Unexplained mysteries of the West End

Published 1:30 am Thursday, October 30, 2025

By Christi Baron

With Halloween this week it is time to explore the unknown, the unexplained and the just plain weird stories of some of my West End Neighbors. Some of them have asked to remain anonymous and others don’t care what people think of their experiences, because they know what really happened.

At the end of a windy road near Beaver sits a house built in the 1940s, a woman who does not want to be named remembers her years growing up there and the strange things that occurred on more than one occasion. Many times something, a presence would be pacing around in her room and her parents would ask her repeatedly why she was stomping around at night. At other times guest to the home would complain of being tapped on the shoulder only to look to see no one was there.

A few years ago a Forks resident was living near Brinnon, having worked the late shift it was about three o’clock in the morning when she was driving home she said, “I came around one of the corners and sitting in my lane of traffic was a bear-like creature with long spiky grayish colored hair. It was hunkered over and turned its face towards me as I approached. It sort of looked like a bear but had a flatter face, more like a koala bear or sloth and its hair was long. It also had short “arms.” I’m not sure if it was hurt—I didn’t see any blood, but to me when it looked my way, it seemed to look sad, but that may or may not have been. I had to swing wide and cross into the other lane to avoid hitting it. The body style was chubby like a bear but the face was different than any bear I have ever seen around here. I also thought the color was odd unless somehow it looked gray from my headlights shining on it. It freaked me out.”

Later when telling a co-worker about the strange event one of them commented that there have been other weird creatures reported over by Quilcene. A truck driver once reported seeing a Kangaroo. It turned out to be a coyote that because of being injured/or no front legs had learned to hop on its hind feet.

Bruce Hanify recalls a voice from the “other side” during a big windstorm in 1973. Having had the enviable privilege of spending some of his youth growing up in the Hoh Rainforest where his father was the Ranger, Hanify remembers a night during a windstorm when his father warned him not to go outside and like all self respecting teenagers he went outside anyway. Hanify said “I crossed a spring and then stood under a spruce tree, the wind was really blowing, then a voice said, “Bruce go over there” and it showed me a place about thirty feet away.” After hesitating and hearing the voice again Hanify moved, a second later a huge spruce limb impaled into the ground where he had been standing. A few days later when inspecting the site Hanify said “It had speared right into the spot where I had been.”

It was after dark about twenty-five years ago when a local beautician, her son and his friend where making their way home from Port Angeles to Forks. As they passed the Beaver Post Office and hit the straight stretch by the Beaver ball field an apparition appeared alongside the road. As the hairdresser squinted to make out what appeared to be people standing there she was surprised to see their clothing was of a different time, she saw what seemed to be a group of ladies dressed in turn of the century attire. As her vehicle passed by the group she looked to her son sitting alongside her in the front seat, he had seen the same thing. Even to this day she cannot explain what she saw that night. Who were these ladies? Where they looking for the Tyee Beauty Parlor and thought a person of her profession could assist? Where they thirsty and looking for the long gone Konopaski’s Saloon? Who were they?

In October of 1937 Lynwood Sproul owned a Tourist Camp at Mora near the mouth of the Dickey River. The fifty-eight year old Sproul had recently hired a WWI veteran named Allen Sears to do some work for him; it would be a fatal mistake. Supposedly Sears borrowed Sproul’s gun to kill a seal for cooking oil for another neighbor. On Friday October 4, when Sears returned the gun and was cleaning it, Sears claimed the loaded gun accidently went off killing its owner Sproul. Even though law enforcement at the time was limited local authorities thought the story just did not add up. Certain the shooting was no accident they offered Sears a deal if he told the truth admitting his guilt. In doing so it is speculated that he may have been taking the blame for a women who could have also been implicated in Sproul’s death. To possibly protect this person Sears took the fall? Or was there other hanky panky going on?

It was also soon discovered that Allen Sears was actually named Ralph Carson. When he had deserted the Army he took the name and identity of a friend who died in the war. Carson alias Allen Sears was found guilty by a jury of ten men and two women and sentenced to death. The fifty-four year old Carson was the first Clallam County resident to be executed by the State on December 4, 1939. Was it really Allen Sears aka Ralph Carson who killed Lin Sproul? I guess we will never know.

Years ago there was talk of some strange sounds coming from the hills above La Push, a sound unlike any animal that locals are familiar with. A kind of a scream, was it Sasquatch? The sounds were the subject of conversation at Forks Outfitter’s a few weeks ago, a store manager said a certain carbonated beverage delivery person may have had heard it. Was this the same sound that a lifelong resident of the area also heard at Sappho?

Finally, other bigger mysteries still remain. Why does buttered toast, when dropped, always fall butter side down and we all know socks go missing but where do they go.

Happy Halloween.