Lifestyle
Where the veil is
Thin Close encounters of the local kind in the Capital Region and beyond
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BY BRIANNA SNYDER
LIKE SCOTLAND’S INFAMOUS “NESSIE,” New York has its own watery legends — Lake Champlain’s “Champ” and the Hudson River’s “Kipsy” — said to lurk in the depths.
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hen we think of the supernatural, we might think of distant forests and lakes, crop circles or mysterious far-off places. But right here in the Capital Region and as far as the Berkshires, we’re surrounded by ghosts and mythical creatures and even (seriously!) aliens. Robert Oakes, an author and storyteller who leads ghost tours in the Berkshires, believes ghost stories do more than entertain — they’re “a useful container for these mysterious experiences, quite difficult to know or talk about.” He’s seen how these encounters turn ordinary people into storytellers: “When they have this experience, they say, ‘Let me tell you that story.’” Oakes’ frequent ghost tours at the notoriously haunted Ventfort Hall mansion in Lenox, Massachusetts, for instance, take visitors room by room through the estate as he shares chilling stories of its reported hauntings. The 28-room so-called Berkshire “cottage,” completed in 1893, was commissioned by Sarah Morgan, sister of J.P. Morgan, and her husband George Morgan, whose spirits are said to linger in the hallways and rooms of the 28,000-square-foot seasonal home. Local historian and archaeologist Don Rittner knows this firsthand. At 16, walking down Congress Street in Troy, he saw a large triangular craft hovering silently overhead, his hair standing on end from static electricity. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told this,” he admits.
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