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When Silence Falls, The Murmuring Begins...

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A meme floating about the interwebs states:

"On August 29th, 1968, all the televisions in America shut down. There was a murmuring on the TV that some believe was the devil's voice. The televisions were off for about 25 seconds. No one knows what the issue was an no one knows what the sound was from the TVs."

I cannot corroborate that any such event--an inarguably remarkable one--occurred, which is surprising. There were significant power outages in both 1965 and 1968 that blacked out large portions of the country. UFO conspiricists love to mull over those. And it does remind me of the Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Astronaut" about and alien species known as The Silence that is set in 1969.

However, if the meme is real, it is interesting to note that this would have transpired one day after a famous antiwar protest at a Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The same antiwar demonstration that gave rise to the popular protest slogan: "The Whole World Is Watching."

Roundup of the Rare: Strange (but true?) Stories From Around The World.

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Roopkund is a glacial lake in India's Himalayan region full of ancient skeletons that become disturbingly visible when the snow melts. No one knows exactly why so many bodies lie at the bottom of this lake. It could have been war, disease, or ritual. Scientists at National Geographic examined 30 of the skeletons and concluded they were all Indian. Other artifacts, such as clothing, spears, and wooden implements were found as well. Approximately 300 individuals rest in the lake's icy embrace, most dating to the 9th century. It seems by DNA composition to have been a party of Konkanastha Brahmins on a pilgrimage from  Maharashtra to Tibet as part of festivities that took place once every 12 years among members of the Nanda Devi cult. But how they died remains the biggest mystery. Were they attacked or did they succumb to disease or weather?

Leave it to the Icelanders to have a Christmas monster more terrifying than the Krampus. Everyone, meet Grýla, an ogress that lives in a mountain-top lair who descends at Christmas to punish naughty children--by eating them. Her favorite dish is a stew of naughty kids. When she’s not consuming children, she’s also the mother of the Yule Lads, a group of miscreants who in modern times have become the Icelandic version of Santa Claus.

The intense heat and light of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts left behind ghostly silhouettes of human beings whose lives were erased in an instant. These "shadows" are permanently etched onto buildings and sidewalks throughout the two cities, though fewer remain with each passing decade.







The Guanjuato Mummies are considered to be among the strangest and most horrifying in the world. Contorted faces on some of the mummies have given rise to the belief that some of them were buried alive. After author Ray Bradbury visited the catacombs in Guanajuato he stated "The experience so wounded and terrified me, I could hardly wait to flee Mexico".

I should note that some of this writing was pulled directly from blubs on Pinterest. These disparate authors remain unkown, but I appreciate their efforts at chronicling some really weird stuff.

Tesla's 'UFO'

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Among the many apocryphal tinkerings of famed inventor Nikola Tesla, the most contentious might be his flying machine, which some sources claim was an ion-propelled vehicle that would fly without use of wings, ailerons, propellers, or an onboard fuel source. This craft would be light, fast, and likely not of any familiar design. Tesla believed this craft would fly by powering itself from electrical stations on the ground but without ever having to directly connect to them, remotely recharge, as it were. Some believe the shape of the craft would have been either cylindrical or saucer-like.

While Tesla's ruminations on the concept might not be in total dispute, the notion that he got very far with the concept is highly debatable. While there do seem to be unaccounted for patents in the vast trove of documents relating to Tesla's revolutionary work, there is little to suggest from attendant documents and the general work of his at the time that he was even looking in that direction in any serious sense.

One spurious report has it that work on such a device was begun in the late 1920s, being financed by the likes of J. P. Morgan and seeing fruition in 1938. Furthermore, wild speculation attributes WW2 foo fighter and later flying saucer sightings--nay, the entire UFO phenomenon--to this invention or some similar iteration.

If we look at Tesla's patents from the late 1920s, we see he was working on an interesting flying machine. However, a quick read reveals that his revolutionary device would have less in common with the Jetsons than with such vertical take-off vehicles such as the Osprey and Harrier employed by the USAF.

U.S. Patent 1,655,113 - Method of Aerial Transportation - 1928 January 3 - VTOL aeroplane; Describes a method of achieved vertical take-off, transition to and from horizontal flight, and vertical landing, with a tilting rotor. Including transportation which consists in developing by the propelling device a vertical thrust in excess of the normal, causing thereby the machine to rise in an approximately vertical direction, tilting it and simultaneously increasing the power of the motor and thereby the propeller thrust, then gradually reducing the propeller thrust as forward speed is gained and the plane takes up the load, thus maintaining the lifting force sensibly constant during flight, tilting the machine back to its original position and at the same time increasing the power if the motor and thrust of the propeller and effecting a landing under the restraining action of the same.

This patent summary clearly illustrates a vehicle using largely conventional thrust in an unconventional way. This is revolutionary to be sure, but far from any ion-propulsion technology.

But much like DaVinci and other master inventors who seemed far ahead of their times, a quasi-mystical cult has arisen in the wake of Tesla's passing, filling the gaps with all sorts of spurious tales of fantastic inventions, including death rays, thought photography, force fields, and more. So, why not add UFOs to the list as well?

HOMETOWN HORRORS

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Nothing like a good frightening local legend to both titillate and traumatize. Let's look at a few from around the country...

Fairfax County, VA -- The Bunny Man is the legend of a man in a bunny suit who traipses around with an axe. He was first reported around Halloween 1970 when a newly-engaged couple parked in a dark field off Guinea Road in Burke when the spotted movement from the rear window. Seconds later, their side window was smashed and they glimpsed a figure all in white screaming at them about trespassing. As they sped off, the couple discovered a small axe on the floor of the car. The couple's statements conflict: he insisted the man was in a rabbit suit, she insisted he was in a Klan robe. Some believe the Bunny Man was the ghost of Timothy C. Forbes, an escaped mental patient who fled his asylum in 1904. He may have been responsible for killing and skinning dozens of rabbits and hanging their carcasses from trees. However, Forbes was struck and killed by a train while eluding capture. Legend has it he was in the asylum to begin with because he killed and ate his family---on Easter Sunday!

Ojai, CA's "Char Man" stalks the Camp Comfort County Park. Legend has it, the man burned to death and now, inexplicably, runs out to frighten motorists and campers, leaving the linger stench of burnt flesh in the air.

Pittsburgh, PA's Green Man/Charlie No-Face is the creepy (somewhat true) tale of a deformed man that could be seen lurking in the roadside shadows at night. Some say he was a power company worker who had been struck by lightning or a downed power line; others claim he was doused with acid. Either way, his disfigured countenance turned to a greenish conglomeration of facial features. Some say the accident killed him, others that he lived on in isolation. One of these haunts is known as Green Man's tunnel, the site of many claimed mysterious accidents. Truth is Raymond Robinson was a regular walker along the roadside between Koppel and New Galilee and really could be spotted by locals. He did his perambulations under cover of darkness because of what happened when he was 8. On a dare, he climbed a power line and was electrocuted for his efforts. He lost both eyes and nearly his life. He subsequently wore a prosthetic nose, affixed like a novelty to a pair of dark glasses that covered his empty eye sockets. From there cruel teen taunts arose and soon legends were born, including attendant ones. The Green Man tunnel, which seemingly has nothing to do with the Green Man himself, has its own legends involving a man that killed his family and then threw himself in front of an oncoming train. The place is supposedly haunted.

Hauntings on the High Seas

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Haunted houses and forlorn forests are the domain of ghosts--for the most part. However, there exist many accounts from sailors and seafarers who have spotted spirits at sea, as well as phantom vessels and other unexplained phenomena. These aren't solely relegated to old sea yarns of pirate ghosts and their requisite treasures. Quite a number of these accounts are contemporary. There is the famous tale of merchant seamen who spotted--and photographed--the ghostly faces of two crewmen who had died in transit. And many a sailor in the Navies of the world has come back with unearthly tales from their ordeals in the various wars over the past century. With all the hazards and terror of such engagements, it isn't hard to see the anguish that would bear out ghostly sightings. But what are we to make of reports from otherwise pleasant trips? Over the years, reports have arisen from various passengers on cruise ships around the world of strange goings on. Like floating hotels, these ships shelter thousands of people daily and Death has collected more than one sea-pass. It's a wonder, really, that these ships don't have MORE of a reputation. Let's look at a few tales that have been shared over the years....

At around half past 5 on the evening of September 23, 2011, a passenger on the Carnival Conquest was dressing for dinner in her cabin (6412) while her husband was outside on the balcony. She suddenly heard a man's voice say "you look beautiful tonight." She turned around but no one was there. The TV was on, but only playing music, and she could see her husband still out on the balcony with the door closed. Thinking she had simply imagined the compliment, she shrugged it off and finished getting ready for dinner. Moments later, she heard the same voice repeat the phrase. Understandably, she was unnerved by these events and raced outside to tell her husband. To make matters worse, an hour later there was an incident on the ship involving a man going overboard.

On the same ship, but in a different cabin (2465), a woman who wasn't feeling well stayed behind in her cabin as her husband went to dinner. When he returned she asked him if he had slipped in while she was napping. He hadn't. His wife then recounted how she had felt someone touch her leg, which awakened her. Following their trip, the couple visited a medium who was hosting a seance. In an eerie coincidence, the couple learned that one of the women's aunts had died on the Carnival Conquest in room 2463.

This post by username "Wags" was on a thread over at the popular cruising site, cruisecritic.com:

"My husband and I were on a [Norwegian Dream] cruise in a balcony cabin. The second night out I woke up about 3:00 am to the sound of footsteps walking around the cabin. In the morning my husband asked me why I was walking around in the middle of the night. I said I thought it was him. I know the sounds did not come from the cabins above, below or in the hall. They were definitely in the cabin. I mentioned it to our steward and he said others had reported the same thing happening. It only happened the one night and we never found out what it was."

And "wwcruisers" posted this:

"Several years ago, we sailed on [Royal Caribbean's] Serenade of the Seas, with another couple, who are our best friends. In the beginning, we were a little jealous, because they were in a Grand Suite (and we weren't). Then, we started hearing about the weird things going on in their cabin:
-- All of their camera batteries (including back-ups) completely drained;
-- Recurring problems with their safe, as well as the cabin door locks;
-- Unexpected "cold spots" in the room (nowhere near air vents);
These were all explainable, to some degree. But, my friend said she was in the cabin one day and saw a shadow moving on the balcony. She just thought DH had gone out there for a smoke. A few minutes later, he came through the cabin door, talking about how much he'd just won in the casino. She ran to the balcony window -- nobody out there, of course!"

I've been on close to a dozen cruises ranging from the Caribbean to Europe and North Africa and made many stops in cities brimming with haunted sights. But I'd never once considered the mode of transport could be haunted as well. If you have any of your own stories to add, I'd love to hear from you.

Cold War Era Mystery Satellites Set Americans On Edge

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In February 1960, the North American Air Defense System picked up what seemed to be a rather large satellite in Earth orbit. But several striking features of the object became cause for concern. The unidentified object appeared to be of roughly 15 tons mass, a size too great for any known rocket to have launched. It also traveled a polar orbit, which is something no terrestrially launched object was doing at the time. The object was tracked for three weeks before it vanished.  A few months later, in September, however, a similarly strange satellite that gave off a reddish glow was uncharacteristically tracking east to west, according to Gumman Aircraft Corporation's Long Island facility. In short time, a committee was formed to investigate these matters, but their conclusions--if, indeed, there were any--never came to light.

You're reading "Cold War Era Mystery Satellites Set Americans On Edge" by Cullan Hudson on strangestate.blogspot.com. 

May The Fort Be With You

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http://www.cafepress.com/forteana

Is This Where UFO Photos Are Born?


Mujina: The Faceless Spirit

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Japanese folklore is filled with tales of the Mujina, a faceless spirit. The chilling accounts of those who claim to have met a Mujina read like urban legend, and go back a long way. In 1904, Lafcadio Hearn wrote one of the earliest accounts for Western readers in his book Kwaidan (Weird Tales).

In this volume, he tells the story of a Tokyo man who was following a road up a hill when he encountered a weeping woman along the wayside. Stopping to see if she needed aid, the man was frightened to discover that she had no face. In fear, he raced further up the road until he saw the dim glow of a lantern in the distance. He saw that it was a food vendor known as a soba. Grateful to find another living soul, the man explained his experience to the vendor, but he stopped short of explaining her face exactly. He was still too frightened to recall the experience. The soba man, moving from the shadows into the glow of the lantern, asked if perhaps she looked like this. To the traveler's horror the soba man, too, had no face. Suddenly the lantern was extinguished and the man was alone in the night with the faceless Mujina.

Japanese immigrants to Hawaii likely brought the legend with them, which might explain a rash of sightings in 1959.

In Honolulu, at the Waialae Drive-In, a girl encountered a faceless entity in the restroom, an event so traumatizing that she reportedly had been hospitalized. Another version said that the girl spotted a faceless woman with no legs in the mirror as she freshened her makeup. When she spun around, there was nothing there. The woman screamed and passed out.

Other reports have surfaced at weddings, shopping malls, and colleges across Hawaii in the intervening years.

The Great Moon Hoax

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"On this day in 1835, the Great Moon Hoax was perpetrated by the New York Sun newspaper. They launched a series of articles about the supposed discovery of life on the moon, which they falsely attributed to the well-known astronomer Sir John Herschel. Life forms were said to include such fantastical creatures as unicorns, and bat-like, winged humanoids." [source unknown; perhaps originally from Coast to Coast]

An Assemblage of the Uncanny

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"On November 21, 1987, Korrina Lynne Sagers Malinoski, a 26-year old woman from Mount Holly, South Carolina, mysteriously disappeared when she did not show up for work and her car was found parked in front of the Mount Holly Plantation. But that’s not even the most bizarre aspect of this story. On October 4, 1988, Korrina’s 8-year old daughter, Annette Sagers, was on her way to school and went to the bus stop in front of the Mount Holly Plantation… and she mysteriously vanished as well!To make things even stranger, a note was found at the bus stop which read: “Dad, momma come back. Give the boys a hug”. While it looked like it may have been written under duress, handwriting experts determined that Annette likely wrote the note. It’s been speculated that Annette’s mother may have returned to reclaim her daughter so they could disappear together, but she also left two sons behind and no one in their family has heard from either of them in 25 years. In 2000, an anonymous caller claimed that Annette’s body was buried in Sumter County, but that lead never panned out. Overall, this is a truly baffling mystery with no discernible solution." [listverse.com]

In 1932 two German newspapermen were covering a story on the Hamburg-Altona shipyards. While there, the skies darkened eerily and the two men could hear the distant droning of aircraft. Not long after, the pair heard antiaircraft guns in response and within moments they were running for cover as bombs rained down around them, setting the shipyard ablaze. Furiously, the men shot photographs of the sudden destruction before dashing to the main offices of the shipyard to offer their assistance. However, the men were confused to find a nonplussed worker telling them to mind their own business. As the men drove off, the sun broke through, and the surreal landscape of an unremarkable day in Hamburg unfolded with each passing mile. Citizens, seemingly without a care in the world, went about their routine as normal. The pictures the two developed showed no signs of destruction. Years later, one of the reporters moved to England. In 1943, he spied a story in the paper about a night raid on the Hamburg-Altona shipyards, which included startling photographs that matched the devastation he had witnessed 11 years prior. [from J. Bernard Hutton's On the Other Side of Reality]

"The first recorded serial killer in history reigned like a mad queen for 15 years during the first century AD: Her name was Locusta, and her career reads like what would happen if Hannibal Lecter was given his own state college. Locusta's macabre story starts in the mid-first century A.D., where she was arrested for poisoning people. Fortune smiled upon her when Agrippina decided to poison Emperor Claudius, and can you guess who she turned to for help on that one? That's right, Locusta, who subsequently received a pardon for her lethal dose of girl power. So, what did Locusta do with her freedom? She got busted one year later in 55 A.D. for poisoning people. (Again, serial killer.) Fortunately, the new Emperor Nero needed her for another job, and Locusta was pardoned once more so she could whip up a deadly milkshake for Nero's 13-year-old step brother Britannicus. After that hit, Locusta was awarded a sweet villa and even pupils to aid her in her arts. That's right, even though she was a known murderer and repeat offender, Locusta was given everything she needed to open her own goddamn school for murder. However, Locusta's luck ran out when Nero committed suicide, leaving her with few allies and a reputation akin to that of a sorceress. The madwoman was arrested and promptly executed by Emperor Galba in 69 A.D. How did she die? Perhaps an ironic "taste" of her own medicine? Nope: She was supposedly publicly raped to death by a wild animal [some sources say a giraffe]. That's Roman law for you." [cracked.com]

Sinister Story of the Cecil Hotel

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While many hotels, especially those that have stood for any length of time, have stories--even dark ones--Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel has some of that city's darkest.

Built in 1927 as the ideal lodging for weary businessmen, the Cecil had become little more than a flop house by the 1950s.

Over its many decades, its halls have been darkened by the likes of serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger. It's also one of the last places anyone had seen Elizabeth "Black Dahlia" Short alive.

The hotel has seen plenty of suicides, which might include Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian woman who was discovered in one of the water tanks on the roof. Lam was last seen on surveillance video acting peculiarly as she stepped in and out of an elevator (almost as if she were hiding), pressed all of its control buttons, and seemed to speak to an invisible presence. It is said she suffered from bipolar disorder.

American Horror Story: Inspiration --

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If you've seen the first iteration of American Horror Story, then you might have been intrigued enough to uncover the "true" tale that likely inspired some of its plot points: The "Congelier Mansion".

Cited often as "The Most Haunted House in America" (where have we heard THAT before?), this "sprawling mansion," as some have called it, was supposedly the home Charles Wright Congelier built in 1871 for himself, his wife Lyda, and their unhappy marriage.

After some time in the home, Lyda caught her philandering husband and their maid, Essie, in a compromising situation.  In a rage, Lyda stabbed him and decapitated her.

Later, it's told, a Dr. Adolph C. Brunrichter bought the home. During an experiment in the basement, he caused an explosion that shattered the windows. The event brought the police to the house who discovered the grim doctor's ghoulish experiments to re-animate the severed heads of several young women.

The house was supposed to be haunted by the inconsolable spirits of these tragedies and that Thomas Edison even came to investigate with various ghost-busting mechanisms of his own design.

The house came down in 1927 when a gas explosion destroyed a large swath of that city.

Fantastic, right? I mean...the script practically writes itself!

Except for a few small details that people like Stephanie Hoover of the Hauntingly Pennsylvania website would call facts....

An admirably dogged debunker, Hoover researched the actual historical record of the home and learned that more than a few details were bunk.

There were no Congeliers living in the area in the 1870s.

The house was no sprawling mansion; it was a working class home in an industrial section of the city.

No insane doctor, headless corpses, or vile murders took place there.

Congeliers did live there in the 1920s when a gas explosion did shatter windows, a shard of which killed one Mary Congelier.

You can read more of Hoover's debunking here.

Suicide Bridge for Dogs

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In Dumbarton, Scotland, the Overtoun Bridge has been the nexus of a strange rash of canine suicides. Yep, you heard me.

For half a century, more than fifty dogs have hurled themselves from not only the same bridge, but the same spot on that bridge over a burn on the Overtoun estate. It seems to be a phenomenon affecting only Labradors, collies, and retrievers.

Many believe the bridge to be haunted, perhaps by a hunter lonesome for companionship on the other side. Maybe by a sprit that doesn't care much for our four-legged friends.

Nearby Overtoun House (featured in the film Cloud Atlas) overlooks Dumbarton and was built between 1859 and 1862 for the wealthy chemical manufacturer, James White. While the house and family certainly have their history, none exists to adequately explain the strange suicides.

Sadly, it hasn't just been dogs. In 1994, a local man threw his infant son from the bridge, believing him to be the devil reborn.

It should be noted that "Overtoun" is explained in some accounts as being Gaelic for "a thin spot," as if to imply that the walls between worlds are thinnest here. This doesn't seem to be true. Overtoun actually means above (Over) a farm or farmlands (T

oun, which has through the centuries become equated with the English "town").

New Mexico Cemetery's Strange Visitor

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In Albuquerque, at the San Jose del El Rosario Cemetery (del El???) last month, a man who calls himself the "Light Wanderer" showed up on several occasions wearing a black cloak that covered his face and a white frock. In his hands, he brandished a bouquet of flowers seemingly plucked from the cemetery itself.

To startled onlookers, he seemed like the Grim Reaper.

"There is a place where sleepers sleep and dreamers dream and patiently await," the Light Wanderer said. He added that his presence is nothing to be afraid of.

The Sin Eater

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An ancient--and likely moribund--English tradition that hasn't well been studied is that of the Sin Eater, a person who through the ingestion of food or drink, absorbs the sins of the recently deceased.

John Bagford, the famous English Antiquarian, wrote of the ritual in the late 17th century. He told of a man who sat before the door of a house, eating bread and drinking ale. When he was finished, he rose, pronounced the soul, for which he pawned his own, to now be departed.

A long held legend in Shropshire centers on the last sin eater in their region, Richard Munslow, who died in 1906. He would eat bread and drink ale and then make a speech over the deceased's grave. In this fashion, he took the burden of their sins as his own. As part of the speech, he implored the spirit to be at rest and to "come not down the lanes of in our meadows." It seemed that the sin eater may have been called upon in cases where an especially troubled or sinful person posed some revenant risk. To head of any ghostly return, the sin eater was summoned to make sure their spirit moved on.

A 1911 entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica relates what seems like a holdover of sin eater tradition in 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire when a woman poured a glass of wine for each pall bearer and handed each a "funeral biscuit" at the conclusion of a graveside service. "Burial cakes" and "funeral biscuits" and the ale of wine drank with them seemed, especially to the funereal Victorians, to be a watered down version of this ancient practice.

Bertram S. Puckle's 1926 book, Funeral Customs, recounts one Professor Evans of the Presbyterian College at Carmathen who told of having seen a sin eater in 1825 near Cardiganshire. Evans described the sin eater as a necessary but shunned member of village society, as those who tend the dead so often are. It was believed that this unclean person, an associate of evil spirits and practitioner
of witchcraft who lived in seclusion from the others, should only be called upon when death had come, for which he would be paid a sixpence fee. Often the bread was eaten directly from the corpse, but if a plate was to be used, it would be a wooden one that was burned afterward.

The First Horror Film

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The first horror film was an 1896 Gothic vignette by French auteur Georges Melies entitled "Le Manoir du Diable."

The Draugr, A Nordic Zombie

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Draugr
The draugr or draug is a sort of zombie in Norse mythology, an undead being that appears as a mouldering corpse and often guards the treasures buried in the mound graves of important figures. In this fashion, the draugr is like a haugbui, which is also a reanimated corpse that guards a grave, but one that cannot leave. Some draugar (plural) also exist to right wrongs done to them in life.

The most well-known of these draugar is Glámr whose ultimate defeat by the hero Grettir is recounted in the Icelandic Sagas.

Draugar are most often created by the failure to properly bury a corpse by heeding all prescribed rituals. As well, the dead might return in such a fashion if they were an especially mean-spirited or greedy individual. But, much like our post-modern zombie, a draugr can be created when a person becomes infected by one.

A draugr is already dead, but can die a second death if it successfully avenges itself, is destroyed, or it decomposes too much.

Draugar have superhuman strength and can change their size, growing big enough to crush a person with their mass. They also attack victims, by devouring their flesh, drinking their blood, or simply driving them insane.

One can know the location of a draugr's grave by the odd behavior of animals around a particular spot. It is also said that foxfire near a mound will indicate the presence of a draugr.

These walking dead also have some magical abilities (known as trollskap) not unlike those of witches, including shape-shifting, clairvoyance, and cursing. A draugr can also move through solid matter, swimming through stone as if it were water. This allows him access most anywhere (including to and from a grave) with impunity. Draugar can bring with them diseases to plague the living and can bring about darkness even during the day.

To stop a draugr from ever rising, iron scissors were placed on the chest of the deceased. Other rituals involved secreting twigs in various pockets and folds on their clothing. Needles might have been driven into their feet to "pin" them to the earth, or their feet might have been bound together to effect the same result. Another manner in which the good people of a village would attempt to dissuade such a revenant creature would be to make the trip from the home to the grave site as confusing as possible, so that the corpse would be unaware of exactly where it then laid. In a similar fashion, one that shows up in other areas as well, is the creation of a corpse door in the house, a specially built door that would be sealed after the corpse has left so that it cannot find its way back to the house.

The Magnetic Cloud

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Many know of the apocryphal--and likely wholly fabricated--tale of the "Philadelphia Experiment," which purportedly managed to not only visibly cloak an entire ship (the USS Eldridge), but send it from its dock in Philadelphia through time and space to another port in Norfolk. READ MORE HERE

But you might not know that Philadelphia harbor was also the scene of another bizarre anomaly almost forty years prior.

In July 1904, as the British ship Mohican steamed into port, a curious fog enveloped it that, according to Captain Urquhart (as quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer), was so dense one could scarcely see the deck of the ship. This strangely dense, gray fog also seemed to glow brighter as the minutes passed. Moreover, the ship's compass spun crazily, iron chains and implements became magnetized to the deck plates, and the hairs on their heads and bodies stuck out "like bristles on a pig."

Half an hour of this passed before the curious cloud lifted and drifted out to sea.

No explanations were brought forth and the mystery subsided into the depths of half-remembered lore.

The Brit and the Beast

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Captain Choate, Order of Distinguished Service, was stationed in Nigeria during World War I as Great Britain kept its grip on the former German colony.

It was in October 1918 that local tribal leaders told him about a man who transforms into a Hyena. The hunters knew this because they had followed the hyena prints after several attacks on both people and livestock. The men were amazed to see how the hyena prints transformed into human ones as they approached the next village.

Captain Choate joined the hunters as they tracked the creature to a moonlit clearing. Once spotted, the Captain took aim and fired. The men started as a fearful scream erupted from their quarry. Surely this must have been a mortal wound, they thought, and raced to the spot where the Hyena fell.

However, once they arrived they found no sign of the creature. To their discomfort, however, there was a bloodied human jaw on the ground--and a trail of blood leading in the direction of a nearby village. The Captain knew his aim was true. Now it was simply a matter of tracking the beast before it could attack another poor soul like this man whose jaw now sat in the bloody grass before them.

They followed the trail toward the next closest village, but it abruptly vanished. Exhausted by the hunt, the men went to the hut of an old man and asked if they could pass the night in his home and resume the search at first light. The man agreed and the hunting party settled in.

When the awoke in the morning, their host was gone. But as they stepped out into the early light, they spotted the old man coming down the path toward them, seemingly agitated. The old man told the hunters that he had gone to see his neighbor, another elder in the tribe, but found him dead. Someone had shot him in the face, shearing off his jaw bone in the process.
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