The Suscon Screamer

Pennsylvania has many urban legends which may be based upon cryptozoological phenomena. One of these is the legend of what is called the Suscon Screamer. The screaming thing is reputed to haunt the area around where the Susquehanna Railroad once crossed over Suscon Road south of Wilkes-Barre. The former bridge is also known among locals as the Boo-Boo Bridge or, more ominously, the Black Bridge.

Unearthly screams have been heard reverberating through the forests near the little town of Suscon for generations and some residents have even phoned the Pittston Township police to complain of the shrieks.

Some versions of the story, in traditional ghost story fashion, have it that a ghostly female haunts the area, whether it be a victim of a car crash, a love-crossed suicide, or one of the ubiquitous phantom hitch-hikers.

One of the more popular versions has it that the tiny town is haunted by a porcine swamp monster that emerged from one of the surrounding bogs. In the 1970s, the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader reported that a local hunter heard something tramping around through the trees. Through his binoculars, he saw something

...about 6' long with a long snout. It weighed about 200 pounds and was gray in color. It had webbed feet with long claws and had a huge head...the ground was clawed up as if 100 turkeys had gone through.

This sighting was actually investigated by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, although the hunter refused to take the investigators to the area due to fear of the monster. The hunter did, however, say that the creature he saw was neither bear nor coyote.

The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society has recorded that in May of 1976, there was a sighting of a group of four 6' brown humanoids at one of the lakes south of Suscon. There were also sightings recorded from Harveyville, also in Luzerne County (1984), and also from Dickson City immediately north of Scranton, in neigboring Lackawanna County (2003).

Another popular version has it that the Screamer was actually a panther that escaped from a circus train; although the specific date of this supposed crash is unknown, older residents of Suscon still remembered it, at least as of 1995 (when Pocono Ghosts, Legends and Lore by Charles Adams III and David Seibold was published). If this identity of the Screamer were true, by this late date it would doubtless be the cat's restless phantom.