Deep in the woods south of Pittsburgh, near a meandering stream.

Running through a dark forest, is an abandoned railroad tunnel.

The stones are covered in graffiti, and the area is strewn with beer cans and other trash.

If you honk your horn and dare to enter this tunnel, you'll see a glowing green mist emanating from within.

On some nights, whether it's due to a full moon or the fact that he can sense your fear, the mist coalesces into the corporeal form of the green man.

He isn't a man anymore, but rather a ghost.

Decades ago, a railroad worker was performing electrical work inside the tunnel and electricity.

The voltage turned his skin a sickly green, and he soon died of his injuries, his spirit staying put to keep watch over the tunnel and turn those away who would disturb his resting place.

If you run back to your car, your life may be spared.

But if you're stuck inside the tunnel with the green man, you may not live to tell the tale.

No doubt, if you grew up in the Pittsburgh area sometime in the last 50 years, you've heard a variation of this story in some retellings.

It's a poor soul who got struck by lightning rather than a railroad worker.

In others, he's more like an undead zombie who stalks the area rather than a ghost.

And in other retellings, he causes cars to collide with each other in a nearby tunnel.

Of all the urban legends and folklore in western Pennsylvania, perhaps none is so widely known, nor has inspired as much fear as that of the Green Man.

But I guarantee you, every version you've heard is not the truth.

The real story of the Green Man or Charlie No Face, if you're from Beaver County, is more a tragedy than a horror, but it is still a tale that will make your hair stand on end, will make you a little apprehensive to go out after dark, and will make you think twice about assuming the worst in someone because everyone has a story.

And this is Raymond Robinson's.

Raymond Robinson was born October 29th, 1910, in Patterson Heights, a suburb of Beaver Falls.

When he was seven, his father Robert died.

His mother, Lula, remarried and the family moved to Koppel in northern Beaver County.

By all accounts, Ray had a normal childhood.

He swam in the Beaver River in the summers.

He went sledding through the farm fields in the winter, and he enjoyed playing with friends in nearby Morado, the north end of Beaver Falls.

And what do young boys do better than get into things they should.

On June 18th, 1919, a hot summer day, Raymond and friends were making their way from Morado down to a swimming hole on the river where Wallace run lets out.

They pass beneath the enormous wooden trestle owned by the Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler and Newcastle Railway Company, better known as the Harmony line, which ran interurban trolleys between those cities and into Beaver Falls by way of Elwood City.

The trolleys, of course, ran on electricity in this case 1200 volts direct current, and as the bridge was near the end of the line, it also held their main transmission line, charged with 22,000V of alternating current.

The previous September, a local boy named Robert Little had come in contact with those wires and was killed.

Raymond and his friends, of course, knew about this, but when he spotted a bird's nest high up on the bridge, he couldn't resist getting a closer look.

In a second, 22,000V went through his small body, and he dropped from the bridge limb and smoking.

He was assumed dead, but rushed to Providence Hospital in Beaver Falls.

Throughout the summer, the newspapers carried periodic updates on his condition.

The last one, on August 16th stated.

Yet, in spite of all his affliction, the boy is in good humor.

He survived, but at the expense of both eyes, his nose, an arm, and an ear.

Throughout his teens, he was sent to hospitals in Pittsburgh for various surgeries, but nothing improved.

His appearance.

He could still hear and he could still talk, but it was awful hard to understand, but it didn't seem to bother him.

He was always in good spirits, and family members said he never complained about his lot in life around the house, at least in those early years.

He wore a prosthetic nose attached to dark glasses, but going outside beyond the yard was deemed too much.

It would cause alarm among anyone who saw him, so he stayed hidden at his parents house.

Aging as the world full of people with eyes and noses and ears passed him by, he listened to the radio and he wrote doormats, belts and other leather products to pass the time.

He took walks in the woods behind his parents home, but after the woods were stripped mined for coal, he had to venture further out.

No one knows exactly when he began to walk the colorful New Galilee Road, also known as route 351, but he walked it exclusively at night, still fearful of others reactions if he walked during the day.

Ray began a routine of grabbing his walking stick at around 10 p.m.

and often not returning home until after midnight.

To him, it seemed most logical.

He was less likely to cause a stir among other people and less likely to get hit, as there was less traffic, but two others seeing a man with a melted face walking on the side of the road alone at night is far scarier than seeing that man in the daytime.

Sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, people started to notice him.

Teenagers began taking Joyrides up to see him.

They employed the old trick of scaring your girlfriend, so she cuddles up next to you in the front seat.

After Friday night football games, there would be a parade of cars heading up the hill towards New Gallery.

It became Beaver County tradition to go out and see Ray.

Someone among them coined the name Charlie No Face and it stuck.

His family didn't like it.

They also didn't like the people would give him beer and cigarets in exchange for a photo with him.

On at least one occasion, he became drunk and wandered into the woods, eventually finding his way back to the road only by the sound of traffic.

On a few occasions he was hit by cars.

Most of those were hopefully accidental, but as is the case with anyone who looks weird or acts weird, quote unquote, normal people can be downright cruel.

After finding out where he lived, people would drive past the house and honk their horn, demanding to see Charlie no face.

Kids would offer to give him rides back to town and then drop him off in an unfamiliar location.

When the circus came to Koppel, the ringmaster asked if he would join the freak show.

But Raymond Robinson was never down for long.

By all accounts, he was an incredibly kind and friendly person.

He continued his walks until at least the late 1970s.

Sometime around then, he was moved to an elder care home in Brighton Township, where he died on June 11th, 1985, aged 74.

He is buried with his father, mother and stepfather.

The grave in Grandview Cemetery overlooks the site of the former Harmony line trolley bridge.

It changed the trajectory of his life and that's really it.

He was a child who was horribly disfigured and never expected to survive.

And if he had died, or if he hadn't taken to walking the highway at night, he would have been just as obscure as anyone else who graced the pages of a local newspaper a few times in 1990.

And there's a lot we don't know about his family.

Was pretty mum about the whole thing.

There is no point in bringing attention to it.

It was just the way it was.

In fact, they didn't want him to go walking on the highway in the first place.

He was a man who just wanted to break out of his tedium.

He wasn't trying to scare anyone.

In fact, he would usually hide behind trees as cars passed until he could get to know the people who had come to say hi.

And over the years, he got to know quite a few people by the sound of their voice.

If nothing else, he never brought up his disability and few people asked him about it.

It's not hard to see how generations of teenagers, even though most were probably well intentioned, could turn the story of a disfigured guy who walked on the side of the highway at night into some green ghoul who inhabits an old railroad tunnel.

But the real mystery, at least for me, is why this tunnel?

This is the Piney Fork Railroad Tunnel, a.k.a.

the Green Man Tunnel.

You know, the one from a few minutes ago.

And it's a place that Charlie.

No face.

Never visited.

Even if he could, why would he?

There are other places the green man has been seen, stretching from the south hills of Pittsburgh up to Newcastle and into Youngstown.

But he is almost always associated with this tunnel.

Google maps even has a pin here, calling it the Green Man's Tunnel.

It's apparently open 24 hours a day, which I guess is technically true.

There's a theory that headlights of cars shining on to race flannel jacket actually made it appear green, at least to some people's eyes.

But there's nothing in the story at all remotely related to a railroad tunnel, let alone one that would have taken him 19 hours to walk to from Koppel.

I've looked pretty extensively online, and no one really seems to know how the story evolved to involve this tunnel.

One poster on Reddit says the tunnel carry that name back in the 50s and 60s.

And of course, this is during the time Ray was walking on route 351.

Another gives an anecdotal answer about how Ray moved down to this area to, get some peace and quiet, and he's pretty immediately shut down because his answer isn't factual.

But I think that misses the point, because the Green Man's story itself isn't factual.

It's folklore.

It's an urban legend.

There's truth to it.

But it's not supernatural.

It's not magic.

It's not a cryptid.

It's not even really scary.

I mean, I don't particularly like looking at those photos of him, but it's just way more sad than it is scary.

So if you're going to go along with an an electrical worker falling into a vat of acid, or some guy getting struck by lightning so hard that his skin physically turns green and he resorts to haunting abandoned railroad tunnels, why not go along with Ray Robinson moving to South Park Township?

But then that begs the question is it disrespectful to the memory of a real live, living person who suffered more than any of us can probably fathom, to turn him into some green ghoul who inhabits an old railroad tunnel, right?

Especially one that the township uses for salt storage.

Most of us would say that the ringleader who asked him to join the freak show was being pretty rude.

But would we feel the same way if Ray had said yes?

I'm asking all these questions not because I have an answer to give you, to tell you one way or the other.

My thoughts on the matter aren't fully formed themselves.

All I wanted to do today was tell you the truth of the green man.

And now that I have done that, you'll have a Happy Halloween.

Bob for apples.

Take the kids trick or treating.

Watch a scary movie.

Help!

Come join me down here at the Green Man Tunnel.

It's a grand old time.

And if when you're driving home, you see a strange looking man off to the side of the road with a walking stick.

Slow down and give him a beer.

Happy Halloween everyone.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.