LIKE FLYING...

In the year 1993 there was a contestant on the now defunct Nickelodeon show "GUTS" that gave what, at the time, seemed to be a peculiar interview. When asked about the events he had just participated in, his eyes glazed over and he had trouble speaking. He remarked that he felt as though he was flying and his face seemed both euphoric and strangely empty.

Neighbors of the boy would later go on record stating he acted differently after returning home that day, becoming emotionally distant and unable to focus on anything but his experience on the show.

Three months later, the police were called to investigate a noise complaint in a residential neighborhood just outside of San Fransisco. It was there they found the mutilated bodies of the boy’s mother, father, and baby sister strewn out on the front lawn. Police reports determined that the family members were likely pushed from the roof of their home, and then bludgeoned to death with a large object.

When police searched the house they found a poorly written note tucked underneath a rock shaped trophy stained with the victims’ blood. The note said simply, “I’m sorry. I just wanted them to feel what I felt.” The boy’s body was found unconscious face down on the floor of his parent’s bedroom and later declared dead en route to the hospital of presumably self inflicted trauma. 

The official report lists the case as a murder suicide and as a precautionary measure (and perhaps to dissuade the surviving family from filing suit against the company) the minimum age limit for contestants on "GUTS" was raised from 11 to 13. In addition the contestants were no longer given a “piece of the krag” after winning the competition, but rather a piece of paper certifying that they had in fact won. The boy’s episode did not air for sometime after, but recent reports have surfaced of its reintroduction into syndication.

TRAIL CAM

A photograph was recently sent in to a Baton Rouge, Louisiana news station and has many people talking since it first appeared last week. The photo was allegedly taken by a trail cam and is, in a word, disturbing. And if you think the photo itself is creepy, wait until you hear about the circumstances behind its discovery. 

When NBC Affiliate NBC33 asked its viewers to send in their photographs, they were expecting to get a few strange holiday pictures, but nothing like the incredibly bizarre trailcam photograph they received depicting a horrific monster stalking the night in an undisclosed location and sent in by an anonymous viewer. The viewer included a note detailing the circumstances behind the image's discovery alongside the picture. According to the sender, the picture was taken by a trailcam originally set up to take photos of wild game on the premises. But then when they discovered the trail cam ripped to pieces, all they could recover from it was the device's SD card. When they examined the photos taken the previous night in an attempt to discover what could have possibly destroyed the camera, they expected to see images of teenagers or hunters poaching their land. What they discovered, was that the final image taken by the camera before it was destroyed was this strange image.

A VISIT TO HELL

Clifford Hoyt, age 31, suffered serious injuries in an automobile accident in 1999. After he regained consciousness, he told a terrified nurse that he had died and visited Hell.

He expounded on the tortures and anguish he experienced in frightening detail. He refused psychological treatment and was released.

Several weeks later, Hoyt’s neighbors complained to their landlord that strange music was playing in his apartment at all hours of the night. Upon investigating, the building’s owner found Clifford in this condition.

Mr. Hoyt was still quite lucid and protested when the landlord attempted to call the police. Concerned for the damage done to his property, he took photographs of the apartment; the image below is an example.

He left and contacted Mr. Hoyt’s family, who contacted authorities.

Clifford claimed that demons from Hell were still trying to capture him. He explained that his body would burn incessantly unless he played music to scare the demons away. He would only leave the house for short periods of time to get minimal supplies, including large blocks of ice to soothe the burning he felt as he tried to sleep.

Doctors attribute Clifford’s actions to brain damage suffered in the accident. He currently resides in a mental rehabilitation facility in Maryland.

MISSING

These images record the last remaining sighting of 11-year-old Maisle Deacon. They were taken by her sister, Isabelle, on the morning of October 23rd. According to Isabelle, Maisle had been talking to an unseen person in the afternoon. When Isabelle, an amateur photographer, went outside to investigate, Maisle began to struggle as if somebody was holding her against her will. Amused by Maisle's seemingly innocuous antics, Isabelle photographed her sister, only to be knocked unconscious by what she described as a blunt gust. Isabelle was found against a tree, cradling the very same skull depicted in the photographs. Later dental record analysis confirmed that the skull belonged to none other than Maisle Deacon herself. The cloaked figure has never been identified.

SUICIDEMOUSE.AVI

Do any of you remember those Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1930s? The ones that were just put out on DVD a few years ago? Well, I hear there is one that was unreleased to even the most avid classic Disney fans. According to sources, it's nothing special. It's just a continuous loop (like "The Flinstones") of Mickey walking past 6 buildings that goes on for two or three minutes before fading out. Unlike the cutesy tunes put in, though, the song on this cartoon was not a song at all, just a constant banging on piano keys for a minute and a half before going to white noise for the remainder of the film. It wasn't the jolly old Mickey we've come to love, either - Mickey wasn't dancing, not even smiling, just kind of walking, as if you or I were walking, with a normal facial expression, but for some reason his head tilted side to side as he kept this dismal look. Up until a year or two ago, everyone believed that, after it cut to black, that was it. When Leonard Maltin was reviewing the cartoon to be put in the complete series, he decided it was too junky to be on the DVD, but wanted to have a digital copy due to the fact that it was a creation of Walt. When he had a digitized version up on his computer to look at the file, he noticed something: The cartoon was actually 9 minutes and 4 seconds long. This is what my source emailed to me, in full. (He is a personal assistant to one of the higher executives at Disney, and an acquaintance of Mr. Maltin himself):

After it cut to black, it stayed like that until the 6th minute, before going back into Mickey walking. The sound was different this time. It was a murmur. It wasn't a language, but more like a gurgled cry. As the noise got more indistinguishable and loud over the next minute, the picture began to get weird. The sidewalk started to go in directions that seemed impossible based on the physics of Mickey's walking. And the dismal face of the mouse was slowly curling into a smirk. On the 7th minute, the murmur turned into a bloodcurdling scream (the kind of scream painful to hear) and the picture was getting more obscure. Colors were happening that shouldn't have been possible at the time. Mickey's face began to fall apart. His eyes rolled on the bottom of his chin like two marbles in a fishbowl, and his curled smile was pointing upward on the left side of his face. The buildings became rubble floating in midair and the sidewalk was still impossibly navigating in warped directions. Mr. Maltin got disturbed and left the room, sending an employee to finish the video and take notes of everything happening up until the last second, and afterward, immediately stored the disc of the cartoon into the vault. This distorted screaming lasted until 8 minutes and a few seconds in, and then it abruptly cuts to the Mickey Mouse face at the credits of the end of every video with what sounded like a broken music box playing in the background. This happened for about 30 seconds, and whatever was in that remaining 30 seconds I haven't been able to get a sliver of information. From a security guard working under me who was making rounds outside of that room, I was told that after the last frame, the employee stumbled out of the room with pale skin saying, "Real suffering is not known," 7 times before speedily taking the guard's pistol and offing himself on the spot. The only thing I could get out of Leonard Maltin was that the last frame was a piece of Russian text that roughly said, "The sights of hell bring its viewers back in." As far as I know, no one else has seen it, but there have been dozens of attempts at getting the file on Rapidshare by employees inside the studios, all of whom have been promptly terminated of their jobs. Whether it got online or not is up for debate, but if rumors serve me right, it's online somewhere under "suicidemouse.avi." If you ever find a copy of the film, I want you to never view it, and to contact me by phone immediately, regardless of the time. When a Disney death is covered up as well as this, it means this has to be something huge. 

HELL'S BRIDGE

In the mid 1800s, when towns began to emerge in a wooded area of Michigan, children went missing. It left the improvised towns in shambles; all work and expansion stopped. The townsfolk turned to their church to find comfort and answers. In attendance was the enigmatic Elias Friske. He seemed to be a kind, older man with a fondness for children. He asked to preach that day.

Elias preached of hellfire and brimstone, and of demons that surrounded the town. He demanded the congregation's prayers, or else the demons would return and take more children into the dark abyss. With renewed purpose after hearing Elias preach, the town organized a search party to find the children, and to hunt the dark souls that took them. The townsfolk believed that Elias was too old and frail to join the search. They asked him to watch the town's remaining children. Elias agreed and told the search party he would take the children on a picnic, near the Rogue River. Elias explained that if the search party came back with bodies in tow, the children would be spared the horror.

Elias tied rope around each child's waist, creating a human chain that Elias led. “We don't want to loose any more,” Elias jokingly said. The children waved their tiny hands as they watched their parents head off in the opposite direction. Elias began their march into the woods.

The walk to the river was long, and the children soon tired. They asked Elias to take a break, but Elias harshly tugged on the rope leading them further into the woods. The children became frightened and begged Elias to stop, but he continued to drag them along. Soon, the children noticed a strange and horrible odor. Elias deeply inhaled the stench.

Elias pushed the children up against a tree and tethered them to it with the rope. He shambled over to a pile of leaves and uncovered the source of the smell. It was the missing children, skinned and beginning to rot. The children began to scream and cry, but the search party was miles away, far out of hearing distance.

One by one, Elias destroyed their young lives, forcing the living to watch each cut, to hear each bone break. After Elias finished his murdering rampage, he awoke from his bloodlust and realized the impact of what he had done. He could not return to town. He had to escape.

Elias threw the bodies of the children into the Rogue River and he fled further into the woods.

It was dark when the townspeople returned to town. Elias and the children had not returned. It took only moments for the townspeople to realize the ruse devised by Elias Friske. Fearing what darkness may be unleashed onto the children, the search party rushed into the woods where Elias had marched.

They arrived at the recently built bridge to cross the unpredictable Rogue River. There, gathered underneath the bridge in the icy waters, were the mutilated bodies of their children. Among the screams and wails, one young man noticed a pair of muddy footprints leading further into the woods. He sprinted in their direction and he eventually found Elias Friske, stained with blood.

The young man dragged Elias back to the bridge. Elias screamed about how demons had taken control of him and that he deserved pity. The magistrate simply responded, "Hang that son of a bitch."

The rope with which Elias had bound the children was recovered and tied around his neck. The townspeople, without ceremony, hung him off of the bridge. After Elias' body stopped twitching, it's said that the waters underneath him swelled, and snapped the rope from which Elias hung. His body was swept away down-river never to be recovered.

Today, the Rogue River is a popular place for young people to spend a leisurely afternoon riding an inner tube down its waters. Often they are frightened out of the river by what they have described as hands grabbing their feet from underneath the water. The hands seem to tug, attempting to pull the victim beneath. Expecting to see a pranking friend emerge from the waters, they soon realize that they are alone. Many have made their way back to the mouth of the river in tears after experiencing this frightening event.

The bridge from which Elias was hung is now known as “Hell's Bridge.” People have reported hearing the sound of children, at times laughing, at other times screaming. Disembodied footsteps are often heard in the area of the bridge. Many people have said that they have felt like they were followed through the woods.

Most activity seems to happen around midnight – around the time that Elias would have been hung. Hell's Bridge has acquired its name because many people have reported the sounds of demonic laughter erupting from all directions around this hour. The laughing is often accompanied by a dark apparition standing on the bridge, its eyes glowing red.

GRYLA

In Icelandic mythology Grýla is a terrible mountain-dwelling monster and giantess who ventures down from her lair at Christmas time in search of naughty children to cook in a stew and eat, with the vain hope of remedying her insatiable appetite.

According to the legend Grýla has been married three times and her current husband, Leppalúði, lives with her and her their sons, the Yule Lads - mischievous and criminal Santa-type figures who also torment the Icelandic people by harassing sheep, stealing food, and window-peeping - in their cave in the Dimmuborgir lava fields, along with the black Yule Cat.

The legend dates back to the 13th century, though it didn’t become associated with Christmas until the 17th. In 1746 a decree was issued banning the use of Grýla and the Yule Lads to scare children.

Stolen with love from The Oddment Emporium.

WHOOPS

One evening, a mother and father were invited to a party. They couldn’t get in contact with their usual babysitter, so they decided to ask their next door neighbor, an old lady, to take care of their six-month old baby son. The old woman said she would be delighted to help them out.

They told her they needed to leave by 8pm, but when the time came, the old woman had still not shown up. The husband gave her a phone call and asked her what was taking her so long.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the old woman. “I forgot all about it. I’ll come over right now.”

When the old woman came to the door, the mother and father were already making their way to the car. They gave the old woman instructions to put the baby to bed at 9pm and put a chicken in the oven so it would be cooked for the next day’s dinner.

While the couple were at the party, the mother decided to phone home and check on the babysitter. When the old woman answered the phone, the mother asked if she had put the baby to bed yet.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the old woman. “I forgot all about it. I’ll do it right now.”

“And have you put the chicken in the oven?” asked the mother.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the old woman again. “I forgot all about that, too. I’ll do it right now.”

The mother just rolled her eyes and hung up the phone. She couldn’t really complain because the old lady was babysitting for free.

After the party, the mother and father drove home and when they opened the front door, the old lady was there to greet them. They thanked the old lady for taking care of their baby and she went home. The mother decided to go upstairs to check on the baby, but when she walked into the child’s bedroom, she was shocked to see an uncooked chicken lying in the crib.

Downstairs, the husband smelled smoke coming from the kitchen. He opened the oven and shouted upstairs to his wife “You won’t believe this, Honey! That forgetful old lady has gone and burned our chicken dinner!”

Image source.

A CLEVER IDEA

Martin Sheets was a wealthy businessman who lived in Terra Haute, Indiana in the early 1900's. One of his greatest fears was that of a premature burial. He often dreamed of being awake, but unable to move, at the moment the doctor pronounced him dead and then regaining consciousness while trapped in a coffin below the ground. Sheets decided to fight his fears by investing some of his resources in the prevention of his being buried alive.

First of all, he had a casket custom-designed with latches fitted on the inside. In this way, should he be placed inside prematurely, he would be able to open the coffin and escape. He also began construction on a mausoleum so that when he died, or was thought to have died, he would not be imprisoned under six feet of dirt. The mausoleum was well built and attractive but Sheets realized that even if he did manage to escape from his casket, he would still be trapped inside of a stone prison.

He came up with another clever idea. He installed a telephone inside of the tomb with a direct line to the main office of the cemetery. In this way, he could summon help by simply lifting the receiver. The line was fitted with an automatic indicator light so that even if no words were spoken, the light would come on in the office and help would soon be on the way.

Death came for Martin Sheets in 1910 and he was entombed in the mausoleum. I would imagine that for several days afterward, cemetery staff workers kept a close eye on the telephone indicator light in the office. After more time passed though, it was probably forgotten. Years went by and the telephone system in the area changed. Eventually, the direct line to the cemetery office was removed but thanks to very specific instructions in Sheets will, and the money to pay for it, the telephone in the mausoleum remained connected and active.

A number of years later, Sheets widow also passed away. She was discovered one day lying on her bed with the telephone clutched in her hand. In fact, she held the receiver so tightly that it had to be pried from her fingers. It was soon learned that she had experienced a severe stroke and family members assumed that she had been trying to call an ambulance when she finally died. A service was held and after a quiet memorial service, she was taken to the family mausoleum, where she would be interred next to her husband.

When cemetery workers entered the mausoleum, they received the shock of their lives. Nothing there was disturbed, they saw, except for one, very chilling item. Martin Sheets telephone, locked away for all of these years, was hanging from the wall...its receiver inexplicably off the hook.

LAST ONE

In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: Could she deliver a letter to the address on its envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.

She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed, she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She was suspicious, so she went to the police.

When the police paid a visit to the address on the envelope, they made a gruesome discovery: Three butchers had been harvesting human flesh and selling it to the starving people.

In the envelope the man had given to the woman, there was a note, saying simply: 

"This is the last one I am sending you today."

Not real. Or is it??? (It's not.)

LA PASCULITA

In Chihuahua, Mexico, local rumor has it that this mannequin, known as “Pascualita,” is actually an embalmed body. According to legend, a lady named Pascuala Esparza owned a wedding boutique in the city, making dresses for soon-to-be brides. Her own daughter, Pascualita, was engaged to be married, so Pascuala set about to make her a special dress. Everything was planned when, on the day of the wedding, tragedy struck. Supposedly, Pascualita was bitten by a poisonous insect and later died. Distressed by the death of her daughter, Pascuala set out to immortalize her. She embalmed the body, dressed it in her wedding gown, and propped it up in the window of her boutique, for all to see.

Today, Pascualita remains standing in the window of “La Popular” in downtown Chihuahua. Although commonly regarded to as a myth, the details in the mannequin (especially in the hands) keep onlookers wondering.

 

SEWER

The video was uploaded to video sharing sites and then spread, not attracting much attention from more than local media - possibly due to the day it was submitted on and fears of having the hoaxer came forward.  But it seems the video did convince quite a few who saw it.  Among the voices of those who were demonstrably disturbed by the eerie sighting were maintenance workers who said they had never seen anything like it their whole careers, and others who said they would soon be having trouble sleeping at night after seeing the video.

The video shows a cable being pushed through a pipeline in a sewer and then in two other locations.  The first shows a long tunnel illuminated at the end by the camera's built in lamp.  As the camera starts moving forward, suddenly something shoots past the end of the tunnel and then disappears down the dark corridor.  The second video shows something similar - a blurry shape quickly disappears and goes out of view after being visible for only a few milliseconds.  And then there's the final footage.  In it, a creature with glowing yellow eyes can be seen peeking out from a brick wall at the end of the tunnel.  It looks out, then quickly ducks back out of view before getting curious and stepping out once again.  After a few seconds, the creature comes fully into view and the camera keeps rolling as it stands there with a strange eerie grey color.  Its frame looks completely different from any known creature, only vaguely resembling an ape in some ways.  Quickly it becomes startled and leaps away out of view as the camera then moves to chase it.

A STAMP FOR TEDDY

During the war, a soldier faithfully wrote to his mother every week so she would know he was all right. One week she didn't get a letter and immediately began to worry. Within a couple of weeks she got a letter from the Army saying that her son had been captured and was being held in a Prisoner-of-War camp, and they assured her that they had no reason to believe the American prisoners were being mistreated in any way. 

A few weeks later, the woman finally received another letter from her son. 

It read: 

Dear Mom, 

Try not to worry about me, they are treating us well and I'll be released as soon as the war is over. 

Make sure that little Teddy gets the stamp for his collection. 

Love you,

Joe

The woman was overjoyed to hear the news, but was confused because she had no idea who "little Teddy" was. She decided to steam the stamp from the envelope and have a look. 

When she did, she saw something written on the back of the stamp: 

"They've cut off my legs."

THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG

Throughout the past 100 years, the myths surrounding John 'Babbacombe' Lee's story have taken on a life of their own.

Urban legends, ghostly sightings and tales of supernatural intervention have grown far beyond what anybody in 19th century South Devon could have imagined for the lowly manservant.

Lee, nicknamed The Man They Could Not Hang, came to prominence when he was convicted of murdering his employer, Emma Keyse, and setting fire to her Babbacombe home, called The Glen.

Mike Holgate, of Torquay, an expert on John Lee, said: 

During his trial, the prosecution portrayed Lee as a depraved lunatic capable of smashing an old lady's head with an axe, then slashing her throat with a knife. 

The judge, in passing sentence of death, remarked how calm Lee's demeanor had been throughout the trial. 

Lee is said to have leaned forward in the dock and replied firmly: "The reason why I am so calm is that I trust in the Lord, and He knows I am innocent." 

In the days leading up to the date of execution, Lee read the Bible prodigiously and proclaimed his innocence. 

It is said he told the prison chaplain the real culprit was the lover of his half-sister, Elizabeth Harris, who was cook at The Glen and expecting a child which was later delivered out of wedlock in Newton Abbot Workhouse.

The prison governor's logbook states on the morning of the execution, as Lee approached the gallows trapdoor, he told two prison guards he had dreamt "three times the bolt was drawn, and three times the bolt failed to act."

Lee was a lonely figure on the gallows — but each time an attempt was made to open the trapdoor, it stuck. After each failed attempt the trapdoor was tested and it opened normally, but when Lee stood on it again the door would not open. Three times this happened, each with the same outcome. It is rumoured that throughout the ordeal on the scaffold, a white dove perched on the gallows until the condemned man was led safely back to his prison cell.

The Home Secretary told Parliament he could not expect a man to "twice face the pangs of imminent death." Lee began a 23-year prison sentence in Exeter, and from that day the myths about his life spread across the world. Witchcraft and devilish incantations were often talked of when people tried to reason Lee's escape from death. Friends of Lee claimed they had paid a white witch handsomely to save him from the noose.

Other people told stories of how Lee's mother had visited the church graveyard near her home at Abbotskerswell, recited the Lord's Prayer backwards and summoned the Devil to save her son. Also, an old woman called Granny Lee, from Ogwell, is said to have told locals 'they shall not hang him' as she walked to Exeter on the morning of the execution and cast a spell on the gallows from a spot overlooking the prison.

THE TAPE

During the summer of 1983, in a quiet town near Minneapolis, Minnesota, the charred body of a woman was found inside the kitchen stove of a small farmhouse. A video camera was also found in the kitchen, standing on a tripod and pointing at the oven. No tape was found inside the camera at the time. 

Although the scene was originally labeled as a homicide by police, an unmarked VHS tape was later discovered at the bottom of the farm's well (which had apparently dried up earlier that year). 

Despite its worn condition, and the fact that it contained no audio, police were still able to view the contents of the tape. It depicted a woman recording herself in front of a video camera (seemingly using the same camera the police found in the kitchen). After positioning the camera to include both her and her kitchen stove in the image, the tape then showed her turning on the oven, opening the door, crawling inside, and then closing the door behind her. Eight minutes into the video, the oven could be seen shaking violently, after which point thick black smoke could be seen emanating from it. For the remaining 45 minutes of video, until the batteries in the camera died, it remained in its stationary position. 

To avoid disturbing the local community, police never released any information about the tape, or even the fact that it was found. Police were also not able to determine who put the tape in the well, or why the height and stature of the woman in the video didn't come close to matching the body they'd found in the oven.

Image source.

RUGRASCALS

Remember "Rugrats," that show on Nickelodeon? What you probably don't know is that the creator of the show, Gabor Csupo, originally planned a late night version of "Rugrats" called "Rugrascals," to be played at night, with more adult humor.

Because every major channel thought the pilot was too disturbing, they refused to air the show, and as a result no-one has really heard about it. However, one station in Wellington, New Zealand mistakenly played it in the morning, thinking it was a regular "Rugrats" episode.

The pilot and only episode of the show that was seen was called "Chuckie's Mom." The intro played like normal, but at the end when Tommy shoots the milk at the screen, the sound effect is much louder, and the milk simply stays there for about 10 seconds, then the name of the episode appears. The episode played out like normal, with the babies playing in the playpen. They are all talking about their moms when Chuckie has a flashback.

It had Chuckie in hospital standing next to his mother in bed, who was dying from an unknown illness. She was singing "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine" to Chuckie in a very weak voice, as if she were about to die, but when she sang the second verse the song started playing in reverse. A shot of Chuckie appeared in front of a live action footage of a toad being dissected, said to represent death by fans. Chuckie turns around and screams, and when he looks back at his mother, her face has a live action man's mouth pasted on it saying, "Don't worry, Chuckie, it's time for me to move on," in a man's voice. A flurry of random live action clips were shown, said to represent death, like a cow walking into a box with "slaughterhouse" crudely drawn on the side, and actual footage of a man suffering AIDS being killed. You can hear Chuckie screaming the entire time. A shot of Chuckie's mom appears again, this time with a chickens beak crudely pasted onto her face, saying, "Don't you remember where it all started?"

The episode then cuts to live-action footage of childbirth mammograms. After about one minute of these mammograms, you hear Chuckie's mom say, "Arent you a lucky ducky, Chuckie?" A harlequin fetus appear. At this time, you see Chuckie come out of the flashback, having a seizure. Tommy, Phil, and Lil are crying, and an ambulance worker calms him down, saying, "Chuckie? Chuckie? Can you hear me?" in a stern voice. Eventually after coughing up blood and vomiting, Chuckie comes to his senses. We then see a point of view shot of Chuckie, seeing Tommy, Phil, Lil, and the ambulance worker as having live-action chicken beaks on their faces, clucking away. A photo of a kid that looks just like Chuckie screaming appears, and the camera zooms into it.

After this, the regular credits played, followed by 15 minutes of static as the station had nothing else to play. Surprisingly, although the episode was watched by many children, only one adult who was watching (me) has spoken about it until now. I was confused to find out that children suicide rates went through the roof in New Zealand that year.

 

Story source.

DANCING PLAGUE OF 1518

In July of 1518, Frau Troffea of Strasbourg, France (then part of the Holy Roman Empire), began to dance frantically in the streets.  Within a month, 400 people began to do the same, eventually collapsing and dying of heart attack, exhaustion, and stroke. 

Doctors at the time were at a loss. Notes from the city council revealed that the cause of the dancing was unknown, only that the victims were not dancing willingly. 

Then, as suddenly as it began, in August, the Dancing Plague of 1518 was over, leaving almost 400 dead, a population baffled, and a mystery that has lasted half of a millennium. 

Some have blamed the dancing plague on mass hysteria, the result of eating contaminated bread, or even religious ecstasy. 

Although the plague never reappeared in France, a similar case of the frantic dancing cropped up in Madagascar in the 1840s.  In both cases, the cause was never found.

SS OURANG MEDAN

In February, 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia, from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The chilling message was, “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then one final grisly message… “I die.” When the first rescue vessel arrived on the scene a few hours later, they tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response. A boarding party was sent to the ship and what they found was a frightening sight that has made the Ourang Medan one of the strangest and scariest ghost ship stories of all time.

All the crew and officers of the Ourang Medan were dead, their eyes open, faces looking towards the sun, arms outstretched and a look of terror on their faces. Even the ship’s dog was dead, found snarling at some unseen enemy. When nearing the bodies in the boiler room, the rescue crew felt a chill, though the temperature was near 110°F. The decision was made to tow the ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began rolling up from the hull. The rescue crew left the ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.

To this day, the exact fate of the Ourang Medan and her crew remains a mystery.

Image source.

REAL VAMPIRES

In Rhode Island in the late 1700s lived a 19-year-old girl named Sarah Tillinghast. Sarah was a dreamy girl, spending her days wandering small graveyards where Revolutionary soldiers lay. She was known to bring a book of poetry to these places and seat herself on a grave slab and read for hours on end. One day as she returned home from one of her visits she professed herself ill and took to her bed. Soon after she had a horrible fever and within weeks she was dead. 

The Tillinghast family was still grieving some weeks later when Sarah’s brother, James, came down to breakfast looking pale, shivering and complaining of a weight on his chest. He claimed that Sarah had come to him and sat on his bed. Sarah and James’ parents thought it was nothing but his grief playing tricks with his mind. 

The next day James was even paler and could barely breathe. Soon after, James was also dead. 

But Sarah and James were just the beginning - shortly after their deaths two more Tillinghast children died, both saying beforehand that Sarah had visited them. These claims were quite frightening for the Tillinghast parents, for it meant that Sarah was returning from the dead to draw the life from remaining family members. The rumors spread through the town, all saying one word - Vampire! 

Not before too long there were more deaths, and all of the victims claimed that it was Sarah that they saw right before the sickness took hold.  Then finally Honour Tillinghast, the mother of all the dead children, too became sick. Honour lay in her death bed swearing that her lost children were calling out to her. 

This was when Snuffy Tillinghast, the father, finally took a stand. With the help of his farmhand, Caleb, he went out early morning to the cemetery where Sarah was buried. He took with him a long hunting knife and a container of lamp oil. 

The two men reached Sarah’s grave and together dug up her casket and opened its creaking lid. Even though she had been put to rest 18 months ago Sarah looked as if she were asleep, there was no decomposition. Her eyes were open, according to one account, fixed in a stare, and fresh blood was found in her heart and veins.  After seeing his daughter’s face flushed as if with blood he took his knife and cut out her bleeding heart. It is said her body gushed with blood. Snuffy Tillinghast then set his daughter’s heart on fire and burned it to ashes.

After the heart was burned the deathly ill Honour Tillinghast recovered fully and there were no more strange deaths or Sarah sightings in the Rhode Island town again.

JOAN OF ANTWERP

A priest has been called to a farm near the town of Antwerp in Victoria, where he has been told an exorcism has entered a difficult phase. Inside the house, he finds the body of Joan Vollmer decomposing in the bedroom, her fluids leaking into the bedclothes and onto the floor, while the three "exorcists" – including the dead woman's husband – are in the kitchen, in an extreme state of denial, fixing themselves some sandwiches. 

The priest politely declines their invitation that he join them for lunch.