Well, back to the original post: I've spent a fair amount of time in the LBL, over a long period of time, starting in the '70's. That northern part of the LBL has always given me the creeps. I've only camped up there a couple of times, the most recently being this past October. But I've poked around in the northern part.
I know that during the '80's something happened up there that the rangers and local LEO's wanted to keep a very tight lid on. Suddenly there were roads closed with cables and dirt berms that used to always be open, lots more ranger patrols, rangers would stop you at night and encourage you to go elsewhere, you could occasionally see very bright lights reflecting up into the sky and could tell that they were some kind of super-bright spotlight being shined around, the rangers wouldn't tell you squat, camping areas were closed, and you'd see strangely marked or, more often, obviously un-marked gov't vehicles in the area.
In the 90's, I ventured back into that area and sneaked in behind some of the road barriers. In one area I found abandoned concrete bunkers, like pill boxes, arranged so that they would have overlapping fields of fire. Strange. I've been back, the roads are still closed, but the bunkers are now torn apart.
Now, there is another thing that's up there that anyone that's willing to do some detective work can find: the Vampire Hotel. And there was a guy named Rod Ferrel that claimed to be a vampire that hung around up there with his coven of vampire/devil worshipers. The bloodthirsty Mr. Ferrel is now serving life without parole or on death row somewhere for brutally murdering some folks. Part of the Vampire Hotel is still there, and isn't too hard to find, but again, the rangers really don't want you poking around up there. I can tell you that it's an ungodly creepy place, even in daylight.
There are parts of northern LBL that are so foreboding that my wife won't even get out of the car during the middle of the day in bright sunshine in some places.
When we were camped there this past October, we had wolves, yes WOLVES, not coyotes, come around our camp both evening trying to lure our German Shepherd out into the woods. Four of 'em (that we could see) hung around for around 45 minutes conniving to get our dog. One bitch wolf kept acting like she was in heat and was trying to lure our dog to her.
And have I seen any weird creatures there? Yup, two of em, down in the Tennessee section of LBL. Chasing deer across a field. One about 7ft tall and the other around 8ft. And they were NOT bears.
