Students explore to find ‘The Noise’

By Amanda Mears

Ghost stories swirl around in almost every town, but for four students the legend became a reality when they decided to investigate the story of the White Lady.

According to Tyler Woodbury, director of a film about the White Lady, “The Noise”, she is said to have killed herself and her infant child after a mine collapse in Carbon County took the lives of her husband and older son.

Supposedly, said Woodbury, she now roams around the area calling out their names.

“If you ask anyone in Carbon County they will know who the White Lady is,” Woodbury said, “We just wanted to see if we could find anything.”

Ben Waldon, public relations specialist, was one of the students who investigated the well-known story and said what they found turned out to be “pretty scary.”

“We went up to investigate in the daytime before we went up that night and it was even creepy then,” Waldon said. “There were crazy things like a noose hanging in a window.”

Later that night, Waldon said the group, which also includes Southern Utah University student Jordan Buscarini and USU student Carolynn Thompson, went back up to explore the abandoned Castle Gate mine – this time with a camera.

The footage the group got was edited by Woodbury and released as a film entitled “The Noise”, because that’s what viewers of the footage will hear.

To see this haunting documentary, Woodbury said viewers can visit their Web site at www.thenoise.woodburyproductions.com.

“It’s out now online and free for anyone to watch,” said Woodbury. “There are also full-size movie posters anyone can print. It’s one of the things I like to emphasize, rather than copyright.”

Waldon said the film portrays all the haunting events that took place the night they went up to explore the mine, including an inexplicable radio playing in the background.

“We’re not really even sure how it was playing,” Waldon said.

So far, Woodbury said people have had both good and bad things to say about the film.

“We’ve had a few responses,” Woodbury said. “There have been a few criticisms that it’s like the ‘Blair Witch Project’, but this story is historical. It comes from real events.”

For now, Woodbury said he has no plans to release the movie offline, but has entered it into a contest to see what kind of response he will get.

–amanda.m@aggiemail.usu.edu