Weird & Haunted Upper Northeast Tennessee

Southern Appalachian Folklore

By: Justin Guess

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The mountains and hollows of Carter, Greene, Hawkins, Johnson, and Unicoi Counties in upper northeast Tennessee hold more than just scenic beauty. In these mist-covered ridges and shadowy valleys, the line between history and legend is razor-thin, and what lingers in the fog may be more than memory.

Folklore, ghost stories, and tall tales are not mere pastimes in Southern Appalachia. Passed down from front porches to pulpits, from old theaters to family gatherings, these stories have carried the voices, fears, and imaginations of those who weathered war, isolation, poverty, and change. Many of the region’s most vivid tales didn’t come from bestsellers or national headlines, but from forgotten books, yellowed newspapers, and obscure local pamphlets. Others survived only through oral tradition, shaped and reshaped with each retelling, sometimes gaining color and character, other times losing crucial details to time.

This book is an attempt to preserve and explore that heritage. Within these pages, you’ll encounter more than ghosts that drift through mountain roads or haunt the halls of nursing homes. You’ll uncover stories of ghosts, witches, phantom beasts, UFOs, and cryptids that seem to defy explanation. Whenever possible, they’re rooted in research, examining the events, people, and folklore motifs that brought them to life.

While the storytelling spirit runs strong throughout, this is more than just a collection of spooky tales. It’s a cultural record in disguise. These stories reflect deeper anxieties, shared memories, and the resilient identities of tight-knit mountain communities. They show how people here have made sense of the unexplained, and what they feared might be lurking just beyond the tree line.