Saturday, September 21st will be a perfect day for the 17th Smithville Artwalk! Weird NJ publishers Mark and Mark will be joining in all the fun from 10am until 5pm selling all sort of Weird NJ merch, like magazines, books, … Continue reading
Shades of Death Road
Out of all the grim monikers encountered out on the roads less traveled throughout New Jersey, perhaps none is more foreboding than the infamous Shades of Death Road. Like many places steeped in local lore, reality and legend have become intertwined over the years, obscuring exactly what can be considered fact regarding this byway. Continue reading
The Unsolved Case of Jeannette DePalma
In this all-but-forgotten unsolved case from 1972, the body of a teenage girl was discovered atop a cliff, high above an abandoned quarry in the town of Springfield. The corpse was found thanks to a dog that brought home a badly decomposed human forearm to its master. The deceased would later be identified as Jeannette DePalma, a local teenager who had been missing for six weeks. Before long, witchcraft, satanism and police conspiracies would all become suspects in the bizarre case. Continue reading
Blood Sport: Revisiting Traction… Er, Action, Park
Stories of severe bodily injury and even horrible deaths abound about this legendary family fun park once located in Vernon, NJ. Did you ever visit Action Park? If so, we’re sure these stories will bring back some painful memories for you. Continue reading
The Final Parking Place of Mary Ellis
For the past 186 years Mary Ellis has resided on what she probably thought would always be a stately piece of property overlooking the scenic Raritan River. In actuality though, Mary had really just been monopolizing a prime parking space … Continue reading
Jungle Habitat: Wild, Free and Abandoned
It was an African safari theme park in West Milford operated by Warner Brothers in the early to mid 1970s where “wild” animals, such as lions, zebras and elephants, roamed free. Over the years Weird NJ had received reports sporadically from the West Milford area of sightings of non-indigenous species of animals, such as monkeys and kangaroos, roaming the woods there. It was always rumored that these were the descendants of escapees from Jungle Habitat. Still, for some reason we never though to actually go to the site of the old abandoned park until this new tip came in. When we did go we could hardly believe what we found. Continue reading
Tripod Rock and the Standing Stones of Pyramid Mountain
Although the question of how these stone structures were originally formed has been debated countless times, the fact remains they are awesome sites to behold. While some believe them to have been set in place prehistoric inhabitants of the region, others … Continue reading
Joe Mulliner, the “Robin Hood of the Pines”
Often referred to as “The Robin Hood Of The Pine Barrens,” Joe Mulliner was a Tory outlaw who was forced to flee his home in 1779 to avoid arrest, then went on a crime spree throughout the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, burning farmhouses, kidnapping, and holding up stagecoaches. Continue reading
Beware of the BLOB: It Came from the Jersey Shore!
It was on this day, August 6, in Weird NJ history that a large mysterious blob appeared in a Little Egg Harbor tributary in 2003. The Jersey State Police’s marine unit was called in the Department of Environmental Protection poked … Continue reading
The Mercedes Benz Tombstone
Located in the peaceful setting of the Rosedale Cemetery in Linden, stands a monument to one young man’s love of an automobile. The final resting place of Raymond Tse is an impressive full size granite replica of a Mercedes Benz 240 Diesel that is parked right out back. Continue reading