MERCUR, Utah — It's frequently listed as the most haunted place in Utah: the desolate, long-forgotten Mercur Cemetery in Tooele County, but on this remote, windswept ground, our team captured something terrifying that went beyond any mere ghost story.
On a simple plot of earth—a few headstones, rotting fences, and pinwheels—history gathers its silent witnesses. Mercur Cemetery is unremarkable in its solitude, but extraordinary in its stories.
Like any small-town resting spot, the final goodbyes were said decades ago, but what we heard here steps beyond common sense and into the realm of the unexplainable. For us, the permanent residents were profoundly... NOT.. quiet.
First, it’s important to understand this place, as the road less traveled often leads to the most intriguing destinations.
Ian Wright, a Public Archaeologist for the State of Utah, explained, "So we are standing at the Mercur City Cemetery right now in Tooele County."
He showed us era artifacts telling the history of the town. "So Mercur was a hard-rock booming mining town. It was one of the largest mining towns in the State of Utah and it's just got a really rich, fascinating history," Wright said.
Gold and silver led the way, with the population reaching its height at about 5,000 people living in Mercur—5,000 reasons for trouble.
Wright added that "Most of the shootings and the stabbings and even the robberies, they came about because people were drinking, and they were drinking a lot."
The town was burned and the ground excavated, but what remained? "With every good mining town, there's got to be a Boot Hill or a cemetery somewhere." That’s what’s written, but what about the unwritten?
For the unwritten stories, we enlisted the help of paranormal investigators Kristy Russell and Will “Whisky” Murray.
Russell, from the Western Paranormal Society, felt that "Mercur just kind of has a different feel."
Lead Investigator Murray observed the unnerving silence: "If you yell out here, you don't hear your echo." Russell confirmed, "You have a lot of weird things happening.”
They explained that "In general, people who are more open to experiences are going to experience more."
They both aim for proof and logical explanations for what is experienced "I'm all scientific, so I want to know if it's actual paranormal, but there's a little superstition there too. I think that's why groups like ours do what we do is to see what we can prove and see what we can find."
But some things are unexplainable.
First, we tried to make contact with what is called ITC, or Instrumental Trans-Communication devices, with the legend of a little girls grave that if you bring a stuffed animal for her, she will communicate.
Almost immediately, there was a hit with an ITC stating, “I can’t make a noise.” And after hearing a woman’s voice in the distance the device responded “She’s bad.”
Another hot spot is where some come up to conduct rituals.
While using the devices and calling out near the ritual site, something came through that may have sounded like a woman’s voice answering “No” though none of that was conclusive.
What happened next is something that will conclusively haunt us for the rest of our lives. At first, we thought the sound was someone in trouble.
Murray noted, "That sounds like a human." He elaborated: "I swear it sounded like a small, baby female child screaming and then I heard the word help." With each passing sound, our hearts sank as the noise continued to change, grow louder and scream into the very core of our beings.
There are creatures and concepts so ancient and fundamentally unsettling that their very name is feared.
Murray said, "I'm going to say the inside on the outside for a second. Okay, there is obviously a lot of this is Native land and there's talk about Skinwalkers often in Utah."
It cloaks itself in the guise of animals—perhaps a bird, a boar, or a four-legged shadow—not merely like an animal, but wearing its skin, its voice, its form, all for the purpose of sowing fear.
Fear is exactly what we were facing.
One more time, we called out. Only our racing hearts called back. Murray noted the chilling silence: "Well. I guess uh, they didn't say hi back.”
We may have come looking for a laugh, a ghost story, a slight chill easily shrugged off. Yet, our journey took us beyond to brush against something truly strange, truly unexplainable, in what can only be described as a truly Mercur experience.
