The Legend of the Gray Man of Pawleys Island

Location: Pawleys Island, South Carolina, 29585

I just want to say right fast thank you so much for understanding how long this has taken me. If you follow my personal Twitter, you know the last few months have been rough on me for numerous reasons, but all y'all's love and support have meant everything to the Lily 💖

The Lore

On a stretch of South Carolina coastline not far from Myrtle Beach sits Pawleys Island, an island home to a very unique legend - the legend of the Gray Man. The Gray Man is a ghost that reportedly only comes to visit before a large hurricane hits the area and if you are lucky enough to see him, your home will be safe from the storm. Since 1822, there have been at least 7 reported sightings of the Gray Man of Pawleys Island.

Want to see the research process and listen to my rambles? Click here!

Origin Stories and Secret Identities

In a world fueled by superhero comics and movies, every great hero needs an origin story. And what is a ghost telling you to GTFO and protects your home, if not a hero? The Gray Man has more than a couple origins and potential identities, some are more logical than others, but I'll get to that in a bit. For now, let's discuss why Bruce Wayne definitely isn't Batman. 😉 But for real for real, let's talk lore.

The most famous of all the potential origin stories involved two young lovers and a tragic death. The story goes along the lines of this (there are a couple variations): the young man was a sailor eager to return home to his betrothed. In his hurry, he took a shortcut through the marsh and fell into quicksand, dying before he could be rescued. Sometime after, his lover was walking along the beach, mourning his death, when she saw him dressed all in gray. He told her to leave the area due to an ongoing storm. She returned home, grabbed her family, and fled. When they came back after the hurricane moved out, their home was untouched by the storm. In some variations, she didn't see him on the beach but dreamt of him and his warning that night. And in others, her family thought she was having a mental breakdown and took her to the city that very day to see a doctor who deemed her sane. Even though this is the most famous story and it took place in 1822, we do not have the name of either the sailor or the young woman he loved.

Another origin story has the two lovers being cousins. He was sent to France, where he supposedly died in a duel. His love marries another only to find out years later he was alive when he knocked on her door. Devastated that she was married, he went to the mainland and passed away from a fever. She would later see his ghost in the dunes while on the island.

Other origin stories are less fantastic and more based on people in the area who died of non-love-related causes. As they don't have fancy tales and just real ones, I'll simply mention them here and tell their tales in the facts. These top three candidates are Percival Pawley, founder of Pawleys Island; Plowden Weston; and Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard.

Additional Sightings

In addition to the original 1822 sighting, the Gray Man has been spotted before major hurricanes in 1893, 1916, 1954, 1955, 1989, 2018, and 2022. Whoever the Gray Man of Pawleys Island is, he has been keeping residents and their residences safe for 200 years. Each person who has reportedly seen the Gray Man has told a similar story - they encounter a man who tells them in some way to evacuate the island. After the storm passes, their property is remained intact with beach towels even being left in place on the porches. (There are some additional sightings from the 1950s forward, but none that were anything more than "My daddy said" reports, so they aren't mentioned here but are throughout my source links.)

Do you think Jim Cantore is related to the Gray Man? 🤔

Sightings Timeline

September 27, 1822 - the Carolina Hurricane of 1822 made its way over Pawleys Island and the Gray Man debuted
August 28, 1893 - the Sea Islands Hurricane rolled through and members of the Lachicotte family encountered the Gray Man. He supposedly didn't say a word but they heard his warning (I guess in their heads) and fled to safety
July 14, 1916 - the Charleston Hurricane makes landfall. As I don't have a name or date associated with this sighting of the Gray Man, I am making the educated guess that this devastating storm is the one with the sighting
October 14, 1954 - Hurricane Hazel hits right at the North & South Carolina border. Bill Collins and his new bride were spending their honeymoon at the Pelican Inn on Pawleys Island and the Gray Man knocked on their door, telling them the Red Cross had ordered an evacuation before disappearing
1955 - I don't have a written account of this reported sighting other than a year. There were multiple tropical storms and hurricanes that brushed the Atlantic coastline that year and could have summoned a Gray Man sighting
September 19, 1989 - Clara and Jim Moore are walking along the beach when a gray figure appeared before them and vanished. Believing it to be the Gray Man, the couple fled the island. Hurricane Hugo made landfall on September 21, 1989
September 14, 2018 - Hurricane Florence makes landfall just south of Wrightsville Beach, NC. During a live stream of Carolina pier, the Gray Man was reportedly caught on camera
September 30, 2022 - Hurricane Ian makes landfall just south of Georgetown, SC. There is a reported sighting in an article on the University of South Carolina's website. There is even a picture and who submitted its name on the site, but I am not sure if the photo is supposed to be real or not and if the artist saw the Gray Man or was just submitting their representation of him and someone else saw him

Unsolved Mysteries Episode

Back in the 1990s, Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode featuring the Gray Man of Pawleys Island. And lucky for us, the YouTubes have it available to watch for free! Even better, it's the first segment.

Video Evidence

When it comes to catching the Gray Man on camera, he managed to avoid being caught for almost 200 years. But thanks to modern technology, we now have him on video, caught during a supposed live stream of a pier. What do you think of this clip? The Lily has thoughts, but I'm saving those for the end.

The Facts

As much as I love my lore, and y'all know I do, I also love my facts. If you have watched any of my research videos, you know I spent a good amount of time trying to find copies of written accounts, origin story character names, plat maps of Pawleys Island, and (off-screen) trying to find out more on that video clip. So let's take that jumbled mess of notes and see what the facts say regarding Pawleys Island and any possible truth behind the Gray Man legend.

History of Pawleys Island

Pawleys Island was granted to Percival Pawley in 1711 with a land grant that covered a strip of land between the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic Ocean. Percival was the first European settler to develop this area into plantations even though European settlers had been in the area for 200 years and the Waccamaw and Winyah people lived there prior to the settlers. Percival named the island for his sons George, Anthony, and Percival Jr. By the early 1800s, Pawleys Island had become a popular vacation spot for wealthy plantation owners and their families to spend summers and get a break from the mainland heat. Most of the property on the island has been held by the same families for upwards of 5 generations. In 1986, Pawleys Island was incorporated to prevent hotel chains from overrunning the beach strand, much like you see in places like Myrtle Beach, SC. In addition to the Pawley family, other historical owner names are Weston, and Lachicotte, with both families having been land owners for a considerable amount of time and having connections to the Gray Man.

Percival Pawley

According to online genealogy records, Percival Pawley was born on March 7, 1723, and died on January 1, 1787 (almost 35 years before the first recorded Gray Man sighting in September 1822). As mentioned previously, he is considered the founder of Pawleys Island and named the island for his three sons. Funny how things play out...I just realized the dates don't line up here for his birth and the founding of Pawleys Island, however, the other Pervical Pawley I did find did not have the wife or children linked with him in the same way as this one. More research is needed. F@CK...........

OK - this has been bugging me more than you know. I have found a Major Percival Pawley who lived from 1673-1721 and whose children, spouse, etc., match up. However, I no longer trust the internet for genealogy help. Hahahahaha. Laugh until we cry, right folks? At any rate - here is the link I found to Pawley's life and times. Maybe I will plan a trip to Pawleys Island after all in search of a museum or historical foundation to assist.

Edward Teach AKA Blackbeard

Being I live in what I affectionately call "Pirate Country" (but not like ECU Pirates, I'm an NC State girl), I always love when pirates pop up in my stories. And I think most of us would recognize the name Blackbeard as one of the most famous of pirates. However, most of us would probably be a bit confused if asked who Edward Teach/Thatch was (or at least we would prior to Our Flag Means Death, great show BTW). He is, of course, the man behind the beard and yes, he roamed the Carolina coast back in his day, from Charleston to Beaufort, possibly further in both directions, I am going off a quick skim of his haunts on Wikipedia as they aren't super important here. He even lived in Bath, NC for a brief time.

Teach was born in 1680 and died on November 22, 1718, over 100 years before the first reported Gray Man sighting. While he has notable time spent throughout the Carolinas, including a historically significant stay in Charleston, SC, there is nothing specific to him and Pawleys Island. His association seems to be based on the appearance of the Gray Man being pirate-like and because he was known to be in the area.

Plowden Charles Jeannette Weston & the Pelican Inn

Note - In my research, there seem to be a few different spellings of "Jeannette." I am making the educated guess that it's all the same person as the dates and locations align.

According to online genealogy records, Plowden Weston was born in 1760 in South Carolina and died on January 25, 1864 (which is 41 years, 3 months, and 29 days after the Carolina Hurricane of 1822 made landfall and the Gray Man was first seen). He is named after his father, but according to genealogy records, Sr. died in 1827, again, after the first reported sighting of the Gray Man.

Weston originally built the home that would one day become the Pelican Inn as his summer home in the 1840s. There are ghost sightings reported at the Pelican Inn, outside of Bill Collins in 1954, but if we are taking into account the first reported sighting in 1822, this ghost, whether it is Weston or not, is not the same ghost as the Gray Man. Additionally, their ghost seems to be more of your standard home/hotel haunting and less of a hurricane omen.

Note - I wanted to look into family records, but the genealogy records online were clunky and then my squirrel brain forgot. Future update, perhaps?

Written Accounts

Oh, the rabbit hole I went down trying to find the first written account of the Gray Man. It was deep, it was long, and it lasted days. My research initially said the first written account was in the 1940s, but that account referenced an earlier one. What I do know is this - in 1936 Henry Bellamann published his book The Gray Man Walks, this book references a legend similar to Pawleys Island's Gray Man and according to Julian Bolick (see below), it is our Gray Man, however, I could not find a copy of this book online. Judging by the reviews, Bellamann was more than a bit racist in his descriptions of characters, so I was not too eager to push forward more to obtain a copy to read through the library system. Sorry, but my due diligence has to stop somewhere. (If someone has a copy and can tell me all if it is referencing our Gray Man and any important details, I will be forever grateful and will update this post.)

Additional written references include Julian Bolick's books Waccamaw Plantations (1946), Georgetown Ghosts (1956), and Return of the Gray Man (1961). I do have a pdf of Waccamaw Plantations linked below, both the full read and the part specific to Pawleys Island, but the other two I do not have copies of. I suggest calling your local library and asking if they can help if you want to read them.

Excerpt from Waccamaw Planations

Plenty of other local authors have written about the Gray Man over the years, but it is pretty boilerplate across the board. I even have a copy of the legend in my copy of Haunted America: Terrifying Tales of Paranormal Phenomena (and yes, it is on my library page if you want to purchase your own copy).

Is Quicksand a Thing in the Carolinas?

This comes from the most famous origin story - lover boy fell into quicksand and died in his hurrying home to see his lady. I have a few questions and issues with this. First being real quicksand isn't movie quicksand. You can get out if you are smart. Unless the horse fell on him and trapped him beneath the mud. Now I can understand that as a cruel death and reason to haunt people. But once again, I digress. My real question is simply "Is there quicksand on the NC/SC coast?" (I am throwing NC in here as it is close to Pawleys Island and I am not sure where lover boy died.)

The Carolinas don't have "traditional" quicksand on the coast, though it can be found further inland and usually only in these areas after heavy rains. But we do have marshes and they are filled with something called "pluff mud" or "plough mud." You would recognize this mud by its smell. Especially at low tide. Because it is made up of decaying matter, it has a special brine-y smell that you only smell on the coast. (Think oysters that have been left in the sun.) Because this mud is very mucky and can easily grab you like quicksand, it is possible that this is what is referenced in the original origin story, especially because he was supposedly taking a shortcut through the marsh.

Real Estate and Plantation Records

Because this legend is so closely tied to owning property on Pawleys Island, I tapped into my super secret knowledge of searching county records and went looking up deeds to determine if any of the named people actually owned property on Pawleys Island or the surrounding areas during the time they supposedly saw the Gray Man. I also wanted to see if I could correspond any properties owned by those who saw the Gray Man to the original owners. For example, if the Moores owned a condo in 1989 that was built on land originally part of Percival Pawley's homesite. In other words, I went down another rabbit hole...

I found several interesting sources regarding the local plantations, but it's about what you would expect marriages and land records in those days to contain - a lot of moving the land between the founding families as people were married within these families. (Side note - this history pairs well with the history outline in Waccamaw Plantations and comes from the South Carolina Plantations site links in my sources. Additionally, you can learn more about the Pawley house from the Scholar Commons link. If you like this kind of stuff, it really paints an overall picture of the area throughout the years.)

As far as recorded deeds and documents, I could only search as far back as 1977. The Georgetown Register of Deeds search only goes back that far and the back scanned access seemed more trouble than it was worth. So, unfortunately, I could only search for the most famous of all the sightings, Clara and Jim Moore in 1989. And it was a pretty easy search, honestly. Or it would have been if I had not written down Clara and Jack Moore as there was a couple by the name of Jack and Nancy Moore who owned property in Pawleys Island at the same time. 🤦‍♀️But yes, there is a recorded mortgage deed recorded on September 2, 1987 for a property in Birds Nest for Clara D and James T Moore. So at least one piece of the whole Gray Man puzzle can be confirmed - the people who got on a super popular TV show are real and owned property in Pawleys Island from 1987 until it was sold in 1996. I know I am being a bit tongue in cheek here, but honestly, it was nice to know that these people did exist and did own property in the correct location as it is tangible evidence. Their story could be all talk, but at least they are real people. I do wish the county ROD had easily searchable records further back, but I will take what I can get without driving down to search through any remaining hard copies. It's not nearly as fun as it sounds.

Screenshot of the Birds Nest subdivision location

Hurricanes and South Carolina

As Pawleys Island is an island, it has been hit by its fair share of hurricanes, either directly or indirectly. In fact, since 1686, the South Carolina coast has seen 75 (recorded) tropical systems brush against her shores in some way. That is a heck of a lot. In fact, the only year that had a Gray Man sighting but no storm reportedly hitting South Carolina was 1955, and this was the year that I had a sighting recorded but no actual story. That works for me. An unverifiable account and an unverifiable storm aren't of much use in the world of facts. In addition to the wikis on the individual storms linked to the Gray Man sightings, I have the full list of storms that have affected South Carolina as well as a couple reports on the hurricane histories and changes over time. This is kind of like the plantations and histories though, not super important to the lore, but really interesting read if you love the deep cuts.

Lily's Thoughts

I don't know why this particular legend hits so close to home for me, I've known about other, closer ones for the same amount of time (all my life), but maybe it's just my love for the beach and in my heart, I can pretend the Gray Man is really Poseidon or Njǫrd coming to warn locals too unaware to leave town. That being said, I've been chewing on this one for months now and I do have thoughts and they must be shared.

That Video

OK, let's get this one out in the open right now. I believe without a doubt in my mind that it is fake. I will not say the posters faked it, but that at the very least, they were sent a fake video. I honestly wouldn't have given it a second thought and would have just reviewed it as a possible clip that didn't really fit, but they posted follow-ups. Y'all, I am going to bite my tongue as much as possible, but I have issues with the video and follow-ups for multiple reasons, snark will happen. You might want to tuck into a cup of coffee first.

First and foremost, the video supposedly was recorded off the Avalon Pier in Kill Devil Hills, NC, which is 339.6 miles away from Pawleys Island (per Google Maps). Now, in my research, I mention there is a Gray Man of Cape Hatteras, NC and from what I gathered without additional research, his MO is closer to this video clip in the sense of being seen but not actually talking to people. Additionally, Cape Hatteras is only 59.2 miles away from Kill Devil Hills. If this clip is to remain floating around the interwebs, can we at least update the description to say it is the Gray Man of Cape Hatteras and give that poor ghostie his dues?

Now that we are clear this is the Gray Man of Cape Hatteras and not Pawleys Island, let's talk about the clip. The paranormal investigators who shared it with the world put out two follow-up videos (see video sources below) within a few days of the original upload. In the second follow-up, they say this clip came from the Avalon Pier live stream during Hurricane Florence in 2018. They do specify that it is the one in Kill Devil Hills, NC, so there is no confusion on location. They mention the clip was sent by a friend/fan and this person's uncle recorded it off the live stream. During their second follow-up video, they also call the pier and ask if they know about the clip and ask if there is a way to look back over the footage to see if they can see it on the original themselves. The person who answered the phone said they had no reason to release it and that was that. I have issues with all of this.

For starters, if this was a live stream, why was Uncle the only person to see this? Let me tell you, during the storm, we were watching the cams until they got knocked out! So the odds that only one person to see this in the whole NC/SC coast, in the US, in the world who were watching the storm as it hit seems too far-fetched for me. Someone else would have seen it, someone else would have recorded it. So where is someone else?

Also, with these cams, they are always branded with some kind of identifying mark, either the company hosting the cam, the location of the cam, or the local time (or all the above!). There is nothing on this clip identifying the hosting provider, location, date, or time. That's a problem for me. It's also a problem for me that the location was not provided when the clip was uploaded for the world to see on repeat. It should not take two follow-up videos to release a location, if they didn't have it at the time of receipt, they should have asked prior to uploading. Especially because the second video isn't linked in the description of the "evidence" video and it has less than 300 views as of my writing this vs over 584k views for the clip. This clip could have been made at any point in time using just about any old storm clip of a similar pier. (Speaking of the pier - the shape of the pier is currently different, likely due to post-storm renovations. I emailed Avalon Pier asking when they updated the pier, but as of writing this, they have not returned my email. It is the off-season though, so when/if they get back to me, I will update this information. If you happen to know when Avalon Pier had any major renovations, I would love it if you dropped the info in the comments so I can provide an update.)

Now, on to Uncle...

Remember back in October, we all learned about urban legends together, class? How many urban legends start with a friend of a friend telling me XYZ? In this case, a friend of a friend is their buddy Scott from Charleston, SC. His uncle saw and recorded this while watching various live streams in Florence's way as proof they didn't need to evacuate and could have stayed home. It makes for a really good story, don't ya think? Oh, I can even see it playing out on the big screen.

Uncle sitting in front of his laptop in an overly crowded hotel room as Mom paces back and forth, wringing her hands, and Scotty is sitting on the bed, scrolling through his phone as Uncle yells out that he just saw a ghost! And not just any ghost, but the one that specifically protects your home if you see him! And golly, Uncle really believed hard that they didn't need to evacuate, and the Gray Man just proved his point!

It makes for a really, really great story. Especially when you think about how Charleston is 457.1 miles south of Kill Devil Hills and there are a lot of streams between the two that would have provided a better representation of what Charleston was going through, including ones in Charleston (and Pawleys Island, if we are being fair)... And especially because the lore is clear - you see the Gray Man then you leave and your property is safe. He doesn't appear during the storm or after you left. He appears when you are still on the island and still have time to evacuate. Even if Uncle wasn't looking for reasons they could have stayed, this sighting wouldn't be our Gray Man anyways, because the storm had already arrived and they had already left Charleston... but I digress. Now there is every chance that Scott is real and Uncle is real. There is even a chance it played out just like Scott said. After all, what were the chances anyway that Uncle was the only one to see it live in the whole world? There is always a chance...

And for the not-so-grand, but definitely a topic that must be talked about, finale, that phone call to Avalon Pier at the end of the second follow-up video. Where to start? Let's go with the foundation of my issue - phone calls are ridiculously easy to fake. And this call has a few things that make me question its validity. The second follow-up was posted on September 22, 2018. While Hurricane Florence made landfall on September 14th, she began her arrival a couple days beforehand. She sat on us like she was keeping a date waiting at the door. She didn't leave until the 16th. Most hurricanes are in and out within hours but she lasted days, flooding towns like New Bern, NC completely, and taking out power, water, and phone/internet/cable lines. It didn't matter that she came in not as the Cat 4 we all expected but as a Cat 2, because she sat for so long. Due to its Outer Banks location, Kill Devil Hills more than likely would have been evacuated for the storm, even though it did not take a direct hit. I don't know if they lost phone (or any utility) service out there for any length of time, but I do know I was without power for 8 days and cable/internet for 2 weeks, and I don't remember how long without water, and I live in the heart of the city, not a barrier island. Additionally, the person who answered the phone. Their tone, responses, everything, it doesn't sit well with me. And I know this is a gut feeling thing, so discredit it all you want, but I always trust my intuition. The person answering the phone seemed fairly nonchalant about the call asking about ghosts and camera footage. I have worked in reception and customer service jobs for years. If I get a call from someone saying they need to see footage my employer streamed, even without the spooky side, I am probably going to direct them to the person in charge of the streaming or at the very least take a message and send it up the ladder. Also, they seemed to bounce from knowing about the footage to being surprised by it. Which is it? You can't say you know about the video clip and then sound shocked when you hear the word ghost not five seconds later. Maybe it's because they were still in post-storm shock, I don't know. But this is the hardest thing for me to put my "it's fake" label on even though there is nothing about that call that felt genuine to me. You are, as always, encouraged to listen to it and make your own judgment. This is just mine.

I think I have run out of steam on my opinion on the video clip. Again, I am not saying the paranormal investigators who published it faked the video, but I am saying I firmly believe it to be a faked video because I have yet to see anything regarding it that can be verified.

Pre-Launch Update - I decided to do a little bit of extra follow-up on these guys while editing my post. I took a look at their YouTube channel and Facebook only to discover that they haven't posted anything in 4 years, basically stopped after the Gray Man. But they did have one final update I had missed (it wasn't linked with the other posts and YouTube never suggested it), one with a title saying this was faked. HOWEVER - this was nothing more than a joke to tease those claiming their video was faked. I refrained from making comments on the posters themselves prior to this, even though I found most of their footage to be unwatchable as they were bullies and trolling those whose comments they didn't like, but this made me extra salty. People are allowed opinions different from yours without being bullied for them. I legit was prepared to rewrite or exclude the whole video bit if they had truthfully admitted to faking it. But they didn't. Instead, they did what they did best before falling off the face of the digital earth - they trolled. So, now I am saying my piece, mostly in full, in the nicest way I can. Their "evidence" is as fake as they come and it's a good thing they aren't still putting out videos because I bet every single one is easily a fake but I refuse to give them additional views, even years after they stopped posting, to verify this.

Fact vs Lore

After looking at all the facts I could dig up and comparing them with the lore and legend of the Gray Man of Pawleys Island, I think if the Gray Man exists, he is Mr. Pawley himself, Percival Pawley. The timeline makes the most sense. With the most famous origin story of the lover who drowned in the marsh, if the young lady saw any ghost on the beach, it was most likely Percival wondering why this girl was on the beach hours before a storm and not far, far away.

But there is also the version where she dreamed up her ghostly lover telling her to get to safety, so maybe her grief-stricken brain worked out that the big wind gusts were a bad thing and there is no ghost and this is just a story made up by an author looking to add some spice to their work. My basic issue with the star-crossed lovers' story is just that - it's a story, one told in some way for well, forever. It was 1822. Why do we not have at least one of their names or the family name or property that was saved? Two hundred years ago wasn't that long ago, not when you look at an area where most of the owners were just a handful at the time and detailed records about other things have been kept. How is there at least not a record of "Son of Smith died on his way home to see his love, Daughter of Jones"? It doesn't make sense that there isn't a single record. In any form. This origin story is just another urban legend, wrapped up in seaweed and pluff mud.

I kinda went on a tangent there. But back on track. I don't think the Gray Man is Blackbeard simply because he was a POS pirate. Why would he care if your home gets blown off the map unless he had treasure hidden in it? It's a fun theory, but not one I say should be considered. If he were to haunt somewhere, I feel like it would be his home in Bath, but even then he died in Ocracoke, NC, and don't ghosts normally haunt where they died? Maybe he is the Gray Man of Cape Hatteras. I might have to look into that...

For our next suspect - Plowden Charles Jeannette Weston. Not it. He died in 1864. The first sighting was in 1822. You can't haunt if you are living. Now, that is not to say the Pelican Inn is not haunted and that it isn't Weston. It could be. But that is another ghost story for another time. Maybe. It may also be too much of a gray area, pun fully intended, as the stories I did see seemed to blur the two. Maybe it means the Lily needs a vacation and research trip with my cat Basil to Pawleys Island and the Pelican Inn to find out more...

Yes, in working on this one post, I have seemed to uncover two additional ghosts that need to be discussed. Does the research process ever end?

Now for the real question - do I think the Gray Man of Pawleys Island is a real ghost who warns people of bad storms they are otherwise too stupid to get out of the way of? Well... I can't say definitively that he does exist, but I can't definitively that he doesn't exist. I can say there are some missing pieces to the puzzle I would like to find.

I know I do not believe that video from 2018 is at all real until someone else can prove in some way they saw the same exact footage live but I don't know how they would and why they would not have backed up a very popular YouTube clip for their own 15 minutes of fame when this first hit the site (and if the video was somehow real, I do not believe it is the Pawleys Island Gray Man but rather the Cape Hatteras one because of location).

I think as more hurricanes batter the South Carolina coast and technology advances more and more, we have the opportunity to capture real footage of the Gray Man but also, we have to be extra cautious as to what we immediately classify as real proof. It is easier than ever to fake video footage and sadly, we live in a world where plenty of people will believe something simply because they want to. There have been plenty of known faked paranormal videos and photos that the world still chooses to believe are real, even after the creators come out and say they faked it (Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot both have VERY famous fakes associated with them that people still believe to be real decades later after all). So what I am saying is take any evidence you see floating around with a grain of salt. And maybe a shot of tequila.

I do hope one day to firmly put this in the real pile. Wouldn't that be grand? But until the day I have proof that the Gray Man exists, he has to live in the lore pile. But that's ok. Because the lore pile is where all the best stories live. And this one has been an amazing story for me to explore.

As this has been a post I have been working on for ages, I bet you a Coke I missed something very important that would have put my boilover back on a simmer. So do the Lily a favor? If you see something I missed or miswrote, please let me know in the comments so I can correct it. Also, let me know your thoughts on the Gray Man of Pawleys Island. Real, coastal urban legend, or something else entirely - tell me your thoughts!

Until next time lore lovers, stay spooky💖

~Lily

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Sources:

(My sources are in a terrible order, product of my squirrel brain, sorry in advance!)

“When the Gray Man Speaks, You'd Better Listen.” Haunted America: Terrifying Tales of Paranormal Phenomena, 2011, pp. 114–115