Wednesday Weird: Reincarnated Boy

Today we're talking about a fun murder. A fun murder you say? How can that be a thing?
Read on, and find out!

Dr. Eli Lasch was best known for developing a medical system in Gaza as part of an Israeli government operation in the 60s. He died in 2009 (no, he's not the victim) but before that, he related a story he personally witnessed to a therapist.

In Golan Heights, a region near the border of Syria and Israel, a boy was born with a long red birthmark on his skull.

He was part of the Druze ethnic group, which accepts the idea of reincarnation. Because of this, they often believe that birthmarks can be related to trauma in a past life, and so when the boy was old enough to talk and told his parents that he had been killed by a blow to the head from an axe, no one was surprised or frightened.

When children are three, it's customary to take them to the home in their previous life if they remember it. After they arrived in his village, the boy was able to remember details of his home as well as who he was in his previous life.

A village local said the man the boy purported to be in a past life had disappeared years earlier, and his family had assumed he had wandered into nearby hostile territory.

The boy disagreed. He said he'd been murdered, and knew the name of the man who had killed him.
They confronted the man, who denied everything, but the boy wasn't done.

He said he knew where his body was buried. In the spot where he indicated, the villagers found a skeleton, with a wound in the skull that corresponded to the boy's birthmark. They also found the murder weapon, an axe, buried nearby.

The man accused admitted to the crime after being faced with this evidence.

See? A fun murder? (okay, I mean, the murder was probably horrible and terrifying. But look at this fun story, with outside witnesses--one of which was a doctor! Fun, right?)

Thoughts or theories?

 

Wednesday Weird: The Sea Peoples

Phew. It's been awhile since I've been able to write up a Wednesday Weird. I always write my blog posts on Sundays, and it's just been a few months where I've had enough free time on a Sunday to write one up (because WWs take research, friends.)

Anyway, today's topic: The Sea Peoples.

1200 BC had quite a few empires slipping into decline--the Hittites, the Mycenaeans and everyone's favorite, the Egyptians.

So, they're already having a rough time of it, and then a huge army of barbarians showed up and laid waste to pretty much everything they touched.

These are the Sea Peoples, and even though it's 2015, we still have no idea who they were.

One of the first places they attacked was Anatolia (modern day Turkey). Anatolia at the time was quite powerful, but king Ugarit received a message from a neighboring king begging for help against a band of unknown attackers.

So, Ugarit, being a good neighbor, sent his army to help out. But, unfortunately it didn't. The Sea Peoples burned the neighboring city to the ground, then for the hell of it (because, I mean, they came all that way) they marched to Ugarit's city and burned it to the ground as well before they disappeared.

A few years later, the same thing happened at Kadesh (modern day Syria). And then they just marched and sailed and burned through civilization so violently that it actually reshaped the landscape.

Eventually they reached Egypt and attacked. And, of course, you'd better believe if the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids they weren't effing around.

The Sea Peoples used massive invasion forces twice, but each time the Egyptians held them off. Finally the Sea Peoples left again. And that was it.

Scholars today have some theories about their identities--maybe they came from Europe, or Asia Minor, or the Balkans. But pretty much anyone's guess is as good as the next, because the only people who ever met the Sea Peoples were too busy fighting and dying to spend any time to take notes or document who they could be or where they came from.

Hell, for all we know, the Sea Peoples are still out there today.
Just biding their time . . .

Wednesday Weird: Beaumont Children Disappearance

The last day and last Wednesday Weird of 2014! So let's get to it.

In 1966 in the suburbs of Adelaide, Australia nine-year-old Jane Beaumont and her siblings, seven-year-old Arnna and four-year-old Grant disappeared into seemingly thin air.

The kids took a five-minute bus ride to Glenelg Beach, a place they often visited, including the day before. That evening, they never returned home, turning into one of Australia's biggest mysteries and infamous cold cases even today.


What we know:

• Witnesses claimed to have seen the siblings on the beach playing with a tall, thin, blond man in his 30s.

 

 

• The children, and especially Jane, were considered shy, so it was out of character for them to be seen with a stranger.
• Jane Beaumont was spotted buying snacks (including a meat pie, which the children had never purchased before) with money she did not have when she left the house that day. The shopkeeper knew the children well from previous visits. 
• A mail carrier who knew the family saw the kids walking in the direction of their home a few hours later. They stopped and spoke with him and seemed cheerful, which is strange because by this point they were 3 hours late for their 2pm curfew.
• Several months after the disappearance a woman would come forward and say that on the night of their disappearance she saw a man with two girls and a boy enter a house that she thought was empty. Later she saw the boy walking alone until he was chased and roughly caught by the man. The next morning the house appeared to be deserted again.

 

Related Case:

 

in 1973 11-year-old Joanne Ratcliffe and 4-year-old Kirste Gordon vanished from Adelaide during a football match after Joanne's parents and Kirste's grandmother let the girls to go to the bathroom.

 

 

 

 

They were seen multiple times in the 90 minutes they were gone, apparently distressed and with an unknown man. The police sketch of the man resembled that of the man last seen with the Beaumont children.

 

 

 

Possible Suspects:

 

Bevan Spencer von Einem

 

• In 1966 von Einem was 21 years old. Between 1975 and 193 the bodies of four young men and teen boys would be found badly mutilated or subjected to "surgery". Von Einem was arrested and charged for one of these murders.
• Known as the Family Murders, there was evidence to show that in actuality 4 people with up to 8 associates were involved in the murders of the teens.
• During von Einem's trial, testimony was given that alleged he was involved in both the Beaumont children disappearance as well as the Ratcliffe/Gordon disappearance.
• One of the witnesses said von Einem boasted of having taken 3 children from a beach to conduct experiments on them. He said he "connected the children together", but that one of the children died during the procedure so he had to kill the other two.
• von Einem somewhat resembled the sketches

 

 

 

• He was known to frequent Glenelg beach to watch the changing rooms and was fond of children
• The witness said that von Einem also told him that he had taken Joanne Ratcliffe and Kirste Gordon and killed them.
• The murders he is associated with, though, bears little resemblance to the Beaumont and Ratcliffe/Gordon disappearances

 

Arthur Stanley Brown

 

• In 1998 Arthur Stanley Brown was charged with the murders of 7-year-old Judith and 5-year-old Susan Mackay in Queensland who disappeared in 1970 on their way to school and were found later, strangled.
• He was never tried due to suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's after he was charged.
• With von Einem he's considered one of the best suspects in the case because he bears a striking resemblance to both sketches.

 

 

 

Brown in the 60s

• Brown's appearance barely changed in the 30 years between the Ratcliffe/Gordon disappearance. In fact, one of the witnesses in that case recognized him as the same man just from a picture on TV after the Mackay murders.
• Additionally, at the time of the Ratcliffe/Mackay disappearance she had reported that the man she'd seen with the girls had been wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Brown was known to have worn horn-rimmed glasses.
• Mostly, he's considered a suspect in the Beaumont case because he's such a strong suspect in the Ratcliffe/Gordon case, though he would have been in his 50s during the Beaumont disappearance

 

Thoughts? Theories?

 

Wednesday Weird: Rongorongo

Easter Island is well known for the giant moai statues and the mysteries surrounding them.

But the moai are not the only mystery found on Easter Island.

Rongorongo is a mystery written language found on tablets on the island. Known as Rapa Nui to the island's inhabitants the language is strange on multiple levels.

The first being that it didn't appear until the 1700s. Some scholars think the language came about when the islanders first saw written language from the Spaniards who hade traveled to their island, but there's just as much support that it could be one of the very few instances of independent inventions of writing in human history.

So the language suddenly appeared in the 1700s and in just two centuries it would be gone again, leaving the mystery as it is today.

Rongorongo is a pictograph writing system. It was found on wooden tablets and other objects, such as a chieftain's spear. Writing was unknown in any of the surrounding islands, which makes its appearance confounding to anthropologists. If no one around you writes, how do you come up with this system on your own?

Despite its recent birth, though, no archeologist, linguist, or scholar has ever been able to decipher the language. The closest any have come is discovering that one of the tablets referred to a lunar calendar.

The problem was that the island's population when it was first discovered was around 4,000, but the ecosystem was suffering and the island was overpopulated. Add to the mix western disease and the slave trade and shortly after that Easter Island would be reduced to a population of 110 by 1877. And the colonizers would decide the strange language was too pagan and would forbid it as a form of communication. Finally, missionaries would destroy the tablets with Rongorongo inscriptions.

Since then, scholars have tried to decipher the text, but any remaining inhabitants would refuse to translate, and the best help they ever got was when one islander, drunk, looked at a tablet and sang a song about fertility.

Only 25 texts survive, and what they hold will continue to be a mystery unless someone, someday, manages to decipher the mystery language. Maybe when that happens, we'll have a final understanding of the more well-known mystery of the moai statues.

 

Wednesday Weird: The Immortal Count Saint Germain

Saint Germain was a count born in the late 1600s (though records on this are still unclear) and who seems to have unlocked the ability to live forever.

Born the son of Francis Racoczi II, Prince of Transylvania, he was supposedly an accomplished alchemist and also claimed to have discovered eternal life. Between 1740 and 1780 Saint Germain, who was quite famous, traveled throughout Europe – and never seemed to age.

Let's break down this mystery man.

He spoke 12 languages
He could play the violin like a virtuoso.
He was an accomplished painter.
Wherever he traveled, he set up an elaborate laboratory, presumably for his alchemy work.
He seemed to have great wealth, but was not known to have any bank accounts.
He dined with friends frequently, but was rarely seen to eat food in public. He subsisted supposedly on a diet of oatmeal.
He had recipes for the removal of facial wrinkles and hair dye.
He was linked to several secret societies, including the Freemasons, the Illuminati and Order of the Templars.

So all of that is pretty impressive, but not, say, impossible for a man of means.
So let's get down to the weirdness.

Officially Saint Germain died in 1784, but he would continue to be seen throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century.

In 1785 he was seen in Germany with Anton Mesmer, the pioneer hypnotist.

Official records of Freemasonry show that they chose Saint Germain as their representative for a convention in 1785.

In the French Revolution in 1789, the Comtesse d’Adhémar said she spoke with Saint Germain. He allegedly told her of France’s immediate future, as if he knew what would happen.
In 1821, she wrote: “I have seen Saint-Germain again, each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen was murdered, on the 18th of Brumaire, on the day following the death of the Duke d’Enghien, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry.” The last time she saw him was in 1820 – and each time he looked no older than mid-40.

C. W. Leadbeater claimed to have met him in Rome in 1926 and said that Saint Germain told him that one of his residences was a castle in Transylvania.

Thoughts and theories?

Wednesday Weird: La Bête du Gévaudan

I really thought I had done a Wednesday Weird on this topic before, but I checked all my posts and I couldn't find one, so proceed I shall.

La Bete du Gevaudan (the beast of Gévaudan) was a real wolf-like monster that prowled the Auvergne and South Dordogne areas of France 1764 -1767, killing people often in bizarre circumstances. Many men and professional hunters would try to kill the beast, but almost all of them would fail.

The first recorded attack was a young woman in 1764. The beast approached her as she was tending oxen. Her dogs fled, but the oxen drove the beast away. Shortly after the beast would kill 14-year-old Janne Boulet.

After that, the beast would spend two years hunting and killing men, women and children. Most often it would attack single people as they tended their animals in fields or in the woods, but on more than one occasion it would attack larger groups of people, sometimes succeeding in killing multiple victims. Often times only pieces of victims would be found, if their bodies were found at all.

The number of attacks vary, depending on the source, but it killed somewhere between 60 and 113 adults and children, and injuring another 30-49. Many of the victims killed were partly eaten, and it frequently focused its attacks on the throat or head.

Descriptions also vary, but what most people agreed on was that it was reminiscent of a wolf, but the size of a calf or a donkey. It had a strange red coat, square head with small ears and white chest. It had a strangely long tail, like a cat.

 

 

On more than one occasion peasants or professional wolf hunters would shoot the beast, and the bullets would not kill it. There were also rumors that perhaps the beast wasn't alone, because more than once attacks happened at almost the same time.

Many wolves were killed in the attempt to put an end to the beast. Louis XV offered rewards and sent hunters to help, but though one hunter did kill a particularly large wolf (5'7" in length) it would prove to not be the beast, as the killing continued a month later.

The man credited with finally putting an end to the beast is Jean Chastel, a 60 year old man sent to hunt the beast. He shot the beast with his shotguns and his dogs finished the deed.
Upon examination, witnesses would stand by the fact that the beast was not a wolf, but by the time the body arrived in Paris it was so putrefied that it was buried immediately.

Nowadays many people think the beast was a wolf, perhaps deformed, or a wolf-dog hybrid, or something else entirely. Unfortunately we'll probably never know for sure what it was. But regardless, it did indeed kill many people, an act that would be strange for any animal, monster or not.

It is still a famous bit of strange history and occasionally shows up in pop culture

If you haven't seen this movie, you should. It deals directly with the beast and is also pretty good

 

Thoughts or theories?

Wednesday Weird: Paris Wild Cat

I like when I'm able to do current or ongoing weird things, and today is one of them!

In Paris, near Disneyland, there have been sightings of a large wild cat.

The cat was spotted near a grocery store, crossing a highway, and near a gas station,

Last week, someone said the cat was a tiger, but after an expert looked at some paw prints, they declared that the cat was not, in fact, a tiger.

So the question remains: what is it?

It's not like Paris has any sort of large wild cat population. In the US we have cougars and jaguars, and though they generally stick to certain places, we've certainly even had them roaming up here in MN (cougars at least. Not jaguars (yet...))

But with people owning all sort of exotic animals as pets, it could really be anything.

All they know for sure, so far, is that the cat is a cat, and that it's not a tiger. What kind of cat or where it came from is still a mystery.

There is a nearby wildcat sanctuary, but the only problem there is, none of their cats are missing.

Some people suggested that the tracks belonged to a big dog,  but the head of the Paris regional Wolfcatcher Society states the tracks could not have been falsified.

(Which, let's just take a moment to think about how frickin BADASS it is that Paris has a regional Wolfcatcher Society. Because OF COURSE they do. Especially after that whole La Bête du Gévaudan incident back in 1764 (also, I thought I had done a Wednesday Weird post about La Bête du Gévaudan, but apparently I didn't, so I'll have to rectify that soon))

The fun part, though, is there have been some photos!

So, pals, take a look and let me know in the comments what kind of cat you think is roaming around Paris.

 

 

Wednesday Weird: Novelist Eugene Izzy Death

In December, 1996, a crowd of Chicago holiday shoppers found the body of crime novelist Eugene Izzi. He had hung himself from the window of his downtown office.

Sad, yes. Weird? No. But of course, this is Wednesday Weird, so we know it can't be all cut and dry as a simple suicide.

For one thing, if you're going to kill yourself, why would you put on a bullet proof vest?
And stuff a pair of brass knuckles in your pocket? Along with mace, some printed notes, and 3 computer discs containing your work in progress?
And hide a loaded gun in your desk?

So yeah, that's a little weird. But sometimes people do weird things before they kill themselves. And maybe the printed notes would provide clues.

Luckily enough, they did.

The notes were transcripts of threatening phone calls Izzi had been receiving. So threatening, in fact, that he'd left his family and moved into a hotel in order to keep them safe, and taken to carrying a loaded gun with him at all times.

At the time of his death, Izzi was researching an Indiana White Supremacist group in order to use in his next novel.

A friend who had listened to some of the voicemails remembered that one, from a woman, told Izzi that he would be hanging by the end of the year. Which, I guess literally happened.

All of that sounds pretty suspiciously less like a suicide and maybe more like a murder made to look like a suicide.

But it gets a little weirder still.

Izzi's death was super similar to a death in his unfinished novel, including the bullet proof vest and brass knuckles. If the White Supremacists killed him, how could they have known about that scene in the book when it wasn't even completed yet? Or, was this some sort of strange advertisement for his book?

Thoughts? Theories?
 

Wednesday Weird: Sleeping Sickness

Today is the last of our Halloween themed Wednesday Weirds. Today, we're talking about the Sleeping Sickness.

So let's say your SO comes down with what you assume is a bad cold. But after getting worse over the next few days, they suddenly freeze like a statue. They lie there, motionless, in a hospital bed. Then, finally, they wake up. Which would be a cause of celebration!

But, it gets worse.

They start to act completely different -- they're emotionless and distant, which makes you think of this delightful film:

THEN! (because so far, it's just not bad enough) they start gouging at their eyes and/or violently, sexually assaulting people.

 

That, right there, folks, is a real disease that first cropped up in the early 20th century. It's called encephalitis lethargica, or the sleeping sickness, and it struck as an epidemic just after the Spanish flu died down.

And, nobody has any idea where it came from or where it went.

It begins with a sore throat right before it escalates into hallucinations and madness before the body ultimately locks up. While sufferers appeared to be asleep, they were actually fully conscious but unable to move. Many died during this stage.

 

Survivors of the sleeping disease suffered behavioral problems for the rest of their lives, becoming excessively violent and -- regardless of gender -- kind of rapey. They also became emotionally indifferent, unable to recognize, for example, the beauty of art. They became completely different people.

Ten years after the epidemic, new cases suddenly stopped appearing.

Today, doctors still don't know what the deal was, though clearly it had to do with the brain. But whether it was a bacteria, or a virus, no one really knows.

 

.

Currently, it still occasionally shows up. So while the world is worried about Ebola, sometimes there are even scarier things that can strike when you least expect it.

Wednesday Weird: The Anguished Man

Week Three of the Halloween themed Wednesday Weirds.

Today, we have this terrifying picture:

Honestly, the painting is creepy enough that I could probably just stop the post right now. Like, that's it, here's your Halloween scare for the week.

But, nah. Let's keep going.

This painting was kept in Sean Robinson's grandmother's attic for twenty-five years before he inherited it. She had always told Robinson that the painting was evil, explaining how the artist who created it had used his own blood mixed with the paint, and had killed himself shortly after completing it. Like you do.

When the painting was displayed, she'd hear voices and crying, and sometimes see a shadowy figure in her house. So she locked it away in her attic. Why she didn't just get rid of it, I dunno.

As soon as Robinson took the painting into his home, he and his family started experiencing the same kinds of creepy phenomenon. His wife felt something stroking her hair, they saw the shadow man and they heard crying.

Robinson decided to set up a camera overnight to try to capture some of the strange events on tape. Robinson's YouTube videos show slamming doors, rising smoke, and the painting falling from a wall for no reason.

Frightened, Robinson soon put the painting down in his basement, but he is not interested in selling it.

Here's one of his videos. Boring warning: the video isn't all that interesting, barring one little part.





So, there you have it. The Anguished Man painting. Scary enough on it's own, kinda worse when it comes with creepiness.

Wednesday Weird: Herxheim Mass Grave

Continuing with our Halloween Wednesday Weirds, let's talk bones and skeletons.

Back in 09, archaeologists were digging at the site of near the village of Herxheim, in Germany. The site was from the Neolithic era, (7,000 years ago) when farming had spread into Europe.

The site was first excavated in 1996-99 so they expected to find much of the same. Instead what they found was a human bone.

Which, if you're an archaeologist, yay, right? But then they found another bone. And another. When they were finished digging, they had uncovered a mass grave of over 500 bodies. 500 bodies is a lot, but it's even more when you consider how small the population had been at the time the bodies were buried. Not to mention that Herxheim and other nearby settlements had been mysteriously and completely abandoned, ohhh, about 7,000 years ago.

So what had caused this massive die-off of the population and subsequent abandonment? The archaeologists weren't sure.

Until they found the bite marks.

Yeah. The mass grave was a mass cannibal grave. The bones in the mass grave had been chewed on, been cracked for their marrow, even had marks on them that suggested they had been spit roasted.

Cannibalism was extremely rare in Neolithic Europe (why would you need to eat people when you could grow your own food) and yet, here there was not just a single case of it, but a massive amount of it.

What happened at Herxheim, that caused much of the settlement to be eaten by other people, and that caused the rest of settlement to be abandoned?

We may never know . . .

 

Wednesday Weird: Screaming Ghost

Here we are, the beginning of Halloween season. Which means for this month, the Wednesday Weirds are going to be as Halloweeny as I can swing. I'm going to try to pick scary or creepy or gross topics. What will they be? No clue. I figure out when I write the posts.

But for today, to launch our Halloween series of Wednesday Weirds, we're looking at a ghost video!

I picked this one because A) it's creepy as all hell. And B) it's different than a lot of the other types of ghost videos.

Whether it's real or not, I have no clue, but it's full of tension and it's an absorbing video (no worries. There's no jump scares or anything. I wouldn't do that to you.)

 

Thoughts?

Wednesday Weird: The Nampa Doll

On August 1, 1889, professional well-driller M.A. Kurtz was working near his home in Nampa, Idaho, along with two crewmen, when their steam pump spat out a piece of brownish clay about an inch and half long.

The clay, though, was shaped like a man.

Which, wouldn't be that big a deal except for the fact that the little clay "doll" had come from below a 15-foot layer of lava rock, 100 feet of sand, 6 inches of clay, 40 feet of more sand, then 165 feet composed of clay, sand, clay nodules mixed with sand, and coarse sand layers - 320 feet down.

The small doll is composed of half clay and half quartz, and according to at least one expert not the product of a small child or amateur.

Though badly worn, the doll`s appearance is still distinct: it has a bulbous head, with slightly discernible mouth and eyes, faint geometric markings found mostly on the chest around the neck, and on the arms and wrists which may represent clothing or jewelry. The broken leg was most likely caused by the drill.

The pump for the drill only worked in one direction - meaning, if the doll had fallen into the hole from above, it would have been destroyed by the pump. In a study, a professor found quartz grains under the doll`s right arm had been cemented by iron molecules which also indicates extreme age.

Geologists know the lava rock layer occurred before the last ice age. Scientists estimate the layer in which the doll was found at is over 300,000 years old.

Today, the Nampa doll is on exhibit at the Idaho State Historical Society in Boise.

Thoughts and theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Hill Abduction

Today we're talking about one of the most formative alien abduction reports ever, a case that is still discussed today. It was the first widely publicized account of an abduction, and would later include a best selling book and a TV movie starring James Earl Jones.

Betty and Barney Hill were driving home to New Hampshire from a vacation in Niagara Falls in September 1961.

At about 10pm the couple noticed what they thought was an unusual bright star, until it began to move erratically. Keeping their eye on it, they finally pulled over and Barney used binoculars on the object. Through the lenses he saw that it wasn't a star or an airplane, but some sort of lighted object with people inside.

Terrified, Barney and Betty sped off in their car. They lost sight of the object, but heard a few beeps, then immediately heard the beeps again and suddenly found themselves thirty-five miles closer to home, with no idea how they'd gotten there.

When they reached home they were worried about what had happened. Betty thought maybe they'd had some sort of encounter with a flying saucer and put their luggage on the back porch for a few days, in case there was radiation. They both took lengthy showers, then tried to piece together their memories, but they could only remember flashes, like the moon sitting on the road, and Betty though Barney had turned off the road at some point. They drew images of what they thought they had seen and their pictured were strikingly similar. Their sense of unease continued.

Betty called Pease Air Force Base to report what they had seen and was told by Major Paul W. Henderson that the object had appeared on radar as well. Their account would officially be added to Project Blue Book, but, as usual, was later written off as the couple seeing Jupiter.

A short time later, Betty began to have nightmares. The dreams were extremely vivid and continued for 5 continuous nights and then stopped abruptly and she never had them again. She wrote down the details of her dreams, which included:

• Men surrounding their car - they were about 5 foot tall, wore matching uniforms, looked mostly human except for bald heads large, wraparound eyes, small ears, almost non-existent noses and gray skin
• Being marched through the forest and walking up a ramp to a disc shaped craft and then being separated from Barney
• Two of the men examined her, and while both spoke English, she felt one didn't have a good command of the language and she had troubles understanding him
• They took skin, fingernail and hair samples
• When done, Betty had a conversation with one of the men, who gave her a book with strange symbols and said she could take it with her. She asked where he was from and he pulled down a map covered with stars.
• They were escorted out of the craft and a disagreement broke out and one of the men took the book back from Betty and told her that she wouldn't remember anything that happened.
• Betty and Barney watched the craft leave, then continued their drive.

Later, the couple would sit down and map their drive and realize that somewhere on their trip they had lost two hours.

Barney would continue to especially feel much unease and would finally see a therapist. A friend of theirs suggested they try regressive hypnotherapy and Barney's therapist was able to get them in touch with someone.

In Barney's sessions he would recall feeling compelled to drive off the road, where six men were waiting in the forest for them. His recall of the non-human figures were filled with fear and he said he kept his eyes closed during the encounter and examinations which were very similar to what Betty had written down when recalling her dreams.




Go to the 2 minute mark of this video to hear some of their regression therapy sessions.



In Betty's sessions, her memories would match very closely with the dreams she had had, but where they differed included their capture and release, the appearance of the men who had taken them and some of the technology of the craft. Though Some of Betty's regression therapies contradicted her dreams, both Barney and Betty's regression therapies were consistent with each other.

After the sessions the Hills were no longer plagued by anxiety over what had happened to them, and Barney finally agreed with Betty that he had felt they'd been abducted.

So, there you have it, the Hill Abduction case. Thoughts or theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Dybbuk Box

A dybbuk box is a wine cabinet that's purportedly haunted by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit from Jewish folklore, capable of haunting and possessing a person.

A particular dybbuk box became famous (there's a book written about it, and it inspired the 2012 movie The Possession) when it was listed on ebay with a frightening backstory.

In September 2001 an antique buyer hit up a Portland auction, where the belongings of a 103 year old woman were being sold. The woman's granddaughter told the antique dealer that her grandmother had been Jewish and the only member of her family who had survived a concentration camp. When she emigrated to the US she only brought three things with her, one of which was her wine cabinet.

The granddaughter told the dealer that her grandmother always kept the box hidden and said that it should never be opened because it contained a dybbuk. She requested that the box be buried with her, but that went against Jewish tradition, so her family didn't comply.

The antique dealer bought the cabinet. Inside he found some old pennies, a lock of hair, a goblet and a candleholder.

He placed it in his workshop in the basement. Almost immediately strange things started to happen, including lights flickers, light bulbs shattering, strange smells (like cat urine) coming from nowhere, and terrible sounds emerging from the basement.

Because the dealer was either dumb as fuck, or smart(?) he gave the box to his mother, who shortly after had a stroke. At the hospital she spelled out a message: H-A-T-E-G-I-F-T.
He tried to gift it a few more times, but it was always returned to him because the recipients either didn't like it, or felt it was ominous.

The dealer began to sleep poorly and have nightmares. He would also catch glimpses of shadow people darting around. Once, when he was doing research about the box online, he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke, he felt breathing on the back of his neck. He turned and saw a large shadow flying away from him down the hall.

That's when he decided to list the cabinet on ebay.

It migrated to different owners before Jason Haxton, author of the book about the box and curator of a medical museum in Missouri, purchased the box. He resealed the box and stored it at a secret location, which he will not reveal.

So there you go! I haven't seen the movie, but I remember the previews and it looked pretty good. Thoughts? Theories?

Wednesday Weird: Rudoph Fentz

In April, 1951, a man appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Times Square. He had mutton chop sideburns and was wearing Victorian clothing.

Witnesses said he looked shocked and startled, and then a moment later he was struck and killed by a car.

Morgue officials searched his body and found the following things:

• About 70 dollars in old banknotes
• A bill for the care of a horse and washing of a carriage, drawn by a livery stable on Lexington Ave, which was not listed in any address book
• A copper token for a beer worth 5 cents. It had the name of a saloon which was unknown, even to elderly residents of the area
• Business cards with the name Rudolph Fentz and an address on Fifth Ave.
• A letter sent to this address in June, 1876 from Philadelphia

All of the objects showed limited wear and age.

Captain Hubert Rihm of the NYPD missing person's unit, tried to use these objects and clues to identify the man. He was able to find the business related to the business cards, but the owner didn't know and had never heard of a Rudolph Fentz. Fentz wasn't listed in the address book, no one had reported him missing and his fingerprints weren't on file.

Continuing his investigation, Rihm finally did locate a Rudolph Fentz Jr in the phone book. Unfortunately Fentz had died 5 years earlier but Rihm was able to get ahold of his widow. He learned that her husband's father had disappeared in 1876 at age 29. He had left the house to go for a walk and never returned.


When it gets twisty. In 2000 a researcher concluded that the tale was a work of fiction, though he couldn't find the original source.

In 2002 someone else claimed that the original source of the tale was a Jack Finney story, called I'm Scared published in 1952 in the Heinlein anthology TOMORROW, THE STARS.

Where it gets turny:

In 2007 a researched for the Berlin News Archive supposedly found a newspaper article dated from April 1951 reporting the story almost identically to how it's reported today. The article was printed almost 5 months before Finney's short story was published.

So, what do we think?

Wednesday Weird: The Dighton Rock

Sitting in the riverbed of the Taunton River in Berkley Massachusetts, facing the bay, rested the Dighton Rock.

Discovered nearly 300 years ago the 40-ton boulder is covered in puzzling petroglyphs, primarily made up of lines, geometric shapes, and schematic drawings of people. There is also writing on the rock, some of it verified and some of it not.

And English colonist first described the boulder in a writing:

Among the other Curiosities of New-England, one is that of a mighty Rock, on a perpendicular side whereof by a River, which at High Tide covers part of it, there are very deeply Engraved, no man alive knows How or When about half a score Lines, near Ten Foot Long, and a foot and half broad, filled with strange Characters: which would suggest as odd Thoughts about them that were here before us, as there are odd Shapes in that Elaborate Monument

Even before that another colonist drew a picture of the boulder (the drawing is preserved in a British museum), though is picture was not overly accurate since he couldn't see the whole thing due to the tide.

In 1963, due to dam construction, state officials removed the boulder and kept it for preservation.

No one has been able to solve the mystery of the writing on the rock and theories abound about who could have carved the petroglyphs, the more popular theories being Indigenous peoples of North America, who have historically carved petroglyphs in Vermont, ancient Phoenicians, the Vikings, the Chinese or the Portuguese.

Still, after 300 years, the mystery still remains.

Any theories?

Wednesday Weird: The Green Children of Woolpit

The Green Children of Woolpit were two children who appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, UK, in the 12th century. The brother and sister had green colored skin, even though they appeared normal in all other ways. They spoke an unrecognized language and refused to eat anything other than pitch from bean pods.
Eventually, their skin lost its green color. After they learned English, they explained that they were from the “Land of St Martin,” which was a dark place because the sun never rose far above the horizon. They claimed that they were tending their father’s herd and followed a river of light when they heard the sounds of bells. Then they arrived in Woolpit

Read more at http://www.viralnova.com/unsolved-earth-mysteries/#cLzcUUPDF2XVuUuu.99

The Green Children of Woolpit were two children who appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, UK, in the 12th century. The brother and sister had green colored skin, even though they appeared normal in all other ways. They spoke an unrecognized language and refused to eat anything other than pitch from bean pods.
Eventually, their skin lost its green color. After they learned English, they explained that they were from the “Land of St Martin,” which was a dark place because the sun never rose far above the horizon. They claimed that they were tending their father’s herd and followed a river of light when they heard the sounds of bells. Then they arrived in Woolpit

Read more at http://www.viralnova.com/unsolved-earth-mysteries/#cLzcUUPDF2XVuUuu.99

In the 12th century in Suffolk, England, two children appeared in the village of Woolpit beside one of the wolf pits the village was named after.

They were brother and sister, and though they looked pretty normal, they had green skin, wore strange clothing, and spoke an unknown foreign language.

The people of the village tried to take care of them, but the children refused all food for the first few days until they were finally offered bean pods.

After some time, they learned to eat other foods and when they did, they lost the green color to their skin. The boy was sickly, though, and died shortly after he and his sister were baptized.

After she learned English, the girl, dubbed Agnes, explained that they had come from "St. Martins Land" which was a dark place because the sun never rose far above the horizon and where everything was green. She said that they had ben tending their father's herd when they heard a loud noise, possibly the bells of Bury St Edmunds, and suddenly found themselves standing by the wolf pit.

Sign for Woolpit, created in 1977

The girl would eventually be employed as a servant in Richard de Calne's household where it was reported that she was "vey wanton and impudent". She eventually married and moved away from Woolpit.

So there you go. Kind of a weird little story. Thoughts or theories?

The Green Children of Woolpit were two children who appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, UK, in the 12th century. The brother and sister had green colored skin, even though they appeared normal in all other ways. They spoke an unrecognized language and refused to eat anything other than pitch from bean pods.
Eventually, their skin lost its green color. After they learned English, they explained that they were from the “Land of St Martin,” which was a dark place because the sun never rose far above the horizon. They claimed that they were tending their father’s herd and followed a river of light when they heard the sounds of bells. Then they arrived in Woolpit

Read more at http://www.viralnova.com/unsolved-earth-mysteries/#cLzcUUPDF2XVuUuu.99

Wednesday Weird: The Aluminum Wedge of Aiud

In 1974, a group of workers discovered three buried object 35 feet under the sand of the Mures River, 1.2 miles east of Aiud, Romania. Two of the objects turned out to be mastodon bones, but the third was a wedge-shaped piece of metal.

Made from an alloy of aluminum and encased in a layer of oxide, it resembles the head of a hammer.

Since it was found in the same layer as the mastodon bones, it indicated that the Wedge was probably around 11,000 years old.

The issue is, though, that Aluminum isn't naturally found in nature and wasn't discovered until 1808, and wasn't put into mass-production until 1885.

An aeronautical engineer remarked that it looked surprisingly similar to the landing foot of a flying vehicle, like the lunar module or Viking probe.

Because of this, some people think that the Wedge was part of a flying object (of extraterrestrial origin) that fell into the river.

Thoughts, theories?

In 1974, this is a wedge-shaped object found 1.2 miles east of Aiud, Romania. It was discovered on the banks of the Mures River. It was reportedly unearthed 35 feet under sand and alongside two mastodon bones. It looks like the head of a hammer and is made of an alloy of aluminum encased in a thin layer of oxide. It’s strange because aluminum was not discovered until 1808 and not produced in quantity until 1885. Since it was found in the same layer as mastodon bones, it would indicate that this wedge was at least 11,000 years old.
Many people believe that this wedge is evidence that aliens visited earth, since there is no way that humans created such an alloy so many thousands of years ago

Read more at http://www.viralnova.com/unsolved-earth-mysteries/#xfkIthJU58SIhfpW.99

Wednesday Weird: The Woman From Lemb Statue

Though there are many different objects that have been considered haunted or cursed throughout history, few are said to bring on as much death to its owners as the Women From Lemb idol.

Nicknamed "The Goddess of Death," The Women from Lemb is a statue carved from pure limestone that was discovered in 1878 in Lemb, Cypruss. The item dates back to 3500 B.C., and is believed to represent a goddess, similar to a fertility idol.

The first owner was Lord Elphont. Within a six-year period after becoming the owners, All seven members of the Elphont family died in supposedly mysterious manners (there's no real record for what their deaths entailed).

The next owner was Ivor Manucci., whose entire family died within a four- year period. Then Lord Thompson-Noel obtained the idol, and also lost his family in a four-year period.

After this time the statue fell into obscurity for several years, but mysteriously was found in a cellar cabinet from where it had ‘disappeared’ from before.
        
Sir Alan Biverbrook was next to purchase the statue. Shortly after, his wife and two daughters died from a strange illness, followed by Sir Alan Biverbrook a short time later. Sir Biverbrook had two remaining sons and though they weren't big believers in the occult, they were scared enough by the sudden and strange deaths of four of their family members that they decided to donate the statue to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, where it remains today.
Though the curator claimed not to put stock into the idea of curses or haunted objects, the chief curator where the statue was placed took ill and died within the year. No one has handled the statue since and the item is safely under glass and protected from human hands

Some people theorize that the statue contains a poison or a disease-based fungus or virus on or within the limestone, which I think is always a possibility. But who really wants to test it, amiright?

Thoughts? Theories?