Flinderation Tunnel in Salem, West Virginia, popular source of paranormal activity

Since then, it has become a well-known location with countless stories of paranormal activity, particularly those of unfortunate souls who were struck and killed by a train or crushed by falling rocks.

Casey Maxwell is a local artist and psychic medium who is also writing a book about her childhood experiences in the tunnel.

"Some of the things that I personally experienced growing up were very vivid emotional reactions to being in the tunnel that caused me to have certain visions of things that had happened there at a very young age. These were later confirmed through people as part of some of the only history that is on the tunnel, which was that a train burned through there and crashed and that a couple of the workers died," Maxwell said.

"I've experienced anything from hearing voices to feeling things; I've seen shadows. I recently took my sisters there, and one of them had also experienced something that caused her to turn back and not follow through with going through the tunnel," Maxwell said.

Through her time spent around the tunnel, Maxwell has collected a variety of accounts that appear to show trends in visitors' experiences.

"I've got a lot of stories and accounts from other people — other paranormal investigators and passersby. There's talk that there's a man with a green lantern. People have seen a reoccurring green lantern floating through it. I've heard people say they've heard screams. I've not personally heard any audible screams, but I have gotten a lot of other voice phenomenons, like people wanting to talk while being in there," Maxwell said.

"I think there's a pattern. I think some are intelligent, and I think some might be stuck in that time loop," Maxwell said.

A particular experience in the tunnel occurred when she was about 12 years old, consisting of a vivid image of a railroad worker in an alcove.

"He had his water pail and sandwich bag, something that looked like a flask, and he was very, very dirty. ... I never specifically got a name from him, but I believe my friend had connected with someone through electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) whose name was John," Maxwell said.

EVP is a common method for paranormal investigators to attempt to capture disembodied voices with a special kind of audio recording.

"Some of that can be collected through white noise, some of it can be just very low frequency. Then you would have to edit it with a program on the computer to enhance that to be able to hear what's actually coming through," Maxwell said.

"Most of my conversations outside of psychic interaction have all been through EVP-specific types of algorithms. It's seemingly syncing up with radio waves and magnetic waves and formulating words based on what it's collecting at a low frequency that a normal ear can't hear," Maxwell said.

EVP is said to be the most effective way to hear paranormal voices due to spirits' inability to talk in the traditional sense since they are disembodied.

Instead, it's believed that they use their energy to form an electronic type of replacement that can typically only be heard upon playing back the tape.

The Flinderation Tunnel has had countless reports of paranormal activity that were perfectly audible or visible in the moment, such as voices and figures.

Other people throughout the area have experienced several different repeated sightings, particularly a woman in white that can actually be found along a large portion of the North Bend Rail Trail due to her unfortunate demise.

"Supposedly the 'Woman in White' story that's associated with Silver Run Tunnel came from the Flinderation Tunnel. What happened was she got hit by a train when she was coming up to meet her husband when he got off work," said Geoffrey Steele, a Salem local who has also completed paranormal research in Flinderation Tunnel.

"Her husband had not survived work that day, so the train hadn't planned to stop. It caught her on the cowcatcher and dragged her all the way to Parkersburg, so that's why you'll have so many accounts and stories of a woman in white along the North Bend Rail Trail because the body was dragged all the way from Flinderation to Parkersburg," Steele said.

The question could be raised whether she fell accidentally in a tragic accident or if she jumped after hearing the news.

Silver Run Tunnel near Cairo in Ritchie County and another along the North Bend Rail Trail, Eaton Tunnel in Mountwood Lake Park near Deerwalk are two of the tunnels that the lady in white would have been dragged through.

Eaton Tunnel is said to have its own paranormal activity after a collapse trapped and killed two individuals, one of which was never removed due to hazardous subsequent cave-ins.

In the Flinderation Tunnel specifically, Steele listed several phenomena that he has experienced or heard accounts of over the years.

"Flinderation is a big haunted place. I've been in it and I've done paranormal research. We've caught some orbs, we've caught some disembodied voices, some EVPs. Getting rocks thrown at you is a common thing out there," Steele said.

To add to the unsettling atmosphere, the hill that the tunnel travels through is covered with a large and historic graveyard, Brandy Gap Graveyard, with some tombstones dating back to the 1700s.

There are also rumors of violence committed by the Ku Klux Klan in the abandoned tunnel in the early 1900s that potentially contribute to the paranormal activity or general sense of unease, although there is a lack of documentation.

Regardless of specific experiences, there's no denying that Flinderation Tunnel has a draw that keeps people coming back to it. This draw is a point of particular interest for Maxwell.

"The most interesting key point for me in regards to the book that I'm writing about it has to do with some of the energy that went along with how the tunnel kind of draws people to itself and it just has that ominous feeling. It's unique," Maxwell said.

"I think most tunnels do that because of this concept of being pulled into the darkness with the light at the end. It's very symbolic of how we perceive being born and also dying. So I think a lot of it can be mental for many people, but I think there are a lot of experiences that people have had in there that are very much valid and are not able to be debunked," Maxwell said.

Flinderation Tunnel is only one of many stories stemming from Salem, which include the Lake Floyd lights, one of the first Mothman sightings, stories of witchcraft out on Jarvisville Road and good old fashioned haunted houses, but the tunnel is by far the most well-known and visited paranormal site in the area.

The Lake Floyd Lights is a story that dates back before the Lake Floyd as folks would know it today.

Lake Floyd is now a residential area that was started in 1923 around the titular lake that has developed to feature various outdoor recreation opportunities including small boating, its own golf course and swimming among others.

Before it was so developed, phantom lights were rumored to float through the valley.

"My grandfather actually would talk about the lights at Lake Floyd back before it was a residential area. He's not the only one that I've heard talk about that," Steele said.

"They say that as you come up over Tunnel Hill and down the Lake Floyd side, there would always be these mysterious lights flashing from the lake side of the highway," Steele said.

Being just across the road from the Flinderation Tunnel and the Brandy Gap Cemetery, Steele's grandfather wondered if an unfortunate circumstance he happened upon could have been the result of a paranormal encounter.

"He actually found somebody on his way back from Clarksburg on old Route 50 on top of the hill that the tunnel runs through. An old man had turned his car sideways in the road, so he stopped," Steele said.

"The man had died of a heart attack, but he had this terrified look on his face," Steele said.

Of course, any word of Mothman stirs up excitement in West Virginia after the first documented sighting ran as a story in the Point Pleasant Register on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 1966 with the title 'Couples See Man-Sized Bird...Creature...Something!'

A lesser known sighting of West Virginia's most famous cryptid is said to have taken place just two days prior on Nov. 14, 1966 near Patterson Road.

"We had a sighting here. The man heard this weird whining, metallic sound outside and then his television blew up. His dog was always right by his side and never acted up, but when he opened the front door to see what was going on, it dashed off into the woods and they said that they saw something grab it," Steele said.

"He got a phone call two days later that someone found their dog down in Point Pleasant. The dog's name was Bandit and I guess he still had his collar on and everything," Steele said.

This suggests that perhaps Mothman was on his way to Point Pleasant when he was sighted in Salem just before his first documented account, although an account that surfaced later is said to have taken place in Clendenin on Nov. 12.

Or at least, so the story goes ...