When I was writing my book Secret Jacksonville, the folklore of the region loomed large. Folklore is the unofficial culture of a community, and helps connect people to their city and each other. Jacksonville has no shortage of great stories of ghosts, witches, aliens, mysterious creatures and more; here are nine of my favorites.

Annie Lytle Elementary: The Devil’s School

Annie Lytle Elementary School.

Annie Lytle Elementary School, also known as Public School Number 4, has a reputation as the “most haunted building in Jacksonville.” An active school from 1917 to 1960, it later served as administrative offices until being shuttered in 1981. Being both spooky looking and highly visible – it’s easily seen from the I-95 interchange – the abandoned school subsequently became the city’s premier destination for legend tripping, the rite of passage in which young adults prove (or at least scare) themselves by venturing to frightening locations.

As all good legend-tripping destinations need a scary story to set the tone, Annie Lytle Elementary acquired several especially memorable, if totally specious, legends. Most commonly, the building is said to be haunted by schoolchildren killed in a boiler explosion or, more outrageously, by a psychotic janitor or cannibal principal. Inspired by contemporary hysteria over satanic cults, the school also came to be seen as a site of devil worship, earning the nickname “Devil’s School.” Unfortunately, all this attention has taken a toll on the structure. After years of vandalism, break-ins and fires, local preservationists worked with neighbors and police to shore up the building and protect it from further intrusion.

Ghost Light Road

Another popular legend-tripping destination of the past was the “Ghost Light Road,” alias Greenbriar Road. From at least the 1960s until 2001, this quiet dirt thoroughfare in then-rural St. Johns County drew visitors at night with a singularly disconcerting experience: a lone spectral headlight that appeared to approach cars before vanishing into the perfect dark. I can personally testify that the Ghost Light was a very real phenomenon. My friends and I saw it numerous times from 1997 to 2001, at least a few times without intoxicants involved.

Like any good haunted place, Ghost Light Road had an explanatory legend. According to the version I heard, the ghost was a young motorcyclist whose father had warned him about speeding on the dirt road. One day, the young man’s brother strung a rope across Greenbriar. This prank merely would have unseated the cocky rider had he heeded his father’s admonition, but tragically he gunned the engine and lost his head. Thereafter, his ghost shined his headlamp down Greenbriar in a nightly vigil. Non-supernatural explanations for the phenomenon that have been offered over the years include swamp gas, UFOs, and signals for drugrunners. More likely, it was an optical illusion caused by an unusual bend in the road, a theory supported by the fact that the ghost light hasn’t been seen since the road was reworked in 2001. The ghost story remains popular, but the light itself now shines only in the memories of legend-trippers past.

The St. Johns River Monster

Wallace McLean’s drawing of the St. Johns River Monster, from The Tampa Tribune, January 18, 1976.

For decades, folks from Kissimmee to Jacksonville have reported spotting the St. Johns River Monster, also known as “Johnnie,” “Pinky,” or “Borinkus,” Florida’s version of the Loch Ness Monster. In 1953, Kissimmee reptile park owner Owen Godwin described a 30-foot horned beast on the river and offered a reward for anyone who captured it alive, sparking an explosion of sightings across Central Florida. Retired State Attorney J. W. “Jesse” Hunter claimed he’d seen many of the creatures in the 1910s, and that one citrus baron had even captured some to pull ferries. In 1976, sightings started in Jacksonville after a group of friends fishing on a Southbank pier reported encountering a huge serpent the color of boiled shrimp (hence the name “Pinky”); they also provided a rather unconvincing drawing. More reports followed and have continued sporadically since.

Wildlife experts believe the sightings can be explained as manatees, eels, or a line of otters playing, but true believers scoff at these mundane solutions. To them, the St. Johns is and always shall be the home of a legendary sea monster.

The Bardin Booger

Lena Crain dressed as the Bardin Booger. Courtesy of Lena Crain.

The Skunk Ape – Florida’s version of Bigfoot – has been a prominent feature of Florida folklore for decades. Perhaps the most colorful member of this evasive species is the one who patrols the pine woods around a Putnam County logging community with a population of 424: the Bardin Booger.

Sightings of strange things in the Bardin woods go back many decades. Early stories are typical Bigfoot fare, describing a hirsute humanoid stalking trespassers to his forest home. Locals swapped yarns at Bud’s Grocery, an unassuming superette that qualifies as Bardin’s center of town. By 1981, the legend had spread enough to draw the attention of Palatka Daily News publisher Jody Delzell. When an intern needed a topic for a column one day, Delzell suggested Bardin’s beast. It was Delzell who coined the “Bardin Booger” name, “booger” being another term for “boogieman.”

The column drew national attention and within days, news outlets were flocking to Bardin to cover its famous Booger. Locals embraced the attention and amused themselves by taking news crews on wild goose chases in search of the creature. Bud’s Grocery became Booger headquarters, stocking merchandise and maintaining a “Booger file” of all the press it generated. Sightings dried up not long after this spate of coverage, but some locals have kept the legend alive. Local musician Billy Crain wrote a song about the Booger that became popular at local bars, and his wife Lena Crain devised a costume that she’s donned for public appearances for the last four decades.

The humanzee of Orange Park

Artist’s interpretation of the humanzee by Sam Scavino.

Unseen and unknown by most in Northeast Florida, from 1930 to 1965, Orange Park was home to one of the largest chimpanzee research operations in the world. Founded by Yale primatologist Robert M. Yerkes, the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology studied subjects such as chimpanzee anatomy, behavior and cognition. Staff didn’t interact much with the locals, for whom the “Monkey Farm,” as they called it, was a place of mystery. Yerkes Laboratories moved to Atlanta in 1965, and the Orange Park property was converted into an office park.

Yerkes Laboratories entered the realm of legend due to a claim that an extremely unorthodox experiment occurred there in its early days. According to University of Albany professor Dr. Gordon Gallup, a colleague who worked at the lab at the time told him that the scientists successfully impregnated a female chimpanzee with human sperm, creating a hybrid “humanzee.” The experiment resulted in a live birth, but the researchers euthanized him shortly thereafter because of the ethical implications of his existence.

The story became embedded in local folklore shortly after Gallup related it in a 2003 documentary about humanzees. There’s no other evidence such an experiment took place, but no matter. It’s firmly part of the legacy of what’s now the most intriguing office park in Florida.

Wiccademous, the witch of Fernandina

One of the few remaining strands of the woods said to be haunted by Wiccademous.

Another of the First Coast’s popular legend tripping destinations is located on Amelia Island. For decades, local teenagers have trekked to a strip of woods across from Fernandina Beach High School that have had a reputation for strange happenings since at least the 1970s.

Early legends about the woods apparently didn’t involve a witch; the original draw was “Shaky Ground,” a spot where it was said that the earth would quake beneath a visitor’s feet. Some locals attributed this to an old underground drainpipe, while others preferred a supernatural explanation. Eventually, a story emerged that the rumbling was caused by Wiccademous, the angry, improbably-named spirit of a girl executed for witchcraft in the 17th century and buried beneath an oak tree. This farrago of witchy tropes exploded in popularity after it first appeared online in 2002, becoming cemented in local folklore. In 2019, the land was controversially sold off for a new subdivision, but teenagers still trek to what’s left of the woods in hope of encountering Wiccademous.

Alpha Paynter, ghost of TacoLu

TacoLu, formerly the Homestead

Jacksonville Beaches lore claims that Alpha Paynter has had trouble letting go of her old Homestead Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach, even six decades after she died. Perennial ghost sightings have made this old log cabin – now home to Tex-Mex joint TacoLu – one of the First Coast’s most famous haunted places.

Alpha Paynter was a prominent businesswoman in the Beaches from 1930 until her death in 1962, although elements of her life are a mystery; no photograph of her has ever been found. The longest lasting of her businesses was the Homestead, which she opened as a boarding house in 1934 and later converted into a family-style restaurant. After Paynter, the Homestead remained a Beaches institution for another 50 years before being replaced by TacoLu in 2012. The building’s old-timey aesthetic and longevity made it fertile territory for ghost stories, and legends that Paynter never left circulated shortly after her death. She’s generally said to be a benevolent spirit who appears beside the fireplace, on the stairs, or in the women’s bathroom. TacoLu’s staff is just as diligent about noting and sharing ghost sightings as the Homestead had been, ensuring its reputation as a famous haunted place will remain intact for years to come.

Old Red Eyes and the ghosts of Kingsley Plantation

Kingsley Plantation is the oldest surviving slave plantation in Florida. From 1814-1837, it was owned by Zepheniah and Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, two of the South’s most unusual slaveholders. Anna was a Wolof royal enslaved in present-day Senegal. White slaveholder Zepheniah purchased and married her around 1806, when she was 13, and she later took an active role managing his plantations. One of the state’s most important historical sites, Kingsley Plantation was taken over by Florida State Parks in 1955. Shortly thereafter it accrued a number of legends and ghost stories.

The best known ghost associated with Kingsley Plantation is Old Red Eyes, reported since at least 1978. The story goes that he is the ghost of an enslaved man who murdered girls on the plantation, until the other enslaved discovered the crimes and lynched him from an oak tree. Thereafter, Old Red Eyes has haunted the woods as a pair of red, glowing eyes. Other ghosts reported at Kingsley Plantation include a woman in white spotted in the plantation house, often said to be Anna Kingsley herself, although she hadn’t lived on the island for over 30 years when she died. According to another common tale, visitors may hear a little girl screaming from the woods only to find a ghostly white peacock; as it happens, Fort George Island is home to albino peacocks, as well as the more familiar iridescent versions.

The mysterious Betz sphere

Terry Betz with the “Betz sphere” from the Acron Beacon-Journal. Image courtesy of WJCT.

In spring 1974, Gerri and Antoine Betz and their son Terry made a strange discovery in the woods around their Fort George Island home: a mysterious metallic sphere the size of a bowling ball. They took the strange find home, and before long, it started exhibiting inexplicable properties. According to the family, it began humming back when Terry played guitar, rolled around seemingly of its own volition, and emitted high pitched frequencies that set dogs whining. Ron Kivett, the host of a local radio show on paranormal phenomena, examined the sphere and confirmed that it acted strangely. He, like many others after him, believed the orb was of extraterrestrial origin.

Before long, the story had attracted local, national and even international press. Everyone wanted to know just what the thing was. An alien device? Top secret technology? A simple check valve stopper from a paper mill? Investigations by the U.S. Navy and UFO researchers failed to crack the mystery. Eventually, the Betz family tired of the attention and simply stopped talking about the sphere, leaving it an unsolved Jacksonville enigma.

In 2019 Jaxson partner WJCT Public Media explored the sphere in the podcast Odd Ball, which is well worth checking out.

More Jaxlore

Jaxlore is a column by Bill Delaney on the folklore, urban legends and local traditions of Jacksonville and the First Coast. Find more columns here:

Editorial by Bill Delaney. Contact Bill at wdelaney@moderncities.com. Humanzee illustration by Sam Scavino. Follow her on Instagram at samscavino.

Bill’s new book Secret Jacksonville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure is out. Order a copy here.