"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



This account of diabolical doings down on the farm appeared in the “Great Bend Tribune,” September 28, 1908:

Groton, Conn. This town is excited indeed over the amazing happenings at the fine old farm of William Hempstead, a mile east of New London.

Visitors have been going out in automobiles and carriages to study the mystery. Small articles, such as beans, spools of thread, knives, marbles, etc., have been moving about the house in broad daylight. Although the house is next to the old Knowles family cemetery, the phenomena do not seem to be of the ghost or spook variety. The manifestations never take place at night. The house was built in the long ago and is two stories high, roomy, in good condition and happily situated.

The family consists of Mr. Hempstead, a refined and practical old gentleman of 70-odd years. He does not believe in spooks. His wife has no superstitions. They have been married 30 years, and have lived in the old manse since their wedding.

Having no children they adopted 13 years ago the young son of Mrs. Hempstead's sister, Frankie Gardner, and gave him their name. The boy has a brother Charles, who is about his own age. There is employed on the farm Gilbert Edwards, a lad of 16, son of a neighbor, and three hired men. 

"When these strange things first began to happen," said Mr. Hempstead the other day, "I said nothing because I didn't want anyone to think that I was deluded. I was in the cornfield one day when a marble such as the boys play with about the house fell at my feet. Looking toward the house I saw that a screen in the second story had been pushed aside and a cloth was being waved from the window. Going into the house I found that no one had been in the room where the cloth was waved. No one had thrown a marble. The hired men were at work and the boys were out.

"I said nothing, but on Friday we discovered beans moving about the house in a most astonishing fashion. They were the same sort of beans as the ones we raised and had been laid ! out on the attic floor to dry. Of course, beans will sometimes dry in the pods, and on a hot day will split open and bounce around, but I never saw any beans that could come down the attic stairs, move around the room, cut square corners and fall on the floor. There was a bean in the northeast room that came out of the north wall, sailed across the room, cut around the sewing machine and after making several corners fell on the floor. Naturally we began to get nervous when marbles that the boys had not touched for months began to move about the house.  They would come in at a door, move across the room and stop. We made certain that it was not the work of the boys because these things happened when the boys were out of the house. 

"For example, several old rusty keys that had been lost for years came bounding down the stairs from the attic into the rooms upstairs and were picked up. I made sure no one was in the attic. I have heard some of our visitors account for the thing by electricity.  We have a telephone, and the wire runs half around the house and in at the dining room window. But I have never heard that a telephone wire would do this thing." 


 

One peculiar thing about the phenomena is the queer action of Tige, the watchdog, when anything happens. He capers about the yard, showing no supernatural fear or agitation but every indication of joy. The old house has many rats and squirrels live in the roof, but even they could not do some of the things that have happened.

There are swallows in the chimney, but they never come into the attic. Altogether it is a most remarkable daylight mystery. 

Monday, March 25, 2024

Close Encounters of the Floyd Kind

"Akron Beacon Journal," February 27, 1977, via Newspapers.com



It is, of course, common for police officers to chase down suspicious vehicles.  It’s just not every day that the vehicle is a UFO named Floyd.

Our little road trip through The Weird began around 5 a.m. on April 17, 1966, on Route 224 in Portage County, Ohio.  Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur and mounted deputy Wilbur “Barney” Neff were approaching an abandoned car they had noticed on the side of the road.  It was full of radios and walkie-talkies.  More ominously, on the side of the car was a triangle surrounding a lightning bolt and the words, “Seven Steps to Hell.”

It seemed like the sort of thing that warranted a cautious investigation.

However, the car was soon forgotten when the officers were confronted with something even stranger: a large, brightly illuminated silver flying object emerged from the woods behind them, rising to a level of about one hundred feet.  It was about forty feet wide and eighteen feet tall, and gave off a loud hum.  As the UFO began moving east, Spaur told his dispatcher what they were seeing, and was instructed to start a pursuit.

At first, the men had no trouble following the object, although they had to get up to 100 miles an hour to keep it in close range.  As they drove, they kept the dispatcher informed of their progress.  As they approached East Palestine, Ohio, another officer named H. Wayne Huston happened to listen in on their commentary, and decided to join the fun.  He stopped at an intersection he knew the men would have to pass.  Soon afterward, he saw the UFO glide past him, followed by Spaur and Neff.  Huston started up his car and joined the High Strangeness parade.

The chase finally ended in Conway, Pennsylvania, when Spaur began running out of gas.  He pulled over to ask a local policeman for help.  As the officer was on his radio seeking advice on how to handle a high-speed UFO chase, Huston pulled up with them.  All this while, the flying object hovered nearby, as if it was waiting for its new friends to resume the game.  After a few minutes, the officers heard on their radios that Air Force jets were being sent over to investigate the craft.  Whoever or whatever was piloting the object was evidently listening in, as the news caused it to immediately shoot straight up and disappear.

There was an official investigation of the incident, with the authorities concluding that the men had simply misidentified Venus as the “UFO.”  Or perhaps it was a satellite.  In any case, it was all a bit fat nothingburger.  Case closed.  Move on and shut up.

A word of advice from Aunt Undine:  If you should ever encounter a UFO, it might be wisest to keep that interesting fact to yourself.  The publicity--and public ridicule--that followed news reports of this early-morning chase played hell on the lives of all the men involved.  The Pennsylvania cop Spaur had talked to had to remove his phone line.  Huston changed his name to “Harold W. Huston,” left the police force, and fled to Seattle to become a bus driver.  Neff simply clammed up.  His wife Jackelyne told a reporter, “He never talks about it anymore.  Once he told me, ‘If that thing landed in my back yard, I wouldn’t tell a soul.’  He’s been through a wringer.”  Spaur, who had spoken the most to the press, fared worst of all.  The nonstop harassment from reporters, UFO researchers, and cranks drove him to something approaching a nervous breakdown.  Everywhere he went--even church--he was identified as the local flying saucer-chaser.  Each night, he would have nightmares about chasing the craft.  By the time six months had passed, he had quit his job, his wife divorced him, and for a time he was a homeless drifter, existing on odd jobs.  He once said, “After I saw the damn thing, my entire life came crashing down around my shoulders.”  (Thankfully, Spaur eventually remarried, found new work, and got his life back on track.)

There was a sequel to this ill-starred Close Encounter.  It took place one day in June 1966, shortly before Spaur left the police force.  His department--fearing any more press attention--agreed that if any of them should see the UFO again, they would use the code word “Floyd.”  (Spaur’s middle name.)  As Spaur was driving down I-80 just outside of Cleveland, he saw the silver flying saucer hovering over him.  Spaur muttered into his radio, “Floyd’s here with me.”  He then pulled off the road, lit a cigarette, and brooded for about fifteen minutes.  When he nervously looked out his window again, the craft was gone.

At this point, you’re probably also wondering about the strange “Seven Steps to Hell” car that kicked off this whole Fortean mess.  So is everyone else.  When police went back to where the car had been abandoned, it too had vanished, never to be seen again.

Friday, March 22, 2024

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to the first Link Dump of Spring 2024!

The Strange Company staffers have already begun the spring cleaning around Headquarters.



From Richard III to ancient Roman statues: People find the damnedest things in UK parking lots.

Yet another deadly drunken rage.

How a ghost inspired modern chiropractic medicine.

Karl von Drais and his "running machine."

10 lost places.

Don't kiss the bride!

The cats of Turkey.

The father of modern rocketry had some odd ideas about clouds.

HMS Flora, 1780.

The mythology of eggs.

The legend of the Kap Dwa giant.

Stone Age boats.

A genealogical mystery: the life of a black man in early 19th century Iceland.

Henry VIII's pastry tent.

Uncovering mass graves of 13th century Crusaders.

The art of Renaissance clothing.

Amelia Earhart vs. the Queen of Diamonds.

Expressive medieval women.

Swooning medieval knights.

Edgar Allan Poe, time-traveler.

The controversy over the "world's oldest pyramid."

The artists of the East India Company.

Where Easter is all about the hare pie and bottle kicking.

The life of Mary Wollstonecraft.

Painting a dead Emperor.

8,600 year-old bread.

The evolution of pie.

Dogs have been our best friends for a long, long time.

Saving a woman from drowning, 1898.

St. Patrick's portal to purgatory.

A collection of newsworthy dogs.

Arguably the most famous time-slip story.

A famous 1809 duel.

The eclipses of doom.

Why we can't find the source of the Nile.

The face on the barroom floor.

Lester the police horse.

Recreating Otzi the Iceman's tattoos.

Nikola Tesla's mystery signal.

The slang of Smithfield.

Bronze Age "cozy domesticity."

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a remarkable UFO encounter.  In the meantime, here's some Celtic Thunder.


Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



It’s not every day that your husband’s ghost drops by to warn you that you’re going to Hell.  The “Kentucky Advocate,” July 17, 1874:

Mrs. Eliza Green, aged about 30 years, now living in this place (Springfield, Ky.), a lady of irreproachable character and of decided nerve and courage, having a fair English education, and in possession of tolerable good health, details the following curious incidents as having occurred with her and at her residence since the death of her husband last spring: 

On the 18th of March, 1874, Mr. Green died after a protracted illness, leaving Mrs. Green with a family of six young children with little or no means of support. A short time after Mr. Green's death, say about three months, Mrs. Green heard singular noises about her house after night and sometimes in the day time, heavy breathings and moans resembling a person in the agonies of death, at one time she heard a noise under the house like a horse rolling about and pawing violently as though in the agonies of death. Again she saw frequently in her room at night after the lamp was lighted, a shadowy figure resembling the head and shoulders of a medium-sized man moving around the wall next the ceiling and uniformly as the shadow reached the lamp the flame was extinguished, and this phenomenon happened as often as four or five times in a night. At one time when she and her family with some visitors were sitting quietly in the room, the front door without any visible cause, was seen to fly violently open and shut again as violently, and so violently as to jar boxes of flowers placed In the window out of it.

At other times when the lights were burning, footsteps were heard by her in the room as though a grown person in slippers were walking over the floor, and yet no object could be seen. At one time she thought she heard some person noisily approaching the front door as about to enter. Upon opening the door, however, no one could be seen. Again near the steps of the back door she thought she saw, after dark, a small, white dog resembling one she knew in the neighborhood; that she approached it with the view of taking it up and carrying it in the house, but it eluded her grasp and mysteriously passed away.

At another time the back door of her room seemed half filled with a white, gauzy cloud not resembling anything, only a white figure, which alarmed her, and she ran out of the house; the apparition disappeared. Other persons, friends and relatives, have been present on some of these occasions, and corroborate Mrs. Green's statements. 

The most mysterious and crowning development related by her is said to have occurred on the 30th ult., about 11 o'clock A.M.  She was in the cellar of the house getting kindling wood, and, in stooping down, thought she saw the lower limbs and feet of Mr. Green standing by her, and immediately felt the pressure of a cold band upon her shoulder. She turned and looked, and reports that her husband stood before her just as he appeared when she last saw him in his burial clothes, When she exclaimed: "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed me, Dick, what do you want?" and that he spoke audibly to her in his natural tone of voice and language, telling her that the sufferings of this life were in no way to be compared to those of the other world, and that he was permitted to come back to her to advise her of her neglect of duty, and to urge her to act otherwise. He also sent by her messages to his brother Charles Green, Mrs. Rachel Walker, and to Miss Edgerton, all living here. He further requested her to have three masses said for the repose of his soul; one on the first Saturday in this month, and the others on the two following Saturdays. He further informed her that he would not visibly appear to her again, but could have appeared twice more had he desired to do so, but not to her but to other persons named by him his kindred. Then repeating the word "friend" three times he vanished from sight. Mrs. Green says she has heard loud knocking on the floors and heard groanings, as of a person in extreme distress, since, but has seen nothing more.

Monday, March 18, 2024

The Ghostly Strangler




Encountering a ghost may be a strange, possibly terrifying experience, but fortunately they are rarely harmful.  However, every now and then there is an account of a spirit that is not just malevolent, but physically dangerous.  One such story was told by folklorist Mary L. Lewes in the December 1912 issue of “Occult Review.”  It concerns a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Caxton.  At the time of Lewes writing her story, the Caxtons had recently moved to Wales after spending some years farming in South Africa.  As Lewes showed, they had very good reasons to emigrate.

The Caxtons’ South African farm had previously been owned by a man with an evil reputation--so evil, that he finally met his end when one of his many enemies poisoned him.  Thereafter, the farm was considered to be cursed: livestock died unnatural deaths, crops would not grow, and so many other unlucky things happened that most people refused to go near the place.

The Caxtons, however, were strong-willed, fearless, and determined to make a go of the farm. When they would periodically hear a horse galloping to the house, followed by the sound of someone jumping off the animal and banging on the door, only to find no one there when they looked outside, the couple shrugged it off as just part of life’s little oddities.

On one occasion, the Caxtons gave shelter to a passing traveler.  As it was a small house, the man had to sleep in the parlor.  The next morning, the terrified stranger announced that “someone” had tried to strangle him while he slept.

Even this news failed to dissuade the Caxtons.  In the end, it was not ghosts that finally convinced the couple to give up the farm, but their simple inability to make a decent living from the place.  While they were moving out, Mr. Caxton spent one night on a mattress he placed on the parlor floor.  Suddenly, he was awakened from sleep by something that jumped on him and began clawing at his throat.  After a long and violent struggle, Caxton managed to roll against the wall.  As soon as he did so, his invisible attacker disappeared.  When dawn finally came, Caxton found that his throat and chest were covered with large red finger-marks that lingered for days afterward.  The shock was enough to give this normally stoic farmer a nervous collapse.

The friend who sent Lewes the story commented, “My theory about this is that the previous owner, being a very wicked man, was earth-bound and having been hurried prematurely out of life was extra strong, and was simply trying to get hold of a new body…That room was most likely the one he died in, and as he was strongest there, a sleeping person would of course be the very thing for him.”  Neither Lewes nor her informant could explain why Caxton touching the parlor wall caused the evil force to vanish.

All I can add to this eerie little tale is that when people tell you a certain place is cursed, it’s usually wisest to take them at their word.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to our pre-St. Patrick's Day Link Dump!



What the hell were the Phoenix Lights?

An iconic tree is getting a second chance at life.

It's oddly depressing to realize that the ocean's depths are filled with cans of Spam.

The great monkey chase at Bishop Auckland.

A brief history of the lunchbox.

Elizabeth I's Swedish lady of the privy chamber.

Why you would not want to be a Mesopotamian stand-in king.

Merchantman vs. a French privateer.

In which we meet some Cockney Cats.

The time the Nazis tried to bomb a Pennsylvania Railroad.

The darker side of London's Zoological Gardens.

The explosion of the Natchez Drug Company.

The excavation of a Neolithic site.

The manhunt for John Wilkes Booth.

A poltergeist in Zimbabwe.

The notorious "Chicago May."

Why we call them "cottage industries."

UK's giant redwoods.

Mysterious Ice Age "queens."

A 3,300-year-old description of a catastrophic invasion.

Hearing the cry of the banshee.

The beginnings of the Guinness World Records.

Predicting eclipses in ancient China.

The man who spent nearly his whole life inside an iron lung.

Shropshire death folklore.

The enslaved boy who revolutionized the vanilla industry.

A murder-for-hire case featuring death spells.

The only woman to be executed in Minnesota.

The "Bold Defiance" of 18th century journeymen weavers.

A Russian princess in the Age of Enlightenment.

Applications for Trinity House pensions.

The mystery of the Yuba City Five.

The mystery of a Vietnam "lost pilot."

The mystery of the Byward Tower Hand.

In search of the site of a 19th century murder.

The life of Margaret of Austria.

How witches came to be associated with broomsticks.

The life of Henry IV's sister, Elizabeth.

Rethinking George Washington's 1754 defeat.

The kayaker and the "mystery creature."

Sudden deaths and foul suspicions.

A curious herbal.

That wraps it up for another week!  See you on Monday, when we'll meet a particularly dangerous ghost.  In the meantime, here's Patsy Cline.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



This account of a UFO (or, if you prefer, “something weird that came down from the sky”) appeared in the Fort Myers “News-Press,” July 28, 1984:

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) A spark-tailed fireball splashed down Friday off Lummi Island, sending a plume of water 100 feet high before it sank and bubbled, a fishing boat crew reported. The Coast Guard investigated but found no debris. Checks with other authorities revealed no missing planes or space junk crashing in the area and the object remained an "unknown flying object," said Petty Officer Gene Hoff in Seattle.

"It depends on what you care to believe. I have personally never seen a UFO, but anything is possible, I guess," he said. 

The Coast Guard has no plans to investigate further. The object apparently sank in water 270 feet deep in an area of intense currents in Rosario Strait and it would be "difficult to do a survey down there," said Rich Rogala, the officer in charge of the Coast Guard station at Bellingham, which sent a boat to the scene. "A white and orange fireball trailing sparks was observed by the fishing vessel 'Steeva Ten.' It was traveling west to east and dived into the water," he said.

"The observation was very brief. The impact sent a plume of water about 100 feet in height." The incident was reported at 3:45 a.m. Friday about 1,000 yards south of Lummi Island, about eight miles south of Bellingham In the inland waters of north west Washington. The splashdown was reported to the Coast Guard by the "Steeva Ten," a 42-foot fishing vessel tender. A flash in the sky was noticed at the same time by a tugboat at Anacortes about five miles to the south, Rogala said.

He speculated it could have been a meteorite. But there are a couple of other mysteries in the Coast Guard report. "The crew of the fishing vessel said the object dropped straight down and just before it hit the water it did a 'U' and came back up, then went down," Hoff said. 

And a crewman aboard the Coast Guard vessel that found no debris noticed an "object, white in color, in the sky at the south end of Lummi Island," Rogala said. The crewman saw the object while his vessel was searching for debris from the earlier "flash." 

The Coast Guard vessel searched the area for more than an hour with the master of the fishing vessel, Richard Dale Hartman of Port Orchard, and found no debris, Rogala said. The Coast Guard checked with the nearby Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and nothing unusual had been sighted on radar there, Hoff said.