"The Olympia Paranormal Society, Investigating the Strange, Weird, & Wonderful that is the Pacific Northwest."
The TOPS project was founded by a small group of individuals concerned that their laidback town might be a bit lacking in weirdness. The Olympia Paranormal Society collects stories of the strange and unexplained from Olympia and the surrounding state of Washington. If you have further information regarding these topics, or other stories we encourage you to contribute your tales to the TOPS project. We’re looking for stories or rumors you may have heard, your own or others’ personal experiences, and whatever other tales are worth the telling. Even an odd little snippet of a story might just be the missing piece to a larger puzzle so send us whatever you’ve got! Try to include as many details as you can such as the place and date, the names of people involved, news of any investigations into the event, and how you came by the story.
The goal of TOPS is to make these stories accessible to anyone who is interested, and as our collection of tales grows we’ll post selections on the site here, and perhaps find new and exciting ways to make these tales available.
Dedicated to and inspired by two longtime Olympians: Vi, the little girl who once ran away to join a circus and later grew up to be the greatest ol’ lady on the block, and Bud who suspected that Bigfoot might one day be found in his backyard. Your love of Olympia, fascination with the strange and wonderful, and your quirky sense of humor have opened a lot of eyes and hearts. Thank you.
OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON
The capital city of Washington State grew up on the mudflats where the Deschutes River meets the southernmost tip of Puget Sound here in America’s Pacific Northwest...
Olympia is a small town with wide borders. There’s a lot of history here, as well as lots of fresh ideas that circulate in from the local colleges and the technology rich climate of Western Washington. We have vast rainforests, majestic mountains, and rain...we have a whole lotta rain here...rain is almost like our state bird
OLY TALES
Here are highlights from some of the stories collected thus far:
THE ARK MAN
In the 1920’s there was a man who busied himself by building an ark on the mudflats just north of the port of Olympia. He was apparently inspired by some book he’d read, and as his schedule didn’t allow for holding down a job in addition to ark building, he was a man of meager means. The local children would bring him canned fruit and other staples. TOPS is seeking any stories relating to this Ark Man, including just what happened to him and his ark. We’ve found no records of him shipping out, but it seems he somehow slipped away unseen. – Sarah at OlyBlog tells us that this was Greenwood's Ark. Thanks Sarah, and Stevenl!
SHANTYTOWN
In its early years a kind of shantytown developed on the vast Olympia mudflats. This little community was constructed largely of scrap lumber and cardboard and was considered an unsightly affront to the elaborate marble pillars of The Temple of Justice being constructed on the overlooking hill. The Deshutes River was dammed to create Capital Lake which essentially washed away the unsightly shantytown. Who knows what happened to all those displaced people? On a cold summer night, when the wind is just right, sometimes you can still smell the telltale scent of "wet cardboard"
STORIES OF GREATER WASHINGTON
The modern Neo-Giants are plentiful in the Pacific Northwest, and Washington state has more reported sightings and evidence than anywhere else.
Sightings of large hair covered man-apes ranging in height from 6 to 11 feet tall and footprints (averaging 15" to 18" long) have been reported as long as anyone's been here. The indigenous people have several names for the creatures, but Sasquatch and Bigfoot are the most widely recognized names now. Cryptozoologists (those devoted to the study of fabled creatures not yet officially classified) debate just what these elusive beings are, but popular theories have it that our Neo-Giants may be closely related to Gigantopithecus, or Paranthropus. It’s interesting to note that all of these prehistoric beings show a prominent sagittal crest on their skulls, a feature indicating powerful crushing jaws common to gorillas and other primates that have never been known in North America. It’s strange than that several stone carvings of heads featuring the same sagittal crest have been found along the Columbia River Basin dating from 1500 ad to 500 bc. This seems an unlikely feature for a prehistoric craftsman to sculpt unless they knew about the detail from some other source. Perhaps the sasquatch, or their close relatives were better known then?
RISE OF THE FLYING SAUCERS!
The Flying Saucer phenomena began in Washington state on June 24, 1947 -well before the Roswell, New Mexico incident of July 8, 1947. While flying his plane, Kenneth Arnold sighted 9 strange, disk shaped objects flying along the Cascade mountain range near Mount Rainier. He reported that these objects flew in an undulating formation "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water" while weaving in and out of the surrounding mountain peaks. Mr. Arnold estimated their speed at 1,400 miles per hour. When the papers picked up the story, the term "flying saucer" was officially coined.
If you have further information on these topics, or others, please drop us a line and tell us what you’ve got!