For decades, it has been rumored that Lake Lanier is haunted by the dead Black residents of a town called Oscarville that was supposedly flooded when the lake was being developed in 1955. The story usually goes one of two ways: either the all-Black town was purposely obliterated by floodwaters, or that the flooded graveyard of a once Black town created vengeful spirits.
TikTok rappers have spit rhymes about the cursed lake; Instagram influencers have spread the legend; even Georgia ghost tours have told the tall tale.
