Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - A Naval Base On A Haunted Swamp

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

What if I told you there were a bunch of people in the Navy in Groton, Connecticut who believe their military homes are haunted? And that some of those people believe it's a result of the ancient and mysterious land they live on? In this episode, we hear from Jack, a behavioral health tech in the Navy who feels something strange coming from the swamp by his house, called Gungywamp. Jack believes the ghost stories told on his base are maybe because of it.  Have a heart pounding story you'd like to tell on the podcast? Email us at [e-mail], and be sure to follow the podcast on instagram @heartstartspounding. Hosted by Kaelyn Moore

It's that feeling when the energy and the room shifts, when the air gets sucked out of a moment and everything starts to feel wrong. It's the instinct between fight or flight. When your brain is trying to make sense of what it's saying. It's when your heart starts pounding. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. It probably comes as no surprise to you, but the ground under your feet right now is millions of years old. Though thousands of people have stood in the spot your standing, we have limited ways to know what those people were doing.

Much of our history beyond the last few hundred years has been wiped clean. We're left with few clues, incomplete timelines, and sometimes a poor cultural understanding to try and piece together the puzzle of the past. But as we've talked about before on this podcast, sometimes the past won't let you forget it. Just because you don't remember something doesn't mean the echoes of history haven't tethered themselves to the location, pulling you in directions beyond your control, beckoning you to the woods. Today, we're hearing from someone who's ghostly sighting might be the result of something we may never understand.

Okay Leo, to get started I want to ask you a question. How haunted is Connecticut? I say this every time I tell somebody, I'm from Connecticut. I always tell them the entire state of Connecticut is haunted, actively haunted. Why do you think that is? I don't know if it's like the land or the, like, Connecticut culture, I guess,

but I think when you have a state that's as old as Connecticut, like there's going to be a higher chance of spirits attaching themselves just because it's been around for so long. So there's much more time for ghosts to develop. Yeah, there's just so much that's happened. And there's a lot of conflict that's happened on the land too. Leo's right. Connecticut feels extremely haunted. So in Jack, a behavioral health tech for the Navy

who lives in Groton, Connecticut, reached out to me saying he was experiencing some paranormal things in his house. I knew I had to have him tell this story. Yeah, this is a house that is provided by the military by a private company. Housing provided by the military, can I go ahead and say you're opening the door for definitely a potential haunting? So Jack lives in military housing on the naval base in Grauton with his wife, Alex. I was there for about three months alone. Okay. And then she's been there about nine months. The room that is actually now, the room

that my wife and I sleeping was a room that I felt like I could not go into. I do not know how to really explain that, but it was at night time a room that I would avoid. It was a room that I would just slam the door shut on oftentimes. It just felt as though there was, I felt like something was looking at me out of that room. So you decided to move it? Yeah, so I actually, I did ask him about that. And he said it was a logistical issue of when Alex moved in, it just made more sense for them to both be in the bigger bedroom.

So like I get it, I totally understand. I would also pick the larger room, but it's like, for sure. If I was on the home buying market and I a real estate agent and like a real term was like, hey, this is the master bedroom. It has a walk-in closet. Someone was murdered here. I'd be like, that is where all my clothes are going. That's fine.

I'd be like, that's unfortunate. It's got slanted, slanted ceilings, so I kind of need to be in there. But when Jack moved into the master bedroom, it was no longer just a bad feeling. And the first things that started happening was when Alex joined me in the household. At night, that closet door would open. That's something that is a constant now, even, where we will go to sleep and we always close the closet door because we have dogs and one of the dogs loves the tear pillows apart. We always put pillows in the closet.

We always take them out of the closet and we always make a point of closing the door all the way and it's a slider. Two nights ago Alex woke up and saw it slide over. Two nights ago from when this was recorded, she woke up and saw that's so recent. Yeah, that's like the most recent story we've had. No, definitely. And from what I gathered from Jack to, this is like kind of a constant in the house. Like, there's always stuff happening since he moved in even to this day.

But it sounds like from what he said, stuff like that didn't start happening until Alex moved in. It's stuff like that didn't start happening until he moved into the bedroom with the bad stuff happening. So I'm gonna play you the next part of Jack's story where he brings up a very specific incident that was kind of unlike anything I had heard before.

Something that happened that was very personal to me was shortly after moving here I had lost a friend very suddenly. suddenly, somebody who I cared about very deeply. I had found out two days after they had passed on that they that they were deceased. And about the next day or so, I walked into, I actually know it was that night. I walked into that front room where all the activity happens and I looked at, I was stuck in place, I was moving, I was walking across the room and then all of a sudden I was stuck dead in my tracks and I remember seeing something out of the corner of my eyes and I looked at the sliding door in the back of the house and there was a clear reflection of my friend. I saw it, Alex saw it. Now, being a behavioral health technician, all of the practical things that I can think of,

and objectively outside looking in, I was dealing with a ton of grief. You know, anything could have elicited that image, however Alex was not close with my friend Jess. She just wasn't. We had a very complicated relationship and I went through lengths on how to disprove what had happened. I would say, how tall was the reflection, and she would point exactly where I saw. How wide was the reflection? What color was the hair of this reflection? What was the shape of the face? What was, you know, in absolute, like, kind of like a sketch artist would do with the, you know, a victim of a crime, I asked all of the questions that that person would. And she just, everything matched. It was, it was Jess. And, um, that was probably it was spooky but not creepy and I actually found it extremely I know it sounds weird but comforting yeah because like I said it was a

close friend of mine that I had a really complicated relationship with. I can't say I can't stress that enough. Yeah. And I am somebody in the medical field. I have this innate need to be there for my friends. Specifically, if they're in a really bad way. When I saw her in the door in this glass door, it felt like I don't know, it felt like it's okay. I had this resounding feeling like it's okay. I'm still kind of here, but I'm not at the same time. Yeah. I found a way I found an avenue. And the first thing I thought was the swamp.

I have about a million thoughts running through my head right now. Yeah. First, first, how terrifying to be like, what is that in the corner of my eye and then turn around and see the reflection of your friend who has just passed? Yeah. And like he said, he's a behavioral health tech.

Health tech, he's gonna try and explain it away. The fact that his wife saw the exact same thing and was able to explain it in clear detail. Yeah. I feel like a lot of times with stories like these, when in your heart, you know it's real and it happened. You really do try and explain it away somehow. Yeah.

Also, the swamp. What swamp? So I had the same exact question when he got to this part of the story. And remember earlier when I asked you why you think Connecticut is so haunted in your first response was the land. Yeah. Well, what if I told you that Jack's house, the naval housing units in general and the naval base in Groton are all built on this ancient, indigenous, highly mysterious piece of land called Gun Jawamp.

No one knows where it's from. No one really knows what it's for. We don't even really know where the word Gun Jawamp comes from. I'm intrigued and I also believe you 100%. More after the break. So, before I dive into what's going on, let me describe to you what Gun Jawamp the land actually is. Gun Jawamp is a 55-acre piece of land in Groughton, Connecticut. Shockingly, this piece of land is owned by the YMCA. At this time, it's unclear if they plan

on building a gym on the swamp, or if the YMCA is just on a crusade to buy a haunted land. swamp, or if the YMCA is just on a crusade to buy a haunted land. Something else interesting to note is no one really knows where the word gung-juwomp comes from. Everyone just kind of assumed it was a pea-quot word, which was the indigenous tribe in the area, and then finally someone asked a pea-quot person what it meant, and they were like, that's not pea-quot. Gung-juewam contains a swamp area, a cliff, and a large woods. But inside the woods, there's a series of stone structures whose history is highly debated. Some of these stone structures are very colonial in nature

and it does appear that part of this land is an abandoned sheep farm from the mid 1600s to mid 1700s. Why are there so many abandoned farms, abandoned cities, abandoned just settlements in Connecticut? I know. What made people up and leave every time they like built a home somewhere? Yeah, literally just dip out. There's animal pens and foundations of houses that once were all made of stone, but there's a lot there that seems to predate colonial era, and is also not aligned with what the Peequat tribe was doing at the time. When the colonists got to the site, there was already

stone walls there, but Peequats mainly used wood to build their stockade walls. So if neither group built them, who did? One theory is that Celtic monks traveled to New England in 500 AD to escape religious persecution and may have set up shop in the area. There was also indigenous stories about the land being sacred because some of the stone structures there marked the rising and setting of the sun and other celestial events.

I think this does sound like Stonehenge, I was like the first thing that came to my mind. Also, it would make sense if Celtic monks came over to Connecticut to build something like Stonehenge in order to watch the... or to track the movement of the sun. Leo, I have a real question for you. What? Have you ever heard the term Celtic monks before this very moment? No.

No, I have not. So this is you fully guessing what they were asking. Fully guessing. Yeah. Listen, Celtic. You like, no, dude, that makes sense. They were definitely coming to Connecticut to set up their weird calendars.

And I'm like, do you know who they are? No, do you know what they were doing? No, but my brain is going Celtic. I know that word. Am I wrong? Where are they from? One of those stone structures is these two circles that are made from stones that are about the size of bricks. One smaller circle inside of a larger circle. Looking at an image of it, Harkin's back to Stonehenge, and it makes me think of a term called retroactive amnesia.

That term basically means that, at the time, that structure would have been obvious to someone looking at it. But now, its strange arrangement leaves us only with more questions. Initially, it was believed that this was once a mill for extracting tannins for tanning animal hides, but there are a few bizarre things about the structure that I want to tell you about. For one, one of the stones has a petroglyph of an eagle on it, and that's something that cannot be traced to the colonists or the Pequats.

Some people believe that this strengthens the Celtic monks' theory as they use the symbol of an eagle to represent St. John. Where are they from? Let's go over the facts, Celtic. That's one place. Facing religious persecution, we know where that happened in Europe. It makes sense. Where are the Ireland? Yeah, we are Irish. How do you not know the word Celtic?

That's Caltic! Another strange thing is that the stones were carbon dated in 1991, and it showed that the structure was over a thousand years old. Obviously, that was well before the colonists. The stone structure also lines up with the equinoxes, so it seems to also function as some sort of calendar. Colonists at the time had actual calendars and wouldn't have needed to celestial align a tanning mill. That structure is also not the only one that would have needed to selectially align a tanning mill.

That structure is also not the only one that would have indicated to whoever was there, what the heavenly bodies were doing. There's also a small room built into a hill that has stone walls, called chamber number one. Think of a Hobbit house. And what is the one day a year where the sun shines through the small window

of the chamber to illuminate the wall behind it? The Virnal Equinox. On top of all this, Jack mentioned getting a weird feeling whenever he was near the woods. You know, something I talked to you about the other day was this aspect of there's always something in the woods telling me or inviting me into the woods. Yeah, that feeling of like being beckoned to the woods telling me or inviting me into the woods. Yeah, that feeling of like being beckoned to the woods. Yeah. Yeah.

Are the woods on the other side of the swamp or the woods in the swamp connected? The woods in the swamp are connected. Okay, so it's that general area that you feel like a beckoning towards. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, I'm so sorry. This is just a general saying to everybody out there, if you are being invited into the woods by something into the woods, no, you are not stay out there. I will say nothing good has ever come from being beckoned to the woods. If, yeah. Literally, if you're standing in front of the woods

and you have this strong feeling, maybe I should go in there. Maybe you should not. And you should go the other direction. Absolutely. No matter what part of America or the world you are in, if you are being beckoned to the woods, it's time to go.

If you're on the Isle of Celts in the middle of Scotland, and you get back in into those woods, you better run. It made sense in my mind, okay. What does that feel like when you're standing there and you get this feeling, like what exactly, like even if you can't put words straight, like what's your best guess on what that feels like? Oh, I can definitely put words straight like what's your best guess on what that feels like. Oh I can definitely put words to it. It is this f- so firstly it is, it is definitely a thought. Like it catches my attention. I'm stopped in my tracks. I have to look into the woods

I have to look into the woods. And I'm, it's like I lean forward, looking into the darkest part of the woods. And what happens next is it feels like there's a leash attached to my sternum pulling me in. But I definitely have control over my body. It's not like a tractor beam. Yeah. It's definitely, but it's definitely attached to my like heart chakra, you know, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Does it feel nefarious at all or is it like comforting? It feels, I wouldn't say nefarious.

I would say if there's any fear attached to it, it's what I'm bringing to it. Yeah. It's more or less, it's like, it's like seeing a dog and wondering if you're about to get bit. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, that's how I would put it. I would put it that, you know, it's unknown.

The more I read about these woods, the more supernatural they seemed to become. There's a series of stones in the woods that are standing all in a row. It almost looks like someone made makeshift headstones and put them one in front of the other. One theory states that the P-quats would line up these stones when they went off to war and then take them down when they got back, suggesting many were lost in one battle. There's another theory that these specific stones were used for curses. And then there's the cliff in Gungewamp, which has the nickname the Cliff of Tears.

So many visitors, while on tours, burst into tears when getting to this cliff that they gave it the nickname. And it's not that people were taken with the beauty of the cliff and were reduced to tears. People mentioned getting filled with an overwhelmingly negative emotion upon approaching the cliff, and find themselves inexplicably crying. The fact that people now still are feeling that energy, feeling that those waves of emotion. Obviously something is still tied. Yeah, the crying reminds me of energy too, because I think strong energy can bring strong emotional responses.

At least, I have a friend who did right key. And one thing she said is the first time she ever did it because it's energy healing. She burst into tears afterwards because it's a very, I mean, it's a very powerful thing that's being done to someone. Yeah. It's the same thing when you, you know, when you're in a house and you can feel something is off,

you feel that something is off. You feel unsafe. You feel scared. If you walk onto land can feel something is off, you feel that something is off, you feel unsafe, you feel scared. If you walk onto land where something terrible is happened, you're going to feel that sadness, that negative emotion. With an area as supercharged as this, I asked Jack if it was just his house that was experiencing the hauntings,

or if other members of the military living in those houses noticed anything as well. So a new guy just came to our clinic and he turned to our supervisor and said, Hey, you know how our stairs are extremely loud? And he goes, yeah, he was like, do you ever hear people walking up and down your stairs at night?

Now, he doesn't know about our stories. At all, we haven't brought him into the fold. And he asked this question this morning, as a matter of a fact, you talked to our supervisor. I was there in the room. I saw it happen where it's like, have you heard people walking up and down your stairs at night? And my supervisor turns to someone who goes, yeah, every single night, I hear someone walking up and down my stairs. It's like, oh my god. Yeah, I imagine these are like military men.

They're like, yeah, probably skeptical. I would imagine. Yeah, of course we are. I mean, it's in and look at it this way as well. Not only are we skeptical, we are also behavioral health technicians. I have a, I have a, I have a patient who is actively, actually, have a few. Patients who are actively delusional. I have to take everything he says and push it through a filter of like,

okay, now, is this something he's actually seeing? Is this something he's actually hearing or is this something that his brain is telling him is there? I have to be skeptic at work through work. through work. So all of the guy, all of the military members in that area experience hauntings. I'm literally speechless. I had like goosebumps the first time he told me because it's just so the fact too that they all acknowledge it and they're all like yeah it's ghosts frigging ghosts some the people working in

the like sector that have to Signify like this is a delusion. This is real like the behavioral stuff are like yeah, it's a ghost That's like mind blowing to me. Oh my official diagnosis is ghosts. like, yeah, it's a ghost. That's like mind blowing to me. Oh, my official diagnosis is ghosts. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's like, like he said, he has to push it through a filter. After that filter, he's like, yeah, it's ghosts. What? Yeah. He's saying it so casually. And this is actively happening. It's not like, oh, this was a few, I feel like a lot of our stories are like, this was years ago. This is like, yeah, this morning this happened. Yeah, I'm not having a bigger reaction. I feel like if I heard that, I'd be like,

what? Uh, okay. But it's happening to everyone. It's kind of something that they all live with, which is terrifying. They've just accepted it. They're like, they've just accepted it. Yeah, yeah, it's ghosts. It's ghosts, man. So yes, maybe they've all just accepted the fact that the homes they occupy are haunted, potentially as a result of living on cursed land. Fine. But Jack mentioned that though this is something he's learned to live with,

he thinks something about our conversation may have disturbed whatever's going on in his house. Because of our phone conversation, I think we did something to the house. Since our conversation, it has heightened. Like I said two nights ago, the door, the closet door, like opened and closed, which is nothing we've dealt with. That's very like tame, but we've always seen it open, but never like open and close,

like multiple times. We woke up one morning and all the lights were on, which is this like, and that was actually the day after we had our conversation, and it was just like, hey, yeah, to acknowledge we're here, and we heard you, it was kind of like the message that I got. got. That night also our kitchen chairs were moved around the fridge door was opened and closed very distinct noises like kind of just that noise of somebody doing dishes or cooking in the kitchen. It's always in that front room area. My chair was moved around, which was the chair that I was talking to you in when we were having our phone conversation. That was actively moved around. My ottoman was moved halfway across the room.

Yeah, it's definitely gotten, uh, it's definitely heightened. I can't tell you what was happening in those woods all those years ago. And Leo can't even tell you who was in America at the time. All we can go by is what a few archaeologists have looked into and what Jack, a self-proclaimed skeptic, has experienced nearly every day since moving into the house. But the next time you go outside, look down at your feet, at the land you're standing on. What do you really know about it?

And what won't let you forget? This has been Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. Have a heart pounding story you'd like to share on the podcast? Email heart starts pounding at gmail.com and make sure to follow the podcast on Instagram at heart starts pounding. Till next time, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo you. you