Clinton Road

A 10-mile stretch through isolated wilderness, Clinton Road has been ranked by SIXT as the most haunted road in the world. The desolate route runs from Route 23 to Upper Greenwood Lake through dense forest.

Clinton Road stretches roughly ten miles through the dense forests of West Milford in Passaic County, running north from Route 23 near Newfoundland to Upper Greenwood Lake. A study by car rental company Sixt ranked it the most haunted road in the United States and the second most haunted in the world. The area's sinister reputation is not modern invention -- as far back as 1905, local historian J. Percy Crayon warned that these woods, then known as the "five mile woods," harbored robbers, counterfeiters, and even witches.

The road's most famous legend centers on a ghost boy who haunts a stone arch bridge over Clinton Brook at a sharp bend known as Dead Man's Curve. According to the story, the boy was struck and killed by a car on the bridge while bending down to pick up a quarter he spotted on the ground. Visitors who toss a coin into the water below at midnight report that it is thrown back to them by unseen hands. Some accounts claim that if you lean over the railing to look, the boy will push you into the water to save you from being hit by the same car that killed him. Witnesses have described unexplained splashing sounds and water ripples moving against the current when no one else is present.

High above the road in the Bearfort Mountains stand the ruins of Cross Castle, a three-story stone mansion built in 1905 by wealthy banker Richard J. Cross. After his death in 1917, the estate fell into decay and became associated with occult gatherings. Visitors who explored the ruins before their demolition by the Newark Watershed Commission reported walls covered in strange markings and melted candles, evidence of unidentified rituals. Even after the structure was razed, the site reportedly retains an oppressively heavy atmosphere that visitors find difficult to explain.

Motorists have long reported phantom headlights that appear from nowhere in the middle of the night and chase vehicles to the end of the road before vanishing. The phenomenon was featured on the Travel Channel's "Most Terrifying Places in America." Other drivers describe glowing orbs weaving through the trees, shadowy figures that materialize in rearview mirrors, and animals with glowing red eyes that dart across the pavement before disappearing. Some believe these strange creatures may be the descendants of exotic animals that escaped from Jungle Habitat, a Warner Bros. safari park that operated nearby until it closed in 1976, though the animals reported are unlike any known species.

Near Dead Man's Curve sits the remains of an iron smelting furnace dating to 1826, which local legend connects to Druid rituals. Reports of Satanic gatherings, Ku Klux Klan meetings, and mysterious lights in the surrounding woods have persisted for decades. The road's darkest verified chapter came on May 14, 1983, when a cyclist discovered a decomposing body being scavenged by turkey vultures along the roadside. The victim was identified as Daniel Deppner, a business associate of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer known as "the Iceman." During the autopsy, ice crystals were found near Deppner's heart and in his blood vessels, revealing that Kuklinski had frozen the body after the murder to disguise the time of death. Kuklinski was arrested in 1986 and later claimed to have killed between 100 and 200 people. Clinton Road's isolation, which has attracted legends and legend-seekers for over a century, had also made it useful to someone with very real bodies to hide.