Harassed at the Devil's Tower

February 17, 2024

I learned about the Devil's Tower from the book Weird New Jersey. According to the book, its "accessible from Route 9W, about a mile north of the Tenafly-Alpine border in Bergen County". I was attracted to this site for a visit because of the rumored hauntings and that it once was a place for devil worshippers. There was also a story of the death of a rich man's wife...Rionda...who hung herself in the tower is said to haunt it. There are also stories about people driving around the tower 3 or 6 times in reverse and seeing Rionda's ghost.

I went because I was curious. I am sensitive to other worldy forces and I was hoping I would sense something. It was overcast that day and the sky was gray. I also thought it was odd that the tower is in a really nice neighborhood where you could tell that the people were rich. I don't recall...but I seem to remember either driving or walking around the tower 6 or 3 times times in reverse because I wanted to see what would happen. I do remember at one point getting out of my car and leaving the door unlocked. As I walked toward the tower, the air around it felt different, almost heavy. Further, I lost cellphone reception in the near vicinity of the tower (I later learned I could walk about 20 feet from the tower and get the reception back).

At one point, when my door was unlocked and my keys were left on a seat in it, I decided to close the door. To my surprise, it immediately locked itself. I thought that was odd, because that had never happened to me before. I walked around the car to make sure there wasn't a door I could get into. All of the doors were locked. I panicked...but not a lot because in my mind I attributed it to a possible car design feature and I didn't even think it had anything to do with otherworldly forces. I then walked about 20 feet from the tower to get reception and called a tow truck driver.

The tow truck driver eventually came and this is when things got really weird. As I've seen done before with other cars, he used a jimmy-stick to try and get in the car. He put the plastic wedge in the door to pry it open as I've also seen others do. He then maneuvered the stick to a place where he could unlock the door from the inside. "Click", it unlocked. We both saw it unlock...but then it locked itself again! And again and again several more times! Both of us witnessed this and were dumbfounded to say the least. This shouldn't happen. It's never happened before and as far as I knew, the car had no feature that would automatically make the car re-lock itself. I even called the dealer later to check and they told me this feature didn't exist in my year and make. Further, I even tested it later with the same circumstances and the same thing didn't happen.

It was at this point that I told the tow truck driver about the Devil's Tower legends and both of us agreed something strange was going on. My slight panic turned to fear and dread and I couldn't wait to leave. Eventually he was able to open the door, but only after a very creative and more challenging method to do so. He gave me his card so I could contact him later as a witness to the story.

Later, I remember thinking that something was messing with me and knew I was there. It also knew that I was there for a paranormal experience and it didn't disappoint me.