Tucked away from the city center, down many back roads in Kingsport, Tennessee, there’s a tunnel said to be haunted. Today, we’re going to dive into the different tales that explain the paranormal phenomenon experienced in the area.
The Sensabaugh tunnel was built not only as a means of getting through the mountain, but also to support the train tracks above it in the 1920s. It was named after the Sensabaugh family, who owned the property on which it was built. The tunnel spans over 380 feet long and over 12 feet high, leaving plenty of room for eerie activity.
Not long after construction, different tales were told about spiritual activity around the area. Most of this activity started as strange noises that could soon be made out as crying and screaming, which came from deep within the tunnel. These stories originated from local teenagers who would hang out around the site. As young, curious minds always do, the teens began to try to explain what they were experiencing.
Two main tales are told about why the tunnel is so haunted. The first is that a drifter broke into the Sensabaugh home and attempted to rob the house of all of its valuables. This was until the father of the Sensabaugh family, Ed, caught him. The drifter is then said to have taken the Sensabaugh baby as a way to get away without being harmed. As the drifter fled the house, Ed followed, trying to get the baby and valuables back. This is when it is said that the drifter threw the baby into the water that had gathered on the side of the tunnel as a way to distract Ed so he could continue to flee.
Another common tale is that there was no drifter; instead, Ed Sensabaugh murdered his family and fled the scene, not making it far into the tunnel before the guilt overcame him, and he took his own life.
Though we don’t know which of these stories, if either, is true, people who visit the tunnel experience many different paranormal things. The most common experience occurs when people go to investigate the tunnel to see if anything unexplainable happened to them. Sure enough, most people tell the tale that they will begin to drive through the tunnel, and one of two things will happen. The first is that their car will turn off completely by itself and won’t be able to turn on again. The second is very similar; people will drive in, get out to explore, and when they get back in, their car will not start. While this is happening, they hear screaming or laughter, and many report seeing a dark figure standing. Either way, once their car finally starts and they’re able to escape, there are little handprints left on the vehicle’s windows as if from a young child.
Though these encounters happened over 50 years ago, many people still claim to have these paranormal experiences. If you go and visit the Sensabaugh tunnel now, you will see it covered in different graffiti, including satanic symbols. Though these two tales spread rapidly throughout the town at the time, and even now, many people, specifically descendants of Ed Sensabaugh, claim that he never killed his family or himself.
So where does that leave us now? If Ed did not kill his family or himself, like so many people claim, was it actually a drifter? That’s where the family speaks up again. Apparently, a Sensabaugh child was never killed, and there was never a drifter. Once the family denied these two stories, they gave their own explanation.
They claim that Ed did have a connection to the tunnel, besides being on his property. This connection starts with the fact that Ed was evidently amazing at replicating different sounds, including animals and people. The family states that when the teens would gather around the tunnel, all the noise they would make echoed through to the other side of the tunnel. The noises were so loud that they would keep him and his family up at night. To keep the kids from staying and from coming back onto his property, it is said that Ed would go to the end of the tunnel that was by his house, and he would make different animal noises or imitate a baby crying and a woman screaming to scare the local teens away so that he and his family could have a peaceful night.
Though there are many different explanations as to what happened in the Sensabaugh tunnel, the question still stands as to why so many different people had had such similar experiences; the truth is, we may never know.
