Quote from Angela on July 4, 2021, 5:01 pm

Important things first. Wishing all our readers a Happy 4th July.

Thank you for all your support, enjoy the day!

Manitou Island

A few miles from the Leelanau Peninsula are the Manitou Island sand dunes. These dunes measure over 300ft tall, making an already eerily deserted coastline that much more haunting.

Michigan is known as 'the big State with big scares' and with respect to the abandoned sites of Flint, Detroit and the surrounding area, this coastline is as creepy as it gets.

During the 1800s, a ship of cholera ridden passengers stopped at Manitou Island. What ensued next was nothing short of ones worst nightmares.

The local sailors buried the passengers, some still alive fighting ferociously for life, beneath the sands in a mass grave.

Today there is a cedar tree forest, and two cemeteries, nearby. Hundreds of hikers and outdoor enthusiasts have reported disturbing audible sounds of crying, screaming, disembodied voices calling out and frantic splashing sounds. 

Locals say this is the place where 'the dead speak'.

This is most likely a 'residual' haunting. A replay of the past trauma which took place at this location. Maybe some of those passengers escaped their captors hands and ran through this very cedar forest, their echoes still heard today.

Also nearby is the submerged shipwreck of the SS Francisco Morazan. One night a little boy ventured out here along, he wanted to explore the shipwreck. He was never seen again in life, however has been encountered as a full spectrum apparition gliding, forever lost, in the sea which so mercilessly took his life.

How tragic that the passengers who sought refuge here became victims of the island itself.

Have you visited Manitou Island?

If you do venture out here, you might want to check twice behind you whilst walking the forests.

If you know any other allegedly haunted islands we would love to hear about them. Maybe we can feature them in our Haunted Islands section.