I'm Laura Norton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives for stories that can't quite be explained. Maybe we've been on a bit of a crypted role lately, but strangers, you can hardly blame us.

It's October 1st, and we get pretty excited during our favorite month.

We'd say it's time for a spooky topic, but every episode

is paranormal paradise around here, so really, we're going to go where our hearts take us.

And that is to the Mid-Atlantic region, if we want to be specific to Pennsylvania, home to a portion

of the Appalachians and to the largest Amish community

in the United States. And yes, a good dose of the strange, too. There's the Lake Al-Tuna

Monster and the Haunted Hillview Manor, and the particularly terrifying urban legend of a bus

in Philadelphia that takes restless souls to limbo,

really, it's a place chalk full of the best kind of material.

But today, we're heading into the hemlock forests.

If you're thinking of the poison hemlock, you know what Socrates reportedly drank, then fear not.

We're not heading into that kind of green space.

Although poison gardens, they were a thing, there are even some around today, like the one at

Anac Castle in Northumberland.

That is a fascinating topic, but one for another day.

No, the hemlocks that we're exploring are actually a type of pine.

They're the official tree of Pennsylvania, also known as white pine or eastern hemlocks.

They once grew all over the Keystone state.

But, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources,

both deforestation and an invasive insect have done real damage to the once plentiful pine.

But once, those hemlock forests, they were full of lumberjacks.

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