01x05 - File: Haunting of Lake Lanier

[bunniefuu]

[brooding ethereal music plays]

[ducks quack]

[woman] I always knew the stories

about the curse of Lake Lanier.

It's always been

the creepy lake, the haunted lake.

You know, "You're brave if you go there."

But I was kind of skeptic. [laughs]

So didn't really think anything of it.

And then, in 2020, me and my family,

you know, we were hanging out at the lake.

We tried to catch some fish,

and wasn't really active,

so we were like, "Let's go in the water."

You know, you're brave if you go there.

It's a challenge to go there.

So, ever since I was little, basically.

It was very cold.

Like, very, very, very cold.

With the kids that we had with us,

we were playing Marco Polo.

[echoes] Marco.

[children] Polo!

[woman] And we started

drifting out more and more.

[echoes] Marco.

[child] Polo.

[woman] As I was out there

in the deeper waters,

I noticed my feet couldn't touch

the ground, but I could swim.

As I was swimming,

I saw something at my foot.

Thought it was a fish

'cause, you know, you're in a lake.

And then I felt something grab

around my ankle and yank me real fast.

And the water

completely went over my head.

[anxious music plays]

I started freaking out.

It happened within a span of a few seconds

but felt like eternity.

And then I shot back up.

But when I did,

because of my asthma, I couldn't breathe.

My little brother saw me,

and he s swam out there and got me.

I didn't think people would believe me

when I got to the shore,

and so I didn't tell anybody at first.

[unsettling choral music plays]

And then I found it was very common

for other people to feel

like they're getting pulled under

as they said, by angry spirits.

I haven't been in the lake since.

I know it sounds crazy,

but it's not normal, like, at all.

[theme music plays]

[creepy classical music plays]

[narrator] Thirty miles

outside Atlanta, Georgia

lies a lake shrouded in mystery.

Some say it's haunted.

Others say it's cursed.

But its true story and history

may be even more unsettling.

[intriguing music plays]

[man] The numbers of times

that Lanier Dive Recovery

gets called to come find

a wallet, a phone

- Keys, prescription glasses.

- a wedding ring, keys.

Thirty-seven wedding rings to date.

Can you believe that?

Lake Lanier's a man-made lake

and one of the largest man-made lakes

in the country.

It has 692 s miles of shoreline.

Deepest part of the lake is 156 feet deep.

The lake was originally built

for power generation.

Back in the late 1940s,

the Corps of Engineers was commissioned

to come out here

and to design and lay out the lake.

[reporter] The biggest town

in the South is Atlanta,

the capital of the state of Georgia.

Atlanta was growing exponentially.

I think it jumped up

something from, uh, like, 14,000 people

to 200,000 people

within just a few short years.

So, they needed a place

to get the water resources

that the city was gonna need.

[Richard] Lake Lanier is fed

by two rivers,

the Chattahoochee

and the Chestatee rivers.

And when they built the lake,

there were a lot of roads, bridges.

There were a lot of single-family homes,

mostly farmers.

And those people moved to other places.

Most wanted to do it because

of the development that it would provide.

[Steve] The US Army Corps of Engineers

started buyin' up a lot of the land,

and ground was broke in 1950.

And the dam was finished around 1954.

And then the lake

was officially filled around 1957.

[Richard] This is a beautiful,

beautiful lake, and has so much to offer,

which is why we have so many people

that come visit every year.

[mellow spacey music plays]

There are over ten million visitors

that come to Lake Lanier every year.

They're expecting even more this year.

So there are

a huge number of people coming in.

[narrator] The lake has

now become the go-to spot

for Atlantans looking to cool off

from the summer heat.

But as its popularity grows,

so do the rumors.

[Steven] Before working for the Corps,

I'd never really heard any folklore

about Lanier outside of it existing.

But within 30 seconds

of having an office there,

I immediately got all kinds of stories.

The main stories were the drownings.

Eleven people have died

in drowning or boating accidents

on Lake Lanier this year.

Crews are working to recover two men

from Lake Lanier.

A reported drowning.

Another drowning yesterday afternoon.

Two more deaths at Lake Lanier

over the holiday weekend.

And it wasn't normal drownings,

like someone messed up,

and that's just their demise.

It was, you know, a creepy vibe.

He jumped into the water,

but he never came up.

[male reporter] She disappeared

after jumping off a boat into the lake.

He went under,

and so far, hasn't resurfaced.

[Steve] Even though it is large,

when you hear

almost 20 people die in a year

in one particular spot, then yeah,

rumors and folklore do kinda start to fly.

[narrator] The folklore centers

around the paranormal

and questions whether or not

ghosts may be responsible for the deaths.

[water gurgles]

[creepy lighthearted music plays]

[man] Since the inception of Lake Lanier

in the late, uh, 1950s,

there've been something

like 700 people that died,

and more than 200 people have since 1990.

And there are supposedly some bodies

that have never been recovered.

It's a place and source of controversy

over the years.

And when I first moved here,

I was involved with the ghost walk,

where storytellers told stories

of paranormal activity

that goes on around the lake.

And that was very popular.

Uh, mine, in particular,

was the "Lady in the Lake."

[brooding ethereal music plays]

There have been many stories

of people having seen an apparition

on the Highway 53 bridge

of a lady wandering around there,

wearing a blue dress.

And they thought that, perhaps

that the apparition was related

to a young woman's body

that had been found

right beside the bridge in the blue dress.

At the time,

they couldn't figure out who she was.

But people speculated

that it might've been Delia Young,

who disappeared with Susie Roberts

about 18 months earlier.

They were both young mothers.

And they were gonna go

over to this nightclub

over on the Forsyth County side

of the lake

and dance the night away.

[spooky playful music plays]

So, they went over there,

and they had a big time, evidently.

Delia in her borrowed blue dress

that she thought was so pretty.

And they left to go home and get back

in time to take care of their families.

They stopped for gas

at a gas station on the way back.

And that was the last anybody saw of them.

[eerie ethereal music plays]

After they turned up missing,

people looked along the road there,

but they really didn't find anything.

And so, it just seemed to be

that they disappeared into thin air.

I think it was Delia Young's brother

who said that, uh,

when the body was found

about 18 months after their disappearance,

he felt something pass over him,

and he knew it was his sister.

We are on location

where the, uh, lady in the blue dress

is supposed to have haunted these waters.

And a lot of people claim,

in the early morning hours

or the fog and stuff,

they see a woman

walking across the bridge in a blue dress.

And I've spent lots of nights

out on the lake and I've never seen her.

Yeah, I've never seen it either, so

[melancholy music plays]

Then they were working

on the bridge, uh, in 1990, as I recall.

As they were setting

some of the pilings down,

uh, they ran into something.

Sent divers down

and, sure enough, they found the car.

- And there was Susie Roberts.

- Susie.

[Richard] Uh, apparently,

they had gone to a a party.

And as they were coming back,

the car ran off the road.

Both drowned in the car.

And, uh, as far as we're concerned,

mystery solved.

- [woman screams]

- [brakes squeal]

[car crashes]

So, when Susie Roberts

was identified in 1990,

they realized that the body

that had been found many years before

was Delia Young.

But she was really identified by default,

and that's a tragedy in and of itself.

[Caitlyn] I have heard people saying,

like, "Yeah,

we were on the lake at night."

"Thought I saw a lady in a blue dress."

I personally haven't seen

the lady in a blue dress,

but after what happened to me,

I don't doubt it.

[emotional classical music plays]

[Charlie] There have been many cases

of people camping out around the lake

having seen paranormal activity,

"ghost" activity.

People losing things

that they couldn't really explain,

and having people show up

around their campfires

that they seem to be there and then not.

[Caitlyn] If you go

on any sort of social media

like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook,

you'll see plenty of comments

about how Lake Lanier is haunted.

The lake is literally full of dead bodies.

[Charlie] There are

several stories like that.

And people speculated about the fact

that when the lake was formed,

it covered all these cemeteries.

I think there are 20 cemeteries

that are covered up.

Some of the bodies were moved,

but just like Poltergeist,

not all of them.

Ugh! I could not.

You don't You don't get in Lake Lanier.

I don't even believe

in, like, ghosts and stuff,

but that is such a no for me.

[Richard] One of the questions

that I get asked frequently is,

"Are there graves under Lake Lanier?"

And I have dove

over 5,000 different dives on this lake.

I have seen every corner of it.

I've seen the bottom of it.

I probably have seen more of this lake

than any other human being ever.

Diver down.

Well, I can assure you,

all the known graves that were here

at Lake Lanier were exhumed.

Now, I say that because if we go back

to the Native American times,

this was a very popular place

because of the rivers.

And there are certainly

some unmarked graves from that time.

So, some of those remains

will still be here under the lake.

[tense music plays]

[thunder rumbles]

[narrator] According to some myths

and lore,

disturbing a Native American burial site

can lead to misfortune.

In the case of Lake Lanier,

multiple spiritual areas were flooded.

Now, some wonder

if that has cast

a dark cloud over the lake.

[water gurgles]

[creepy ethereal music plays]

A lot of people believe

that the spirits are angry,

and that's why they keep

takin' people under.

I don't wanna say they want revenge,

because, like

I don't think they gain anything from it.

It could even be them reaching out

for someone, tryin' to get help,

but takin' lives instead. [laughs]

[Charlie] Most paranormal activity

is usually attributed

to tragic situations that have occurred.

And this area was associated

with the Trail of Tears.

Both the Cherokee and the Creek Indians

lived in that area,

and they were made

to leave everything behind

and walk to Oklahoma.

[narrator] In 1830,

Congress passed an act

which forced the Native Americans

of the Deep South

to relocate to reservations in Oklahoma.

The grueling journey that followed

took the lives

of roughly 15,000 Indigenous peoples,

which is why one chief deemed it

"The Trail of Tears and Death."

[ethereal music plays]

[woman] This was basically the last stop

for the Trail of Tears.

My family is traced back

to the Trail of Tears,

uh, both sides of my family.

And I have childhood memories of my family

passing down the horror of those stories.

It's, um, heartbreaking

when you stop and realize

that they made that trip,

and in the winter months.

And how difficult it must've been

going a thousand miles

and leaving everything behind,

other than what they could carry.

I knew that it started in Georgia.

And I couldn't even imagine

how they ever made it,

um, to Webbers Falls.

[brooding music plays]

It was a terrible, terrible tragedy.

The loss of their heritage, their lands.

And supposedly, there are cases of people

seeing Native American apparitions

around the lake.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Caitlyn] You would think

that the more people are told

that it's haunted,

they'd stay away from it.

But nowadays,

people are drawn by that. [chuckles]

I went to Lake Lanier.

I just wanted to see it for myself.

[power washer whirs]

[man] I'm from the Bronx,

New York, home of hip-hop.

I came to Atlanta in, uh, '94.

And, uh, I picked up boating in, uh, 2015.

[ominous music plays]

Boating is is cool, man.

And I think there's

a lot of barriers to entry already,

and folks shouldn't just be deterred

'cause they say the lake is haunted.

You know? Nah.

Like, haunting is There's ghosts.

I ain't seen no ghosts up here.

I think we gotta deal with the facts.

You can't come to Lake Lanier

and just hop on a boat

and think that you gonna

get home that night

without no boater safety or no training.

Every time someone dies on this lake,

nine times outta ten,

it's because they didn't have a vest on.

Right? They're partyin', they're drinkin'.

They're not readin'

the Coast Guard seamanship manual.

[chuckles] You know what I mean?

I've had to rescue people on my jet skis,

grown men that were outta shape

or they're drunk.

So, that's

that's not bein' haunted, right?

That's poor decision-making.

People need to take this place seriously.

This is a dangerous lake to boat on.

[groovy ominous music plays]

We will not be down more than 20 minutes.

I'm setting a maximum.

Robert's in charge of safety today.

[Robert] Yup.

- All right, diver down.

- [man] Diver down.

So many people come to me

thinking that the lake is haunted.

I When I travel to other cities even,

they say,

"Oh, you're at Lake Lanier. Wow."

You know? "That place is haunted."

And I can assure you with 100% certainty,

it's not haunted, it is not cursed.

Unfortunately, one of the things

that happens here on the lake

is we do have people that drown.

Accidents do happen.

This is one of the most dangerous lakes

in the entire country.

[eerie music plays]

When you get down below

where there is no light at all,

it's so hard to see, and it is very eerie.

We run into some of the strangest things

when we're out there.

There's all kinds of things

that can pop up.

[man] Good job, brother.

The building is right here,

goin' this way.

I'm right over the top of it.

Here's the the dwelling

that they're diving into here,

with multiple rooms.

There are a lot of things like this

that are in Lake Lanier.

There are lots of old bridges, uh,

there's some remnants of old buildings.

[Richard] There are some full-grown trees

down there on the bottom of the lake.

The trees are just like this.

They are full-grown, full-standing.

Anything below 30 feet in water,

you run into the trees.

Number of years ago, there was a drought.

The lake went down 21 feet!

And you could see

all kinds of stuff come up

that people had never seen before.

There are literally old speedway stands.

But the speedway was a dirt track.

And that dirt track is just a bunch of mud

now on the bottom of the lake.

There were so many boating accidents

that happened that year,

it was unbelievable, and I think we had

one of the highest number

of drownings that particular year

because people were hitting these rocks,

and trees, and things in their boats

and, um, having fatal accidents.

I got you some souvenirs.

- [man] What is that? A wheelbarrow handle?

- That's from a door frame.

And that's a brick from the house.

[gentle mystical music plays]

[boat engine revs]

Unfortunately, we do get called out

for havin' to do drowning-victim recovery,

and it's one of the sadder things

that we do here at the lake.

Um, we always try

to bring closure to the families.

[Bill] Things like that happen.

It's very, very sad.

But if more people

took better boater precautions,

I think we'd have a much safer lake.

[Caitlyn] I thought about it a lot,

what's under there.

I always like

explaining things scientifically

or try to get a reason for it,

but I did get grabbed that day

and pulled under the water,

and I don't have any explanations for it.

It does get frustrating, you know,

when someone doesn't believe you.

Sometimes I don't believe myself either,

but it happened.

The truth is, if you are on the waters,

even with a life jacket,

you just don't feel comfortable.

[somber music plays]

[narrator] Could the high number

of drownings

simply be a result of human error?

Or is there

a more supernatural explanation?

Some locals point

to another historic tragedy,

buried deep at the bottom of the lake,

as the reason for these tragic deaths.

[musical arrangement intensifies]

[water gurgles]

[David] Some people would suggest

we're at Lake Lanier.

Some people would say

we're in Gainesville.

But in actuality,

we're we're in Oscarville.

S It's literally underneath our feet.

[Caitlyn] Growing up,

the kids try to scare each other

about what's on the bottom of Lake Lanier.

Just tryin' to creep you out and

Like, "Oh, just letting you know,

if you go in the lake,

you're swimming on top of a city."

Which I thought it was a joke at first,

but turned out to be the truth.

[David] It had churches,

schools, banks of some sort.

But there's no marker

for the historical value that was there.

[woman] Oscarville was a safe haven

for African-Americans in Forsyth County.

Black people lived there,

and white people lived there.

I think as long as people

stayed in their place,

friendly to their neighbors,

they were able to have their farms,

they were able to work in the cities,

everybody could get along just fine.

[mellow classical music plays]

When you look at Oscarville,

there's not a lot, I haven't found.

So, we try to gather

the materials that we can.

And then, we do lean on oral history.

And then, you put it all together,

and you come up with something that says,

"Maybe this is the whole story

that needs to be told."

[man] My mother told me

the story about Oscarville.

My grandfather, Byrd,

he farmed land over there.

They had some stores

that Blacks owned some stores there.

And it was a good place to live.

Oscarville was a town

where the African-Americans had

what they needed.

They were able to start their families

and make a livin' there for themselves.

[George] And they would help each other.

You know,

if your harvest wasn't comin' in right,

well, you can come and get some of ours.

That's how they got along

before the incident happened.

Things changed in 1912.

[tense music plays]

One woman woke up and said she saw

a Black man standing over her bed.

That alarmed the white community.

A few days later, another young woman

was found beaten and r*ped.

[music intensifies]

[Charlie] Her name was Mae Crow.

I think she was 19 years old.

And for some reason, it may have

just been the habit of the times,

which it seems like it was,

if something like that occurred,

the first place people went

to investigate was the Black community.

Now, there was no evidence.

She never regained consciousness.

So, how do you know whom to blame?

And so, they blamed

three young African-American males.

And one they took and they lynched,

even before there was a so-called "trial."

And with that whole narrative

of Black men attacking white women,

white people decided

that they had to cleanse the county.

And so, they told Black people

to, "Get your things together

and get out."

[Kyndra] And they hung

one of the men in town,

and they would just sh**t at him

throughout the day.

[melancholy music plays]

Great-granddaddy Byrd did see all of this.

So, you knew the danger of not leaving,

because somethin' like that

could possibly happen to you.

[Velma] And so people had to leave.

They didn't have time

to pull things together.

It was a matter of get out

in the dead of night

and leave Forsyth County.

[Charlie] The lake didn't exist

at the time.

It was the Chattahoochee River.

And they drove some of them

to the river bank

and said, "Swim for your life."

[Velma] "If you can cross

that river Chattahoochee,

you can do whatever you want,

but you have to get outta here."

[George] There was a bridge,

but they wasn't allowed to cross it.

"You swim or drown."

That was what they let 'em do.

Some went north, and some went south,

but Byrd, my grandfather,

came to Gainesville.

And some of 'em didn't make it.

[ominous tone plays]

[Velma] I'm not sure

how many African-Americans

were even there at the time.

But I hear

a lot of heart-wrenching stories.

Everybody in this area

knows about some family

that had to leave in the dead of night,

who lost children,

who lost brothers and sisters

crossing the Chattahoochee.

[sad sweeping classical music plays]

[Kyndra] When I think about it,

I do get emotional

because Byrd Oliver's first wife

and his two kids died

when he was fleeing Oscarville.

And you cannot go back to get them,

so he had to keep going.

[George] My grandmother told me

that he sometimes would go out

into the woods and sit by himself.

And, uh, maybe this was the time

he was thinkin' about the losses

and what he had to really go through.

And I'm sure he thought

about, "I had a house. I had all this."

"Now I gotta start over."

And from what I understand,

he wasn't angry.

He probably looked at it, "Well,

if I sit here

and be angry about this matter,

tomorrow, I'm gonna still be angry.

I gotta build me a house."

So, I try to look at things

in a positive way.

That was nasty. It was awful.

But look at what came out of it.

You know

all these people was my family.

Everyone has their different perception

of Lake Lanier.

Those that have that true connection

may feel something

versus those that hear the story.

[mellow music plays]

I remember renting a Airbnb

off of Lake Lanier,

and it was right there on the water.

And as I walked down,

it was a different type of feeling.

It was like you knew something happened,

and you could

you can just feel it in your soul.

I have come up on this hill sometimes,

and just sit,

and you can feel certain things.

So, I'm not gonna argue the fact

that there's not spiritual things

on that lake,

and I can't prove it either.

[Velma] When you talk

about places that are haunted,

Lake Lanier always comes up.

And when you google Lake Lanier,

you will come to Oscarville.

So, it's hard to separate the two,

and I don't think it's anything

that's gonna go away anytime soon.

I think this story

is becoming more prevalent

when it comes to social media.

And, um, you know,

the TV show Atlanta even talked about it.

I just felt like I was being pulled.

You probably was.

[man] By what?

There's a whole town underneath us.

This is really how people see it.

They really see it as the ancestors

or the spirit comin' to take you under.

So, it it was a little comical.

But at the same time, do your research

so you can see the whole truth.

[gentle mysterious music plays]

[narrator] The history of Lake Lanier

will always be clouded in tragedy.

Whether or not those tragedies

have cursed the area,

will always remain a mystery.

[Caitlyn] I would say

if I didn't know the history of it,

I would just think

it was just a normal lake,

and people just love

those scary stories to tell.

But after all that happening to me,

I would say, yeah,

if any place to be haunted,

it would be Lake Lanier.

The fact that people say

that they see these sightings and stuff,

and I'm like, "What?"

Do I believe

that you saw something unusual

like a piece of trash,

you know, floating through the air,

you know, during a storm? Sure.

But in terms of people claiming

to be dragged down to the bottom,

they felt something

pulling on their leg? Uh, no.

It's just silliness, absolute silliness.

[Charlie] I do believe

that the dark history of Lake Lanier

has a great deal to do

with people's perception

of perhaps paranormal or odd activity

that goes on around the lake.

This atmosphere lends itself

to those sorts of feelings.

[David] I'm not gonna buy

into the whole haunted house thing,

lady in the lake.

You know, I'm just bein' real

as to what it is.

Like, this is

a a historical, archaeological site.

If you just gonna drive

over this lake, over Oscarville,

and not, you know, acknowledge that?

There's gonna be a problem.

[Velma] Professionally,

do I think it's haunted?

No, I don't.

But I have been told

that the ancestors have long memories.

And sometimes things happen.

Some of the drownings at Lake Lanier,

they're accidental.

But so much has happened

that people are beginning to think,

"Now, I wonder if that place is haunted."

"Girl, you know

what they did to Oscarville."

"That's probably comin' back to get them."

So, I think there might

be a little truth in that.

[ethereal music plays]