Historic Mysteries is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases. No one has been back. The residents of the town purportedly fled en masse in the 1950s after a number of unsolved murders . Two killers hiding in plain sight. However, there are stories about a, All you wanted to know about roadside assistance coverage, Spokane, South Dakota Hike in the Black Hills, You should be more scared of the building they are crumbling and can come down anytime. It was strong enough to kill and dismember a grown man. https://www.kinyradio.com/news/news-of-the-north/mysteries-of-portlock-alaska-and-the-abandonment-of-the-small-town-in-the-1900s/, https://www.anchoragepress.com/news/framing-nantiinaq-alaska-s-best-known-cryptid-homicide-case-debunked/article_ed6facfe-a1f9-11eb-b7fc-0bba856ee2fe.htm. S. Kessler {{ relativeTimeResolver(1642511499892) }} LIVE Points 10. Its not easy Portlock is beautiful but remote. As the local population started recovering bodies, speculation regarding the deadly beast started to rise. :-). Anchorage, Alaska (KINY) - Yesterday, an Anchorage grand jury returned an indictment charging 23-year-old Eric David Chaney, Jr. with one count of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, and one count of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the fourth degree for the murder of his girlfriend Stephanie Morales on Feb. 13, 2023. You Might Like Horror road movies where trips went south quickly! She was a rather wild kid, and said curiosity overcame her fears. [4], Around the 1940s, it was reported that several Dall sheep hunters had disappeared in the hills outside Portlock; it was also stated in a 1973 article from the Anchorage Daily News that dismembered bodies of some of the missing had washed ashore in the lagoon. It made its linear cable television debut on Travel Channel on June 26, 2022. Regardless of his skepticism, there is something uncanny about several groups of people being fearful of this monster. Do we think something touched it at the time? Not yet. Resurrection Cemetery, Haynesville Woods try these for spookier road trips, Portland Trail Blazers Games at Moda Center: Fan Guide, Get Ghosted at the Six Most Haunted Airports in the US. Framing Nantiinaq: Alaskas best-known cryptid homicide case debunked. In 1931, one man that was chopping wood was found murdered, seemingly by a single blow that seemed stronger than a human could manage. https://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net. Weed told us that he hopes to visit Portlock to do some exploring. Disappearing Dall Sheep hunters, dismembered bodies in the lagoon, 18-inch giant footprints in the snow, and even lady-in-black sightings. According to local history, an unexplained hairy creature continuously assaulted and stalked the villagers, murdering them and leaving their bodies, until they finally all abandoned the area. For an adrenaline-pumping excursion, look no further than tales of this now-abandoned town on the Alaska coast. There were reports of dozens of missing and murdered cannery workers; add a ghostly white-faced woman, screaming and moaning; wearing a long black dress, levitating and "appearing out of the cliffs.". Nathaniel Portlock, a member of the British Royal Navy, found sanctuary here in 1786 during his Alaska expedition and praised the site. [14], Alaskas Best Known Cryptid Homicide Case Debunked, "Something's Afoot in Port Chatham Century-old Rumors Persist of a Terror in the Mountains", "Erling Nilson, 81, made smoked fish popular delicacy", "Mysteries of Portlock Alaska and the Abandonment of the Small Town in the 1900s", "Haunting memories 'Nantiinaq' sightings, spirits led to desertion of Native village", "This Abandoned Ghost Town In Alaska Is Downright Bone Chilling", "Alaska Magazine | Something's Afoot in Port Chatham - Century-old Rumors Persist of a Terror in the Mountains", "New Show Set in Portlock Explores Legend of Bigfoot", https://watch.travelchannel.com/show/alaskan-killer-bigfoot-travel-channel-atve-us, U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Portlock (locale), "Skeptoid #772: The Monster of Port Chatham", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portlock,_Alaska&oldid=1117862997, This page was last edited on 23 October 2022, at 23:46. You can still see what remains of the old schoolhouse, a few other buildings, and a few abandoned cars. The logger died, and the unusual trend continued when several hunters disappeared a few years later. One man, a prospector, who was surveying the land outside of town for resources that could be mined had climbed to the top of a tree to get his bearings and a better overall lay of the land. Report an Issue | This town experience over 50 years of hauntings, murders, and disappearances before the townspeople gave in and left. The town began in the early 1900s as a cannery for salmon. So, where can you use these images? The cannery plant posted armed guards to attempt to keep the cannery open, but it was no use. Alaskan natives were driven from their village 70 years ago by a creature they believed to be a bigfoot. She had a very white face and would scream and moan. Located near the head of Port Chatham just east of the abandoned mining town of Chrome at 59.13.330 N and 151.44.583 W. Snow-Ice in winter. It was enough to send the entire village running to the hills. Portlock first appeared on the 1940 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village of 31 residents. is one of St. Elmos original residents and now its most famous ghost. Some people gave these creatures names such as the Mountain Apes or Hairy Men. Throughout the United States is a great heritage of abandoned towns serving as a testament to a past that no longer exists. One of them is from the Portlock village, in Port Chatham Bay only 200 km (124 miles) south of the state's most populous city, Anchorage. By 1950, the town of Portlock, Alaska was mysteriously abandoned despite being still rich in resources and a huge commercial center. Residents took off en masse in 1949, leaving their houses, the nearby chromium mine, the cannery, the teacher cottage, and the large school house, to return to the wilderness. After the gold rush, many booming small towns were abandoned as miners left to follow gold claims in other areas. "The local Natives started talking about a creature, a hairy Big Foot type Yeti monster and it was called the Nantiinaq or big hairy creature as it was called. Yet, a common pattern in the Pacific Northwest seems to manifest itself in people being chased, murdered, or vanished in the presence of what we now call, Bigfoot. Stay away from port lock. It might be assumed that the brutal deaths and missing persons of Portlock and Port Chatham could just been examples of foul play in a lawless environment, bear maulings, or simply accidents, but we need to assess history properly. Juneau, Alaska (AP) - Funding is being directed to help stock Alaska food pantries as part of a broader effort to address a state backlog in processing food stamp benefits. In most cases the slow but inevitable decay of the population and the local businesses leaves a ghost town in its wake. Portlock began to become well known as one of the. I think there might be a mix up. Remnants of what once was can of. Now, an expedition returns to the abandoned fishing village to reclaim the land and its resources from the terrifying beast locals call . An Alaska resident found a stray SD card lying on the street in late September and discovered gruesome content inside: images and video of a woman appearing to be assaulted and murdered. Download the Way app for all your travel and car related needs. But people started to go missing while others were found seemingly brutally murdered or killed. Maybe thats precisely what the source of the rumors meant them to do! Other communities disappear simply because they have exhausted the natural resources which drew people to the area in the first place, mining towns come to mind. Sasquatch, more commonly referred to as Bigfoot in the United States, is perhaps the most famous cryptid in history. Although, some reports say he actually skipped it and anchored upstream near Cook Inlet. We know when the town and post office shut down. If the bear is standing up say in the 10 to 12-foot range, it may be the biggest bear you've ever seen and so you're brain may not put together that that's a bear. A few scarier ones would be Ukivok near Nome, the Kennicott Mine in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Portage, near Whittier, the Slide Cemetery in Skagway, and the Treadwell Gold Mine near Juneau. Investor on a September night in 1982 in the sleepy village of Craig, Alaska? Source: GARETH / Adobe Stock. from ghost towns you can explore across the country. In some cases, the town was bypassed by a railroad or highway. It was a true frontier of America and only the hardiest would survive. The Russian-Alutiiq village of Port Chatham grew around . Then the beast suddenly walked away without harming the resident. These stories point to a large hairy beast, smaller hairy devils that travel in packs, a wailing spirit that wandered the wilderness, and many deaths that were hard to explain. Let me know if you got it. Where is the Body of the Legendary King Gorm of Denmark? Byrne said he never heard back from the Bureau - until Wednesday when the FBI released its decades-old "Bigfoot" files from the 1970s. By 1949, Portlock residents were settled in nearby villages, leaving only the postmaster to brave the threat. According to its promotional materials, "Alaskan Killer Bigfoot" follows four men as they explore Portlock, near the tip of the Kenai Peninsula, and try to "reclaim" the land . Portlock is located in Port Chatham Bay. It was an unexplored, beautiful area, filled with fish and plenty of space. In the 1940s, Portlock woke up to unexplained events too often. Ive been a fan of bfro.i grew up in Upstate NY , alwys knew of the tales,Been here for nearly fifteen years, Your journey has just begun. However, by the 1940s, there were rumors of disappearances and murders and the discovery of giant footprints, and sightings of a hairy, Bigfoot-like creature the locals called Nantiinaq. It is approximately 16 miles south of Seldovia, on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); I wonder what most historians would have to say about the strange saga of Portlock, Alaska? Settlers came to the region around 1787 when the British Royal Navy arrived with Captain Nathaniel Portlock, exploring the southern Alaskan coastline. It reads like a Scooby Doo plot. 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