Leah. In exchange for her testimony, I would need to buy in to the game and earn them. The price was high: 3 tangerines. Worth it. After the first hand, she began telling a story of the same site Mya and Andi were hesitant to speak of:

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RICHARDSON PARK CAMPGROUND – OUTSIDE EUGENE, OREGON

SEPTEMBER 2021

Kathryn took the deck in her hands and shuffled them silently as we watched. Her eyes stared into the dark corners of the tent seeing something we couldn’t. With an extended exhale, she told how she had been haunted by nightmares all three nights at the campground outside Eugene. Dusk had been caked in an eerie frosting and she recounted feeling displaced throughout the darkening evenings. As she strolled around camp, tents that had been stationary suddenly weren’t where they were supposed to be. She looked at me with guarded eyes and told me that during these walks the path often changed direction as quick as the blink of an eye. She looked at me so intently, the palms of my hands began to sweat. I couldn’t vocally acknowledge the connection then, but I was shell-shocked to hear this part of the story, for I myself had experienced the same phenomena yet hadn’t shared my experience with her yet.

What’s more troubling than the strange shifting landscape is that all her nightmares centered around the same theme: that we weren’t supposed to be in the camp and the longer we stayed, the more the land would consume us until we fully lost our minds. In the dream world, she was attacked by a creepy old man, she was forced to beat a woman that threatened her, and she was chased by our professor who had stayed in the camp for too long and was showing cannibalistic tendencies. Bizarre and off kilter, the nightmares were unsettling. She never usually dreams of violence yet had experienced it three nights in a row.  

Kathryn’s stories, while all entirely her own, happened to be set in sites that our other peers had had occurrences.

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HATFIELD MARINE SCIENCE CENTER – NEWPORT, OREGON

SEPTEMBER 2021

Another “universally spooky” site for the crew was in Newport, Oregon. Upon arrival, the crew members were greeted by a spokeswoman of the conjoined college who explained evacuation procedures for the constant possibility of a tsunami. She was serious and to the point and avoided speaking of much else apart from the massive angular slope that ran along the building next to us that we were to use should we need to depart suddenly. We would theoretically have 20 minutes to get there. Feeling not so welcomed to our new home, we all grabbed our keys and found our dorms that would serve as home for the night.

Crew members Kathryn, Kara, Ella, Zinnia, Makenna, Andi, and Mya all reported the mutual feeling that the group “wasn’t supposed to be there”. Kathryn and Ella individually are on the record stating that the volleyball court wasn’t to be trusted. Ella went as far as to say that the evening felt out of an American Horror Story episode and wouldn’t be at all surprised to find bodies buried in the court. A bit without proper merit for an investigation, but food for thought nonetheless and very much on par with the out of balance vibes to the area in question.

Kathryn’s next account occurred in one of the most unconventional places we had visited thus far on the expedition: Holden Village, Washington.

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HOLDEN VILLAGE - LAKE CHELAN, WASHINGTON

SEPTEMBER 2021

The road to Holden was long, both physically and mentally. The expedition had left the hotel early in the morning and hurried to catch the ferry that would ship them to an unknown location. Upon arrival, the crew disembarked on the shores of Lake Chelan and hopped into an old school bus. They climbed over nine switchbacks and finally made it to the elusive Holden Village. As soon as their feet touched the gravel path into the community, they were transported through a portal, like Alice falling deeper into the Earth. Dozens of community members greeted the students with open arms. Friendly and overly welcoming, it was like coming home. The village has a long history of transition; from unused forest to old mining town to secluded Lutheran retreat center. Many students wondered what else lay on the grounds that was hidden from sight and excluded from language.

A few days into our stay, I entered the pool hall much later than the rest of my friends. Night had descended onto the village, nothing but a dull light from inside the building lit my path. The underground nature of the billiards room gave off a Footloose persona. It looked as if hadn’t been redecorated since the 80s, complete with aging posters and fading wooden walls. Pool sticks in hand, I could see five crew members grooving to the juke box that Kathryn was managing, she herself dancing freely to the enchantment of Stevie Nicks. With everyone entranced by the goddess herself, I shuffled over and joined in step with them. The song ended a few minutes later and Lilli, Lexa, and Izzy resumed their pool session.

I wandered over to the wall behind the tables to get a closer look at the dated décor. An antique dentist chair sat lonely in the corner, and I figured, what the hell? Creepy chair? Why not. As soon as I did, I regretted the decision immediately. I envisioned Alice willingly climbing deeper into the hole. I vacated the chair and walked to the other side of the room to get away from the encroaching distress I was suddenly feeling in the pit of my stomach. The shifting in the room was not only apparent to me. From where I sat, I could see Lilli’s face fall into tension and Lexa return her gaze with apprehension. The crew stopped playing the game and stared at one another, at me, and finally, around the room. Kathryn stopped dancing. A silent parasite had invaded and stopped the once pleasant vibe of the evening.  

Lilli remembers the friendly game suddenly taking an aggressive, sinister turn. The “spirit” had changed. It was immediate and she remembers thinking, “This is not good. We have to finish the game and leave.” Like Jumanji, if the game remains unfinished, bad luck is sure to follow. So, the game continued, the negative aura growing firm and causing anxiety for anyone in the room. Lexa, Lilli, Izzy, and I felt it definitively and all at once.

When speaking to other members of the crew, I was offered other ominous happenings throughout the group. At least 11 members were troubled at some point over the week in regard to unexplained occurrences. Mya and Makenna report that they would often take walks into the surrounding woods but had overwhelming trepidation about returning to the village and leaving the comfort of the forest.

After a workshop in the village, Kathryn felt she was being followed by a presence for the rest of the day. She wandered the town with the strange entity trailing along like a curious shadow clinging to her life form. She was able to leave it behind hours later.

The belief that the landscape holds energy and houses spirits continues to present itself to us on our journey, yet a couple of crew members remain skeptical of the occult. If they wouldn’t listen to the myriad of accounts, perhaps they would consider the mystical from a Klamath tribal member herself. Through the twists and turns of Oregon paths, we came upon a dazzling site. Created by the eruption and fall of Mt. Mazama, Crater Lake remains one of the West’s puzzling oddities.

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CRATER LAKE, OREGON

OCTOBER 2021

Nearly eight thousand years ago, a great battle raged between the Spirit of the Mountain and the Spirit of the Sky. The destruction left in the wake of battle was absolute and the Makah people mourned the loss of their sacred mountain. What was left behind, born from chaos, became its own ineffable entity. The eerie glistening of royal blue water has captivated visitors and locals ever since. Known as the Old Man of the Lake, a dried out “phantom” hemlock trunk floats the six mile radius of the lake. The stump is dated at over 450 years old and is propped vertically, a bizarre phenomenon beyond scientist’s understanding. Standing at about 40 feet tall, it is buoyant enough to hold an adult human and has been in the lake since at least 1896.

Thunder Horse, a warrior of the Klamath Basin, gave testimony of this land she has been part of all her life. She describes the lake as a “gateway to the underworld”. People often go missing, their bodies never washing back to the surface. She warned us not to mess around there or our souls too would be claimed. A strong swimmer in a lake without a current, she recounts being pulled under the water by an invisible force and was almost swept away without a trace. She is apprehensive to ever return to the crater after almost drowning multiple times. Even residents of the area are at the mercy to the spirit of the lake. Perhaps the Old Man of the Lake acts as a guardian, acting as judge and executioner for the gateway.

A believer or not, at some point or another in life people repeatedly report feeling “off” or disturbed by places or people. Perhaps some are more in tune than others, but who’s to say not all are accurate accounts or events to be taken seriously? The American West holds a complex history and many unexplained occurrences. The landscape may yet retain those memories.

Lead Detective: Eddie Edmunds

Painting entered into evidence by: Ella Hundere Dahlgren

—REPORT ANY STRANGE PHENOMENA TO THE EXPEDITION INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE—