The Midnight Train Podcast

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F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

The Abduction of Amy Mihaljevic (Where's the Justice?)

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Amy Mihaljevic was a happy, intelligent little girl living in Bay Village, Ohio. Then she was taken and murdered. This is her unsolved story. If you or someone you know has any information pertaining to Amy's case, please call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Weird Weapons From History (It's About Time!)

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:00:00 -0500

Let's discuss some weird weaponry from history. Exploding bats, flaming oxen, "gay bombs". All real and all REALLY weird. Let's Go!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

The Darker Side of Halloween (Oh, Candy!)

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 07:00:00 -0400

THIS IS HALLOWEEN!

No, really. This is what happens on Halloween. Murders, catastrophes, and so much more. Coincidences? Yeah, maybe... but... what if?

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Lost Civilizations Part 2 (The Swedes Laugh at us.)

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 23:30:08 -0400

Part two!

Historians believe that there are many advanced civilizations that have disappeared throughout the ages. What happened to them? Where did they go? Did some of them actually exist? WAS IT ALIENS?!?!

Of course it was. Let's get into part one of LOST CIVILIZATIONS!

Listen for a hilarious interaction with a Swedish podcast!!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Lost Civilizations Part 1 (What Had Happened Was...)

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 19:02:16 -0400

Hi. Did you miss us?

Historians believe that there are many advanced civilizations that have disappeared throughout the ages. What happened to them? Where did they go? Did some of them actually exist? WAS IT ALIENS?!?!

Of course it was. Let's get into part one of LOST CIVILIZATIONS!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Mass Graves (This Is A Deep Episode)

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 23:15:57 -0400

According to estimates, roughly 108 billion bodies are buried around the planet. This number includes estimates from ancient people up to the last few years. There was a bunch of math involved in getting to this number, but we won't bore you. Most people are buried alone. They can occasionally be entered with a loved one, but we're generally buried alone. There are, however, instances of large amounts of people being buried together.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Ireland's Vanishing Triangle (This Triangle Might Be Arguably Worse)

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 19:08:38 -0400

Ireland's Vanishing Triangle is a term used to describe a disturbing pattern of disappearances involving several young women in Ireland between the late 1980s and the late 1990s. This geographical area, roughly between the Dublin, Carlow, and Kilkenny regions, has become infamous due to the unsettling circumstances surrounding these cases. Let's talk about it.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Feral Children (Incurable Idiots or Low-Grade Imbeciles?)

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:36:48 -0400

Feral children. Lost in the wilderness, a kid adapts to their surroundings for years, or even decades. Once they're found, can they be reacclimated into society? Are the legends real? Here are some stories of "real life feral children."

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPR for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes! Now available to listen on Spotify!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

The Dark Side of the Appalachian Trail

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 00:27:17 -0500

The Appalachian Trail. 2200 miles of trails and paths crossing through the United States from Maine to Georgia. A gorgeous, federally protected escape from the lights, freeways and hustle of the city...

Until it turns deadly.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer (or POOPr for the cool people) at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

and get all of the bonus episodes!

For merch and more, go to our official website:

Want to donate to the guys to appease your guilt for being better off than they are? Send it on over at www.paypal.com and use the email: themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

War Criminals

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:11:21 -0500

WAR! UH! GOOD GOD YA'LL!

Seriously. What is it good for?

These folks are just some of the "alleged" war criminals that were charged with some pretty heinous crimes and then just dipped out, only to be caught later on in life.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Crazy U.S. Presidents (2024 U.S. Election Special)

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:00 -0500

It's the 2024 presidential elections and... Thank God it's over. We decided to talk about some of the craziest presidential antics and then some. From Presidents breaking records to who's considered the sexiest of all time, we just need a break. As we're sure you do. Let's have some fun!

Let's do this!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

Creepy Spain (I'm so sorry, Spanish listeners. lol)

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 20:19:39 -0400

It's back! The continuation of our "Creepy series". This week we dive into Spain's history and their multitude of creepy roads. Yep. Roads. I tried my best on the pronunciations, but I'm sure you know what you've signed up for.

Let's do this!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

F*ck Cancer. Please support the organization.

The Dark (er) Side of the Old West (Yeehaw!)

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:18:32 -0400

In this episode, we take this glorious train back into the Old West and talk about some weird, lesser known facts, some serial killers and how some people just don't like the movie Tombstone.

R.I.P. Douglas the Camel.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

Fuck Cancer. Please support the organization.

The Unkillable Soldier (It's Just A Flesh Wound... Wounds)

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:01:31 -0400

In this episode, I decided to be surprised by the information, Mr. Moody's grammatical errors and all. Holy $#8! Who is this guy? Bad luck be damned, he was a hero in the most legit ways possible. And...

UNKILLABLE!

(Que "dun, dun, dunnnn")

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

The Alaskan Triangle (Where Have 16,000 People Gone?)

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:54:25 -0400

The last American frontier, Alaska! Harsh weather, treacherous landscapes and paranormal activity?? Throw in a serial killer or two and we've got ourselves a cornucopia of craziness! Well, let's go!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

Weird Disasters (1 of ?)

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 01:34:32 -0400

What do beer, molasses, pea soup and snakes have in common? Well, let's go!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

WTF Happened To Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid? (Was It Aliens?)

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 09:32:24 -0400

You may have heard the stories about Butch Cassidy and his buddy, The Sundance Kid. You may have even seen the epic movie with Robert Redford, but do you know the real story? Let us begin!

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

New merch designs up at

Lesser Known Cryptids (The Last Ones Are Ridiculous)

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:02:43 -0400

You know we love our cryptids. Bigfoot, Nessie, Bessie, Samsocks, the list goes on and on. Well, we found some lesser known creatures that are terrifying and absurd, mysterious and disturbing. Especially the last two we discuss.

Thanks for listening.

Want more of the show? Become a Patreon producer at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

For merch and more, go to our official website:

The Escape From Alcatraz (A.I. Edition)

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 06:00:00 -0400

The Escape From Alcatraz! What happened to the three blokes that attempted to break out of what was considered to be an inescapable prison? Did they make it?

Wait.

This sounds familiar.

Until next time, keep questioning, keep exploring, and never stop seeking the truth.

Thanks for being here and spreading the word. Please tell your people about the show, it really does help.

Want more Train episodes trekking their way into your face's side holes? Sign up for our Patreon at:

or go to our official website:

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to sign up and for so much more.

Also, make sure to follow, like & subscribe to our other show, Generation AFK, where we talk about all things video game while Jonathan attempts to learn what in the hell they're talking about.

The Attica Prison Riot (Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right)

Fri, 31 May 2024 00:06:05 -0400

ATTICA! ATTICA!

You've probably heard the chant in movies and more, but do you know the story? We discuss this crazy prison riot from both sides of the barb wired fence.

Wait until the end for a surprise!

Thanks for being here and spreading the word. Please tell your people about the show, it really does help.

Want more Train episodes trekking their way into your face's side holes? Sign up for our Patreon at:

or go to our official website:

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to sign up and for so much more.

Also, make sure to follow, like & subscribe to our other show, Generation AFK, where we talk about all things video game while Jonathan attempts to learn what in the hell they're talking about.

The F.B.I. Most Wanted List (Informer, yeah me go a fu fur blam)

Fri, 17 May 2024 22:13:39 -0400

The Federal Bureau of Investigations. Who are they? What are they? What's with that list hanging at the post office? Let's find out!

Thanks for being here and spreading the word. Please tell your people about the show, it really does help.

Want more Train episodes trekking their way into your face's side holes? Sign up for our Patreon at:

or go to our official website:

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to sign up and for so much more.

Also, make sure to follow, like & subscribe to our other show, Generation AFK, where we talk about all things video game while Jonathan attempts to learn what in the hell they're talking about.

Creep Columbia (Billy Ocean & Bears with Glasses?)

Tue, 07 May 2024 07:00:00 -0400

In this episode of The Midnight Train, we will take you on a thrilling journey to South America, more precisely to the enchanting country of Colombia. During our trip, we will explore some of the region's most spine-chilling and eerie places as part of our ongoing series on creepy locations. We aim to uncover the fascinating stories and legends surrounding these places that have left people both mesmerized and terrified for centuries.

Thanks for being here and spreading the word. Please tell your people about the show, it really does help.

Want more Train episodes trekking their way into your face's side holes? Sign up for our Patreon at:

or go to our official website:

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to sign up and for so much more.

Also, make sure to follow, like & subscribe to our other show, Generation AFK, where we talk about all things video game while Jonathan attempts to learn what in the hell they're talking about.

Electric People & SLIders (Is Jonathan REALLY a human EMP?)

Wed, 01 May 2024 23:56:07 -0400

As host of the show, Jonathan's friends and co-hosts have affectionately called him a "human EMP." It's a humorous way to describe what is a strange and inexplicable phenomenon: electronic devices and technology, in general, tend to malfunction, shut down, or even get destroyed when he's around them. It's almost as if they're succumbing to some invisible force field that he emanates. He's always wondered if this was just a running joke or if there was some truth to it, so he decided to research and get to the bottom of it.

themidnighttrainpodcast@gmail.com

John Chau, Sentinel Island (& Other Islands of DOOOM!)

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 07:00:00 -0400

What happens when an ultra devout christian "warrior" is "dead set" on spreading the good word to a group of indigenous tribesman who are the epitome of "F Around and Find Out?"

Well, you'll just have to listen.

Thanks for being here and spreading the word. Please tell your people about the show, it really does help.

Want more Train episodes trekking their way into your face's side holes? Sign up for our Patreon at:

or go to our official website:

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to sign up and for so much more.

Also, make sure to follow, like & subscribe to our other show, Generation AFK, where we talk about all things video game while Jonathan attempts to learn what in the hell they're talking about.

Lake Baikal, Not Bukaki.

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:13:19 -0400

This is a big ol' lake. And there's some weirdness afoot at the Circle K, Ted.

Become a First Class Passenger (aka POOPR), support your hosts and get all the bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com or at www.patreon.com/themnidnighttrainpodcast.

Missing Celebrities. (Did they leave their lives or...?)

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 00:32:04 -0400

(We let A.I. write this week's episode description)

In this episode, the hosts introduce the podcast and discuss their Patreon bonus episodes. They then delve into the topic of missing celebrities, starting with the case of Richie Edwards, a member of the band Manic Street Preachers. They explore his background, his struggles with alcoholism and self-harm, and his mysterious disappearance in 1995. The hosts discuss various theories and speculations surrounding his disappearance, including the possibility of a planned exit or a life in exile. They invite listeners to share their thoughts and information on the case. In this part of the conversation, the hosts discuss the disappearances of Joe Pickler and Michael Rockefeller. Joe Pickler, an actor, went missing in 2006 under mysterious circumstances, with his family believing foul play was involved. The hosts explore the different theories surrounding his disappearance, including suicide and robbery. They also discuss the challenges of finding a body and the emotional impact on the family. In the case of Michael Rockefeller, a photojournalist and member of the wealthy Rockefeller family, he disappeared during an expedition in New Guinea. The hosts delve into the details of his disappearance and the various theories surrounding it, including a boat accident and encounters with indigenous tribes. In this part of the conversation, the hosts discuss the mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller and the various theories surrounding his fate. They explore the possibility of cannibals being involved and the evidence supporting this theory. They also delve into the case of Glenn Miller, a famous musician who disappeared during World War II. The hosts provide insights into his career and the impact of his music. This part of the conversation explores the mysterious disappearances of Glenn Miller, Connie Converse, Bison Dele, and Scott Smith. It delves into the theories and speculations surrounding their cases, including the possibility of foul play, conspiracy theories, and unresolved questions. The conversation also mentions movies that revolve around missing persons and crime thrillers. In this episode, Moody and The Conductor discuss various movies related to missing persons. They recommend movies like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Searching, Gone Baby Gone, Winter's Bone, Gone Girl, and The Vanishing. The conversation also touches on the differences between the original and new versions of Roadhouse. The hosts emphasize the importance of mental health and encourage listeners to support the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). They also express gratitude to their Patreon supporters and provide updates on their merchandise and other projects. Takeaways

The hosts introduce the podcast and discuss their Patreon bonus episodes
They explore the case of Richie Edwards, a member of the band Manic Street Preachers, who disappeared in 1995
They discuss his struggles with alcoholism and self-harm, as well as his fascination with disappearance and exile
The hosts invite listeners to share their thoughts and information on the case The disappearances of Joe Pickler and Michael Rockefeller highlight the challenges and uncertainties surrounding missing persons cases.
Families often struggle with the emotional toll and lack of closure when a loved one goes missing.
Theories surrounding these disappearances range from suicide to foul play to accidents.
The difficulty of finding a body in cases involving bodies of water adds to the complexity of the investigations. Glenn Miller's disappearance remains a mystery, with theories ranging from a plane crash to espionage or foul play.
Theories surrounding missing persons cases often involve speculation, conspiracy theories, and conflicting accounts.
Movies about missing persons and crime thrillers can provide insight into the complexities and uncertainties surrounding these cases. Movies can provide a captivating exploration of missing persons cases and the psychological impact on those left behind.
Recommendations for movies related to missing persons include The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Searching, Gone Baby Gone, Winter's Bone, Gone Girl, and The Vanishing.
The hosts emphasize the importance of mental health and encourage support for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Gratitude is expressed to Patreon supporters and updates are provided on merchandise and other projects.

Old West Mysteries Part 2 (Billy The Kid lives!!)

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 18:41:00 -0500

Summary

In this episode of the Midnight Train podcast, the hosts introduce themselves and promote Moody's band and single. They then dive into the Western mysteries, starting with the Tombstone Thunderbird sighting. They discuss the different accounts and exaggerations of the Thunderbird tale, as well as the existence of a supposed Thunderbird photo. The hosts then move on to the mystery of a shipwreck in the California desert, exploring the plausibility and possible explanations for such an occurrence. This part of the conversation explores various topics related to the Old West, including speculation about the topography of the past, the legend of a ship in the desert, UFO stories, encounters with airships and aliens, and the existence of Wild West serial killers. This part of the conversation explores various unsolved mysteries and legends, including the Servant Girl Annihilator, a series of brutal attacks and murders in Austin, Texas in the 1880s. The identity of the killer remains unknown. The conversation also touches on the speculation surrounding the nine-toed man, multiple suspects, and the possibility of a cover-up. Other topics include the lost cement mine, hidden gold, and the fate of famous outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid. In this episode, Moody and The Conductor discuss various mysteries and weirdness of the Old West. They talk about the legend of Billy the Kid and the spirits of Hell Dogs in Nevada. They also discuss the spooky story of the Ship of Death in Wyoming. Finally, they share their top 10 Western movies.

Takeaways

The Midnight Train podcast is a comedy podcast that delves into creepy and unsolved mysteries.
The Tombstone Thunderbird sighting is a mysterious tale with various accounts and exaggerations.
The existence of a Thunderbird photo is highly debated, with no concrete evidence found.
The shipwreck in the California desert is an enduring legend with possible explanations rooted in historical events. The Servant Girl Annihilator case remains an unsolved mystery, with multiple theories and suspects.
The brutal attacks and murders committed by the Annihilator shocked the city of Austin in the 1880s.
The nine-toed man left behind a distinct footprint at the crime scenes, but was never caught.
The lost cement mine and hidden gold stories continue to captivate people's imaginations.
The fate of famous outlaws like Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid is still debated and shrouded in mystery. The Old West is filled with mysterious and spooky stories, including the legends of Billy the Kid and the Hell Dogs of Nevada.
The Ship of Death in Wyoming is a haunting tale of a ghostly ship and a foreshadowing of imminent death.
Western movies have captivated audiences for decades, and there are many great films to choose from when it comes to the genre.
Exploring the mysteries and stories of the Old West can be both fascinating and chilling.

For all things Train related: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com

Wild West Mysteries Part 1 (The History)

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 01:43:25 -0500

Helloooo passengers! This is part one of a two part episode about the mysteries of the WILD WEST! In this first part, we cover the history, in chronological order, of the makings of the "Wild West:" The massacres, the unionizations, the massacres and the... well, massacres.

Next week we'll dive into the mysteries surrounding these historical atrocities... WE MEAN, "historical moments:"

Don't forget to check out the NEW podcast, Generation AFK, where Jonathan is taught how to get back into video gaming. Spoiler alert: he sucks. Subscribe wherever you listen to your 2nd favorite podcasts.

Also, become a "First Class Passenger" by joining our Patreon and helping Jonathan get health insurance. And Uri a new track suit. Listen to the episode, you'll get it.

U.S. Legends, part 2 (Moody wasn't low)

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:51:47 -0500

It's part two! The U.S. States, the legends and... the most prolific serial killers.

For all the bonus material:

U.S. State Legends Part 1 (Let's go on a weird trip...)

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 09:15:50 -0500

Hello passengers! This week we're taking the crazy train across the greatest country in the world. The land of the free and home of the brave.

No, not Canada!

The United States and we're going to explore each U.S. States most popular legends. We'll also meet some of each states famous folks, including their most diabolical killers.

Buckle up and let's go!

PATREON FIRST CLASS PASSENGER CAR

Native American Myths and Legends (So many words...)

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 19:09:12 -0500

Hello out there! Yes, you're hearing us! A new episode!

Here on the train, we like to take you listeners worldwide and dive into legends, monsters, and other crazy tales from the past. But we thought, you know what? Why not take listeners worldwide on a trip into our past here in America.

Sure, our country may not be as old as other parts of the world, but our native cultures still have legends & monsters from the past that are equally as interesting, fun, and crazy. We decided to dive into some of the crazy myths and legends of our own natives' past. We've all heard the stories of the Wendigo and the skinwalkers, but that's not where we're going today. You passengers know we've discussed both of those in other episodes. We will look at other legends that may be less well known but people out there, including our fellow Americans.

Remember to spread the word, tell your friends and family and leave us a review wherever you can!

Want to be cooler than a polar bear's toenails? Sign up to become a Patreon First Class Passenger and get ALL the bonus episodes for the price of an overly sweetened cup of coffee!

Just head over to www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com to support the show and be even more awesome than you already are!

#200! The Tunguska Event (Big Badda Boom!)

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 10:01:59 -0500

It's our 200th episode and it's a BIG one and it was a BLAST to record! Join us and our special guest, Jeff Butchko, as we dive into an event that has had scientists bewildered since the early 1900s. Was it a meteor, a teeny tiny black hole, Nikola Tesla screwing around, or something far more nefarious? All Aboard!!

Find all things Train related at:

www.patreon.come/themidnighttrainpodcast

and become a producer of the show at:

The Havana Syndrome (ooh na-na)

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 07:00:00 -0500

The Havana Syndrome! What in the hell is going on, worldwide, that's causing people to have nerve and brain damage? Sonic weapons? Crickets?

No one really knows but we're diving into it!

Become a Patreon member and get all the bonuses and more!

The Loveland Frogmen (What a lovely cryptid you have there)

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 07:00:00 -0500

It's another cryptid episode! The Loveland frogmen! Iguana-like? Snarky and backed by public officials, these guys (or gals) are taking gunshot and WILL NOT accept anyone rudely interrupting their conversations!

For bonus episodes and all the train shenanigans you can shake a frog's leg at, join us over at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com or directly at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

The Midnight Train Show Trailer

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 17:11:15 -0400

We've been asked numerous times for a show trailer, briefly describing what The Midnight Train Podcast is all about.

Well, here it is. Thanks for listening!

The Ghosts of Griffintown (Canada, You Scare Us, eh)

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:00:00 -0400

Yep, we're back. Sorry it's been so long.

Enough of the groveling! This episode is about the history and GHOSTS of Griffintown. Montreal may just be the hauntiest of haunted in Canada. Let's Go!

We believe in focusing on mental health and for those of us with issues to be able to find the right help, so we’re back to supporting a fantastic organization, The National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI works to educate, support, advocate, listen, and lead to improving the lives of people with mental illness and their loved ones.

We’ll donate 20% of our merchandise sales and Patreon subscriptions to this extraordinary institution each month. To support the show, get all the bonus episodes, and help a great cause, become a First Class Passenger.

Long Overdue Update

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 22:41:21 -0400

Oh boy! It feels like so long since we've posted an episode!

Well, here's a little, very long overdue update to let you know, NEW EPISODES ARE IN THE WORKS! WOOHOO!

Anyway, thank you for your patience. Life has one hell of a stranglehold on us, from time to time.

New craziness is on. It's. Mother Fucking. Way!

Cruise Ship Passenger Disappearances. (This Is My Nightmare, Folks.)

Tue, 16 May 2023 10:24:45 -0400

Yep. Cruise ships are fun, right? Well, for most people, they are a vacation set at sea toward a fantastical destination. However, for some, a cruise is nothing more than a nightmare come to life. These are only a few of the stories about those that have disappeared from cruise ships with little to no answers.

For info about the show:

To become a show supporter, get all the bonus episodes and become a First Class Passenger (POOPR):

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5t6FAM3MNOSWNaG4iIi3bG?si=WMAoL7feSLWn7MvYgmQQ1Q

If you or someone you know need emotional and/or mental health assistance:

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The Great Amherst Mystery (Paranormal Nightmare or Simply Hullabaloo?)

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 10:37:32 -0400

This week, the train takes us to Nova Scotia and a crazy story about a young lady, um... I mean a guy who wrote a book about a young lady that seemed to have attracted some ghosts. Was it legit or was it just a ploy to make money? You decide!

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Jonathan the Conductor.

The Search For The Holy Grail. (And Veiny Hammers)

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 00:46:26 -0400

The Holy Grail. A cup. A chalice. A metaphor for someone's womb? All we know is, those high stepping fellows sure had a "thing" for it.

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P.S. Leave Thor and his hammer alone, you animals.

The Icebox Murders (Unsolved and Unbelievable)

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:47:10 -0400

"However, glancing around the 'fridge, something in the lower drawer drew their attention. There, where the carrots, celery, and other vegetables lay, were the decapitated heads of Fred and Edwina."

Yep, that happened. An elderly couple was brutally murdered, bled out and cut into pieces. Then sliced up and put into a refrigerator with their son being the prime suspect. Yet, he disappeared, never to be heard from again, or was he involved in the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy?

WHAAAATTT??

Grab your good stuff and take a solid swig, this is going to be a crazy ride.

A big thank you to The History Channel for having me.

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Killer Kids (These kids are NOT alright)

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 07:00:00 -0400

Some of the most infamous serial killers of the 20th century—Ted Bundy, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy—are names that we are all familiar with. These murderers' heinous deeds have been the basis for numerous films, books, and television series. However, the public knew that although the killers might have had psychological issues, they were still adults who had committed some of the most brutal murders on their victims.

But what if the murderers weren't adults? Many of us struggle to comprehend why someone would commit murder because it is considered a horrible and unfathomable act. Arguably the worst thing one person can do to another. Some of us even forget there is no set age at which one might commit murder. Some teenagers and young adults target their victims, ruthlessly and viciously taking their lives, often without showing any regret and in ways that are hard for us to understand. Today we will discuss killer kids whose tales keep you awake at night. From frying a victim's flesh and poisoning their family to slashing their neighbors and killing for "fun," these killer kids did it all.

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The Human Brain Part 2 (The Drunken Sequel.)

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 09:24:32 -0500

Oh, Boy! Here it is! The follow up to our brain busting "The Human Brain, Part 1" and we needed to inebriate ours to get it out to you.

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The Human Brain Part 1 of 2 (After This, Yours Might Hurt.)

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:57:00 -0500

It's the human brain. That beautiful thing under your hat that does SO much for your entire body and life! We're going to discuss it's parts, what they do, how they THINK it works and some other pretty crazy stuff, including tests done that were'nt exactly cool. Strap on your helmets and let's get BRAINY!

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The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short (She Deserved Better)

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 06:00:00 -0500

We finally decided to do this case and it's infuriating. We want to know how you feel. Who was the murderer?

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Creepy Italy (The Boot That Kicks Butt)

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 07:00:00 -0500

Italy! So much history and more drama to fill a dozen catacombs. We dive into this beautiful country's past and a lot of its creepy spots. Buckle up, passengers! It's time to get Strisciante!

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Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (Kid Ghosts & Burial Grounds, the Perfect Recipe)

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 07:00:00 -0500

This week, we take the train to Mercer County, West Virginia, here in the states. It was an amusement park. However, before that it was a Native American burial ground. Then, some kids were unalived. Nope, it's not the plot of a horrible 80's horror movie, it's the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park. Is it haunted by the spirits of those that lost their lives on the land? Well, the recipe looks good and you can STILL go check it out and make your own connections.

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Alcatraz and It’s Many Escapes. (They Made It, right?)

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 06:00:00 -0500

Alcatraz! The inescapable island fortress! Well, maybe. Let us know what you believe after this episode. Plus, we have an update on the whole "Satan, Mustache and Isaiah fiasco."

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Bella in the Wych Elm (Which Wych is Witch?)

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 06:00:00 -0500

"Who put Bella in the Wych elm?" Graffiti with this question was on the walls surrounding the area where a young woman's body was found shoved into the trunk of a tree. With more questions, and more notably more theories, than answers, we're all left wondering: "Seriously. Who the f put Bella in the Wych elm??" www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com Become a First Class Passenger and get ALL the bonus episodes! www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

Titanic and Her Conspiracies. (Happy Holidays!)

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 06:00:00 -0500

We all THINK we know the story of the RMS Titanic;

Maiden voyage. "Unsinkable." Iceberg. So many people lost to the dark abyss.

What if it wasn't so cut and dry? What if... the conspiracies... at least one of them... are true?

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Happy Holidays!!!

PATREON BONUS TEASER: (F That Guy Episode 10. Thomas Loden Jr)

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 23:16:07 -0500

Oh Boy! We've decided to give you passengers a sneak peak into the Midnight Train's First Class Patreon BONUS episodes and THIS ONE is kind of a big deal. Listen to the episode. Look at the date. Maybe Google a couple of things and then you'll get it. Make sure to let us know what you found by joining our private Facebook page:

There's so much more where this came from and will continue for the foreseeable future, because they can't stop us!! MUHUHAHAHAHA

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The Lost Colony of Roanoke. (Everybody Wants Some.)

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 06:00:00 -0500

What in the sassafras happened to the colonists at Roanoke? Did they just find cooler people than the English folk that seemingly left them there to die? Was it aliens? What's with the silver cup and who the hell was John White?

Let's dive into another historically mumble mouthed episode and see where the nonexistent tracks lead us!

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Thanks for listening.

Stonehenge. (Merlin Totally Rode A Glacier)

Tue, 22 Nov 2022 09:33:14 -0500

Yep! We're talking about the mysterious STONEHENGE! Monolithic, glorious and... what the hell is it? Did aliens create a musical instrument? Is it a gateway to the center of hell? Is it Mother Earth's "special spot"?

Let's discuss!

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How To Perform An Autopsy (We Wouldn’t Be Eating If We Were You)

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 06:00:00 -0500

Ever sit around and wonder, "Hmm... how do they perform an autopsy?" Well, we knew you have so we decided to CUT right to it and DISSECT the process. WARNING! Don't eat anything right before or during this episode. You'll thank us later. Get ad free episodes and all of the bonuses by subscribing to www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast AUTOPSY VIDEOS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHeFUT-11So https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDeEuD7CJOM

Halloween Spooktacular Special 2022

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Happy Halloween!

This year we decided to recite paranormal stories from our passengers, as well as some stories from some of our podcast friends;

The Phantom Jukebox Podcast

Happy Hour Podcast

Yuh Like That? Podcast

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The Satanic Panic (The Devil’s In The Mass Hysterical Details)

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Yep....as recently as THIS YEAR (2022), there have been issues with Satanic rituals and everything involved with it. The question is, and always will be... is/was it real?

Let's get into it!

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Creepy Russia (Hold On To Your Space Rope)

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Creepy Russia.

We dive deep into the history of Russia before getting creepy and telling you some of the countries most unnerving tales, just in time for the Halloween season.

Head to www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com for everything related to the show.

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Scotland’s Bible John (Zealot Serial Killer or... not?)

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 07:00:00 -0400

Bible John is an unidentified, alleged serial killer who is thought to have murdered three young women between 1968 and 1969 in Glasgow, Scotland. Was this murderer an over zealous religious redeemer, two killers playing the odds, a police officer or something else?

Climb aboard and let's dive into the story of "Bible John."

Listener discretion is always advised.

"America's Second Favorite Podcast"

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Japan’s ”Unit 731”. All The Torture, None Of The Guilt

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 19:42:35 -0400

Hello Passengers! Thanks for listening!

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https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&genres=war&genres=Crime

Units 731 is a hardcore metal band formed in Pittsburgh, PA, in 2005. The band combines death metal, hardcore, and slam to create a heavy and chaotic sound for which Pittsburgh bands are notable. Influences include Dying Fetus, All Out War, Irate, and Built Upon Frustration.

Ok, wait… wrong notes. Um… ok, here it is. The Unit 731 we're here to talk about is short for Manshu Detachment 731. It was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that participated in lethal human experimentation and the production of biological weapons during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. Unit 731 was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Manchukuo's government was dissolved in 1945 after the surrender of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. The territories claimed by Manchukuo were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 and then formally transferred to the Chinese administration in the following year.

For those of you wondering, "what in the Jim Henson hell is a puppet state," well, according to Wikipedia, a puppet state "is a state that is legally recognized as independent but, in fact, completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Puppet states have nominal sovereignty, but a foreign power effectively exercises control through financial interests and economic or military support.

The United States also had some puppet states during the Cold War:

Cuba (United States), (before 1959)
Guatemala (United States), (until 1991)
South Korea A.K.A. United States Army Military Government in Korea (United States), (Until 1948)
The Republic of Vietnam A.K.A. South Vietnam (United States), (Until 1975)
Japan A.K.A. Allied Occupation of Japan (United States), (Until 1952)

Some of the most infamous war crimes committed by the Japanese military forces were caused by this Unit. Internally dehumanized and referred to as "logs," humans were regularly used in Unit 731 testing.

Some atrocious experiments included: disease injections, controlled dehydration, hypobaric chamber experiments, biological weapons testing, vivisection, amputation, and weapons testing. Babies, children, and pregnant women were among the victims. Although the victims were from various countries, the majority were Chinese. Additionally, Unit 731 created biological weapons employed in regions of China, including Chinese cities and towns, water supplies, and farms, that were not held by Japanese soldiers.

Up to 500,000 people are thought to have been murdered by Unit 731 and its related activities. It was called "The Kwantung Army's Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department." Unit 731 was first established by the Kenpeitai military police of the Empire of Japan. General Shiro Ishii, a combat medic officer in the Kwantung Army, took control and oversaw the unit until the war's conclusion. Ishii and his crew used the facility, constructed in 1935 to replace the Zhongma Fortress, to increase their capabilities.

Up to the end of the war in 1945, the Japanese government generously supported the initiative. Facilities for the manufacturing, testing, deployment and storage of biological weapons were controlled by Unit 731 and the other units of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. While researchers from Unit 731 detained by Soviet troops were convicted in the Khabarovsk war crime trials in December 1949, those seized by American forces were secretly granted immunity in exchange for the information obtained during their human experimentation.

As if we needed more bullshit to make us question the tactics of the U.S. government, The U.S. quelled the talk of the human experiments and paid the accused of doing it an actual salary. So then, similar to what they did with German researchers during Operation Paperclip, the Americans siphoned and took their knowledge of and expertise with bioweapons for use in their own program for biological warfare. Japan started its biological weapons program in the 1930s, partly because biological weapons were banned by the Geneva Convention of 1925; they reasoned that the ban verified its effectiveness as a weapon.

This begs the question, does this type of government appropriation, paying off and hiring those guilty of explicit acts on humans to use their knowledge to create our own versions of what they committed, considered an act "for the greater good?" Does allowing these turds' immunity to extract their heinous experience worth it?

Japan's occupation of Manchuria began in 1931 after the Japanese invasion. Japan decided to build Unit 731 in Manchuria because the occupation not only gave the Japanese advantage of separating the research station from their island but also gave them access to as many Chinese individuals as they wanted for use as human experimental subjects. They viewed the Chinese as no-cost research subjects and hoped they could use this advantage to lead the world in biological warfare. Most research subjects were Chinese, but many were of different nationalities.

Sound familiar? Maybe a precursor to what a bunch of mind fucked Nazis attempted AND SUCCEEDED IN DOING to so many Jews and Jewish sympathizers?

In 1932, Surgeon General Shirō Ishii, chief medical officer of the Imperial Japanese Army and protégé of Army Minister Sadao Araki, was placed in command of the Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory (AEPRL). Ishii organized a secret research group, the "Tōgō Unit," for chemical and biological experimentation in Manchuria. Ishii proposed the creation of a Japanese biological and chemical research unit in 1930, after a two-year study trip abroad, because Western powers were developing their own programs. Colonel Chikahiko Koizumi, who eventually served as Japan's Health Minister from 1941 to 1945, was one of Ishii's most fierce supporters inside the Army. In 1915, during World War I, Koizumi and other Imperial Japanese Army officers were inspired by the Germans' successful use of chlorine gas at the Second Battle of Ypres (EEPRUH), in which the Allies suffered 5,000 fatalities and 15,000 injuries as a result of the chemical attack. As a result, they joined a covert poison gas research committee. As a result, unit Togo was started in the Zhongma Fortress, a prison/experimentation camp in Beiyinhe, a hamlet on the South Manchuria Railway 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Harbin.

To start the tests on those in good health, prisoners were often well-fed on a diet of rice or wheat, meat, fish, and perhaps even wine. The inmates were then starved of food and drink and had their blood drained over many days. Finally, it was noted that their health was declining. Shocker.

Some were vivisected as well. For those who don't watch or listen to disturbing documentaries, vivisection is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structures. Others had been purposefully exposed to the plague bacterium and other pathogens. Ishii had to close down Zhongma Fortress due to a jailbreak in the fall of 1934 that jeopardized the facility's secret and an explosion in 1935 that was thought to be sabotage. Then he was given permission to relocate to Pingfang, which is 24 km (15 mi) south of Harbin, to set up a new, much larger facility.

Emperor Hirohito signed a decree in 1936 approving the unit's growth and its incorporation as the Epidemic Prevention Department into the Kwantung Army. It had bases at Hsinking and was split into the "Ishii Unit" and "Wakamatsu Unit." The units were collectively referred to as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army" from August 1940 onward. Hirohito's younger brother, Prince Mikasa, toured the Unit 731 headquarters in China and wrote in his memoir that he watched films showing how Chinese prisoners were "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans." The decree also mandated the construction of a chemical warfare development unit, the Kwantung Army Technical Testing Department, and a biological warfare development unit, the Kwantung Army Military Horse Epidemic Prevention Workshop (later known as Manchuria Unit 100). (subsequently referred to as Manchuria Unit 516).

Sister chemical and biological warfare organizations known as Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Units were established in significant Chinese towns during the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Unit 1855 in Beijing, Unit Ei 1644 in Nanjing, Unit 8604 in Guangzhou, and Unit 9420 in Singapore were among the detachments. Ishii's network, which at its height in 1939 had control over 10,000 people, was made up of all these organizations. In addition, Japanese medical practitioners and academics were drawn to Unit 731 by the opportunity to perform human experiments, which was highly unusual, and the Army's robust financial support.

Experiments

Human subjects were used in studies for a specific project with the codename Maruta. Test subjects were selected from the local populace and were referred to as "logs," as in the phrase "How many logs fell?" Since the facility's official cover story to local authorities was that it was a timber mill, the personnel first used the word as a joke. The initiative was internally known as "Holzklotz," which is German, meaning log, according to a junior uniformed civilian employee of the Imperial Japanese Army working in Unit 731. Nothing like dehumanizing the poor people you're experimenting on.

Another similarity was the cremation of the "sacrificed" participants' corpses. Additionally, Unit 731 researchers published some findings in peer-reviewed publications while posing as non-human primates termed "Manchurian monkeys" or "long-tailed monkeys" to do the research.

According to American historian Sheldon H. Harris:

"The Togo Unit employed gruesome tactics to secure specimens of select body organs. If Ishii or one of his co-workers wished to do research on the human brain, then they would order the guards to find them a useful sample. A prisoner would be taken from his cell. Guards would hold him while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an ax. His brain would be extracted off to the pathologist, and then to the crematorium for the usual disposal."

Nakagawa Yonezo, professor emeritus at Osaka University, studied at Kyoto University during the war. While there, he watched footage of human experiments and executions from Unit 731. He later testified about the "playfulness of the experimenters:"

'Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: 'What would happen if we did such and such?' What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.""

Prisoners were injected with diseases disguised as vaccinations to study their effects. For example, to analyze the results of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied. Prisoners were also repeatedly subjected to rape by guards.

Vivisection

Thousands of people held in prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection (You all know what that is now. Organizations against animal experimentation generally use the phrase as a derogatory catch-all term for experiments on living animals, whereas practicing scientists seldom ever do. Live organ harvesting and other forms of human vivisection, as we also know, have been used as torture.), which was frequently done without anesthetic and was typically fatal. Okawa Fukumatsu, a former member of Unit 731, said in a video interview that he had vivisected a pregnant woman. Prisoners were infected with numerous illnesses before having their bodies vivisected. Invasive surgery was conducted on inmates to remove organs and learn how the condition affects the human body.

Inmates' limbs were severed so researchers could monitor blood loss. Sometimes the victims' corpses' severed limbs were reattached to their opposite sides. In addition, some convicts had surgical procedures to remove their stomachs and reconnect their esophagus to their intestines. Others had parts of their organs removed, including the brain, the liver, and the lungs. According to Imperial Japanese Army physician Ken Yuasa, at least 1,000 Japanese soldiers participated in vivisection on humans in mainland China, suggesting that the practice was commonly done outside Unit 731.

Biological warfare

Throughout World War II, Unit 731 and its related units—including Unit 1644 and Unit 100—were engaged in the study, production, and experimental use of epidemic-producing biowarfare weapons in attacks against the Chinese population (both military and civilian). For example, in 1940 and 1941, low-flying aircraft carried plague-carrying fleas over Chinese towns, notably coastal Ningbo and Changde, in the Hunan Province. These fleas were produced in the labs of Unit 731 and Unit 1644.

With bubonic plague epidemics, these flea bombs claimed tens of thousands of lives. During an expedition to Nanjing, typhoid and paratyphoid virus were dispersed into water supplies across the city's wells, marshes, and residences and infused into snacks served to inhabitants. Soon after, epidemics spread to the joy of many scientists, who concluded that paratyphoid fever was "the most effective" of the diseases.

At least 12 large-scale bioweapon field tests were conducted, and biological weapons were used to target 11 Chinese cities. According to reports, a 1941 raid on Changde resulted in some 10,000 biological injuries and 1,700 deaths among poorly equipped Japanese soldiers, most of which died of cholera. In addition, Japanese researchers conducted experiments on inmates suffering from cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague, and other illnesses. The defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb, which were used to spread the bubonic plague, were developed as a result of this study. Ishii presented the concept of designing some of these bombs using porcelain shells in 1938.

These bombs allowed Japanese forces to launch biological strikes, infecting crops, water supplies, and other places with cholera, typhoid, anthrax, and other deadly illnesses via fleas. Researchers would study the victims dying during biological bomb trials while protected by protective suits. Aircraft would deliver contaminated food and clothes into parts of China that were not under Japanese control. Additionally, innocent people received candies and food that had been tainted.

On several targets, bombs containing plague fleas, contaminated clothes, and infected goods were dropped upon the unsuspecting citizens. As a result, at least 400,000 Chinese citizens were killed due to cholera, anthrax, and plague. Also tested on Chinese citizens was tularemia, Also known as rabbit fever or deer fly fever, which typically attacks the skin, eyes, lymph nodes, and lungs.

Chiang Kai-shek dispatched military and international medical specialists delegation to document the evidence and treat the sick in November 1941 in response to pressure from various stories of the biowarfare assaults. However, the Allied Powers did not respond to a report on the Japanese deployment of plague-infected fleas on Changde until Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a public warning in 1943 denouncing the attacks. The announcement was made publicly available the following year.

Obviously, this is ridiculous and inhumane, but it couldn't be used on us here in the U.S. of "Don't Tread On Me" A, right?

Well, hold on to your stars and stripes because during the final months of World War II, codenamed "Cherry Blossoms at Night," Unit 731 planned to use kamikaze pilots to infest San Diego, California, with the plague. The plan was scheduled to launch on September 22, 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier. So yep, if the United States had not dropped Fat Man and Little Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there could have been a man-made plague set upon the west coast.

Weapons testing

Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and positions. Flamethrowers were also tested on people. Victims were also tied to stakes and used as targets to test pathogen-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, shrapnel bombs with varying amounts of fragments, explosive bombs, and bayonets and knives.

To determine the best course of treatment for varying degrees of shrapnel wounds sustained on the field by Japanese Soldiers, Chinese prisoners were exposed to direct bomb blasts. They were strapped, unprotected, to wooden planks staked into the ground at increasing distances around a bomb that was then detonated. After that, it was surgery for most and autopsies for the rest.

This info was taken from the documentary — Unit 731, Nightmare in Manchuria

Other experiments

In other diplorable tests, subjects were deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death. They would then be placed into low-pressure chambers until their eyes popped from the sockets. Next, victims were tested to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival. Next, they were hung upside down until death; crushed with heavy objects; electrocuted; dehydrated with hot fans, placed into centrifuges, and spun until they died. People were also injected with animal blood, notably horse blood; exposed to lethal doses of X-rays; subjected to various chemical weapons inside gas chambers; injected with seawater; and burned or buried alive.

The Unit also looked at the characteristics of several other poisons and chemical agents. Prisoners were subjected to substances like tetrodotoxin (the venom of pufferfish or fugu), heroin, Korean bindweed, bactal, and castor-oil seeds, to mention a few (ricin). In addition, according to former Unit 731 vivisectionist Okawa Fukumatsu, large volumes of blood were removed from some detainees to research the consequences of blood loss. At least half a liter of blood was taken in one instance at intervals of two to three days.

The human body only contains 5 liters.

As we mentioned, dehydration experiments were performed on the victims. These tests aimed to determine the amount of water in an individual's body and how long one could survive with little to no water intake. Victims were also starved before these tests began. The deteriorating physical states of these victims were documented by staff at periodic intervals.

"It was said that a small number of these poor men, women, and children who became marutas were also mummified alive in total dehydration experiments. They sweated themselves to death under the heat of several hot dry fans. At death, the corpses would only weigh ≈1/5 normal bodyweight."

— Hal Gold, Japan's Infamous Unit 731, (2019)

Unit 731 also performed transfusion experiments with different blood types. For example, unit member Naeo Ikeda wrote:

In my experience, when 100 cc A type blood was transfused to an O-type subject, whose pulse was 87 per minute and temperature was 35.4 degrees C, 30 minutes later, their temperature rose to 38.6 degrees with slight trepidation. Sixty minutes later, their pulse was 106 per minute, and the temperature was 39.4 degrees. The temperature was 37.7 degrees two hours later, and the subject recovered three hours later. When 120 cc of AB-type blood was transfused to an O-type subject, an hour after the subject described malaise and psychroesthesia (feeling cold) in both legs. When 100 cc of A.B. type blood was transfused to a B-type subject, there seemed to be no side effects.

Taken from— "Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century" (2006) pp. 38–39

Unit 731 tested a slew of chemical agents on prisoners and had a building dedicated to gas experiments. Some of the agents tested were mustard gas, lewisite, cyanic acid gas, white phosphorus, adamsite, and phosgene gas. To put things in horrific perspective, the mortality rate from mustard gas was only 2-3%. Still, those who suffered chemical burns and respiratory problems had prolonged hospitalizations and, if they recovered, were thought to be at higher risk of developing cancers during later life. The toxic effects of lewisite are rapid onset and result from acute exposures. The vesicant properties of lewisite result from direct skin contact; it has been estimated that as little as 2 ml to an adult human (equivalent to 37.6 mg/kg) can be fatal within several hours. Airborne release of cyanide gas, in the form of hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen chloride, would be expected to be lethal to 50% of those exposed (LCt50) at levels of 2,500-5,000 mg•min/m^3 and 11,000 mg•min/m^3, respectively. When ingested as sodium or potassium cyanide, the lethal dose is 100-200 mg. According to a medical report prepared during the hostilities by the ministry of health, "[w]hite phosphorus can cause serious injury and death when it comes into contact with the skin, is inhaled or is swallowed." The report states that burns on less than 10 percent of the body can be fatal because of liver, kidneys, and heart damage. Adamsite (D.M.) is a vomiting compound used as a riot-control agent (military designation, D.M.). It is released as an aerosol. Adverse health effects from exposure to adamsite (D.M.) are generally self-limited and do not require specific therapy. Most adverse health effects resolve within 30 minutes. Exposure to large concentrations of adamsite (D.M.), or exposure to adamsite (D.M.) within an enclosed space or under adverse weather conditions, may result in more severe adverse health effects, serious illness, or death.

Phosgene is highly toxic by acute (short-term) inhalation exposure. Severe respiratory effects, including pulmonary edema, pulmonary emphysema, and death, have been reported in humans. Severe ocular irritation and dermal burns may result following eye or skin exposure. It is estimated that as many as 85% of the 91,000 gas deaths in WWI were a result of phosgene or the related agent, diphosgene

A former army major and technician gave the following testimony anonymously (at the time of the interview, this man was a professor emeritus at a national university):

"In 1943, I attended a poison gas test held at the Unit 731 test facilities. A glass-walled chamber about three meters square [97 sq ft] and two meters [6.6 ft] high was used. Inside of it, a Chinese man was blindfolded, with his hands tied around a post behind him. The gas was adamsite (sneezing gas), and as the gas filled the chamber the man went into violent coughing convulsions and began to suffer excruciating pain. More than ten doctors and technicians were present. After I had watched for about ten minutes, I could not stand it any more, and left the area. I understand that other types of gasses were also tested there."

Taken from— Hal Gold, Japan's Infamous Unit 731, p. 349 (2019)

Super gross.

Takeo Wano, a former medical employee of Unit 731, claimed to have observed a Western man being pickled in formaldehyde after being chopped in half vertically. Because so many Russians were residing in the neighborhood at the time, Wano suspected that the man was Russian.

Additionally, Unit 100 experimented with poisonous gas. The captives were housed in mobile gas chambers that resembled phone booths. Others donned military uniforms, while others were made to wear various sorts of gas masks, and other people wore nothing at all.

It's been said that some of the tests are "psychopathically cruel, with no possible military purpose." One experiment, for instance, measured how long it took for three-day-old newborns to freeze to death. Jesus christ.

Additionally, Unit 731 conducted field tests of chemical weapons on detainees. An unknown researcher at the Kamo Unit (Unit 731) wrote a paper that details a significant (mustard gas) experiment on humans from September 7–10, 1940. Twenty participants were split into three groups and put in observation gazebos, trenches, and fighting emplacements. One group received up to 1,800 field cannon rounds of mustard gas for 25 minutes while wearing Chinese underpants, without a cap or a mask. Another set had shoes and a summer military outfit; three wore masks, while the others did not.

They also were exposed to as many as 1,800 rounds of mustard gas. A third group was clothed in summer military uniform, three with masks and two without masks, and were exposed to as many as 4,800 rounds. Then their general symptoms and damage to the skin, eye, respiratory organs, and digestive organs were observed at 4 hours, 24 hours, and 2, 3, and 5 days after the shots.

Holy shit. Then the psychopaths injected the blister fluid from one subject into another, and analyses of blood and soil were also performed. Finally, five subjects were forced to drink a water solution of mustard and lewisite gas, with or without decontamination. The report describes the conditions of every subject precisely without mentioning what happened to them in the long run. The following is an excerpt of one of these reports:

"Number 376, dugout of the first area:

September 7, 1940, 6 pm: Tired and exhausted. Looks with hollow eyes. Weeping redness of the skin of the upper part of the body. Eyelids edematous (uh-dim-uh-tose)(Swollen with fluid), swollen. Epiphora. (excessive watering), Hyperemic conjunctivae (ocular redness).

September 8, 1940, 6 am: Neck, breast, upper abdomen, and scrotum weeping, reddened, swollen. Covered with millet-seed-size to bean-size blisters. Eyelids and conjunctivae hyperemic and edematous. Had difficulties opening the eyes.

September 8, 6 pm: Tired and exhausted. Feels sick. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. Mucous and bloody erosions across the shoulder girdle. Abundant mucus nose secretions. Abdominal pain. Mucous and bloody diarrhea. Proteinuria (excess protein in urinal, possibly meaning kidney damage).

September 9, 1940, 7 am: Tired and exhausted. Weakness of all four extremities.

Low morale. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. Skin of the face still weeping.

Taken from— "Man, Medicine, and the State: The Human Body as an Object of Government Sponsored Medical Research in the 20th Century" (2006) p. 187

Frostbite testing

Hisato Yoshimura, an Army engineer, carried out tests by forcing captives to stand outside, putting various limbs into water at multiple temperatures, and letting the limb freeze. Yoshimura would then use a small stick to whack the victims' frozen limbs while "producing a sound similar to that which a board emits when it is struck." The damaged region was then treated with different methods, such as dousing it in water or exposing it to the heat of a fire once the ice had been chipped away.

The sadistic fuck, Yoshimura, was described to the members of the Unit as a "scientific devil" and a "cold-blooded animal" because of the strictness with which he would carry out his evil experiments. In an interview from the 1980s, Unit 731 member Naoji Uezono revealed a super uncool and nightmare-inducing incident when Yoshimura had "Researchers placed two nude males in an area that was 40–50 degrees below zero and documented the entire process until the individuals passed away. [The victims] were in such pain that they were tearing at each other's flesh with their nails ". In a 1950 essay for the Journal Of Japanese Physiology, Yoshimura revealed his lack of regret for torturing 20 kids and a three-day-old baby in tests that subjected them to ice water and ice temperatures below zero.

Although this article drew criticism, Yoshimura denied any guilt when contacted by a reporter from the Mainichi Shimbun. Yoshimura developed a "resistance index of frostbite" based on the mean temperature of 5 to 30 minutes after immersion in freezing water, the temperature of the first rise after immersion, and the time until the temperature rises after immersion. In several separate experiments, it was then determined how these parameters depend on the time of day a victim's body part was immersed in freezing water, the surrounding temperature and humidity during immersion, and how the victim had been treated before the immersion. Variables like ("after keeping awake for a night", "after hunger for 24 hours", "after hunger for 48 hours", "immediately after heavy meal", "immediately after hot meal", "immediately after muscular exercise", "immediately after cold bath", "immediately after hot bath"), what type of food the victim had been fed over the five days preceding the immersions concerning dietary nutrient intake ("high protein (of animal nature)", "high protein (of vegetable nature)", "low protein intake", and "standard diet"), and salt intake (45 g NaCl per day, 15 g NaCl per day, no salt).

Oh, science....

Then there's syphilis.

For those that may not know, syphilis is a chronic bacterial disease contracted chiefly by infection during sexual intercourse but also congenitally by infection of a developing fetus. The first sign of syphilis is a small, brownish dot on the infected person's left hand. How many of you looked? You dirty birds!

Actually, the first stage of syphilis involves a painless sore on the genitals, rectum, or mouth. After the initial sore heals, the second stage is characterized by a rash. Then, there are no symptoms until the final stage, which may occur years later. This final stage can result in damage to the brain, nerves, eyes, or heart.

Syphilis is treated with penicillin. Sexual partners should also be treated.

Unit members orchestrated forced sex acts between infected and noninfected prisoners to transmit syphilis, as the testimony of a prison guard on the subject of devising a method for transmission of syphilis between patients shows:

"Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. Four or five unit members, dressed in white laboratory clothing completely covering the body with only eyes and mouth visible, rest covered, handled the tests. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot."

These unfortunate victims were infected and then vivisected at various stages of infection to view the interior and exterior organs as the disease developed. Despite being forcefully infected, many guards testified that the female victims were the viruses' hosts. Guards used the term "jam-filled buns" to refer to the syphilis-infected female detainees' genitalia.

And THAT is so gross on just about every level.

Inside the confines of Unit 731, several syphilis-infected children grew up. "One was a Chinese mother carrying a baby, one was a White Russian woman with a daughter of four or five years of age, and the final was a White Russian woman with a kid of around six or seven," recounted a Youth Corps member who was sent to train at Unit 731. Similar tests were performed on these women's offspring, focusing on how prolonged infection times influenced the success of therapies.

Just when you thought this shit was bad enough, the rape and forced pregnancies came.

For use in experiments, nonpregnant female convicts were made to get pregnant. The declared justification for the torture was the possible danger of infections, notably syphilis, being transmitted vertically (from mother to kid). In addition, their interests included maternal reproductive organ injury and fetal survival. There have been no reports of any Unit 731 survivors, including children, even though "a considerable number of newborns were born in captivity." Female captives' offspring are said to have either been aborted or murdered after birth.

While male prisoners were often used in single studies so that the results of the experimentation on them would not be clouded by other variables, women were sometimes used in bacteriological or physiological experiments, sex experiments, and as the victims of sex crimes. The testimony of a unit member that served as a guard graphically demonstrated this violent and disturbing reality:

"One of the former researchers I located told me that one day he had a human experiment scheduled, but there was still time to kill. So he and another unit member took the keys to the cells and opened one that housed a Chinese woman. One of the unit members raped her; the other member took the keys and opened another cell. There was a Chinese woman in there who had been used in a frostbite experiment. She had several fingers missing and her bones were black, with gangrene set in. He was about to rape her anyway, then he saw that her sex organ was festering, with pus oozing to the surface. He gave up the idea, left and locked the door, then later went on to his experimental work."

What in the actual fuck.

Prisoners and victims

An "International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare" was convened in Changde, China, the scene of the plague flea bombardment, as mentioned earlier, in 2002. There, it was calculated that around 580,000 people had been killed by the Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare and other human experimentation. According to American historian Sheldon H. Harris, more than 200,000 people perished. In addition, 1,700 Japanese soldiers in Zhejiang during the Zhejiang-Jiangxi war were killed by their own biological weapons while attempting to release the biological agent, showing major distribution problems in addition to the Chinese deaths. Additionally, according to Harris, animals infected with the plague were released close to the war's conclusion, leading to plague outbreaks that, between 1946 and 1948, killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin region.

Those chosen as test subjects included common criminals, captured bandits, anti-Japanese partisans, political prisoners, homeless people, and people with mental disabilities, including infants, men, elderly people, and pregnant women, in addition to those detained by the Kenpeitai military police for alleged "suspicious activities." About 300 researchers worked at Unit 731, including medical professionals and bacteriologists. However, many people have become numb to carrying out harsh tests due to their experience with animal experimentation.

Without considering victims from other medical research facilities like Unit 100, at least 3,000 men, women, and children: 117—of which at least 600 each year were given by the Kenpeitai—were subjected to Unit 731 experimentation at the Pingfang camp alone. Although the literature generally accepts the number of 3,000 internal casualties, former Unit member Okawa Fukumatsu challenged it in a video interview. He claimed that the Unit had at least 10,000 internal experiments victims and that he had personally vivisected thousands of them.

S. Wells said that Chinese people made up most of the casualties, with smaller proportions of Russian, Mongolian, and Korean people. A few European, American, Indian, Australian, and New Zealander prisoners of war may have also been among them. According to a Yokusan Sonendan paramilitary political youth branch member who worked for Unit 731, Americans, British, and French were present, in addition to Chinese, Russians, and Koreans. According to Sheldon H. Harris' research, the victims were primarily political dissidents, communist sympathizers, common criminals, low-income residents, and those with mental disabilities. According to estimates by author Seiichi Morimura, about 70% of the Pingfang camp's fatalities (both military and civilian) were Chinese, while roughly 30% were Russian.

Nobody who went inside Unit 731 survived. Let me repeat that: "Nobody that went inside Unit 731 survived".

At night, prisoners were usually brought into Unit 731 in black cars with no windows but only a ventilation hole. One of the drivers would exit the vehicle at the main gates and head to the guardroom to report to the guard. The "Special Team" in the inner jail, which was led by Shiro Ishii's brother, would then get a call from that guard. The convicts would then be taken to the inner prisons via an underground tunnel excavated beneath the center building's exterior.

Building 8 was one of the jails housing men and women while building 7 held just women. Once inside the inner jail, technicians would take blood and feces samples from the inmates, assess their kidney function, and gather other physical information. Prisoners found healthy and suitable for research were given a three-digit number instead of their names, which they kept until they passed away. Every time a prisoner passed away following the tests they had undergone, a clerk from the 1st Division crossed their names off of an index card and took their shackles to be worn by newly arrived captives.

At least one "friendly" social interaction between inmates and Unit 731 employees has been documented. Two female convicts were engaged by technician Naokata Ishibashi. One prisoner was a Chinese woman, age 21, while the other was a Soviet woman, age 19. Ishibashi discovered that she was from Ukraine after asking where she was from. The two inmates urged Ishibashi to acquire a mirror since they claimed to have not seen their own faces since being taken prisoner. Through a gap in the cell door, Ishibashi managed to covertly get a mirror to them. As long as they were healthy enough, prisoners were regularly employed for experimentation. Once a prisoner had been admitted to the Unit, they had a two-month life expectancy on average. Many female convicts gave birth there, and some inmates remained alive in the unit for nearly a year. The jail cells each featured a squat toilet and wood floors. The prison's exterior walls and the cells' outer walls were separated by space, allowing the guards to pass behind the cells. There was a little window in each cell door. When shown the inner jail, Chief of the Personnel Division of the Kwantung Army Headquarters, Tamura Tadashi, stated that he glanced inside the cells and observed live individuals in chains, some of whom moved around, while others lay on the bare floor and were in a very ill and helpless condition.

Yoshio Shinozuka, a former Unit 731 Youth Corps member, testified that it was difficult to look through these prison doors because of their tiny windows. Cast iron doors and a high level of security made up the inner jail. No one was allowed admission without specific authorization, a picture I.D. pass, and the entry/exit timings were recorded. These two inner-prison structures were the "special team's" workspaces. This group wore white overalls, army caps, rubber boots, and carried guns.

A former member of the Special Team (who insisted on anonymity) recalled in 1995 his first vivisection conducted at the Unit:

"He didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."

— Anonymous, The New York Times (March 17 1995)

According to some reports, it was standard procedure at the Unit for doctors to place a piece of cloth (or a portion of medical gauze) inside a prisoner's lips before starting vivisection to muffle any screams.

Even though the jail was pretty secure, there was at least one effort to break out... That failed.

According to Corporal Kikuchi Norimitsu's testimony, a fellow unit member informed him that a prisoner had been taken "jumped out of the cell and ran down the corridor, grabbed the keys, and opened the iron doors and some of the cells" after "having shown violence and had struck the experimenter with a door handle." Only the bravest of the inmates were able to jump free, though. These brave ones were killed ". Seiichi Morimura goes into further depth about this attempt at escapology in his book The Devil's Feast.

Two male Russian prisoners were being held in handcuffs in a cell. One of them was lying flat on the ground and acting like he was sick. One of the staff members noticed and decided to go inside the cell. The Russian on the ground, suddenly sprang up and overpowered the guard. The two Russians yelled, unlocked their shackles, grabbed the keys, and opened a few more cells. Other Russian and Chinese prisoners were freaking out, up and down the halls while shouting and screaming. Finally, one Russian yelled at the members of Unit 731, pleading with them to shoot him rather than use him as a test subject.

This Russian was gunned down and murdered. One employee who saw the attempted escape remembered what happened: "In comparison to the "marutas," who had both freedom and weapons, we were all spiritually lost. We knew in our hearts at the moment that justice was not on our side ". Even if the prisoners had been able to leave the quadrangle, a vigorously defended facility staffed with guards, they would have had to traverse a dry moat lined with electric wire and a three-meter-high brick wall to get to the complex's outside.

Even members of Unit 731 weren't free from being subjects of experiments. Yoshio Tamura, an assistant in the Special Team, recalled that Yoshio Sudō, an employee of the first Division at Unit 731, became infected with bubonic plague due to the production of plague bacteria. The Special Team was then ordered to vivisect Sudō. About this Tamura said:

"Sudō had, a few days previously, been interested in talking about women, but now he was thin as a rake, with many purple spots over his body. A large area of scratches on his chest were bleeding. He painfully cried and breathed with difficulty. I sanitised his whole body with disinfectant. Whenever he moved, a rope around his neck tightened. After Sudō's body was carefully checked [by the surgeon], I handed a scalpel to [the surgeon] who, reversely gripping the scalpel, touched Sudō's stomach skin and sliced downward. Sudō shouted "brute!" and died with this last word."

Taken from— Criminal History of Unit 731 of the Japanese Military, pp. 118–119 (1991)

Additionally, Unit 731 Youth Corps member Yoshio Shinozuka testified that his friend, junior assistant Mitsuo Hirakawa, was vivisected due to being accidentally infected with the plague.

Surrender and immunity

Operations and experiments continued until the end of the war. Ishii had wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific War since May 1944, but he was repeatedly told to fuck off.

With the coming of the Red Army in August 1945, the unit had to abandon its work in a hurry. Ministries in Tokyo ordered the destruction of all incriminating materials, including those in Pingfang. Potential witnesses, such as the 300 remaining prisoners, were either gassed or fed poison while the 600 Chinese and Manchurian laborers were all frigging shot. Ishii ordered every group member to disappear and "take the secret to the grave." Potassium cyanide vials were issued for use in case the remaining personnel was captured.

Skeleton crews of Ishii's Japanese troops blew up the compound in the war's final days to destroy any evidence of their activities. Still, many were sturdy enough to remain somewhat intact.

Among the individuals in Japan after its 1945 surrender was Lieutenant Colonel Murray Sanders, whose name doesn't really sound Japanese and who arrived in Yokohama via the American ship Sturgess in September 1945. Sanders was a highly regarded microbiologist and a member of America's military center for biological weapons. Sanders' duty was to investigate Japanese biological warfare activity, and B.O.Y. was there a shit ton!

At the time of his arrival in Japan, he had no knowledge of what Unit 731 was. Until he finally threatened the Japanese with bringing the Soviets into the picture, little information about their biological warfare was being shared with the Americans. The Japanese wanted to avoid prosecution under the Soviet legal system, so the morning after he made his threat, Sanders received a manuscript describing Japan's involvement in biological warfare. Sanders took this information to General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers responsible for rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupation. As a result, MacArthur struck a deal with Japanese informants: he secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731, including their leader, in exchange for providing America, but not the other wartime allies, with their research on biological warfare and data from human experimentation. Yessiree, bob! You heard that correctly!

American occupation authorities monitored the activities of former unit members, including going through and messing with their mail. The Americans believed the research data was valuable and didn't want other nations, especially those guys with the sickle, you know... the Soviet Union, to get their red hands on the data for biological weapons.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal heard only one reference to Japanese experiments with "poisonous serums" on Chinese civilians. This took place in August 1946 and was instigated by David Sutton, assistant to the Chinese prosecutor. The Japanese defense counsel argued that the claim was vague and uncorroborated, and it was dismissed by the tribunal president, Sir William Webb, for lack of evidence! The subject was not pursued further by Sutton, who was probably unaware of Unit 731's activities and allegedly a fucking idiot. His reference to it at the trial is believed to have been "accidental."

While German physicians were brought to trial and had their crimes publicized, the U.S. concealed information about Japanese biological warfare experiments and secured immunity for the monsters. I mean perpetrators.

Critics argue that racism led to the double standard in the American postwar responses to the experiments conducted on different nationalities. For example, whereas the perpetrators of Unit 731 were exempt from prosecution, the U.S. held a tribunal in Yokohama in 1948 that indicted nine Japanese physician professors and medical students for conducting vivisection upon captured American pilots; two professors were sentenced to death and others to 15–20 years' imprisonment. So, it's one thing to do it to THOUSANDS OF CHINESE AND RUSSIANS, but HOW DARE you do that to one of us! The fuck?

Although publicly silent on the issue at the Tokyo Trials, the Soviet Union pursued the case and prosecuted 12 top military leaders and scientists from Unit 731 and its affiliated biological-war prisons Unit 1644 in Nanjing and Unit 100 in Changchun in the Khabarovsk war crimes trials. Among those accused of war crimes, including germ warfare, was General Otozō Yamada, commander-in-chief of the million-man Kwantung Army occupying Manchuria.

The trial of the Japanese monsters was held in Khabarovsk in December 1949; a lengthy partial transcript of trial proceedings was published in different languages the following year by the Moscow foreign languages press, including an English-language edition. The lead prosecuting attorney at the Khabarovsk trial was Lev Smirnov, one of the top Soviet prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials. The Japanese doctors and army commanders who had perpetrated the Unit 731 experiments received sentences from the Khabarovsk court ranging from 2 to 25 years in a Siberian labor camp. The United States refused to acknowledge the trials, branding them communist propaganda. The sentences doled out to the Japanese perpetrators were unusually lenient by Soviet standards. All but two of the defendants returned to Japan by the 1950s (with one prisoner dying in prison and the other committing suicide inside his cell). In addition to the accusations of propaganda, the U.S. also asserted that the trials were to only serve as a distraction from the Soviet treatment of several hundred thousand Japanese prisoners of war; meanwhile, the USSR asserted that the U.S. had given the Japanese diplomatic leniency in exchange for information regarding their human experimentation. The accusations of both the U.S. and the USSR were true. It is believed that the Japanese had also given information to the Soviets regarding their biological experimentation for judicial leniency. This was evidenced by the Soviet Union building a biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk using documentation captured from Unit 731 in Manchuria.

Official silence during the American occupation of Japan

As we, unfortunately, mentioned earlier, during the United States occupation of Japan, the members of Unit 731 and the members of other experimental units were set free. However, on May 6, 1947, Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, wrote to Washington to inform it that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii, can probably be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'war crimes' evidence."

One graduate of Unit 1644, Masami Kitaoka, continued to perform experiments on unwilling Japanese subjects from 1947 to 1956. While working for Japan's National Institute of Health Sciences, he completed his experiments. He infected prisoners with rickettsia and infected mentally-ill patients with typhus. As the unit's chief, Shiro Ishii was granted immunity from prosecution for war crimes by the American occupation authorities because he had provided human experimentation research materials to them. However, from 1948 to 1958, less than five percent of the documents were transferred onto microfilm and stored in the U.S. National Archives before they were shipped back to Japan.

Post-occupation Japanese media coverage and debate

Japanese discussions of Unit 731's activity began in the 1950s after the American occupation of Japan ended. In 1952, human experiments carried out in Nagoya City Pediatric Hospital, which resulted in one death, were publicly tied to former members of Unit 731. Later in that decade, journalists suspected that the murders attributed by the government to Sadamichi Hirasawa were actually carried out by members of Unit 731. In 1958, Japanese author Shūsaku Endō published The Sea and Poison about human experimentation in Fukuoka, which is thought to have been based on an actual incident.

The author Seiichi Morimura published The Devil's Gluttony in 1981, followed by The Devil's Gluttony: A Sequel in 1983. These books purported to reveal the "true" operations of Unit 731 but falsely attributed unrelated photos to the Unit, which raised questions about their accuracy.

Also, in 1981, the first direct testimony of human vivisection in China was given by Ken Yuasa. Since then, much more in-depth testimony has been given in Japan. For example, the 2001 documentary Japanese Devils primarily consists of interviews with fourteen Unit 731 staff members taken prisoner by China and later released.

Significance in postwar research on bio-warfare and medicine

Japanese Biological Warfare operations were by far the largest during WWII, and "possibly with more people and resources than the B.W. producing nations of France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and the Soviet Union combined, between the world wars. Although the dissemination methods of delivering plague-infected fleas by aircraft were crude, the method, among others, allowed the Japanese to "conduct the most extensive employment of biological weapons during WWII." However, the amount of effort devoted to B.W. was not matched by its results. Ultimately, inadequate scientific and engineering foundations limited the effectiveness of the Japanese program. Harris speculates that U.S. scientists generally wanted to acquire it due to the concept of forbidden fruit, believing that lawful and ethical prohibitions could affect the outcomes of their research.

Unit 731 presents a particular problem since, unlike Nazi human experimentation, which the United States publicly condemned, the activities of Unit 731 are known to the general public only from the testimonies of willing former unit members.

Japanese history textbooks usually reference Unit 731 but do not detail allegations following there strict principles. However, Saburō Ienaga's New History of Japan included a detailed description based on officers' testimony. The Ministry for Education attempted to remove this passage from his textbook before it was taught in public schools because the testimony was insufficient. The Supreme Court of Japan ruled in 1997 that the testimony was sufficient and that requiring it to be removed was an illegal violation of freedom of speech.

In 1997, international lawyer Kōnen Tsuchiya filed a class action suit against the Japanese government, demanding reparations for the actions of Unit 731, using evidence filed by Professor Makoto Ueda of Rikkyo University. All levels of the Japanese court system found the suit baseless. No findings of fact were made about the existence of human experimentation, but the court's ruling was that reparations are determined by international treaties, not national courts.

In August 2002, the Tokyo district court ruled that Japan had engaged in biological warfare for the first time. Presiding judge Koji Iwata ruled that Unit 731, on the orders of the Imperial Japanese Army headquarters, used bacteriological weapons on Chinese civilians between 1940 and 1942, spreading diseases, including plague and typhoid, in the cities of Quzhou, Ningbo, and Changde. However, he rejected victims' compensation claims because they had already been settled by international peace treaties.

In October 2003, a Japan's House of Representatives member filed an inquiry. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi responded that the Japanese government did not then possess any records related to Unit 731 but recognized the gravity of the matter and would publicize any records located in the future. As a result, in April 2018, the National Archives of Japan released the names of 3,607 members of Unit 731 in response to a request by Professor Katsuo Nishiyama of the Shiga University of Medical Science.

After World War II, the Office of Special Investigations created a watchlist of suspected Axis collaborators and persecutors who were banned from entering the United States. While they have added over 60,000 names to the watchlist, they have only been able to identify under 100 Japanese participants. In a 1998 correspondence letter between the D.O.J. and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Eli Rosenbaum, director of O.S.I., stated that this was due to two factors:

While most documents captured by the U.S. in Europe were microfilmed before being returned to their respective governments, the Department of Defense decided to not microfilm its vast collection of records before returning them to the Japanese government.

The Japanese government has also failed to grant the O.S.I. meaningful access to these and related records after the war. In contrast, European countries, on the other hand, have been largely cooperative, the cumulative effect of which is that information on identifying these individuals is, in effect, impossible to recover.

Top Movies about war crimes

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Damn, this was a gross episode.

Are you actually reading this? That's awesome! How's it going? Life good?

Our History of Swear Words. (Sorry, Mom)

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 01:29:17 -0400

www.themidnightrainpodcast.com

Do you happen to swear? Is it something you happen to do when you stub your pinky toe on the coffee table? What about when you've just finished dinner and you pull that glorious lasagna out of the oven, burn yourself and then drop your Italian masterpiece on the floor, in turn burning yourself once again? Odds are that if you’re listening to this show, you have a rather colorful vernacular and aren’t offended by those that share in your “darker” linguistic abilities. Those dramatic and often harsh, yet exceedingly hilarious words, have a pretty amazing history. Were they written in manuscripts by monks? Or, did we find them used by regular people and found in prose like the names of places, personal names, and animal names? Well, could they tell us more about our medieval past other than just that sex, torture, plagues and incest was all the rage? Let’s find out!

Fuck

Let’s start with our favorite word. Let’s all say it together, kids. “Fuck!” This most versatile yet often considered one of the worst of the “bad words” doesn’t seem to have been around in the English language prior to the fifteenth century and may have arrived later from the German or th Dutch. Leave it to those beautiful Germans to introduce us to such a colorful word. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary says it wasn’t actually used until 1500. However, the name of a specific place may have been used even earlier.

Many early instances of fuck were said to actually have been used to mean “to strike” rather than being anything to do with fornicating. The more common Middle English word for sex was ”swive”, which has developed into the Modern English word swivel, as in: go swivel on it. Some of the earliest instances of fuck, seen to mean “hitting” or “striking,” such as Simon Fuckebotere (from in 1290), who was more than likely in the milk industry, hitting butter, or Henry Fuckebeggar (1286/7) who may have, hit the poor.

The earliest examples of the word fuck in the English language appeared in the names of places. The first of these is said to be found near Sherwood in 1287: Ric Wyndfuk and Ric Wyndfuck de Wodehous. These both feature a kestrel known as the Windfucker which, we must assume, went in the wind. The next definite example comes from Bristol 1373 in Fockynggroue, which may have been named for a grove where couples went for “some quiet alone time.”

However, Somewhere among the indictment rolls of the county court of Chester (1310/11), studied by Dr. Paul Booth of Keele University (Staffordshire), a man whose Christian name was Roger is mentioned three times. His less Christian last name is also recorded. The name being mentioned repetitively pretty much means it did not result from a spelling mistake but rather it’s the real thing. Meaning, the man’s full name was Roger Fuckebythenavele. Not only does his second name move back the earliest use of fuck in its modern sense by quite a few decades; it also verifies that it is, in fact, a Middle English word. But of course, there are those fuckers that will undoubtedly debate it’s fucking origin.

The stem *fukkō-, with its characteristic double consonant, is easy to explain as a Germanic iterative verb – one of a large family of similar forms. They originated as combinations of various Indo-European roots with *-nah₂-, a suffix indicating repeated action. The formation is not, strictly speaking, Proto-Indo-European; the suffix owes its existence to the reanalysis of an older morphological structure (reanalysis happens when people fail to analyze an inherited structure in the same way as their predecessors). Still, verbs of this kind are older than Proto-Germanic.

*fukkō- apparently meant to ‘strike repeatedly, beat’ (like, say, “dashing” the cream with a plunger in a traditional butter churn). Note also windfucker and fuckwind – old, obsolete words for ‘kestrel’.

A number of words in other Germanic languages may also be related to fuck. One of them is Old Icelandic fjúka ‘to be tossed or driven by the wind’ < *feuka-; cf. also fjúk ‘drifting snowstorm’ (or, as one might put it in present-day English, a fucking blizzard). These words fit a recurrent morphological pattern observed by Kroonen (2012): Germanic iteratives with a voiceless geminate produced by Kluge’s Law often give rise to “de-iterativised” verbs in which the double stop is simplified if the full vocalism or the root (here, *eu rather than *u) is restored.

Kluge's law had a noticeable effect on Proto-Germanic morphology. Because of its dependence on ablaut and accent, it operated in some parts of declension and conjugation, but not in others, giving rise to alternations of short and long consonants in both nominal and verbal paradigms.

If the verb is really native (“Anglo-Saxon”), one would expect Old English *fuccian (3sg. *fuccaþ, pl. *fucciaþ, 1/3sg. preterite *fuccode, etc.). If these forms already had “impolite” connotations in Old English, their absence from the Old English literary corpus is understandable. We may be absolutely sure that *feortan (1/3 sg. pret. *feart, pret. pl. *furton, p.p. *forten) existed in Old English, since fart exists today (attested since about 1300, just like the word fuck) and has an impeccable Indo-European etymology, with cognates in several branches. Still, not a single one of these reconstructed Old English verb forms is actually documented (all we have is the scantily attested verbal noun feorting ‘fart(ing)’).

One has to remember that written records give us a strongly distorted picture of how people really spoke in the past. If you look at the frequency of fuck, fucking and fucker in written English over the last 200 years, you may get the impression that these words disappeared from English completely ca. 1820 and magically reappeared 140 years later. Even the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary pretended they didn’t exist. The volume that should have contained FUCK was published in 1900, and Queen Victoria was still alive.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Forms:

α. 1500s fucke, 1500s– fuck; also Scottish pre-1700 fuk.

Frequency (in current use): Show frequency band information

Origin: Probably a word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: Probably cognate with Dutch fokken …

In coarse slang.

In these senses typically, esp. in early use, with a man as the subject of the verb.

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intransitive. To have sexual intercourse.

▸ ?a1513 W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 106 Be his feirris he wald haue fukkit.

transitive. To have sexual intercourse with (a person).

In quot. a1500 in Latin-English macaronic verse; the last four words are enciphered by replacing each letter with the following letter of the alphabet, and fuccant has a Latin third-person plural ending. The passage translates as ‘They [sc. monks] are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely.’

[a1500 Flen, Flyys (Harl. 3362) f. 47, in T. Wright & J. O. Halliwell Reliquiæ Antiquæ (1841) I. 91 Non sunt in cœli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk [= fuccant uuiuys of heli].]

transitive. With an orifice, part of the body, or something inanimate as an object. Also occasionally intransitive with prepositional objects of this type.

[1680 School of Venus ii. 99 An hour after, he Ferked my Arse again in the same manner.]

transitive. To damage, ruin, spoil, botch; to destroy, put an end to; = to fuck up 1a at Phrasal verbs 1. Also (chiefly in passive): to put into a difficult or hopeless situation; to ‘do for’.

Cf. also mind-fuck v.

1776 Frisky Songster (new ed.) 36 O, says the breeches, I shall be duck'd, Aye, says the petticoat, I shall be f—d.

transitive. U.S. To cheat; to deceive, betray. Frequently without.

1866 G. Washington Affidavit 20 Oct. in I. Berlin et al. Black Mil. Experience in Civil War (1982) v. xviii. 792 Mr. Baker replied that deponent would be fucked out of his money by Mr. Brown.

transitive. In oaths and imprecations (chiefly in optative with no subject expressed): expressing annoyance, hatred, dismissal, etc. Cf. damn v. 6, bugger v. 2a. See also fuck it at Phrases 2, fuck you at Phrases 1b.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xv. [Circe] 560 God fuck old Bennett!

Phrases

Imprecatory and exclamatory phrases (typically in imperative or optative with no subject expressed sense).

P1. Expressing hostility, contempt, or defiant indifference.

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go fuck yourself and variants.

1895 Rep. Senate Comm. Police Dept. N.Y. III. 3158 By Senator Bradley: Q. Repeat what he said to you? A. He said, ‘Go on, fuck yourself, you son-of-a-bitch; I will give you a hundred dollars’; he tried to punch me, and I went out.

fuck you.

1905 L. Schindler Testimony 20 Dec. in People State of N.Y. Respondent, against Charles McKenna (1907) (N.Y. Supreme Court) 37 Murray said to me, ‘Fuck you, I will give you more the same.’ And as he said that, I grabbed the two of them.

P2. fuck it: expressing dismissal, exasperation, resignation, or impetuousness.

1922 E. E. Cummings Enormous Room iv. 64 I said, ‘F— it, I don't want it.’

P3. fuck me and elaborated variants: expressing astonishment or exasperation.

1929 F. Manning Middle Parts of Fortune II. xi. 229 ‘Well, you can fuck me!’ exclaimed the astonished Martlow.

Cunt

Cunt is a vulgar word for the vulva or vagina. It is used in a variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement. Reflecting national variations, cunt can be used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleasant or stupid man or woman in the United Kingdom, or a contemptible man in Australia and New Zealand. However, in Australia and New Zealand it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier (e.g., "He's a good cunt"). The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses.

Feminist writer and English professor Germaine Greer argues that cunt "is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock".

The earliest known use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was as part of a placename of a London street, Gropecunt Lane. Use of the word as a term of abuse is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century. The word appears not to have been taboo in the Middle Ages, but became that way toward the end of the eighteenth century, and was then not generally not allowed to be printed until the latter part of the twentieth century.

There is some disagreement on the origin of the term cunt, although most sources agree that it came from the Germanic word (Proto-Germanic *kunto, stem *kunton-), which emerged as kunta in Old Norse. The Proto-Germanic form's actual origin is a matter of debate among scholars. Most Germanic languages have cognates, including Swedish, Faroese, and Nynorsk (kunta), West Frisian, and Middle Low German (kunte), Middle Dutch (conte), Dutch kut (cunt), and Dutch kont (butt), Middle Low German kutte, Middle High German kotze ("prostitute"), German kott, and maybe Old English cot. The Proto-Germanic term's etymology ia questionable.

It may have arisen by Grimm's law operating on the Proto-Indo-European root *gen/gon "create, become" seen in gonads, genital, gamete, genetics, gene, or the Proto-Indo-European root guneh or "woman" (Greek: gunê, seen in gynaecology). Relationships to similar-sounding words such as the Latin cunnus ("vulva"), and its derivatives French con, Spanish coño, and Portuguese cona, or in Persian kos (کُس), have not been conclusively demonstrated. Other Latin words related to cunnus are cuneus ("wedge") and its derivative cunēre ("to fasten with a wedge", (figurative) "to squeeze in"), leading to English words such as cuneiform ("wedge-shaped"). In Middle English, cunt appeared with many spellings, such as coynte, cunte and queynte, which did not always reflect the actual pronunciation of the word.

The word, in its modern meaning, is attested in Middle English. Proverbs of Hendyng, a manuscript from some time before 1325, includes the advice:

(Give your cunt wisely and make [your] demands after the wedding.) from wikipedia.

The word cunt is generally regarded in English-speaking countries as unsuitable for normal publicconversations. It has been described as "the most heavily tabooed word of all English words".

Quoted from wikipedia:

Some American feminists of the 1970s sought to eliminate disparaging terms for women, including "bitch" and "cunt". In the context of pornography, Catharine MacKinnon argued that use of the word acts to reinforce a dehumanisation of women by reducing them to mere body parts; and in 1979 Andrea Dworkin described the word as reducing women to "the one essential – 'cunt: our essence ... our offence'".

While “vagina” is used much more commonly in colloquial speech to refer to the genitals of people with vulvas than “cunt” is, its origins are defined by its service to male sexuality, making “cunt” — interestingly enough — the least historically misogynistic of the two. “Cunt” has also been used in Renaissance bawdy verse and in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but it was not until Shakespeare’s era that its meaning began to fundamentally shift, during the dawn of Christian doctrine.

Arguably, if cunt simply means and refers to “vagina”, then why would that be bad? Vaginas are pretty great! They provide people with pleasure, they give life, and they’re even a naturally developed lunar calendar! So, why would a person refer to another, assumedly pissy person as a vagina?

So, should we as society fight the negative stereotypes and embrace the term cunt again? It’s a tiny word that bears a lot of weight, but it should be anything but scary or offensive. It can be a massive dose of love instead of an enormous force of hate if we actively define our vocabulary rather than letting it define us.

Words only have that type of power when the uptight, vanilla flavored, missionary only Karen’s and Kevin’s of the world decide they don’t like them. This has been going on for as long as we’ve been using words. So, let’s take it back.

We love you, ya cunts!

coarse slang in later use.

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The female genitals; the vulva or vagina. Cf. quaint n.1

a1400 tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Ashm.) (1894) 172 In wymmen þe necke of þe bladdre is schort, & is maad fast to the cunte.

1552 D. Lindsay Satyre Procl. 144 First lat me lok thy cunt, Syne lat me keip the key.

1680 Earl of Rochester et al. Poems 77 I fear you have with interest repaid, Those eager thrusts, which at your Cunt he made.

1865 ‘Philocomus’ Love Feast iii. 21 I faint! I die! I spend! My cunt is sick! Suck me and fuck me!

A woman as a source of sexual gratification; a promiscuous woman; a slut. Also as a general term of abuse for a woman.

1663 S. Pepys Diary 1 July (1971) IV. 209 Mr. Batten..acting all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined, and..saying that the he hath to sell such a pouder as should make all the cunts in town run after him.

As a term of abuse for a man.

1860 in M. E. Neely Abraham Lincoln Encycl. (1982) 154 And when they got to Charleston, they had to, as is wont Look around to find a chairman, and so they took a Cunt

A despised, unpleasant, or annoying place, thing, or task.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. iv. [Calypso] 59 The grey sunken cunt of the world.

Bitch

Women were frequently equated to dogs in Ancient Greek literature, which was used to dehumanize and shame them for their alleged lack of restraint and sexual urges. This is believed to have originated from the hunter goddess Artemis, who was frequently depicted as a pack of hounds and was perceived to be both beautiful and frigid and savage. According to popular belief, the term "bitch" as we use it today evolved from the Old English word "bicce," which meant a female dog, about the year 1000 AD. The phrase started out as a critique of a woman's sexuality in the 15th century but eventually evolved to signify that the lady was rude or disagreeable.

Clare Bayley has connected this growth of the term "bitch" as an insult to the suffrage struggle and the final passage of women's suffrage in the early 20th century, particularly the 1920s. Men were intimidated when women started to challenge their subordinate roles in the patriarchal power structure, and the phrase started to be used to ferocious and irate females. Men's respect for women and the prevalence of the term are clearly correlated, since usage of the term rapidly decreased during World War II as men's appreciation of women's contributions to the war effort increased.

However, as they competed with women for employment after the war ended and the men went back to work, the word's usage increased once more. As the housewife paradigm started to fade away during the war, the position of women in the workplace and society as a whole underwent an irreparable change. However, males perceived the presence of women in the workforce as a challenge to their supremacy in society.

With songs like Elton John's "The Bitch is Back" ascending the charts in 1974, the slur became more common in mainstream culture and music in the latter decades of the 20th century. As a result of artists like Kanye West and Eminem using the term "bitch" to denigrate women and depict violence against them in their lyrics, hip-hop culture has also long been accused of being misogynistic.

We just need to look at Hillary Clinton's recent campaign for president in 2016 to understand how frequently this slur is leveled at women, especially those in positions of authority who are defying patriarchal expectations and shattering glass ceilings. Rep. AOC being called a "fucking bitch" by a GOP Rep. is another similar example. It is evident that the usage of the phrase and the degree to which males regard women to be a danger are related.

bitch (v.)

"to complain," attested from at least 1930, perhaps from the sense in bitchy, perhaps influenced by the verb meaning "to bungle, spoil," which is recorded from 1823. But bitched in this sense seems to echo Middle English bicched "cursed, bad," a general term of opprobrium (as in Chaucer's bicched bones "unlucky dice"), which despite the hesitation of OED, seems to be a derivative of bitch (n.).

bitchy (adj.)

1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs thought to look less rough or coarse than usual.

The earliest use of "bitch" specifically as a derogatory term for women dates to the fifteenth century. Its earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behavior, according to the English language historian Geoffrey Hughes:

The early applications were to a promiscuous or sensual woman, a metaphorical extension of the behavior of a bitch in heat. Herein lies the original point of the powerful insult son of a bitch, found as biche sone ca. 1330 in Arthur and Merlin ... while in a spirited exchange in the Chester Play (ca. 1400) a character demands: "Whom callest thou queine, skabde bitch?" ("Who are you calling a whore, you miserable bitch?").

In modern usage, the slang term bitch has different meanings depending largely on social context and may vary from very offensive to endearing, and as with many slang terms, its meaning and nuances can vary depending on the region in which it is used.

The term bitch can refer to a person or thing that is very difficult, as in "Life's a bitch" or "He sure got the bitch end of that deal". It is common for insults to lose intensity as their meaning broadens ("bastard" is another example). In the film The Women (1939), Joan Crawford could only allude to the word: "And by the way, there's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society - outside of a kennel." At the time, use of the actual word would have been censored by the Hays Office. By 1974, Elton John had a hit single (#4 in the U.S. and #14 in the U.K.) with "The Bitch Is Back", in which he says "bitch" repeatedly. It was, however, censored by some radio stations. On late night U.S. television, the character Emily Litella (1976-1978) on Saturday Night Live (portrayed by Gilda Radner) would frequently refer to Jane Curtin under her breath at the end of their Weekend Update routine in this way: "Oh! Never mind...! Bitch!"

Bitchin' arose in the 1950s to describe something found to be cool or rad.

Modern use can include self-description, often as an unfairly difficult person. For example, in the New York Times bestseller The Bitch in the House, a woman describes her marriage: "I'm fine all day at work, but as soon as I get home, I'm a horror....I'm the bitch in the house."Boy George admitted "I was being a bitch" in a falling out with Elton John.

Generally, the term bitch is still considered offensive, and not accepted in formal situations. According to linguist Deborah Tannen, "Bitch is the most contemptible thing you can say about a woman. Save perhaps the four-letter C word." It's common for the word to be censored on Prime time TV, often rendered as "the b-word". During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, a John McCain supporter referred to Hillary Clinton by asking, "How do we beat the bitch?" The event was reported in censored format:

On CNN's "The Situation Room," Washington Post media critic and CNN "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz observed that "Senator McCain did not embrace the 'b' word that this woman in the audience used." ABC reporter Kate Snow adopted the same location. On CNN's "Out in the Open," Rick Sanchez characterized the word without using it by saying, "Last night, we showed you a clip of one of his supporters calling Hillary Clinton the b-word that rhymes with witch." A local Fox 25 news reporter made the same move when he rhymed the unspoken word with rich.

A study reported that, when used on social media, bitch "aims to promote traditional, cultural beliefs about femininity". Used hundreds of thousands of times per day on such platforms, it is associated with sexist harassment, "victimizing targets", and "shaming" victims who do not abide by degrading notions about femininity

Son of a bitch

The first known appearance of "son-of-a-bitch" in a work of American fiction is Seventy-Six (1823), a historical fiction novel set during the American Revolutionary War by eccentric writer and critic John Neal. The protagonist, Jonathan Oadley, recounts a battle scene in which he is mounted on a horse: "I wheeled, made a dead set at the son-of-a-bitch in my rear, unhorsed him, and actually broke through the line."

The term's use as an insult is as old as that of bitch. Euphemistic terms are often substituted, such as gun in the phrase "son of a gun" as opposed to "son of a bitch", or "s.o.b." for the same phrase. Like bitch, the severity of the insult has diminished. Roy Blount Jr. in 2008 extolled the virtues of "son of a bitch" (particularly in comparison to "asshole") in common speech and deed. Son of a bitch can also be used as a "how about that" reaction, or as a reaction to excruciating pain.

In politics the phrase "Yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch" has been attributed, probably apocryphally, to various U.S. presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. Immediately after the detonation of the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945 (the device codenamed Gadget), the Manhattan Project scientist who served as the director of the test, Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, exclaimed to Robert Oppenheimer "Now we're all sons-of-bitches."

In January 2022, United States President Joe Biden was recorded on a hot mic responding to Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asking, "Do you think inflation is a political liability ahead of the midterms?" Biden responded sarcastically, saying, "It's a great asset — more inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch."

The 19th-century British racehorse Filho da Puta took its name from "Son of a Bitch" in Portuguese.

The Curtiss SB2C, a World War 2 U.S. Navy dive bomber, was called "Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class" by some of its pilots and crewmen.

In American popular culture, the slang word "basic" is used to derogatorily refer to persons who are thought to favor mainstream goods, fashions, and music. Hip-hop culture gave rise to "basic bitch," which gained popularity through rap music, lyrics, blogs, and videos from 2011 to 2014. "Bros" is a common word for their male counterparts. Other English-speaking nations have terms like "basic bitch" or "airhead," such as modern British "Essex girls" and "Sloane Rangers," as well as Australian "haul girls," who are noted for their love of shopping for expensive clothing and uploading films of their purchases on YouTube.

Oxford English Dictionary

transitive. To call (a person, esp. a woman) a bitch.

1707 Diverting Muse 131 Why how now, crys Venus, altho you're my Spouse, [If] you Bitch me, you Brute, have a care of your Brows

transitive. To behave like a bitch towards (a person); to be spiteful, malicious, or unfair to (a person); to let (a person) down.

1764 D. Garrick Let. 23 Aug. (1963) II. 423 I am a little at a loss what You will do for a Woman Tragedian to stare & tremble wth yr Heroes, if Yates should bitch You—but she must come.

intransitive. To engage in spiteful or malicious criticism or gossip, esp. about another person; to talk spitefully or cattily about.

1915 G. Cannan Young Earnest i. x. 92 It's the women bitching at you got into your blood.

intransitive. Originally U.S. To grumble, to complain (about something, or at someone).

Frequently collocated with moan.

1930 Amer. Speech 5 238 [Colgate University slang] He bitched about the course.

†3. intransitive. To back down, to yield. Obsolete. rare.

1777 E. Burke Let. 9 May in Corr. (1961) III. 339 Norton bitched a little at last, but though he would recede; Fox stuck to his motion.

Shit

shit (v.)

Old English scitan, from Proto-Germanic *skit- (source also of North Frisian skitj, Dutch schijten, German scheissen), from PIE(proto indo-european) root *skei- "to cut, split." The notion is of "separation" from the body (compare Latin excrementum, from excernere "to separate," Old English scearn "dung, muck," from scieran "to cut, shear;" see sharn). It is thus a cousin to science and conscience.

"Shit" is not an acronym. Nor is it a recent word. But it was taboo from 1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare nor the KJV has it), and even in the "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in Atlantic Monthly) and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). [Rawson]

It has extensive slang usage; the meaning "to lie, to tease'' is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Also see shite. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18th century.

To shit bricks "be very frightened" attested by 1961. The connection between fear and involuntary defecation has generated expressions in English since the 14th century. (the image also is in Latin), and probably also is behind scared shitless (1936).

shit (n.)

Middle English shit "diarrhea," from Old English scitte "purging, diarrhea," from source of shit (v.). The general sense of "excrement" dates from 1580s (Old English had scytel, Middle English shitel for "dung, excrement;" the usual 14c. noun for natural discharges of the bodies of men or beasts seems to have been turd or filth). As an exclamation attested in print by 1920 but certainly older. Use for "obnoxious person" is by 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937.

Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. Shit-hole is by 1937 as "rectum," by 1969 in reference to undesirable locations. Shitload (also shit-load) for "a great many" is by 1970. Shitticism is Robert Frost's word for scatological writing.

Up shit creek "in trouble" is by 1868 in a South Carolina context (compare the metaphoric salt river, of which it is perhaps a coarse variant). Slang not give a shit "not care" is by 1922. Pessimistic expression same shit different day is attested by 1989. To get (one's) shit together "manage one's affairs" is by 1969. Emphatic shit out of luck is by 1942.

The expression when the shit hits the fan "alluding to a moment of crisis or its disastrous consequences" is attested by 1967.

Expressing anger, despair, surprise, frustration, resignation, excitement, etc.

1865 Proc. Court Martial U.S. Army (Judge Advocate General's Office) U.S. National Arch.: Rec. group 153, File MM-2412 3 Charge II. Private James Sullivan...did in contemptuous and disrespectful manner reply..‘Oh, shit, I can't’ or words to that effect.

Ass/Asshole

The word arse in English derives from the Proto-Germanic (reconstructed) word *arsaz, from the Proto-Indo-European word *ors-, meaning "buttocks" or "backside". The combined form arsehole is first attested from 1500 in its literal use to refer to the anus. The metaphorical use of the word to refer to the worst place in a region (e.g., "the arsehole of the world"), is first attested in print in 1865; the use to refer to a contemptible person is first attested in 1933. In the ninth chapter of his 1945 autobiography, Black Boy, Richard Wright quotes a snippet of verse that uses the term: "All these white folks dressed so fine / Their ass-holes smell just like mine ...". Its earliest known usage in newspapers as an insult was 1965. As with other vulgarities, these uses of the word may have been common in oral speech for some time before their first appearances in print. By the 1970s, Hustler magazine featured people they did not like as "Asshole of the Month." In 1972, Jonathan Richman of Modern Lovers recorded his song "Pablo Picasso", which includes the line "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."

Until the early 1990s, the word was considered one of a number of words that could not be uttered on commercial television in the United States. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay caused a major shock when he uttered the word during a televised MTV awards show in 1989. However, there were PG-13 and R-rated films in the 1980s that featured use of the word, such as the R-rated The Terminator (1984), the PG-13-rated National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and the PG-rated Back to the Future (1985). By 1994, however, vulgarity had become more acceptable, and the word was featured in dialog on the long-running television series NYPD Blue, though it has yet to become anything close to commonplace on network TV. In some broadcast edits (such as the syndication airings of South Park), the word is partially bleeped out, as "assh—". A variant of the term, "ass clown", was coined and popularized by the 1999 comedy film Office Space.

The word is mainly used as a vulgarity, generally to describe people who are viewed as stupid, incompetent, unpleasant, or detestable. Moral philosopher Aaron James, in his 2012 book, Assholes: A Theory, gives a more precise meaning of the word, particularly to its connotation in the United States: A person, who is almost always male, who considers himself of much greater moral or social importance than everyone else; who allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically; who does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; and who is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. He feels he is not to be questioned, and he is the one who is chiefly wronged.

Many would believe the term ass to be used to describe an ungulate or a hoofed mammal of the smaller variety. Those people would be correct. However ass would be used as slang to describe the incompetence of people as they seem to resemble that of a donkey. Slow and stupid. We don't see donkeys in this manner but the people of old may have.

A stupid, irritating, or contemptible person; a person who behaves despicably. Cf. arsehole n. 3, shithole n. 2.

Quot. 1954, from a story originally told in 1933, provides evidence for the development of this sense from figurative uses of sense 1.

[1954 V. Randolph Pissing in Snow (1976) lxx. 106 When God got the job [of making men and women] done,..there was a big pile of ass-holes left over. It looks to me like the Almighty just throwed all them ass-holes together, and made the Easton family.]

Dick/dickhead

Dick is a common English language slang word for the human penis. It is also used by extension for a variety of slang purposes, generally considered vulgar, including: as a verb to describe sexual activity; and as a term for individuals who are considered to be rude, abrasive, inconsiderate, or otherwise contemptible. In this context, it can be used interchangeably with jerk, and can also be used as a verb to describe rude or deceitful actions. Variants include dickhead, which literally refers to the glans. The offensiveness of the word dick is complicated by the continued use of the word in inoffensive contexts, including as both a given name (often a nickname for Richard) and a surname, the popular British dessert spotted dick, the classic novel Moby-Dick, the Dick and Jane series of children's books, and the American retailer Dick's Sporting Goods. Uses like these have given comic writers a foundation to use double entendre to capitalize on this contradiction.

In the mid-17th century, dick became slang for a man as a sexual partner. For example, in the 1665 satire The English Rogue by Richard Head, a "dick" procured to impregnate a character that is having difficulty conceiving:

“The next Dick I pickt up for her was a man of a colour as contrary to the former, as light is to darkness, being swarthy; whose hair was as black as a sloe; middle statur'd, well set, both strong and active, a man so universally tryed, and so fruitfully successful, that there was hardly any female within ten miles gotten with child in hugger-mugger, but he was more than suspected to be Father of all the legitimate. Yet this too, proved an ineffectual Operator.”

An 1869 slang dictionary offered definitions of dick including "a riding whip" and an abbreviation of dictionary, also noting that in the North Country, it was used as a verb to indicate that a policeman was eyeing the subject. The term came to be associated with the penis through usage by men in the military around the 1880s.

The term "dick" was originally used to describe a vile or repulsive individual in the 1960s.

A stupid, annoying, or objectionable person (esp. a male); one whose behaviour is considered knowingly obnoxious, provocative, or disruptive. Cf. dick n.1 6.

1960 S. Martinelli Let. 28 Dec. in C. Bukowski & S. Martinelli Beerspit Night & Cursing. (2001) 132 You shd listen to yr own work being broadcast [on the radio]... You cd at least tell ME when to list[en] dickhead!

Twat

noun Slang: Vulgar.

vulva.

First recorded in 1650–60; perhaps originally a dialectal variant of thwat, thwot (unattested), presumed Modern English outcome of Old English thwāt, (unattested), akin to Old Norse thveit “cut, slit, forest clearing” (from northern English dialect thwaite “forest clearing”)

What does twat mean?

Twat is vulgar slang for “vagina.” It’s also used, especially in British English slang, a way to call someone as stupid, useless, or otherwise contemptible person.

While twat has been recorded since the 1650s, we don’t exactly know where it comes from. One theory connects twat to the Old English term for “to cut off.” The (bizarre) implication could be that women’s genitalia were thought to be just shorter versions of men’s.

Twat was popularized in the mid-1800s completely by accident. The great English poet Robert Browning had read a 1660 poem that referred, in a derogatory way, to a “nun’s twat.” Browning thought a twat must have been a kind of hat, so he incorporated it into his own work.

Words for genitalia and other taboo body parts (especially female body parts) have a long history of being turned into abusive terms. Consider a**, d*ck, p***y, among many others. In the 1920s, English speakers started using twat as an insult in the same way some use a word like c**t, although twat has come to have a far less offensive force than the c-word in American English. In the 1930s, twat was sometimes used as a term of abuse for “woman” more generally, and over the second half of the 1900s, twat was occasionally used as slang for “butt” or “anus” in gay slang.

Twat made headlines in June 2018 when British actor Danny Dyer called former British Prime Minister David Cameron a twat for his role in initiating the Brexit referendum in 2016—and then stepping down after it passed.

Twat is still common in contemporary use as an insult implying stupidity, especially among British English speakers.

Even though it’s a common term, twat is still vulgar and causes a stir when used in a public setting, especially due to its sexist nature. Public figures that call someone a twat are often publicly derided. Online, users sometimes censor the term, rendering it as tw*t or tw@t.

If you’re annoying, you might be accused of twattiness; if you’re messing around or procrastinating, you might be twatting around; if you’re going on about something, you might be twatting on. Twatting is also sometimes substituted for the intensifier ”fucking”.

As a term of abuse: a contemptible or obnoxious person; a person who behaves stupidly; a fool, an idiot. Now chiefly British.

The force of this term can vary widely. Especially when applied to a woman, it can be as derogatory and offensive as the term cunt (cunt n. 2a), but it can also be used (especially of men) as a milder form of abuse without conscious reference to the female genitals, often implying that a person's behaviour, appearance, etc., is stupid or idiotic, with little or no greater force than twit (twit n.1 2b).

1922 ‘J. H. Ross’ Mint (1936) xxxv. 110 The silly twat didn't know if his arse-hole was bored, punched, drilled, or countersunk.

The top 10 movies with the most swear words:

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) – 715
Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safide, 2019) – 646
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995) – 606
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Kevin Smith, 2001) – 509
Fury (David Ayer, 2014) – 489
Straight Outta Compton (F. Gary Gray, 2015) – 468
Summer of Sam (Spike Lee, 1999) – 467
Nil By Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997) – 432
Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) – 418
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (Mike Judge, 1996) – 414

The Illuminati. (Someone Just Wanted To Fly.)

Tue, 20 Sep 2022 22:48:28 -0400

Become an elite Poopinati!

The Illuminati

So, you're standing amongst the council, being tried by a jury of a higher order. Your crime; Being the most dangerous person across the multiverse. You look shockingly at Mordo, Richards, and the other members of this definitive group of beings as you defend your alleged crimes, for you are facing the… Illuminati!

Or some shit like that.

We are exploring the super, double extra wannabe cult or the underground rulers of everything evil, depending on your take after today, the "Real Illuminati." At first, we’ll dive into what they SAY IS THE REAL STORY OF THE ILLUMINATI Wink Wink! (Be we all know the truth) and then we’re going to jump right in to what mainstream media (which is controlled by the illuminati) says are “conspiracies”. Strap on your tinfoil hats, Passengers! We’re going for a ride!!

The term "Illuminati" refers to several genuine and imagined organizations. However, the term historically refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, a secret society from the Age of Enlightenment that was established on May 1, 1776, in Bavaria, which is now a part of Germany and that has the most delicious cream donuts. The association aimed to combat abuses of governmental authority, superstition, obscurantism (intentionally providing information in a vague or complex way to prevent further investigation and understanding or, simply, spewing a bunch of word vomit to confuse people), and religious influence in public life. In its general laws, they stated that controlling the perpetrators without conquering them was the "rule of the day."

Later, the term "Illuminati" was used to describe many groups that are said to represent a continuation of the original Bavarian Illuminati (even though these links have not been proven). To obtain political power and influence and create a "New World Order," these organizations have frequently been charged with plotting to manipulate events and install operatives inside of governments and companies. The Illuminati are portrayed as lurking in the shadows and manipulating the strings and levers of power. They play a crucial role in some of the most well-known and intricate conspiracy theories. This interpretation of the Illuminati has found its way into popular culture, appearing in various books, movies, T.V. episodes, comic books, video games, and music videos.

At the University of Ingolstadt, Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) started teaching canon law and practical philosophy in 1773. (Canon Law, according to Wikipedia, is "how the Church organizes and governs herself." It is the system of laws and religious legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church.) He taught in a school-sponsored by Jesuits, whose order Pope Clement XIV (14th) had suppressed in 1773, and was the only non-clerical professor there. The university's finances and some authority, which they continued to see as belonging to them, were still in the hands of the Ingolstadt Jesuits. When course content featured anything they deemed liberal or Protestant, they made constant attempts to frustrate and discredit non-clerical employees, especially in those instances. Weishaupt had a strong anti-clerical stance and decided to use a covert organization of like-minded people to propagate the Aufklärung (Enlightenment) beliefs. The word clerical in this sense means "referring to anything to do with the clergy — those ordained for religious work, usually in the Christian faith."

He said "screw it" and established his own society, which was to have a ranking or grading system modeled after Freemasonry, but with his own goals because he felt Freemasonry was too costly and not open to his ideas. Bund der Perfektibilisten, or Covenant of Perfectibility (Perfectibilists), was the new order's initial name and a horrible one, to boot. Still, it was later modified since it sounded like some pretentious bullshit. Weishaupt established the Perfectibilists on May 1, 1776, choosing the Owl of Minerva as their emblem. The Owl of Minerva is often called the "owl of Athena." It has been a symbol of knowledge and wisdom throughout the Western world.

The members were to use aliases within the society. Weishaupt became Spartacus. Law students Massenhausen, Bauhof, Merz, and Sutor, became Ajax, Agathon, Tiberius, and Erasmus Roterodamus. Logan would have been dubbed Hasentus Everseenamovieus, whereas I would have been known as Dopus Asfuckasus. Weishaupt later booted Sutor for being a lazy turd.

In April 1778, the order became the Illuminatenorden, or Order of Illuminati, after Weishaupt seriously considered calling it the "Bee order." Massenhausen was the first to step up and be most engaged in advancing society. Significantly, he hired Xavier von Zwack, a former pupil of Weishaupt who was just beginning his distinguished administrative career while studying at Munich not long after the order started. He was the head of the Bavarian National Lottery at the time, where if you won, you got all the donuts. And, of course, that's not true, but it should be.

Weishaupt quickly viewed Massenhausen's "go get em attitude" as a liability because it frequently led to attempts to hire the wrong people. Later, his unpredictable love life caused him to become careless. As Weishaupt turned over the leadership of the Munich group to Zwack, it was discovered that Massenhausen had stolen subscription money and read Weishaupt and Zwack's communications. After earning his degree in 1778, Massenhausen accepted a position outside Bavaria and lost interest in the order. The order had nominally twelve members at this point.

After Massenhausen left, Zwack put all his effort into finding more responsible and significant recruits. This included Hertel, a canon of the Munich Frauenkirche and a childhood friend of Weishaupt, who was considered a hell of a guy. By the end of the summer of 1778, the order had five territories: Munich (Athens), Ingolstadt (Eleusis), Ravensberg (Sparta), Freysingen (Thebes), and Eichstaedt, with a total of 27 members (including Massenhausen).

The order had three membership levels at the time—novice, minerval, and illuminated minerval—but only the minerval level required a problematic ceremony. In this, a password and code were supplied to the candidate. Weishaupt was kept informed on the actions and personalities of his members through a system of mutual espionage, with his favorites joining the Areopagus, the ruling council. Some newbies were allowed to join the army and become insinuates. Jews, pagans, women, monks, and members of other secret societies were told to fuck off, but upright Christians were what they wanted. Favored candidates were wealthy, submissive, eager to learn, and between 18 and 30.

After unsuccessfully trying to stop some of his followers from becoming Freemasons, Weishaupt decided to join them to gather resources for developing his own ritual. Early in February 1777, he was accepted into lodge "Prudence" of the Rite of Strict Observance. He learned nothing about the more advanced degrees of "blue lodge" masonry as he excelled through its three degrees. Still, the following year, a priest by the name of Abbé Marotti told Zwack that these deeper secrets depended on an understanding of the earlier religion and the primitive Church. Weishaupt was persuaded by Zwack that their own order should establish cordial ties with Freemasonry and acquire permission to develop their own lodge. At this stage (December 1778), adding the first three degrees of Freemasonry was considered a secondary project.

Quickly, a warrant was obtained from the Grand Lodge of Prussia called the Royal York for Friendship. The new lodge was named Theodore of the Good Council to flatter Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria. It was founded in Munich on March 21, 1779, and quickly packed with Illuminati. However, the first master, Radl, was persuaded to return home to Baden and ran the lodge by July, per Weishaupt's order.

The next step involved independence from their Grand Lodge. By establishing masonic relations with the Union lodge in Frankfurt, affiliated to the Premier Grand Lodge of England, lodge Theodore became independently recognized and able to declare its independence. As a new mother lodge, it could now spawn its own lodges. The recruiting drive amongst the Frankfurt masons also obtained the allegiance of Adolph Freiherr Knigge.

Knigge was recruited late in 1780 at a convention of the Rite of Strict Observance by Costanzo Marchese di Costanzo, an infantry captain in the Bavarian army and a fellow Freemason. As he was still in his twenties, Knigge had already reached the highest initiatory grades of his order and had arrived with his own grand plans for reform. Disappointed that his plan found no support, Knigge was immediately intrigued when Costanzo informed him that the order he sought to create already existed. Knigge and three of his friends expressed a strong interest in learning more of this order, and Costanzo showed them material relating to the Minerval grade. The teaching material for the stage was "liberal" literature which was banned in Bavaria but common knowledge in the Protestant German states.

Knigge's three colleagues lost interest in Costanzo after becoming disillusioned and extremely confused, like the rest of us. Still, he persisted and was rewarded in November 1780 with a letter from Weishaupt. Knigge was a perfect candidate because of his ties inside and outside Freemasonry. For his part, Knigge was charmed by the attention and drawn to the order's proclaimed goals of educating people and shielding them against oppression. Moreover, Weishaupt recognized Knigge's interest in alchemy and the "higher sciences" and promised to promote them. In response to Weishaupt, Knigge laid out his ideas for reforming Freemasonry when the Strict Observance was beginning to doubt its history.

Before he could be admitted to the higher ranks of the order, Weishaupt put Knigge in charge of recruitment. Knigge agreed, but with the stipulation that he be given the freedom to select the recruitment locations. Many additional masons joined the Illuminati's Minerval grade after finding Knigge's depiction of the new masonic order appealing. At this point, Knigge seemed to respect the "Most Serene Superiors" Weishaupt said he served. To delay providing any assistance, Weishaupt assigned him an additional duty despite his embarrassing failure to explain anything about the upper degrees of the order. Because he was full of shit.

Knigge then created pamphlets documenting the actions of the illegal Jesuits, claiming to show how they continued to thrive and recruit, particularly in Bavaria, using material provided by Weishaupt. Finally, Knigge wrote to Weishaupt that his position was becoming damn near impossible because he couldn't offer his recruits any real answers to their question about the higher grades. Weishaupt finally broke down and admitted in January 1781 that his superiors and the purported antiquity of the order were bullshit and that the higher degrees had not yet been created as he faced the possibility of losing Knigge and his masonic recruits.

Knigge was unusually composed in response to Weishaupt's admittance, even though he was looking forward to learning the promised intricate Freemasonry secrets found in the upper degrees of the Illuminati. Weishaupt pledged to give Knigge complete creative control over the development of the higher degrees and to send him his own notes. Knigge, for his part, enjoyed the chance to express himself through the order. He asserted that his new strategy would increase the appeal of the Illuminati to potential members in Germany's Protestant counties. Knigge received a 50 florins advance from the Areopagus in November 1781 to travel to Bavaria, where he met and partied with fellow Illuminati members.

The order had now developed extensive internal divisions. In July 1780, the Eichstaedt command had formed an autonomous province, and a rift was growing between Weishaupt and the Areopagus. They found him stubborn, dictatorial, inconsistent, and obviously full of shit. As a result, Knigge was constantly thrown into the role of peacemaker.

In discussions with the Areopagus and Weishaupt, Knigge identified two problematic areas. First, Weishaupt's emphasis on recruiting university students meant that young men with little practical experience often had to fill senior positions in the order. Secondly, the anti-Jesuit ethos of the order at its inception had generally become anti-religious. Knigge knew it would be a problem recruiting the senior Freemasons that the order was looking to bring in. Knigge felt the stifling grip of conservative Catholicism in Bavaria and understood the anti-religious feelings that this produced in the liberal Illuminati. Still, he also saw the negative impression these feelings would provide in Protestant states, making the spread of the order in greater Germany much more difficult. The Areopagus and Weishaupt felt powerless to do anything less than give Knigge a free hand. He had the contacts within and outside of Freemasonry that they needed, and he had the skill as a ritualist to build their projected grade structure, where they had ground to a halt at Illuminatus Minor, with only the Minerval grade below and the merest sketches of higher grades. The only restrictions imposed were the need to discuss the inner secrets of the highest degrees and the necessity of submitting his new grades for approval.

Meanwhile, the scheme to propagate Illuminatism as a legitimate branch of Freemasonry had farted out. While Lodge Theodore was now in their control, a chapter of "Elect Masters" attached to it only had one member from the order and still had a constitutional superiority to the craft lodge controlled by the Illuminati. The chapter would be difficult to persuade to submit to the Areopagus and formed a real barrier to Lodge Theodore becoming the first mother-lodge of a new Illuminated Freemasonry. A treaty of alliance was signed between the order and the chapter, and by the end of January 1781, four daughter lodges had been created, but independence was not on the chapter's agenda.

Costanza wrote to the Royal York, pointing out the discrepancy between the fees dispatched to their new Grand Lodge and the returned service they had received. The Royal York, unwilling to lose the money they were bringing in, offered to confer Freemasonry's "higher" secrets on a representative that their Munich brethren would dispatch to Berlin. Accordingly, Costanza set off for Prussia on April 4, 1780, with instructions to negotiate a reduction in Theodore's fees while he was there. On the way, he argued with a Frenchman about a lady with whom they shared a carriage. The Frenchman sent a message ahead to the king sometime before they reached Berlin, calling Costanza a spy and having him arrested. He was only freed from prison with the help of the Grand Master of Royal York and was kicked out of Prussia, having accomplished fuck all.

Knigge's recruitment from German Freemasonry was far from random. He targeted the masters and wardens, the men who ran the lodges and were often able to place the entire club at the disposal of the Illuminati. For example, Baron de Witte, master of Constancy lodge in Aachen, caused every member to join the order. This way, the order expanded rapidly in central and southern Germany and obtained a foothold in Austria. Moving into the Spring of 1782, the handful of students who had started the order had swelled to about 300 members, with only 20 new recruits being students.

In Munich, the first half of 1782 saw considerable changes in the government of Lodge Theodore. In February, Weishaupt had offered to split the lodge, with the Illuminati going their own way and the chapter taking any remaining traditionalists into their continuation of Theodore. At this point, the chapter unexpectedly surrendered, and the Illuminati had complete control of the lodge and chapter. In June, both club and chapter sent letters severing relations with Royal York, citing their faithfulness in paying for their recognition and Royal York's failure to provide any instruction in the higher grades. Their neglect of Costanza, and inability to defend him from negative charges or prevent his expulsion from Prussia, were also brought up. They had made no effort to provide Costanza with the promised secrets, and the Munich masons now suspected that their brethren in Berlin relied on the mystical French higher grades which they sought to avoid. Lodge Theodore was now independent.

The Rite of Strict Observance was now in a critical state. Its leader was Prince Carl of Södermanland (later Charles XIII (13th) of Sweden), openly suspected of trying to absorb the rite into the Swedish Rite, which he already controlled. The German lodges looked to Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel for leadership. However, suspicion turned to open contempt when Carl regarded the Stuart heir to the British throne as the true GrandMaster, and the lodges of the Strict Observance all but ignored their Grand Master. This bullshit led to the Convent of Wilhelmsbad.

The last Strict Observance convention, postponed since October 15, 1781, eventually began on July 16, 1782, at the spa town of Wilhelmsbad, which is located outside of (and now a part of) Hanau. The 35 participants in a discussion about the future of the order knew that the Strict Observance in its current form was doomed. Also, the Convent of Wilhelmsbad would be a battle over the pieces between the Martinists, led by Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, and the German mystics, led by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and their host Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel. Only Franz Dietrich von Ditfurth, and Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, objected to mystical higher grades. Ditfurth actively advocated for a return to the fundamental three degrees of Freemasonry, which was the convention's least likely choice. The mystics had previously developed logical replacement plans for the higher degrees.

(Martinism is a type of arcane Christianity and Christian mysticism that is focused on the fall of the first man, his material seclusion from his spiritual source, and the process of his return, known as "Reintegration.")

The Illuminati were able to promote themselves as a viable option since there wasn't an effective alternative to the two schools of mysticism. Knigge, who now had complete authority to speak for the order, encouraged and helped Ditfurth, who took on the role of their spokesperson. Weishaupt rejected Knigge's initial proposal to form an alliance between the two orders because he didn't see the benefit of working with a dying order. His new strategy was to enlist the masons opposed to the higher degree of "Templar" Strict Observance.

At the convent, Ditfurth prevented Willermoz and Hesse from introducing their own higher grades by demanding that the delegates be informed in full of such degrees. Due to their frustration, the German mystics enrolled Count Kollowrat in the Illuminati as a later affiliate. With no claims to additional masonic revelations, Ditfurth's goal was to replace all higher degrees with a single fourth degree. He left the convent early after finding no support for his proposal and reported to the Areopagus that he had no hopes for the gathering.

In an attempt to satisfy everybody, the Convent of Wilhelmsbad didn't achieve shit. They renounced the Templar origins of their ritual while retaining the Templar titles, trappings, and administrative structure. Charles of Hesse and Ferdinand of Brunswick remained at the head of the order, but the lodges were almost independent in practice. The Germans adopted the name of the French order of Willermoz, Les Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte (Good Knights of the Holy City). Some Martinist mysticism was imported into the first three degrees, now the only essential degrees of Freemasonry. Crucially, individual lodges of the order were now allowed to mingle with clubs of other systems. The new "Scottish Grade" introduced with the Lyon ritual of Willermoz was not mandatory. Each province and prefecture was free to decide what, if anything, happened after the three craft degrees. Finally, the convent regulated etiquette, titles, and a new numbering for the provinces to show that something had been achieved.

The Strict Observance was ended by the Convent of Wilhelmsbad. Along with the higher degrees that bound its most significant and influential members, it rejected its founding tale. It eliminated the rigorous regulations that had maintained the order's cohesion and alienated many Germans who did not trust Martinism. Martinism repulsed Bode, who immediately began negotiating with Knigge before joining the Illuminati in January 1783. The following month, Charles of Hesse joined.

Knigge's first efforts at an alliance with the intact German Grand Lodges failed, but Weishaupt persisted. He proposed a new federation where all German lodges would practice an agreed, unified system in the essential three degrees of Freemasonry and be left to their own devices as to which, if any, system of higher degrees they wished to pursue. This would be a federation of Grand Lodges, and members would be free to visit any of the "blue" lodges in any jurisdiction. All lodge masters would be elected, and no fees would be paid to any central authority. Groups of lodges would be subject to a "Scottish Directorate" composed of members delegated by lodges to audit finances, settle disputes and authorize new lodges. These, in turn, would elect Provincial Directorates, who would elect inspectors, who would elect the national director. This system would correct the current imbalance in German Freemasonry, where masonic ideals of equality were preserved only in the lower three "symbolic" degrees. The various methods of higher degrees were dominated by the elite who could afford research in alchemy and mysticism. To Weishaupt and Knigge, the proposed federation was also a vehicle to propagate Illuminism throughout German Freemasonry. Their intention was to use their new union, with its emphasis on the fundamental degrees, to remove all allegiance to Strict Observance, allowing the "eclectic" system of the Illuminati to take its place.

The newsletter announcing the new federation outlined the faults of German Freemasonry; unsuitable men with money were often admitted based on their wealth, and the corruption of civil society had infected the lodges. Having advocated the deregulation of the higher grades of the German lodges, the Illuminati now announced their own from their "unknown Superiors." Lodge Theodore, newly independent from Royal York, set itself up as a provincial Grand Lodge. In a letter to all the Royal York lodges, Knigge now accused the Grand Lodge of corruption. Their Freemasonry had allegedly been corrupted by the Jesuits. Strict Observance was now attacked as a creation of the Stuarts, devoid of all moral virtue. The Zinnendorf rite of the Grand Landlodge of the Freemasons of Germany was suspect because its author was in league with the Swedes. This direct attack had the opposite effect to that intended by Weishaupt. It offended many of its readers. The Grand Lodge of the Grand Orient of Warsaw, which controlled Freemasonry in Poland and Lithuania, was happy to participate in the federation only as far as the first three degrees. Their insistence on independence had kept them from the Strict Observance and would now keep them from the Illuminati, whose plan to annex Freemasonry rested on their own higher degrees. By the end of January 1783, the Illuminati's masonic party had seven lodges.

It wasn't just the clumsy appeal of the Illuminati that left the federation short of members. Lodge Theodore was recently formed and did not command respect like the older lodges. Most of all, the Freemasons most likely to be attracted to the federation, saw the Illuminati as an ally against the mystics and Martinists. Moreover, they valued their freedom too highly to be caught in another restrictive organization. Even Ditfurth, the supposed representative of the Illuminati at Wilhelmsbad, had pursued his own agenda at the convent.

The non-mystical Frankfurt lodges created an "Eclectic Alliance," was almost indistinguishable in structure from the Illuminati's federation. Far from seeing this as a threat, the Illuminati lodges joined the new alliance after some discussion. Three Illuminati now sat on the committee that wrote the new masonic statutes. Aside from strengthening relations between their three lodges, the Illuminati seem to have gained no advantage from this maneuver. Ditfurth, having founded a masonic organization that worked towards his ambitions for Freemasonry, took little interest in the Illuminati after he adhered to the Eclectic Alliance. In reality, the Eclectic Alliance's creation undermined the Illuminati's plans to spread their own ideologies through Freemasonry.

The final decline of the Illuminati was brought about by the indiscretions of their own Minervals in Bavaria, and especially in Munich. Despite efforts by their superiors to curb loose talk, politically dangerous boasts of power and criticism of monarchy caused the "secret" order's existence to become common knowledge, along with the names of many important members. The presence of the Illuminati in positions of power now led to some public unease. There were Illuminati in many civic and state governing bodies. Despite their small number, there were claims that success in a legal dispute depended on the person's standing with the order. In addition, the Illuminati were blamed for several anti-religious publications appearing in Bavaria. Much of this criticism sprang from vindictiveness and jealousy, but it is clear that many Illuminati court officials gave preferential treatment to their brethren. In Bavaria, the energy of their two members of the Ecclesiastical Council had one of them elected treasurer. Their opposition to Jesuits resulted in the banned order losing key academic and Church positions. In Ingolstadt, the Jesuit heads of departments were replaced by Illuminati.

Alarmed, Charles Theodore and his government banned all secret societies, including the Illuminati. A government mandate dated March 2, 1785, "seems to have been a deathblow to the Illuminati in Bavaria." Weishaupt had fled. Documents and internal correspondence, seized in 1786 and 1787, were then published by the government in 1787. In addition, von Zwack's home was searched, and much of the group's literature was disclosed.

So, that was exhausting and supposedly all about the "real Illuminati," right? But, according to the www.illuminatiofficial.org website, this may not be the case.

"Since the formation of the Illuminati, many citizens have inaccurately portrayed our organization in a negative manner. These misconceptions have been perpetuated for centuries through videos, photos, articles, books, and unofficial online resources claiming to understand our mission and members. In creating this online destination, we strive to alleviate the concerns voiced by the people of this planet and provide insight into our goals and operations."

"Their Purpose"

"Ensuring the survival of over 7 billion humans is a daunting task. Our duty to this planet has spanned across centuries and survived even the most established government entities. To continue functioning throughout societal and generational changes, The Illuminati's operations often require anonymity for both our members and our work. In 2013, the Illuminati authorized the formation of the Department Of Citizen Outreach. Through various initiatives and campaigns, including this website, the modern Illuminati has committed itself to furthering our relationship with our citizens.You may not find us praised in any history book or document. However, the Illuminati has helped with every major movement on this planet since the first human government was established. Our work is often marked by distinct symbols as a means of tracing our influence through history for those wishing to investigate. With gentle guidance from our organization, the human species is allowed to function in their natural order while playing the part of gears in a machine for the betterment of the world."

Also, according to their website, they discuss the symbols of their cult… I mean organization.

"THE PYRAMID

In popular culture, a great amount of focus is placed on the Illuminati's belief that money is not evil. Some view our encouragement of work and wealth as a promotion of selfishness – overlooking the true meaning of the Pyramid and its underlying messages that motivate our diligence. In the tenets of the Illuminati, wealth is not simply a means of personal enrichment. Instead, money is a tool that can be used to fulfill each person's duty to the advancement of the human species. The selfish pursuit of money is a hollow goal, but the pursuit of the goodness that money can create is one of humanity's greatest responsibilities. The more money a person owns, the more ability they have to positively change the lives of those who are in need. If you are poor and of good heart, and your friend's house is burned in a fire, you will remain a good person but have no ability to help them with what they need the most. If the same house burns but you are rich, you can give your friend a place to stay and a new home because you have more than enough for yourself and anyone around you who needs it. Money has no feeling, no voice, and no soul – its choice between good or evil is decided by those who use it. Though it is not wrong to be poor, the celebration of poverty is rooted in selfishness. A person who is poor can save a life, but a person who is rich can build a hospital and save ten thousand. The poor can do little to help the poor, but the rich can help as many as they are able. If a person is rich, they have the opportunity to do good, but if they are poor they are unable to help anyone but themselves. Those with little can still do much. Money is merely paper and numbers that are traded for a person's time and effort. Therefore if a person does not have money, they can instead use their time and efforts to further the advancement of humanity – positive actions that are of equal value to any charitable donations. The greater a person's fortune, the greater their responsibility to their fellow humans. Like the Pyramid, those with the greatest power can do the greatest good for the largest number of those below them."

"THE EYE

We Are Always Watching Out For You

The human species is guarded and preserved by a coalition of its most elite members called the Illuminati. Since our origination, Illuminati members have guided Earth's most dominant creature through periods of interpersonal chaos, environmental outbreaks, and other mass attacks that threaten humanity with extinction. The human has made itself this planet's most dominant and advanced species. Even the weakest human is born master of the strongest of all other species on Earth. Through natural selection, every human generation is made of a genetic structure that is stronger and more advanced than the previous. Living humans evolve at a rapid pace, and can continue to advance in ability through study, practice, and a commitment to self-improvement. As a human absorbs knowledge and wisdom, some will experience their Awakening: a pivotal moment when their minds evolve to a level of understanding that is higher than the majority. They begin to see themselves as strings in a universal tapestry with a duty to uplift their fellow humans, and quickly understand the inner workings of wealth, power, and authority. Those who have experienced their Awakening often describe it as the moment their Eye was opened. The Illuminati is made of individuals who have reached this Awakening. Leaders, innovators, and other influential members of this planet have joined together to shape the face of human society and guide its masses into finding their own individual place in the Universal Design. To create a better world, unique beings with unique objectives and beliefs must forgo their differences and work together for the good of all. Progress requires cooperation. Humans must suppress their natural defensive selfishness and aid others who appear, believe, or act in ways that are different from themselves. Unfortunately, many humans are only concerned with their own wellbeing and thus cannot understand the positive intentions of a higher authority. Many would rather this planet remain in turmoil instead of following the directions that will lead them to happiness. Historically, the greatest enemies of human progression have been humans themselves. For this reason, those who have experienced their Awakening understand the need for it to remain secret – for their own safety and the ultimate good of a humanity that often does not know what is best for it. It is the Illuminati's responsibility to ensure the ongoing survival and advancement of the human species, so that all people, in all places, can live in Abundance."

"THE LIGHT

Follow The Light

Every human is guided by an inner compass that points toward the Light, revealing truth and direction when facing decisions. Given many names by spiritual leaders and unexplainable by science, the Light is an invisible guide that many believe has led them to joy, success, and lives of Abundance. It communicates directly to every human, urging them to strive for goodness and forgo their natural selfishness. All human religions and spiritual beliefs ultimately seek the Light in ways differing only in form and function. Some religions refer to the Light with a name, such as God or Elohim. The core of every religion is founded on the human species' innate desire to understand this invisible force. Even without a formal religious affiliation, every human is naturally drawn to the Light. Individual members of the Illuminati adhere to every variety of personal spiritual beliefs –– but by recognizing that all of our paths lead to the same destination, we find that the Light brings all people into an ultimate unity. There is no proof that a God exists but there is also no proof that a God does not.

The Illuminati's spiritual foundation is based upon this universal conundrum of faith and doubt. Our organization does not question whether a god does or does not exist but instead focuses on the betterment of the humans living on this planet. Though the human mind in its physical form is not capable of fully understanding the Light, conscious thought and intention reveal many of its inner workings and effects. By studying the wisdom of this planet's greatest minds, humans can discover ways to increase the Light's powerful influence in their lives. The Light, under many names, has been attributed to supernatural changes in the physical realm, including increases in wealth, power, prestige, health, and happiness.

Miracles, attraction, and the belief in unseen powers that can alter the physical world have some basis in truth. Though scientific advancements have explored both this planet's environment and the inner workings of the human mind, there are still countless mysteries that remain unsolved. Thus many occurrences that are attributed to the supernatural are merely the result of the human mind processing a concept it cannot explain naturally. Some humans attempt to form a deeper connection with the Light through rituals that have been passed down for centuries. Though these ceremonies often involve complicated steps and requirements, their true effect is not found in their directions or decorations but rather in the state of mind that results within its participants. Many of the Illuminati's traditions include rituals and oaths designed to explain higher concepts, and use the power of focused repetition to strengthen the ability of the human consciousness. The Illuminati prohibits rituals that include human or animal sacrifice. Learn More. A desire to understand the Light is an integral part of the path to illumination. By rising through the levels of illumination, Illuminati members discover more about their world and the true power that hides within their minds. Whatever you seek, whatever you dream, whatever you hope: all is possible if you follow the Light."

"THE ETERNAL CIRCLE

Every human is one part of a larger, eternal design – individual gears in a clock that has no end.

Your actions have the power to alter the future of the entire world.

Though you may not fully understand your purpose, your part is just as important as the greatest kings and queens of this planet. Some feel as though their temporary lack of wealth or influence makes them powerless to create change. But does a clockmaker favor the larger gears over the smaller? Does the hour hand become jealous of the minutes because it turns slower? Every part has a role in the functioning of a timepiece. Every part supports those around it in ways it may never see. Your absence would undo the order of our universe, even if you do not realize your importance. The world began before you and will continue after you, but it will be different because of the decisions you made. Every generation inherits the world left by the one before it, just as a king inherits the crown of his father. Your pursuit of wisdom and goodness could lay the foundation for your great-great-grandchild's rise into power – the same descendant who might steer a country from war and save lives by the millions. Did the ancestors of Aristotle or Alexander The Great know who their actions would create? Though you will never understand the full influence of your actions, the results of your dedication to humanity are still yours to claim. As you climb the great Pyramid seeking the Light at its top, you will look down and see that you are an integral part of our universe's most intricate mechanism. Though our human members may perish and fade into the annals of time, the Illuminati will continue to stand into eternity."

Why a secret society?

"Freedom is an idol of the human species.

The Illuminati operates in defense of you and all humans, in all places, and of all generations. Our duty to this planet has spanned across centuries and survived even the most established government entities. But the cultivation of trillions of human lives is a daunting responsibility, and while the human would not exist today without our protection, many uninformed masses mistake our guidance for a restriction of liberty.

Every human desires to be free of oppression, free of hardship, free of poverty, free of hunger, free of rules and laws — but as you understand, the nature of your species leaves true freedom impossible. Are you free to murder? Are you free to steal? Are others free to murder and steal from you? Or are there certain freedoms that must be given up for the benefit of all? For happiness, the human desires freedom; for prosperity, the human requires leadership. This is the reason behind our anonymity. To continue functioning throughout societal changes and generational differences, the Illuminati must remain behind the curtain — an outsider, belonging to none and loyal to all. You may never understand how your life can be free while guided by our organization. You may never fully comprehend our purpose and why you are safest and happiest with us. Simply open your mind and release your apprehensions, and you will find the relief of truth. We will never take your hand and pull you down the path like a slave to our whims. You must find and travel the road on your own. But your quality of life is our greatest concern, and the reason our symbols are placed in your society as a map for you to follow if you desire."

What about the modern-day "Illuminati" or "New World Order?"

According to an article from theweek.co.uk,

In a 2017 interview with the BBC, David Bramwell, "a man who has dedicated himself to documenting the origins of the myth," said the modern-day Illuminati legend was influenced not by Weishaupt but rather by LSD, the 1960s counter-culture, and specifically a text called Principia Discordia.

The book praised an alternative belief system – Discordianism – which preached a form of anarchism and gave birth to the Discordian movement, which ultimately wished to cause civil disobedience through practical jokes and hoaxes.

One of the leading proponents of this new ideology was a writer called Robert Anton Wilson, who wanted to bring chaos back into society by "disseminating misinformation through all portals – through counter-culture, through the mainstream media," claims Bramwell.

He did this by sending fake letters to the men's magazine Playboy, where he worked, attributing cover-ups and conspiracy theories, such as the JFK assassination, to a secret elite organization called the Illuminati.

Wilson turned these theories into a book, The Illuminatus Trilogy, which became a surprise cult success and was even made into a stage play in Liverpool, launching the careers of British actors Bill Nighy and Jim Broadbent.

What is the New World Order?

The idea of a powerful modern Illuminati conspiring to rule the world remained a niche belief a handful of enthusiasts upheld until the 1990s.

The internet changed all that, giving conspiracy theorists a global platform to perpetuate their beliefs and present their evidence to a massive audience.

Theories about how the New World Order operates run from relatively straightforward ideas to the outright bizarre.

Conspiracy theorists obsessively analyze public events for "evidence" of Illuminati influence. The symbols most associated with the Illuminati include triangles, pentagrams, goats, the all-seeing eye – such as the one that appears on U.S. banknotes - and the number 666.

This has led to claims some of the American Founding Fathers were members, with Thomas Jefferson accused in the aftermath of the War of Independence.

Another commonly cited Illuminati symbol, which appears on U.S. currency, is the so-called Eye of Providence, which is said to represent the omniscience of God watching over humanity.

According to a 2013 survey by Public Policy Polling, 28% of U.S. voters believe that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian global government. In addition, it found that 34% of Republicans and 35% of independents believe in the New World Order threat compared to just 15% of Democrats.

Who is supposedly a member?

As well as being king and queen of the charts, Beyonce and Jay-Z are frequently depicted as lords of the New World Order. Beyonce's immense fame and popularity have long made her a favorite target for conspiracy theorists.

Illuminati "experts" seized upon her half-time performance at the 2013 Super Bowl as an example of her "devil-worshipping" choreography, even accusing her on-stage alter ego Sasha Fierce of being a "demonic entity."

However, some musicians enjoy deliberately playing with symbols connected to secret societies.

For instance, Rihanna frequently incorporates Illuminati images into her music videos and even joked about the theories in the video for S&M, which featured a fake newspaper with a headline declaring her "Princess of the Illuminati."

Jay Z has also been accused of hiding secret symbols such as goat imagery and devil horns in his music videos. But, most damningly, the logo for his music label, Roc-A-Fella Records, is a pyramid – one of the most well-known Illuminati logos.

Rob Brotherton, a professor at Barnard College and author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories, explains that real-life government conspiracies targeting black people in America, such as FBI infiltration of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, planted the seeds for Illuminati theory's popularity among hip-hop artists and fans.

Speaking to Complex, he said: "Hip-hop served as this [soapbox] for people to talk about issues that were relevant to them, things like discrimination, poverty, the criminal justice system, which are often seemingly slanted against African-Americans".

"It's a short leap to go from noticing some kind of injustice to thinking about whether there's something behind it. Hip-hop was just a good candidate to revive this myth," he says.

What do celebrities have to say about the theories?

Katy Perry told Rolling Stone in 2014 that the theory was the preserve of "weird people on the internet" but admitted she was flattered to be named among the supposed members: "I guess you've kind of made it when they think you're in the Illuminati!" However, she added she was tolerant of people who wanted to believe in the theory because: "I believe in aliens."

On the other hand, Madonna might just be a believer – all the more interesting given that she has frequently been accused of being a member herself. Speaking to Rolling Stone, she hinted that she had secret knowledge of the group. The claim is not so shocking given that she released a single titled 'Illuminati.' She said: "People often accuse me of being a member of the Illuminati, but the thing is, I know who the real Illuminati are."

In 2016, Beyonce thrilled her fans by unexpectedly releasing a new single, Formation, in February – but conspiracy theorists were excited for another reason. The very first line of the track acknowledged the rumors: "Y'all haters corny with that Illuminati mess."

When Prince died suddenly of an accidental overdose in April of the same year, a small but vocal corner of the internet accused the Illuminati of killing the singer-songwriter, who was famous for fiercely protecting his copyrights and artistic freedom from industry interference.

"The Illuminati talk won't stop coming and what doesn't help is that Prince himself seems to have been genuinely convinced that the organisation existed," reports one gossip website.

In 2009, the singer appeared on T.V. to warn of influential mystery figures controlling the world through "chemtrails" – chemicals pumped into the air via jet planes to manipulate human behavior.

Some other conspiracies are

. The Illuminati killed Paul Walker.

After starring in 7 films in the Fast and Furious franchise, Paul Walker fans were shocked by his ironic death in 2013. He was the passenger in a Porsche that careened out of control and crashed into a pole — or so the media said. But if you ask conspiracy theorists, the Illuminati is actually to blame.

According to the YouTuber known as Shane, the Illuminati murdered Walker after he threatened to expose the group. The story goes that Walker was involved in charity work when he came across a bunch of wrongdoings like embezzlement behind the scenes that he wanted to go public with. But, of course, the Illuminati couldn’t let that happen and took him out via drone strike.

The Illuminati killed JFK.

History buffs know JFK died after being shot twice by Lee Harvey Oswald, but many people aren’t convinced. According to TIME, 70% of Americans believe the assassination is part of something way bigger… So did the Illuminati have something to do with it? According to The Conspiracy Zone, the answer is ABSO FUCKIN LUTELY.

Their evidence is fascinating: JFK was shot in a triangle. ‘John Kennedy’ has 11 letters in it. The assassination date (11/22/63) includes multiples of 11. His limo was traveling 11 miles an hour… the list goes on.

Why would the Illuminati want JFK dead? Apparently, JFK planned on bringing U.S. troops home from Vietnam and wanted to end the Federal Reserve to end the national debt, which would take away the Illuminati’s control over the country. He was killed just days after replacing Federal Reserve Notes. Conspiracy theorists have pointed to audio from the day of his assassination that proves there was more than one shooter, as well as a bullet trajectory that doesn’t match that of Oswald’s position.

Kesha’s song ‘Die Young’ is an Illuminati anthem.

Theorists say Kesha’s music also addresses the secret society, whose symbols abound in her early music videos. Take, for example, the video for ‘Die Young:

The Illuminati symbolism is so blatant that even Billboard called it out, referencing the numerous triangles, an upside-down cross, and all-seeing one eye. The video even begins with a flashing skull and crossbones. According to conspiracy theorist The Vigilant Citizen, “Illuminati symbols are becoming more prevalent because that was the plan all along: To gradually make them part of popular culture.” Oh boy.

Lady Gaga is an “Illuminati puppet.”

Lady Gaga is another pop star rumored to be part of the Illuminati. Again, theorists call out the overt symbolism in her videos and persona, calling it a “tribute to mind control.” They say her stage name ‘Gaga’ refers to being totally absent-minded, which can be achieved through mind control. Furthermore, in her early days, many of her videos were rife with triangles and all-seeing eye symbolism.

However, some say her newest project proves that she’s broken free from the Illuminati. After a little hiatus, she boasts a more subdued, realistic image and more meaningful, artistic music. So, then, why didn't they just kill her?

In an appearance at Harvard, Gaga talked about how unhappy she was in the entertainment industry. She calls herself a ‘Stefanie/Gaga hybrid,’ which Illuminati theorists saw as proof that she became an alternate, demonic personality under Illuminati control. She also says she disliked “being used to make people money,” another potential dig as being an “Illuminati puppet.”

Donald Trump is an Illuminati mind controller.

If all of these stars are under Illuminati mind control, who’s doing the controlling? Aside from alleged Illuminati king Jay-Z, Donald Trump’s hand signals reveal his status as a top Illuminati member. While using your hands when you talk is normal, conspiracy theorists say Trump’s rather odd gestures are secret messages.

The classic “a-ok” symbol apparently means the devil’s number ‘666.’ However, he also frequently makes the triangle symbol with his hands when he’s at ease — which could be the same Illuminati gesture Jay-Z always makes or a reference to the vagina.

The Kanye West/Kim Kardashian/Taylor Swift feud was fabricated by the Illuminati.

Apparently, when West humiliated Swift on stage at the 2009 VMAs, he welcomed her to the Illuminati.

As we know, they’ve managed to keep the feud in the media for years. While most people have begun to agree that anything these people do is just for publicity, according to The Vigilant Citizen, it’s actually an Illuminati “psychological operation” aimed at kids “to precondition them to start believing in fabricated events.”

OK, lastly, let’s talk about the lizard Illuminati.

David Icke, the nut job conspiracy theorist, is the leading proponent of this theory.

This should explain it from an article on Time.com,

They are among us. Blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptilian humanoids with only one objective in their cold-blooded little heads: to enslave the human race. They are our leaders, corporate executives, beloved Oscar-winning actors, and Grammy-winning singers. They're responsible for the Holocaust, the Oklahoma City bombings, and the 9/11 attacks ... at least according to former BBC sports reporter David Icke, who became the poster human for the theory in 1998 after publishing his first book, The Biggest Secret, which contained interviews with two Brits who claimed members of the royal family are nothing more than reptiles with crowns. (Picture Dracula meets Swamp Thing).

The conspiracy theorist and New Age philosopher, who wore only turquoise for a time and insisted on being called Son of God-Head, says these "Annunaki" (the reptiles) have controlled humankind since ancient times; they count among their number Queen Elizabeth, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Bob Hope. Encroaching other conspiracy theorists' territory, Icke even claims that the lizards are behind secret societies like the Freemasons and the Illuminati. Since earning the dubious title of "paranoid of the decade" in the late 1990s, Icke has written several books on the topic, including his latest work, The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy, while operating his own website — complete with merchandise and advertisements.

The Top Ten Illuminati Movies

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=illuminati&sort=moviemeter,asc&mode=detail&page=1

Vigilante Justice - What Goes Around Comes Around. Sort Of.

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 00:16:45 -0400

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https://screenrant.com/best-vigilante-films/

Imagine the scene:

A serial murderer is guided by a specific “code” that kills only those who are guilty. He has access to crime scenes as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami police, gathering information and analyzing DNA to confirm a target’s guilt before killing them.

Sound familiar? It should, it’s the premise of the TV show, “Dexter.”

Ah, yes, Dexter. I love that show. We figured we would talk about the life of Dexter even though Logan, of course, has never seen it. Jk.

Obviously, murder is never acceptable, right? It’s the worst crime we can commit against one another, right? But what if, someone who didn’t believe in the “thou shall not kill” premise decided to murder someone you love? What if someone raped or beat someone you love? What if a child was purposefully abused, raped, or arguably worse, murdered? Does that horrendous situation change the narrative? Would you, COULD YOU, take the life of the person or persons responsible for your now substantial and debilitating loss? I want you to honestly think about that as we go through today’s episode.

Bottom line, do specific human piles of shit DESERVE TO DIE?

Pedro Rodrigues Filho, or Killer Petey, is a Brazilian serial murderer. He was convicted and is notorious for hunting out and murdering only criminals as a teenager, between the ages of 14 and 19, particularly an entire gang in retaliation for the killing of his pregnant girlfriend.

He served 34 years in prison before being released in 2007, having been formally imprisoned for 71 murders but claimed to have killed over 100 drug traffickers, rapists, and murderers. Filho was initially sentenced to eight more years in jail in 2011 on accusations of inciting violence and deprivation of liberty. However, he was released in 2018 after serving seven years on the condition that he behaved himself. Nevertheless, he murdered 47 inmates inside the prisons where he was held captive, most of whom were rapists.

Since his second release from prison in 2018, when he declared himself to be reformed from his self-declared vigilantism as a youth and committed to not committing any more crimes, Filho has gained notoriety as a YouTube personality in Brazil. He runs the channel Pedrinho EX Matador, later renamed 2P Entretenimento, where he comments on current crimes and teaches the general public that committing crimes is not something to be proud of.

South of Minas Gerais in Santa Rita do Sapuca, on a farm, Rodrigues was born. His father was abusive and, all in all, a piece of shit and had kicked his mother’s belly during a fight while she was pregnant, leaving the poor unborn child with a bruised skull.

In a quarrel with an older relative at age 13, he shoved the young man into a sugar cane press, nearly killing him, and had pondered leaving him there to die before deciding to save him. He claimed that this was the first time he had felt the urge to kill.

When Filho was fourteen years old, his father was accused of stealing food from the high school kitchen where he worked as a security guard, resulting in him losing his job. In vengeance, Filho killed the vice-mayor of Alfenas with Filho’s Grandfather’s shotgun, as he was the one who fired his father. A month later, he killed another guard at the school whom he believed to be the real thief.

On the run, Rodrigues took refuge in Mogi das Cruzes, Greater São Paulo, where he began robbing drug dens and killing drug traffickers, making him a celebrity in the news media as the vigilante “Pedrinho Matador” (Lil’ Petey Killer). Filho killed one of the gang leaders in the area he was ransacking. After killing the gang leader, he took over his role and began running the same gang, almost like a Riddick moment where you keep what you kill.

During this time, he met a woman named Maria Aparecida Olympia, nicknamed Botinha. After they found out they were pregnant, Filho proposed! So awesome to see that this man, with what could be perceived as a savage beast-like mentality, actually has a pretty big heart.

Unfortunately, a rival gang leader brutally murdered Filho’s fiancee during Olympia’s pregnancy.

After finding out about the murder, Filho kind of went full John Wick. He and a few of his friends went to the wedding of the rival gang member. The hit squad brutally massacred all involved in the death of his soon-to-be wife and the mother of his child. He killed 7 at the wedding and injured 16 more. All of this came after Filho went on a torture spree to find out who was involved initially. We don’t know precisely how many were killed or hurt leading up to this point. Dudes an absolute monster and gave zero fucks.

Speaking of giving zero fucks, the boyfriend of Filho's favorite cousin knocked her up! Pretty exciting news. Except for the fact that the boyfriend refused to marry her, so… Filho shot and killed him.

Remember how we mentioned that Filho’s Father was a piece of shit? Well, it gets worse. A few months after the massacre at the wedding, Filho found out that his mother had been killed. By his father. Who had butchered and dismembered her with a machete. After his father was committed to prison, Filho went and paid him a visit! While at the conjugal, Filho stabbed him 22 times! Not only did he kill his father, but he carved his heart out of him and took a rather large bite out of it. Amazing that he still somehow doesn’t have any jail time or was even caught! Brazil, what’s up down there?

Well, after a few years of Filho continuing his lifestyle of a gang leader, it’s known that he killed a few more before good old Johnny Law caught up to him in 1973. After he was sentenced to 126 years in prison, he was transported in a police car with another inmate, where he supposedly murdered him in the police car.

Filho served only 34 years, however, while in prison. This is because the maximum time a criminal can serve is thirty years when convicted, according to Brazilian law. This was later changed to 40 years in 2019.

While in prison, he didn’t slow down much on the killing. He murdered 47 other criminals serving time in the same prison as him. They were the worst of the worst, though. Murderers, rapists, sex traffickers, etc. That’s valiant, right?

But being a killer of killers creates a pretty strong and bad reputation among other criminals. Especially when most of the prison population has that on their rap sheet. So he made some enemies while there.

He was ambushed by some of these people. During the ambush, he killed three of his attackers and injured the other two. One bad motherfucker.

He was up for release in 2003 but because of the murders within the prison, he was given an extra four years. But he only murdered bad guys. I mean, there was just the one-off murder of his cellmate because he snored too loud, but I mean, come on, who hasn't thought about that? No? Just me? Hmm. Anyways. He did mention that he enjoyed a few of the murders just because they were terrible people, and he wanted to kill them.

He was formally let free on April 24, 2007, but on September 15, 2011, he was detained at his home and later found guilty of riot and false imprisonment. He acknowledged that the fact that his girlfriend was not in jail was his primary reason for wanting to be released. However, he was ultimately sentenced to 128 years for these offenses.

Filho was released in 2018 due to Brazil’s repeal of the law stating that those with a diagnosis of psychopathy can be imprisoned indefinitely and that the country’s maximum penalty is 30 years. Since then, he has created a YouTube channel where he shares his experiences. In addition, he tries to teach others to not follow in his footsteps.

So let’s sum this guy up:

Most of the time, Filho hunted down the various types of offenders he wanted to kill by looking up their names and addresses. He then brutally killed them in several methods. However, he admitted that his preferred method was to hack or stab them to death with swords. Usually, when he learned of a crime, that prompted him to take action. When driven by rage rather than thrill, he would occasionally capture criminals (usually professional criminals and drug dealers) and torture them to death. He sometimes modified his approach by following the path taken by his victims when they committed their own crimes, such as when he murdered his father or when he murdered seven people in one day.

Now how about we look at some other folks with the same motifs? Now they may not have as extensive of a rap sheet as Filho, but these following people had decided to make it known for taking justice into their own hands when the Justice system didn’t seem to do enough for them.

Marianne Bachmeier

She was a struggling single mother who learned with horror that her daughter Anna, age 7, had died. The girl missed school on May 5, 1980, and somehow ended up at the home of Klaus Grabowski, a 35-year-old butcher who lived next door. Later, a cardboard box containing Anna’s remains was discovered on the side of a nearby canal. Grabowski was detained very quickly after his fiancée called the police to report the incident since he already had a criminal record for child abuse. Grabowski argued that he hadn’t sexually molested the little girl before killing her, even after confessing to the crime.

Instead, Grabowski made the strange claim that the young girl had attempted to “blackmail” him by saying she would tell her mother he had assaulted her if he didn’t give her money. Grabowski further claimed that the primary motivation for his decision to kill the kid in the first place was this alleged “blackmailing.”

The murder of Marianne Bachmeier’s daughter had already infuriated her. But when the murderer related this tale, she grew even more irate. She was determined to get retribution when the man was put on trial a year later.

At Grabowski’s 1981 trial in the Lübeck district court, his defense claimed that since he had been deliberately castrated for his crimes years earlier, he had only committed the offense due to a hormone imbalance.

The third day of the trial was Bachmeier’s breaking point. She concealed a .22-caliber Beretta handgun in her handbag, took it out in the courtroom, and fired eight shots at the murderer. Grabowski received six rounds of fire before passing away in a pool of blood on the courthouse floor. Bachmeier reportedly responded, “I wanted to kill him,” according to Judge Guenther Kroeger.

Although it was evident from the several witnesses and Bachmeier’s comments that it was indeed her who killed Grabowski, she was shortly placed on trial for the crime. She said, “He killed my daughter... I meant to shoot him in the face but I shot him in the back... I hope he’s dead.”

With some celebrating Bachmeier as a hero and others denouncing her conduct, the “Revenge Mother” case swiftly gained notoriety in Germany. Before shooting Grabowski, Bachmeier said that she saw visions of Anna in the trial and could no longer stand for him to misrepresent her daughter. She allegedly sold her story to Stern magazine to pay her defense lawyers for $158,000.

In the end, the courts found Bachmeier guilty in 1983 of deliberate manslaughter. For her acts, she received a six-year prison term.

Jason Vukovich

Unlike other real-life vigilantes, Jason Vukovich’s search for justice began years before he set out to pursue it. Vukovich, born to a single mother in Anchorage, Alaska, on June 25, 1975, was quickly adopted by his mother’s new husband, Larry Fulton. Fulton seemed devout in public, but in reality, he molested Vukovich during his nightly “prayer sessions.”

Vukovich and his brother were often beaten with belts and pieces of wood in addition to sexual torture. And to make matters worse, Fulton got away with all these horrific offenses, which infuriated Vukovich. As a result, Vukovich, who fled terrified at 16, spent years getting by on narcotics and small-time thievery.

He returned to Alaska in 2008, but his desire to get revenge on pedophiles like Fulton didn’t go away. It culminated in 2016. Vukovich started by browsing the neighborhood sex offenders list. He then attacked and stole from three of the guys on the list as the last act.

In June 2016, Vukovich went after the three guys. Targeting Albee first, he drove to the residences of Andres Barbosa, Charles Albee, and Wesley Demarest. Then, on the morning of June 24, Vukovich broke into the man’s house and smacked the 68-year-old before robbing him and fleeing.

Two days later, he approached Barbosa in a very identical manner. However, he arrived at the door at 4 a.m. this time. He assaulted Barbosa with a punch to the face, stole his truck, and fled the scene with two female accomplices and a hammer. Demarest was instructed to get on his knees as Vukovich struck him in the fucking face with a hammer.

Vukovich claimed, “I am an angel of vengeance. “I’m going to administer justice to those you injured.”

Shortly after, the hammer, stolen items, and a notepad with the names of the persons in it were all discovered by police on Vukovich who was hiding in a nearby car. As a result, 18 charges of assault, robbery, burglary, and theft were brought against him. He decidedly took a plea deal.

According to allthatsintersting.com, in 2018, Vukovich was sentenced to 28 years in prison, after which the judge stated that “vigilantism won’t be accepted in our society.”

Vukovich has since expressed regret for his actions and urged others in his position not to follow in his footsteps: “I began my life sentence many, many years ago, it was handed down to me by an ignorant, hateful, poor substitute for a father. I now face losing most of the rest of my life due to a decision to lash out at people like him. To all those who have suffered like I have, love yourself and those around you, this is truly the only way forward.”

Gary Plauché

Now I’m pretty sure we all already know this story, but it fits the agenda of what we share.

Jeff Doucet, a 25-year-old karate teacher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, enjoyed the total confidence of his young pupils and their parents. But on February 19, 1984, when Doucet took Jody Plauché, then 11 years old, for what was intended to be a 15-minute automobile journey, that confidence was horribly betrayed.

When their son didn’t come home that day, Gary and June Plauché became quite concerned—and with good reason. Doucet had taken their small boy hostage and was transporting him to the West Coast. Before booking a room at a hotel in Anaheim, California, Doucet shaved his beard and colored Jody’s hair to ward off suspicion.

The youngster was repeatedly assaulted there by Doucet until he eventually gave Jody permission to phone his parents. Jody was returned to his family after the police quickly tracked down the call and apprehended Doucet. In the meantime, Gary Plauché, Jody’s father, traveled to the Baton Rouge airport to meet Doucet at arrivals and murder him.

Plauché drew a .38 pistol from his boot on March 16, 1984, as soon as he spotted Doucet at the airport. He had been talking to a friend on the other end of a payphone while waiting for Doucet to show up. Even saying, “Look out, he’s coming. A shot is soon to be heard. The subsequent gunshot was recorded on tape since television cameras were filming.

Plauché had murdered the abuser of his kid, shooting a hollow-point bullet into Doucet’s head from three feet away. Later, he was put on trial for murder, but the judge sitting on the opposing side of the courtroom was lenient. As a result, Plauché was shortly released after receiving a sentence of seven years with a suspended term, five years of probation, and 300 hours of community service.

Jody Plauché, on the other hand, took a while to comprehend all the trauma that had occurred to him at a young age. "I was outraged with what my father did after the incident," Jody said. “I did not want Jeff killed. I felt like he was going to go to jail, and that was enough for me.”

He continued, “But my parents, they didn’t force me into recovery. They kind of let me recover at my own pace, and it took a while… but I was able to work through it and eventually accept my dad back in my life.” Jody eventually turned his experience into a book titled Why, Gary, Why?.

Tityana Coppage

Tityana Coppage is a woman from Kansas City, Missouri. She was known as a strong woman who tried to help and lead her family as a young adult.

She was only 21 when she lost her brother – and it wasn’t the first loss her family had to come to terms with.

Her family was extended to several younger brothers with different last names who she cared for equally and passionately.

The brother she lost was Jayson Ugwuh Jr. He was a 16-year-old high school student who loved basketball and rap. He was a bright, cheerful kid despite knowing personal tragedies from mere years beforehand.

He was gunned down in public on January 10 while walking with some of his friends.

A car came up, opened fire, and then sped away. What provoked the incident remained a mystery. The only solid fact was that Jayson Jr. was the primary victim.

Tityana and Jayson both endured a shocking loss in 2016 when a drive-by shooting claimed the lives of her young brother Jayden Ugwuh and younger cousin Montell Ross.

The boys were just 9 and 8, respectively, at the time of death. Jayson was present for the shooting and held his little brother Jayden as he faded and died from the bullet wounds.

The killer was never found. Tityana was only 16 when the incident occurred, leaving her mentally changed.

A few days before the killing of Lars, Coppage posted a tribute to her brother on Facebook.

The post read: “I tried to shield y’all from everything I had to witness as a kid. I supported anything and everything you wanted to do in life. I tried to give you the best so you wouldn’t have to look for fake love in the streets,” she wrote in the January 11 post. “I worked hard and long hours to keep a roof over y’all head, nice clothes and shoes on y’all feet refrigerator full of groceries. The streets didn’t rise y’all I did this sh*t 10 toes down. I was at those games as much as I could, I was paying for your studio time for your trips no matter the cost. All I wanted is to see you happy finish school and make it to the top. But some how I still failed you. This wasn’t you Jayson you was so sweet so quite a honorable young man why didn’t you just hear me out I only wanted more time with you that’s all.”

The object of Tityana’s vengeance was Keith Lars. Just two days after her brother's death and burial, she gathered as much evidence as possible to affirm the identity of her brother’s murderer.

She traced him as the car owner that carried the gunman who killed her brother and armed herself before they met. Lars didn’t go down quietly.

They exchanged gunfire, but Tityana came alive and left Lars dead in his car in the parking lot in the city’s northeast section.

Court records state that Lars was found in the back of a Toyota near Virginia Avenue and Admiral Boulevard in Kansas City on January 13, with officers determining that the shooting had occurred close to the 500 block of Benton Boulevard.

At that scene, police found 23 shell casings from two types of bullets. 8

were .45 caliber, and 15 were 9mm.

Was Tityana just an ordinary woman pushed beyond the brink to perform such a murderous act?

She had already seen injustice win with the still-unsolved deaths of her young siblings, and she didn’t have enough trust in the system to properly avenge her brother’s death.

She assumed the guilt of Lars and got in contact with someone called “Auntie” to arm herself with a .45 pistol, saying “I used to many on Bro!”

The fact that multiple gunshots were fired proves she was an amateur with a firearm.

Thanks to witnesses who came forward and surveillance footage in the parking lot where the murder took place, authorities quickly identified Coppage. They arrested her for the murder, booking her into Jackson County Jail on a $200,000 bond.

Evidence was quickly collected against Coppage, and she did not deny the charges.

She insisted that she got justice for her dead brother, even going as far as to text his cell phone to assure him that she was sending his killer to him.

At the time, no formal evidence was collected, or investigations were pending towards Lars as the suspect, though he was armed and did drive the same, or very similar, truck seen at Jayson’s murder scene.

She admitted during questioning that she knew Lars would be in the parking lot when she shot him. However, Tityana initially claimed that the murder was accidental and that she only shot him in self-defense because he fired his weapon at her first.

Coppage was spurred toward Lars by members of her community who seemed to indicate a shared but hushed knowledge of events that led to her brother’s death.

The police weren’t able to corroborate as much in their reporting. So all anyone seemed to know was that Lars may as well have been guilty and could have had his own criminal history.

Therefore, the extended family of the community assisted Coppage’s vigilante act she grew up around.

Coppage does not deny what she did or why and is charged with second-degree murder, which is murder without premeditation or planning.

By her admission, she fired her gun at the vehicle with Lars in it, but she claimed that he fired first and her weapon was meant for protection.

She was celebratory over his death, particularly over vengeance, meaning she went there assuming he was guilty and was armed to act.

Coppage contacted Lars before the meeting to tell him she was coming to ask questions.

She claimed to call him to try and settle differences between him and her father, knowing that if she didn’t take action, he absolutely would.

COPPAGE TEXTED HER DECEASED BROTHER AFTER KILLING LARS AS WELL.

The message sent to Her brother’s phone read: “I owe em that body,” according to an affidavit. This message and the ones sent to “Auntie” led authorities to file murder charges.

Rap artists DaBaby and 42 Dugg made public posts on Instagram voicing solidarity and have reached out to pay $20,000 each of her bond as support.

She is currently awaiting trial.

Jorge Porto-Sierra

Ok, so here we have someone that TECHNICALLY didn’t kill anyone, but that wasn’t for lack of trying.

When authorities responded to the scene at the Friendly Village Inn & Motel on U.S. Route 192 in Florida in 2018, witnesses recalled seeing Jorge shout, “I’m going to kill you, child molester,” as he drenched the property in gasoline with a cigarette in his hand.

Porto-Sierra then returned to the parking lot and attacked two individuals sitting in their car. After that, he rammed his Ford Focus into their vehicle and poured gasoline into it through an open window.

Just as Porto-Sierra was preparing to set the car on fire, police arrived on the scene. He was quickly surrounded and told to surrender.

The 50-year-old Porto-Sierra admitted that he had planned to “barbecue all the child molesters on fire and kill them.” However, when police asked him why he didn’t, Porto-Sierra claimed that the police had arrived too fast for him to do so.

Authorities soon discovered that at least two of the men Porto-Sierra targeted were indeed convicted, sex offenders. One man had been standing outside his room when Porto-Sierra leaped out of his car and launched into a tirade, prompting him to rush inside his room.

“They raped kids, they are all child molesters that all live here and deserve to die,” Porto-Sierra later said as he justified his actions to the police.

While the Friendly Village Inn & Motel is indeed a popular place for convicted sex offenders (because it’s far away from schools and playgrounds), and at least two of Porto-Sierra’s targets were known sex offenders, the real-life vigilante still broke the law and thus found himself arrested for his actions.

As of 2020, Porto-Sierra is being held on no bond at the Osceola County Jail and charged with 4 counts of attempted murder.

André Bamberski

Andre was born to Polish immigrants in France in the 1930s. He was in the thick of the war that affected him growing up. Later, Andre became a chartered accountant and married Danièle Gonnin, having two kids. However, at the time of the incident, Andre and Danièle were divorced, and the latter was married to Dieter Krombach, a doctor, in Lindau, Germany.

Danièle initially told Andre that Dieter believed Kalinka died due to a heat stroke or the effects of a concussion from a few years prior. However, Andre wasn’t so sure. Dieter had stated that on the morning of Kalinka’s death, he had found her in bed, unresponsive; rigor mortis had already set in. However, Dieter tried to revive her by injecting her with a nervous system stimulant and two other stimulants. But that didn’t work, and Kalinka was dead.

The autopsy report read by Andre later showed that Kalinka had blood around her torn vagina. Inside, there was a whitish substance that was never tested. Besides injection marks on her arms, Kalinka had undigested food in her stomach. Experts later believed she died from asphyxiation from regurgitating her own food. All of this left Andre with only one theory: Dieter was responsible for the death.

Andre believed Dieter raped and then killed Kalinka with an injection, possibly to keep her from talking about it. While the German prosecution closed the case, saying Kalinka died of natural causes, Andre didn’t give up, following Dieter across Europe for years to bring him to justice. About a year after Kalinka’s death, Andre went to Lindau, handing out fliers accusing Dieter of murder. He was arrested and then fined and sentenced in absentia.

However, that didn’t stop Andre. He then prodded the French authorities, eventually leading to Kalinka’s body’s exhumation; she was a French citizen. This time, it was revealed that her genitals had been missing since the autopsy, and there was no trace of them. Andre’s work paid off when a French court convicted Dieter in absentia of violence, bringing on death without intention to do so, and sentenced him to 15 years.

But with Germany refusing extradition, Dieter essentially remained a free man for many years. Then, in 1997, Dieter was convicted of raping a 16-year-old in his clinic. He received a two-year suspended sentence in addition to his license being revoked. But a couple of years later, Dieter moved around and worked in several clinics by providing a photocopy of his license as proof.

Andre didn’t give up, even hiring private detectives to find out what Dieter was up to. He said, “All my friends and family, including my father, told me to quit it at this point. They said, ‘You’re not going to achieve anything.’ But I’m a Slav, you see, and the Slavs are very emotional. I cried all the time when I thought about Kalinka. It was a question for me of moral duty. That was the most important thing: to get the truth.”

While Dieter received a 26-month prison sentence, he was released early, and Andre learned he was back to work yet again. Andre then resolved to bring Dieter to France in any way possible. He was in Bregenz, Austria, hoping to look for more information about Dieter in Scheidegg, Germany. Andre talked about kidnapping Dieter and eventually heard from Anton Krasniqi, who agreed to help him. In October 2009, Dieter was taken from his house by Anton and two other accomplices and left outside a building in Mulhouse, France, paving the way for Dieter’s trial.

While Dieter’s pattern of drugging and raping women came to light, he was sentenced to 15 years behind bars. As for Andre, he admitted to knowing about the kidnapping plot but insisted he wasn’t involved in the actual act. In June 2014, he was found guilty of ordering the kidnap and received a one-year suspended sentence. In the end, Andre was happy with the result. He believed that he had kept his promise to Kalinka about giving her justice.

Regarding why Dieter would kill Kalinka, Andre said, “Kalinka had asked to move back to Toulouse, and to no longer stay with Krombach. She was about to escape from him: That could have been a motive. But one will never know. One can never know.” Andre quit his full-time job in 1999 to dedicate himself to bringing Dieter to justice. Through it all, he was supported by his partner (also called Danièle) for several years. Now in his 80s, Andre seems to live in Toulouse, France, and enjoying some much-needed time off.

This one is a DOOZY!

Drąsius Kedys was born on September 4, 1972, in Garliava, Lithuania. He and his former girlfriend Laimutė Stankūnaitė had a daughter in February 2004. Stankūnaitė was underage when she gave birth to Kedys’ daughter. The couple split in 2006, and the parents got embroiled in a bitter custody battle. His former girlfriend, with the help of Andrius Ūsas, a politician and advisor to the former Speaker of the Seimas Viktoras Muntianas, obtained custody in November 2006. Kedys had visitation rights every other weekend, But later Stankunaite gave up her custody rights, giving them to the father.

On November 29, 2008, Kedys submitted a formal complaint to the police, claiming Ūsas paid Stankūnaitė to sexually molest his daughter. In December 2008, Kedys obtained full custody of his daughter with no visitation rights for Stankūnaitė. The courts repeatedly confirmed that Stankūnaitė had no case to answer, thus dismissing Kedys’ allegations against his former girlfriend as unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, the pre-trial investigation against Ūsas continued. In February 2009, Kedys further pressed accusations against Violeta Naruševičienė, Stankūnaitė’s sister, claiming the former had participated in allowing men to molest her 4-year-old daughter. Finally, in July 2009, Kedys accused Jonas Furmanavičius, a district judge, and an individual known as Aidas of partaking in the molestation. All those people (except for Aidas) professed their innocence and accused Kedys of slander, criminal libel, and death threats.

Kedys was frustrated with the apparent lack of progress in official investigations and convinced that the case was being deliberately stonewalled. So, he sent out 200 DVDs to Lithuanian politicians, media outlets, and law-enforcement agencies, featuring homemade video footage of his daughter’s explicit testimony against three “uncles.” In addition, he promised to send the subtitled version to Members of the European Parliament. However, many sources criticized Kedys, who acted as the cameraman, for asking his daughter leading questions and heavily editing the film (it contained 50 segments filmed across nine occasions).

On October 5, 2009, Furmanavičius and Naruševičienė were shot dead in Kaunas. Kedys became the prime suspect. On the same day, a national search of Kedys was announced, soon followed by an announcement of an international investigation, as he was thought to have left the country shortly after the murders. Kedys' friends Raimundas Ivanauskas and Eglė Barauskaitė were charged with accessory to murder. The story caused an uproar in Lithuania, with much of the public siding with Kedys. In the public mind, the case was seen as a father’s futile attempts to pursue justice and protect his daughter and being driven to desperate measures by anger at the injustice. Others questioned whether the killings were actually commissioned by Kedys himself. On April 17, 2010, at 6:49 a.m., after six months of a police search, a man fishing found Drąsius Kedys' body near Kaunas Reservoir. An autopsy concluded he had died between the evening of April 15 and the morning of the 16th. According to the official report, the cause of death was “choking on vomit” while being heavily intoxicated. However, his relatives were convinced that Kedys was murdered, pointing out wounds on his body. Kedys’ relatives demanded a second opinion from independent experts. Finally, in April 2011, a report was received from the Swedish National Forensic Service confirming Kedys had died from alcohol and drug poisoning and that he choked on the contents of his own stomach. The Swedish report differed from the Lithuanian experts in determining “the injuries on the body appeared before his death” and that the “possibility of drowning is not excluded.” On April 24, Kedys was buried in Jonučiai cemetery. According to media reports, 6-10,000 people from across the country attended the ceremony. Ūsas, the main suspect in the pedophilia case, was officially charged with the sexual molestation of a minor. However, he was found drowned in a swamp in June 2010. The death was ruled an accident. Nevertheless, the court case against Ūsas continued, and the court found him innocent in November 2012.

Mirriam Rodriguez

Miriam’s 20-year-old daughter mysteriously disappeared in 2012. Her daughter had been kidnapped and subsequently murdered, and several men were perpetrators of the crime. Dissatisfied with the Mexican justice system, Miriam decided to take matters into her own hands. To fool authorities and her daughter’s kidnappers, Miriam changed her appearance as best she could and used fake identification to make it more difficult to trace her.

One of Miriam’s first “victims” was a member of a Mexican cartel who was implicit in the kidnapping and murder of her daughter. She cornered him, held him at gunpoint, and told him, “If you move, I’ll shoot you.”

But she was just getting started. She eventually tracked down her daughter’s killers one by one all across the country. But unfortunately, her vigilantism led to her ultimate downfall when multiple gunmen managed to kill her outside her home.

Becoming a vigilante against organized criminals is a considerable risk, but it was one that Miriam was willing to take to seek justice for her daughter.

Speaking of people standing up against gangs…

El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha gang is better known as MS-13. Formed in Los Angeles in the 1980s, many members were deported for vicious crimes. However, several of them continued their criminal activity back home. The gang terrorized a nation plagued by a high poverty rate and a virtually helpless police force — until real-life vigilantes stepped up to help.

Spanish for “Black Shadow,” Sombra Negra was first formed around the early 1990s due to El Salvador’s authorities being glaringly overpowered by MS-13. Frustrated by the situation, Sombra Negra started targeting gang members for execution — especially MS-13 members.

Sombra Negra members come dressed in black with bandanas over their faces. They patrol the streets in unlicensed vehicles and with tinted windows. And one of their primary missions is to capture MS-13 members — and make them “disappear.” As Sombra Negra has grown more powerful over the years, so have the legends of their brutal retribution against the gang members.

From sexual torture to dismemberment, the paramilitary group of vigilantes became more of a death squad than a traditional band of crimefighters. In El Salvador, it seemed that only extreme measures would stop MS-13.

“Most of the victims were blindfolded, their hands or thumbs tied behind their backs, and they had received tiros de gracia (a coup de grâce), shots to the base of the skull at close range by weapons such as assault rifles and machine guns,” a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report said.

From home invasions to sudden killings in the streets, Sombra Negra carries out its mission ruthlessly and describes it as a “social cleansing.” And some authorities are grateful. Even El Salvador’s head of National Assembly Guillermo Gallegos has admitted: “Morally I support this type of expression because people are tired of the way of delinquency.”

In the end, it’s worth noting that many people have mixed feelings about real-life vigilantes. While they may sympathize with their motives in some cases, they may also find some of their choices reckless or unnecessarily dangerous. But there’s no question that these vigilantes have left a massive impression on the world — for better or worse.

And there’s another set of gang-fighting vigilantes…

Pablo Escobar needs little, if any, introduction. One of the most infamous drug lords in modern history, the Colombian kingpin ran a colossal cocaine empire that saw thousands of people killed. Yet, with corrupt authority figures in his pocket, Escobar’s reign appeared resolute — until it wasn’t.

In the early 1990s, Escobar had two rival cartel members murdered when they visited him in an opulent prison (which he had built for himself). Fidel Castano, the other cartel’s boss, was none too pleased. And so he helped form Los Pepes. Short for “Perseguidos por Pablos Escobar,” the paramilitary group welcomed “People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar.”

Escobar was marked after he walked out of his prison in July 1992. At this point, even the U.S. government and CIA were aiding Los Pepes in their quest to find the kingpin. But unfortunately, Los Pepes also engaged in bloody bombings against Escobar that killed and injured civilians.

Some of these nearly killed their target, including a car bomb that injured Escobar’s daughter. For more than a year, Los Pepes ruthlessly attacked anyone in Escobar’s circle — from friends and relatives to public supporters and officials. Finally, it was in 1993 when they closed in on the man himself.

After Los Pepes forced Escobar into hiding, Colombian intelligence intercepted a phone call from Escobar to his son. Now confident of his whereabouts, Colombian police and military forces headed for Escobar’s newfound hiding place in the neighborhood of Los Olivos — ready for retribution after years of brutal violence in the country.

Whether Los Pepes members played an active role in killing him remains hotly contested, but one thing is sure: Without their vigilant quest to find Escobar, he would likely lead many more to their deaths. Ultimately, he was chased across rooftops and gunned down while on the run.

And lastly, what happens when an ENTIRE TOWN decides a lousy guy needs to die?

It didn’t take long for Ken McElroy to become the resident “bully” of Skidmore, Missouri. And considering his crimes, the “bully” label was putting things lightly. For years after he dropped out of school, he was accused of everything from theft and arson to child molestation and statutory rape. But despite being indicted 21 times, he dodged convictions at every turn.

After McElroy raped a 12-year-old girl, he divorced his wife and married the child when she was 14 to avoid a statutory rape charge. When her parents objected, he shot their dog and burned down their house. And after he shot a farmer in 1976, he somehow produced two witnesses who claimed that McElroy was nowhere near the scene of the crime that day.

Ken McElroy was a true terror for Skidmore residents, who wanted him removed immediately. McElroy’s downfall was a long time coming, but it truly fell into motion in 1980 after he shot the town’s elderly grocer in the neck. Though McElroy was charged with attempted murder and eventually convicted, he appealed the case and was released on bond.

Soon afterward, it seemed the entire town was present at a gathering on July 10, 1981, to discuss Ken McElroy. Though exactly what they said is unclear, there’s no question that they decided McElroy had to go.

Residents heard that McElroy had gone to the D&G Tavern for a drink. In a prime example of real-life vigilantes in action, the community walked to the bar to confront him. And with no warning, someone began shooting.

Some accounts describe up to 50 vigilantes involved in the onslaught. In the end, McElroy was shot multiple times and struck by at least two firearms. He succumbed to the wounds in his truck. No one called an ambulance — or agreed to testify against another person in court.

To this day, no one has ever been charged with his death.

Top 10 Vigilante Films

Reincarnation or ”Tarnation” If You’re A Cowboy

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 09:30:41 -0400

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When you die and are brought back as a cowboy, call that reintarnation. That's right folks, we are gonna get pun-iful in today's episode as we dive deep into the life and times of Reincarnation. We’ve all heard about the tales, myths, pseudo-science factuals, testimonials, and first hand accounts of reincarnation. Is it real? Is this tabloid conjecture? Are we stuck in an everlasting cycle until we break free and reach enlightenment? Do we need to join the Flatliners in order to find out? Well, let's go over everything we know and maybe, some things you don't know.

For those of you who don't know what Reincarnation is, or maybe, just don't understand what it is; the Latin root of the word "reincarnation" literally translates to "entering the flesh again." Reincarnation is the idea that a part of every person—or, in certain cultures, every living thing—continues to exist after death. The transmigration belief varies by culture and is imagined to take the form of a newly born human being, animal, plant, spirit, or as a being in some other non-human realm of existence. This aspect may be the soul, mind, consciousness, or something transcendent that is reborn in an interconnected cycle of existence.

So reincarnation is the transfer of the soul, right? What is your soul? I feel that not everyone has a soul, or at the very least deserves one, but what is your soul? Where does it reside? Is it just an idea we give to help us cope with the nothingness that happens after the lights go out? Or is there more to the equation?

According to the religion of the ancient Egyptians, a person is composed of both bodily and spiritual components. Ancient Assyrian and Babylonian religion both contained concepts that are similar. The Kuttamuwa stele, a funeral stele for a royal official from Sam'al who died in the eighth century BCE, records Kuttamuwa asking his mourners to celebrate his life and his death with feasts "for my spirit that is in this stele." One of the oldest mentions of the soul existing independently of the body can be found here. The basalt stele, which weighs 800 pounds (360 kg), is 2 feet (0.61 m) wide and 3 feet (0.91 m) tall. It was found during the third season of excavations by the Oriental Institute's Neubauer Expedition in Chicago, Illinois.

The Baháʼí Faith affirms that "the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel". Bahá'u'lláh stated that the soul not only continues to live after the physical death of the human body, but is, in fact, immortal. Heaven can be seen partly as the soul's state of nearness to God; and hell as a state of remoteness from God. Each state follows as a natural consequence of individual efforts, or the lack thereof, to develop spiritually. Bahá'u'lláh taught that individuals have no existence prior to their life here on earth and the soul's evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.

Christian eschatology holds that after death, God will evaluate each person's soul and determine whether they will spend eternity in Heaven or Hell before being raised to life. This viewpoint is shared by the majority of Protestant denominations as well as the oldest branches of Christianity, including the Catholic Church and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches. Some Protestant Christians think the soul is just "life," and they think the dead don't have conscious existence until the resurrection (Christian conditionalism). Some Protestant Christians think that rather than suffering for all eternity, the sinful' souls and bodies will be destroyed in Hell (annihilationism). Either in Heaven or in a Kingdom of God on earth, believers will receive eternal life and experience everlasting communion with God.

The present Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the term soul

“refers to the innermost aspect of [persons], that which is of greatest value in [them], that by which [they are] most especially in God's image: ‘soul’ signifies the spiritual principle in [humanity]”.

All souls living and dead will be judged by Jesus Christ when he comes back to earth. The Catholic Church teaches that the existence of each individual soul is dependent wholly upon God:

"The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God."

Protestants usually hold to the idea that the soul is real and eternal, but there are two main schools of thought regarding what this implies in terms of a hereafter. Some, following Jean Calvin, believe that the soul persists as consciousness after death. Some people, including those who follow Martin Luther, think that the soul passes away with the body and remains asleep (or "sleeps") until the time of the dead.

Various new religious movements deriving from Adventism(Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ.) — including Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses — similarly believe that the dead do not possess a soul separate from the body and are unconscious until the resurrection.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the spirit and body together constitute the Soul of Man (Mankind). "The spirit and the body are the soul of man." Latter-day Saints believe that the soul is the union of a pre-existing, God-made spirit and a temporal body, which is formed by physical conception on earth. After death, the spirit continues to live and progress in the Spirit world until the resurrection, when it is reunited with the body that once housed it. This reuniting of body and spirit results in a perfect soul that is immortal, and eternal, and capable of receiving a fulness of joy. Latter-day Saint cosmology also describes "intelligences" as the essence of consciousness or agency. These are co-eternal with God, and animate the spirits. The union of a newly-created spirit body with an eternally-existing intelligence constitutes a "spirit birth"[citation needed] and justifies God's title "Father of our spirits".

Some Confucian traditions draw a distinction between a spiritual soul and a physical soul.

Ātman is a Sanskrit word that means inner self or soul. In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle, the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one's true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self.

The Quran, the holy book of Islam, uses two words to refer to the soul: rūḥ (translated as spirit, consciousness, pneuma or "soul") and nafs (translated as self, ego, psyche or "soul"), cognates of the Hebrew nefesh and ruach. The two terms are frequently used interchangeably, though rūḥ is more often used to denote the divine spirit or "the breath of life", while nafs designates one's disposition or characteristics. In Islamic philosophy, the immortal rūḥ "drives" the mortal nafs, which comprises temporal desires and perceptions necessary for living.

In Jainism, every living being, from plant or bacterium to human, has a soul and the concept forms the very basis of Jainism. According to Jainism, there is no beginning or end to the existence of the soul. It is eternal in nature and changes its form until it attains liberation.

Jiva is the immortal essence or soul of a living organism (human, animal, fish or plant etc.) which survives physical death. The concept of Ajiva in Jainism means "not soul", and represents matter (including body), time, space, non-motion and motion. In Jainism, a Jiva is either samsari (mundane, caught in cycle of rebirths) or mukta (liberated).

According to this belief until the time the soul is liberated from the saṃsāra (cycle of repeated birth and death), it gets attached to one of these bodies based on the karma (actions) of the individual soul. Irrespective of which state the soul is in, it has got the same attributes and qualities. The difference between the liberated and non-liberated souls is that the qualities and attributes are manifested completely in case of siddha (liberated soul) as they have overcome all the karmic bondages whereas in case of non-liberated souls they are partially exhibited. Souls who rise victorious over wicked emotions while still remaining within physical bodies are referred to as arihants.

Judaism relates the quality of one's soul to one's performance of the commandments (mitzvot) and reaching higher levels of understanding, and thus closeness to God.

The Scientology view is that a person does not have a soul, it is a soul. It is the belief of the religion that they do not have the power to force adherents' conclusions. Therefore, a person is immortal, and may be reincarnated if they wish. Scientologists view that one's future happiness and immortality, as guided by their spirituality, is influenced by how they live and act during their time on earth. The Scientology term for the soul is "thetan", derived from the Greek word "theta", symbolizing thought. Scientology counselling (called auditing) addresses the soul to improve abilities, both worldly and spiritual. The ideologies surrounding this understanding align with those of the five major world religions.

A popular belief in Shamanism is soul dualism, which is also known as "many souls" or "dualistic pluralism" and is crucial to the fundamental and vital idea of "soul flight" (also called "soul journey", "out-of-body experience", "ecstasy", or "astral projection"). The idea that there are two or more souls in each human being is known as the dualistic theory of the "free soul" and the "body soul." While awake, the former is connected to physiological processes and awareness, but the latter is free to roam when asleep or in trance states. There are numerous soul types with various purposes in some circumstances.

Shinto distinguishes between the souls of living persons (tamashii) and those of dead persons (mitama), each of which may have different aspects or sub-souls.

Sikhism considers the soul (atma) to be part of God (Waheguru). Various hymns are cited from the holy book Guru Granth Sahib (SGGS) that suggests this belief. "God is in the Soul and the Soul is in the God."

According to Chinese traditions, every person has two types of soul called hun and po, which are respectively yang and yin. Taoism believes in ten souls, sanhunqipo "three hun and seven po". A living being that loses any of them is said to have mental illness or unconsciousness, while a dead soul may reincarnate to a disability, lower desire realms, or may even be unable to reincarnate.

Damn, we’re getting deep here on the Train! Well, we did say we wanted to do this episode and to do it right, well, this is “da wey”.

Now it seems as though the soul is prevalent in just about every religion. Why? Is this just a way of putting a forced answer to a question that we cant solve? Like the creation of our existence or the so-called plan laid before us? Too deep? Anyways, in everything we hear there is usually some truth to what is said. The real strategy is finding out what is true and what is not.

While there has been no scientific confirmation of the physical reality of reincarnation, where the subject has been discussed, there are questions of whether and how such beliefs may be justified within the discourse of science and religion. Some champions of academic parapsychology have argued that they have scientific evidence even while their detractors have accused them of practicing a form of pseudoscience. Skeptic Carl Sagan asked the Dalai Lama what he would do if a fundamental tenet of his religion (reincarnation) were definitively disproved by science. The Dalai Lama answered, "If science can disprove reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism would abandon reincarnation…but it's going to be mighty hard to disprove reincarnation." Sagan considered claims of memories of past lives to be worthy of research, although he considered reincarnation to be an unlikely explanation for these.

Over the course of 40 years, University of Virginia psychiatrist Ian Stevenson studied more than 2,500 cases of young children who claimed to remember previous lives. Twelve volumes were written by him, including Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, and Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. He documented the child's statements and the evidence of family members and other witnesses in his instances, frequently coupled with what he thought to be connections to a deceased person who in some ways seemed to match the child's memories. Stevenson also looked at instances in which he believed that birthmarks and birth abnormalities matched the wounds and scars on the deceased. Medical records, such as images from an autopsy, were occasionally included in his documentation. Stevenson anticipated criticism and mistrust of his beliefs since claims of former life memories are always open to accusations of fraudulent recollections and the simplicity with which such claims can be faked. He did look for contradictory information and other reasons for the claims, but as the Washington Post wrote, he frequently came to the conclusion that no regular explanation was enough.

Jim B. Tucker, Antonia Mills, Satwant Pasricha, Godwin Samararatne, and Erlendur Haraldsson are a few other academic scholars who have engaged in comparable study, although Stevenson's works continue to be the most well-known. Carl Sagan found Stevenson's work in this area to be so impressive that he used what were apparently Stevenson's investigations as an example of meticulously gathered empirical data in his book The Demon-Haunted World. Though he rejected reincarnation as a reasonable explanation for the stories, he wrote that the phenomenon of purported past-life memories should be further studied. In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris mentioned Stevenson's writings as a component of a collection of evidence that appears to support the reality of psychic phenomena but only draws on arbitrary human experience.

Paul Edwards, a philosopher, called Ian Stevenson's reincarnation tales "purely anecdotal and cherry-picked," refuting Stevenson's assertions. The stories, according to Edwards, are the products of selective thinking, suggestion, and false recollections that arise from the researcher's or the family's belief systems and cannot be taken into account as empirical proof. The philosopher Keith Augustine wrote in critique that the fact that "the vast majority of Stevenson's cases come from countries where a religious belief in reincarnation is strong, and rarely elsewhere, seems to indicate that cultural conditioning (rather than reincarnation) generates claims of spontaneous past-life memories." Further, Ian Wilson pointed out that a large number of Stevenson's cases consisted of poor children remembering wealthy lives or belonging to a higher caste. In these societies, claims of reincarnation are sometimes used as schemes to obtain money from the richer families of alleged former incarnations. Later, Stevenson wrote a book titled European Cases of the Reincarnation Type that collected cases from societies where reincarnation is not widely accepted. Robert Baker said that despite this, all of the past-life experiences examined by Stevenson and other parapsychologists are explicable in terms of well-known psychological characteristics, such as a combination of confabulation and cryptomnesia. Reincarnation conjures assumptions, according to Edwards, that are at odds with contemporary science. Reincarnation is subject to the rule that "extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary evidence" due to the fact that the vast majority of individuals have no memory of former lifetimes and that no mechanism has been empirically proven to allow a personality to escape death and move to another body. Researchers like Stevenson were aware of these restrictions.

Confabulation is a memory error in psychology that is described as the creation of false, distorted, or misconstrued memories about oneself or the outside environment. It is typically linked to a particular subset of dementias or certain types of brain injury, particularly aneurysms in the anterior communicating artery. Confabulation is a behavior that the basal forebrain is thought to be involved with, while research into this topic is currently ongoing. When someone confabulates, their memories are distorted or confused in terms of their temporal framing (such as timing, sequence, or duration), and these distortions can range from small mistakes to outright fabrications. They generally have a high degree of confidence in their memories, even when they are contradicted by other pieces of information.

When a forgotten memory resurfaces but is not recognized by the person as such, they think it to be something brand-new and unique. This condition is known as cryptomnesia. A person could mistakenly believe they came up with a joke, a music, a name, or a thought when they didn't mean to copy anything; instead, they were simply experiencing a memory as if it were a fresh source of inspiration. This is a memory bias.

Stevenson also asserted that there were a few instances that might have provided proof of xenoglossy, including two in which a subject was said to have engaged in conversation with speakers of the other language rather than just memorizing its terms. Reexamining these cases, University of Michigan linguist and skeptic Sarah Thomason came to the conclusion that "the linguistic evidence is too poor to provide support for the assertions of xenoglossy."

The paranormal phenomena of a person being able to speak, write, or understand a foreign language that they could not have learned naturally is called xenoglossy, also known as xenolalia. French parapsychologist Charles Richet coined the term "xenoglossy" in 1905. In addition to modern assertions made by parapsychologists and reincarnation researchers like Ian Stevenson, the New Testament contains claims of xenoglossy. The existence of xenoglossy as a real phenomenon is not supported by science. In xenoglossy, there are two distinct categories. Incomprehensible use of an unlearned language is known as repetitious xenoglossy, while comprehensively using an unlearned language as if it had already been learnt is known as responsive xenoglossy.

Some reincarnationists—Stevenson notoriously not included—place great emphasis on purported past-life memories that are regained while hypnotized during past-life regressions. The technique, which was made popular by psychiatrist Brian Weiss, who claims to have taken patients back in time more than 4,000 times since 1980, is sometimes referred to as a form of pseudoscience. These so-called memories have been shown to include historical mistakes derived from historical texts, popular historical myths, or contemporary popular culture. Studies on people who had past-life regressions found that the two most significant influences on the reported details of recollections were the individuals' reincarnation beliefs and the hypnotist's suggestions. The use of hypnosis and provocative inquiries may make a subject more prone to have false or distorted recollections. The source of the recollections is most likely cryptomnesia and confabulations, which mix experiences, knowledge, imagination, and suggestion or instruction from the hypnotist, as opposed to recall of a prior existence. Once they are formed, the memories become identical to memories based on actual life occurrences for the person.

Because it offers no proof for its assertions and makes people more susceptible to false recollections, past-life regression has been criticized as immoral. According to Luis Cordón, this can be harmful because it breeds delusions while passing itself off as therapy. Due to the fact that the memories are perceived as being equally vivid and impossible to distinguish from authentic recollections of actual occurrences, any damage may be challenging to repair.

The use of past-life regressions as a treatment technique has been contested by APA recognized groups as unethical. Furthermore, the hypnotic technique used to support past-life regression has come under fire for leaving the subject open to the implantation of false memories. Gabriel Andrade contends that past-life regression violates the Hippocratic Oath's first, do no harm (non-maleficence) tenet since the implantation of false memories may be damaging.

Now that we have a phenomenal understanding of reincarnation and the simplified version of the soul, we would like to share some examples of first hand accounts where reincarnation shows itself. All we ask of you, the listeners, is to give us your honest opinions and maybe share your own stories or beliefs.

Thank you to Listverse.com for some of the first hand accounts of reincarnation

Edward Austrian

A four-year-old boy called Edward Austrian had been complaining of a sore throat since his mother can remember. He also can’t stand grey, drizzly days, apparently. Around this time, the little boy began referring to his sore throat as his “shot”. His mother thought nothing of it. After all, kids mix up their words all the time. Doctor after doctor led to an unnecessary tonsil removal, which then led to an unexplained cyst developing in Edward’s throat. His parents were understandably worried. But then something strange happened. Edward started telling his mum detailed stories from WWI – things a four-year-old wouldn’t be able to absorb and remember from a TV show or movie. He spoke of life on the trenches and the day-to-day goings on of the war. And then… one day… he told his mother a graphic story of being shot in the throat and killed. “My name was James. I was 18 years old, in France,” he told his parents. “We were walking along through the mud. It was damp. It was cold. My rifle is heavy. I remember looking out and seeing trees and then there was desolation. I heard a shot come from behind. It went through someone else, hit me square in the back of the neck and I felt my throat fill with blood.” Let’s remember this kid is FOUR YEARS OLD. So that’s not the kind of thing he would learn from the Wiggles, right?

Bruce Whittier

Bruce Whittier had recurring dreams of being a Jewish man hiding in a house with his family. His name had been Stefan Horowitz, a Dutch Jew who was discovered in his hiding place along with his family and taken to Auschwitz, where he died. During and after the dreams, he felt panicked and restless. He began to record his dreams, and one night he dreamed about a clock, which he was able to draw in great detail upon waking.Whittier dreamed about the location of the clock in an antiques shop and went to look. The clock was visible in the shop window and looked exactly like the one in his dreams. Whittier asked the dealer where it had come from. It transpired that the dealer had bought the clock from among the property of a retired German major in The Netherlands. This convinced Whittier that he really had led a past life.

Peter Hume

Peter Hume, a bingo caller from Birmingham, England, started having very specific dreams about life on guard duty at the Scottish border in 1646. He was a foot soldier of Cromwell’s army and his name was John Raphael. When put under hypnosis, Hume remembered more details and locations. He started to visit places he remembered with his brother and even found small items that appeared to have come from the era in which he had lived, such as horse spurs.With the help of a village historian in Culmstock, South England, he even managed to positively identify details about a church that he had known—he was able to tell her that the church used to have a tower with a yew tree growing from it. This was not a published fact, and it startled her that Hume knew it—the church tower had been taken down in 1676. In local registers, John Raphael was discovered to have been married in the church. A civil war historian, Ronald Hutton, investigated the case and asked Hume very era-specific questions while under hypnosis. Hutton was not satisfied that Hume was totally in tune with the era of his past life, as he could not answer all his questions in a satisfactory way.

Gus Taylor

Gus Taylor was 18 months old when he started to say that he was his own grandfather. Young children can be confused about their own identity and those of their family members, but this was different. His grandfather had died a year before Gus was born and the boy totally believed they were the same person. When shown some family photographs, Gus identified “Grandpa Augie” when he was four years old.There was a family secret that nobody had ever spoken about in front of or around Gus—Augie’s sister had been murdered and dumped in the San Francisco Bay. The family were perplexed when the four-year-old child started to talk about his dead sister. According to Gus, God gave him a ticket after he died. With this ticket he was able to travel through a hole, after which he came back to life as Gus.

Imad Elawar

Five-year-old Imad Elawar from Lebanon started talking about his life in a nearby village. The first two words he spoke as a child were the names “Jamileh” and “Mahmoud,” and at the age of two he stopped a stranger outside and told him they had been neighbors. The child and his parents were investigated by Dr Ian Stevenson. Imad made over 55 different claims about his previous life.The family visited the village that the boy had been spoken of, together with Stevenson, and found the house where he claimed he had lived. Imad and his family were able to positively identify thirteen facts and memories that were confirmed as being accurate. Imad recognized his previous uncle, Mahmoud, and his mistress from a former life, Jamileh, from photographs. He was able to remember where he had kept his gun, a fact verified by others, and was able to have a chat with a stranger about their experiences during their army days. In total, 51 out of 57 of the experiences and places mentioned by Imad were verified during the visit.

James Leininger

At a very young age, James Leininger started to remember his life as a navy fighter pilot. Airplanes were the only toys he would play with, and after a time his plane obsession turned into a nightmare. He lost a lot of sleep and kept talking about flying planes, about the weapons, and the scary accident with his plane. James, who only watched kids’ programs on TV, showed his mother what a fighter plane drop tank was, and was able to check a plane over as a pilot would during a preflight check when he was just three years old.The child was able to tell his father that he used to take off from a boat called the Natoma and knew the name of a co-pilot, Jack Larson. The Natoma was indeed a Pacific ship and Larson was still alive. After James told his father that he had been killed in his plane at Iwo Jima, his father discovered a pilot called James M. Huston Jr. who had died there. This was especially strange, as James had started to sign his drawings “ ‘James 3’ ”. James’ family contacted Huston’s sister, and she sent James a bust and a model airplane that had been returned to her by the navy after her brother’s death.

Ruth Simmons

One of the best-known reincarnation stories is that of Ruth Simmons. In 1952, she underwent a series of hypnosis sessions during which her therapist, Morey Bernstein, regressed her back to her birth. She suddenly started to speak with a heavy Irish accent and remembered many specific details from her life as Bridey Murphy, who had lived in Belfast, Ireland in the 19th century. Not many of the things she mentioned could be verified. However, she recalled two people from whom she used to buy her food—a Mr. John Carrigan and a Mr. Farr. The town directory for 1865–66 lists the two individuals as grocers. The story is shown in a film from 1956 called The Search for Bridey Murphy.

Cameron Macauley

Cameron Macauley was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Since the age of two he told his mother he was from an island called Barra, off the west coast of Scotland. He talked about a white house and a beach on which planes landed. He had a black-and-white dog and his dad’s name was Shane Robertson—he was killed by a car. He drew the white house by the beach and complained of missing his other mother. As the child got more and more upset about missing Barra, his mother took him on a visit the the island, which was an hour-long flight away. The plane landed on the beach.The family found a white house owned by the Robertsons, and the black-and-white dog was in one of their family photographs, along with a car that Cameron had remembered. However, nobody recalled Shane. Cameron knew his way around the white house and was able to point out all its peculiarities.As he grew older, Cameron slowly lost his memories, but he is still convinced that death is not the end. Like Gus Taylor, he stated that he ended up in his mother’s tummy after he fell through a hole. The story was picked up by British television, making the Barra case one of the best-documented reincarnation stories.

Parmod Sharma

Parmod Sharma was born in India in 1944. When he reached the age of two, he told his mother that his wife in Moradabad could cook for him, so she did not have to. Morabad was 145 kilometers (90 mi) away from his birthplace, Bisauli. Between the ages of three and four, Parmod described a business venture called “Mohan Brothers,” where he had worked with family members, selling cookies and water. He built miniature shops and served his family mud cookies and water. He had been a well-off tradesman and complained about the financially less rosy situation of his current family. He advised his parents against eating curd, and would not touch it himself. He said that he had become very ill after eating it in his old life. Parmod hated being submerged in a bath and told his parents that he had died in a bathtub. Pramod's parents promised to take him to Moradabad once he had learned to read. It turned out that there was a family by the name of Mehra that had run a soda and cookie shop called “Mohan Brothers.” Manager Parmanand Mehra had died in 1943 after gorging on curd and suffering from a gastrointestinal illness and peritonitis, from which he had eventually died. Parmanand had tried medicinal baths as a cure and had been given a bath very shortly before his death.

Steve Jobs

A software engineer called Tony Tseung, an employee of Apple, sent an email to a Buddhist group in Thailand, asking if they could tell him what had happened to Apple founder Steve Jobs after he died. The answer was that Jobs is now a celestial philosopher, in a glass palace that hovers over the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.In Malaysia, a group of Jobs’ admirers performed a religious ceremony after his funeral. During the ceremony, the group each took a bite from an apple before throwing it into the sea to speed up the process of reincarnation. Phra Chaibul Dhammajayo, one of the abbots at the Dhammakaya Temple, is convinced that Jobs has already been reborn. He is now a divine presence with a specific interest in science and art. Followers have received this information through a special message that was broadcast worldwide. Apparently, more specific details will be communicated when Jobs feels the need to pass on any knowledge or messages.

Ok… one last person who claims they were reincarnated!

Born on Dec. 11, 1926, Shanti Devi appeared to be a perfectly normal baby, until around the age of four when she began to ramble on about a past life in a town called Mathura, nearly 75 miles away..

Shortly after she learned to speak, Devi regaled her parents with stories of her past life in a town neither she nor her parents had ever been to.

Simple events would trigger memories of this life, like eating a meal that reminded her of foods she used to enjoy in her old days, or while getting dressed she’d tell her mother about the clothes she used to wear.

Devi eventually informed her parents that her previous name was Lugdi and that she died shortly after bearing a son in October of 1925. She added uncanny details about her labor pains and the surgical procedures she underwent.

Such facts, it seemed, couldn’t have been conjured up by even the most imaginative child.

When she revealed the name of her former husband, Devi’s family was shocked to discover that he was still alive and lived precisely where Devi had said she was from. A historic meeting was arranged between them ⏤ that not even science could quite explain.

Devi recalled in startling detail all the shops and streets in the town. She also began to speak of her husband, a merchant whose name she refused to reveal until she was about nine years old. But she did tell her parents that he was fair, had a wart on his left cheek, and wore reading glasses.

Despite the unusual specificity of her memories, Devi’s parents dismissed her recollections as mere childishness. But when Devi revealed that her husband’s name was Pandit Kedarnath Chaube, sometimes referred to as Kedar Nath, a friend of the family decided to find out if there was any truth to what she’d been saying.

The friend sent a letter to a merchant named Kedar Nath in Mathura to inquire about Devi’s unusual memories. To the friend’s surprise, Nath wrote back confirming all the details. Nath also agreed to send a relative to Devi’s home to gauge the situation.

In an effort to test her knowledge, the relative was brought before Devi first and introduced as her husband. Devi was not fooled and said that no, this was her husband’s cousin.

Shocked, Nath and the child he had with Lugdi, now ten years old, entered the home themselves. Upon seeing them, Devi reportedly burst into tears.

Nath requested to speak with Devi on his own, and by his own admission, claimed that each response she gave to his questions was entirely accurate.

“He found the replies to be quite correct and was moved to tears!” Read an account by an investigator on the case in 1937. “It was as though his dead wife was speaking.”

Shanti spent several days with Kedar Nath and his son before they had to return to Mathura. Saddened by their departure, she pleaded with her parents to let her take a trip to her former home.

She promised she could lead them directly to her old house and, perhaps to persuade them further, explained that she had a box of money buried there.

Devi’s parents relented — though considering the story had captured the attention of Mahatma Gandhi, they hardly had a choice. The famed Indian leader set up a commission to investigate the astonishing case, and in November of 1935, a dozen researchers joined Devi and her parents on the three-hour train ride to Mathura.

As one of the investigators recounted, “Once getting out of the railway station… the girl was put in the front seat and our carriage went ahead of all others. Necessary precautions were taken that no pedestrians should be allowed to lead the way. The driver was instructed to follow the route indicated only by the girl, without caring as to where he went.”

Sure enough, Devi had no problem directing the group to what she claimed was her former home. Along the way, she noted various streets that hadn’t been paved earlier and buildings that weren’t there during her previous life. The driver confirmed these observations were correct.

While exploring the house with Kedar Nath, a member of the commission asked about the buried treasure she mentioned. Shanti Devi promptly ran upstairs and headed straight to a corner of a room, declaring the box was hidden beneath the floorboard. Kedar Nath opened up the flooring and indeed found a small coffer. It was empty.

Shocked, Shanti Devi began looking inside the hole, certain the money was there. Kedar Nath then admitted that he had taken the cash after his wife’s death.

Devi’s reunion tour of Mathura continued to her former parents’ house. “She not only recognized it but was also able to identify her old ‘father’ and ‘mother’ in a crowd of more than 50 persons,” one of the investigators wrote. “The girl embraced her ‘parents’ who wept bitterly at her sight.”

Though she wished to stay in Mathura longer, Devi’s current parents and the investigators were soon headed back to Delhi. In their report, the commission found “no rational explanation” for what they witnessed.

Not only was Devi able to recall her life before, it seemed, but she also had an explanation for the afterlife. In 1936 and 1939, she relayed her experience in death to skeptics and hypnotists alike.

She claimed that at the time of her death, she felt dizzy and enveloped in a “profound darkness” before a flash of light revealed four men in yellow underwear before her.

“All the four seemed to be in their teens and their appearance and dress were very bright,” she once said while under hypnosis. “They put me in a cup and carried me.”

Devi said she saw the Hindu god Krishna showing each person a record of their good and bad activities on earth and telling them what would happen to them next.

Then, Devi said she was taken to a golden staircase from which she could see a river as “clean and pure as milk.” She said she saw souls there and they appeared like flames in lamps.

Years later, a 1958 newspaper interview followed up with her. At the time, Shanti Devi was 32 years old and had never married. She was living a quiet, spiritual life in Delhi.

She also said she’d planned to form an organization “devoted to the idea of living our lives according to the dictates of the inner voice.”

Shanti Devi passed away in 1987 at the age of 61. However, her story lives on courtesy of a book written by Swedish author Sture Lonnerstrand in 1994, which was translated to English in 1998.

Okay so that last one definitely seems a little… off kilter to say the least. One recurring theme with a lot of these stories though, is that the prior life that's experienced was cut short during a traumatic event. Now as we all know, most hauntings seem to be along the same lines. So are hauntings just reincarnation of the life lost with unfinished business? Stuck in Purgatory? I guess after this long ass episode we still don't have any answers. Hopefully, though, we have put you closer on the track to figuring it out for yourselves. Hey! If you figure something out, make sure to drop a line. After all, if we can't figure it out in this life, maybe we will be around to talk about it in the next.

The Best Movies About Reincarnation And Coming Back To Life (ranker.com)

Why isn't The Mummy on this list?!?!?!

The Servant Girl Annihilator (Your Jack the Ripper is Showing)

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0400

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https://www.watchmojo.com/video/id/44882

We’ve all heard the story of Jack the Ripper, right? Hell, we did a two-parter on the case not too long ago. You know the story. Some crazy person, running around hacking up people, disemboweling them, and nobody knows who it was. You know, that old chestnut. There were other cases similar to the Jack the Ripper case, like the Vallisca ax murders, the Hinterkaifeck Murders, and quite a few more that we’ve covered right here on the Midnight Train.

Well, this story is right in line with those unsolved atrocities and… it happened before Jack the Ripper decided to go all willy nilly and mutilate a bunch of poor women.

The Servant Girl Annihilator, also known as the Austin Axe Murderer and the Midnight Assassin (which is my favorite for obvious reasons), was a still, as of yet, unidentified serial killer who preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas, between 1884 and 1885. The murderer’s nickname originated with the writer O. Henry. Apparently he had mentioned the murderer in a letter he had written, coining the dipshit murderers name.

The brutal killings in Austin occurred three years before Jack the Ripper terrorized London's East End (and there are some who believe the Servant Girl Annihilator and Jack the Ripper were the same person and we’ll touch on that later). Although these murders happened 75 years before the term serial killer was coined, it still sealed Austin's reputation as the first city in America to have a serial killer — and the peice of crap responsible to be known as the first serial murderer in the country. Not exactly someone sane is running to be the first, but someone has to be the first something, right?

First, let’s talk about Austin, Texas and a smidge of its history.

As per Wikipedia:

Evidence of habitation of the Balcones Escarpment region of Texas can be traced to at least 11,000 years ago. Two of the oldest Paleolithic archeological sites in Texas, the Levi Rock Shelter and Smith Rock Shelter, are located southwest and southeast of present-day Austin respectively. Several hundred years before the arrival of European settlers, the area was inhabited by a variety of nomadic Native American tribes. These indigenous peoples fished and hunted along the creeks, including present-day Barton Springs, which proved to be a reliable campsite. At the time of the first permanent settlement of the area, the Tonkawa tribe was the most common, with the Comanches and Lipan Apaches also frequenting the area.

The first European settlers in the present-day Austin were a group of Spanish friars who arrived from East Texas in July 1730. They established three temporary missions, La Purísima Concepción, San Francisco de los Neches and San José de los Nazonis, on a site by the Colorado River, near Barton Springs. The friars found conditions undesirable and relocated to the San Antonio River within a year of their arrival. Following Mexico's Independence from Spain, Anglo-American settlers began to populate Texas and reached present-day Central Texas by the 1830s. The first documented permanent settlement in the area dates to 1837 when the village of Waterloo was founded near the confluence of the Colorado River and Shoal Creek.

Got all that? Good… maybe you can explain it to me later. Just kidding… kind of.

The victims

The first unfortunate victim was Mollie Smith, a 25-year-old cook working for the Walter Hall residence on Sixth Street (then named Pecan Street). She was killed on December 30, 1884, in a grisly killing filled with an extreme amount of blood due to the ax wounds to her head, abdomen, chest, legs, and arms. Her body was found outside and placed in the snow next to the family outhouse. She was attacked with an axe in her sleep, dragged into the backyard, raped and murdered. Walter Spencer, 30 yrs. old, also attacked and wounded.

The second poor victim was Eliza Shelly, a young woman who worked as a cook for the family of Dr. Lucian Johnson. Killed a few months after Mollie Smith, Shelly had been brutally murdered on Cypress Street on May 7, 1885, and her head left almost completely split from the blows of an axe. She was the mother of three children.

Because of the killer's apparent weapon of choice — an axe — the murders were first known as the Austin Axe Murders until a well-known resident, William Sydney Porter (that writer guy with the pen name, O. Henry) wrote in a letter to a friend: "Town is fearfully dull, except for the frequent raids of the Servant Girl Annihilators, who make things lively during the dead of night." After his letter became public, locals and reporters began referring to the murderer as the Servant Girl Annihilator.

On May 23, 1885, a third hapless woman, also a young servant person, became the next victim. Her name was Irene Cross and she lived on East Linden Street, just across from Scholz Garten. A reporter on the scene after her vicious attack stated that she looked as if she had been scalped. This victim was killed with a knife, as opposed to the aforementioned ax. Was this attack the work of the Annihilator or a different lunatic?

As summer dwindled down, August brought forth the arrival of a horrendous attack on Clara Dick. Later that month, another servant named Rebecca Ramey was wounded and her 11-year-old daughter Mary was killed.

At this time, the citizens of Austin were scared as shit and began protecting their homes with extra measures. Other cautions, such as increased patrols in neighborhoods, going home before sunset, and 24-hour saloons closing at midnight, we all also put into place. (It's worth noting that despite the legend, Austin's famous moontowers were not constructed during this time. They came later in the 1890s.)

Next victims were 20 year old Gracie Vance and her 25 year old boyfriend Orange Washington. They were sleeping in a shack behind the home of Vance's boss when the couple was brutally attacked with an ax. According to the local paper, Vance's "head was almost beaten into a jelly." Gracie was also dragged into the backyard, raped and murdered.

Lucinda Boddy and Patsy Gibson, both only 17 yrs. old, were also attacked and wounded.

Weird note here, up to this point all the victims were African-American, but they were not all servant girls. And many noted that white residents had not been attacked. At least not yet.

The final two murders occurred on Christmas Eve (or possibly December 28th), 1885. First, 41 year old Sue Hancock, the mother of two, described as "one of the most refined ladies in Austin," was found in her backyard (now the Four Seasons Austin) by her husband. She had been dragged there while sleeping and succumbed to her wounds.

Hours later, 17 year old Eula Phillips, "one of the prettiest women in Austin," was found dead in her in-laws backyard (where the Austin Central Library is now located) she was also dragged into the back yard, raped and murdered. Her 24 year old husband, Jimmy Phillips Jr, sustained severe wounds in the attack. Ultimately, both spouses of Sue Hancock and Eula Phillips were accused, but found not guilty of the murders.

After the Christmas Eve murders in 1885, the killings stopped, but the fear was still palpable. At the time of the murders, Austin had been changing from a small frontier town to a cosmopolitan city, but the reputation it acquired because of the crimes put a halt to the city's growth.

The suspects

Although approximately 400 men were eventually rounded up by authorities and questioned in the killings, all suspects were released and the murders remain unsolved. However, there are a few names from history that stand out as possible murder suspects.

Nathan Elgin was native of Austin and a young African-American domestic servant who knew the streets of his hometown.

The majority of this next part was taken from the website servantgirlmurders.com

Late one night in February 1886 a saloon in Masontown in east Austin was the scene of a violent and disturbing incident. The surrounding neighborhood was in an uproar because a drunken, raging man had dragged a girl from the saloon to a nearby house where he could be heard beating and cursing her while she screamed for help. The entire neighborhood had come out in the streets and the commotion caught the attention of a nearby police officer. Police officer John Bracken arrived on the scene and the saloon keeper, Dick Rogers and a neighbor, Claibe Hawkins, went with Bracken to stop the man from beating the girl to death.

Rogers and Hawkins went into the house and pulled the man away from the girl and into the front yard. As Rogers and Hawkins grappled with the man, Officer Bracken got out the handcuffs. The man would not be subdued – he threw off Rogers and Hawkins and knocked Bracken off his feet. The man turned on them and brandished a knife. As Bracken tried to recover a shot rang out. Bracken drew his pistol and fired. The shot brought down the raging man.

The man’s name was Nathan Elgin. There was no explanation for Elgin’s rage at the girl, named Julia.

Bracken’s shot did not kill Elgin instantly but it did leave him paralyzed and mortally wounded; he died the following day.

A subsequent autopsy revealed that Bracken’s bullet had lodged in Elgin’s spine which accounted for the paralysis. The doctors had also noticed another detail – Elgin was missing a toe from his right foot.

During the investigations of the crimes the authorities had carefully noted the footprints which were often bloodstained and had made distinct impressions in the soil as the perpetrator carried the weight of the victim.

Apart from general measurements of size and shape, footprints in most instances are not especially distinctive and they would not have been much use to the authorities had they not possessed some unusual feature. But the footprints left behind at the Servant Girl Murder crime scenes did share a very distinct feature – one of the footprints had only four toes.

The authorities never shared this fact with the press or the general public during the course of 1885. The press frequently complained about the secrecy surrounding the murder inquests and argued that making all the details of the crimes public would facilitate the capture of the responsible parties more quickly. The authorities disagreed and kept certain details of the cases to themselves – details that they hoped would eventually identify the perpetrator and link him to the crime scenes.

After Nathan Elgin’s death the authorities unexpectedly had the direct physical evidence they had been waiting for – a foot that matched the distinctive footprints of the killer. But the foot belonged to a dead man. What were they to do with that information? What could they do with it?

To imagine the state of mind of the authorities at that time one has to understand the heightened state of fear and suspicion that was present in Austin at the beginning of 1886. In the month since the last murders in December 1885, the city’s police force had been tripled in size. A curfew had been enacted and private citizens had organized into patrols to guard the neighborhoods after dark. Strangers were forced to identify themselves or be evicted from the city. Saloons and other raucous downtown establishments, usually open twenty-four hours a day, were forced to close at midnight. A new era of law and order had begun. Would there have been any advantage in revealing that perhaps the midnight assassin was dead? And what if Elgin was not the mysterious murderer of servant girls? It was in the authorities’ best interest to wait and see if the murders continued. Maybe the authorities believed they had gotten lucky – they couldn’t arrest, prosecute of convict Elgin, but perhaps the problem had been solved. But in February 1886 it was still too early to be sure. It is important to remember that at the beginning of 1886, the Christmas Eve murders were not the last murders, simply the latest, and the investigations into the murders continued, notably with detectives still shadowing other suspects.

While the authorities were not able to make use of the evidence against Elgin, the defense attorneys for James Phillips and Moses Hancock certainly were. Eula Phillips, wife of James Phillips, and Susan Hancock, wife of Moses Hancock, had both been murdered on December 24, 1885 and both husbands were subsequently charged with murdering their wives.

In May 1886, during the trial of James Phillips, defense attorneys introduced into evidence floorboards marked with bloody footprints that had been removed from the Phillips house after the murder. They were compared to the footprints of the defendant, who removed his shoes and had his feet inked and printed in an elaborate demonstration in the courtroom. Even though Phillip’s footprints were substantially different in size than the bloody footprints on the floorboards, the jury was unconvinced. The motives of jealousy and drunkenness as argued by the prosecution convinced the jury and they found Phillips guilty of second degree murder.

When the case against Moses Hancock was finally brought to trial, the Hancock received some substantial legal help in the form of pro bono representation by John Hancock (no relation) a former U.S. Congressman, one of the state’s most prominent political figures and one of Austin’s most astute legal practitioners.

Also providing assistance for the defense rather than the prosecution, was Sheriff Malcolm Hornsby, who during his testimony, described making a cast of Elgin’s foot after his death, the significance of the missing toe, the similarities between Elgin’s footprint and the footprints left at the Phillips and Ramey murders, and that fact that there had been no further servant girl murders committed since Elgin’s death. Even so, the jury was not completely persuaded and after two days of deliberation, a hung jury was declared and the case was discharged without a verdict.

The verdicts in the Phillips and Hancock trials illustrated the consensus on the Servant Girl Murders and the motives behind them – that the murders had been committed by different persons with conventional motives.

Was Nathan Elgin the Servant Girl Annihilator? In my opinion, he most likely was based on 1) direct physical evidence linking Elgin to the crimes, 2) testimony of Sheriff Malcolm Hornsby as to Elgin’s ostensible guilt, 3) the fact that there were no further Servant Girl Murders after his death, and 4) Elgin fits the criminal profile of such a killer.

***

Nathan Elgin – A Criminology

The Servant Girl Murders were over 130 years ago and few official records pertaining to them have survived. Likewise, there is little surviving biographical information about Nathan Elgin, however the information that is available strongly correlates to traits associated with a Disorganized/Anger-Retaliatory (D/AR) serial killer profile, and the crime scenes of the Servant Girl Murders correspond exactly to that of anger-retaliatory crime scenes:

In the anger-retaliatory rape-murder, the rape is planned and the initial murder involves overkill. It is an anger-venting act that expresses symbolic revenge on a female victim. Nettled by poor relationships with women, the aggressor distills his anguish and contempt into explosive revenge on the victim… the aggressive killer will either direct his anger at that woman or redirect his anger to a substitute woman. Because the latter type of scapegoating retaliation does not eliminate the direct source of hate, it is likely that it will be episodically repeated to relieve internal stresses. Dynamically, the rape-homicide is committed in a stylized violent burst attack for purposes of retaliation, getting even, and revenge on women.
The perpetrator tends to choose victims from familiar areas… and may use weapons of opportunity in percussive assaults with fists, blunt objects or a knife.
The subject tends to leave a disorganized crime scene, and the improvised murder weapon may be found within 15 feet of the body.

The following traits are common to the D/AR serial killer profile and I would argue that they are present in the historical record specifically in connection to Nathan Elgin:

childhood abuse or neglect
early violent episodes
violent fantasy
resentment of authority
escalation
stressors

Additionally, Nathan Elgin would have possessed the locational expertise critical to successfully enacting the murders and eluding the authorities, culminating in a distinctive signature killing style – the attack on sleeping female victim using blunt force to the head, carrying the body away from the house into the yard where the victim was then raped.

Childhood Abuse Suspicions

All of the murderers were subjected to serious emotional abuse during their childhoods. And all of them developed into what psychiatrists label as sexually dysfunctional adults.
From birth to age six or seven, studies have shown, the most important adult figure in a child’s life is the mother, and it is in this time period that the child learns what love is. Relationships between our subjects and their mothers were uniformly cool, unloving and neglectful. (4)
The disorganized offender grows up in a household where the father’s work is often unstable, where childhood discipline is harsh, and where the family is subject to serious strain brought on by alcohol, mental illness, and the like. (5)

One of the primary components in the creation of the D/AR serial killer profile is a dysfunctional, abusive relationship within the family and especially between the mother and the subject. The mothers often have psychological disorders or they have been victims of emotional and sexual abuse themselves and are then subsequently abusive with their own children. At best the mothers are emotionally distant and at worst they are physically and psychologically abusive.

Nathan Elgin was born in 1866, the fourth of five children in his family. The Elgin family had moved to Austin from Arkansas after the war, to the freedman’s community that came to be known as Wheatville. Nathan had three older siblings that had already married, started their own families and evidently lived normal lives while Nathan was still a child growing up in Austin. However the older siblings’ mother, Angeline, had been a different woman than Nathan’s mother, Susan. (6)

There is no record of what happened to Angeline, she presumably died or separated from her husband, Richard Elgin, but after she left, a woman named Susan Pearce appeared in her place to raise Nathan – whether she was his biological mother is unknown. I think this substitution in the maternal line is significant and I would speculate that Susan Pearce was an abusive catalyst in Nathan’s emotional development.

The 1880 census listed 14-year-old Nathan Elgin as still living with his parents; it noted his ability to read and write, and his occupation as “servant.” He was likely placed into service by his mother. For Nathan, being a domestic servant at that period in time would have entailed working in an environment with Victorian strictures and discipline, submitting to the authority of women, both black and white, carrying out whatever tasks were ordered without argument. Habitual abuse or humiliation of young Nathan could have been facilitated by such conditions and it is easy to imagine him having suffered abuse in such a position considering the rage directed at this particular class of women only a few years later.

Any abuse Nathan experienced as a child without having the physical ability to stop it, would in the meantime have fueled an inner world of revenge fantasy and anger waiting to be unleashed. Not until he was a teenager would he finally gain the physical ability to express that anger, except toward whomever was the source. The source or its memory, the humiliation and shame they had used to define him, would retain the ability to make him feel helpless and impotent. The result, once he had gained maturity, would be not just fantasies of rage, but their physical expression, enacted again and again upon victims who were substitute for its source.

Early Violent Episodes – Resentment of Authority – Violent Fantasy

These adolescents overcompensated for the aggression in their early lives by repeating the abuse in fantasy – but, this time, with themselves as the aggressors.
He is seen as an explosive personality who is impulsive, quick-tempered, and self-centered.

In the summer of 1881, Nathan Elgin was arrested for carrying a pistol and getting into a confrontation with another young man near the Governor’s mansion, “they cursed each other for some time and aroused the neighborhood.” Such incidents were not particularly remarkable for that time period and the newspaper frequently reported similar skirmishes between young “bloods,” however it does demonstrate that Elgin already had a violent disposition at a young age.

More remarkable was an incident in 1882, when Elgin sent a threatening letter to a deputy sheriff promising to “whip destroy and kill” the deputy the next time they met. The written expression of violent threats and fantasies, especially toward the police or other authorities, is one of the classic serial killer tells. Nathan’s letter was described “reckless and bloodthirsty” in the newspaper, a description that would later be more fittingly applied to the murders of 1885.

Locational Expertise

Apart from committing the murders in the middle of the night and using the cover of darkness for concealment, an intimate knowledge of the city would have been key to the killer’s ability to elude the authorities.

Nathan Elgin had locational expertise – he had grown up in Austin as it was being built. As a child in the 1870s he would have seen the wood-framed buildings that lined Congress Avenue and Pecan Street replaced by brick and mortar storefronts. He would have seen the streets graded and the wooded hills cleared for elegant neighborhoods, schools and churches.

By 1885 he would have been intimately familiar with how the city worked and moved. He would have known all the shortcuts, the hiding places, which yards had dogs, which doors were left unlocked. He would have known how to go unnoticed and he would have known what was around every corner.

Escalation

The disorganized killer has no idea of, or interest in, the personalities of the victims. He does not want to know who they are, and many times takes steps to obliterate their personalities by quickly knocking them unconscious or covering their faces or otherwise disfiguring them.
[The victim] will often have horrendous wounds. [The killer] does not move the body or conceal it.
The offender is usually somewhat younger than his victims.

In July 1884, there were two instances of women, both African American, being stabbed in the face as they slept. The women survived; the authorities investigated them as separate incidents. In August 1884, an African American woman was struck in the head with a smoothing iron as she slept. These nocturnal attacks, though not fatal, were so idiosyncratic in style that they must have been a fledgling attempt by an anger-retaliatory killer who would later escalate with gruesome results.

In November 1884, police reports mentioned a non-fatal nocturnal assault on a domestic servant as she slept in her bed. This incident never appeared in the newspaper.

A little over a month later, an African American woman named Mollie Smith was struck in the head with an axe as she slept; she was dragged into the backyard and raped. Her body was hacked to pieces by the killer and left at the scene.

Mollie Smith’s murder set the pattern for all that followed.

Locational Expertise and Escalation and Signature in the Vance/Washington and Hancock/Phillips Murders

The disorganized killer doesn’t choose victims logically, and so often takes a victim at high risk to himself, one not selected because he or she can be easily controlled…
…the assault continues until the subject is emotionally satisfied
The killer’s personal expression takes the form of his unique signature, an imprint left by him at the scene, an imprint the killer is psychologically compelled to leave to satisfy himself sexually.

After four murders the killer had become very adept and perhaps overly confident and by the time he entered the cabin of Gracie Vance he was confident enough to attack four persons simultaneously.

Gracie Vance was a domestic servant employed by William Dunham and she lived, along with Orange Washington, in a cabin in the rear of his property. When the killer entered Gracie’s cabin, instead of finding a solitary sleeping woman, he found three women and one man. Undeterred he proceeded to incapacitate all four as quickly as possible; however, one of the women was only briefly insensible and she went for help while the crime was still in progress.

Neighbors were awakened by the disturbance and the police were called. Dunham and the neighbors went to investigate and a man was seen fleeing the scene. They fired their pistols at him as he made his escape in the darkness. As with the other victims, Gracie Vance was found in the backyard; her face had been pulverized with a rock. The suspect had fled in the direction of Wheatville, just to the west — the neighborhood Nathan Elgin had grown up in.

The Christmas Eve murders were in many ways the skeleton key to all the murders in that they demonstrated all the specific facets of the killer’s MO and signature — his locational expertise, his ability to improvise and adjust at the scene as well as his emotional escalation which demonstrated the extent to which he would go to enact a very specific sex murder scenario – an attack in the bedroom upon a sleeping victim, then rape and murder in the backyard – even when the completion of that scenario was problematic.

Susan Hancock, unlike the other victims, was white, but other than that, the murder was carried out identically to the previous murders. It is unlikely the killer had the specific intent to select a white victim; rather something about the location, the house, and the fact that there was an axe in the backyard attuned to the killer’s preferences.

As with the other victims, Susan Hancock was struck in the head with an axe while she slept and then carried into the backyard. Susan’s husband was asleep in another room but was awakened by the disturbance. He went into the backyard, saw a figure standing over his wife and threw a brick at him. Even though the perpetrator was armed with an axe he didn’t retaliate against Hancock – instead he fled the scene by jumping over a fence into the alley. Hancock then ran to the east side of the house to cut him off but he wasn’t there.

Instead of fleeing into the darkness, the perpetrator ran west, back toward Congress Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare. This peculiar evasion demonstrated that the perpetrator was very confident about where he was going — that he expected he could hide in plain sight.

It is interesting to note that had Hancock gone west to cut off the fleeing perpetrator he might have been able to stop him, which could have brought a definitive resolution to the murderous events of that year. However, seeing the perpetrator had escaped he went back to his wife and called for help.

Heading toward Congress Avenue, the perpetrator cut through the yard of the residence of May Tobin where his sudden appearance out of the darkness startled a young woman and her male companion – in his haste he could have literally run into the young woman. A confrontation occurs – the man threatens and insults him in demeaning and racist terms, perhaps the woman does too. The perpetrator has to retreat again and this would have been too much. The urge to kill had not been satisfied and would only have intensified after a humiliating confrontation. He follows the couple’s cab across town to the residence of James Phillips. The cab arrives, the young woman, Eula Phillips, discreetly makes her way into the quiet house. Less than an hour later she is found in the backyard, raped and murdered.

The killer could have dispatched Mr. Hancock and completed the crime at the Hancock residence but he did not. Likewise, he could have attempted to kill Eula and her companion in the relative seclusion of May Tobin’s premises. Instead, the killer’s primary motivation was the realization of a very specific violent sexual murder scenario.

I believe a confrontation must have occurred at May Tobin’s residence between Eula Phillips, her imperious companion, John Dickinson, and a very volatile Nathan Elgin. The confrontation had to have made him angry enough to pursue her across town — even though he had no idea where they were going or what he would find when he got there. I believe he was so angry that he pursued her at his own peril, when other, easier opportunities for a kill were in closer proximity.

The bloody footprints left at the Phillips house would subsequently be affirmatively compared to the footprints of the deceased Elgin.

Austin Daily Statesman 3 June 1887

Stressors

…by the very nature of their childhood, serial killers are most likely to lead lives full of stressful events. As children and adolescents they lack self-esteem, are isolated and maladjusted, and are therefore poorly prepared for coping with life as adults.
Historically, the retaliatory killer’s marriage will have been ill-fated and he will usually be in some phase of estrangement. …If he has a relationship, there will have generally been a history of long-term spousal abuse, which will not likely have been covered by criminal complaints.

In the study of serial sexual homicides, a “stressor” is defined as an event, interaction or conflict in which the killer is reminded of past humiliations and abuses. To purge his feelings of shame, inadequacy or powerlessness the killer will endeavor to enact a murderous scene in which he is powerful and in total control.

In the case of Nathan Elgin, there is a remarkable example of a pre-crime stressor in the instance of his wife, Sallie, giving birth to a child the same night two women were being murdered on Christmas Eve. I believe that this was more than a coincidence and whatever stressors Elgin was susceptible to were triggered by this event. While the birth of a child would not normally seem to be cause for a murderous rampage, in the case of a D/AR profile it very well could.

Nathan had married Sallie Wheat in 1882. She was a year older than him. They did not live together. It is not unusual for serial killers to be married, however it is rare in the case of the D/AR killer profile because of their volatile temperament towards women. Sallie could have held the power in the relationship; conversely she could have been subjected to abuse herself. There is an indication that Sallie was aware, at least subsequently, of Nathan’s responsibility for the murders – as a means of disassociation she raised Nathan’s son under the surname Davis rather than Elgin.

Post Mortem

We read a great deal of theorizing about the series of murders in Austin, that all the assassinations were the work of a cunning lunatic — a monomaniac on the subject of murder. From what I can learn, I don’t believe anything of the kind, and it is my deliberate opinion that these murders can not only be unearthed, but when probed to the bottom, it will be found that they were committed by different individuals and that in each case they were prompted by lust, jealousy, or hatred. (27)

A Monomaniac On the Subject of Murder would be an apt title for a 19th century dime novel. The quote above by Waco Marshal Luke Moore was closer to the truth than he realized but the ideas he articulated were not exclusive; Nathan Elgin was indeed a monomaniac on the subject of murder and he was motivated by lust, hatred and revenge.

In contemporary criminal investigations of serial sexual homicides, law enforcement will have decades of criminal profiles at their disposal which have been painstakingly created as a resource to match types of murders to specific types of offenders. In other words, they know who they’re looking for. And the more unusual the murders, the easier it is to focus the investigation toward a specific type of offender.

If the Servant Girl Murders were committed in this day and age and the perpetrator had left behind similar evidence, contemporary forensic resources and methods would create a criminal profile and evidence collected could confirm or eliminate potential suspects. The perpetrator would most likely be apprehended very quickly.

Serial killers who are apprehended and convicted are later questioned extensively by the authorities and they are usually quiet happy to talk about themselves because they frequently have an inherent superiority complex and are eager to expound upon their mastery and superiority even though they are behind bars.

It is interesting to note that the wounded Elgin was not interviewed by reporters, which was unusual – almost everyone involved in a shooting at that period in time had a reporter waiting for them after being attended to by a physician. Nor did the police make any statement regarding Elgin. The inquest of his death was held in secret. Elgin most likely spent his last hours delirious as doctors made a futile attempt at finding and removing the bullet that entered his side and lodged in his spine.

If Elgin’s murder spree had followed the trajectory of most disorganized serial killers, he would have continued to escalate until his confidence overcame his self-restraint and he would have eventually been caught or killed fleeing the scene.

Hypothetically, if he had been arrested for a murder, unless he specifically admitted to it, I doubt the authorities would have connected him to all the murders. Had he been arrested and interrogated I think Elgin would have baffled the police, but they wouldn’t have spent much time contemplating him; he would have undoubtedly been indicted, tried and hung in short order. The newspaper account of him would have been a typically villainous caricature from that time period, and people today would still wonder if he was responsible.

So now, another suspect and a possible connection to Jack The Ripper.

The next suspect was Maurice (no last name given), a Malaysian cook who worked at the Pearl House in downtown Austin. The Pearl House had connections to a majority of the victims of the Annihilator, therefore this theory took off like a mother fucker..

Allegedly, once Maurice left Austin only 3 weeks after the last murder, bound for New Orleans and ultimately London, the murders ended. And although the killings by Jack the Ripper were arguably more brutal in nature, many believe the Austin and London killers were actually the same person — a murderer that began to escalate his killings. Something that has been studied and noted by psychologists and other people smarter than us. Maurice apparently told acquaintances at the hotel that he was going to work aboard ships as a cook to earn his passage to London for a fresh start. A little known fact: the cook Maurice was actually suspected after the last murder and put under surveillance

According to Reddit author Sciencebzzt:

So many people who follow the Ripper case seem to want him to be a suave, elegant dude. A surgeon or a royal or a tormented upper class freak of some kind. But the facts don't suggest that. People say whoever killed the girls must have been skilled with a blade, that may be true, but the "brutality" suggests they were cut up like animals, skinned and gutted almost. The way a butcher... or a cook... might.

Anyway, back to Austin in 1886. Most experts on serial killers will tell you it's unlikely that the murders will just stop, unless the murderer is dead, in prison, or has moved elsewhere. In fact, most will say that the serial killers M.O. usually evolves, and changes... while the main motivation doesn't. This would explain the difference in the Ripper murders 3 years later... and also why they seem to have the same extremely brutal motivations. Jack the Ripper didn't use an axe the way the Servant Girl Annihilator did, however, this may have been because an axe was not a common thing to carry around in 1888 London, the largest city in the world at the time. In 1884 Austin, a town of 10,000 at the westernmost terminus of a railroad line, an axe was likely less conspicuous.

The scariest part though... is what happened after 1888. Whoever "he" was, he was obviously a highly driven, aggressive murderer, and he already had success (probably) in leaving Austin and getting away with murder.

Well, consider this: After 1888, similar serial murders of women started happening in port towns along major trade routes, like Nicaragua, Tunis, and Jamaica. If the Servant Girl Annihilator and Jack the Ripper were the same man, given the highly aggressive style, brutality and rapid succession of the murders, one quickly after the other... it's likely he killed far, far more girls than we know about, all over the world.

Did Maurice leave to avoid the authorities and escalate his murders or did her simply leave because his reputation was tarnished?

The Jack the ripper murders were allegedly from april 3 1888 to 1891.

The Vallisca ax murders were on June 10th, 1912

New orleans ax murders May 1918 to October 1919

I spent countless hours looking up ship records from 1886 and there is one record of a “Maurice” that went to England from the US. The funny thing is, his name was Maurice Kelly. The Ripper’s last known and documented victim was Mary Jane Kelly. It’s probably just a coincidence but what if it isn’t?

TOP 10 MOVIES BASED ON REAL UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

The Grim Reaper and Death.

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 01:54:49 -0400

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The Grim Reaper

Nothing in life is guaranteed, except for death and taxes, as the old adage goes. We boldly circle April 15th in red on our calendars so that it stands out like a swollen thumb. Of course, there is also the Internal Revenue Service here in the US, which has taken in over 3 trillion dollars in taxes from over 250 million taxpayers and felt that we aren’t paying enough and hired 87,000 more agents and gave them powers much like a government police force including lethal force. But we don’t need to be on that soap box today.

What about death, though? The other certainty of being human is, for most of us, not quite as certain. Biologists define death as the complete cessation of all life processes, which eventually take place in all living organisms. Sadly, that description doesn't provide a clear picture. It doesn't describe what death feels like. How will you feel then? How will it look? What are our plans? Where are we headed?

The embodiment of death in a black robe and scythe in hand, the Grim Reaper, enters. We all know of this deity and its so-called motivations. It approaches everyone while watching for the last sand particle to fall, holding an hourglass in its hand. When that happens, it cuts the soul free with a razor-sharp slice that it has perfected over time. Although it may not be a pretty picture, it is distinct and obvious.

Putting a human face on the idea of death is ultimately the Grim Reaper's "job." But why did people feel the need to give the Grim Reaper such a gloomy appearance? Why not turn him into a welcoming and useful tour guide for the underworld? Why must he also be a man, for that matter?

We'll examine the Grim Reaper's history, the symbolism attached to his appearance, and how he's portrayed in other cultures. We'll also look at how the Reaper has been depicted in literature, film, and art. When we're done, you'll understand the identity of the Grim Reaper, his methods, and most crucially, the reason for his existence (should you see him prowling around your deathbed).

As Lewis Carroll once said, it's best to begin at the beginning. And for the Grim Reaper, the beginning can be found in the creation myths present in all cultures.

Death itself must exist before the Grim Reaper, a personification of death, can exist. Humans were initially formed as immortal creatures who descended from their level of perfection in almost all civilizations and religions. The Bible's most famous example is the story of Adam and Eve's fall. The Book of Genesis claims that God made Adam and Eve to care for the world He had made and to help populate it. The Garden of Eden was a paradise where the first man and woman resided. Adam was instructed by God to tend to the garden and gather fruit from all the trees, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately, Eve was duped into eating the fruit by Satan, who was speaking via a serpent. She then gave Adam the fruit, who consumed it as well despite being aware that it was wrong. Adam and Eve died physically and spiritually as a result of defying God.

In other religions, people were formed as mortals who made valiant attempts to become immortal but failed. This tale is told in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, a character from Mesopotamian literature, was the progeny of a goddess and a human ruler. Gilgamesh, however, was still a mortal being, just like his closest buddy Enkidu. When Enkidu passes away, the great hero is troubled by the idea of dying and embarks on a mission to become immortal. He meets Utnapishtim, a man who has been granted eternal life by the gods, during his travels. Gilgamesh is promised immortality by Utnapishtim if he can last a week without sleeping. Gilgamesh eventually nods off, but Utnapishtim still gives him a plant that can restore its owner's health. Any hopes Gilgamesh had of becoming eternal are dashed when the plant is devoured by a hungry snake on the way home.

Gilgamesh returns home in the mythology of Mesopotamia and joyfully accepts his life as a mortal man. But most people aren't that laid back. The thought of our own mortality disturbs us. Everything we accomplish is constantly plagued by the shadow of death. Research supports this. According to a 2022 survey, 20% of Americans over the age of 50 experience anxiety when they consider their afterlife. 53 percent of respondents think ghosts or spirits exist, and 73 percent think there is life after death.

Undoubtedly, and as it has been for thousands of years, what happens to us as we die, as well as what occurs after we die, is a huge issue. Humans use a tried-and-true strategy: they give death a form they are familiar with in order to make sense of dying and mortality. As a result, a vague, invisible phenomenon becomes a concrete, observable phenomenon. You can comprehend death if you see a familiar face in it. Better yet, if you can put your anxieties aside and perceive death as a kind, gentle face.

It can, of course, also go the other way. Looking at death might reveal a frightful countenance. The terrifying visage of the Grim Reaper arose following a particularly trying period in human history, as we'll discover in the following section.

Why not give death a kind face if you're going to give it a human one? The Greeks adopted that strategy and gave death the name Thanatos. Hypnos, the deity of sleep, and his twin brother Thanatos were both shown as attractive, young males. Thanatos is depicted in some images as having wings and a put out flame. He had the responsibility of going to Hades, the Greek underworld, with the deceased. There, Charon, the ferryman on the River Styx, would receive the souls from Thanatos. In this interpretation, death is lovely and beneficial rather than fearful and ugly.

There are also feminine variations of death. The Valkyries were depicted as stunning young women in Norse mythology who carried soldiers' souls to their afterlife as well as acting as messengers for Odin. In actuality, the word "Valkyries" refers to "slain's choosers." They would ride on winged horses during battle and pick intrepid soldiers to perish by scouting the battlefield. They would then deliver these spirits to Odin's realm, Valhalla. The valiant spirits were recruited to participate in the terrible struggle known as Ragnarok after they reached the afterlife.

The Valkyries are comparable to angels, who serve as a spiritual bridge between God and people. Angels provide messages to mankind or defend them in some myths. In other tales, they converse with the dead and torture the sinners. Many religions and civilizations feature the Angel of Death, a spirit that removes a person's soul from the body at the moment of death. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the archangels Michael and Gabriel have served as death angels. The Islamic Angel of Death known as Azrael can occasionally be seen as a terrifying ghost with eyes and tongues covering every inch of his body. Every soul in the world has a birth and a death recorded in a vast ledger that Azrael keeps updated.

By the Middle Ages, the Angel of Death had been conceptually ingrained in both European religion and culture. But in the latter half of the 14th century, an epidemic occurrence changed how the common person perceived and reacted to death. The plague of the Middle Ages, one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, was that occurrence. The initial plague outbreak claimed at least 25 million lives, while subsequent plague outbreaks that recurred for centuries resulted in millions more deaths [source: National Geographic]. Fear swept the entire continent: fear of death, fear of an unknown epidemic, fear of the agony of the disease's late stages, when the skin on a victim's extremities grew black and gangrenous. All activities were characterized by a morbid atmosphere, which also had an impact on the period's writers and painters.

Unsurprisingly, skeletons started to represent death in artwork at this time. In reality, the skeletal form of death was frequently depicted in a similar manner by painters. He was frequently pictured with a crossbow, dart, or other weapon. These tools would eventually give way to the scythe, a mowing instrument with a long, curved blade attached at an angle to a long handle. Many artworks depicted the hereafter chopping down souls like grain by swinging its scythe through a throng of humanity. A young woman would occasionally stand at the grave to serve as a reminder of the connection between life and death. The idea that death might communicate with the living and lure them into the hereafter was another prevalent one. Due of this, skeletons are depicted dancing and having fun with people from all walks of life in the Dance of Death, also known as Danse Macabre.

These post-plague images of death led to the creation of the Grim Reaper. We'll look at the significance of his form and physique on the following page.

The Grim Reaper is an incredibly symbolic figure. When he eventually arrives, the items he is carrying and even the clothes he is wearing will reveal something about his character and his objectives. Let's examine some of the symbolism one symbol at a time.

Skeletons and skulls. It was common to observe piles of decaying bodies as the disease spread through Europe and Asia. One in five Londoners perished during the Great Plague of London, which struck the city between 1665 and 1666 [source: National Geographic]. Given how common death and dying are, it is reasonable that artists and illustrators started to represent death in the form of a corpse or skeleton. The skeleton figure serves as a metaphor for the decomposition of human flesh—what remains after worms and maggots have done their dirty work. It also feeds into one of the biggest concerns that people have: the dread of annihilation.

Black cloak. Black has long been connected to loss and gloom. Funeral attendees dress in black, and black hearses are used to transport the deceased. Black, however, is frequently associated with bad energies. The Reaper exudes mystery and danger thanks to his dark cloak. The Reaper hides beneath the shadows of his cloak, playing off our fears of the unknown because the things we can't see worry us just as much as the things we can see.

Scythe. The Reaper is seen clutching arrows, darts, spears, or crossbows in early depictions. These are the tools he use to kill his victim. A scythe eventually took the place of these other tools of killing. A scythe was an implement used for cutting grass or reaping grain. It made sense for this symbol to be put to death in an agricultural community where harvesting in the fall signified the end of a year. Death harvests souls for their passage into the hereafter in a similar manner to how we harvest our crops.

Hourglass. Sand pours from the upper to bottom glass bulb of the traditional hourglass over the course of an hour. It has endured into the digital age as a reminder to be patient as our computer loads a Web page or executes a command because it is such a potent representation of time and how it passes. Additionally, the Grim Reaper holds an hourglass, reminding us that time is running out. Our time is up when the sand is gone. We can only pray that we have more time to live than an hour.

It was so common to see this representation of the Grim Reaper in religious writings. The Book of Revelation in the Bible provides the best illustration. Four horsemen appear in Revelation 6:1–8 to bring about tragedies signifying the end of the world. Pestilence, war, famine, and death are the four horsemen. Only Death is expressly mentioned out of the four. He is seated on a pale horse, which is frequently mistaken for pale green, the hue of illness and decay. Most often, Death is portrayed as the Reaper himself, with a grimacing skull and scythe in hand, ready for the gory labor that lies ahead.

The Grim Reaper is still a popular subject for writers today. We'll examine at a few instances of the Reaper in popular culture in the section that follows.

Without a doubt, the Grim Reaper makes a fantastic character, which explains why he has long been a part of myths and legends. One typical tale, known as the "cheating death" tale, describes a person who tries to deceive the Grim Reaper in order to avoid dying. A well-known illustration is "The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Death for the holy man in Longfellow's poem arrives with the somber proclamation, "Lo! the time approaches near/When thou must die." Can I hold the sword of death? the rabbi enquiries. The rabbi receives the weapon from Death, who hurriedly flees and hides until God can step in to save him. Ben Levi is not killed when God appears, but the rabbi is instructed to give the sword back to its rightful owner.

Other influential works, such the Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death, a sort of drama that appeared after the Black Death, have established our contemporary understanding of the Reaper. These plays were intended to help churchgoers accept the certainty of death. A victim's encounter with death, symbolized as a skeleton, was portrayed in the performance, which typically took place in a cemetery or churchyard. The victim makes various justifications for why his life should be saved, but these are rejected, and death eventually follows him away with an entourage of other skeletal creatures. Several German engravers, like Bernt Notke and Hans Holbein, found that the scenes from this play made for interesting themes. These artists' prints depicted dancing skeletons amid people from all social classes as a message that nobody, not even royalty, could avoid death.

Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" has had a similar impact on current culture. The 1957 movie is about Antonius Block, a knight who returns from the Crusades to discover that the disease has killed many of his countrymen. Max von Sydow plays Antonius Block in the role. Block is also awaited by Death, who is portrayed by Bengt Ekerot. Having reached a standstill, the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, which Block ultimately loses. The image of Ekerot's Death, a menacing white visage disguised beneath a black cloak, endures so vividly despite the story's unsettling nature.

The Grim Reaper also plays a key role in the following works:

"(Don't Fear) The Reaper," a song released by Blue Öyster Cult in 1976 and now regarded as a rock classic
"Because I could not stop for Death," a poem by Emily Dickinson, in which the narrator shares a carriage ride with Death
"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, in which the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, cloaked and skeletal, appears to show Scrooge how he will die
The Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, which feature Death as an ally of mankind
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, a groundbreaking series of comic books in which Death appears as a girl
"Death Takes a Holiday," a 1934 film about Death's decision to take a break from his normal business to see what it's like being mortal; a 1998 remake, "Meet Joe Black," starred Brad Pitt in the role of Death.
"Scream," a 1996 homage to slasher flicks in which a murderous teen stalks his victims in a Reaper-like costume
"Dead Like Me," a Showtime series that explores the lives (or afterlives) of a group of grim reapers who walk among the living

Whether he is funny or terrifying, a man or a woman, the Grim Reaper will probably always be a part of our pop culture diet. The Reaper will calmly wait in the shadows and come for each of us in the end, even if storytellers grow weary of dealing with death and dying.

Lastly, we thought since we are talking about the personification of death, we should also include some theories as to what happens after we die. Let’s see how many you, the listeners, agree with; and how many we think are stupid and illogical. Let's begin!

Excretion

The idea that the universe is actually one enormous brain of a higher species has been around for many years. In certain containers, it might be one or more brains. This hypothesis states that the solar system is merely a brain cell. Humans are insignificant components of this cell as well. For that enormous brain, our thousands of millions of years of history occurred in a fraction of a second. Let's examine what it says on life after death. How are our own dead cells handled? They are discarded after being sloughed off. Similar things will happen to us if we are a small piece of a vast mind. That is, the universe will leave our consciousness where it dumps its waste when we pass away. Oh, how disgusting. I am aware that this notion is a little unusual and a little challenging to understand, but that is only because we do not fully understand it.

Just like that, my life became meaningless.

You enter the cosmic consciousness

Life: What is it? Knowing the answer to this question is crucial. We are conscious of our existence and are fully in charge of our own thinking. Only 20 watts of power are required for this by our brain. Most light bulbs use more electricity than that because this power is so low. Biologists are still unable to properly explain how our brain makes every decision so precisely. Our area of expertise is consciousness, but we do not understand its origin. And where does it go after we pass away? In accordance with Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff's orchestrated objective reduction theory of the mind, coherent quantum processes in clusters of microtubules within brain neurons are biologically "orchestrated" to produce consciousness. You can imagine this universe as a sea of consciousness, according to this notion. Human mind originates from this place and travels back there once we die. Consciousness connects all things in the cosmos. You can think of it like this: If you think of the universe as a sea, then our consciousness would be a wave. It remains on the ground for some time before going back. The conclusion is that after we die, our consciousness returns to the universe, where it may remain eternally or it may temporarily inhabit another body.

Our consciousness is therefore deeply ingrained in the cosmos and is inherently perplexing.

Being Human Is just One Level

Reincarnation theory holds that after we die, our souls transfer into new bodies, giving rise to a subsequent birth. Dr. Ian Stevenson has studied incarnation and looked into countless instances of young people claiming to have lived before. He established the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia and was an academic psychiatrist. He describes incarnation as the "survival of personality after death" at times. Along with genes and environment, he thinks it can provide a plausible justification for a variety of personality traits, including phobias. However, no one's allegations have been shown to be true. When this notion first emerged, little was understood about the universe's complexity and mysticism. Because of this, they only thought that our spirit may reincarnate in a different body on earth. What if your soul has a different physical body somewhere else in the universe? What if your spirit adopts a shape that we are unaware of rather than moving into a new body? This idea holds that our Souls or conscious entities can travel anyplace in the cosmos. This implies that you could once more be a person, a cool alien, a pointless insect, or something else else. In reality, we have no idea who or what we will be after we no longer exist as humans.

The Universe Ends

Can you demonstrate the reality of this world and the cosmos? The likelihood is that you will affirm and provide the objects and people in your environment with proof. However, according to the solipsistic hypothesis, there is nothing outside of your mind and brain. For you, what you see and hear is accurate, but you can never establish the veracity of the people in your immediate vicinity. Let's use GTA 5 as an example. When you are at a specific location in this game, everything around you is functional. There are other close residents there, so nothing strange is happening to you. What about the locations where you are not? Actually, those places didn't exist back then. According to this hypothesis, there is no other life in the cosmos besides you. Therefore, the universe stops existing after you pass away. That implies that every person you know and love likewise vanishes. Simply said, everything and everyone is a projection of your subconscious mind.

Therefore, take another look at the world and stop griping about pointless things. After all, you are the one who made it all.

Life Starts over again

I'm sure you've experienced this at least once in your life. that a location or person appears familiar to you, despite the fact that you've never been there or interacted with them before. This is known as déjà-vu. What if everything feels familiar? That implies that your life keeps repeating itself? Therefore, it appears that you may be familiar with that location or that individual. Two things could lead to this. First of all, your life is like a movie that never ends. Second: Although your life is repeated, you always have more influence over it. This reminds me a lot of the film Groundhog Day. Obviously, there are some significant differences; in this case, life restarts after death rather than after a day, and you have significantly less influence than in the film. Therefore, have luckier next time, bro. God knows how many times we are experiencing a life (which stinks) without even realizing it is a déjà-vu.

You have successfully entered a loop.

The Dreamer Wakes Up

It's entirely possible that our existence is nothing more than a creature's dream, despite the fact that this may sound like some made-up stories from the 1980s. You must have all had dreams. Only until we wake up do we know that dreams were just illusions. We become unable to distinguish between reality and dreams. Since dreams come from our own subconscious minds, their reality may or may not be in question. Vital Signs: The Nature and Nurture of Passion author Gregg Levoy concurs. And some of the most well-known concepts in the modern world, including Google, the Theory of Relativity, the first periodic table, etc., had their origins in dreams. Thus, it is possible for dreams to be quite real. So it's possible that we wake up in the "actual" world after we pass away. very similar to Inception The subject of what occurs when a dreaming creature passes away now arises. For the time being, there is no clear response to this query. We have no idea if the person who is waking up from sleep is a soul, a human, or something else entirely.

You Get Re-programmed

This hypothesis proposes that our world is a computer simulation. The most prevalent option on this list is this. It's likely that you have heard of this before. Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher, made the initial suggestion in 2003. It contends that either all intelligent species perish before being able to produce an ancestor simulation or choose not to do so for some reason. Or perhaps we are merely acting out a simulation. In the event that we are simulations of our ancestors, our Consciousness is programmed. We play a very small part in the simulation. So, after erasing your memories, our programmer can transport us to a different space and time in the simulation when we pass away. They only need to make a few tweaks as they already have our base code. It is really difficult to foresee what those programmers will perform. They have a wide range of options at their disposal. What a blast?

Our Consciousness Is Unreal

The simulation hypothesis is also related to this notion. Avoid saying, "There are two theories on the same hypothesis." Theo Musk believes that the odds of us actually living in the "true" world are one billion to one. It is completely believable. This side, though, is substantially darker. As your "Consciousness" is merely programming, we lack our own free will. We appear to be operating according to a code. They are free to run or remove your code whenever they wish. They might have entered your code the last time you closed your eyes. While you slept last night, all of your memories were implanted in you. Even though it has only been a few hours, you suddenly believe you have been this person for years. They can also alter or remove your code the next time you go to bed. Depending on what they need, they could simply "remove" you from the simulation or completely change who you are. This reminds me a lot of Westworld. In this case, a fictitious universe is made, and characters are formed with certain duties allocated to them. We all contribute to some larger narratives. By simply adding new memories of a different location and possibly even time to the code, they can change the role of any person according to their needs. Everything you believe yourself to be is merely an illusion. Therefore, all that we are is a collection of 0s and 1s. And we carry out our pre-programmed actions.

We can at least be glad that our life, despite appearing to have no purpose, has helped our creators in some way. Or why did they even decide to make us?

Death Is An Illusion

Humans are the only animals on Earth with understanding of time, in contrast to other animals. We are aware that Time can only advance in units of days, months, or years. But is it really this time of day? The concept of time that we have today was developed by humans. Anything we believe about time could be incorrect. We think that time always flows like a river's stream. It is not required for the Universe to function in the same manner that we perceive time to function. Along with the present, the past and the future also exist in the cosmos, but we are not able to view them. Imagine that consciousness is the projecting light that causes us to see the film and that reality is a film strip. We are unable to notice the light unless a frame is placed in front of it. Its presence, however, cannot be disputed. The same principles govern Time and Reality. The past and future are not visible to us, but they coexist with the present. Three-dimensional space-time surrounds us and binds us. So how does this relate to death? You don't actually die. Death is just a fantasy. Because you are unable to exist in frames where you are dead, you must always exist in frames where you are living. Just that other people think you are dead because this does not hinder ‘their’ existence.

Anything is Possible

About what happens after death, we cannot be certain. The many-worlds interpretation hypothesis postulates that there are an almost unlimited number of realities. There are countless parallel universes, each containing every conceivable concept. There is a universe where you are a billionaire, Hillary won the election, and I am reading this essay you wrote. Therefore, in some universes, anything is conceivable after death. Reincarnation occurs in some universes, or heaven and hell exist in some as well. In some universes, after we pass away, we become zombies, whereas in others, we simply pass away. In some alternate universe, all of the aforementioned theories are plausible. We simply don't know what universe we reside in, or perhaps it hasn't been determined yet. You might pass away in the cosmos or theory you hold dear. According to the solipsism theory, your universe will come to an end when you pass away. Anything is possible, after all.

The Most Dangerous Gangs; Part One of...

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 00:57:37 -0400

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The 25 Best Gang Movies of All Time - IMDb

So thank you to a beautiful and wonderful listener, we decided to do an addendum to our top police stings and follow it up with the top most dangerous mobs/gangs of all time.

La Cosa Nostra

One of the biggest threats to American civilization from organized crime is the Cosa Nostra, sometimes referred to as the "Mob" or the "Mafia," which sprang from the Sicilian Mafia. The term "La Cosa Nostra," used by the US government, and "Cosa Nostra" by its members literally translates to "this thing of ours" or "our thing." This international organization of criminals, made up of many "families," is committed to combating crime and defending its members. These organized and major racketeering activities are being carried out by these crime families or groups, which are connected by kinship or by conspiracy. A wide range of illicit activities, including as murder, extortion, drug trafficking, government corruption, gambling, infiltrating lawful enterprises, labor racketeering, loan sharking, prostitution, pornography, tax fraud schemes, and stock manipulation are also engaged in by them. The Cosa Nostra is most prevalent in the urban areas of New York City, New England, and portions of New Jersey, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago. The Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families are among the prominent ones in the New York City region. Sometimes, members and associates of one La Cosa Nostra family collaborate with members of other La Cosa Nostra families to carry out joint criminal activities.

Within these families, members collaborate on "crews" that are commanded by a "capo" or "captain," who is in charge of overseeing his crew's illicit actions and offering them assistance and safety. The crews are made up of trusted outsiders known as "associates" and "made" members known as "soldiers." An associate must be of Italian heritage, have proven their capacity to make money for the Family, and have shown a willingness to use violence in order to become a "made member" of the Family. The three highest-ranking members who manage the Family are the Boss or Acting Boss, the Underboss, and the Consigliere, or advisor. Cosa Nostra has its origins in Italian organized crime, although it has existed as a distinct organization for a long time. It still collaborates with many criminal organizations with Italian headquarters today in a variety of illicit operations.

Labor racketeering, in which it attempts to dominate, manage, and control a labor movement in order to have an impact on associated businesses and industries, is one of its main sources of income, power, and influence. Organized criminal organizations may profit greatly from labor unions, particularly their pension, welfare, and health funds. The mafia tries to regulate these schemes by giving businesses "sweetheart" contracts, cordial worker relations, and weak work regulations, or by manipulating union elections. Large cities like New York, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia that have robust industrial bases and labor unions tend to be the epicenters of labor law infractions. Additionally, there are several organized criminal characters in these cities. Labor racketeering costs the American public millions of dollars annually through increased labor expenses that are ultimately passed on to consumers, according to many FBI investigations.

In order to investigate potential violations of labor law, the FBI collaborates closely with other governmental organizations and uses methods such as electronic surveillance, covert operations, use of secret sources, and victim interviews. The passing of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in 1970 was the one event that helped more than anything else to deter organized crime. The agencies were able to work more effectively as a result of this action because they could target the entire corrupt organization rather than incarcerating individuals who might simply be replaced by other members or affiliates of organized crime.

The first known Sicilian Mafia member to immigrate to the United States was Giuseppe Esposito. After assassinating 11 rich landowners, the chancellor and vice chancellor of a Sicilian province, and six other Sicilians, he escaped to New York. In 1881, he was detained in New Orleans, Louisiana, and then sent back to Italy.

The nation's first significant Mafia event occurred in New Orleans. Police Superintendent David Hennessey of New Orleans was executed on October 15, 1890. Numerous Sicilians were detained, and 19 were ultimately charged with the crime. An acquittal spread allegations of widespread corruption and scared witnesses away. On March 14, 1891, a group of angry New Orleans residents formed a lynch mob and murdered 11 out of the 19 defendants. Eight managed to flee, nine were shot, and two were hanged.

As different gangs gained and lost power throughout the years, the American Mafia changed. The Black Hand gangs in the early 1900s, the Five Points Gang in New York City in the 1910s and 1920s, and Al Capone's Syndicate in Chicago in the 1920s were a few of the earliest.

The Italian Mafia factions started fighting during Prohibition for exclusive control of lucrative bootlegging networks. They struggled for dominance of bootlegging alongside Jewish and Irish ethnic gangs. By the conclusion of the decade, two Italian organizations were competing for dominance of the nation's criminal underworld. Joe Masseria, the head of the Genovese criminal family, oversaw one gang, while Salvatore Maranzano, who oversaw the Bonanno crime family, oversaw the other. The deadly Castellammarese War, which raged from February 1930 to April 15, 1931, was the result of the rivalry's escalation. When Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Masseria's senior soldier, and Salvatore Maranzano planned to have Masseria assassinated, the battle came to an end.

Maranzano eventually rose to prominence as the nation's most powerful Mafia leader, referring to himself as "Boss of Bosses." Maranzano designed the organization's code of conduct, set the conflict resolution processes, and split New York City into five families. Charles "Lucky" Luciano was designated as the leader of the Genovese family, as it eventually came to be known.

Maranzano's leadership position would, however, be transitory. Maranzano preferred to exclusively associate with Sicilians and upheld the traditions of the purported "Old World Mafia '' by refusing to cooperate with non-Italians. Younger Italian organized crime figures like Luciano believed that limiting their business dealings to Italians would restrict both the development of their individual careers and the possible expansion of their criminal empires. As long as there was money to be made, these men—known as the "Young Turks''—wanted to deal with Irish and Jewish gangsters.

Marazano quickly saw Luciano as a threat and gave the order to kill him. On September 10, 1931, Marazano was murdered by a group of mobsters at his office in the New York Central Building when Luciano learned about the scheme.

In order to prevent future Mafia battles, Lucky Luciano formed "The Commission," a coalition of five Mafia families of similar magnitude, with the aid of his lifelong buddy, Meyer Lansky. Vincent Mangano, Tommy Gagliano, Joseph Bonanno, and Joseph Profaci served as the commission's other leaders. After then, this panel made decisions about all organized criminal activity throughout the 1930s. The leaders of the Chicago Outfit and the Five Families of New York City reportedly still make up the Commission.

The organized crime groups quickly diversified into new businesses after Prohibition ended in 1933 because they were unable to maintain the high profits they had made throughout the 1920s. These new businesses included labor racketeering through the control of labor unions, construction, loan sharking, extortion, protection rackets, sanitation, transportation, prostitution, and drug trafficking.

In Las Vegas, Nevada's legal casinos by the 1950s, numerous Mafia leaders had made legitimate investments and were skimming money before it was recorded. It is assumed that the sum was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

For years, the Mafia operated in secrecy with little opposition from the law because local law enforcement authorities lacked the tools or expertise necessary to successfully confront organized crime perpetrated by a covert organization they were unaware even existed.

It wasn't until 1951 that a U.S. Senate investigation concluded that this country was home to a "sinister criminal organization," subsequently known as La Cosa Nostra. Six years later, in the little upstate New York hamlet of Apalachin, The New York State Police discovered a gathering of important La Cosa Nostra officials from all across the nation. Numerous guests were taken into custody. The incident served as the impetus for altering how organized crime is combated by law enforcement.

Joe Valachi, the first Mafia member to turn state's evidence in 1963, divulged extensive details about the organization's inner workings and trade secrets. After then, the National Crime Syndicate of the Mafia was aggressively attacked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Although the Mafia came under additional pressure as a result, its illegal operations were not significantly reduced.

However, the Nevada State Legislature's passage of a measure in 1969 that made it simpler for companies to run casinos caused the Mafia's power in the Las Vegas economy to start to decline. A year later, the RICO Act was approved by the US Congress, giving law enforcement extra power to go after the mafia for its criminal operations. By the start of the 1980s, the FBI had achieved success when it was able to free Las Vegas casinos from Mafia rule and made a concerted effort to weaken the Mafia's grip on labor unions.

23 mafia bosses from all throughout the country were found guilty of violating the RICO statute between 1981 and 1992. By 1990, almost 1000 members of criminal families had been found guilty. While many Mafia organizations around the nation were severely damaged, the most powerful families continued to control crime in their regions.

The Mafia has persisted in engaging in a wide range of illicit operations into the twenty-first century, including extortion, government corruption, gambling, infiltration into lawful firms, labor racketeering, loan sharking, and more. Today, Chicago and the Northeast still account for the majority of its operations.

La Cosa Nostra's organizational structure has not altered since the 1930s, and Cosa Nostra has operated for more than a century in a variety of guises.

Camorra Mafia

Now We talked about the American Mob, and we hear about them a lot, so let's talk about the True Italian Mafia, The Camorra.

Due to that gang's effect on American organized crime, the term "Mafia" has come to symbolize all forms of organized crime in popular culture. However, that phrase is really the name of the organized criminal gang rooted in Sicily, according to Mafia historian Umberto Santino's study of Mafia and Mafia-type groups in Italy. The 'Ndrangheta, from Calabria, the Sacra Corona Unita, from Apulia, and the Camorra, from Campania, the area that includes the city of Naples, are further "Mafia-type" groups.

The history of the Camorra is "particularly discontinuous," according to Santino. Despite having origins that may go as far back as 15th-century Spain, sources like Britannica claim that the organization first rose to prominence in the 19th century. Santino, however, claims that the organization's current form dates back to the late 1950s, when local criminal organizations in Campania started using the term "camorra." In the 1960s, these organizations expanded and became increasingly effective at smuggling cigarettes.

In this decade, they also forged advantageous relationships with a number of Neapolitan Mafia factions, which in the 1970s led to the development of profitable black market drug trafficking. However, there is one key distinction between the Cosa Nostra, sometimes known as the Mafia, and the Camorra. While the Mafia has a top-down, pyramidal structure of authority, the Camorra has a more dispersed system of small organizations, or "clans," that hold power. The Camorra has found success with its organizational structure, and as a result, is currently more powerful than the Sicilian Mafia.

According to Santino, the Camorra has 7,000 members spread throughout its 145 clans. The Camorra is the most prosperous and feared criminal gang in Italy thanks to its domination over the trafficking in narcotics including cocaine and heroin. The Independent published a story in 2006 about an Italian author named Roberto Saviano who wrote a book that revealed a few more details about the Camorra than the gang would have wanted. He had excellent reason to worry for his life. "This sprawling network of criminal gangs, according to [Saviano]," wrote reporter Peter Popham, "now dwarfs both the original Mafia of Sicily, the 'Ndrangheta and southern Italy's other organized gangs, in numbers, in economic power and in ruthless violence."

The New York Times reported that Saviano's book Gomorra was a "literary sensation" that sold more than 500,000 copies, but it also resulted in death threats and compelled him to go into hiding because it depicted gang violence, drug trafficking, child soldiers, and other aspects of the Camorra's business that the gang would prefer to keep hidden from the outside world. Aspects like the rampant government corruption, which causes trash to pile up in the streets car-high, or the fact that the Camorra has killed much more people recently than the Sicilian Mafia and made Campania one of the most deadly regions in Europe.

Sicily is where the Mafia that we know and admire today originated. They first appeared at some time in the late 19th century, and over the next 150 years or so, they expanded all over the world and became involved in just about everything. It has long been a mystery how this highly ordered system came to be, but new study from the University of Nottingham suggests that it all began with lemons.

Sicily discovered they had the ideal mixture to develop a lucrative crop in the late 1800s. Despite having the greatest concentration of lemon trees in all of Italy, they also faced a particular set of issues. Lemon farmers eventually turned to hiring their own private protection firms to protect their investment and themselves because of factors such as a wealthy upper class that exploited the peasant class to the fullest, a glaring lack of public law enforcement, and a government that really wasn't keeping the peace. Add a few more elements now: Sicily's location on a key Mediterranean trade route, the rapidly expanding citrus industry, and the demand for private security forces to safeguard interests make it the ideal location for the Mafia to establish itself.

Don Calo Vizzini was at the head of the Villalba Mafia during World War II, and he may have said it best. He was quoted by the University of Nottingham paper as saying, "In every society there has to be a category of people who straighten things out when situations get complicated. Usually they're functionaries of the state. Where the state is not present, or where it does not have sufficient force, this is done by private individuals."

The roots of the Camorra have speculated that it originated from a secret 12th century organization of assassins.

The Beati Paoli were a Sicilian group that originated in the 12th century; no one knows why they were given that name, although it's presumably religious in nature. The tale claims that they formed in response to the persecution of the aristocratic class, and the majority of what we know comes from Francesco Maria Emanuele, Marquis of Villabianca. They not only attracted each and everyone to their cause, but they also created a hierarchy akin to a royal court. From there, they set up security services, employed themselves as paid killers, and... well, secrets prevent us from knowing what else. Since they obviously had an underground hideout, we do know that it was accessible through the crypt of a Palermo church.

There are even reports that the Camorra had a lot to do with helping the allies sabotage Mussollini in World War 2. Much information was originally written up as German control and sabotage during this time but many years after, with arrests of many members, documents were found that showed that the Camorra and other factions helped screw over Ol’ Mussollini.

Crips

The Crips were only a social group, as one Original Gangster (OG) put it, and by most accounts, he is right (Kontos 99, 2003). While there are numerous uneven areas throughout the turbulent history of the Crips, there are also recurring themes. However, unlike the violent, frequently fatal incidents connected with the Crips, which are frequently portrayed with dramatic exaggeration, the genuine components of the narrative do not make for riveting television. Many OGs and gang members have voiced their shock and disappointment at how the Crips have been portrayed, while still admitting the group's flaws and its final transition from activism to gangsterism. Debra Addie Smith, a close friend of the founder of the Crips, once expressed that she “was wondering when someone was gonna finally tell the real story about the Crips”.

The Black Panther movement was being dismantled by the police, who were making "mass arrests, incarcerations, and deaths of black teenagers by the police," which led to the formation of the Crips, a grassroots group mostly made up of African-Americans. The CRIPS (Community Resources for Independent People) emerged in South Central Los Angeles, California, in 1969 with a message of resistance and justice during a period of despair and pessimism within the black community, following the ultimate dissolution of the Black Panther movement. Raymond Washington, a "fearless and strong 5-foot-8 fireplug who liked to fight and detested guns," is credited with founding the gang. He finally distanced himself and was killed as the Crips started using guns and formed a feud with the Bloods.

Stanley Tookie Williams met Raymond Lee Washington in 1969, and the two decided to unite their local gang members from the west and east sides of South Central Los Angeles in order to battle neighboring street gangs. Most of the members were 17 years old. Williams however appears to discount the sometimes-cited founding date of 1969 in his memoir, Blue Rage, Black Redemption. In his memoir, Williams also refuted claims that the group was a spin-off of the Black Panther Party or formed for a community agenda, writing that it "depicted a fighting alliance against street gangs—nothing more, nothing less." Washington, who attended Fremont High School, was the leader of the East Side Crips, and Williams, who attended Washington High School, led the West Side Crips.

Williams recalled that a blue bandana was first worn by Crips founding member Buddha, as a part of his color-coordinated clothing of blue Levis, a blue shirt, and dark blue suspenders. A blue bandana was worn in tribute to Buddha after he was shot and killed on February 23, 1973. The color then became associated with Crips.

By 1978, there were 45 Crip gangs, called sets, in Los Angeles. They were heavily involved in the production of PCP, marijuana and amphetamines. On March 11, 1979, Williams, a member of the Westside Crips, was arrested for four murders and on August 9, 1979, Washington was gunned down. Washington had been against Crip infighting and after his death several Crip sets started fighting against each other. The Crips' leadership was dismantled, prompting a deadly gang war between the Rollin' 60 Neighborhood Crips and Eight Tray Gangster Crips that led nearby Crip sets to choose sides and align themselves with either the Neighborhood Crips or the Gangster Crips, waging large-scale war in South Central and other cities. The East Coast Crips (from East Los Angeles) and the Hoover Crips directly severed their alliance after Washington's death. By 1980, the Crips were in turmoil, warring with the Bloods and against each other. The gang's growth and influence increased significantly in the early 1980s when crack cocaine hit the streets and Crip sets began distributing the drug. Large profits induced many Crips to establish new markets in other cities and states. As a result, Crips membership grew steadily and the street gang was one of the nation's largest by the late 1980s. In 1999, there were at least 600 Crip sets with more than 30,000 members transporting drugs in the United States.

Funny side note: As of 2015, the Crips gang consists of between approximately 30,000 and 35,000 members and 800 sets, active in 221 cities and 41 U.S. states. The states with the highest estimated number of Crip sets are California, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Members typically consist of young African American men, but can be white, Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Islander. The gang also began to establish a presence in Canada in the early 1990s; Crip sets are active in the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto.

Bloods

The Bloods gang was first established in Los Angeles as a defense against the Crips. The Pirus street gang, which was initially a group of the Crips, split out during an internal gang battle, united with other minor gangs to create the gang that would later become known as the Bloods, which is where the Bloods' origins and their rivalry with the Crips begin. At the time, there were three more Crips sets than Bloods sets. Despite this disparity in numbers, Bloods sets became more aggressive, especially towards rival Crips members, in an effort to demonstrate their dominance. Therefore, it is believed that the Pirus were the original Bloods founders. The gang's concentration changed to drug manufacture during the emergence of crack. The United Blood Nation, a gang that started out on Rikers Island, is frequently associated with blood sets on the East Coast.

The George Motchan Detention Center (GMDC), often known as C 73, is located on Rikers Island and is home to the United Blood Nation, also known as the Bloods. Problem offenders were separated from the rest of the jail facilities using GMDC. The Latin Kings were the most prominent and well-organized gang in the NYC jail system before this time. The majority-Hispanic Latin Kings were violently abusing White and occasionally African American prisoners. These African American prisoners created a defense organization they named the United Blood Nation after being organized by some of the most aggressive and charismatic prisoners. This prison group, United Blood Nation, was copying the Bloods street gangs in Los Angeles. Eight initial Blood sets were formed by many of the leaders of this freshly formed prison gang to recruit in their local communities around New York City.

By 1996, the Blood street gang had grown to include thousands of members and was becoming one of the most powerful gangs in existence. It also kept up a regular recruiting push. The Bloods were at this point less organized and more vicious than other gangs. Numerous slashings (attacks with a razor blade or knife) that were recorded during robberies were later determined to be Bloods initiations. The Bloods' signature ceremony was the Blood ritual. Bloods found recruits all throughout the East Coast.

In addition to members of other races and ethnicities, African Americans make up the majority of the Bloods. Early adolescence to mid-twenties is the average age of members, however some continue to retain leadership roles well into their late twenties and, on occasion, their thirties. Although there is no one person who can be identified as the Bloods' national leader, each individual Bloods set has a hierarchical leadership structure with distinct degrees of membership. Status within a gang is indicated by these membership levels. Each set is managed by a leader, who is often an older person with a longer criminal history. A fixed leader is not chosen; instead, he or she exerts themselves through creating and overseeing the gang's illicit businesses, using their reputation for brutality and violence as well as their own charisma to do so. The majority of the cast members are "soldiers," and they range in age from 16 to 22. Because of their readiness to use violence to win the respect of gang members and to deal with anybody who "disrespects" the set, soldiers have a strong feeling of dedication to their set and are very dangerous. Although they are not full members, "associates" participate in a variety of illegal acts and identify with the gang. If any women are involved in the gang, they are often associate members and are frequently employed by their male counterparts to carry guns, store narcotics, or engage in self-prostitution in order to support their group.

The surroundings of a recruit frequently affects recruitment. Bloods actively seek for school-age African Americans in particularly impoverished regions. Youth might find security and a sense of belonging by joining a gang. Economically deprived children who observe the trappings of gang life—gold jewelry, cash, pricey sportswear—can likewise experience instant satisfaction.

Based on how long a person has been a part of a certain set, blood sets have an informal hierarchy of levels.

The ranks are only a symbol of respect for individuals who have been a part of the set the longest and have survived the longest; they do not indicate leadership or domination over the set. Bloods of lesser ranks are not subject to those in positions of authority. Bloods of lesser status frequently refer to Bloods of higher rank as "Big Homies." They also call one another "relatives." Once a person joins a Blood set, they cannot quit the set or flip (move to another set) for the rest of their lives.

Members of the Bloods frequently refer to themselves as dawgs or ballers, HKs (an initialism for Hoover-Killer), CKs (an initialism for Crip-Killer), and MOBs (an initialism for Member of Bloods) (meaning drug dealers). Contrary to popular belief, Bloods & Crips are typically friendly amongst sets. Although it is against the law, bloods sometimes engage in civil war with one another. For example, the deuce 2x Crips and tray 3x Crips are at war, and they frequently work with Crip sets to eliminate their fellow blood competitors.

The many gang indicators used by Bloods members to distinguish themselves from other gangs include colors, attire, emblems, tattoos, jewelry, graffiti, language, and hand signals. Red is the gang's primary color. They like donning athletic attire, such as team coats that display their gang's colors. San Francisco 49ers, Miami Heat, Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Portland Trailblazers, Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia 76ers, and Chicago Bulls are a few of their favorite clubs.

The most commonly used Bloods symbols include the number “5,” the five pointed star, and the five pointed crown. Despite common misconception Bloods are not a people nation (with the exception of a few) but they will however tie flags with the people for defense or mutually such as how the Crips & BGDs consider themselves cousins. These symbols may be seen in the tattoos, jewelry, and clothing that gang members wear as well as in gang graffiti, which is used by the Bloods to mark their territory. Such graffiti can include gang names, nicknames, declaration of loyalty, threats against rival gangs, or a description of criminal acts in which the gang has been involved. Bloods graffiti might also include the word “Piru” which refers to the fact that the first known Bloods gang was formed by individuals from Piru Street in Compton, California.

Yakuza

During the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868), two distinct groups of outcasts gave rise to the yakuza. The tekiya were the first of such groups; they were nomadic peddlers who moved from village to village selling cheap things at fairs and markets. Many tekiya belonged to the burakumin social class, which was essentially underneath the four-tiered Japanese feudal social order and consisted of misfits or "non-humans."

The tekiya started forming close-knit gangs in the early 1700s under the direction of bosses and underbosses. The tekiya began to engage in customary organized crime operations including turf battles and protection rackets after being strengthened by fugitives from the upper classes. In keeping with a long-standing custom, tekiya frequently provided security for Shinto festivals and, in exchange for payment for protection, assigned stalls at the associated fairs.

Between 1735 and 1749, the shogun's government appointed oyabun, or officially recognized leaders, in an effort to quell gang conflicts among various tekiya factions and lessen the amount of fraud they engaged in. The oyabun was given the privilege of using a surname and carrying a sword, which was previously reserved for samurai. The term "oyabun," which refers to the bosses' roles as the leaders of their tekiya families, literally means "foster parent."

The bakuto, or gamblers, were the second social group that gave rise to the yakuza. During the Tokugawa era, gambling was outright prohibited and is still outlawed in Japan today. The bakuto hit the highways and preyed on gullible prey using hanafuda card games or dice games. They frequently adorned their bodies with vibrant tattoos, which gave rise to the practice of full-body tattooing among modern yakuza. The bakuto naturally expanded from their primary line of work as gamblers into lending shady business and other illicit pursuits.

Depending on how they make the majority of their money, certain yakuza groups may still refer to themselves as tekiya or bakuto. They still use the rites that were a component of the initiation ceremonies of the older organizations.

Yakuza gangs have seen a rise in prominence since the end of World War II following a decline during the conflict. More than 102,000 yakuza members in 2,500 different families were reported to be employed in Japan and overseas by the Japanese government in 2007. Despite the burakumin being officially exempt from discrimination since 1861, many gang members today are descended from that marginalized group. Others are ethnic Koreans, who are also subjected to a great deal of prejudice in Japanese society.

The distinctive characteristics of modern yakuza culture bear traces of the gangs' antecedents. For instance, a large number of yakuza have full-body tattoos that were applied with conventional bamboo or steel needles as opposed to sophisticated tattooing guns. Even the genitalia may be tattooed, which is a very unpleasant ritual. Although they typically wear long sleeves in public, the yakuza members frequently take their shirts off while playing cards with one other and show off their body art as a reference to the bakuto customs.

The practice of yubitsume, or cutting off the little finger's joint, is another aspect of yakuza culture. When a yakuza member disobeys or otherwise offends his boss, he will perform a yubitsume as an apology. The offender provides the boss with the top joint of his left pinkie finger, which he has amputated. Subsequent offenses result in the loss of other finger joints.

This practice dates back to the Tokugawa era; the gangster's sword grip is weakened by the loss of finger joints, theoretically making him more reliant on the group as a whole for defense. To blend in, many yakuza members wear prosthetic fingertips today.

The three biggest yakuza organizations currently in existence are the Sumiyoshi-kai, which started in Osaka and has about 20,000 members, the Yamaguchi-gumi, centered in Kobe, with 15,000 members, and the Inagawa-kai, located in Tokyo and Yokohama, with 20,000 members. The gangs engage in illegal activities such the trafficking of people and goods, the exportation of weapons, and the smuggling of illegal drugs. They do, however, also own a sizable amount of stock in well-established companies, and some of them are well-connected to the Japanese financial, banking, and real estate industries.

It's interesting to note that the Yamaguchi-gumi were the first to assist victims in the gang's hometown after the tragic Kobe earthquake of January 17, 1995. Similar to this, many yakuza organizations delivered truckloads of goods to the afflicted area following the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. The yakuza also has the strange benefit of suppressing small-time criminals. Because small-fry thieves don't intrude on yakuza turf, Kobe and Osaka, with their strong yakuza syndicates, are among the safest cities in an overall safe country.

The Japanese government has clamped down on the gangs in recent decades despite these unexpected social benefits of the yakuza. A strong new anti-racketeering law known as the Act for Prevention of Unlawful Activities by Criminal Gang Members was passed in March 1995. All of the listed businesses with ties to the yakuza were removed from the Osaka Securities Exchange in 2008. Yakuza bosses have been detained by authorities since 2009, and businesses that support the gangs have been closed down.

Even though the police are currently working very hard to quell yakuza activities in Japan, it appears improbable that the syndicates would completely vanish. After all, they have endured for more than 300 years and are intricately linked to many facets of Japanese society and culture.

Mara Salvatrucha(MS-13)

La Mara Salvatrucha, also referred to as MS-13, is a ruthless, inhumane street gang. As many as 40 states in the United States are now home to MS-13 members who commit murder, rape, maiming, and terror. Legendary tales exist of their heinous crimes.

No one contests the veracity of these statements. MS-13, like many street gangs, actually takes pride in its well-deserved image. The U.S. Department of Justice claims that the group's motto is "kill, rape, control."

If you believe President Donald Trump and others, America's broken immigration system is to blame for MS-13. The belief is that the United States will be a lot safer if it can stop MS-13 gang members from committing all of their mayhem, deport them, and stop them from crossing the border.

Unfortunately, things don't work that way.

"Attention to gangs is valid. About 13 percent of the homicides in this country are gang related. That's far more homicides than from mass shootings or terrorism," David Pyrooz, a sociologist at the University of Colorado who specializes in gangs and criminal networks, says. "But let's remember this. The maximum number of homicides associated with MS-13 in a given year — gang-related homicides — is about 2 percent of the total ... gang-related homicides in the United States. That is, I hate to use this language, but that is in many ways a drop in the bucket when it comes to gang activity."

"MS-13 is sort of the perfect boogeyman," Pyrooz says. "They are the moral panic; the connection to immigration, the connection to Latinos, and then the heinous violence, makes it so they can function as this evil boogeyman."

It's frequently forgotten in discussions of MS-13 that the organization didn't start out in Latin America and then storm the border to wreak havoc on the American way of life.

The gang was founded in the United States in the 1970s. El Salvadoran immigrants went to Los Angeles in an effort to escape a devastating civil conflict. There, they lived in areas of the city that were already under the influence of other gangs, used marijuana, and listened to heavy metal music. La Mara Salvatrucha was created when the newcomers came together to socialize and to defend themselves from other groups.

A brief explanation of the group name is as follows: In El Salvador, the word for "gang" is "mara." Here is an explanation of "Salvatrucha" and the subsequent 13 (again, from the DOJ):

Salvatrucha is a slang term for "alert," "watch out," or "cunning," and it combines the terms "Salva," which stands for "Salvadoran," and "trucha." The "13" stands for the 13th letter of the alphabet, or "M," signifying the group's ties to the Mexican Mafia, an organization that operates inside prisons.

Police started to crack down as the new gang confronted more established organizations in Los Angeles and linked up with other gangs (including the Mexican Mafia), deporting some members to El Salvador, where civil instability remained rife.

However, some of those MS-13 members returned to the United States in the 1980s, and others from El Salvador joined them. However, it seems unlikely that there was a premeditated influx of gang members from Latin America into the country.

"Criminal migration is real," according to "MS13 in the Americas: How the World's Most Notorious Gang Defies Logic, Resists Destruction," a report by The Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at American University in Washington D.C., and Insight Crime, a foundation that studies organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. "But this does not appear to be part of a master plan, nor is it coordinated from some central headquarters. Gang members appear to move in the same patterns as the rest of the population, and many of them move to escape the gang and the violence associated with it."

Currently, MS-13 claims to have 10,000 members in the United States and 30,000 members worldwide. Thus, it ranks among the largest gangs in the entire world. The group is the first and only street gang to be listed as a global criminal organization by the American government.

Despite its size, MS-13 does not have a particularly significant criminal presence in the United States when compared to the total number of gang members in the nation. The National Gang Intelligence Center estimates that there are 1.4 million gang members nationally, and MS-13 is just one of the 33,000 gangs that the FBI has identified.

"What's interesting about them, what makes them different from other groups — partly in response to what the president has been tweeting and talking about them" Pyrooz says, "we can't think of an example in recent history of a single group that has attracted such attention on a national level."

According to news reports and those who have investigated the MS-13 gang, its members engage in money laundering, prostitution, drug trafficking, racketeering, and other illicit activities. They are extremely brutal in how they do their street business. The group has been implicated in numerous violent assaults, kidnappings, rapes, and most infamously, some horrifying murders.

"Gang violence is far more lethal than what it was four or five decades ago," Pyrooz says.

From "MS-13 in the Americas":

"Violence is a major part of the glue that binds the MS-13. It is part of every stage of an MS-13 member's life: Potential members commit violent acts to be considered for membership and ultimately to gain entry; they are then beaten into the gang in a ritual that has left more than one permanently scarred; they move up the gang ladder by 'putting in the work' and showing 'commitment,' euphemisms for committing violent acts in the name of the gang."

According to the Washington Post, up to 10 MS-13 members lured a guy into a park in Maryland in 2017 before stabbing him more than 100 times, beheading him, and chopping out his heart. In vengeance for her boyfriend's murder, an 18-year-old Virginia lady admitted to taking part in the killing of a 15-year-old girl. The 18-year-old killed the younger girl by stabbing her 13 times and recorded it to show MS-13 leaders.

"It's hard to say that the attention is not undue or not deserved," Pyrooz says. "But it's hard to be able to focus specifically on them without paying more attention to what the problem of gang activity is in the United States as a whole."

Suicide Pilots

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 08:00:00 -0400

Listener Discretion Is Advised.

A pilot who intentionally crashes or attempts to crash an aircraft in an attempt to commit suicide, often with the intention of killing other people on board or on the ground, is said to have committed suicide. This is occasionally referred to as a murder-suicide. It is known to have caused some commercial aviation crashes and is likely to have contributed to others. In general, it is challenging for crash investigators to pin down the pilots' intentions since they occasionally take deliberate actions to obstruct recordings or other inquiries. Pilot suicide is therefore sometimes impossible to establish with absolute certainty.

Unless there is strong evidence that the pilot was actually committing suicide, investigators do not classify aircraft events as suicide. This proof could come in the form of suicide notes, prior suicide attempts, suicide threats, or a history of mental illness. Eight deaths were determined to be suicides in a study of pilot suicides from 2002 to 2013, and five other cases of unclear causes may have been suicides. To ascertain if the suicide was a terrorist act, investigators may also consult with terrorism experts and look for connections to extremist groups.

The majority of pilot suicides occur in small, general aviation aircraft. The lone occupant of the airplane in the majority of these situations is the pilot. A flying prohibition would have ordinarily resulted from the pilot using drugs, most frequently alcohol or antidepressants, in around half of the cases. Many of these pilots have a history of mental illness that they have tried to hide from authorities.

As most people know, the strategy of war where pilots will dive bomb their aircrafts into land or sea based vessels has been around since World War 2 so we arent really going to talk too much about incidents such as those. However, the first person credited with doing so was Russian aviator Nikolai Gastello. He was credited with the first takedown of a land based vehicle with his aircraft, although his aircraft had been shot down and was in a rapid partially controllable descent which this is later to be disputed. Other notable incidents are the kamikazes of the Empire of Japan during the Pacific Campaign of World War 2.

Now lets talk about cases where pilots had suicidal thoughts or temptations of murder while piloting an aircraft.

Hosted by Jonathan Sayre and Logan Sayre

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If you or someone you know is having thoughts of hurting themselves, someone else or they just need some mental assistance, contact the National Institute of Mental Health https://www.nimh.nih.gov or your local mental health facility.

”Hell’s Belle” Gunness, aka Lady Bluebeard, aka ”The La Porte Ghoul”

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 00:34:43 -0400

https://deluxevideoonline.org/our-tens-list-faked-deaths-in-movies/

Belle Sorenson Gunness was initially born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859, Selbu, Norway – April 28, 1908?, Lwas a Norwegian-Americ

Standing six feet tall (183 cm) and weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg), she was a massive, physically strong woman.

Early years

Gunness' origins are a matter of some debate. Most of her biographers state that she was born on November 11, 1859, near the lake of Selbu, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, and christened Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. Her parents were Paul Pedersen Størset (a stonemason) and Berit Olsdatter. She was the youngest of their eight children. They lived at Størsetgjerdet, a very small cotter's farm in Innbygda, 60 km southeast of Trondheim, the largest city in central Norway (Trøndelag).

An Irish TV documentary by Anne Berit Vestby aired on September 4, 2006, tells a common, but the unverified story about Gunness' early life. The story holds that, in 1877, Gunness attended a country dance while pregnant. There she was attacked by a man who kicked her in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry the child. The man, who came from a wealthy family, was never prosecuted by the Norwegian authorities. According to people who knew her, her personality changed substantially. The man who attacked her died shortly afterward. His cause of death was said to be stomach cancer. Growing up in poverty, Gunness took to milking and herding cattle the following year on a large, wealthy farm and served there for three years to pay for a trip across the Atlantic.

Following the example of a sister, Nellie Larson, who had emigrated to America earlier, Gunness moved to the United States in 1881 and assumed a more American-style name. Initially, In Chicago, while living with her sister and brother-in-law, she worked as a domestic servant, then got a job at a butcher's shop cutting up animal carcasses until her first marriage in 1884.

First Victim

In 1884, Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson in Chicago, Illinois, where, two years later, they opened a candy store. The business was unsuccessful, and the shop mysteriously burned down within a year. They collected the insurance, which paid for another home.

Some researchers tend to believe that the marriage to Sorenson produced no offspring. However, Neighbors gossiped about the babies since Belle never appeared to be pregnant. Other investigators report that the couple had four children: Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel died in infancy, allegedly of acute colitis. The symptoms of acute colitis — nausea, fever, diarrhea, and lower abdominal pain and cramping — are also symptoms of many forms of poisoning. Caroline's and Axel's lives were reportedly insured, and the insurance company paid.

A May 7, 1908 article in The New York Times states that two children belonging to Gunness and her husband Mads Sorensen were interred in her plot in Forest Home cemetery.

On June 13, 1900, Gunness and her family were counted on the United States Census in Chicago. The census recorded her as the mother of four children; only two were living: Myrtle A., 3, and Lucy B., 1. An adopted 10-year-old girl, possibly identified as Morgan Couch but later known as Jennie Olsen, was also counted in the household.

Sorenson died on July 30, 1900, reportedly the only day on which two life insurance policies on him overlapped. Both policies were active simultaneously, as one would expire that day, and the other would begin. The first doctor to see him thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning. However, the Sorensons' family doctor had been treating him for an enlarged heart, and he concluded that heart failure caused death. An autopsy was considered unnecessary because the death was not thought suspicious. Sorenson died of cerebral hemorrhage that day. Gunness explained he had come home with a headache, and she provided him with quinine powder for the pain; she later checked on him, and he was dead.

She applied for the insurance money the day after her husband's funeral. Sorenson's relatives claimed Gunness had poisoned her husband to collect on the insurance. Surviving records suggest that an inquest was ordered. It is unclear, however, whether that investigation actually occurred or Sorenson's body was ever exhumed to check for arsenic, as his relatives demanded. The insurance companies awarded her $8,500 (about $299,838.51 in today’s dollars), with which she bought a pig farm on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana.

Suspicion of murder

In 1901, Gunness purchased a house on McClung Road. It’s been reported that both the boat and carriage houses burned to the ground shortly after she acquired the property.

As she was preparing to move from Chicago to LaPorte, she became re-acquainted with a recent widower, Peter Gunness, also Norwegian-born. They were married in LaPorte on April 1, 1902; just one week after the ceremony, Peter's infant daughter died (of uncertain causes) while alone in the house with Belle. In December 1902, Peter himself met with a "tragic accident.” According to Belle, he reached for his slippers next to the kitchen stove when he was scalded with brine. She later declared that part of a sausage-grinding machine fell from a high shelf, causing a fatal head injury. A year later, Peter's brother, Gust, took Peter's older daughter, Swanhilde, to Wisconsin. She is the only child to have survived living with Belle.

Her husband's death netted Gunness another $3,000 (some sources say $4,000). Local people refused to believe that her husband could be so clumsy; he had run a hog farm on the property and was known to be an experienced butcher; the district coroner reviewed the case and unequivocally announced that he had been murdered. He convened a coroner's jury to look into the matter. Meanwhile, Jennie Olsen, then 14, was overheard confessing to a classmate: "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don't tell a soul."

Jennie was brought before the coroner's jury but denied having said anything. Gunness, meanwhile, convinced the coroner that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. She did not mention that she was pregnant, which would have inspired sympathy, but in May 1903, a baby boy, Phillip, joined the family. In late 1906 Belle told neighbors that her foster daughter, Jennie Olsen, had gone away to a Lutheran College in Los Angeles (some neighbors were informed that it was a finishing school for young ladies). Jennie's body would later be recovered, buried on her adoptive mother's property.

Between 1903 and 1906, Belle continued to run her farm. In 1907 Gunness employed a single farm hand, Ray Lamphere, to help with chores.

The Suitors

Around the same time, Gunness inserted the following advertisement in the matrimonial columns of all the Chicago daily newspapers and those of other large midwestern cities:

“Personal — comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.”

Several middle-aged men of means responded to Gunness' ads. One of her ads was answered by a Wisconsin farmhand, Henry Gurholt. After traveling to La Porte, Gurholt wrote his family, saying that he liked the farm, was in good health, and requested that they send him seed potatoes. When they failed to hear from him, the family contacted Gunness. She told them Gurholt had gone off with horse traders to Chicago. She kept his trunk and fur overcoat.

Another one was John Moe, who arrived from Elbow Lake, Minnesota. He had brought more than $1,000 with him to pay off her mortgage, or so he told neighbors, whom Gunness introduced him to as her cousin. He disappeared from her farm within a week of his arrival.

Although no one ever saw Moe again, a carpenter who did occasional work for Gunness observed that Moe's trunk remained in her house, along with more than a dozen others.

Next came George Anderson from Tarkio, Missouri, who, like Peter Gunness and John Moe, was an immigrant from Norway.

During dinner with Anderson, she raised the issue of her mortgage. Anderson agreed that he would pay the debt off if they decided to get hitched. Late that night, Anderson awoke to see her standing over him, holding a burning, almost spent candle in her hand and with a strange, sinister expression on her face. Without uttering a word, she ran from the room. Anderson fled from the house, soon taking a train to Missouri.

The suitors kept coming, but none of them, except for Anderson, ever left the Gunness farm. By this time, she had begun ordering massive trunks to be delivered to her home. Hack driver Clyde Sturgis delivered many of these trunks to her from La Porte. He later remarked how the heavyset woman would lift these enormous trunks "like boxes of marshmallows,” tossing them onto her broad shoulders and carrying them into the house. She kept the shutters of her house closed day and night; farmers traveling past the dwelling at night saw her digging in the hog pen.

Ole B. Budsberg, an elderly widower from Iola, Wisconsin, showed up next. He was last seen alive at the La Porte Savings Bank on April 6, 1907, when he mortgaged his Wisconsin land, signing a deed and obtaining several thousand dollars in cash. Ole B. Budsberg's sons, Oscar and Mathew Budsberg, had no idea that their father had gone off to visit Gunness. When they finally discovered his destination, they wrote to her; she promptly responded, saying she had never seen their father.

Several other middle-aged men appeared and disappeared in brief visits to the Gunness farm throughout 1907. Then, in December 1907, Andrew Helgelien, a bachelor farmer from Aberdeen, South Dakota, wrote to her and Belle was all about it. The pair exchanged many letters until a letter came that overwhelmed Helgelien, written in Gunness' careful handwriting and dated January 13, 1908. This letter was later found at the Helgelien farm. It read:

“To the Dearest Friend in the World: No woman in the world is happier than I am. I know that you are now to come to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to tell when to like a person, and you I like better than anyone in the world, I know. Think how we will enjoy each other's company. You, the sweetest man in the whole world. We will be all alone with each other. Can you conceive of anything nicer? I think of you constantly. When I hear your name mentioned, and this is when one of the dear children speaks of you, or I hear myself humming it with the words of an old love song, it is beautiful music to my ears. My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.”

Yikes….

In response to her letter, Helgelien flew to her side in January 1908. He arrived with a check for $2,900, the entire savings he had drawn from his local bank. A few days after Helgelien arrived, he and Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank in La Porte and deposited the check. Helgelien vanished a few days later, but Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank to make a $500 deposit and another deposit of $700 in the State Bank. At this time, she started to have problems with her farmhand, Ray Lamphere.

In March 1908, Gunness sent several letters to a farmer and horse dealer in Topeka, Kansas named Lon Townsend, inviting him to visit her; he decided to put off the visit until spring and thus did not see her before a fire at her farm. Gunness was also in correspondence with a man from Arkansas and sent him a letter dated May 4, 1908. He would have visited her, but didn’t because of the fire at her farm. Gunness allegedly promised marriage to a suitor Bert Albert, which did not go through because of his lack of wealth.

Turning Point

The hired hand Ray Lamphere was deeply in love with Gunness; he performed any chore for her, no matter how gruesome. He became jealous of the many men who arrived to court his employer and began making scenes. She fired him on February 3, 1908. Shortly after dispensing with Lamphere, she presented herself at the La Porte courthouse. She declared that her former employee was not in his right mind and was a menace to the public. She somehow convinced local authorities to hold a sanity hearing. Lamphere was pronounced sane and released. Gunness was back a few days later to complain to the sheriff that Lamphere had visited her farm and argued with her. She contended that he threatened her family and had Lamphere arrested for trespassing.

Lamphere returned again and again to see her, but she told him to kick rocks each time. Lamphere made thinly disguised threats. Like on one occasion, he confided to farmer William Slater, "Helgelien won't bother me no more. We fixed him for keeps." Helgelien had long since disappeared from the area, or so it was believed. However, his brother, Asle Helgelien, was disturbed when Andrew failed to return home and he wrote to Belle in Indiana, asking her about his sibling's whereabouts. Gunness wrote back, telling Asle Helgelien that his brother was not at her farm and probably went to Norway to visit relatives. Asle Helgelien said he did not believe his brother would do that. He believed his brother was still in the La Porte area, the last place he was seen or heard from. Gunness, being the ballsy bitch she was, told him that if he wanted to come and look for his brother, she would help conduct a search, but she cautioned him that searching for missing persons was an expensive proposition. If she were to be involved in such a manhunt, she stated, Asle Helgelien should be prepared to pay her for her efforts. Asle Helgelien did come to La Porte, but not until May.

Ray Lamphere represented an unresolved danger to Belle, and now Asle Helgelien was making inquiries that could very well send her to the gallows. She told a lawyer in La Porte, M.E. Leliter, that she feared for her life and her children’s. Ray Lamphere, she said, had threatened to kill her and burn her house down. She wanted to make out a will just in case Lamphere followed through with his threats. Leliter, the attorney, complied and drew up her will. She left her entire estate to her children and left Leliter's office. She went to one of the La Porte banks holding the mortgage for her property and, not suspiciously at all, paid it off. However, she did not go to the police to tell them about Lamphere's allegedly life-threatening conduct. The reason for this, most historical, true crime nerds agree, was that there hadn’t been any threats; she was merely setting the stage for her own arson.

Joe Maxson, who had been hired to replace Ray Lamphere in February 1908, awoke in the early hours of April 28, 1908, smelling smoke in his room on the second floor of the Gunness house. He opened the hall door to a shit load of flames. Maxson screamed Gunness' name and those of her children but got no response. He slammed the door and then, in his tighty whiteys, leaped from the second-story window of his room, barely surviving the fire that was closing in around him. He raced to town to get help, but by the time the old-fashioned hook and ladder firetruck arrived at the farm at early dawn, the farmhouse was a big ol’ pile of smoking ruins. Four bodies were found inside the house. One of the bodies was that of a woman who could not immediately be identified as Gunness, since she had been decapitated. The head was never found. The bodies of her children were found still in their beds. County Sheriff Smutzer had somehow heard about Lamphere’s alleged threats, so he took one look at the carnage and quickly went after the former handyman. Attorney Leliter came forward to recount his tale about Gunness' will and how she feared Lamphere would kill her and her family and, coincidentally, burn her house down.

Lamphere reeeeeally didn’t help his own cause. The moment Sheriff Smutzer confronted him and before the lawman uttered a word, Lamphere exclaimed, "Did Widow Gunness and the kids get out all right?" He was then told about the fire, but he denied having anything to do with it, claiming that he was not near the farm when the blaze occurred. A young lil dude, John Solyem, was brought forward. He said he was watching the Gunness place and saw Lamphere running down the road from the Gunness house just before the structure erupted in flames. Lamphere snorted to the boy: "You wouldn't look me in the eye and say that!"

"Yes, I will,” replied Solyem. "You found me hiding behind the bushes and you told me you'd kill me if I didn't get out of there." Lamphere was arrested and charged with murder and arson. Then scores of investigators, sheriff's deputies, coroner's men, and many volunteers began to search the ruins for evidence.

The headless woman’s body was a massive concern to La Porte residents. C. Christofferson, a neighboring farmer, looked at the charred remains of this body and said that it was not the remains of Belle Gunness. As did another farmer, L. Nicholson, and so did Mrs. Austin Cutler, an old friend of Gunness. More of Gunness' old friends, Mrs. May Olander and Mr. Sigward Olsen, arrived from Chicago. They examined the remains of the headless woman and said it was’t Belle Gunness.

Doctors then measured the remains and, making allowances for the body’s missing neck and head, stated the corpse was that of a woman who stood five feet three inches tall and weighed no more than 150 pounds. Friends and neighbors, as well as the La Porte dressmakers who made her dresses and other garments, swore that Gunness was taller than 5'8" and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds. Remember, she was a large woman who could toss around clothing trunks like they were frisbees. Detailed measurements of the body were compared with those on file with several La Porte stores where she purchased her apparel.

When the two sets of measurements were compared, the authorities concluded that the headless woman could not possibly have been Belle Gunness, even when the ravages of the fire on the body were considered. (The flesh was severely burned but intact). Moreover, Dr. J. Meyers examined the internal organs of the dead woman. He sent the stomach contents of the victims to a pathologist in Chicago, who reported months later that the organs contained lethal doses of (dun dun dunnnn)...strychnine.

Gunness' dentist, Dr. Ira P. Norton, said that if the teeth/dental work of the headless corpse had been located, he could definitely ascertain if it was, for sure, Belle Gunness. Enter Louis "Klondike" Schultz, a former miner, who was hired to build a sluice and begin sifting the debris (as more bodies were unearthed, the sluice was used to isolate human remains on a larger scale). What the flying FUCK is a sluice you may be asking your obviously intelligent self. Well, it’s a sliding gate or other devices for controlling the flow of water, especially one in a locked gate. On May 19, 1908, a piece of bridgework was found consisting of two human, canine teeth, their roots still attached, porcelain teeth and gold crown work in between. Norton, her dentists, identified them as work done for Gunness. As a result, Coroner Charles Mack officially concluded that the adult female body discovered in the burned debris was Belle Gunness. Even though NOTHING ELSE LINES UP.

Asle Helgelien arrived in La Porte and told Sheriff Smutzer that he believed his brother had met with foul play at Gunness' hands. Then, the new farmhand, Joe Maxson came forward with information that could not be ignored: He told the Sheriff that Gunness had ordered him to bring loads of dirt by wheelbarrow to a large area surrounded by a high wire fence where the hogs were fed. Maxson said that there were many deep depressions in the ground that had been covered by dirt. These filled-in holes, Gunness had told Maxson, were nothing but garbage. She wanted the ground made level, so he filled in the depressions.

Sheriff Smutzer took a dozen men back to the farm and began to dig. On May 3, 1908, the diggers unearthed the body of Belle’s stepdaughter, Jennie Olson (who vanished in December 1906). Then they found the small bodies of two unidentified children. Subsequently, the body of Andrew Helgelien was unearthed (his overcoat was found to be worn by Ray Lamphere). As days progressed and the gruesome work continued, one body after another was discovered in Gunness' hog pen:

So, let’s run through these poor, unfortunate souls.

Ole B. Budsberg of Iola, Wisconsin, (vanished May 1907);

Thomas Lindboe, who had left Chicago and had gone to work as a hired man for Gunness three years earlier;

Henry Gurholdt of Scandinavia, Wisconsin, who had gone to wed her a year earlier, taking $1,500 to her; a watch corresponding to one belonging to Gurholdt was found with a body;

Olaf Svenherud, from Chicago;

John Moe of Elbow Lake, Minnesota; his watch was found in Lamphere's possession;

Olaf Lindbloom, age 35 from Wisconsin.

Reports of other possible victims began to come in:

William Mingay, a coachman of New York City, who had left that city on April 1, 1904;

Herman Konitzer of Chicago who disappeared in January 1906;

Charles Edman of New Carlisle, Indiana;

George Berry of Tuscola, Illinois;

Christie Hilkven of Dovre, Barron County, Wisconsin, who sold his farm and came to La Porte in 1906;

Chares Neiburg, a 28-year-old Scandinavian immigrant who lived in Philadelphia, told friends that he was going to visit Gunness in June 1906 and never came back — he had been working for a saloon keeper and took $500 with him;

John H. McJunkin of Coraopolis (near Pittsburgh) left his wife in December 1906 after corresponding with a La Porte woman;

Olaf Jensen, a Norwegian immigrant of Carroll, Indiana, wrote his relatives in 1906 he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;

Henry Bizge of La Porte who disappeared June 1906 and his hired man named Edward Canary of Pink Lake Ill who also vanished 1906;

Bert Chase of Mishawaka, Indiana sold his butcher shop and told friends of a wealthy widow and that he was going to look her up; his brother received a telegram supposedly from Aberdeen, South Dakota claiming Bert had been killed in a train wreck; his brother investigated and found the telegram was fictitious;

Tonnes Peterson Lien of Rushford, Minnesota, is alleged to have disappeared April 2, 1907;

A gold ring marked "S.B. May 28, 1907" was found in the ruins;

A hired man named George Bradley of Tuscola, Illinois is alleged to have gone to La Porte to meet a widow and three children in October 1907;

T.J. Tiefland of Minneapolis is alleged to have come to see Gunness in 1907;

Frank Riedinger a farmer of Waukesha, Wisconsin, came to Indiana in 1907 to marry and never returned;

Emil Tell, a Swede from Kansas City, Missouri, is alleged to have gone in 1907 to La Porte;

Lee Porter of Bartonville, Oklahoma separated from his wife and told his brother he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;

John E. Hunter left Duquesne, Pennsylvania, on November 25, 1907 after telling his daughters he was going to marry a wealthy widow in Northern Indiana.

Two other Pennsylvanians — George Williams of Wapawallopen and Ludwig Stoll of Mount Yeager — also left their homes to marry in the West.

Abraham Phillips, a railway man of Burlington, West Virginia, left in the winter of 1907 to go to Northern Indiana and marry a rich widow — a railway watch was found in the debris of the house.

Benjamin Carling of Chicago, Illinois, was last seen by his wife in 1907 after telling her that he was going to La Porte to secure an investment with a wealthy widow; he brought $1,000 from an insurance company and borrowed money from several investors as well; in June 1908 his widow was able to identify his remains from La Porte's Pauper's cemetery by the contour of his skull and three missing teeth; $1000 at that time is approximately $31,522.45 today.

Aug. Gunderson of Green Lake, Wisconsin;

Ole Oleson of Battle Creek, Michigan;

Lindner Nikkelsen of Huron, South Dakota;

Andrew Anderson of Lawrence, Kansas;

Johann Sorensen of St. Joseph, Missouri;

A possible victim was a man named Hinkley;

Reported unnamed victims were:

a daughter of Mrs. H. Whitzer of Toledo, Ohio, who had attended Indiana University near La Porte in 1902;

an unknown man and woman are alleged to have disappeared in September 1906, the same night Jennie Olson went missing. Gunness claimed they were a Los Angeles "professor" and his wife who had taken Jennie to California;

a brother of Miss Jennie Graham of Waukesha, Wisconsin, who had left her to marry a rich widow in La Porte but vanished;

a hired man from Ohio age 50 name unknown is alleged to have disappeared and Gunness became the "heir" to his horse and buggy;

an unnamed man from Montana told people at a resort he was going to sell Gunness his horse and buggy, which were found with several other horses and buggies at the farm.

Most of the remains found on the property could not be identified. Because of the crude recovery methods, the number of individuals unearthed on the Gunness farm is unknown but is believed to be approximately twelve. On May 19, 1908, the remains of approximately seven unknown victims were buried in two coffins in unmarked graves in the pauper's section of LaPorte's Pine Lake Cemetery. Andrew Helgelien and Jennie Olson are buried in La Porte's Patton Cemetery, near Peter Gunness.

So, here’s the even MORE fucked up part… if it’s possible.

Ray Lamphere was arrested on May 22, 1908, and tried for murder and arson. He denied the charges of arson and murder that were filed against him. His defense hinged on the assertion that the body was not that of that big ol’ girl, Belle Gunness.

Lamphere's lawyer, Wirt Worden, developed evidence that contradicted Norton's identification of the teeth and bridgework. A local jeweler testified that though the gold in the bridgework had emerged from the fire almost undamaged, the fierce heat of the fire had melted the gold plating on several watches and items of gold jewelry. Local doctors replicated the fire conditions by attaching a similar dental bridgework to a human jawbone and placing it in a blacksmith’s forge. The natural teeth crumbled and disintegrated; the porcelain teeth came out pocked and pitted, and the gold parts melted (both the artificial elements were damaged to a greater degree than those in the bridgework offered as evidence of Gunness' identity). The hired hand Joe Maxson and another man also testified that they’d seen "Klondike" Schultz take the bridgework out of his pocket and plant it just before it was "discovered.” Lamphere was found guilty of arson but acquitted of murder. On November 26, 1908, he was sentenced to 20 years in State Prison (in Michigan City). He died of tuberculosis the next year on December 30, 1909.

On January 14, 1910, the Rev. E. A. Schell came forward with a confession that Lamphere was said to have made to him while the clergyman was comforting the dying man. In it, Lamphere revealed Gunness' crimes and swore that she was still alive. Lamphere had stated to the Reverend Schell and a fellow convict, Harry Meyers, shortly before his death that he had not murdered anyone but had helped Gunness bury many of her victims. When a victim arrived, she made him comfortable, charming him and cooking a large meal. She then drugged his coffee, and when the man was all fucked up, she split his head with a meat chopper. Sometimes she would simply wait for the suitor to go to bed and then enter the bedroom by candlelight and chloroform the hapless sap. A powerful woman, Gunness would then carry the body to the basement, place it on a table, and dissect it. She then bundled the remains and buried these in the hog pen and on the grounds around the house. Thanks to her second husband’s instruction, Peter Gunness, the butcher, Belle had become an expert at dissection. To save time, she sometimes poisoned her victims' coffee with strychnine. (Um… the first husband) She also varied her disposal methods, sometimes dumping the corpse into the hog-scalding vat and covering the remains with quicklime. Lamphere even stated that if Belle was overly tired after murdering one of her victims, she merely chopped up the remains and, in the middle of the night, stepped into her hog pen and fed the remains to the hogs.

Lamphere also cleared up the mysterious question of the headless female corpse found in Gunness’s home’s smoking remains. Gunness had lured this woman from Chicago on the pretense of hiring her as a housekeeper only days before she decided to make her permanent escape from La Porte. Gunness, according to Lamphere, had drugged the woman, then bashed in her head and decapitated the body, taking the head, which had weights tied to it, to a swamp where she threw it into deep water. Then, she chloroformed her children, smothered them to death, and dragged their small bodies, along with the headless corpse, to the basement.

She dressed the female corpse in her old clothing, and removed her false teeth, placing these beside the headless corpse to assure it being identified as Belle Gunness. She then torched the house and fled. Lamphere had helped her, he admitted, but she didn’t take off by the road where he waited for her after the fire had been set. She had betrayed her one-time partner in crime in the end by cutting across open fields and then disappearing into the woods. Some accounts suggest that Lamphere admitted that he took her to Stillwell (a town about nine miles from La Porte) and saw her off on a train to Chicago.

Lamphere said that Gunness was a rich woman, that she had murdered 42 men by his count, and maybe more, and had taken amounts from them ranging from $1,000 to $32,000. She had allegedly accumulated more than $250,000 through her murder schemes over the years—a considerable fortune for those days (about 10 million dollars, today). She had a small amount remaining in one of her savings accounts, but local banks later admitted that she had withdrawn most of her money shortly before the fire. Gunness withdrawing most of her money suggested that she was planning to evade the law.

Gunness was, for several decades, allegedly seen or sighted in cities and towns throughout the United States. Friends, acquaintances, and amateur detectives apparently spotted her on the streets of Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. As late as 1931, Gunness was reported alive and living in a Mississippi town, where she supposedly owned a great deal of property and lived the life of a respected woman. Sheriff Smutzer, for more than 20 years, received an average of two reports a month. She became part of American criminal folklore, a female Sasquatch, if you will.

Gunness’s three children’s bodies were found in the home's wreckage, but the headless adult female corpse found with them was never positively identified. Gunness' true fate is unknown; La Porte residents were divided between believing that Lamphere killed her and that she had faked her own death. In 1931, a woman known as "Esther Carlson" was arrested in Los Angeles for poisoning August Lindstrom for money. Two people who had known Gunness claimed to recognize her from photographs, but the identification was never proved. Carlson died while awaiting trial.

So, what the fuck happened to “Hell’s Belle”??

The body believed to be that of Belle Gunness was buried next to her first husband at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

On November 5, 2007, with the permission of descendants of Belle's sister, the headless body was exhumed from Gunness' grave in Forest Home Cemetery by a team of forensic anthropologists and graduate students from the University of Indianapolis to learn her true identity. It was initially hoped that a sealed envelope flap on a letter found at the victim's farm would contain enough DNA to be compared to that of the body. Unfortunately, there was not enough DNA, so efforts continue to find a reliable source for comparison purposes, including the disinterment of other bodies and contact with known living relatives.

As far as we know… Belle Gunness, the wicked Norwegian bitch… got away with So. Many. Murders… including her own.

Movies

Crazy Sting Operations

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 09:16:29 -0400

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Top police stings

A sting operation is a deceitful operation used by law enforcement to apprehend criminals in the act of trying to commit a crime. In order to obtain proof of a suspect's misconduct, a typical sting involves an undercover law enforcement officer, investigator, or cooperative member of the public acting as a criminal partner or prospective victim and cooperating with a suspect's activities. Journalists for the mass media occasionally use sting operations to film and disseminate footage of illegal conduct.

Sting procedures are prevalent in many nations, including the United States, but are prohibited in others, like Sweden and France. Certain sting operations are prohibited, such as those carried out in the Philippines where it is against the law for police enforcement to act as drug traffickers in order to catch purchasers of illegal substances.\

Examples

Offering free sports or airline tickets to lure fugitives out of hiding.
Deploying a bait car (also called a honey trap) to catch a car thief
Setting up a seemingly vulnerable honeypot computer to lure and gain information about hackers
Arranging for someone under the legal drinking age to ask an adult to buy an alcoholic beverage or tobacco products for them
Passing off weapons or explosives (whether fake or real), to a would-be terrorist
Posing as:
someone who is seeking illegal drugs, contraband, or child pornography, to catch a supplier (or as a supplier to catch a customer)
a child in a chat room to identify a potential online child predator
a potential customer of illegal prostitution, or as a prostitute to catch a would-be customer
a hitman to catch customers and solicitors of murder-for-hire; or as a customer to catch a hitman
a spectator of an illegal dogfighting ring
a documentary film crew to lure a pirate to the country where a crime was committed.

Whether sting operations constitute entrapment raises ethical questions. Law enforcement might have to be careful not to incite someone who wouldn't have otherwise committed a crime to do so. Additionally, while conducting such operations, the police frequently commit the same crimes, like purchasing or selling narcotics, enticing prostitutes, etc. The defendant may raise the entrapment defense in common law jurisdictions.

Contrary to common belief, however, laws against entrapment do not forbid undercover police personnel from pretending to be criminals or deny that they are police officers. Entrapment is normally only a defense when suspects are coerced into confessing to a crime they probably would not have otherwise committed. However, the legal meaning of this coercion differs widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Entrapment might be used as a defense, for instance, if undercover agents forced a possible suspect to manufacture illicit narcotics in order to sell them. Entrapment has often not taken place if a suspect is already producing narcotics and authorities pretend as purchasers to apprehend them.

Operation Entebbe

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos successfully carried out Operation Entebbe or Operation Thunderbolt, a counterterrorism hostage-rescue mission, at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976.

A week earlier, on June 27, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) (who had previously split from the PFLP of George Habash) and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells hijacked an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner carrying 248 passengers. The declared goal of the hijackers was to trade the hostages for the release of 13 detainees in four other countries and the release of 40 Palestinian terrorists and related prisoners who were detained in Israel. The flight, which had left Tel Aviv for Paris, was rerouted after a stopover in Athens through Benghazi to Entebbe, the country of Uganda's principal airport. The ruler Idi Amin, who had been made aware of the hijacking from the start[10], encouraged the hijackers and personally greeted them. The hijackers confined all Israelis and a few non-Israeli Jews into a separate room after transferring all captives from the plane to a deserted airport facility. 148 captives who were not Israelis were freed and taken to Paris over the course of the next two days. Ninety-four passengers—mostly Israelis—and the 12-person Air France crew were held captive and threatened with execution.

Based on information from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, the IDF took action. If the demands for the release of the prisoners were not granted, the hijackers threatened to murder the hostages. The preparation of the rescue effort was prompted by this threat. These strategies included getting ready for armed opposition from the Uganda Army.

It was a nighttime operation. For the rescue mission, Israeli transport planes flew 100 commandos to Uganda over a distance of 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles). The operation took 90 minutes to complete after a week of planning. Out of the 106 captives still held, 102 were freed, and three were murdered. In a hospital, the second captive was later slain. Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the unit leader, was one of the five injured Israeli commandos. Netanyahu was Benjamin Netanyahu's elder sibling and the future Israeli prime minister. Eleven Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of the Ugandan air force were destroyed, and all five hijackers and forty-five Ugandan troops were killed. Idi Amin gave the command to attack and kill Kenyans living in Uganda after the operation because Kenyan sources supported Israel. 245 Kenyans in Uganda were killed as a consequence, and 3,000 left the nation.

In honor of Yonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the force, Operation Entebbe, which had the military codename Operation Thunderbolt, is occasionally referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan.

Operation Valkyrie

Senior Nazi military officers and Adolf Hitler convened in the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia, on July 20, 1944. Hitler's body was discovered scattered across the table as the Nazi military chiefs sat down to plan troop deployments on the Eastern Front when an explosion burst through the steamy meeting room. With the Führer's death, the Nazi threat to Europe could have been lifted. or so it seems at first.

Claus von Stauffenberg and his accomplices believed they had turned the course of World War II and maybe saved thousands of extra lives for a brief period of time in history. The July Plot, also known as Operation Valkyrie, was the most famous attempt to have Hitler killed, although it was ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons, some of which are still unknown to this day.

The July Plot Is Hatched

Many Germans, including some of the country's top military figures, had begun to lose faith in Germany's ability to win the war by the summer of 1944. Hitler was widely held responsible for ruining Germany. The Wolfsschanze was one of Hitler's military headquarters. A number of prominent politicians and senior military figures devised a plan to murder the Führer by detonating a bomb at a conference there in order to spark political unification and a coup. Operation Valkyrie was the name of the strategy. The plan was that after Hitler's death, the military would assert that the murder was the result of a Nazi Party coup attempt, and the Reserve Army would take significant buildings in Berlin and detain senior Nazi figures. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler would become Germany's new chancellor, and Ludwig Beck would become its first president. The new administration wanted to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the war, ideally with benefits for Germany.

The main conspirators' motives varied, according to Philipp Freiherr Von Boeselager, one of the last remaining participants in the July Plot. Many of them only saw it as a means of avoiding military defeat, while others hoped to at least partially restore some of the nation's morals. They chose Claus von Stauffenberg, a young colonel in the German army, to carry out the assassination. Despite not being a member of the Nazi party in the traditional sense, Stauffenberg was a devoted German patriot. In the end, he came to think that if Germany was to be saved, it was his patriotic duty to expel Adolf Hitler.

Hitler, though, had experienced assassination attempts before. Assassination attempts against Hitler had been more frequent since his spectacular ascent to the top of Germany's political scene in the late 1930s. Hitler, who was becoming more and more paranoid, frequently altered his plans without warning and at the last minute.

What Went Wrong

Stauffenberg entered the bunker at Wolfsschanze on July 20, 1944. The conference was planned to take place in a concrete, windowless subterranean bunker that was closed off by a large steel door. By making sure it happened within one of these facilities, the detonation would be confined and anyone nearby the explosive device would die quickly from the shrapnel.

The conference was moved to an above-ground wooden bunker with better air circulation on July 20 due to the oppressively hot weather, according to Pierre Galante's Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals' Plot Against Hitler. Numerous windows, a wooden table, and other beautiful furniture were all present in the area, which meant that the potential explosion would be much diminished since the energy of the blast would be absorbed and diffused.

Stauffenberg was aware that this was the case, but he nonetheless proceeded, assuming that two explosives would be sufficient to destroy the room and kill everyone within.

Stauffenberg excused himself when he arrived, saying that he needed to change his clothing, and went to a private room. The two explosives needed to be armed and primed. However, he only had time to arm one of the two devices due to an unexpected phone call and a quick knock at his door. Thus, the possibility of a greater blast was cut in half.

Stauffenberg realized that in order to cause any kind of harm, the explosive device needed to be placed as near to Hitler as possible. He was able to get a seat as near to Hitler as possible with only one other person between them by claiming that his hearing was impaired due to his wounds. Placing the bag as near to Hitler as possible, Stauffenberg then left the room pretending to take a personal call.

The briefcase was accidentally shifted to the opposite side of a large wooden leg that was supporting the meeting room table as another official was taking a seat.

The Aftermath

Panic broke out after the device exploded at precisely 12:42 pm. Twenty individuals were hurt, including three cops who subsequently died from their injuries, and a stenographer was instantaneously murdered.

Stauffenberg and his assistant Werner von Haeften leapt into a staff car and bluffed their way past three different military checkpoints to flee the mayhem at the Wolfsschanze complex because they believed that Hitler was indeed dead.

Hitler, however, along with everyone else who was protected by the large wooden table leg, only suffered a few minor cuts and an eardrum perforation. He had fully torn-up pants, and the Nazi leadership would subsequently utilize pictures of them in a propaganda effort.

Ian Kershaw, a historian, claims that during the explosion, contradictory news concerning Hitler's fate came. In spite of the disarray, the Reserve Army started detaining senior Nazi officials in Berlin. The entire scheme, however, was eventually thwarted by delays, unclear communication, and the announcement that Hitler was still alive.

The conspirators were all given the death penalty in a hastily called court martial the same evening by General Friedrich Fromm. In the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, a makeshift firing squad murdered Stauffenberg, von Haeften, Olbricht, and another officer, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, while Ludwig Beck committed himself. At Berlin's Plötzensee jail, Berthold Stauffenberg was gently strangled while the incident was being recorded for Hitler to see.

Hitler's life was ultimately saved that day by a number of interrelated reasons, but the conspirators were right that Germany was headed for disaster. Less than a year later, the Nazi leader and his closest advisers committed suicide.

Operation Iceman

Ever wonder what its like working undercover with an alleged murderer? Well, let's just say it's not hard to get a stuffy nose around this case…

In fact, serial killer Richard Kuklinski's preferred method of murder involved using a nasal spray bottle to spritz cyanide into the faces of his victims. As a result, undercover agent Dominick Polifrone was never more on guard than during the 18 months he spent building a case against the so-called Iceman.

“No matter where I went with him, I wore this leather jacket with a pocket sewn inside containing a small-caliber weapon,” recalls Polifrone, who gained his target’s confidence and taped dozens of their conversations. “I knew that I was somewhere on his hit list. If he’d pulled out that nasal spray, I’d have to protect myself.”

The streetwise New Jersey officer acquired enough proof before Kuklinski had suspicions, preventing that situation from occurring. Finally, the enormous 6-foot-4 gangland killer was apprehended thanks to his evidence.

“I’ve met hundreds of bad guys, but Kuklinski was a totally different type of individual,” he tells The Post. “He was coldhearted — ice-cold like the devil. He had no remorse about anything.”

Kuklinski was captured by Polifrone in a combined operation between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the office of the New Jersey attorney general. The criminal, who was a leading suspect in the murder of a mobster whose body was found two years after his disappearance, was posing as a respectable businessman residing in suburban Dumont, New Jersey.

The reason the medical examiners discovered ice in the muscle tissue was because Kuklinski, who earned his notoriety for frequently freezing the bodies of his victims and then defrosting them, erred that time.

Police made an indirect connection between the deceased man and Kuklinski, who was charged with a number of previous homicides.

“We had to get something nobody knew,” recalls Polifrone.

The sting only appears briefly on screen in the film. In order to gain Kuklinski's trust, Polifrone, a resident of Hackensack, New Jersey, pretended to be a "bad person" for a whole year and a half.

They met in parks and rest areas along highways and discussed the horrific killings Kuklinski had carried out, including a Mafia hit in Detroit for which he was paid $65,000.

Additionally, there were "statement killings." To put a dead canary in the mouth of a victim as a warning to other victims, one mafia leader paid him extra.

Another occasion, Kuklinski made light of the fact that he saw a gang member consume an entire cheeseburger laced with cyanide before passing away while joking with Polifrone.

Recalls the cop: “He told me that cyanide normally works real quick and easy, but that ‘this guy has the constitution of a God damn ox, and is just eating and eating.

“He said he almost ate the whole burger and then, bam, he’s down!”

Polifrone knew exactly how to play his role. “I laughed, of course,” he shrugs. “That’s what bad guys do.”

Paradoxically, Kuklinski was a committed family man. He led a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.

“He never socialized, gambled or messed around with other women,” adds Polifrone. “He lived for his wife and kids.”

One minute he’d be repairing his daughters’ toys, the next, dismembering a body with a chain saw and stuffing it into an oil drum.

“He would come home and completely shut off this murderous component and seek security and love from his family,” says “Iceman” director Vromen. “He fulfilled the need to provide for them by killing.”

Polifrone finally nailed Kuklinski after tricking him into buying what he thought was pure cyanide. A team of feds and ATF officers arrested him in December 1986.

Twenty-eight years later, he reflects on the man who died, apparently of natural causes, in Trenton Prison in 2006 at age 70. Eyebrows were raised because he was due to appear as a witness at the trial of a Gambino family underboss.

“I hope he died a slow death because of what he did to families and individuals,” concludes Polifrone. “He had no mercy. And if it was foul play, that’s OK with me.”

So let’s talk about some controversial sting operations you may or may not have heard of.

ACORN Sting

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is known as ACORN. ACORN was a group of neighborhood-based organizations in the US that supported low- and middle-income families. They also offered details on affordable housing and voter registration. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, two young conservative activists, published recordings that had been edited with care in 2009. The two pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute before using a hidden camera to get unflattering answers from ACORN workers that seemed to give them advice on how to hide their prostitution business and avoid paying taxes.The plea for assistance in obtaining funding for a brothel didn't appear to deter the ACORN employees either. This sparked a national debate and led to a reduction in financing from public and private sources. ACORN declared on March 22, 2010, that it was disbanding and shutting all of its connected state chapters as a result of declining funding. Interesting fact: On January 25, 2010, James O'Keefe and three other people were detained on felony charges for allegedly tampering with the phones at Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. O'Keefe stated that he was looking into claims that Landrieu's staff had dismissed constituent phone calls over the health care issue. O'Keefe recorded the action as they pretended to be telephone repairmen.In the end, they were accused with breaking into a government building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. Following his admission of guilt, O'Keefe received a three-year probationary period, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine.

Operation West End

The largest undercover news story in Indian journalism has been described like this. In order to expose the alleged culture of bribery inside the Indian Ministry of Defense, a well-known newspaper from India by the name of Tehelka—which translates as "sensation" in Hindi—started its first significant undercover operation, "Operation West End" in 2001. Two reporters from the publication pretended to be London-based armaments dealers from a fake firm. In the undercover film, numerous politicians and defense officials are shown discussing and accepting bribes in exchange for assisting them in obtaining government contracts, including Bangaru Laxman, secretary of the ruling BJP party. Laxman and Military Minister George Fernandes (shown above) resigned following the release of the tapes, and a number of other defense ministry employees were placed on administrative leave.

Interesting Fact: Instead of initially acting on the evidence from the sting operation, the Indian government accused the newspaper of fabricating the allegations. The main financial backers of Tehelka were made targets of investigations, and the newspaper company was almost ruined. In 2003, Tehelka was re-launched as a weekly newspaper, and was funded by faithful subscribers and other well-wishers. In 2007, Tehelka shifted to a regular magazine format.

Senator Larry Craig

On June 11, 2007, an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation targeting males cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport detained Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, claimed that just after noon, the suspect entered a restroom and shut the door. Craig then moved into the stall next to him and propped his suitcase up against the stall door's front. By obscuring the front view, this is frequently done in an effort to hide sexual activity. Several minutes later, the officer claimed to have noticed Craig looking into his stall through a gap, tapping his right foot repeatedly, then moving it till it brushed Karsnia's. Craig then passed his hand under the stall divider into Karsnia’s stall with his palm up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times. Karsnia then waved his badge back, to which the senator responded, “No!” The senator pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, but changed his mind after word of his arrest later became public. Craig claimed he just had a “wide stance”, and he only pleaded guilty to avoid a spectacle.An appeals court rejected his request to change his mind about entering a guilty plea. Craig completed his time in the Senate but was unable to have his case dismissed by the Senate Ethics Committee. Craig departed office on January 3, 2009, having not to run for reelection in 2008. Fascinating Fact: Soon after Craig was arrested, the men's room started to resemble a tourist destination, with people coming to seek directions and take photographs. Even restroom tissue may be purchased on eBay. Listen to the conversation between Senator Craig and Sgt. Karsnia immediately following the arrest here.

Sarah Ferguson was victimized by Mazher Mahmood, a reporter for the tabloid daily "News of the World," in May 2010. In order to set up a meeting with Ferguson, Mahmood pretended to be a wealthy international businessman. The Duchess, who was discreetly recorded throughout the encounter, offered to connect the "tycoon" with Prince Andrew's influential inner circle. "500,000 pounds when you can, to me, open doors," Sarah Ferguson is heard saying on the video. She may also be seen removing a briefcase that is holding $40,000 in cash. After the event was reported, Ferguson's spokesman claimed she was both "devastated" and "regretful." She said that she had been drinking before asking for the money and was "in the gutter at that point" in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Mazher Mahmood, the guy who pretended to be the tycoon, is referred to as the "Fake Sheikh" and has conned several famous people. No one is certain if that is his true name or what his real history is since he likes to make things as mysterious as possible. The journalist denies ever allowing his face to appear in any of his pieces and claims to have received several death threats. He also avoids public appearances.

Bait Cars

The Minneapolis Police Department employed the first bait cars in the 1990s. The largest bait car fleet in North America is now situated in Surrey, British Columbia, which is widely regarded as the continent's "auto theft capital." The cars are carefully modified, equipped with GPS tracking equipment, audio/video surveillance, and an engine-disabling remote control. It has helped to lower car theft by 47% when it was introduced in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2004. In one of the more contentious bait vehicle stings, a lady was murdered nearly instantaneously after a robber driving a bait car drove into her in Dallas, Texas, in 2008. To resolve the litigation, $245,000 was given to the victim's family. Fact: The key to determining whether police are utilizing a bait car improperly and would result in entrapment is if they left it in a way that would tempt someone who would not ordinarily commit a crime. Here, you can view one of the more eye-catching (to put it mildly) bait vehicle stings. Many others will undoubtedly have the same thoughts as I had. “Where the heck was the kill switch?”

Marion Barry

A well-known politician and former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. Police were going to conduct an undercover narcotics transaction with former Virgin Islands official Charles Lewis on December 22, 1988, but they were turned back when they discovered Mayor Marion Barry was in Lewis's hotel room. This prompted a grand jury inquiry into potential mayor meddling in the narcotics probe. Barry testified for three hours in front of the grand jury before telling reporters he had done nothing wrong. Then, on January 18, 1990, Barry was arrested in a Washington, D.C. hotel after using crack cocaine in a room with his former girlfriend, who had turned informant for the FBI. This was the result of a sting operation put up by the FBI and D.C. Police. Barry said the now-famous phrase, "Bitch set me up," which has come to be linked with him. Following his arrest and subsequent trial, Barry made the decision not to run for mayor again. He was charged with 14 charges by a grand jury, including suspected grand jury perjury. The mayor could have spent 26 years in prison if found guilty on all 14 counts. Barry was only given a six-month prison term after the jury found him guilty of using cocaine. Barry campaigned for municipal council after being let out of prison. He garnered 70% of the vote due to his widespread popularity and the perception held by many that Marion Barry was the target of a political witch hunt by the government. Then, in 1995, Barry won a fourth term as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry is currently back in his position on the D.C. city council. Regardless of your opinion on Marion Barry, you have to respect his perseverance and drive to help the people of Washington, D.C. The aforementioned occurrence is only a small portion of his remarkable life. A documentary titled "The Nine Lives of Marion Barry" was produced by HBO.

Joran Van der Sloot

Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot is a key suspect in the case of Natalee Holloway, who vanished on May 30, 2005, while traveling to Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation. On March 29, 2010, Van der Sloot got in touch with Beth Twitty Holloway's mother's attorney John Q. Kelly, reviving the case. Van der Sloot promised to provide details about Holloway's demise and the whereabouts of her remains in exchange for a total of $250,000 with a $25,000 down payment. After Kelly and Twitty made contact with Alabama law enforcement, the FBI launched a sting operation. On May 10, Van der Sloot accepted a wire transfer of $15,000 to his Dutch bank account along with an additional cash payment of $10,000. He drove Kelly to the location of Holloway's remains in exchange for the cash. He indicated a home, saying that his father had assisted in burying the body in the foundation. The home had not yet been constructed when Holloway vanished, therefore this turned out to be untrue. Later, Van der Sloot informed Kelly through email that the entire incident was a fraud. At this point, police might have detained Van der Sloot for wire fraud and extortion, but they chose to wait while they worked to establish a case of murder against him. Van der Sloot was not only let free, he was also given permission to depart Aruba and travel to Bogotá, Colombia, and then Lima, Peru, with the money he had made from the operation. He met Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old University of Lima business student, in a casino hotel in the city. Ramirez and Van der Sloot are seen entering a hotel room together on security footage, but only Van der Sloot is seen exiting. On June 2, Ramirez was discovered dead in the hotel room that Van der Sloot had booked, her neck broken and she had been battered to death. On May 30, 2010, precisely five years after Natalee Holloway vanished, Ramirez passed away. A person arrested Van der Sloot He admitted to the murder on June 3 and June 7. Fascinating fact: Van der Sloot is presently detained at Peru's Miguel Castro jail, where murder charges have been brought. He apparently now claims that if he is permitted to move to a jail in Aruba, he would tell the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway's remains.

Perverted Justice Stings

Perverted-Justice is a group that uses volunteers to masquerade as juveniles online, often between the ages of 10-15, and wait for an adult to message or email the decoy back. If the topic becomes sexual, they won't actively reject it or support it. Then, in order to set up a meeting, they will attempt to identify the males by acquiring their phone numbers and other information. The group then provides law enforcement with the information. Additionally, Perverted-Justice has worked with the American reality show "To Catch a Predator." In Murphy, Texas, one of the more contentious instances took place in 2006. Louis Conradt (seen above), a district attorney in Texas, pretended to be a 19-year-old college student and had sexually explicit internet conversations with a person he thought was a 13-year-old kid. They hired an actress to portray the youngster on the phone when Conradt demanded images of the boy's genitalia. Conradt stopped returning phone calls and instant messages, so police and the reality program decided to conduct a search warrant operation at his residence. A gunshot was heard as the police entered the scene to make an arrest. Conradt was inside with a self-inflicted wound when they arrived, and he eventually passed away at a hospital. 23 people were taken into custody for online solicitation of minors as a consequence of the sting operation in Murphy, Texas. Due to inadequate evidence, none of the 23 instances were prosecuted as of June 2007. Conradt's family launched a $105 million lawsuit against Dateline's To Catch a Predator series. The dispute was ultimately resolved outside of court. All next episodes' development was halted by the network in 2008.

Rachel Hoffman

On February 22, 2007, a traffic stop in Tallahassee, Florida, resulted in Rachel Hoffman being found in possession of 25 grams of marijuana. Then, on April 17, 2008, police searched her flat and found 4 ecstasy tablets and 151.7 grams of marijuana. Police allegedly threatened to put her in jail unless she worked as an undercover informant for them, according to her account. She was then dispatched untrained to an undercover gathering to purchase a weapon and a significant quantity of narcotics from two alleged drug traffickers. The suspects relocated the drug purchase while she was there. When she departed the buy place in the car with the two suspects, the police officers who were keeping an eye on the sting lost sight of her. The identical gun she was intended to purchase was used to kill her by the two suspects while they were in motion. Two days later, her corpse was discovered close to Perry, Florida. One of the murder suspects was convicted of first-degree murder and given a life sentence without the possibility of parole on December 17, 2009, which would have been Rachel Hoffman's 25th birthday. Trial for the second murder suspect is set for October 2010. Interesting Fact: On May 7, 2009, a law called “Rachel’s Law” was passed by the Florida State Senate. Rachel’s Law requires law enforcement agencies to (a) provide special training for officers who recruit confidential informants, (b) instruct informants that reduced sentences may not be provided in exchange for their work, and (c) permit informants to request a lawyer if they want one.

Mr. Big

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police created Mr. Big, sometimes known as "the Canadian method," in the early 1990s in response to unsolved killings. It is employed in Canada and Australia, but many other nations, like the United States and England, view it as entrapment. The technique works something like this: An undercover police unit poses as members of a fictitious gang, into which the suspect is inducted. The suspect is invited to participate in a series of criminal activities (all faked by the police). In addition, the “gang members” build a personal relationship with the suspect, by drinking together and other social activities. After some time, the gang boss, Mr. Big, is presented to him. The police have a fresh interest in the first crime, and the suspect is instructed to provide the gang with further information. They clarify that Mr. Big might be able to affect the course of the police investigation, but only if he confesses to the full extent of the crime. He is also warned that if he conceals any other previous offenses, the gang could decide against working with him in the future since he would be a burden. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are shown in the picture above carrying the hats of the four officers who were killed in Edmonton, Canada, in 2005 at a memorial service. Two of the men serving prison sentences for the murders made confessions to Mr. Big operatives.Interesting Fact: In British Columbia, the technique has been used over 180 times, and, in 80% of the cases, it resulted in either a confession or the elimination of the suspect from suspicion. However, cases of false confessions and wrongful convictions have recently come to the public’s attention, and many are starting to question the controversial technique. In 2007, a documentary was made, called Mr. Big, that was very critical of the procedure.

You can’t talk about undercover operations without talking about the mob. Here are five badasses who infiltrated the mob.

In law enforcement, working as an undercover officer carries the high risk of discovery by criminal suspects, leading to violence, torture and death. But the rewards can be huge, with wire recordings and eyewitness testimony that can result in arrests and convictions. A trained officer knows how to strategize, win the confidence of their targets and get them to reveal what’s needed to build a case to take to trial. It requires an unusual kind of person, able to work under stress, stay focused, pull off the character he or she is playing and be prepared to tell many lies.

What follows here is a list of five remarkable individuals whose undercover operations, despite real dangers, resulted in the convictions of leaders and associates of organized crime, over almost a century. This list leaves out many other famous undercover officers, whom we would like to recognize in the future. Perhaps because of the gravity of the investigations, and the financial resources required, all of these undercover officers worked for agencies of the U.S. government.

MICHAEL MALONE

Mike Malone worked undercover for the Treasury Department’s Intelligence Unit. In the late 1920s, he infiltrated Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit and helped convict the crime boss of tax evasion.

Michael Malone had all the makings of an undercover agent who would successfully infiltrate Al Capone’s Chicago gang for nearly two years. Malone, whose parents came over from Ireland, grew up in New Jersey and meshed well with its European immigrants, eventually learning to speak Gaelic, Italian, Yiddish and Greek. With his “black Irish” dark hair and skin, he resembled someone from southern Europe. After finessing his way into Capone’s inner circle in 1929, Malone proved invaluable to his superiors in the Treasury Department pursuing a tax evasion case against the Chicago crime boss. Despite the danger, Malone kept an iron will. Blowing his cover would have proved fatal. But given his skills, it didn’t happen.

While Malone kept up the charade, he delivered information that proved incriminating not only for Capone, but for his top enforcer, Frank Nitti (aka Nitto). Malone remained disguised within Capone’s bootlegging band even for a time after the feds filed tax charges against Capone, Nitti and Capone’s brother, Ralph, in 1931.

When Capone’s jury trial commenced, and the Treasury Department removed Malone from his undercover job, the agent gained a bit of respect from the embarrassed gang chief himself. In the Chicago courthouse, Malone happened to enter an elevator where Capone stood with his defense lawyers.

“The only thing that fooled me was your looks,” Capone is said as to have remarked to Malone. “You look like a Wop. You took your chances, and I took mine. I lost.”

From 1929 to 1931, Malone fed intelligence about Capone that would culminate in the historic conviction of the nation’s most notorious Mob boss. His fascinating story began after his service in World War I. With law enforcement his career goal, Malone joined the Treasury Department’s Intelligence Unit later known as the “T-Men.” Early on, in the 1920s, Malone appreciated how donning disguises brought him closer to the suspects. He posed in everyman roles such as garbage man and shoe shiner.

Elmer Irey, chief of the Intelligence Unit, had worked with undercover agent Malone on Prohibition cases. Once, Irey enlisted Malone to smash a West Coast version of “Rum Row,” rumrunners selling contraband Canadian liquor from ships off the coast of San Francisco. Malone posed as gangster from Chicago in hiding, with money to invest in illegal booze. He devised a nighttime sting operation. Agents posing as bootleggers drove speedboats out to the booze-laden mother ship and, after money changed hands, Malone fired off a flare, signaling the U.S. Coast Guard, which boarded the mother ship and arrested the astonished bootleggers.

President Herbert Hoover entered office in March 1929, a few weeks following the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, where seven men associated with Capone’s bitter rival in bootlegging, George “Bugs” Moran, died in gunfire. Hoover conferred with Irey and urged him to compile a team of special agents to “get Capone” on tax charges. Meanwhile, another team of Prohibition Unit agents in Chicago, headed by Eliot Ness, would attack Capone on violations of federal liquor laws under the Volstead Act.

Irey appointed Special Agent Frank Wilson, Malone and several others to the get Capone team. Meanwhile, a group of wealthy business executives in Chicago, called the Secret Six, donated large sums of money for expenses to assist the feds in getting Capone. Malone used their largess to purchase some expensive clothing to look the part of a well-heeled hoodlum that Capone would envy.

Malone set about infiltrating Capone’s underworld at its core – the Lexington Hotel, where the boss and his men lived. Wearing a fancy suit, purple shirt and white hat, Malone sat in the lobby, reading newspapers for days on end. He spoke in an Italian accent, introduced himself as “Mike Lepito,” met Capone men playing craps and played the part of a mobster. He mailed letters to friends in Philadelphia, who wrote back. Capone’s guys broke into his room, noted his pricey checkered suits and silk underwear. They opened his mail from Philadelphia, read the letters written, impressively, in underworld lingo they understood. They informed Capone.

Finally, Capone sent a cohort down to the lobby to ask “Lepito” about his business in town. “Keeping quiet,” Malone replied in his Italian inflection. In the coming days, over drinks, Malone told the guy he was on the lam for burglary in Philadelphia. That got Malone invitations to play poker and trade gossip with the gang, then dinner at their hangout, the New Florence, and then to attend the birthday party Capone planned for Frank Nitti at the Lexington. Malone met Capone at Nitti’s party. The secret agent’s new acquaintances included big-shot hoods Nitti, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Murray “The Camel” Humphreys and Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt. Malone was in.

He discreetly phoned Wilson about what he’d overheard within the gang. Wilson and his aides traced signatures on bank checks while pursuing tax evasion cases against Nitti and Guzik. A federal court in Chicago convicted Guzik, who got a five-year sentence. But Nitti skipped town. Malone, assigned to find him, followed Nitti’s wife to an apartment building in Berwyn, Illinois. There, the cops nabbed Nitti, later sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion.

Then the police pinched Al himself following his 1931 indictment on tax charges. “Mike Lepito” was there at the Lexington when Al Capone arrived back, triumphant about his release on $50,000 bail. Malone listened and reported to Wilson about Capone’s scheme to bribe and fix the jury in his favor. The feds moved quickly and a judge created a new list of jurors. Malone then reported Capone’s plot to hire five gunman from New York to kill four federal officials in Chicago – including Wilson. With safety measures in place, Capone ordered the gunmen to leave town.

Capone’s trial, after a judge refused to plea bargain with the Mob boss, started in October 1931. Four days afterward, Malone finally gave up the act. The news spread fast to Capone and his men. Malone had heard that Phil D’Andrea, Capone’s bodyguard, planned to bring a concealed gun into the courthouse. Malone and another agent frisked and disarmed D’Andrea, and had him arrested. A jury Capone could not fix found the boss guilty on 22 criminal counts. The judge gave him 11 years in the federal pen and a $50,000 fine, plus court costs.

Months later, in early 1932, the Intelligence Unit had Malone, Irey, Wilson and Special Agent A. P. Madden probe the kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son. The team’s persistence paid off within two years, with the capture (and conviction) of suspect Bruno Hauptman, who still had some of the marked currency the agents convinced Lindbergh to use as ransom money.

Malone had other notable cases. In 1933, Irey assigned him to find fugitive New York gangster Waxey Gordon, wanted for tax evasion. Malone located Gordon in a remote cottage in the Catskill Mountains. Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey took the case, and the court put Waxey away for 10 years. A year later, Malone infiltrated Louisiana Governor Huey “Kingfish” Long’s crooked crew. After Long’s assassination, the IRS won a tax fraud conviction against Malone’s target, Long’s close aide, Seymour Weiss.

In his last undercover operation before his death, the Intelligence Unit gave Malone a large amount of cash and a Cadillac to use in Miami Beach, disguised as a rich syndicate man. He found and reported what the agency wanted – details of a coast-to-coast illegal abortion ring.

After Malone’s death in 1960, Wilson described him to a news reporter as “the best undercover agent we ever had.”

JOSEPH PISTONE

Joe Pistone is one of the FBI’s most celebrated undercover agents. Using the name Donnie Brasco, he infiltrated the New York Mafia and helped produce 200 indictments. Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In New York City during the mid-1970s, the FBI investigated a rash of truck hijackings happening each day. The agency assigned agent Joseph “Joe” Pistone to go undercover for six months to find out where the Mob-connected thieves took the stolen cargo. His adopted name was “Donnie Brasco.” He was so effective as a wiseguy that the FBI let him keep it up. No one knew how far the investigation would lead, or what it would mean for Pistone, who started as an agent in 1969.

His experience would eventually prompt the mobsters in New York to put out a $500,000 contract for his murder, but it never happened. In the end, the evidence and trial testimony he provided in the 1980s produced 200 indictments of Mob associates and more than 100 convictions. His work decimated the Bonannos, one of New York’s five major crime families.

Pistone’s journey while undercover, impersonating a mobbed-up jewel thief, would last an incredible five years, from 1976 to 1981, during which he penetrated the upper levels of the Bonnano organization. No FBI agent had made it inside the Mob like that. The agency beforehand had to rely on informants.

Pistone took a class to learn about jewelry to make his affectation believable. In Brooklyn and Manhattan, he roamed bars and restaurants frequented by Mob types. He communicated using the street smarts he absorbed growing up as a working-class Italian-American kid in Paterson, New Jersey, where he went to Italian social clubs and encountered local hoods. Years in, he had the Bonanno circle so convinced that it moved to have him a “made” man shortly before the FBI ended his assignment.

At first he befriended low-level mobsters. He wore a wire to record conversations, and committed to memory names and license plates since taking notes would obviously raise red flags. By 1976, he’d won the trust of important Bonnano members, notably family soldier Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero, said to have killed 26 people, and capo Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano. Ruggerio recommended him so that he could join the clan. Pistone’s Mob activities centered in New York and Florida, taking him away from his wife and young daughters for extended times. Pistone even had to vacation with his demanding cohorts. He moved his family members out of state for their protection.

As “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone helped Ruggerio transfer stolen goods and sell guns. He engaged in loansharking, extortion and illegal gambling. Once, while pretending to be an expert in burglar alarms, angry Mob associates intent on committing burglaries demanded he reveal the name of a mobster who would vouch for him. The FBI used an informant to quell their suspicions.

In the 1997 film Donnie Brasco, undercover agent Joe Pistone is played by Johnny Depp, left. Al Pacino, right, plays Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero.

In 1981, the situation intensified again when the crime family commanded him to kill an adversary. The FBI pulled him out of the sting. It was time to start making cases, and for him to testify in open court as himself. Starting in 1982, Pistone’s testimony over the next several years in racketeering cases sent more than 100 mobsters to long prison terms. Prosecutors considered him crucial to convicting 21 defendants in the “Pizza Connection” case of pizzerias used to traffic in heroin and launder money for the Sicilian Mafia.

Pistone went into hiding and later retired from the FBI, unscathed, in 1986. In the 1990s, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, former underboss for the Gambino family who turned FBI informant, said the embarrassment from the “Brasco” case drove bosses in New York’s crime families to suspend the Bonanno group from its board of directors.

But Pistone couldn’t stay retired. In 1992, at age 53, he requested reinstatement with the FBI, which agreed only if he would enter the agency’s strict training class, lasting 16 weeks at its base in Quantico, Virginia. Pistone endured the rigorous course alongside recruits in their 20s. He passed and the FBI rehired him, at least until the mandatory retirement age of 57.

Pistone’s 1988 book on his undercover experiences, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, was a bestseller. Based on the book, actor Johnny Depp portrayed Pistone in the 1997 feature film Donnie Brasco, with Al Pacino as Ruggerio.

JACK GARCIA

Jack Garcia was an FBI undercover agent of Cuban descent who convinced members of the Italian-American Mafia that he was Italian. He took part in more than 100 undercover investigations over a 26-year career.

Before he succeeded in infiltrating New York’s Gambino crime family, FBI agent Joaquin “Jack” Garcia had to go school. That is, the FBI’s “mob school,” where he received an education in how to hit the ground running with veteran mobsters. His teacher was special agent Nat Parisi. First off, Parisi said, do not carry a wallet – wiseguys carry wads of currency, often bound by the kind of rubber band grocery stores use to keep broccoli together. Also, correctly pronouncing Italian food matters – as Tony Soprano might say, those long pasta shells are not “manicotti,” but “manicote.” Another valuable lesson he learned is that his Mob brethren loved compliments – his favorite one: “Where did you get those nice threads? You look like a million dollars.”

In his 26-year career as an FBI agent, Garcia took part in more than 100 undercover investigations, from Miami to New York, Atlantic City and Los Angeles, targeting mobsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians and cops. He participated in the highest number of undercover cases in FBI history. In many of his capers, he impersonated a mobster, using the name “Jack Falcone” (in honor of the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, killed by the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s). As a backstory, he told his Mob marks about having a Sicilian pedigree (actually he’s a native of Havana and grew up in the Bronx) with an expertise in stealing and fencing stolen goods, with jewelry as his specialty. Sometimes, he had to run several undercover roles at once. He took advantage of his fluency in Spanish and Italian, being careful not to mix things up when the phone rang.

In the early 2000s, the FBI chose Garcia for what would be the most fruitful infiltration of an organized crime family since Joe Pistone’s in the 1970s. While undercover as “Jack Falcone” with the Gambino’s family’s chapter in Westchester County, New York, for two years, he flashed cash, Rolex watches, diamond rings, flat-screen TVs and other supposed stolen property (items seized in other FBI cases). Much of the cash he held went to pay for expensive dinners – mobsters, he said, are notoriously cheap when the check comes. He gained 80 pounds over the two years.

One mobster in particular who liked his money and goods, and would become his almost daily companion, was Gambino capo Gregory DePalma. An “old school” hood who in 2003 finished serving 70 months for racketeering, DePalma right away threatened violence and extorted owners of Westchester-area construction firms, strip joints, restaurants and other businesses. Garcia said he witnessed DePalma commit a crime almost every day.

The FBI had Garcia pose as a wiseguy seeking to invest in a topless bar in the Bronx. Garcia’s inquiries led him to meet DePalma in 2003. By providing stolen property for DePalma to sell for cash, Garcia convinced him that “Jack Falcone” was an experienced jewelry thief and fencer from Miami. When Garcia hung out with DePalma over the two-year period, he wore a body wire, and the FBI planted bugging devices at DePalma’s hangouts. Garcia gave DePalma a cell phone that the talkative mob capo used prodigiously, not knowing the FBI had bugged it.

The operation yielded 5,000 hours of recorded conversations used to implicate DePalma and other Gambino men in racketeering. In 2005, DePalma planned to honor “Falcone” by rendering him “made” within the Gambino family. In a recorded conversation, Garcia as “Falcone” replied to DePalma, “I’m honored for that,” he said, in the tape later used in court. “I will never let you down either.”

But it wasn’t to be. After Garcia witnessed a Gambino soldier beat another member with a crystal candlestick, the FBI shut down the undercover operation. (Garcia and Pistone are the only law enforcement officers ever nominated to be “made.”)

Garcia’s efforts inside the Gambino crew paid off big time. The evidence he delivered for the FBI resulted in the arrest of 32 Gambino members and associates, including DePalma, Gambino boss Arnold “Zeke” Squitieri and underboss Anthony “The Genius” Megale. DePalma went to trial in 2006. Garcia, who retired from the FBI two months before the trial started, agreed to testify in federal court in Manhattan. The jury found DePalma guilty on 27 counts, and the judge gave the 74-year-old a 12-year prison term.

Like Pistone, Garcia’s undercover career is chronicled in a memoir, Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family.

KIKI CAMARENA

Kiki Camarena was an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Mexico. After contributing information that led to major drug busts, he was tortured and murdered by drug cartel bosses in 1985.

Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, the late Drug Enforcement Administration agent assigned to investigate drug trafficking in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1980s, is famous as one of the most heroic DEA agents ever. But he is more well-known in death than in life. His torture-murder in Mexico in 1985 took place at the hands of drug cartel bosses with the complicity of high-level Mexican government officials, law enforcement and, allegedly, the CIA.

At the time, the Reagan administration was secretly training and supplying Central American guerilla fighters, known as the “Contras,” against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The U.S. government allegedly granted the cartel bosses free rein to traffic drugs – to the point of using CIA-recruited American pilots to fly cocaine into the United States to sell for cash so the cartel could make donations to buy more weaponry for the Contras.

Camarena, born in Mexicali, Mexico, in 1947, moved with his impoverished family to Calexico, California. He served as a firefighter in Calexico, and with a strong desire for police work, joined the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department, moving up to its narcotics task force. The experience led to his career in the DEA starting in 1975. Assigned to the DEA office in the “narco paradise” of Guadalajara in 1980, Camarena was a convincing undercover officer with his appearance and ability to speak Spanish and barrio “street” language to fit in with the drug underworld. His target was the powerful Guadalajara drug cartel (which later evolved into the Sinaloa cartel).

In the early 1980s, in what he called “Operation Padrino,” Camarena arranged for U.S. agents to seize international bank accounts held by wealthy cartel drug lords. He developed evidence of major marijuana plantations in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, based on informants and overflights in a plane flown by his DEA pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar. In November 1984, from his background work, Mexican federal police and the DEA raided enormous pot-growing operations on a ranch in Zacatecas that employed thousands of field hands. The task force confiscated 20 tons of marijuana, burned the crop and made 177 arrests.

The bust cost cartel figure Rafael Caro Quintero about $50 million. Caro Quintero believed his operation had the protection of the Mexican army, and the CIA, since he owned a farm used to train the U.S.-backed Contras. He vowed revenge against Camarena. Meanwhile, a DEA force organized by Camarena seized a large cache of cocaine shipped by cartel boss Miguel Felix Gallardo’s operation to New Mexico and Texas. Gallardo also believed he had CIA and Mexican official protection.

During the fall of 1984, Quintero held meetings with top cartel traffickers Gallardo, Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseco Carrillo and Ruben Zuno Arce. Also present, thanks to rampant corruption bought by the Guadalajara cartel, were Mexico’s minister of domestic affairs and DFA chief Manuel Bartlett Diaz, plus Mexico’s defense minister, the head of Mexico’s Interpol office and the governor of the state of Jalisco. The agenda was to kidnap Camarena and get him to reveal his informants and other information. Zuno Arce gave the order. Fonseca only intended to scare and release him, but Quintero wanted to kill the DEA man.

On February 7, 1985, Quintero and Gallardo directed their henchmen to kidnap Camarena off a street in Guadalajara. As the agent walked from the U.S. consulate to meet his wife for lunch, they forced him at gunpoint into a car and drove him to a residence used for cartel rendezvous. They bound and blindfolded him, turned on a tape recorder and questioned him, during which he was severely beaten and tortured. The lead interrogator was the crooked head of the secret police in Guadalajara, Sergio Espino Verdin. The cartel men wanted to know what Camarena knew about them, their dealings with Mexican officials and the CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking. The gangsters also brought in and beat up Zavala, Camarena’s pilot. Both men died about two days later, angering Fonseco, who told Quintero not to kill Camarena.

Camarena’s wife reported him missing and Washington launched what would be the largest manhunt in the history of the DEA. The cartel had the two men’s bodies buried, then dug up and relocated to a farm in another state, where Mexican police found them in early March. During his funeral a week later, Camarena’s family interred his ashes in Calexico.

His slaying triggered an international incident. U.S. officials ordered all cars from Mexico at the border searched, effectively closing it. The investigation revealed the CIA connection, leading to bitter clashes between CIA and DEA agents. A federal court in Los Angeles charged 22 defendants in the murders of Camarena and Zavala. Under pressure, Mexican authorities acted, arresting 13 men. Mexican courts convicted Fonseco, Quintero and Espino, and sentenced each to 40 years, although Quintero won early release on a technicality in 2013. U.S. officials are still seeking Quintero to face federal charges. Mexican police arrested Gallardo in 1989, and he received 40 years. A court in Los Angeles found Zuno Arce guilty in the murders in 1990, sentenced him to two life terms in prison, where he died in 2012.

In Camarena’s honor, in 1985 the National Family Partnership started the National Red Ribbon Campaign, a volunteer anti-drug use and education effort that urges youths to recite a pledge to refrain from drugs, and celebrates “Red Ribbon Week” on drug awareness each October.

Camarena’s is featured as a character, played by actor Michael Pena, in a chapter of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, about on his actions with the DEA.

JAY DOBYNS

Jay Dobyns went undercover with the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang for 20 months in Arizona on behalf of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His work led to 16 arrests.

For Jay Dobyns, fitting in with the infamous biker gang the Hells Angels for almost two years meant adhering to his undercover alter ego, Jay “Bird” Davis, to the point of obsession. To maintain his cover, he had to divert his mind away from his wife and kids. And it all would be worth it – at least that’s what he thought at the time.

Dobyns had hit on his best clandestine ruse yet while in Arizona in 2001, after 15 years of service as an undercover special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. While working undercover cases in the late 1980s for the ATF, he’d been injured twice – from a gunshot wound to the back from a suspect in Tucson and when gunrunners hit him with a car during an attempted getaway in Chicago. He took part in investigations of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Other undercover roles of his ended in the arrests of a Mexican drug boss and members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang. Altogether, he served in more than 500 undercover operations disguised as a hitman and Mob debt collector. He infiltrated organized crime groups and gangs engaged in drug and arms smuggling.

In 2001, to gather intelligence as “Davis” for the ATF in northern Arizona, Dobyns worked in the Bullhead City area, posing as a gun seller and an enforcer for a nonexistent collections agency. But his operation was interrupted in 2002 with the now-famous riot and shootout among members of the Angels and a competing biker gang, the Mongols, at the Harrah’s casino in nearby Laughlin, Nevada, during the annual River Run motorcycle rally. Two Angels and one Mongol died and dozens of people were injured.

The ATF brass soon redirected him to penetrate the dangerous Hells Angels club. Dobyns certainly had the physical part down with his beard and six-foot, one-inch frame he used as an all-conference football player for the University of Arizona. Later, an Angels member would apply tattoos covering his upper arms.

Dobyns teamed with another ATF agent, two other undercover officers and a pair of paid informants. The idea was to create a fake biker gang with the aid of one of the informants who once served in a motorcycle gang based in Tijuana, Mexico. The gangster informant and Dobyns would run the gang, called the Solo Angeles, promote it as a pro-Hells Angels crew and request to join the Angels as a “nomad” chapter. The ATF named the setup “Operation Black Biscuit.” As a convincer, Dobyns and his fellow agent feigned an execution of a Mongol member, tying up an agent, placing cow’s brains and bloody Mongol clothing on him and taking a photo. Based on the picture, the Angels took the bait and let them hang out and ride with them. They trusted him so much they offered to make him a member of the Angels’ Skull Valley Chapter. He was the first law enforcement officer to infiltrate the Angels. His undercover penetration of the Angels lasted more than 20 months, one of the longest ever for the ATF.

His work ended with 16 arrests from the Angels gang. But the criminal case, amid problems between the ATF and Justice Department lawyers, fell through in federal court. Federal prosecutors blamed the ATF, saying the agency did not reveal evidence from informants. In 2006, the feds dropped racketeering enterprise charges – the most serious — against all but four of 42 Angels charged in the Laughlin riot.

Dobyns’ battle with his own employer, the ATF, soon began. He filed suit in federal court against the agency alleging it did not protect him while he was on duty. He won a $373,000 settlement in 2007. The next year, Dobyns’s wife and two kids barely escaped after someone firebombed the family home in Tucson. The ATF investigated Dobyns himself as a suspect in the arson. Investigators cleared him. In 2014, the year he retired after 27 years with the ATF, he filed another suit, for $17.2 million, saying the ATF failed to safeguard his family amid death threats. A judge awarded him $173,000. During an appeal, the judge voided the monetary judgment, but recommended discipline for ATF personnel and barred seven Justice Department attorneys from the case. He ordered a special master to investigate government actions in the case, and possible misconduct by the feds in the arson investigation. But the judge died of cancer. The special master in a report said that the first case was fair enough and required no further probe into the federal government. A new judge accepted the recommendation.

Dobyns has authored two books, one on his undercover experiences, another on his travails with the ATF. These days, he delivers lectures on his life to audiences at universities and law enforcement associations nationwide.

And now some of our infamous quick hitters:

Donald Duck decoy

Police in Fort Lee, New Jersey used a Donald Duck costume as a decoy to catch drivers who failed to yield to pedestrians. Drivers who didn’t stop for the cartoon duck were ticketed. One woman, Karen Haigh, fought her $230 ticket.

"They told me that I was getting a ticket for not stopping for a duck," she told Eyewitness News. "But it scared me. I'm a woman. This huge duck scared me."

Coco the Clown

These old clips from the show COPS show a strange undercover police sting, and proves the adage that clowns are usually scary or just creepy. One cop dressed up as Coco the Clown, an outfit that kind of resembles John Wayne Gacy, to catch women working as sex workers. Spoiler: he pretty much sprays all of them with silly string and the whole thing is sad to watch.

Amish woman

At least one cop from the Pulaski Township Police Department in Pennsylvania dressed up as an Amish woman in an attempt to catch a sexual predator. Sgt. Chad Adams of the Pulaski Township Police Department wandered the streets for two months in 2014 after police were tipped off that a predator was masturbating in front of children, according to the Associated Press. He posted on the department’s Facebook page, “Hey friends, sometimes being a police officer means going undercover and doing what you have to do to catch the bad guy. Now that our investigation is complete I'll share with you this photo! Back in January we had an individual preying on Amish children walking home from school. The male individual was pulling up to the children and getting out of his car and masturbating in front of them. Although we did not apprehend the individual we believe he was caught in another county. I wanted to share with you that we will use all means available to try and protect our children. That includes dressing up as an Amish woman to attempt to apprehend a pervert! Thanks goes out to the Neshannock police and New Wilmington police in assistance with the investigation! Sincerely, Sergeant Chad Adams.”

Sadly, the sting didn’t work, but police believe it is because the culprit moved into another county.

DVD Prize sting

Police in Phoenix, Arizona set up a sting to catch people with outstanding warrants, mostly DUIs, in 2002. The people were told they won a DVD player. People thought they were showing up to pick up their prize. Instead, they walked right into their own arrest. Watch as these suspects went from excited to shocked to sad.

Panhandling trick

In 2015, undercover cops in California posed as panhandlers to ticket distracted drivers. They stood on the side of the road, posed as panhandlers and holding signs that identified them as police officers. The pieces of cardboard they were holding also stated that they were looking for seatbelt and cellphone violations. For those drivers who weren’t paying attention, they didn’t read that and they ended up paying the price.

Horse sex

Police in Arizona responded to an online ad posted by suspect Michael Crawford in 2015. He was soliciting a willing horse owner who would let him have sex with his horse. Investigators in the Animal Crimes Investigations Unit chatted with Crawford via e-mail and the phone, posing as willing horse owners, according to USA Today. The exchanges “graphically detailed” exactly what Crawford allegedly wanted to do to the horse.

The sheriff overseeing it all? The controversial Joe Arpaio, who has announced his run for the U.S. Senate in Arizona in 2018, according to the New York Times. He’s known for his severe correctional tactics and his hardline stance on immigration.

Movies! Best undercover movies

https://screenrant.com/best-movies-about-undercover-agents-ranked-rotten-tomatoes/amp/

Creepy Uganda

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 10:12:13 -0400

Creepy Uganda

So Logan and I saw that we were rising through the ranks of Uganda's listeners for the show and thought: “Hey! We should show our love and support to these wonderful people”. So, in order to do it right, we are going on a trip! To Creepy Uganda.

Aside from rituals, ancient vengeful deities, and some rather haunted locations found throughout the wonderful country, there's actually quite a few beautiful areas that, as a tourist, would be something to see! Beautiful Lakes, Mountains and rich cultures are just some of the many things that are strewn about Uganda. So without further adieu, Let’s Get Creepy.

The East African nation of Uganda, formally the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked nation. Kenya borders the nation on the east, South Sudan on the north, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, Rwanda on the south-west, and Tanzania on the south. A sizable piece of Lake Victoria, which Tanzania, Kenya, and the rest of the country share, is located in the southern region of the nation. The African Great Lakes area includes Uganda. The climate in Uganda, which is also part of the Nile basin, is variable but usually modified equatorial(Characteristics of Modified Equatorial Climate have a range of 4 to 27 degrees celsius). There are about 42 million people living there, 8.5 million of them reside in Kampala, the country's capital and largest metropolis.

Uganda was given its name after the kingdom of Buganda, which ruled over a sizable area of the country's southern region, including the capital city of Kampala, and whose language, Luganda, is extensively spoken today.

The United Kingdom began to govern the region as a protectorate in 1894, establishing administrative law throughout the realm. (A Protectorate is state that is governed and guarded by another independent state is known as a protectorate. It is a dependent region with local autonomy over the majority of internal matters that yet recognizes the authority (much like our relationship between the US and Puerto Rico) of a more powerful sovereign state without being that state's actual possession.) On October 9, 1962, Uganda declared its independence from the UK. Since then, there have been other bloody wars, including an eight-year military dictatorship under Idi Amin.

Their Constitution stipulates that "any other language may be used as a medium of instruction in schools or other educational institutions or for legislative, administrative, or judicial functions as may be authorized by law," despite the fact that English and Swahili are the official languages. Many more languages, including Ateso, Lango, Acholi, Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, Luo, Rutooro, Samia, Jopadhola, and Lusoga, are also spoken in the Central and South Eastern portions of the nation.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the president of Uganda at the moment, came to power in January 1986 following a lengthy six-year guerrilla conflict. He was able to run and win the presidency of Uganda in the general elections of 2011, 2016, and 2021 as a result of constitutional revisions that eliminated the president's term restrictions.

Uganda’s varied terrain includes volcanic hills, mountains, and lakes. The average elevation of the nation is 900 meters above sea level. Mountains line Uganda's eastern and western borders. The Ruwenzori mountain range is home to Alexandra, the highest peak in Uganda, which rises to a height of 5,094 meters.

One of the largest lakes in the world, Lake Victoria, which has several islands, has a significant effect on most of the country's southern region. The most significant cities, including Kampala, the capital, and Entebbe, a neighboring city, are found in the south, close to this lake. The country's largest lake, Lake Kyoga, located in the middle of a vast marshy landscape. Uganda is a landlocked country, although it has a lot of big lakes. Lake Albert, Lake Edward, and the smaller Lake George are additional lakes to Lakes Victoria and Kyoga. The Nile basin encompasses practically the whole country of Uganda. On the border with Congo, the Victoria Nile flows from Lake Victoria via Lake Kyoga and into Lake Albert. South Sudan is reached by continuing northward. The Suam River, which is a component of Lake Turkana's internal drainage basin, drains a region in eastern Uganda. The Lotikipi Basin, which is mostly in Kenya, receives water from the far north-eastern region of Uganda.

There are 60 protected areas in Uganda, including ten national parks. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Rwenzori Mountains National Park are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites. What in the hell is UNESCO? It stands for Unidentified Neural Electron Sexual Conspiracy Organization and of course that’s incorrect and stupid. It ACTUALLY stands for The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. A specialised agency of the United Nations aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture.The Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is home to a group of mountain gorillas, the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is home to gorillas and golden monkeys, and the Murchison Falls National Park is home to those evil fucking hippos.

The military in Uganda is known as the Uganda People's Defense Force. There are about 45,000 soldiers on active service in Uganda's military. Only the United States Armed Forces are deployed to more nations, according to analysts, than the Ugandan army, which is actively engaged in a number of combat and peacekeeping missions in the area. Uganda has troops stationed in the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, and the northern and eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The landscape and wildlife of Uganda are the main attractions for tourists. In 2012–13, it contributed 4.9 trillion Ugandan shillings (US$1.88 billion or €1.4 billion as of August 2013) to Uganda's GDP, making it a significant source of employment, investment, and foreign money. Photo safaris across the National parks and wildlife reserves are the primary draws. Other highlights are the mountain gorillas, which may be found in Uganda's aforementioned Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (MGNP), which are two of the continent of Africa’s oldest cultural kingdoms. With more than 1073 species of birds reported, Uganda is an ornithologist’s paradise, ranking fourth among bird species in Africa and sixteenth worldwide. The Great Rift Valley and the white-capped Rwenzori mountains are only two of Uganda's many landscapes.

Unfortunately like everywhere else, Uganda has a plethora of things that have happened there that aren’t exactly what some may consider “pleasant”. For lack of a better term and because we’re adults, let’s just say some Pretty fucked up shit had happened, actually. Genocide being a fairly big thing. But we want to dive into the lesser known side of Uganda.

Like maybe some cryptozoology? Hmmmmmm?

A large cryptid bird named Bagge's Black Bird was once sighted in Uganda's Lake Bujuku, which is located south of Mount Speke in the Ruwenozori Mountains. They were purportedly observed in large numbers in 1898 at a height of 9,000 feet, according to Stephen Salisbury Bagge, a guide for the government. Bagge described them as black birds the size of sheep with an alarm call resembling that of a bull. Not much else to go on here since this was the only sighting allegedly of the creature. But who knows! Maybe it was a pterodactyl, or better yet, a rather large black bird that was living rather well and just so happened to be bigger than the rest.

Denman's bird was another cryptid bird that Canadian mountaineer Earl Denman purportedly claimed to have seen diving "swiftly and nearly vertically in the high mountain air" in Uganda's Ruwenzori Mountains. Ben S. Roesch speculated that they could have been Verreaux's eagles, which are common in the region and frequently observed diving to grab hyraces (rock rabbits) and hares (the thing that doesn’t grow on my head) when hunting in pairs.

The irizima, also known as "the thing that may not be spoken of," was a cryptid that was seen in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo near Lake Edward. One of the least well-supported of the African neodinosaurs, it has been compared to both the mokele-mbembe and the emela-ntouka.

Neodinosaurian cryptids like the mokele-mbembe or li'kela-bembe have been seen mostly in the Republic of the Congo and Cameroon, where it is thought to live in marshy or swampy wetlands, lakes, and rivers. Several other bodies of water have also reported seeing it, but the Likouala region and Lake Tele are particularly linked to it. Many cryptozoologists have long assumed that the mokele-mbembe is a big amphibious animal with a bulky body, a long neck and tail, and a small head. However, a wide range of different reptilian and mammalian identities have also been proposed.

A neodinosaurian cryptid known from the rainforest swamps and rivers of the Republic of the Congo and the southwest Central African Republic, the emela-ntouka (Bomitaba or Lingala: "killer of elephants" or "eater of the tops of trees") is described as a horned animal and has been likened to rhinoceroses and ceratopsian dinosaurs. It is often used as a synonym for the older but now less well-known chipekwe water rhinoceros from Zambia, as well as the ngoubous from Cameroon, the ntambue ya mai from the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and certain accounts of forest rhinoceroses. The morphology of the emela-ntouka has been described as well-defined but puzzling. It is described as an amphibian with an elephantine, rhinoceros-like appearance, a big horn on its nose, and a bulky tail resembling a crocodile. The emela-identity ntouka's has historically been the subject of two extremely divergent conflicting theories: either it was a big semi-aquatic rhinoceros or, primarily due to its bulky tail, a living ceratopsian dinosaur. Many cryptozoologists no longer subscribe to the latter notion, as the emela-ntouka is now thought of as a mammal. One ethnic group, the Aka, refers to the emela-ntouka as mokele-mbembe, a practice that has generated considerable misunderstanding.

Now that we understand those two similar cryptids we go back to the irizima. It was initially brought up by Captain William Hichens, who said that there were two conflicting accounts of the creature, including a "gigantic hippopotamus with the horns of a rhinoceros" and an animal with hippo-like legs, an elephant-like trunk, a lizard's head, and an aardvark's tail. Hichens said that such a creature had been spotted by an unknown big game hunter, who then told Herbert Francis Fenn about it, inspiring him to look for neodinosaurs in the Congo. A Brontosaurus, described by Hichens as "a massive marsh animal, ten times as big as the biggest elephant," was discovered in a Congo swamp by a "madcap man" who had been searching for the monster, according to Hichens. Hichens, according to Bernard Heuvelmans, mistook information about the Great Brontosaurus Hoax and Captain Leicester Stevens' excursion for information about Lake Edward. Also, it sounds like they found the funny mushrooms.

The brontosaurus hoax was pretty interesting as well. Allegedly, the news paper in the area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo wanted Captain Stevens to find this cryptid found in the marshes of Lake Edward. The twist is that the original reports were of a ceratopsian dinosaur not a brontosaurus that was written in the news.

Hunter Roger Courtney later made reference to the Lake Edward monster, describing it as a huge, black beast that spews tremendous waves and spouts. When the hunter persuaded his companions to aid him onto the water, the monster had already dove, according to Courtney, who claimed that a Dutch hunter had spotted the animal from the shore of Lake Edward. In addition, Courtney had heard rumors about "dinosaurs" from the adjacent Ituri Forest, which he took to be true.

According to E. A. Temple-Perkins, who studied the irizima in Lake Edward, the monster—especially as it was described by Courtney—may have originated as a local legend intended to explain why waterspouts naturally occur. Given the lack of reliable material from Lake Edward, Bernard Heuvelmans believed that Captain Hichens had accidentally introduced the Lepage-Gapelle fake monster there, leaving Roger Courtney's brief report as the only description of the Lake Edward monster. Karl Shuker, however, asserts that these two contradictory descriptions demonstrate that the term "irizima" is likely used to describe both of the two primary African neodinosaur types found in Lake Edward, the long-necked mokele-mbembe type and the horned emela-ntouka type. Shuker hypothesizes that the irizima, which Hichens described as having numerous horns, may be the same animal as the emela-ntouka and the ngoubou, which resemble Arsinoitherium (a large two horned mammal that went extinct and resemble rhino but the horns being on its brow instead of its snout).

A group of semiaquatic cryptids known as water lions, water leopards, or jungle walruses have been found in rivers and occasionally wetlands throughout tropical Africa, particularly in the Central African Republic. The majority of the time referred to as huge cats , they can be identified by their protruding fangs or tusks and their penchant for hippopotamus slaughter, so they’re not all bad. A number of competing theories exist, and some water lions have also been identified or confused with neodinosaurs, water rhinoceroses, and pseudodeinotheria. Ingo Krumbiegel and Bernard Heuvelmans theorized that water lions represent a surviving species of sabre-toothed cat adapted to an amphibious lifestyle and that sounds terrifying. The majority of water lion sighting reports were gathered in the 20th century, however reports of the n'gooli or “water panther”, continue to come from Cameroon.

The Nandi bear, also known as the chemosit (Kalenjin: "devil"), is a cryptid that has been seen in western Kenyan highlands as well as Uganda. It is described as a deadly creature with a matted mane that resembles a bear. Cryptozoologists have determined that the Nandi bear is a fusion of several different cryptids, including maybe two real unknown animals: a huge hyena and a giant baboon, however identities of a living chalicothere (the weird horse/gorilla looking thing) and an unknown bear have also been proposed. Since the 20th century, there have been few or no sightings, and it has been hypothesized that the Nandi bear, if it ever existed, is now extinct. Maybe another version of the sasquatch?

Hope the Cryptids were a little more easy going because now we dive into some… shit.

Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa, often known as Kabaka Mutesa II, led a fascinating life. He ruled as Buganda's 36th kabaka (king) from 1939 until his passing on November 21, 1969. In addition, he served as Uganda's first president from 1963 until 1966, when he was ousted and taken into exile by Prime Minister Milton Obote.

Following the passing of his father, King Daudi Cwa II, he succeeded to the throne of Buganda in 1939. He was overthrown twice: once by the colonial governor-general Sir Andrew Cohen in 1953 so that he could be replaced by his half-brother, whom Cohen believed he could better control; and once more in 1966 when Prime Minister Obote forced him to leave for Britain, where he died in exile. Following his first exile of two years, Mutesa II was permitted to reclaim the throne as part of a negotiated agreement that established him as a constitutional monarch and granted the Baganda the opportunity to choose delegates for the kingdom's parliament, the Lukiiko. He had thirteen wives and eleven children by marriage and six through other means.

Initially joining forces to demand self-rule, Sir Edward Mutesa II, KBE and Prime Minister Milton Obote went on to win the 1962 election. Mutesa II was named non-executive president, primarily serving in a ceremonial capacity, but after independence, their relationship started to sour. Obote allegedly instructed Idi Amin-led soldiers to raid his stronghold in 1966. Mutesa II had to escape to the UK once more. Obote declared himself president and assumed total control while he was overseas.

The largest of Uganda's several ethnic groups, the Baganda, were led by Mutesa II as monarch. Despite taking advantage of it, Obote used his position of power to get rid of both the traditional kingships and the independence of the province administrations because Buganda had only agreed to join the state if it had a high degree of autonomy. In 1993, Mutesa's son was elected as the 37th kabaka under a revised constitution. Within Uganda, Buganda is currently a constitutional monarchy. In Uganda, Mutesa II attended King's College, Budo. As a student at Magdalene College in Cambridge, England, he enlisted in an officer training corps and received a captain's commission in the Grenadier Guards. Buganda was then a part of Uganda's British rule. Many of the traditional leaders or kings served as the British's representatives in Uganda. The late fourteenth century is when the Buganda kingly line began. Oddly enough, Obote was deposed in a coup in 1971 by none other than Amin, the head of his own army and closest supporter.

At the age of 45, Mutesa II passed away from alcohol poisoning at his London apartment in 1969. The British authorities determined that he committed suicide, despite his followers' claims that Obote regime assassins were responsible. In 2009, four decades after Mutesa II's passing, a family friend and fellow Ugandan exile living in London told the BBC, "We got warning, people used to write and say somebody has been sent, be aware, take care."

According to JM Kavuma-Kaggwa, an elder from Kyaggwe, Mukono District: “There were rumours that Obote was spending Shs 250,000 per week (a lot of money then) to track down the Kabaka. Their mission had completely failed until luck struck when the late Oscar Kambona of Tanzania who fell out with President Nyerere and fled into exile in London, organised a birthday party in November 1969 in Sir Edward Mutesa’s honour.”

“Also in attendance was a beautiful Muganda girl who had reportedly been recruited by the GSU to go to London, befriend Sir Edward, be close to him and poison him. She came close to the Kabaka during the party. It was reported that the Kabaka invited the girl to this birthday party and that was the time she managed to poison him because she was the one in charge of the Kabaka’s drinks that evening.”

After Obote was overthrown in 1971, Mutesa II's remains were brought back to Uganda and given a formal funeral by the new president, Idi Amin, who had led the attack on Mutesa's palace in 1966 as the army commander.

Definitely an interesting story to say the least. This next event is a little more… unsettling.

On the last night of her life, Rose Nakimuli shut down her little hair salon in rural Uganda at around nine o'clock. The 27-year-old made her way back down to the neighborhood bar for a late-night beverage after walking home to change and turning on her porch light for the evening. Later, while she was strolling along a country road next to a two-lane highway on her way home, a friend leaned out of his small bar to greet her. The following morning, a neighbor discovered her dead; slouched behind banana trees in front of her house. Nakimuli was stripped and forced to kneel on her knees. Her vagina had been penetrated with a cassava stick. Her spouse recognized her by the maroon sweater that was hanging from a tree close by. Considering the porch light was still on suggests that she never actually made it home.

Nakimuli is one of 23 women who have died mysteriously and horribly on the outskirts of Kampala, the expanding metropolis of quickly urbanizing Uganda, from May to November of 2017. The murders have caused fear in the neighborhood, sparked doubts about the nation's dedication to protecting women, and increased scrutiny of the police force, a potent institution criticized for acting with impunity and serving as an extension of the government's ruling political party, the National Resistance Movement.

All of the victims were female, ranging in age from 19 to 38. Four of the individuals have been recognized as sex workers, along with a number of traders and a high school student. Many of the victims had no nearby family and lived alone. Three of the women, at least, are yet unidentified. Many of the murders, according to the police, were committed by witchcraft practitioners who sought financial gain through human sacrifice. Others, according to them, are the result of spousal abuse, drug use among unemployed youth, land disputes, and lone women who fail to take the necessary safeguards.

Twelve or more suspects have been taken into custody. Some have apparently been tortured into confessing. However, not much evidence connecting the suspects to the crimes has been made public.

Locals and activist organizations charge the police with being overburdened and conflicted over the murders of over twenty women.

“What makes me to feel that there is an element of injustice is that it took Rose to die in order for somebody to move,” said Nakimuli’s husband, Anatoli Ndyabagyera.

Community watch groups have been established, a curfew has been implemented to prevent women from travelling alone at night, and the local informal economy has collapsed in the interim. Some of the safety measures have not been applied since Idi Amin's regime and the civil conflict that ensued after his overthrow in 1979.

Interior Minister Jeje Odongo blamed a couple of businesspeople at the head of a vast criminal network connected to "the Illuminati" in September 2017 for most of the killings. According to Odongo, the guys, Ivan Katongole and Phillip Tumuhimbise, performed rituals using the victims' blood and body parts in order to increase their wealth.

In Uganda, magic and mysticism still have great power. The rituals that these beliefs usually take the form of can occasionally become more evil. In the past, killings for ceremonial purposes have often involved children in particular.

Jordan Anderson, a researcher who has studied magic in East and Central Africa, claims that the latest killings of women, however, have little in common with conventional ritual homicides. One reason is that it's unusual to preserve a sacrificial body.

“You are killing the person because, in the first sense, you want to use that body part in the ‘medicine’ or the potion that you are going to put together,” he said. “It’s the particular part of the person you want, not the death per se."

Black magic can also be useful cover for a murderer trying to hide their tracks or an easy scapegoat for incompetent security forces.

“If you have this motif in the media, people can pick it up and copycat it,” Anderson said. “If there’s insecurity in this area, if there are murders taking place, this is a great excuse for the politicians, the police and, above all, the people doing the murders.”

In an interview at one of the clubs where she was last seen alive, her husband noted that Nakimuli was regarded as being "extremely sweet." She was unable to stand by as a child sobbed. He couldn't bring himself to clean up her house for two months following her passing.

In small communities like the one where Nakimuli passed away, rumors are easily disseminated, and Ndyabagyera is still dubious of the police's version of what happened to his wife. He thinks Nakimuli's cousin may have set her up as part of a long-standing vendetta.

The small village of Katabi, where Nakimuli and 11 other women were murdered, is located along the main road from Kampala to Entebbe, which is home to the president of Uganda's palace and the country's primary airport on Lake Victoria. Museveni frequently travels this route on his way from his residence to the capital. He didn't go to the town, however, to pay his respects to the deceased until late September.

Museveni interviewed the victims' friends and neighbors during the unexpected visit while keeping a clipboard in his hand and taking careful notes.

The majority of the twelve slain women in the Katabi area were brutalized in ways akin to Nakimuli. Many had been assaulted with cassava sticks, stripped naked, and strangled.

On the opposite side of Kampala, 20 miles north, the bodies of an additional 11 women were found during the same time frame. There, victims were allegedly sexually assaulted and strangled, yet there were no sticks in their genitalia.

An individual named Ibrahim Kaweesa, a chicken dealer who had previously served ten years in prison for robbery, has been connected to those killings. Which seems like a huge escalation. The interior minister claimed that Tumuhimbise, a teenage shopkeeper, employed Kaweesa to murder a dozen women "for ritual performance to protect or improve his wealth."

As part of a loose network supporting law enforcement, 40-year-old Charles Waswa assisted in the arrest of Kaweesa and claimed, "They removed the blood."

Kaweesa resided two-thirds of the way down a short row of apartments, surrounded by women cooking outside and shrieking children. He was labeled by his neighbors as an arrogant and dangerous womanizer.

Kaweesa's neighbor Annette Namkose, 29, stepped in to prevent them from dating. She alleged through a translator that in response, he threatened to kill her, saying, "I'll kill you like I did the ones in Entebbe."

She declared, "He's not a neighbor you want to be with.

Police said that after being detained, Kaweesa swiftly confessed to the crimes. He allegedly led detectives around a number of the crime scenes without being asked.

“I don’t believe we have arrested each and every person who knew about this matter,” said Kasingye, the police spokesman.

“I cannot say 100% there isn’t going to be any (more) crime because it has never happened anywhere in the world. But at least it (the arrests) shows us we can stop criminals. We can arrest them, we can prosecute them and we can do this throughout the whole country.”

Unfortunately cases like these happen too much in many places around the world. Uganda seems to be trying to get ahead of the curve with the installment of the Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force following the Anti-Trafficking Act in 2009.

Although reports have shown that the task force has been severely underfunded for a while, we do hope that things start to turn around.

Speaking of human sacrifices, this is a report from only a few weeks ago:

Human sacrifices continue unabated in the remote and rural areas of the landlocked East African country of Uganda despite authorities enacting tough laws and threatening death sentences.

According to officials, 132 incidents of human sacrifices have been recorded in the last three years. The numbers have spiked from 22 sacrifices in 2019, 45 in 2020 and 65 in 2021.

Most victims of such “ritual sacrifices” are children, apparently because they are easier to abduct and seen as “pure” and so of "higher ritual value".

Anadolu Agency quoted authorities as saying on Sunday that the sacrifices are being carried out by witch doctors or local traditional healers, dotting rural areas.

Admitting that human sacrifice is a big problem, Lucas Oweyesigire, the police spokesman for the Kampala region, said most such practices take place in rural areas.

The so-called leader of traditional healing and witch doctors, Mama Fina, has also condemned human sacrifice and described those recommending the sacrifice of human beings as “fake”.

Taking advice from witch doctors

Police spokesman Fred Enanga said only last month they "arrested a man identified as Musilimu Mbwire on suspicion of killing his two sons in human sacrifice.”

According to preliminary investigations, a rich man had paid Mbwire money and convinced him to sacrifice his two sons at the instructions of a witch doctor.

Superstitions lead people in rural areas to seek help from witch doctors, who in turn offer weird prescriptions, including human sacrifices to turn around their luck.

A more worrisome part of the superstition is to undertake human sacrifice to put the body at the foundation of a building to bring good luck.

Timothy Mukasa, a local leader in Kampala’s suburb of Kireka, said many multi-storey buildings in the town have been built on a human body.

“The witch doctors tell owners to put a human body at the foundation of the construction of the buildings,” he said.

In 2014, authorities apprehended and later sentenced a tycoon Kato Kajubi for sacrificing a child and then putting his body in the foundation of a building that he was about to construct.

David Musenze, a journalist who studied psychology, said there are not many qualified counsellors to attend to psychological and mental issues of people, which makes them take advice from witch doctors.

"People go to witch doctors to help them get jobs, be promoted at jobs, or kill their enemies, along with many other problems," he said.

So, what about hauntings, you might be thinking to yourself. Well, we found a story from someone living in Uganda from the “your ghost stories” website.

I had always thought this sort of nightmare was happening to me alone until I have come across this site. I always took my suffering silently especially the unexplained sickness which always followed devil attacks.

It all started on 28th November 2004 one hour to midnight. Whilst walking home after branching off from the main road. I heard footsteps of someone walking behind me and whoever it was seemed to have been in a hurry, I glanced back and stepped aside to see who it was and let him/her pass as I was in a narrow path.

I saw a hazy form I can't clearly explain here, my hair stood on my head like when you encounter something fearful. A cold shiver enveloped me and a gust of chilly wind wrapped my entire body, like I was putting on a cloak. I let out a silent incoherent scream and ran towards home which was just nearby. That occurrence signalled the beginning of my suffering to date.

Since then, whenever I sleep I am woken up by something touching my foot or a feeling of a being lying beside me, in the morning I find scratches on my body and at first I thought it was me scratching myself during asleep so I used to trim my nails, but the scratches continued.

During the attacks, I fall in a sort of hypotonizing stance. I neither can move nor make any sound except my feet which I use to struggle and try to shrug of the being.

In the past two years the demon has turned sexual, it would turn in a woman form, hugging me in bed trying to initiate sexual intimacy, when I wake up my reproductive organ feels so cold and shrunk. There's pain also in the pelvic area for most of the day.

I have tried all sorts of remedies e.g. Blessed water, salt, prayers etc. But none seems to work, Any suggestions on how to get rid of this demon is welcome.

And lastly, the Haunted Palace of Kabaka

Kabak’s Palace, also known as Idi Amin’s Torture Chambers or Haunted Mansion or Lubiri Palace is located in Lubiri area of Kampala on Mengo Hill Road. It was the home of the Bugandan kings but these days it largely remains unoccupied due to the horrific events that took place under the rule of Idi Amin and President Milton Obote. President Idi Amin built his torture chamber here where hundreds of people were reportedly tortured to death. Their spirits are believed to have haunted the palace which is closed to the public these days for repair and clearing it from the so-called spirits.

MOVIES-Top movies set in africa

30 Must Watch Movies Set in Africa - IMDb

The F’n Electric Chair

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 21:07:55 -0400

https://www.listal.com/movies/electric%2bchair

An American-developed method of execution known as the "electric chair" involves strapping the condemned individual to a specially constructed wooden chair and electrocuting them using electrodes attached to their head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo, New York, proposed this form of execution in 1881. It was developed during the 1880s as a purportedly merciful substitute for hanging, and it was first used in 1890. This technique of execution has been utilized for many years in the Philippines and the United States. Death was first thought to arise from brain injury, but research in 1899 revealed that ventricular fibrillation and ultimately cardiac arrest are the main causes of death.

Despite the fact that the electric chair has long been associated with the death sentence in the United States, lethal injection, which is generally regarded as a more compassionate mode of execution, has replaced the electric chair as the preferred method of execution. Except in Tennessee and South Carolina, where it may be used without the prisoner's consent if the medications for lethal injection are not available, electrocution is only still permitted as a second option that may be selected over lethal injection at the request of the prisoner in some states. In the states of Alabama and Florida, where lethal injection is an alternate technique, electrocution is an optional method of execution as of 2021. Inmates who are condemned to death for crimes committed before March 31, 1998 and who elect electrocution as their method of execution no longer have access to the electric chair; instead, they are put to death by lethal injection, as are those who do not pick electrocution. In the event that a judge rules that lethal injection is unlawful, electrocution is also permitted in Kentucky. If alternative methods of execution are later determined to be unlawful in the state where the execution is taking place, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have permitted the use of the electric chair as a backup method. On February 8, 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the state's constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment," which included electric chair execution. As a result, Nebraska, the only state that continued to use electrocution as the exclusive form of death, stopped carrying out these kinds of executions.

Newspaper stories about how the high voltages used to power arc lighting, a type of brilliant outdoor street lighting that required high voltages in the range of 3000-6000 volts, were published one after another in the late 1870s and early 1880s. It was a strange new phenomenon that appeared to instantly strike a victim dead without leaving a mark. On August 7, 1881, one of these mishaps in Buffalo, New York, resulted in the invention of the electric chair. George Lemuel Smith, a drunk dock worker, managed to get back inside the Brush Electric Company arc lighting power house that evening and touch the brush and ground of a large electric dynamo in search of the excitement of a tingling feeling he had felt while holding the guard rail. He died instantaneously. The coroner who looked into the matter brought it up before a Buffalo-area scientific group that year. Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist with a technical background who was also in attendance at the talk, believed the strange event may have some practical use.

Southwick participated in a series of studies that involved electrocuting hundreds of stray dogs alongside doctor George E. Fell and the director of the Buffalo ASPCA. They conducted tests using the dog both in and out of the water, and they experimented with the electrode kind and location until they developed a consistent procedure for electrocuting animals. After publishing his theories in scholarly publications in 1882 and 1883, Southwick went on to argue for the employment of this technique as a more compassionate alternative to hanging in capital cases in the early 1880s. His work gained widespread attention. In an effort to create a system that might be scaled up to operate on people, he developed calculations based on the dog experimentation. Early on in his plans, he used a modified dental chair to confine the condemned; this chair would later come to be known as the electric chair.

There was growing opposition to hangings in particular and the death penalty in general following a string of botched executions in the United States. A three-person death penalty commission was established in 1886 by newly elected New York State Governor David B. Hill to look into more humane ways of carrying out executions. The commission was chaired by the human rights activist and reformer Elbridge Thomas Gerry and included Southwick and lawyer and politician Matthew Hale from New York. There was growing opposition to hangings in particular and the death penalty in general following a string of botched executions in the United States. A three-person death penalty commission was established in 1886 by newly elected New York State Governor David B. Hill to look into more humane ways of carrying out executions. The commission was chaired by the human rights activist and reformer Elbridge Thomas Gerry and included Southwick and lawyer and politician Matthew Hale from New York. They also went to George Fell's dog electrocutions, who had collaborated with Southwick on early 1880s tests. Fell continued his research by electrocuting sedated, vivisected dogs in an effort to understand how electricity killed a victim. The Commission suggested execution in 1888 utilizing Southwick's electric chair concept, with the convicted person's head and feet hooked to metal wires. With three electric chairs put up at the jails in Auburn, Clinton, and Sing Sing, they further suggested that the state execute prisoners rather than the individual counties. These ideas were incorporated into a measure that was approved by the legislature, signed by Governor Hill on June 4, 1888, and was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 1889.

The New York Medico-Legal Society, an unofficial organization made up of physicians and lawyers, was tasked with assessing these criteria because the bill itself did not specify the kind or quantity of electricity that should be utilized. Since tests up to that point had been conducted on animals smaller than a human (dogs), some committee members weren't sure that the lethality of alternating current (AC) had been conclusively proven. In September 1888, a committee was formed and recommended 3000 volts, but the type of electricity, direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), wasn't determined.

At this point, the state's efforts to develop the electric chair were mixed up with the conflict between Thomas Edison's direct current power system and George Westinghouse's alternating current-based system, which came to be known as the "war of the currents." Since 1886, the two businesses had been engaged in commercial competition. In 1888, a sequence of circumstances led to an all-out media war between the two. Frederick Peterson, a neurologist who served as the committee's chair, hired Harold P. Brown to serve as a consultant. After numerous people died as a result of the careless installation of pole-mounted AC arc lighting lines in New York City in the early months of 1888, Brown embarked on his own war against alternating current. Peterson had assisted Brown when he publicly electrocuted dogs with AC in July 1888 at Columbia College in an effort to demonstrate that AC was more lethal than DC. Thomas Edison's West Orange laboratory offered technical support for these experiments, and an unofficial alliance between Edison Electric and Brown developed. On December 5, 1888, Brown set up an experiment back at West Orange as Thomas Edison, members of the press, and members of the Medico-Legal Society, including Elbridge Gerry, the head of the death sentence panel, watched. Brown conducted all of his experiments on animals larger than humans using alternating current, including four calves and a lame horse, which were all operated under 750 volts of AC. The Medico-Legal Society advocated using 1000–1500 volts of alternating electricity for executions based on these findings, and newspapers emphasized that the voltage used was just half that of the power lines that run over the streets of American cities. Westinghouse denounced these experiments as biased self-serving demonstrations intended to constitute an outright attack on alternating current, and he charged Brown of working for Edison. Members of the Medico-Legal Society, including electrotherapy specialist Alphonse David Rockwell, Carlos Frederick MacDonald, and Columbia College professor Louis H. Laudy, were tasked with determining the specifics of electrode placement at the request of death sentence panel chairman Gerry. They resorted to Brown once more for the technical support. Treasurer Francis S. Hastings, who appeared to be one of the key figures at the company trying to portray Westinghouse as a peddler of death dealing AC current, tried to acquire a Westinghouse AC generator for the test but discovered that none could be acquired. Brown requested that Edison Electric Light supply the equipment for the tests. They ultimately used Edison's West Orange facility for the animal testing they carried out in the middle of March 1889. Austin E. Lathrop, the superintendent of prisons, petitioned Brown to create the chair, but Brown declined. Dr. George Fell created the final designs for a straightforward oak chair, deviating from the suggestions of the Medico-Legal Society by moving the electrodes to the head and the center of the back. Brown did accept the responsibility of locating the generators required to run the chair. With the aid of Edison and Westinghouse's main AC competitor, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, he was able to covertly purchase three Westinghouse AC generators that were being retired, ensuring that Westinghouse's equipment would be connected to the first execution. Edwin F. Davis, the first "state electrician" (executioner) for the State of New York, constructed the electric chair.

Joseph Chapleau, who had been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of killing his neighbor with a sled stake, became the first victim of New York's new electrocution legislation. William Kemmler, who had been found guilty of killing his wife with a hatchet, was the next prisoner on the death row. Kemmler filed an appeal on his behalf with the New York Court of Appeals, arguing that the use of electricity as a manner of execution amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" that was in violation of both the federal and state constitutions of the United States. Kemmler's petition for a writ of habeas corpus was rejected by the court on December 30, 1889, according to a long decision by Judge Dwight:

“We have no doubt that if the Legislature of this State should undertake to proscribe for any offense against its laws the punishment of burning at the stake, breaking at the wheel, etc., it would be the duty of the courts to pronounce upon such an attempt the condemnation of the Constitution. The question now to be answered is whether the legislative act here is subject to the same condemnation. Certainly, it is not so on its face, for, although the mode of death described is conceded to be unusual, there is no common knowledge or consent that it is cruel; it is a question of fact whether an electric current of sufficient intensity and skillfully applied will produce death without unnecessary suffering.”

On August 6, 1890, Kemmler was put to death in Auburn Prison in New York; Edwin F. Davis served as the "state electrician." Kemmler was rendered unconscious after being exposed to 1,000 volts of AC electricity for the first 17 seconds, but his heart and respiration were left unaffected. Edward Charles Spitzka and Carlos F. MacDonald, the attending doctors, stepped forward to examine Kemmler. Spitzka allegedly said, "Have the current turned on again, quick, no delay," after making sure Kemmler was still alive. But the generator required some time to recharge. A 2,000 volt AC shock was administered to Kemmler on the second attempt. The skin's blood vessels burst, bled, and caught fire in the vicinity of the electrodes. It took roughly eight minutes to complete the execution. A reporter who witnessed the execution reported that it was "an horrible scene, considerably worse than hanging," and George Westinghouse subsequently said, "They would have done better using an ax."

Following its adoption by Ohio (1897), Massachusetts (1900), New Jersey (1906), and Virginia (1908), the electric chair quickly replaced hanging as the most often used form of execution in the country. Death by electrocution was either legal or actively used to kill offenders in 26 US States, the District of Columbia, the Federal government, and the US Military. Until the middle of the 1980s, when lethal injection became the method of choice for carrying out legal executions, the electric chair remained the most popular execution technique.

It appears that other nations have thought about employing the technique, occasionally for unique motives. From 1926 to 1987, the electric chair was also used in the Philippines. In May 1972, Jaime Jose, Basilio Pineda, and Edgardo Aquino were killed there in a well-known triple execution for the 1967 kidnapping and gang rape of the young actress Maggie de la Riva. Lethal injection was used instead of the electric chair when executions resumed in the Philippines after a break in 1976.

Some accounts claim that Ethiopia tried to use the electric chair as a means of capital punishment. According to legend, the emperor Menelik II purchased three electric chairs in 1896 at the urging of a missionary, but was unable to put them to use since his country did not have a stable source of electricity at the time. Menelik II is rumored to have used the third electric chair as a throne, while the other two chairs were either utilized as garden furniture or gifted to guests.

During the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, the results of which were released in 1953, the United Kingdom explored lethal injection in addition to lethal injection, the electric chair, the gas chamber, the guillotine, and gunshot as alternatives to hanging. The Commission came to the conclusion that hanging was preferable to the electric chair in no specific way. In the UK, the death penalty was abolished for the majority of offenses in 1965.

In 1894, serial killer Lizzie Halliday was given a death sentence via electric chair; however, after a medical committee deemed her crazy, governor Roswell P. Flower reduced her death sentence to life in a mental hospital. Maria Barbella, a second woman who received a death sentence in 1895, was exonerated the following year. On March 20, 1899, Martha M. Place at Sing Sing Prison became the first female to be put to death by electric chair for the murder of her stepdaughter Ida Place, who was 17 years old.

Ruth Snyder, a housewife, was put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the murder of her husband in March of that year. Tom Howard, a news photographer, sneaked a camera into the execution chamber and captured her in the electric chair as the current was put on for a front-page story in the New York Daily News the next morning. It continues to be among the most well-known instances in photojournalism.

On July 13, 1928, a record was set at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, Kentucky, when seven men were put to death in the electric chair one after the other.

George Stinney, an African-American boy, was electrocuted at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina, on June 16, 1944, making him the youngest person ever to be put to death by the electric chair. In 2014, a circuit court judge annulled his sentence and reversed his conviction on the grounds that Stinney had not received a fair trial. The judge found that Stinney's legal representation fell short of his constitutional rights as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment.

Following the Gregg v. Georgia ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, John Spenkelink was the first person to be electrocuted on May 25, 1979. He was the first person to be put to death in this way in the United States since 1966.

Lynda Lyon Block was the last person to be put to death in the electric chair without having the option of a different execution technique on May 10, 2002 in Alabama.

On the day of the execution, the condemned prisoner's legs and head are both shaved. The condemned prisoner is led to the chair and placed there before having their arms and legs firmly restrained with leather belts to prevent movement or struggle. The prisoner's legs are shaved, and electrodes are fastened to them. A hat covering his head is made of a sponge soaked in saltwater or brine. To avoid presenting a gory scene to the onlookers, the prisoner may wear a hood or be blinded.

The execution starts when the prisoner is told the order of death and given the chance to say one last thing. Alternating current is delivered through a person's body in several cycles (changes in voltage and length) to fatally harm their internal organs. The initial, stronger electric shock (between 2000 and 2,500 volts) is meant to induce instantaneous unconsciousness, ventricular fibrillation, and eventually cardiac arrest. The goal of the second, weaker shock (500–1,500 volts) is to fatally harm the essential organs.

A medical professional examines the prisoner for signs of life once the cycles are finished. If none are found, the medical professional notes the moment of death and waits for the body to cool before removing it to prepare for an autopsy. The doctor alerts the warden if the prisoner shows signs of life, and the warden would often order another round of electric current or (rarely) postpone the execution (see Willie Francis).

The reliability of the first electrical shock to consistently cause rapid unconsciousness, as proponents of the electric chair sometimes say, is disputed by opponents. According to witness accounts, electrocutions gone wrong (see Willie Francis and Allen Lee Davis) and results of post-mortem investigations, the electric chair is frequently unpleasant during executions.

The electric chair has drawn criticism since in a few cases the victims were only put to death after receiving many electric shocks. As a result, the practice was called into question as being "cruel and unusual punishment." In an effort to allay these worries, Nebraska implemented a new electrocution procedure in 2004 that required the delivery of a 15-second application of electricity at 2,450 volts, followed by a 15-minute wait period during which a representative checked for signs of life. The current Nebraska protocol, which calls for a 20-second application of current at 2,450 volts, was introduced in April 2007 in response to further concerns voiced about the 2004 procedure.

Before the 2004 protocol revision, a first application of current at 2,450 volts for eight seconds, a one-second interval, and then a 22-second application at 480 volts were given. The cycle was performed three more times after a 20-second rest.

Willie Francis tried to escape the electric chair in 1946 and reportedly screamed, "Take it off! Let me Breathe!" when the current was turned on. It turned out that an inebriated jail officer and convict had illegally set up the portable electric chair. In a case titled Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, attorneys for the convicted person contended that, although not dying, Francis had indeed been put to death. Francis was put back in the electric chair and killed in 1947 after the argument was rejected on the grounds that re-execution did not violate the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Allen Lee Davis, who had been found guilty of murder, was put to death in Florida on July 8, 1999, using the "Old Sparky" electric chair. Pictures of Davis' injured face were taken and afterwards uploaded to the Internet. According to the results of the study, Davis had started bleeding before the electricity was turned on, and the chair had performed as planned. According to Florida's Supreme Court, the electric chair is not "cruel and unusual punishment." When flames sprang from Pedro Medina's skull during his execution in Florida in 1997, it stirred much debate. Medina's brain and brain stem were damaged by the initial electrical surge, which caused him to pass away quickly, according to an autopsy. A court determined that "unintentional human error" rather than any flaws in the "apparatus, equipment, and electrical circuitry" of Florida's electric chair was to blame for the occurrence.

The Louisiana legislature modified the manner of death in 1940; as of June 1, 1941, electrocution was the only option left. At first, Louisiana's electric chair was moved from parish to parish to carry out executions since it lacked a permanent location. Typically, the electrocution would take place in the jail or courtroom of the parish where the condemned prisoner had been found guilty. The first person to be executed with an electric chair in Louisiana was Eugene Johnson, a black man who was found guilty of stealing and killing Steven Bench, a white farmer who resided close to Albany. Johnson was killed at the Livingston Parish Jail on September 11, 1941.

To house all executions in Louisiana, it was decided to construct an execution chamber in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1957. Elmo Patrick Sonnier, the prisoner who served as the inspiration for the movie Dead Man Walking, and Willie Francis were notable executions on the chair (the only inmate to survive the electric chair; he was ultimately executed after the first attempt failed). Lethal injection was chosen by the State of Louisiana as the only execution technique in 1991 as a result of new law. Andrew Lee Jones was the last person put to death aboard "Gruesome Gertie" on July 22, 1991. Eighty-seven executions took place using "Gruesome Gertie" during the course of its fifty-year lifespan. The Louisiana Prison Museum presently houses it. Death row convicts referred to the electric chair in Louisiana as " Gruesome Gertie." It is also well-known for being the first electric chair execution to fail, when Willie Francis was put to death. As mentioned earlier.

The electric chair used in New Jersey's state prisons, known as Old Smokey, is displayed in the New Jersey State Police Museum. Richard Hauptmann, the person responsible for the Lindbergh kidnapping, was the chair's most well-known victim.

The electric chair in Tennessee and Pennsylvania both went by this moniker.

Alabama in the United States has an electric chair called Yellow Mama. From 1927 through 2002, executions were held there.

The chair was first put at Kilby State Prison in Montgomery, Alabama, where it was given the moniker "Yellow Mama" after being sprayed with highway-line paint from the nearby State Highway Department lab. The chair was created by a British prisoner in 1927, the same year that Horace DeVauhan was executed for the first time.

Lynda Lyon Block, who was executed in 2002, was the final person to be executed in Yellow Mama. Since then, the chair has been kept at the Holman Correctional Facility in an attic above the execution room.

Since the introduction of lethal injection in 1979, which is now the standard procedure in all U.S. counties that permit capital punishment, the usage of the electric chair has decreased.

Only the American states of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee still allow the use of the electric chair as a method of execution as of 2021. The laws of Arkansas and Oklahoma allow for its application in the event that lethal injection is ever ruled to be unlawful. It or lethal injection are the only options available to inmates in the other states. Only prisoners convicted in Kentucky prior to a specific date may choose to be executed by electric chair. In the event that a judge rules that lethal injection is unlawful, electrocution is also permitted in Kentucky.

Tennessee was one of the states that offered convicts the option of the electric chair or a lethal injection; nevertheless, the state approved a statute enabling the use of the electric chair in the event that lethal injection medicines were unavailable or rendered inadmissible in May 2014.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on February 15, 2008, that the Nebraska Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual punishment," which includes death by electrocution.

Before Furman v. Georgia, Oklahoma witnessed the last legal electrocution in the US. This occurred in 1966. The electric chair was used relatively regularly in post-Gregg v. Georgia executions throughout the 1980s, but as lethal injection became more popular in the 1990s, its use in the United States steadily decreased. The most recent US electrocution, that of Nicholas Todd Sutton, who was responsible for murdering two acquaintances and his own grandmother in North Carolina and Tennessee from August to December 1979, took place in Tennessee in February 2020. A handful of states still give the death penalty option to the convicted, allowing them to choose between lethal injection and electrocution.

The Setagaya Family Murders

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 00:41:39 -0400

Welcome back passengers! Tonight we dive deep… too deep.. Into our bread and butter… we are diving back into unsolved murders. Hold on to your skivvies and make sure you have a drink and a magnifying glass because we are gonna talk about the Setagaya Murders. Bum bum buuuuuuummmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

Typically, New Year's Eve is a happy occasion. It indicates that things are changing and making room for something new. It's a time to rejoice in a brand-new beginning, typically with your family and close friends.

This day, known in Japan as Omisoka, is regarded as one of the most significant ones of the year. There are traditions and conventions connected, which are often observed. In Japan, New Year's is regarded as the most prestigious celebration, unlike in America where it is frequently associated with revelry and midnight kisses.

The holiday season, however, was permanently tarnished by a tragic occurrence that happened around the turn of the century. For almost 20 years, what happened on this night in the Tokyo neighborhood of Setagaya has baffled detectives to no end.

In contrast to other cultures, Japan celebrates a century's conclusion. Japan rang in the new millennium a full year after we did in America with the opening of 2001, while most of us did so with the notorious Y2K fear.

By most accounts, the Miyazawa family was a normal Japanese household.

The father, Mikio Miyazawa, age 44, was employed by the London-based marketing company Interbrand. It is unknown what type of work Mikio performed for the company, but it was a sizable one with locations in more than twenty nations and experience working on significant marketing campaigns for organizations like Microsoft, Nissan, Xerox, and many more. In fact, Interbrand was the organization in charge of branding the phrase "Wi-fi" the year prior, in 1999.

Interbrand coworkers characterized Mikio as "congenial." They said he was "the kind of man that got along with everyone - definitely not the kind to create enemies."

The family's mother and wife, Yasuko Miyazawa, was forty-one years old and similar to her husband. She was a teacher who spent a lot of time with the couple's two children, Rei, 6, and Niina, 8, and was universally regarded as sensitive and gentle.

The daughter, Niina, was in second grade and appeared to be your average young lady: she was lively, she was fun, and she loved ballet and soccer, two activities in which she was actively involved.

Rei, the family's youngest member, had recently been experiencing a problem: His speech handicap had been causing the family quite a bit of worry. It appears that they had begun to look for expert assistance, but it was still quite concerning to them.

In 1990, Mikio and Yasuki Miyazawa moved into their house in Setagaya. It was a growing neighborhood with over 200 households at the time, and it seemed like a pleasant enough place to raise a family.

The second biggest of Tokyo's twenty-three districts, Setagaya is situated immediately southwest of the central city. Setagaya is a fairly residential-looking neighborhood that sticks out from its hectic, crowded surroundings and is within a short distance from Tokyo Bay.

Even by itself, the Miyazawa family house was intriguing.

The house was a two-story, communal structure. On the exterior, it appeared to be a single house, but in reality, it was more like a duplex. It made it possible for the Miyazawas to be neighbors with Yasuko's family, mostly her mother but also her sister and brother-in-law who were also living with her at the time.

Seven family members may now reside in this joint home, even though there was no interior link between the two homes. You must exit the building and enter through a different entrance to get from one side to the other.

The park directly back the house, however, was the feature that had the greatest impact. Although the park had been present for some time, the city had planned to enlarge it. This indicated that the majority of the Miyazawa's neighbors had been vacating their properties recently to make room for this growth.

The neighborhood, which had formerly been home to more than 200 people, had now been reduced to just four: the Miyazawas, their cousins who lived next door, two other families who resided on their block. Aside from that, the neighborhood was a ghost town.

The skate park directly behind the Miyazawa family house was where the majority of local activity was taking place. The Miyazawa family had some difficulties because this was the busiest area of the rapidly developing park. See, the only thing separating the skate park and the home was a fence.

Mikio had addressed some rowdy and annoying teens at the skate park the week before New Year's Eve for making too much of a ruckus. A witness claimed to have seen him encounter a group of teenage rebels who belonged to the Bosozoku, a form of Japanese motorcycle gang, at about the same time.

The Miyazawas were among the last households to begin making arrangements to move because of the park's growing foot traffic and the city's intentions to expand it further. In only a few months, they would be relocating to another house in the neighborhood, and it was December 2000. Therefore, all they had to do to stop worrying about it was rough out the skate park hooligans for a few months.

Sadly, they would never have the opportunity.

In addition to Mikio's run-ins with hooligans throughout the week leading up to New Year's Eve, the Miyazawa family will also encounter some other peculiar events.

The locals had reportedly begun to see some of the area's animals being physically abused over the summer. There are claims that neighborhood cats, most of which are stray, had been tortured and that rats had been discovered dead. One witness remembered witnessing a nice stray suddenly emerge one day without a tail.

Yasuko informed her father-in-law that a strange automobile had parked in front of their home on Christmas Day, December 25. Despite the fact that there was alternate parking nearby that wouldn't need the person parked to hop over a fence to enter the park, this has occurred more than once.

An eyewitness saw a guy who was thought to be in his forties going near the Miyazawa family home two days later, on the 27th. A apparently benign item that, in hindsight, appears suspicious. The neighboring park assures that people will be in the neighborhood for a number of reasons.

A guy was sighted in the adjacent Seijogakuenmae Station on December 29, just a few days before the start of the new century, not far from where the Miyazawa family was residing. Due to the weather, one eyewitness remembered this man's "skater"-style clothing as being peculiar and believed the man, who was also sporting a rucksack, appeared to be significantly underdressed.

Police suspect a guy fitting this general description bought a sashimi knife from the same retail center on this day, the 29th. It was quite simple to track down because it was the only one bought at this grocery on this particular day.

A man matching that description was sighted on December 30 about a mile from the Miyazawas' home, in the vicinity of Sengawa Station. This unsub, who was described as being between 35 and 40 years old, was moving steadily toward the Setagaya residence of the Miyazawa family.

Unbeknownst to them, the Miyazawa family's final day would be on Saturday, December 30.

They carried on with their usual activities while getting ready for the next holiday. Due to the approaching New Year and the fresh start of a new century, there was a celebratory mood in the air.

The family reportedly went shopping around about 6:00 PM in the early evening. Although we can't be certain if all four of the family members attended, a bystander remembered seeing them in a local mall around that time. This tale has credibility because a neighbor who was driving by their house that evening remembered seeing the family automobile disappearing at about 6:30 PM.

Yasuko contacted her mother who lived next door at approximately 7:00 that evening. The families spoke to one another over the phone frequently since they considered one another to be neighbors. The topic of the discussion was probably something unimportant, most likely Yasuko asking her mother if she wanted to see her granddaughter.

Niina walking next door to watch a taped TV show till 9:30 PM or so confirms this. Everything for the Miyazawa family had been quite routine up until this point in the night.

An accessible email that was viewed at roughly 10:38 that evening is the final activity we have of the Miyazawa family. It was Mikio reading a business email that was password-protected, indicating that he was most likely the one who opened it.

At least one member of the Miyazawa family was last known to be alive at this time. And their residence, which was often peaceful and calm, was about to turn into a house of horrors.

A witness heard what sounded like an altercation inside the Miyazawa house that evening at approximately ten o'clock while walking along the park trail behind the home. They couldn't recall any especially ear-shattering shouts or loud physical noises, but they claimed it just sounded like a couple arguing.

A neighbor of Yasuko's family would notice a loud pounding sound coming from the Miyazawa side of the building around an hour and a half later. They didn't know the precise time, but they were able to estimate it later using the current television programming schedule.

This happened at the same time that a witness or maybe a neighbor reported seeing a guy rushing along the sidewalk near to the family's home.

These were the only three indications that something wasn't right in Setagaya that evening. It would take hours before anybody realized how terrifying the Miyazawa house had become.

Three passengers were being picked up by a taxi driver not far from the Miyazawa residence. All three of these passengers, who will stay unnamed for this story due to the cab driver's oversight, were middle-aged males who kept to themselves the entire time.

It was far after midnight when the three guys were being dropped off at a neighboring station, something the taxi driver remembered as being quite unusual for the time.

A bloodstain from one of the individuals who appeared to have a wound was seen on the backseat of the taxi.

Yasuko's mother attempted to contact her daughter's family the next morning on New Year's Eve to arrange preparations for later that day. Unexpectedly, her call wouldn't even connect, much less ring.

She was unaware that someone had cut and purposely unplugged the phone lines in the Miyazawa family home hours earlier.

She went outside and made her way to the house where her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren lived. When the doorbell went unanswered, she used her set of keys to allow herself in, according to the police report she would later submit.

There was no sound to be heard within the home itself. The moment Yasuko's mother walked inside the house, she would have realized something was wrong. As she entered the family's home, she quickly realized the reality as she came face to face with Mikio Miyazawa's body at the foot of the stairs.

The family's father, who was 44 years old, was found dead at the bottom of the stairway leading to the second storey after having been stabbed several times.

Yasuko's mother remembers trying to find out what had happened to the rest of her family by walking upstairs to the second storey. The remains of her granddaughter Niina and daughter Yasuko, who had both been viciously stabbed hundreds of times, would be waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Their suffering far surpassed that of Mikio's body.

Yasuko's mother recalls placing her hands on the corpses of her daughter and granddaughter in an effort to check for signs of life, either out of grief or even hope.

Her granddaughter Niina, with whom she had just finished watching a television show, and Yasuko, her daughter, with whom she had reared and been close for more than forty years. They were both now dead and icy, loved ones turned into corpses by an unidentified murderer.

The last catastrophe would be revealed to Yasuko's mother in an adjacent bedroom: six-year-old Rei, who had been struggling with a speech impediment in an effort to satisfy his parents, was still in bed. He had been strangled to death, which led detectives to believe that he was the family's first victim.

It goes without saying that Yasuko's mother—this devastated grandmother—would call the police. However, what she had witnessed was irreversible, and nothing could replace the family she had just lost.

When the event occurred, Tokyo Police were as appalled by the crime scene as Yasuko's mother had been. They were aware that this case would shock everyone in the neighborhood: witnessing a whole family being murdered by an unidentified intruder in the middle of the night is arguably the most terrifying scenario one could conceive.

Police started investigating the incident and piecing it together at the spot. Yasuko's mother, sister, and brother-in-law, who were all there when the crime took place next door, remembered anything peculiar or unusual that may have transpired that evening.

The only thing that sprang to mind for them was the loud thud that had happened at about 11:30 that evening; the timing was supported by a TV schedule that showed the thud happened during the broadcast of a certain program. When Mikio, the father, approached the alleged murderer, the police instantly assumed that the thud may have happened then. They assumed that he had fought with the person who had attacked Yasuko's family based on the injuries on his body, and that the loud thud Yasuko's family had heard could have been him being thrown to the bottom of the steps.

Mikio had been stabbed several times, with the majority of the wounds being to his neck. They would deduce that the sashimi knife that had been abandoned in the family's kitchen was what had caused the stab wounds. But the knife had somehow broken when Mikio was being attacked.

Investigators instantly hypothesized that the broken knife had been merely one of two murder weapons based on the evidence they had at the site. The killer also used a knife he had discovered in Mikio and Yasuko's very own kitchen to murder the two ladies upstairs.

The fact that Mikio's body was still in his day clothes—business-casual dress that he would typically wear out and about—was what was most peculiar about its discovery.

As for the bodies of Yasuko and Niina, however, the home was constructed so that a ladder leading to a third-story loft was located at the top of the stairs going to the second level. Many people have speculated that because the third-story loft contained a bed and a TV, Yasuko and Niina were both there when the killings took place, maybe in bed or watching TV.

Both Yasuko and Niina's bodies, which had been repeatedly stabbed, were discovered at the bottom of the ladder leading to the third-floor loft. Investigators determined that both individuals had been stabbed well past the point of death because of the excessive number of knife wounds. This gave rise to several speculations suggesting that the murderer had some type of hatred for women or at the very least had some anger toward them. Sadly, this is not an attitude that is particularly unusual in these homicides, but it would become important in the investigation that followed.

Rei, the family's son, was discovered murdered in bed. When police started to piece together the facts, they realized that Rei was the first member of the family to be slain, which explained why he had avoided a horrific stabbing death like the rest of his family.

About six hours after the deaths were found that afternoon, a young guy was brought into a hospital in Tobu Nikko Station. The Miyazawa family's neighborhood in Tokyo, Setagaya, is a few hours north of Tobu Nikko Station, and there are several connecting trains that run between the two.

This individual, whose age was given as thirty, was accepted without disclosing his identity or the nature of his injuries. A hand wound that was allegedly serious enough to have revealed bone was the actual damage. Staff members at the scene were astonished by how casually the man was treating the wound and thought him to be fairly suspect, which is why they had a good memory of the specifics.

This man was dressed in a black down jacket and pants and appeared to be well into his forties. The medical personnel had no idea what had transpired just hours earlier, yet the man was treated and then released despite not providing any information about himself.

The crime scene was completely covered with evidence of what had occurred in the early morning hours of December 31st, much to the investigator's amazement.

First and foremost, by locating the murder weapons right away, the authorities had found the key to any inquiry. Both knives were quickly discovered there, still covered in blood.

In contrast to many police investigations that falter in the absence of a murder weapon, the police in this case found two within the first few minutes of their inquiry.

But in addition to the blades, the Miyazawa family house turned out to be a gold mine of information that helped the police put together what had transpired that night.

The family's first aid box had been unlocked, perhaps by Yasuko and Niina, at some point during the actual assault, they would discover. Blood from eight-year-old Niina was discovered on several of the first aid kit's bandages.

Disgustingly, authorities would uncover unflushed excrement in the upper bathroom. This was reportedly left by the murderer, who was either too proud of his ability to get away with it or too ignorant of DNA testing. Investigators would find traces of a meal with string beans and sesame spinach that had presumably been consumed somewhere else.

Since then, internet websleuths have described this dish as relatively "boring," similar to what a mother might serve her kid. This has become a popular hypothesis about a man who continued to live at home with his mother.

The footprints of the presumed intruder were all over the home, strewn around in blood and mud. It will soon be generally recognized that these shoe patterns belonged to a particular kind of Slazenger footwear. At this time, Slazenger shoes were accessible all throughout Japan, but the shoeprint they left behind was for a very particular size that wasn't available there. Many ideas concerning the killer's ethnicity were sparked by the fact that this shoe size was a Korean shoe size and the shoe would have most likely only been found for sale in South Korea.

In addition to the bandages from the first aid kit used by Niina; towels and women's sanitary towels were also discovered with unidentified amounts of blood on them. This was a surprising discovery for the police since it supported the theory that Mikio had engaged the attacker on the steps, presumably injuring him and forcing him to seek immediate medical assistance.

Police would have to send the blood samples for testing, which is a process that will take some time to complete. They would have to continue looking for evidence until then, which the murderer had purposefully left behind.

The most shocking evidence found throughout the inquiry was a range of apparel and belongings that the killer (or killers) brought before leaving them behind. It appeared as though the murderer intentionally left the garments behind or at the very least paid no attention to doing so.

The attire that the murderer had most likely worn to the crime site was described as being suitable for a skater. The goods included a black AirTech jacket, a white and purple long sleeve shirt (which has alternately been referred to as a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt), black Edwin gloves, a multicolored scarf with no tags that is almost unrecognizable, and a black handkerchief.

The blood stains found on the long-sleeved shirt made it the most notable of the pieces. Even if it wasn't the proper size, the clothes weren't in the same style as anything the family members would have worn. Only Marufuru stores, a retail chain that also offered the style of gloves and hat discovered at the crime site, carried the white shirt with purple sleeves.

The handkerchief was also notable in its own right because the police learned that it had been ironed before use. Simply said, very few individuals would go to the trouble of ironing a handkerchief, thus this was strange. Internet theorists have said that the handkerchief being ironed is another more indication that the suspected killer lived at home with a mother figure because the thought of a young skater using a handkerchief is already a peculiar one.

Forensic experts would find traces of the male perfume Drakkar Noir on the handkerchief.

It was discovered that every piece of clothing had been cleaned in hard water, which meant that the water used to clean the clothes was rich in minerals and vitamins that aren't often present in water that naturally occurs. Japan has traditionally employed a soft water system, which simply means that the water is water with some sodium added. Given that Korea has a hard water system and that the clothing were cleaned the manner they were discovered, this would be a point in the killer's favor if they were identified as having Korean ancestry.

However, in addition to the clothing, the murderer also left behind further evidence in the form of personal possessions. A "hip-bag," which resembled a cross between a messenger bag, a tiny backpack, and a fanny pack, was the first and prominent of these accessories.

Although the hip-bag itself had a relatively innocent appearance, it did include certain bits of information that would help detectives approach the case in the future. A piece of grip tape used on skateboards served as the first piece of proof. The second was the Drakkar Noir fragrance traces that were discovered on the handkerchief. The most surprising discovery was sand, which was the final item removed from the hip-bag.

The location of the sand, which pointed to the Southwestern United States, allowed the identification of the material contained in that hip-bag. Specifically, the vicinity of Edwards Air Force Base, a military facility located roughly 100 miles north of Los Angeles.

This shocking piece of information, which may connect the murderer to a military facility hundreds of miles away, has probably thrown the entire investigation into a loop. Many people have interpreted this as evidence that the murderer was maybe an airman stationed in Tokyo or a certain category of contractor who conducted business internationally. Some have even attempted to connect this information to the handkerchief that has been ironed as a symbol of military bearing as the military does encourage ironing as a component of its standard behavior.

Despite the fact that there was a ton of evidence on the scene, the investigation was far from over. There would still be new information to emerge in the investigation, and there was still no strong indication of a suspect.

Days started to transform into weeks, which eventually changed into months. Police made a plea for anyone with information about the apparel while presenting the public with the evidence they had. Several pieces of clothes could be traced back to their owners, but the majority of the goods the murderer left behind at the Miyazawa home were ordinary. It was impossible to find every owner of the apparel because thousands of each had been sold in Japan in the few months before the deaths.

About a hundred days after the killings, at the beginning of April, authorities made an intriguing discovery. They had found a little Buddhist statue that was first brought in as evidence not more than a mile from the Miyazawa residence.

Jizo is a Buddhist god who guards children in the afterlife, and that statue was made in his likeness. Jizo, an embodiment of Buddhism in Eastern Asia, is thought to guard children who pass away before their parents in the afterlife from demons as they ascend to the spirit realm.

When the police first brought this in as evidence, they reasoned that possibly the murderer had left it behind as a token of regret or guilt.

Regardless of who put it there, it serves as a sorrowful reminder of the atrocities against the Miyazawas in the Setagaya province adjacent to the family home.

Police had outlined a sequence of events that led to the family's murder as they continued to piece together the evidence and test the forensics against their expanding database, which at the time of the family's murder in 2000 was still fairly recent in the world of crime-fighting.

The killer most likely entered the house through the second-story bathroom window, which was just above a fence separating the home from the park and was accessible from the rear of the house. This would be a somewhat physically demanding act that would need for the murderer to have at least a modicum of upper body strength.

They believed that after entering the house, the attacker had targeted the unfortunate six-year-old Rei first, going into his bedroom and strangling him while he was still asleep.

From there, the course of events slightly fragments, with investigators having doubts regarding the killer's future moves. They believe that as Mikio was working on his computer in the study below, the disturbance coming from above diverted his attention, and when he walked up the stairs, he came across the murderer. A fight broke out there, and Mikio fell to the ground, where he would be discovered hours later.

According to this sequence of events, Yasuko and Niina were the next to be approached by the assailant, who either assaulted them upstairs in the third-floor loft or at the bottom of the ladder leading to it. Niina used the first aid kit at some point to try to bind some of her own wounds, thus it's likely that the murderer attacked them with his broken sashimi knife, realized it couldn't be used, and fled to the kitchen to grab another. Yasuko and Niina attempted to obtain her medical treatment during this lull since they thought the murderer had abandoned them forever.

If this scenario is correct, the killer then returned with his new weapon to kill the family off, murdering the two at the foot of the ladder leading up to the loft.

Possibly around this point, Mikio heard a scuffle upstairs and hurried up there in an effort to distract the murderer from his family, not realizing that Rei had already been killed. The murderer managed to inflict Mikio's fatal wounds there, but not before breaking his murder weapon and becoming hurt himself. Their fight had brought them to the stairs.

The murderer, who was now not far from the family's kitchen, went inside to get his new murder weapon, then returned upstairs to kill Yasuko and Niina, who were attempting to treat Niina's wound with bandages from the first aid kit. Perhaps they were moving toward the loft in an effort to elude the murderer, expecting that the ladder would be lowered behind them.

However, police would find out during their reenactment of the incident that the murderer had remained after killing the four members of the family. He would eventually spend hours inside the house of the family.

Police concluded based on evidence that the murderer chose to remain in the home as an uninvited house guest rather than leave right after killing the Miyazawa family. He hadn't even bothered to cover the remains of the four family members when he made the decision to settle down for the evening.

One of the more peculiar events in the narrative itself was that the unsub had allegedly taken a nap on the family's sofa in the living room. Typically, suspects leave the scene as quickly as they can since each minute increases the likelihood that they will be found, but this killer seems to have relished the closeness of spending the night at his victim's house.

The murderer of the Miyazawa family treated himself to ice cream from the refrigerator. Police would soon find four ice cream wrappers with the alleged killer's prints on them; they were also known as popsicle wrappers in certain accounts. These fingerprints matched those that were left all around the house by people who weren't members of the family in attendance.

The family's PC was in the downstairs study and this unsub had also utilized it. A few hours or so after the family was probably killed, on December 31st, around 1:18 AM, they noticed that the computer had been accessed. The unsub had gone to the Shiki Theater Company's website, which Mikio had already bookmarked. Because theater was a love of Mikio's, you see, so one has to question if this was some kind of twisted joke on the part of the perpetrator, or if the family was indeed slain hours after many people thought they were.

The odds are still very much in favor of the murderer doing it since someone had visited that website at 1:18 in the morning and attempted to purchase performance tickets online.

Hours later, at around 10:05 in the morning, the murderer reportedly allegedly signed on to examine the websites of Mikio's business, Interbrand, and the university Yasuko taught at. Interestingly, the murderer only visited websites that the family had bookmarked, maybe in an effort to enjoy the closeness of their home.

The murderer had only used the computer for 10 minutes total before unplugging it from the wall.

The killer had amassed the family's credit and ID cards throughout the course of the evening; they were all discovered organized in the family's living room, next to the sofa where the unsub had slept. Many people have argued that this was an extremely peculiar attempt by the killer—or killers—to try and guess the PIN numbers required to use the cards. He left them behind since he knew he wouldn't try to keep them guessing and risk being found out.

A strange assortment of the family's possessions and trash were also gathered by the unsub before departing and dumped in the bathtub for some reason. The majority of these items were trash, like ice cream wrappers or torn-up flyers, but they also included some of Mikio's work receipts, Yasuko's school records, and even feminine hygiene products stained with the murderer's blood. Many have speculated as to why the murderer would leave such a strange collection of trash in the bathtub, but have come to the conclusion that he may have intended to use them for anything and simply forgot. Unaware that he had left boats worth of evidence behind, he may have intended to let the goods soak before being discovered.

Police believed the murderer had stolen the family's money, around 125k yen, after he had been sleeping at the Miyazawa house for a few hours. That basically translates to more than a grand in American dollars. However, the fact that the killer had been eating ice cream and using the computer in the family's study where extra money was quickly discovered led the detectives to believe that this wasn't a straightforward heist.

Additionally, if this had been a robbery, the murderer may have taken some expensive items, but it appeared that the family's possessions had all been left behind. The only thing that was thought to be missing was a worn-out jacket that had belonged to Mikio.

The entrance door was locked when Yasuko's mother entered the crime scene, according to her memory. Police speculated that the killer may have returned through the second-story bathroom window he had used to enter because of this. The door was shut when Yasuko's mother arrived, but over time she has grown unsure of this fact, and it has never been made crystal clear how the murderer fled the scene of these horrible acts.

By 2006, forensic science had advanced to the point that sleuths could resurrect this monster. Or, at the very least, extract him from the Setagaya neighborhood's mid-2000s zeitgeist and turn him back into a mortal man with flesh and bone.

DNA genome testing was used to determine the precise characteristics of the murderer using the blood found on towels and feminine items at the site. The results were shocking.

Police found that the Miyazawa family's suspected murderer was of mixed ethnicity and probably not a citizen of Japan. One of the unsub's parents was of Southern European ancestry, while the other belonged to two distinct cultures, one of which was Eastern Asian.

According to a police source who spoke to the publication "Japan Today," the murderer was a guy of Asian descent. “His DNA carried a marker from his father that occurs in one out of every 13 Japanese; one out of about 10 Chinese, and one in every 5 or so Koreans. Based on mitochondrial DNA, his mother had an ancestor originating from the southern Mediterranean area, probably around the Adriatic.”

But in addition to the probable DNA, we also have some additional information about the murderer. By comparing the clothing he left at the crime site, they were able to determine that he is approximately 175 cm tall, or five feet seven inches. His shoes were a Korean size, measuring little about eleven inches, or 27.5 cm, in length. He had blood type A since the blood found at the site did not match that of the victims.

Bizarre locations used to shoot in movies

https://www.thetravel.com/25-of-the-most-bizarre-locations-ever-used-to-shoot-a-movie/

World UFO Day Special: A Weird Ass UFO Story

Sat, 02 Jul 2022 22:00:34 -0400

Yep! It's World UFO Day and we wanted to drop a special for you and, BOY, is this special!

LOOK TO THE SKIES, TONIGHT!

To all of our American listeners, have a safe and awesome Fourth of July and enjoy the celebration of the US's independence.

Don't lose any fingers.

CHOO CHOO, YOU SEXY BASTARDS!

The Antikythera Mechanism (Nerd Overload)

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 21:08:45 -0400

Well since last week's episode left Logan up at night with nightmares and I still can't get the stains out of my shorts; we have decided to make this week's episode a little more on the lighter side. So we are diving deep into the wonderful world of politics! You got it, today we are going to discuss The Biden Administrations wonderful and brilliant plans and maybe even get an interview with Brandon himself! HA like that would ever happen. Fuck those guys. We are actually talking about the Antikythera Mechanism, and the mysteries surrounding it.

The Antikythera mechanism is a hand-powered orrery( a mechanical model of our solar system) from Ancient Greece that has been dubbed the world's first analog computer since it was used to forecast celestial locations and eclipses decades in advance. The ancient Olympic Games' four-year cycle, which was akin to an Olympiad, could also be followed using this method.

In 1901, wreckage from a shipwreck off the shore of the Greek island of Antikythera included this artifact. Archaeologist Valerios Stais recognized it as bearing a gear on May 17, 1902. The gadget, which was found as a single lump and then fragmented into three primary components that are now divided into 82 individual shards following conservation efforts, was contained in the remnants of a wooden box that measured 34 cm 18 cm 9 cm (13.4 in 7.1 in 3.5 in). While several of these shards have inscriptions, four of them have gears. The biggest gear has 223 teeth and is around 13 centimeters (5.1 in) in diameter.

Using contemporary computer x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning, a team at Cardiff University led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth was able to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism in 2008 and decipher the faintest writing that had once been inscribed on the machine's outer casing. This shows that it contained 37 bronze meshing gears that allowed it to mimic the Moon's erratic orbit, where the Moon's velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee, follow the motions of the Moon and Sun across the zodiac, and anticipate eclipses. Astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes researched this motion in the second century BC, and it is possible that he was consulted when building the device. It is believed that a piece of the system, which also determined the locations of the five classical planets, is missing.

The device has been variously dated to between 150 and 100 BC, or to 205 BC, and it is thought to have been devised and built by Greek scientists. In any event, it had to have been built prior to the shipwreck, which has been dated to around 70–60 BC by many lines of evidence. Researchers suggested in 2022 that the machine's initial calibration date, rather than the actual date of manufacture, would have been December 23, 178 BC. Some academics disagree, arguing that the calibration date should be 204 BC. Up to the astronomical clocks of Richard of Wallingford and Giovanni de' Dondi in the fourteenth century, comparable complicated machines had not been seen.

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens currently has all of the Antikythera mechanism's fragments as well as a variety of reproductions and artistic reconstructions that show how it would have appeared and operated.

During the first voyage with the Hellenic Royal Navy, in 1900–1901, Captain Dimitrios Kontos and a crew of sponge divers from Symi island found the Antikythera shipwreck. Off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera, at a depth of 45 meters (148 feet), a Roman cargo ship wreck was discovered. The crew found various huge items, including the mechanism, ceramics, special glassware, jewelry, bronze and marble statues, and more. In 1901, most likely that July, the mechanism was pulled from the rubble. The mechanism's origin remains unknown, however it has been speculated that it was transported from Rhodes to Rome along with other seized goods to assist a triumphant procession that Julius Caesar was staging.

The National Museum of Archaeology in Athens received all the salvaged debris pieces for storage and examination. The museum personnel spent two years assembling more visible artifacts, like the sculptures, but the mechanism, which looked like a mass of tarnished brass and wood, remained unseen. The mechanism underwent deformational modifications as a result of not treating it after removal from saltwater.

Archaeologist Valerios Stais discovered a gear wheel lodged in one of the rocks on May 17, 1902. Although most experts judged the object to be prochronistic and too complicated to have been created during the same era as the other components that had been unearthed, he originally thought it was an astronomical clock. Before British science historian and Yale University professor Derek J. de Solla Price developed an interest in the object in 1951, investigations into the object were abandoned. The 82 pieces were photographed using X-ray and gamma-ray technology in 1971 by Price and Greek nuclear researcher Charalampos Karakalos. In 1974, Price issued a 70-page report summarizing their findings.

In 2012 and 2015, two more searches at the Antikythera wreck site turned up artifacts and another ship that may or may not be related to the treasure ship on which the mechanism was discovered. A bronze disc decorated with a bull's head was also discovered. Some speculated that the disc, which has four "ears" with holes in them, may have served as a "cog wheel" in the Antikythera mechanism. There doesn't seem to be any proof that it was a component of the mechanism; it's more probable that the disc was a bronze ornament on some furniture.

The earliest analog computer is typically referred to as the Antikythera mechanism. The production of the device must have had undiscovered ancestors throughout the Hellenistic era based on its quality and intricacy. It is believed to have been erected either in the late second century BC or the early first century BC, and its construction was based on mathematical and astronomical ideas created by Greek scientists during the second century BC.

Since they recognized the calendar on the Metonic Spiral as originating from Corinth or one of its colonies in northwest Greece or Sicily, further investigation by the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project in 2008 showed that the idea for the mechanism may have originated in the colonies of Corinth. The Antikythera Mechanism Research Initiative contended in 2008 that Syracuse could suggest a relationship with the school of Archimedes because it was a Corinthian colony and the home of Archimedes. In 2017, it was shown that the Metonic Spiral's calendar is of the Corinthian type and cannot be a Syracuse calendar. Another idea postulates that the device's origin may have come from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon, site of the Library of Pergamum, and claims that coins discovered by Jacques Cousteau at the wreck site in the 1970s correspond to the time of the device's creation. It was second in significance to the Library of Alexandria during the Hellenistic era due to its extensive collection of art and scientific scrolls.

A theory that the gadget was built in an academy established by Stoic philosopher Posidonius on that Greek island is supported by the discovery of Rhodian-style vases aboard the ship that carried the object. Hipparchus, an astronomer active from around 140 BC to 120 BC, lived at Rhodes, which was a bustling commercial port and a center for astronomy and mechanical engineering. Hipparchus' hypothesis of the motion of the Moon is used by the mechanism, raising the likelihood that he may have developed it or at the very least worked on it. The island of Rhodes is situated between the latitudes of 35.85 and 36.50 degrees north; it has lately been proposed that the astronomical events on the Parapegma of the Antikythera mechanism operate best for latitudes in the range of 33.3-37.0 degrees north.

According to a research published in 2014 by Carman and Evans, the Saros Dial's start-up date corresponds to the astronomical lunar month that started soon after the new moon on April 28, 205 BC. This suggests a revised dating of about 200 BC. Carman and Evans claim that the Babylonian arithmetic style of prediction suits the device's predictive models considerably better than the conventional Greek trigonometric approach does. According to a 2017 study by Paul Iversen, the device's prototype originated in Rhodes, but this particular model was modified for a customer from Epirus in northwest Greece. Iversen contends that the device was likely built no earlier than a generation before the shipwreck, a date that is also supported by Jones.

In an effort to learn more about the mechanism, further dives were made in 2014 and 2015. A five-year investigative program that started in 2014 and finished in October 2019 was followed by a second five-year session that began in May 2020.

The original mechanism probably came in one encrusted piece from the Mediterranean. It broke into three main parts shortly after that. In the meanwhile, more little fragments have come loose from handling and cleaning, and the Cousteau expedition discovered other fragments on the ocean floor. Fragment F was found in this fashion in 2005, suggesting that other fragments may still remain in storage, undetected since their first retrieval. The majority of the mechanism and inscriptions are found on seven of the 82 known fragments, which are also mechanically noteworthy. Additionally, 16 smaller components include inscriptions that are illegible and fragmentary.

The twelve zodiacal signs are divided into equal 30-degree sectors on a fixed ring dial that represents the ecliptic on the mechanism's front face. Even though the borders of the constellations were arbitrary, this was consistent with the Babylonian practice of allocating an equal portion of the ecliptic to each zodiac sign. The Sothic Egyptian calendar, which has twelve months of 30 days plus five intercalary days, is marked off with a rotating ring that is located outside that dial. The Greek alphabetized versions of the Egyptian names for the months are used to identify them. To align the Egyptian calendar ring with the current zodiac points, the first procedure is to spin it. Due to the Egyptian calendar's disregard for leap days, a whole zodiac sign would cycle through every 120 years.

Now we cannot show you pictures because well you couldn't see them. So we will try to describe them as best we can and we can also post them online.

The mechanism was turned by a now-lost little hand crank that was connected to the biggest gear, the four-spoked gear shown on the front of fragment A, gear b1, via a crown gear. As a result, the date indicator on the front dial was shifted to the appropriate day of the Egyptian calendar. Since the year cannot be changed, it is necessary to know the year that is currently in use. Alternatively, since most calendar cycles are not synchronized with the year, the cycles indicated by the various calendar cycle indicators on the back can be found in the Babylonian ephemeris tables for the day of the year that is currently in use. If the mechanism were in good operating order, the crank would easily be able to strike a certain day on the dial because it moves the date marker around 78 days each full rotation. The mechanism's interlocking gears would all revolve as the hand crank was turned, allowing for the simultaneous determination of the Sun's and Moon's positions, the moon's phase, the timing of an eclipse, the calendar cycle, and maybe the positions of planets.

The position of the spiral dial pointers on the two huge dials on the rear had to be observed by the operator as well. As the dials included four and five complete rotations of the pointers, the pointer had a "follower" that followed the spiral incisions in the metal. Before continuing, a pointer's follower had to be manually shifted to the opposite end of the spiral after reaching the terminal month place at either end of the spiral.

Two circular concentric scales may be seen on the front dial. The Greek zodiac signs are denoted on the inner scale, which is divided into degrees. A series of similar holes underneath the movable ring that rests flush with the surface and runs in a channel that makes up the outer scale are marked off with what appear to be days.

This outer ring has been thought to symbolize the 365-day Egyptian calendar ever since the mechanism was discovered, but new study contradicts this assumption and suggests it is really divided into 354 intervals. The Sothic and Callippic cycles had previously pointed to a 365 14-day solar year, as evidenced in Ptolemy III's proposed calendar reform of 238 BC. If one accepts the 365-day presupposition, it is acknowledged that the mechanism predates the Julian calendar reform. The dials aren't thought to represent his intended leap day, but by rotating the scale back one day every four years, the outer calendar dial may be adjusted against the inner dial to account for the effect of the extra quarter-day in the solar year.

The ring is most likely seen as a manifestation of a 354-day lunar calendar if one accepts the 354-day evidence. It is perhaps the first instance of the Egyptian civil-based lunar calendar postulated by Richard Anthony Parker in 1950, given the age of the mechanism's putative manufacture and the existence of Egyptian month names. The lunar calendar was intended to act as a daily indicator of succeeding lunations and to aid in the understanding of the Metonic(The moon phases return at the same time of year every almost precisely 19 years during the Metonic cycle. Although the recurrence is imperfect, careful examination shows that the Metonic cycle, which is defined as 235 synodic months, is only 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 58 seconds longer than 19 tropical years. In the fifth century BC, Meton of Athens determined that the cycle was exactly 6,940 days long. The creation of a lunisolar calendar is made easier by using these full integers.) and Saros(The saros, which may be used to forecast solar and lunar eclipses, is a period of exactly 223 synodic months, or around 6585.3211 days, or 18 years, 10, 11, or 12 days (depending on how many leap years there are). In what is known as an eclipse cycle, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to about the same relative geometry, a nearly straight line, one saros time after an eclipse, and a nearly similar eclipse will take place. A sar is a saros's lower half.) dials as well as the Lunar phase pointer. Unknown gearing is assumed to move a pointer across this scale in synchrony with the rest of the mechanism's Metonic gearing. A one-in-76-year Callippic cycle correction and practical lunisolar intercalation were made possible by the movement and registration of the ring with respect to the underlying holes.

The dial also shows the Sun's location on the ecliptic in relation to the current year's date. The ecliptic serves as a useful reference for determining the locations of the Moon, the five planets known to the Greeks, and other celestial bodies whose orbits are similarly near to it.

The locations of bodies on the ecliptic were marked by at least two points. The position of the Moon was displayed by a lunar pointer, while the location of the mean Sun and the current date were also provided. The Moon position was the oldest known application of epicyclic gearing(Two gears positioned so that one gear's center spins around the other's center make up an epicyclic gear train, sometimes referred to as a planetary gearset.), and it mimicked the acceleration and deceleration of the Moon's elliptical orbit rather than being a simple mean Moon indicator that would signal movement uniformly across a circular orbit.

The system followed the Metonic calendar, anticipated solar eclipses, and computed the time of various panhellenic athletic competitions, including the Ancient Olympic Games, according to recent research published in the journal Nature in July 2008. The names of the months on the instrument closely resemble those found on calendars from Epirus in northwest Greece and with Corfu, which was formerly known as Corcyra.

Five dials are located on the rear of the mechanism: the Metonic, Saros, and two smaller ones, the so-called Olympiad Dial (recently renamed the Games dial since it did not track Olympiad years; the four-year cycle it closely matches is the Halieiad), the Callippic(a certain approximate common multiple of the synodic month and the tropical year that was put out by Callippus around 330 BC. It is a 76-year span that is an improvement over the Metonic cycle's 19 years.), and the Exeligmos(a time frame of 54 years, 33 days over which further eclipses with the same characteristics and position may be predicted.)

Both the front and rear doors of the wooden casing that houses the mechanism have inscriptions on them. The "instruction manual" looks to be behind the rear door. "76 years, 19 years" is inscribed on one of its parts, denoting the Callippic and Metonic cycles. "223" for the Saros cycle is also written. Another piece of it has the phrase "on the spiral subdivisions 235," which alludes to the Metonic dial.

The mechanism is exceptional due to the degree of miniaturization and the intricacy of its components, which is equivalent to that of astronomical clocks from the fourteenth century. Although mechanism specialist Michael Wright has argued that the Greeks of this era were capable of designing a system with many more gears, it includes at least 30 gears.

Whether the device contained signs for each of the five planets known to the ancient Greeks is a subject of significant controversy. With the exception of one 63-toothed gear that is otherwise unaccounted for, no gearing for such a planetary display is still in existence.

It is quite likely that the mechanism featured additional gearing that was either removed before being placed onboard the ship or lost in or after the shipwreck due to the enormous gap between the mean Sun gear and the front of the box as well as the size and mechanical characteristics on the mean Sun gear. Numerous attempts to mimic what the Greeks of the time would have done have been made as a result of the absence of evidence and the nature of the front section of the mechanism, and of course various solutions have been proposed as a result of the lack of evidence.

Michael Wright was the first to create a model that included a simulation of a future planetarium system in addition to the existing mechanism. He said that corrections for the deeper, more fundamental solar anomaly would have been undertaken in addition to the lunar anomaly (known as the "first anomaly"). Along with the well-known "mean sun" (present time) and lunar pointers, he also provided pointers for this "real sun," Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

A solution that differs significantly from Wright's was published by Evans, Carman, and Thorndike. Their suggestion focused on the uneven spacing of the letters on the front clock face, which seemed to them to imply an off-center sun indication arrangement. By eliminating the requirement to imitate the solar anomaly, this would simplify the mechanism. Additionally, they proposed that simple dials for each individual planet would display data such as significant planetary cycle events, initial and final appearances in the night sky, and apparent direction changes rather than accurate planetary indication, which is rendered impossible by the offset inscriptions. Compared to Wright's concept, this system would result in a far more straightforward gear system with significantly lower forces and complexity.

After much investigation and labor, Freeth and Jones released their idea in 2012. They developed a concise and workable answer to the planetary indicator puzzle. They also suggest that the date pointer, which displays the mean position of the Sun and the date on the month dial, be separated to display the solar anomaly (i.e., the sun's apparent location in the zodiac dial). If the two dials are properly synced, Wright's front panel display may be shown on the other dials as well. However, unlike Wright's model, this one is simply a 3-D computer simulation and has not been physically constructed.

Similar devices

A first-century BC philosophical debate by Cicero, De re publica (54-51 BC), discusses two devices that some contemporary authors believe to be some sort of planetarium or orrery, forecasting the motions of the Sun, Moon, and the five planets known at the time. After Archimedes' demise at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, the Roman commander Marcus Claudius Marcellus took both of them to Rome. One of these devices was the sole thing Marcellus preserved during the siege because of his admiration for Archimedes (the second was placed in the Temple of Virtue). The instrument was kept as a family heirloom, and according to Philus, who was present during a conversation Cicero imagined had taken place in Scipio Aemilianus's villa in the year 129 BC, Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, who served as consul with Marcellus's nephew in 166 BC and is credited by Pliny the Elder with being the first Roman to have written a book explaining solar and lunar eclipses, gave both a "learned explanation" and working demonstrations of the device.

According to Pappus of Alexandria (290–c. 350 AD), Archimedes had penned a now-lost treatise titled On Sphere-Making that described how to build these contraptions. Many of his innovations are described in the ancient documents that have survived, some of which even have crude illustrations. His odometer is one such instrument; the Romans later used a similar device to set their mile marks (described by Vitruvius, Heron of Alexandria and in the time of Emperor Commodus). Although the pictures in the literature looked to be practical, attempts to build them as shown had been unsuccessful. The system worked properly when the square-toothed gears in the illustration were swapped out for the angled gears found in the Antikythera mechanism.

This technique existed as early as the third century BC, if Cicero's story is accurate. Later Roman authors including Lactantius (Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII), Claudian (In sphaeram Archimedes), and Proclus (Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements of Geometry) in the fourth and fifth century also make reference to Archimedes' invention.

Cicero also said that another such device was built "recently" by his friend Posidonius, "... each one of the revolutions of which brings about the same movement in the Sun and Moon and five wandering stars [planets] as is brought about each day and night in the heavens"

Given that the third device was almost certainly in Posidonius's possession by that time and that both the Archimedes-made and Cicero-mentioned machines were found in Rome at least 30 years after the shipwreck's estimated date, it is unlikely that any one of these machines was the Antikythera mechanism discovered in the wreck. The researchers who rebuilt the Antikythera mechanism concur that it was too complex to have been a singular invention.

This proof that the Antikythera mechanism was not unique strengthens the argument that there was a tradition of complex mechanical technology in ancient Greece that was later, at least in part, transmitted to the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. During the Middle Ages, complex mechanical devices that were still simpler than the Antikythera mechanism were built in these cultures.A fifth- or sixth-century Byzantine Empire geared calendar fragment that was mounted to a sundial and maybe used to help tell time has been discovered. The Caliph of Baghdad commissioned Bani Ms's Kitab al-Hiyal, also known as the Book of Ingenious Devices, in the early ninth century AD. Over a hundred mechanical devices were detailed in this document, some of which may have been found in monastic manuscripts from antiquity. Around 1000, the scholar al-Biruni described a geared calendar that was comparable to the Byzantine mechanism, and a 13th-century astrolabe also had a clockwork system that is similar to it. It's probable that this medieval technology was brought to Europe and had a part in the region's development of mechanical clocks.

Su Song, a Chinese polymath, built a mechanical clock tower in the 11th century that, among other things, measured the positions of several stars and planets that were shown on an armillary sphere that spun mechanically.

Conspiracy Corner

The Antikythera Mechanism was thought to have been created between 150 and 100 BCE at first, but recent research dates its development to approximately 205 BCE. It's interesting that this technology seems to have just vanished because comparable items didn't start turning up until the 14th century. But why did the ancient Greeks permit such a significant development to be forgotten over time?
Posidonius carried on the work of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus by instructing students at an astronomy academy. Posidonius invented a contraption that "in each rotation reproduces the identical motions of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets that take place in the skies every day and night," according to Cicero, one of Posidonius' students. Which remarkably resembles the Antikythera Mechanism. However, when the Mechanism was created in the second century BCE, Posidonius was not yet alive. Hipparchus was, though. Posidonius could have built an instrument based on Hipparchus' Antikythera Mechanism, which he made many years before. What about Posidonius' instrument, though?
A time traveler from the future may have developed the Mechanism, or it may genuinely be a futuristic gadget that was taken back to ancient Greece and put there on purpose if it dates to the second century BCE and equivalent technology didn't start emerging until decades later.
Some people think the entire thing is a hoax despite overwhelming scientific proof to the contrary. After all, it is challenging to reconcile the Antikythera mechanism's antiquity with its growth in technology. The Turk, a fictional chess-playing robot constructed in the 18th century, has been likened to the mechanism by some. But scientists easily acknowledge that The Turk is a fraud. Why would they fabricate evidence of the mechanism's reliability? What would they be attempting to conceal?
Even though it is quite old, the Antikythera mechanism represented an enormous advance in technology. So how did the Greeks of antiquity come up with the concept, much alone construct it? They didn't, according to The Ancient Aliens: “Beings with advanced knowledge of astronomical bodies, mathematics and precision engineering tools created the device or gave the knowledge for its creation to someone during the first century BC. But the knowledge was not recorded or wasn't passed down to anyone else.” Therefore, aliens either provided humanity the ability to make this gadget or the knowledge to do so, but they didn't do anything to assure that we built on it or learnt from it. It seems like the aliens weren't planning ahead very well.
This theory, like the extraterrestrial one, is based simply on the observation that the Antikythera mechanism seems to be too technologically sophisticated for its period. The mythical Atlantis was a highly developed metropolis that vanished into the ocean. Many people think the city genuinely exists, despite the fact that Plato only described it in a sequence of allegories. And some of those individuals believe the Antikythera mechanism proves Atlantis existed since it was too sophisticated for any known culture at the time; they believe Atlantis, not Greece, is where the mechanism originated.
According to the notion of intelligent design, a higher power purposefully created many things on Earth because they are too sophisticated to have arisen by simple evolution. Because the Antikythera mechanism is so much more sophisticated than any other artifact from that age, some people think it is proof of intelligent design. If this is the case, you have to question what divine, omnipotent creature would spend time creating such a minute object for such a trivial goal.
Greece's coast is home to the island of Rhodes. Greek artifacts were placed into the ship transporting the Mechanism, which was sailing for Rome. One explanation for this might be that the Antikythera mechanism was taken together with the spoils from the island of Rhodes. How come Rhodes was pillaged? following a victorious war against the Greeks, as part of Julius Caesar's triumphal procession. Could the loss of one of history's most significant and cutting-edge technical advancements be accidentally attributed to Julius Caesar?
The Antikythera mechanism may have predicted the color of eclipses, which is thought to be impossible by scientists, according to new translations of texts on the device. Therefore, were the forecasts the mechanism provided only educated guesses, or did the ancient Greeks have knowledge that we do not?
According to legend, an extraterrestrial species called the Annunaki (possible episode?) invaded and inhabited Earth (they were revered as gods in ancient Mesopotamia), leaving behind evidence of their presence. The Antikythera mechanism could be one of these hints. The Mechanism uses what appears to be distinct technology that was, as far as we are aware, extremely different from anything else that was built about 200 BCE. It estimates when lunar eclipses would occur, which advanced space invaders would undoubtedly know something about.
An intriguing view on the process is held by Mike Edmunds from Cardiff University. The uniqueness and technological innovation of the item are frequently highlighted in reports about it. However, Edmunds speculates that the mechanism may have been in transit to a client when the ship carrying it went down. If one device was being delivered, might there possibly be others — if not on this ship, then potentially on others from Rhodes? — he asks in his essay. There may have been more of these amazing machines that have been lost to the passage of time or are still out there waiting to be found.

MOVIES - films from the future -

https://filmsfromthefuture.com/movies/

The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 22:50:50 -0400

Ep. 159

Exorcism Of

Annaliese Michel

Do you believe in the devil? Demons? Do you think the devil or demons can possess your body? Does that shit creep you out and keep you up at night? Well, if it does… you're gonna love today's episode! If you've ever seen the exorcism of Emily Rose, you'll at least know this story. The movie was based on the subject of today's episode. It's gonna get kinda crazy today as we discuss the exorcism of Annaliese Michel!

Some of you may already be familiar with this story, as it's been discussed on other podcasts and continues to be a pretty famous story in the world of exorcisms, demons, and possessions.

Annaliese Michel was born on September 21, 1952, in Leiblfing, Bavaria, West Germany. She was born into a very religious Roman Catholic family. She attended Mass twice weekly with her family and was described as "a vibrant, pretty girl on her way to becoming a gorgeous woman. She had shining black hair, an open, honest face, and a stunning smile." Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother, Anna Michel, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. This was a source of shame for the Catholic family. After she married and gave birth to Anneliese, she apparently harbored feelings of guilt about her first daughter. Unfortunately, Anneliese's older sister died at the age of eight, but Anneliese reportedly felt like she needed to repent for her mother's sin. She supposedly spent much of her time doing penance for her mother, her sinful youth, and evil priests. Sounds like a great childhood.

All the crazy shit began in 1968, around the time of her sixteenth birthday when Anneliese had the first of several seizures. She lost consciousness during school and was found by her classmate to be in a trance-like state. Later that night, Anneliese woke up claiming she felt something was pressing down on her. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe or speak, and lost control of her bladder. Although the experience frightened her greatly, when it didn't happen again, she just forgot about it. Then, on August 24, 1969, Anneliese suffered another seizure. When examined by neurologist Dr. Siegfried Luthy, her EEG showed "a normal, physiological alpha-type brain activity." Dr. Luthy later explained to investigators, "I judged from the description I was given that this was probably a case of cerebral seizures of the nocturnal type, with the symptoms of a grand mal epilepsy."

Tonic-Clonic seizures, formerly known as grand mal seizures, comprise two stages: a tonic phase and a clonic phase. According to John Hopkins Medicine, episodes may begin with a simple or complex partial attack known as an aura, during which persons may experience sensations such as unusual smells, vertigo, nausea, or anxiety. Or my everyday life. During the tonic phase, persons may lose consciousness and experience bodily and respiratory paralysis as the muscles involuntarily contract. Finally, during the clonic phase, the person's face, arms, and legs spasm and jerk uncontrollably and rapidly. When the body relaxes, the bladder may also release. Got all that? I knew you would, you intelligent bastards.

Anneliese's symptoms certainly fit the criteria of a Tonic-Clonic seizure, and there's good reason to believe on at least one occasion, she also experienced aura. One day while praying to the rosary, she related smelling a sweetness "wafting about her like the fragrance of violets" and a euphoric feeling that lasted into the next day. She was found by other girls to be in a trance-like state with her hands rigidly outstretched "like you had a cramp or something. Like when my cat stretches her claws," and her pupils dilated, "I thought they were blue. Now they are all black."

After her third seizure, Anneliese began experiencing one of the longest-lasting side effects, continuously filling her with fratzen, which is German for "grimacing faces." Another EEG showed "an irregular alpha pattern with some theta and delta waves, but nothing pathological." By 1973, her friends and family reported her behavior had changed—she was irritable and withdrawn, prone to lashing out in anger. Again, my everyday life.

Anneliese fell into a deep and prolonged depression. This depression was severe enough that she contemplated suicide and would later describe it as "This is no longer a depression, this is a condition"; she claimed "someone else is manipulating me" and that "My will is not my own." She mentioned to her psychiatrist that she "could not love sufficiently" that she felt "castrated, ice-cold" and told her boyfriend, "I can't feel any love at all. I am all numb, sort of. I can't feel emotions like that."

Anneliese stopped associating with her usual group of friends and became drawn to a group of students considered to be religious zealots. That is not a good sign. One of her childhood friends noted, "After her illness, Anneliese was changed. She was quiet and withdrew from her friends. I also noted that she kept wanting to carry on mostly religious conversations." For her part, Anneliese became convinced of her damnation and began warning others of the world's imminent end. She believed she had personal visions and communed with the Virgin Mary and became particularly drawn to the life of Barbara Weigand, a Catholic mystic and "prophetess." She also claimed to experience visions of the Virgin Mary.

In addition to the visual hallucinations, Anneliese also claimed to begin experiencing olfactory hallucinations known as phantosmia: "She started smelling a horrid stench not perceived by others." The nature of this nasty smell changed over time. However, it was later related, "[Anneliese] exuded a stench like Frau Hein had never smelled before, like fecal matter or something burning. Everyone in the bus could smell it." This would seem to indicate that the source of the stench was, in fact, Anneliese herself.

Further evidence supports this from a visit from Father Roth to the Michel household: "Herr Michel received me and took me immediately to the living room. It was filled with a horrible stench, of something burning, and of dung, that penetrated everything. Herr Michel expressly called my attention to it and told me that Anneliese had been in the room just before. In the other rooms of the Michel home and on the outside I could detect no trace."

The pungent smell was not, however, present all the time. During the criminal investigation in October 1976, Father Hagiber recalled his first meeting with Anneliese and mentioned nothing of an odor. Father Herrmann, who met with Anneliese about ten times from 1973 to 1975, stated, "From her parents I heard that on occasion she evidenced disrespect toward sacred objects and there was a stench of dung or of something burning in the room where she was. However, these symptoms never occurred in my apartment". Likewise, none of Anneliese's doctors, classmates, or teachers ever complained of a foul odor emanating from or percolating around her. Her boyfriend was utterly unaware of her problem with the smell until she mentioned how it plagued her. Based on what Anneliese revealed to her psychiatrist, we know she was intimate with her boyfriend. One might expect he would've noticed something that smelled like burning doo doo.

By 1973, she had depression and began hallucinating while praying and complained about hearing voices telling her that she was "damned" and would "rot in hell ."Michel's treatment in a psychiatric hospital did not improve her health, and her depression worsened. Long-term treatment did not help either, and she grew increasingly frustrated with the medical intervention, taking pharmacological drugs for five years. In addition, Michel became intolerant of Christian sacred places and objects, such as the crucifix."

In one instance, her family organized a trip to San Damiano to pray for God to intervene. Annaliese said standing on the shrine's soil made her feet burn, and she refused to drink water from its holy spring. As a result, she could not even walk past sacred icons. The priest accompanying them stated:

"She [Michel] approached it [the shrine] with the greatest hesitation, then said that the soil burned like fire and she simply could not stand it… She also noted that she could no longer look at medals or pictures of saints; they sparkled so immensely that she could not stand it."

Annaliese was put on several medications, but none seemed to help the situation throughout the early 70s. Finally, between the results of her pilgrimage and her increasingly strange behavior, her parents decided to put their faith in the Church. Oh... and an exorcism. Her behavior had deteriorated to the point where she would at times growl, swear, and blaspheme for no god damn reason (see what I did there?) and even urinate on the floor and lick it up.

Then, in the spring of 1973, Anneliese began to hear a knocking sound in her room. Dr. Vogt could not find anything wrong with her hearing, so he referred her to a specialist. However, her mother, Anna, began to believe something supernatural was occurring because she and her other daughters could soon hear the same sound, like rapping or thumping in the wardrobe, then above the ceiling and below the floor. In addition, Anneliese was now seeing overtly demonic faces with horns, telling her she would be damned for eternity. Her father, Josef, dismissed these weird-ass happenings as products of hysteria. However, he was disturbed by his wife's account of Anneliese staring at a statue of the Virgin with a malicious expression. Her eyes were black and dilated. Her hands contorted like an animal's paws.

On September 3, Anneliese revisited Dr. Lüthy and finally told him of the hideous faces she had been seeing. She also confided that the devil was inside her and that a judgment of fire would come upon everyone. Dr. Lüthy recalled, "She could not get her mind off these things. She had no power of decision, and everything was empty in her." Momma Anna claimed that Dr. Lüthy advised them to see a Jesuit about the demonic faces, but the doctor intensely denied that he had said that shit. It is possible that the doctor made a tongue-in-cheek comment, which he later forgot since Frau Michel was adamant that she had gotten the idea of calling a Jesuit from the doctor. She had never before heard that Jesuits were specialists at exorcisms.

Either way, Dr. Lüthy did not think much of the visions since he prescribed only Aolept (periciazine) drops, a medium-intensity anti-psychotic drug for neurosis in children. That shit is mainly sold in Canada, Italy, Russia, and Australia, and you can't even get it in the states. In his words, "It could not be stated with certainty at the time that there was the beginning of a psychotic symptomatology."

Despite continued treatment with Dilantin and periciazine, Anneliese's visions did not go away, and the drugs only seemed to make her tired and depressed. The Michels believed that the images were a particular problem from the seizures and now followed Dr. Lüthy's offhand suggestion to see a priest about them. They first sought Father Habiger, pastor of the Mother of God parish in Aschaffenburg, who examined Anneliese and found only an ordinary, shy girl with no signs of possession. He recommended that she see a physician. The end.

NOPE!

The family was able to contact an elderly Jesuit, Father Adolf Rodewyk in Frankfurt, about Anneliese's case. Father Rodewyk was an expert on possession, having published a book on the subject. Still, he could not travel to Klingenberg and recommended the retired Father Herrmann of the Mother of God parish in Aschaffenburg. You got that, right? Two priests, one Church. Gross.

Father Herrmann met with Anneliese ten times in his home and found her a nice, deeply religious girl. He recommended that she see a neurologist, but she protested that she had already seen Dr. Lüthy, who could not help her. Nevertheless, father Herrmann did not observe any sacrilegious behavior by Anneliese; she calmly prayed the rosary with him many times without any demons popping out and burning their poop.

In September 1973, Father Herrmann visited Father Ernst Alt of the St. Agatha parish in Aschaffenburg. Father Alt had already heard about Anneliese's case from Thea Hein and had long had a deep interest in the paranormal, having conducted studies of extrasensory perception (ESP). This was not unusual at the time, as even nonreligious researchers took ESP seriously in the 1970s. Still, Father Alt also believed himself to have telepathy, precognition, and even dowsing powers. Evidently, he was a big believer in the paranormal, as well.

Fr. Alt offered Mass on behalf of the troubled girl he had yet to meet, and while preparing for the consecration, he had another incredible sensation.

"All of a sudden, something hit me in the back, the air turned cold, and at the same time, there was an intense stench as though something was burning. I had to lean against the altar. With great effort and only by dint of considerable concentration was I able to speak the rest of the text. I felt deeply distressed as if a negative force were surrounding me, which, however, aside from vexing me, could inflict no real harm."

Mmmhmmm

After Mass, Father Alt calmly related this experience to another priest. That night, he was unable to sleep, even with the aid of a sleeping pill. He smelled a variety of stenches, alternating from dung to sewage to something burning. Additionally, he heard a thumping sound in his wardrobe. Finally, after praying to Padre Pio repeatedly, he suddenly smelled an intense fragrance of violets. At that time, he noticed that his "field of vision had been very much narrowed," and his "color perception was reduced," but now his eyesight was restored. The following day, he spoke of his experience to his fellow priests, and suddenly they could all smell a burning stench throughout the parish house, though the windows were open.

On July 30, 1975, Peter(boyfriend) visited Anneliese in Klingenberg. They went for a walk, limited by Anneliese's constant exhaustion and sluggish, stiff-limbed gait. However, when Peter suggested they head back home, she was suddenly able to move normally, even gingerly, and she exclaimed happily that she was entirely herself again.

The following day they returned to Würzburg, where Anneliese registered for the fall semester. While grocery shopping, however, her face and legs tensed up, yet she did not behave aggressively. When she returned to her room, she stood stiff in front of a crucifix, glaring at it with hatred. Peter later stated:

"Her face was totally distorted; she growled like an animal and gritted her teeth so loudly that I was afraid that all her teeth would fall out. I started praying for her in thought, without giving any indication at all of what I was doing. Immediately she ordered me with clenched teeth to stop…"

Peter had not been a churchgoing Catholic before meeting Anneliese, much less devout. Nevertheless, he had started going to Mass again for her sake, and now he was squarely facing evidence of the supernatural. For an hour, the recently lucid Anneliese stood transfixed in one spot, strangely bending her upper body away from the crucifix even as her arms reached toward it. She later explained, "I wanted to take the cross in my hand, but against my will I was pushed back, so I couldn't reach it."

It appeared that more than one consciousness was living in Anneliese's body.

After this episode, Peter said, "fuck this shit," and has never been heard from since. I'm kidding. He returned Anneliese to Klingenberg, where her condition worsened. At this point, her parents were directly petitioning Bishop Stangl for an exorcism. Father. Alt, "the psychic priest," also wanted to talk to the Bishop, who was on vacation, and finally managed to obtain oral permission to say only the short German form of the exorcism rite. On August 3, the Sunday after Anneliese's return, Father Alt recited the cliffs notes version of the exorcism. Father Roth noted Annaliese's signs of possession were not as strong as when he had last visited her, but she whimpered and moaned throughout the exorcism and at one point pleaded, "Stop! It's burning." When asked where, she said, "In my back, in my arms." At another point, she said, "I am free," suggesting she was free of demons, but then she continued to whimper and moan. The priests were in the house for a total of two hours.

Although Father Alt believed Anneliese benefited from his subpar exorcism, her behavior became alarmingly worse throughout August. She was now plagued by insomnia, unable to sleep for more than an hour or two. She would rush through the house, bucking up and down the stairs like a goat. She exhibited compulsive behaviors, repeatedly kneeling and standing in rapid succession until her knees swelled. She sometimes prayed continually from dawn to dusk: "My Jesus, forgiveness and mercy, forgiveness and mercy…." She would constantly scream, except when she would tremble and fall onto the ground, completely rigid. This immobile state could last for days, so her sister would have to try to feed and wash her.

Only after the exorcism ritual did Anneliese begin to exhibit apparently insane behavior, which, of course, coincides with classic demonic behavior. Witnesses attested that she displayed almost superhuman strength and would repeatedly kneel and rise at crazy speeds. She felt heat throughout her body and would tear off her clothes to cool herself. She put insects in her mouth, urinated on the floor, and you guessed it, licked it up, and repeatedly tried to strike her family members and destroy sacred objects.

Anneliese saw clouds of flies and small shadowy creatures that, eventually, her family could see. She had visions of the deceased, and stigmata marks appeared on her. These marks were distinct from her other injuries, yet it has long been known that stigmata can be induced by suggestion in emotionally sensitive people, at least in a mild form.

Stigmata, in Christianity, are the appearance of bodily wounds, scars, and pain in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ, such as the hands, wrists, and feet. Stigmata are exclusively associated with Roman Catholicism.

The local parish priest recommended that Anneliese be taken to see a psychiatrist, the Michels had already had their fill of psychiatrists, and there was no way Anneliese, now a 22-year-old adult, could be persuaded to go to a psychiatric clinic. So they contacted Father Rodewyk in Frankfurt again, and the old priest finally came to see the girl himself.

Father Rodewyk saw Anneliese lying on the floor in an apparent hypnotic trance, oblivious to those around her. She was led to the sofa by her parents, and the priest asked, "What is your name?" The response was, "Judas," uttered in a deeper, altered voice. After a while, her muscles were uncramped, and she could speak as herself with calmness and lucidity. This clear manifestation of a dual personality persuaded Father Rodewyk that this was a case of possession.

It seems strange that a man's name, Judas, should be given to a demon, yet father Rodewyk claimed that the name Judas was often provided by other possession victims. It is not that the demon was actually the Judas of the Gospels, but rather the name represents the role or function of the demon. A Judas demon attempts to force its victim to imitate the apostle in the betrayal of his Lord, often by preventing victims from swallowing during Holy Communion to steal the host. Anneliese did, in fact, feel resistance to consuming the host, so she allowed it to dissolve in her mouth. She also displayed a compulsion to kiss people while wearing a hostile expression on her face, reminiscent of the "Judas kiss." Father Rodewyk thought these behaviors confirmed his position that she was possessed by a Judas demon.

Shortly after father Rodewyk's visit, Anneliese became well again, without any demonic manifestations. She could eat meals regularly again; previously, she explained, she "was not allowed to." So yeah, she was being starved because of her "possession."

Meanwhile, based on father Rodewyk and Alt's reports, the Bishop finally granted permission on September 16, 1975, to conduct the complete rite of exorcism. This permission was given to father Arnold Renz, superior of a Salvatorian monastery and pastor of a parish near Klingenberg. He was said to be a pious, intelligent, kind, and trustworthy man. His charismatic personality won Anneliese's respect and friendship in the moments when she wasn't drinking her own urine.

Father Renz's account of his first visit on September 24, 1975, found Anneliese to be quite normal on that first day, with "nothing that would have indicated any possession." Nevertheless, he performed the standard rite of exorcism because he had been requested to do so by his fellow priests and the family, including the perfectly aware and lucid Annaliese herself. The ritual involves a fixed sequence of prescribed prayers, followed by direct questioning of the demons, and culminates in direct commands for them to get the fuck out!

In the course of the ritual, Anneliese's behavior changed. Calm, cool, and collected at first, her body began to shake violently, and she screamed and squirmed as she was held down by three men to prevent her from biting or kicking others. Sprinkling her with holy water elicited screams, and she occasionally demanded the priest stop doing this. But with many "fuck you's and suck my dicks" involved. The whole session lasted five and a half hours. At the end of it, a very awake and functioning Anneliese said they should have continued because she felt that the exorcism was just pissing off the demons. She fully recalled everything that happened, but her words and deeds hadn't come from her.

In Anneliese's case, she retained the memory of what occurred when the others took over her body, but it is unclear to what extent she knew what they thought. As for herself, she felt her own personality suppressed in what she called a "hole," while she helplessly watched what the other entities did to her body and said with her mouth. This would seem to be an authentic, and therefore rare, case of split personality since she did not simply alter her behavior, but rather her actual self co-existed with these other personalities. It would seem, then, that there was more than one mental subject or person in Anneliese's body. Like a weird, less fun mental apartment building.

We may learn something about the nature of these other personas from the recordings of the exorcism sessions. They emit hideous screams, growls, and moans and speak in a deep, hoarse voice, uttering curses and mocking the exorcist. But, on the other hand, they seem to understand Latin, though a traditionalist Catholic girl might be expected to know some Latin. Especially when they come from a family as devout as hers. Every now and then, they give evidence of understanding more advanced phrases, like when Father Renz says, "Ut discedas ab hac famula Dei Anneliese," meaning, "May you depart from this handmaid of God Anneliese,." Annaliese's reply, "No, no, she belongs to me…."

Would you like to hear some of these recordings? Fuck yes, you would. So here ya go... but do me a favor. Turn those lights off... let's get REALLY creepy.

(PLAY RECORDING)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aI8kpHxDM

Renz tested the linguistic ability of the demonic-speaking person by questioning it in Chinese. The demon would not oblige this obvious search for proof of its nature and later said, "If you want to ask something, ask it in German," but followed with a taunt, "But I do too understand it." Finally, however, the demon responded to a Dutch question, "Is there anything in your family that has any relation to the case and should not become public?" The answer: "There is nothing like that."

Ok, the demon speaks dutch, german, and Latin but not Chinese. Got it.

As another test, Father Renz filled five bottles with water, some with tap water and others with holy water. Though the bottles were unmarked, the "demons" somehow knew to scream only when the holy water was used.

A common form of engagement with the demons was to recite prayers or Biblical readings to test their response. They hated any invocation of St. Michael the Archangel and seemed to fear the Blessed Virgin Mary. They dreaded any mention of guardian angels and screamed in horror during the Litany of the Five Sacred Wounds, a fact possibly related to the appearance of stigmata. The demons claimed that they had oppressed Anneliese while she was studying for her exams, but only with heavenly permission, and that she passed her exams anyway only because the Lady willed it. Some Biblical passages left no impression on these malevolent entities, as they apparently did not recognize themselves as referenced. Mentioning the beast in Revelation 13 left them unmoved, as did the Gospel story of casting out a mute demon.

Direct questioning of the demons is a must by the Roman rite. This involves asking the names of the demons and how long they intend to keep their asses in their host. By learning the name and identity of a demon, the exorcist hopes to gain a sort of leverage or power over it. He uses this name in the formulas urging it to leave. This questioning gave up several characters, and as each name was revealed, the demon was forced to manifest its personality. We have already mentioned Judas, but there were others. There was Cain, Hitler, and Pastor Fleischmann. Again, these are names of men, not of demons. Cain said very little, while Hitler only offered some muffled 'Heils.' Judas said of Hitler, "He, he only has a big mouth but nothing to say," which could mean he was stripped of all power.

The Pastor Fleischmann character was based on an obscure medieval priest in distant Ettleben, where father Alt was now pastor. According to the parish records, this Fleischmann was a womanizer, drunkard, and brute who had beaten a man and a woman nearly to death. When father Alt visited the Michels in the fall of 1975, he mentioned to the family that a previous pastor of his parish had killed a man. At that moment, Anneliese gave a terrible scream, though they were not performing an exorcism at the time. Several weeks later, he visited Anneliese, accompanied by her boyfriend Peter, and asked her why she was frightened by the name Fleischmann, upon which she screamed again. Her face alternated between smiles and hideous contortions. She immediately apologized, "Please, don't take it too hard; I can't help it." That evening, while Fr. Renz performed the rite of exorcism, a demon identified itself as Fleischmann and gave many biographical details that Fr. Alt never mentioned in Anneliese's presence. Fr. Alt confirmed that the archivist in Würzburg had always possessed the medieval Ettleben parish records while she was in college there, so there was no way Anneliese could have seen them.

By October 4th-6th, two weeks after Fr. Renz had begun the exorcisms (performed every two days or so), the demonic personalities weakened and spoke less frequently. They rarely responded with the usual ferocity toward the ritual, yet they never left. This lethargic behavior by the alter egos, apparently bored by the exorcism yet sticking around, is atypical of possession cases, suggesting perhaps some other factor prevented these personalities from manifesting themselves. On October 7, Dr. Kehler issued another Tegretol prescription for Anneliese, and that same evening the demons returned in full force, even uttering a hoarse scream and high-pitched laugh simultaneously. This reinforces the suspicion that the prescription drugs may have been having an effect, though it is unclear whether they enhanced or suppressed demonic manifestations.

Still, a taped conversation between Fr. Renz and a doped-up Anneliese that evening makes clear that she was coherent most of the time and was even studying for her exams. Her mother and sister Barbara insisted she had no more physical problems, except for the jerking motion during the exorcisms. She did not try to attack people anymore, and though her appetite was weak, Anneliese insisted that the demons were not preventing her from eating. However, she slept on the floor; otherwise, the demons would force her to sit in bed. Her torments were now purely psychological, she stated, "with that frightful anxiety, with a mood of annihilation." She said she has had this feeling since the tenth grade, and it is now weakening her memory and her concentration. She felt sick if she tried to go to Church, and her mysterious tormentor caused her pain when the sign of the cross was made over her during the exorcism. When asked where he was, she replied, "That differs. Usually, he is all around, but sometimes either back there or down low."

On October 13, a strange new development occurred. Anneliese began receiving messages from the Virgin Mary. At first, she and her family were skeptical of this, which she wrote down in a diary, suspecting a demonic trick. Yet the demons cursed the writings, attributing them to the Virgin by indicating a religious portrait.

Upon learning of Anneliese's written messages, Father Renz thought of Barbara Weigand, a seer from Schippach who was respected by the Michels and had a similar practice of writing heavenly messages. Renz offered Anneliese a copy of Weigand's writings, and immediately her notes from the Virgin encouraged her to complete the mission of the deceased woman. That woman's sufferings inspired Anneliese to perceive meaning in her own torments, and on October 29, she wrote that Barbara Weigand told her she must suffer a great deal.

Regarding these visions, Anneliese said, "I don't hear voices, exactly. I am only given to understand." Though she depicts the visitations with visual imagery, she writes, "I see nothing." Thus these inspirations cannot be adequately attributed to auditory or visual hallucinations, the ordinary signs of schizophrenia. Instead, they were purely spiritual or intellectual in nature.

By October 16, Anneliese received messages from the Blessed Virgin that she would "become entirely free in October," a Marian month. However, she was also told that a terrible judgment was coming, and even the demons attested to this, saying it would be "worse than the last two" (presumably the world wars), and would take place in Europe. So now the demons were predicting a new world war. Jeesh.

Anneliese was also repeatedly visited by the spirit of Father Roth's nephew, who died at the beginning of the month. He told her he was in Heaven and there to encourage her in her tribulations.

She also recorded messages supposedly from Christ, though she repeatedly expressed doubts and fears that these messages might be tricks by the devil. In one message, she was told, "You will become a great saint," and was forced to cry to prove that she heard correctly. In another, the "Savior" tells her: "You are going to get married, Anneliese… In this one way you are not going to be like Barbara Weigand. But you are going to be like her in every other way, in suffering and in sacrifice…."

In the last week of October, Anneliese continued to receive mesages from "the Savior," urging her to bear her suffering patiently for the salvation of other souls. The presence of the Blessed Virgin was also apparent, as the demons claimed during the October 29 exorcism that she ordered them to leave by Friday, October 31. This is confirmed in Anneliese's diary entry on the 29th.

Accordingly, everyone expected that the demons would be driven out on October 31. That morning, Dr. Kehler wrote another Tegretol prescription. Father Renz then conducted an exceptionally long exorcism, preserving four and a half hours of it on audio tape. Some notable points were:

Early in the session, Anneliese shrieks in her own voice, saying, "We are not leaving."

Later, she uses a low growling demonic voice to taunt the priest and resist him.

The demons, which now include Cain, Judas, Lucifer, Nero, and Fleischmann, try to stall for time, saying they have the "Lady's" permission to stay and that they will not leave until ten o'clock, one after the other.

Then there's a message from the Virgin: "She is happy about all of you. Because you kept on praying. You are to continue as much as you can." When everyone there began to pray, they were forced to stop because of an especially horrific, nausea-inducing bout of screaming.

At ten o'clock, each demon departed (though with shit ton of verbal resistance and screaming), saying "Hail Mary full of grace," as commanded by the priest upon exiting. The human personages admit their crimes in life, and Lucifer is the last to depart.

With all the demons gone by 10:40 pm, everyone sings the Te Deum in German to celebrate.

The success of the exorcism is short-lived, however. As the priest and family start to sing a Marian hymn, a demonic growl and scream interrupt them, saying, "I have not gone out yet." This demon will not give his name, saying he had not revealed his presence before. Father Renz continues trying to cast him out for three more hours, but the fucker refused to go.

Despite the persistence of this less talkative "demon," Anneliese was able to return to school a week later, cram for an examination, and pass with a good grade. Most of the time, however, she seemed apathetic, according to her classmates, though she was attentive and pleasant to them.

Anneliese continued to receive communications from "the Savior," strongly encouraging her to be patient, to pray for herself and others, to keep a humble silence, to trust in His grace with steadfastness, to struggle against temptation and not to judge others. "I will give you my grace. You will be true unto death."

On a November 9 exorcism session, the demon identifies himself as Judas, saying that he and four others returned shortly after being expelled, with the Lady's permission. For the rest of the year, Anneliese continued leading a double life and renewed her Tegretol prescriptions. She rarely demonstrated demonic behavior outside of exorcism sessions at her family's home. She continued her studies at Würzburg, with most of her school companions utterly unaware of her state of "possession." On one occasion in January, however, Anneliese's face contorted, and she struck her boyfriend, Peter. She returned to normal after he threw holy water on her, at her request.

The exorcism sessions in January were shorter (around two hours), as the demon was more subdued and just bored participating. In a tape-recorded session on February 1, Anneliese told Father Renz that she had recently begun to experience compulsions, so she was no longer permitted to eat or to cover herself from the cold. She felt that her prayers were unheard and that her suffering for the sake of others was far more difficult than she expected. She also felt the need to bang her head against the wall, strip, and go to bed. Sometimes the voices were verbal, like a sweet voice telling her that she must always wear the same pair of shoes.

On March 3, Anneliese had an episode of stiffness when trying to visit home, so she stayed in Würzburg. She was unresponsive to yet, another exorcism. However, she soon recovered, started eating more food, resumed her studies, and was examined by the school's general practitioner Dr. Wolfert on the 9th. She told him about her epileptic history but not about her possession. He thought she appeared exhausted yet "psychologically normal," and he renewed her Tegretol prescription.

In early April, while visiting home, Anneliese begged Thea Hein to promise to tell her if anyone thought of sending her to a physician. She also warned that there would soon be a powerful burning stench, and immediately they both smelled an unbearable stench in the car that endured for ten minutes after opening the windows.

On the night of April 13, the Tuesday before Easter, Anneliese felt the urge to stay kneeling in the school's chapel until the next morning. The following day, however, she could discuss her thesis with her advisor, exhibiting sound critical thinking when talking about relevant literature.

On the night of April 15 (Holy Thursday), Anneliese felt a terror and a great weight pushing down on her while kneeling in the Church to pray. She believed she was experiencing "the death agony of the Savior," and felt the pains of the stigmata. At the end of the Good Friday service the following day, Anneliese remained standing rigidly for hours, unable to move. The next day, her sister Roswitha came to nurse her as she lay in bed. Anneliese would become rigid again whenever someone tried to get her out of bed and dress to go home to Klingenberg.

By the last week of April, Anneliese had again started refusing to eat. Some friends suggested calling a physician, but she wouldn't do it. None of them were aware of the possession or exorcisms except Anna Lippert, who called Father Renz and Father Alt on April 30, after Anneliese had started screaming loudly. On the morning of May 1, she was her usual self again, casually chatting with Roswitha and Peter over breakfast. When Father Alt arrived that day, Anneliese asked him if she could work on her thesis at the parish house in Ettleben, so he would be on hand to perform an exorcism if needed. On the way to Ettleben, she told Peter that she had told Father Alt that her suffering would be over in July.

That afternoon, Anneliese urged Peter to let her see the renovated Church. Once inside, her face stiffened, and she became emotionless. When Peter tried to move her, she felt too heavy. Just like on April 15, a short prayer was enough to snap her out of it, but she returned to her state when she was brought to bed. In the early days of May, she got worse, refusing to eat, sleep, or even lie in her bed. Roswitha and a local elderly woman were soon summoned to help care for Anneliese while the parish housekeeper prepared meals. Roswitha injured her foot a week later, so the Michels brought Anneliese home to Klingenberg on May 10.

In Klingenberg, Anneliese's condition continued to worsen. She raged, screamed, struggled violently (requiring at least two men to hold her down), struck, and bit herself. Father Renz repeatedly visited to recite the exorcism rite, but no demons responded. During some sessions, she would exhibit compulsive behaviors, such as constantly kneeling and rising hundreds of times. Finally, on May 20, she could stay coherent for five hours, dictating a four-page outline of her thesis. Other than those moments, she was incapable of ordinary conversation.

The only physician to see Anneliese in this weakened state was Dr. Richard Roth, a friend of Father Alt who visited on May 30. Dr. Roth would later testify that he showed up out of scientific curiosity, not as a physician. On June 2, Father Renz reported to the Bishop that Anneliese's left cheek was severely swollen and had bruises around her eyes from her self-inflicted blows. Dr. Roth denied seeing any of these injuries. However, his testimony was inconsistent and implausible on several points, and he was likely trying to exonerate himself from a charge of criminal negligence.

According to the other witnesses in the house (the Michels, Peter, and the priests), Dr. Roth did see Anneliese from the front, remarking on her stigmata wounds, and afterward promised to Fr. Alt that he would come in case of a medical emergency. He suggested treatments for her bruises but considered her general condition untreatable by a physician, allegedly saying, "There are no injections against the devil." We must say that Dr. Roth was a reasonably respected physician, published in medical journals, and had no prior attachment to belief in exorcism. However, his new experience with exorcism led him to start going to Church.

On June 8, the last time Fr. Alt saw Anneliese, she had a sunken face from malnourishment. However, she drank fruit juices and milk, according to her parents, and on one occasion drank nearly two liters. When they tried to force-feed her, she would spit out the food or firmly press her lips. In addition, she chipped her teeth from biting the wall, repeatedly bit herself, and struck at others.

Meanwhile, the exorcisms were consistently unsuccessful in getting demons to speak. Instead of intelligible words, Anneliese repeatedly made mechanically unnatural-sounding voices taped on June 7. Fr. Renz later believed to be a "penance possession," where the possessed endures suffering in reparation of someone else's sins. Yet, he admitted he could not understand the meaning of the penance.

By June 18, Anneliese's injuries had healed, except for an open sore on her knee and nosebleeds from rubbing. Nevertheless, she still compulsively knelt and rose dozens of times until exhausted. She screamed and raged in bed, even as her mother attempted impromptu exorcism prayers. She still had many cognitive periods when she could converse normally with her family and Peter. She told them she expected all would be over by July and repeatedly told them not to call a doctor. On the last such occasion, on June 30, she told Roswitha that a physician could not help her and feared being sent to the state mental institution at Lohr, where she did not belong.

On June 27, Anneliese had a fever, but it subsided after cold compresses were applied. She refused to have a physician visit, although her father did call Dr. Roth to write another note extending her leave from school. Before the exorcism on June 30, her temperature was measured at 38.9oC (102.0oF). During one exorcism rite, she insisted on repeatedly kneeling, though her family cushioned her movements, placing a pillow on the floor. Her last words to Fr. Renz were, "Please, absolution," requesting the absolution part of the rite, which he then gave. With the rite completed, Peter and Fr. Renz left, while her parents remained with Anneliese. Anna Michel went to bed a short while afterward. Anneliese then started screaming and throwing herself around. Her father was still in the room, and as it was midnight, he told her that he commanded the demons to leave in the father's name since it was now July and they had to leave, so she could recover. After that, she turned quietly on her right side and went to sleep.

The following morning, at seven o'clock, Mr. Michel looked into Anneliese's room and saw her apparently sleeping, so he headed out to work. An hour later, his wife called and told him that Anneliese was dead.

Damn…. What an ordeal. The previous information was taken from an exceptional article(albeit a little biased at times) from arcane knowledge.org

The autopsy report declared the cause of death "advanced emaciation" due to severe malnutrition and dehydration. When asked why medical intervention had not been sought, Father Alt stated that he never considered the woman dangerously ill and that if he had, he would've immediately called for medical assistance.

Like a bitch, Father Renz said, "The exorcism ritual expressly states that the clergymen should not burden themselves with medical matters." In this, Father Renz was correct, as the rite of exorcism they were using at the time, the 1614 "De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio" from the Rituale Romanum, said nothing about the priest's responsibilities for the physical well-being of the possessed. Instead, it suggested, "The exorcist should guard against giving or recommending any medicine to the patient, but should leave this care to physicians." In the case of Anneliese Michel, there were no physicians. One would expect that good judgment (if not pity) would have motivated the priests to act. Father Renz testified that he had written to the Bishop before Annaliese's death that her condition was deteriorating but had received no response. Bishop Stengl explained that neither he nor Father Rodewyk had any direct contact with Anneliese or her parents during the nine months of exorcisms and were unaware that she was not receiving medical treatment.

Author and cultural anthropologist Felicitas Goodman argued, "There is sufficient evidence to support the contention that Anneliese was indeed not sick, that she was not an epileptic, that what looked to the uninformed like symptoms of a disease were actually manifestations of a religious experience". These mystical or religious experiences are known as altered states of consciousness (ASC), periods of wakefulness that are pretty different from normal. Some have disagreed with Goodman's claim saying there was sufficient evidence that Anneliese did not have temporal lobe epilepsy. Goodman's argument seems predicated on the fact that multiple EEGs, in addition to the autopsy report after her death, failed to indicate anything abnormal with Anneliese's temporal lobe: she had no anatomical defects, tumors, or scarring. However, this is not unusual. In roughly one in four cases of temporal lobe epilepsy, the cause remains unknown. Many factors may cause temporal lobe epilepsy, including infections such as encephalitis or meningitis, malformations of the blood vessels in the brain, or genetic mutations.

Additionally, there is reason to believe that Anneliese may not have taken her medication as prescribed. This is something Goodman contradicts herself on, stating that "Anneliese continued taking the drugs conscientiously." "Roswitha remembers that Anneliese often took less than the three tablets per day (of Tegretol) when her prescription was beginning to run out, and then made up for it as soon as it was renewed by taking more than the prescribed dosage." If this were true, the question of why despite the anticonvulsants and the mood stabilizers, Anneliese's behavior and mental state continued to decline, and she continued to have seizures, becomes less mysterious.

The following is a description of the trial that followed from a 1978 Washington Post article:

When she died, Anneliese weighed 68 pounds. The autopsy report said that her death was caused by the malnutrition and dehydration that resulted from almost a year of semi-starvation during the rites.

The state prosecutor, after an investigation, said the women's death could have been prevented even one week before she died. Instead, he charged all four defendants with negligent homicide for failing to call a medical doctor.

A series of doctors who have testified at the trial have all told the court that the woman died of a combination of epilepsy, mental disorders and an extremely religious environment which, in the words of Professor Hans Sattes of Wuertzburg University, added up to "a spiritual sickness and heavy psychic disturbance.

Both priests have told the court they remain convinced that the woman was possessed and that her death finally freed her. The parents also remain confident that she was possessed, but not that she was released. The parents ordered their daughter's body exhumed from her grave after they said a nun told them she had a vision that their daughter's body was still intact, proof of the possession.

The exhumation, which authorities said showed normal body decay, was attended by hundreds of curious spectators, and the trial also drew intense interest.

Throughout the trial, Anneliese's father, 60-year-old Josef Michel, sat impassively, his stocky frame tilted close to a unique amplifier to help him hear. His wife, Anna, 57, took notes steadily, pausing only to moan, "Oh, dear God," when some doctor alleged that her daughter was possessed of a mental disorder rather than the devil.

The priests were defended by church-paid lawyers. The parents were defended by one of Germany's top lawyers, Erich Schmidt-Leichner, who has also defended numerous persons in Nazi war crimes trials.

Schmidt-Leichner has claimed that exorcism is legal and that the German constitution protects citizens in the free exercise of their religious beliefs.

The accused were convicted of "negligent homicide" and were given suspended prison sentences in April 1978 and were "ordered to share the costs of the proceedings." The sentences have been described as "stiffer" than requested by the prosecutor, who had asked that the priests only be fined and that the parents be found guilty but not punished. The Church approving such an old-fashioned exorcism rite drew public and media attention. According to John M. Duffey, the case was a misidentification of mental illness.

One more little fun fact: On June 6, 2013, a fire broke out in the house where Anneliese Michel lived, and although the local police said it was a case of arson, some locals attributed it to the exorcism case!!!

Movies about possession

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-demonic-posession-movies/ranker-horror

Unsolved: The Chicago Tylenol Murders

Tue, 31 May 2022 22:15:58 -0400

Today on the train we figured we'd go back to the land of unsolved true crime as we like to do, on occasion. So, as with all these unsolved true crime episodes, we like to bring these crimes back into the limelight and bring the stories back into the conversation. Once these stories stop getting talked about any chance of solving them goes by the wayside. This one is a strange one for sure. We're talking a look at what are called the Chicago Tylenol murders.

The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. To date, no suspect has been charged or convicted of the poisonings.

The incidents led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substances and to federal anti-tampering laws. The actions of Johnson & Johnson to reduce deaths and warn the public of poisoning risks have been widely praised as an exemplary public relations response to such a crisis.

There were 7 victims total from the original incident with even more deaths resulting from copycat incidents after the fact.

Let's first take a look at the victims.

MARY KELLERMAN

September 29, 1982

The first victim was 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, a seventh grader at Addams Junior High School in Schaumburg and living in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. She enjoyed horseback riding and earned extra money after school babysitting for neighborhood children.

Mary woke up early in the morning hours of September 29, 1982. Feeling ill, she took an Extra Strength Tylenol to help with a runny nose and sore throat. At 7 am, her parents found Mary unconscious on the bathroom floor. Her parents rushed her to the hospital where Mary was pronounced dead by 9:30 am. Her death was first assumed to be a stroke, but the toxicology report and connection to other deaths soon proved it to be a murder.

She left behind her parents Dennis and Jeanna M. Kellerman. Mary Kellerman was laid to rest in the Saint Michael The Archangel Catholic Cemetery.

ADAM, STANLEY AND THERESA JANUS

September 29, 1982

Twenty-seven-year-old Adam Janus was the next person to die after taking Extra Strength Tylenol. He was the father of two young children, and living in Arlington Heights. The day of his death, Adam thought he was coming down with a cold. He stayed home from work that day. On his way home from picking up his children from preschool, he stopped at a Jewel grocery store and purchased a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol.

"After taking several capsules, he walked into his bedroom, collapsed and fell into a coma. He died in the emergency room at Northwest Community Hospital." — SARA OLKON, The Chicago Tribune

After the death of Adam Janus, his family gathered at his home to mourn and begin making funeral arrangements. Stanley, Adam's brother, and his wife Theresa (Adam's sister-in-law), were visiting with family when they complained of headaches and looked for a nearby remedy. In Adam's bathroom cabinet, they found the same bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. Moments after taking the disguised cyanide capsules, Stanley and then Theresa collapsed.

Fearing carbon monoxide poisoning, the rest of the Janus family was taken to hospital for observation. They were given their last rites, but did not die.

The Januses were survived by Janus parents Tadeusz "Ted" and Alojza Janus, niece Monica Janus, brother Joseph Janus, Theresa's brother Robert Tarasewicz, her mother Helena Tarasewicz, and a host of other bereaved family members and friends.

A joint funeral was held for the three Janus family victims on October 5, 1982, with the Archbishop Joseph Bernardun presiding. Adam Janus was laid to rest at Maryhill Catholic Cemetery & Mausoleum in Niles, Cook County, Illinois. Stanley and Theresa Janus were laid to rest at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery in Naperville, DuPage County, Illinois.

MARY REINER

September 29, 1982

Mary Reiner was happily married to her husband Ed, and the couple had just welcomed their fourth child into the world. She used Tylenol to relieve symptoms of post-birth discomfort.

Like the other victims, Mary Reiner collapsed shortly after taking the fatally disguised dose of cyanide. Mary's daughter, Michelle Rosen, was just eight years old when she witnessed her mother's poisoning, collapse, and death. Mary's husband arrived at the scene shortly after:

"I came home right after she had fallen on the floor. An ambulance came [and rushed her to Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield]. I’m not gonna say a whole lot more than that." — Ed Reiner, as quoted by Chicago Magazine

"Mary Magdalene Reiner grew up in Villa Park and was "100 percent Irish." Rosen remembers her being a good cook and preparing corned beef and egg noodles for the family. She also loved playing softball, the drums, and bowling." — James Sotonoff, Daily Herald

Her death left husband Ed Reiner to mourn, and four children, including an infant son to grow up without a mother.

MARY MCFARLAND

September 30, 1982

Thirty-year-old Mary McFarland was working at her job at the Illinois Bell in Lombard, when she felt a bad headache coming on. According to her brother Jack Eliason, Mary took Tylenol in the back room of her workplace, and died shortly after. He told the Associated Press:

"...she went in the back room and took I don't know how many Tylenol — at least one, obviously — and within minutes she was on the floor."

She was a single mother, working and raising two young sons at the time of her death. Her two boys Ryan and Bradley McFarland, now grown, survive Mary McFarland. She was also survived by parents John and Jane Eliason, brother Jack Eliason and sister-in-law Nancy Eliason, and siblings. A granddaughter she never had the chance to meet was named Mary in her honor.

PAULA PRINCE

October 1, 1982

Paula Jean Prince, 35, was a flight attendant who worked for United Airlines. On the day of her death, she flew from Las Vegas to O'Hare International Airport. She purchased Tylenol from a Walgreens on her way home. An ATM surveillance camera captured the purchase.

Exhausted from a long flight, Paula took Tylenol to relieve the symptoms of a cold as she got ready for bed. She was found dead in her apartment, and an open bottle of Tylenol was found on her bathroom counter. While other victims of the Tylenol Scare were from the suburbs of Chicago, Paula was the only victim to live in the city.

The deaths of Mary Kellerman, Adam Janus, Stanley Janus, Theresa Janus, Mary Reiner, Mary McFarland and Paula Prince shared many similarities. All turned to Tylenol, a trusted, safe and common over-the-counter drug, to relieve minor ailments, and lost their lives. Their stories are almost universally relatable. Who hasn't taken a Tylenol for quick relief from a headache, cold or other aches and pain? The ordinariness of the circumstances coupled with the heinousness of the crime created a wave of panic in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Paula's funeral was held in Omaha at the same time as the Janus family victims, on October 5, 1982. She was laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska. She was survived by her father Lloyd Prince, mother Margaret Prince, and siblings Carol Lisle, Margaret Conway and Robert Prince.

All of the victim information was taken from an article on beyondthedash.com

Next up let's look at the suspects…what few there actually were!

First up is James William Lewis. Here is what we know about Lewis as it pertains to this case:

Worked as a tax accountant

Also known to be a fraudster

Handwriting was positively matched to that of two letters sent to Johnson & Johnson and the White House, the Johnson & Johnson letter demanding an end to the poisonings, The White House letter threatening to bomb it and continue the Tylenol poisonings

Was at New York City with his wife during the time of the murders, left the Chicago area in the early days of September 1982.

Was able to show the authorities how an offender could, hypothetically, tamper Tylenol pills with Cyanide. Claimed he did it for helping out. This is typical of other offenders, such as Ted Bundy

An unidentified man seen in a CCTV footage of one of the affected drugstores bears a striking resemblance to him. The man appears to have been watching victim Paula Prince, who is also shown in the footage, buying the tainted pills.

Sentenced to 20 years in prison for extortion and letter and credit-card fraud, but served only 13 years of the sentence and was paroled in 1995

In February 2009 his Cambridge, Mass., home was raided by the FBI; agents were seen leaving with boxes of evidence and an Apple computer.

In 2010, Lewis, then 63, and his wife, Leann, appeared at a closed hearing at the Middlesex Superior Court Wednesday to determine whether they have to submit to the grand jury's subpoena, which was a request to submit DNA, according to sources close to the case.

The judge ordered them to comply with the subpoena and both James and Leann Lewis turned over samples, according to investigators.

But Lewis has always maintained his innocence in the actual poisonings of the Tylenol capsules. When asked about the drawings, he has claimed he was only trying to be a "good citizen" by giving authorities detailed sketches depicting how someone might go about injecting cyanide into Tylenol capsules.

"I could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that does not mean I was the killer," Lewis told the Chicago Tribune in a 1992 jailhouse interview.

Pressed as to why he and his wife would have been subpoenaed for DNA if they are innocent, Lewis declined to comment.

According to the Daily Herald in Chicago in in 201⁰0 new scientific technology available to analyze a smudge on one of the original Tylenol bottles could help establish a link between Lewis and the crimes.

The paper, quoting an ex-state official involved in the original investigation whose name was not mentioned because he agreed to speak only with a guarantee of anonymity, said that "advances in DNA and fingerprint technology may make the 'smudge' evidence relevant today."

In receding to whether all of the evidence collected could've bring about a trial:

"The evidence investigators presented to prosecutors so far remains circumstantial, but it could be bolstered by statements from potential witnesses who have declined to sit for interviews, according to sources close to the investigation.

So far, however, no decision has been made on whether to give the grand jury a green light. Sources say both state’s attorneys from Cook and DuPage counties have been briefed on the evidence. The investigation, handled by an FBI-led task force of law-enforcement agents, still centers on the same man: James W. Lewis, sources tell the Sun-Times."

In a lengthy chronicle of the case for the Reader, Joy Bergmann paints Lewis as a suspicious character… but not, aside from his extortion, necessarily suspicious as the Tylenol killer:

Lewis maintained he was a "political prisoner," a "scapegoat," and an "all-purpose monster…fathered by the wild-eyed hyperventilated imaginations of two brutal men, Tyrone Fahner and Daniel K. Webb," who simply "blew" the Tylenol investigation thanks to "bureaucratic blundering incompetence."

McGarr had already listened to Dan Webb reiterate Lewis's biography: the violence toward his parents, the mental hospital commitment, the Raymond West murder charge, the Kansas City fraud schemes for which he was convicted in May of 1983 and sentenced to ten years, the fugitive flight, the extortion conviction, the breadboard schematic, the grandiose and quick-to-explode temperament, the innumerable aliases and deceptions.

Years later, some still show skepticism towards Lewis as the killer:

Superintendent Brzeczek

It wasn’t James Lewis. James Lewis was an asshole, an opportunist. He tried to extort some money from Johnson & Johnson, and he went to jail. He was in the joint a long time. When someone is in the penitentiary, you can go and talk to him, with or without his lawyer present. In all those years, all the work on James Lewis to put it together: nothing.

Attorney General Fahner

Do I think James Lewis was involved? I did, and I do. And the head of the FBI office here at the time—I can’t speak for him, but I think he felt as I did. But we could never put him in the city, in the places, at the right time.

August Locallo

Lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department

I was the top man in violent crimes. [Lewis] had lived in Chicago, and that’s why they zeroed in on my unit. He was in custody in New York, and I was assigned to go to New York to interview him. Basically, the FBI had him in custody, and by the time we got to New York, he had his attorney and he wouldn’t talk to us. That was a futile effort. He’s a con man. Strictly a con man. And he’ll do anything to get to his goal. I really believed he might have killed somebody, but they couldn’t put anything on him.

Interesting to say the least. Why would this guy straight up insert himself in the crime for no reason? Did he really think an extortion letter would work?

Interesting either way!

There were a couple more suspects besides Lewis.

Roger Arnold:

Roger Arnold was a 48-year-old dock worker. He was overheard saying some “suspicious things” about the Tylenol murders in a bar. While the police were questioning him, they found several connections. He worked at a jewel warehouse with Mary Reiner’s father, Adam Janus bought his Tylenol from a Jewel convenience store, Mary Reiner bought her bottle from a store that is right across from the psychiatric ward where Arnold’s wife was.

The officers found “How-to” crime books in Arnold’s home and there was evidence of “chemistry” as well. The evidence of “chemistry” included beakers and other equipment, along with a bag of powder that turned out to be potassium carbonate.

Arnold refused to take a polygraph and there was never enough evidence to prosecute him.

Arnold went on to have a nervous breakdown from the attention in the media. He blamed everything on a bar owner, Marty Sinclair. In 1983, during the summer, Arnold shot and killed a man named John Stanisha, he thought Stanisha was Sinclair. Roger Arnold received a 30-year sentence for second-degree murder but only served 15 years of it. He died in June of 2008.

Laurie Dann:

Not much evidence to tie her to the murders but an interesting case with this one.

Laurie Dann shot and killed one boy, Nick Corwin, and wounded two girls and three boys in a Winnetka, Illinois elementary school. She then took a family hostage and shot another man, non-fatally, before killing herself.

Dann was born in Chicago and grew up in Glencoe, a north suburb of Chicago.

She met and married Russell Dann, an executive in an insurance broker firm in September 1982, but the marriage quickly soured as Russell's family noted signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and strange behavior[2] including leaving trash around the house.[3] She saw a psychiatrist for a short period, who identified her childhood and upbringing as a cause of her problems.[3]

Laurie and Russell Dann separated in October 1985.[2] The divorce negotiations were acrimonious, with Laurie claiming that Russell was abusive. In the following months, the police were called to investigate various incidents, including several harassing phone calls made to Russell and his family.[3] In April 1986, Laurie Dann accused Russell of breaking into and vandalizing her parents' house, where she was then living. Shortly after, she purchased a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum, telling the salesman that she needed it for self-defense. The police were concerned about her gun ownership and unsuccessfully tried to persuade Dann and her family that she should give up the gun.[2]

In August 1986, she contacted her ex-boyfriend, who was by then a resident at a hospital, and claimed to have had his child. When he refused to believe her, Dann called the hospital where he worked and claimed he had raped her in the emergency room.[3][5]

In September 1986, Russell Dann reported he had been stabbed in his sleep with an icepick. He accused Laurie of the crime, although he had not actually seen his attacker. The police decided not to press charges against Laurie based on a medical report which suggested that the injury might have been self-inflicted, as well as Russell's abrasive attitude towards the police and his failed polygraph test.[2][3] Russell and his family continued to receive harassing hang-up phone calls, and Laurie was arrested for calls made to Russell's sister. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.[3]

Just before their divorce was finalized in April 1987, Laurie accused Russell of raping her. There were no physical signs supporting Laurie's claim, although she passed two polygraph tests.[3] In May 1987, Laurie accused Russell of placing an incendiary device in her home.[2] No charges were filed against Russell for either alleged event. Laurie's parents believed her claims and supported and defended her throughout. By this time, Laurie Dann was being treated by another psychiatrist for obsessive-compulsive disorder and a "chemical imbalance"; the psychiatrist told police that he did not think Laurie was suicidal or homicidal.

In the summer of 1987, Dann sublet a university apartment in Evanston, Illinois. Once again, her strange behavior was noted, including riding up and down in elevators for hours, wearing rubber gloves to touch metal, and leaving meat to rot in sofa cushions. She took no classes at the university.

In the fall of 1987, Dann claimed she had received threatening letters from Russell and that he had sexually assaulted her in a parking lot, but the police did not believe her. A few weeks later, she purchased a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson Model 30-1 revolver.[2]

With her condition deteriorating, Dann and her family sought specialized help. In November 1987, she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, to live in a student residence while being observed by a psychiatrist who specialized in obsessive-compulsive disorder. She had already begun taking clomipramine, a drug for OCD, and her new psychiatrist increased the dosage, adding lithium carbonate to reduce her mood swings and initiating behavioral therapy to work on her phobias and ritualistic behaviors.[3] Despite the intervention, her strange behavior continued, including riding elevators for long periods, changing television channels repetitively, and an obsession with "good" and "bad" numbers. There were also concerns about whether she was bulimic.

Dann purchased a .22-caliber Beretta 21A Bobcat at the end of December 1987. In March 1988, she stopped attending her appointments with the psychiatrist and behavior therapist.[3] At about the same time, she began to make preparations for the attacks. She stole books from the library on poisons, and she diluted arsenic and other chemicals from a lab. She also shoplifted clothes and wigs to disguise herself and was arrested for theft on one occasion. Both her psychiatrist and her father tried to persuade her to enter the hospital as an inpatient, but she refused.[3]

Dann continued to make numerous hang-up phone calls to her former in-laws and babysitting clients. Eventually, the calls escalated to death threats. An ex-boyfriend and his wife also received dozens of threatening calls. In May 1988, a letter, later confirmed to have been sent by Laurie Dann, was sent to the hospital administration where her ex-boyfriend then worked, again accusing him of sexual assault. Since the phone calls were across state lines, the FBI became involved, and a federal indictment against Dann was prepared. However, the ex-boyfriend, fearful of publicity,[2] and concerned about Dann getting bail and then attempting to fulfill her threats against him, decided to wait until other charges were filed in Illinois.[3][5][6] In May 1988, a janitor found her lying in the fetal position inside a garbage bag in a trash room. This precipitated a search of her room and her departure back to Glencoe.

During the days before May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann prepared rice cereal snacks and juice boxes poisoned with the diluted arsenic she had stolen in Madison. She mailed them to a former acquaintance, ex-babysitting clients, her psychiatrist, Russell Dann, and others. In the early morning of May 20, she personally delivered snacks and juice "samples" to acquaintances, and families for whom she had babysat, some of whom had not seen her for years.[2][3] Other snacks were delivered to Alpha Tau Omega, Psi Upsilon, and Kappa Sigma fraternity houses and Leverone Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston.[2][3] Notes were attached to some of the deliveries.[7][8][9] The drinks were often leaking and the squares unpleasant-tasting, so few were actually consumed. In addition, the arsenic was highly diluted so nobody became seriously ill.[2]

At about 9:00 a.m. on the 20th, Dann arrived at the home of the Rushe family, former babysitting clients in Winnetka, Illinois, to pick up their two youngest children. The family had just told Dann they were moving away.[3] Instead of taking the children on the promised outing, she took them to Ravinia Elementary School in Highland Park, Illinois, where she erroneously believed that both of her former sister-in-law's two sons were enrolled (in fact, one of Dann's intended targets was not even a student at the school). She left the two children in the car while she entered the school and tried to detonate a fire bomb in one of the school's hallways. After Dann's departure, the small fire she set was subsequently discovered by students, and quickly extinguished by a teacher. She drove to a local daycare attended by her ex-sister-in-law's daughter and tried to enter the building with a plastic can of gasoline, but was stopped by staff.

Next Dann drove the children back to their home and offered them some arsenic-poisoned milk, but the boys spat it out because it tasted strange to them. Once at their home, she lured them downstairs and used gasoline to set fire to the house, trapping their mother and the two children in the basement (they managed to escape).[2][3][10] She drove three and a half blocks to the Hubbard Woods Elementary School with three handguns in her possession. She wandered into a second grade classroom for a short while, then left. Finding a boy in the corridor, Dann pushed him into the boys' washroom and shot him with a .22 semi-automatic Beretta pistol. Her Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver jammed when she tried to fire it at two other boys, and she threw it into the trash along with the spare ammunition. The boys ran out of the washroom and raised the alarm.[2] Dann then reentered the second grade classroom where students were working in groups on a bicycle safety test. She ordered all the children into the corner of the room. The teacher refused and attempted to disarm Dann, managing to unload the Beretta in the struggle. Dann drew a .32 Smith & Wesson from the waistband of her shorts and aimed it at several groups of the students. She shot five children, killing eight-year-old Nick Corwin and wounding two girls and two boys before fleeing in her car.[3]

Dann was prevented from leaving the area by car because the roads were closed for a funeral cortege. She decided to drive her car backwards down the nearby street, but the road dead-ended into a private drive. Abandoning her car, she removed her bloodstained shorts and tied a blue garbage bag around her waist. With her two remaining guns she made her way through the woods and came upon the house of the Andrew family. Dann entered the house and met a mother and her twenty-year-old son, who were in the kitchen. She claimed she was raped and had shot the rapist in the struggle.[3][11] The Andrews were sympathetic[11] and tried to convince her that she need not fear the police because she had acted in self-defense. Mrs. Andrew gave Dann a pair of her daughter's pants to wear. While she was putting them on, Philip Andrew was able to pick up and pocket the Beretta. He suggested that she call her family. Dann agreed and called her mother, telling her she had done something terrible and that the police were involved. Philip took the phone and explained Dann's story about the rape and shooting, suggesting that Mrs. Wasserman come to get Dann; Mrs. Wasserman said she could not come because she did not have a car.

Mr. Andrew arrived home, and they continued to argue with Dann, insisting she give up the second gun. Dann called her mother again and this time Mr. Andrew spoke with Mrs. Wasserman, asking her to persuade Dann to give up the gun. While Dann spoke with her mother, Mrs. Andrew left the house and alerted the police. Mr. Andrew told Dann that he would not remain in the house if she did not put down the gun, and also left the house. Dann ordered Philip to stay. Just before noon, seeing the police advancing on the house she shot Philip in the chest, but he managed to escape out the back door before collapsing and being rescued by the police and ambulance personnel.

With the house surrounded, Dann went upstairs to a bedroom. The Wassermans and Russell Dann were brought to the house. At about 7:00 p.m., an assault team entered the house while Mr. Wasserman attempted to get Dann's attention with a bullhorn. The police found her body in the bedroom; she had shot herself in the mouth.

Soooooo yea…there's that…she did try and poison people and she was definitely crazy…

So there's pretty much everything known in this case .. Which is to say…

Not a ton. It's an interesting case that remains open to this day. And while it seems Lewis is a strong suspect as they kept after him as late as 2012…still no one has been charged.

The aftermath literally changed the way medication is sold.

McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of the health care giant, Johnson & Johnson, manufactured Tylenol. To its credit, the company took an active role with the media in issuing mass warning communications and immediately called for a massive recall of the more than 31 million bottles of Tylenol in circulation. Tainted capsules were discovered in early October in a few other grocery stores and drug stores in the Chicago area, but, fortunately, they had not yet been sold or consumed. McNeill and Johnson & Johnson offered replacement capsules to those who turned in pills already purchased and a reward for anyone with information leading to the apprehension of the individual or people involved in these random murders.

The case continued to be confusing to the police, the drug maker and the public at large. For example, Johnson & Johnson quickly established that the cyanide lacing occurred after cases of Tylenol left the factory. Someone, police hypothesized, must have taken bottles off the shelves of local grocers and drug stores inJohnson & Johnson developed new product protection methods and ironclad pledges to do better in protecting their consumers in the future. Working with FDA officials, they introduced a new tamper-proof packaging, which included foil seals and other features that made it obvious to a consumer if foul play had transpired. These packaging protections soon became the industry standard for all over-the-counter medications. The company also introduced price reductions and a new version of their pills — called the “caplet” — a tablet coated with slick, easy-to-swallow gelatin but far harder to tamper with than the older capsules which could be easily opened, laced with a contaminant, and then placed back in the older non-tamper-proof bottle.

Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, Tylenol’s sales rebounded to its healthy past and it became, once again, the nation’s favorite over-the-counter pain reliever. Critics who had prematurely announced the death of the brand Tylenol were now praising the company’s handling of the matter. Indeed, the Johnson & Johnson recall became a classic case study in business schools across the nation. the Chicago area, laced the capsules with poison, and then returned the restored packages to the shelves to be purchased by the unknowing victims.

In 1983, the U.S. Congress passed what was called “the Tylenol bill,” making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof.

Copycats:

Hundreds of copycat attacks involving Tylenol, other over-the-counter medications, and other products also took place around the United States immediately following the Chicago deaths.[1][25]

Three more deaths occurred in 1986 from tampered gelatin capsules.[26] A woman died in Yonkers, New York, after ingesting "Extra-Strength Tylenol" capsules laced with cyanide.[27] Excedrin capsules in Washington state were tampered with, resulting in the deaths of Susan Snow and Bruce Nickell from cyanide poisoning and the eventual arrest and conviction of Bruce Nickell's wife, Stella Nickell, for her intentional actions in the crimes connected to both murders.[28] That same year, Procter & Gamble's Encaprin was recalled after a spiking hoax in Chicago and Detroit that resulted in a precipitous sales drop and a withdrawal of the pain reliever from the market.[29] In 1991 in Washington state, Kathleen Daneker and Stanley McWhorter were killed from two cyanide-tainted boxes of Sudafed, and Jennifer Meling went into a coma from a similar poisoning but recovered shortly thereafter. Jennifer's husband, Joseph Meling, was convicted on numerous charges in a federal Seattle court regarding the deaths of Daneker and McWhorter and the attempted murder of his wife, who was abused during the Melings' marriage. Meling was sentenced to life imprisonment and lost an appeal for a retrial.[30][31]

In 1986 a University of Texas student, Kenneth Faries, was found dead in his apartment after succumbing to cyanide poisoning.[32] Tampered Anacin capsules were determined to be the source of the cyanide found in his body. His death was ruled as a homicide on May 30, 1986.[33] On June 19, 1986 the AP reported that the Travis County Medical Examiner ruled his death a likely suicide. The FDA determined he obtained the poison from a lab in which he worked.

There you have it…the Tylenol murders! Crazy shit for sure!

Top ten medical horror movies

https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/17726/1/top-ten-medical-horror-films

Man-Eating Animals

Thu, 26 May 2022 10:30:40 -0400

Ep. 157

Man Eaters

Tonight we're gonna talk about something everyone loves, something everyone needs, and something both Moody and myself know quite a bit about…that's right platonic love between two males…wait, wrong podcast… actually it's ……FOOOOOOOD!!

I know what you're thinking… "Jon, how is that creepy?" Well let me tell you how it is creepy, it's creepy when humans are on the menu. Today we are talking about man eaters. And no.. Not the Hall and Oates classic. We're talking about animals who put humans on the menu!

Throughout time humans have come to be thought of as the top of the food chain. For the most part we are because we have no real natural predators aside from ourselves. But this can change when humans encroach on an animal's territory. There are several reasons animals can attack humans. Not all attacks turn into man eating scenarios but it is important to understand why animals attack.

Perceived Threat or Fear

Most animals face the threat of predation. To avoid the risk of being injured or killed, animals employ tactics to fool predators – in some cases that’s us, the humans. In the event those strategies fail, their ‘killing’ instinct kicks in and launches attacks.

Cape Buffaloes (aka Black Death) is the best example. Cape Buffalo is most aggressive when it has been wounded, or if they detect a threat to the young ones in the herd. Lions could attack humans out of fear to defend themselves when they are approached at close range.

For Food

When a carnivorous animal attacks a human, wildlife experts often point to the absence of wild prey species. According to a study in the journal Human-Wildlife Interactions, researchers at the Berryman Institute of Utah State University analyzed leopard attacks in and around Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in India. They concluded that leopards had been forced to kill livestock due to the low population of their natural prey. In certain cases, leopards also become man-eaters.

Self-Preservation

Sometimes animals attack humans because they have to, or they are forced to. Since the beginning of time, humans have attacked wild animals, caged, or killed them. This left animals with a deep-seated fear of humans, and an increased urge to attack if they feel stressed, anxious, or frightened by our mere presence.

Protect Their Young

Animals are super protective of their young. The animal kingdom has the most devoted dads like lions, Arctic wolves, gorillas, and golden jackals and moms like elephants who will stop at nothing to rescue their young ones from harm. And that includes driving away or killing humans.

New Territories

Due to the population explosion, the world needs to build billions of new homes every year. With increased household demands, it’s inevitable that the human race will continue moving into new places. As we do, we become instrumental in deforestation and threaten wildlife. The result – wild animals hunting people who threaten their home.

A good example is hippos. They kill more people than any other animal. Most of the hippo attacks are out of fear of losing their territory. The chances of deliberate attacks are high especially when humans get between hippos when they are in the shallows, cut off from the safety of deep water.

Humans Don’t Usually Put up a Good Fight

Over the years, we humans have effectively removed ourselves from the food chain. This is good in one way because we don’t have to go on hunting parties to get food or fight for territories and survival with other animal species as wildlife.

But the downside is that it makes humans easy prey. We’re so unused to being hunted that when things go south, we panic instead of fleeing or fighting and end-up being the prey.

Mistaken Identity

One of the most common reasons behind shark attacks. They often think we’re food because they can’t really see us very well and differentiate from their natural prey. Surfers are more likely to be in danger zone because the surfboard makes them look like a seal, which is the favorite meal of many shark species.

Human Ignorance

In most cases, humans get attacked for their own fault. Seeing wildlife up close and taking pictures are fascinating. But there’s a huge difference between keeping a safe distance and approaching them closer for a selfie or video. Unfortunately, many people venturing out for wildlife holidays don’t know that. They simply invade animals’ homes and space and get attacked in return.

So those are the main reasons for animal attacks in general…you know…so mostly just fucking leave wild animals alone. Or learn how to fight a bear or wolf or something!

So while most attacks don't involve humans being eaten there are many interesting cases of man eaters out there throughout history. The ones that don't involve eating people…. Well we don't care about those…we are here for the gruesome, gory, man eating details!

There are many different types of animals that have been reported as man eaters. We are going to go through some of those and some of the cases involving those animals!

First up we're gonna look at the big cats! Lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars and cougars…oh my! All have been reported at times to be man eaters.

Tiger attacks are an extreme form of human–wildlife conflict which occur for various reasons and have claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 averaging about 1800 kills per year, the majority of these attacks occurring in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia.

For tigers, most commonly they will become man eaters when they are injured or incapacitated making their normal prey to hard to catch.

Man-eating tigers have been a recurrent problem in India, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal. There, some healthy tigers have been known to hunt humans. However, there have been mentions of man eaters in old Indian literature, so it appears that after the British occupied India and built roads into forests and brought the tradition of 'shikaar', man eaters became a nightmare come alive. Even though tigers usually avoid elephants, they have been known to jump on an elephant's back and severely injure the “mahout” riding on the elephant's back. A mahout is an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper. Mahouts were used since antiquity for both civilian and military use. Kesri Singh mentioned a case when a fatally wounded tiger attacked and killed the hunter who wounded it while the hunter was on the back of an elephant. Most man-eating tigers are eventually captured, shot or poisoned.

During war, tigers may acquire a taste for human flesh from the consumption of corpses which were just laying around, unburied, and go on to attack soldiers; this happened during the Vietnam and Second World Wars.

There are some pretty well known tigers that were man eaters.

The Champawat Tiger was originally from Nepal where it had managed to kill approximately 200 people starting in 1903 before the Napalese drove her out (without killing her) to the Kumaon region of India in the early 20th century. After the tiger’s arrival, she managed to kill another 234 before an exasperated government called in Jim Corbett.

Edward James Corbett was born on July 25, 1875, the son of British colonists in India. He had become a colonel in the British Indian army. Being raised in the valley of Nainital and Kaladhungi region full of natural wonder, he grew up appreciative of wildlife and the need to conserve it. As was typical of early naturalists, he took to hunting and viewed the conservation of wildlife as being more to preserve stock for hunters rather than the preservation of the ecology per se. His skill as a hunter was well-known although this would be the first time he would attempt to take a reputed “man-eater.”

The attacks began in the Himalayas of western Nepal in a Rupal village. Despite the stealth of the massive cat, she left a trail of blood that set hunters headlong in pursuit. Yet, the tiger evaded capture and death. Despite the failed first efforts of hunters, the Nepalese Army knew something had to be done. So, they organized a massive patrol, forcing the tiger to abandon her territory. Unfortunately, danger relocated with her.

Driven over the river Sarda and the border into India, the move did little to slow her thirst for human flesh. In the Kumaon District, she preyed on countless unprepared villagers. The tigress adjusted her hunting strategy to optimize success while diminishing the risk of containment. By some accounts, she traveled upwards of 20 miles (32 km) per day to make a kill and then avoid capture.

She targeted young women and children. They were the ones who most often wandered into the forest to collect firewood, food for livestock, and materials for handicrafts. She only killed during daylight, typical behavior for man-eating tigers. As word got out about the Chapawat tiger’s vicious attacks, daily life drew to a standstill. Hearing the Bengal tigress’s roars from the forest, men refused to leave their huts for work.

Just two days before he brought down the “Tiger Queen,” Corbett tracked the beast by following the blood trail of her latest victim. Premka Devi, a 16-year-old girl from the village of Fungar near the city of Champawat. She had disappeared, and villagers and Corbett quickly guessed the girl’s fate.

After locating Premka’s remains and confirming her violent death by the tigress, he nearly got ambushed by the big cat herself. Only two hastily fired shots from his rifle managed to scare the cat away. Only then did he recognize the real danger associated with hunting a man-eater. The Bengal tiger felt no fear of humans.

The next day, with the help of Chapawat’s tahsildar, Corbett organized a patrol of 300 villagers. Around noon, he finally had the murderer in his sights and made the kill. Life could return to normal. Because of the legacy he gained by saving the residents of Chapawat and its surrounding villages from the big cat, he went on to pursue and kill about a dozen more well-documented man-eaters.

When the tiger was finally brought down it was noted that both the top and bottom canines on her right side were broken, the top one on half, and the bottom one broken to the jaw bone. The thought is that this is the thing that caused her to turn into a man eater. She couldn't kill and eat her normal prey, so she went after easier prey in humans. Pussy ass humans.

Her final body count is recorded at around 436 people…holy shit!

Tiger of Segur

The Tiger of Segur was a young man-eating male Bengal tiger. Though originating in the District of Malabar-Wynaad below the south-western face of the Blue Mountains, the tiger would later shift its hunting grounds to Gudalur and between Segur and Anaikutty. It was killed by Kenneth Anderson, who would later note that the tiger had a disability preventing it from hunting its natural prey. His body count was 5.

The Tigers of Chowgarh were a pair of man-eating Bengal tigers, consisting of an old tigress and her sub-adult cub, which for over a five-year period killed a reported 64 people in eastern Kumaon over an area spanning 1,500 square miles (3,900 km2). The tigress was attacking humans initially alone, but later she was assisted by her sub-adult cub. The figures however are uncertain, as the natives of the areas the tigers frequented claimed double that number, and they do not take into account victims who survived direct attacks but died subsequently. Both tigers were killed by.... Good ol Jim Corbett.

Most recently, the Tigers of Bardia,

In 2021, four tigers killed ten people and injured several others in Bardia National Park of Nepal. Three of the tigers were captured and transferred to rescue centers. One of the tigers escaped from its cage and is yet to be captured.

The tigers were identified and captured from Gaida Machan on 4 April, from Khata on 18 March and from Geruwa on 17 March. The tigers were found with broken canine teeth, possibly due to fighting between two males. After the capture, one of the tigers escaped from the iron cage and went back to the forest in the Banke district. Two were housed at the rescue facility in Bardia National Park in Thakurdwara and Rambapur. One was transferred to the Central Zoo in Jawalakhel, Kathmandu.

How about lions…y'all like lions…maybe not after hearing some of this shit.

Man-eating lions have been recorded to actively enter human villages at night as well as during the day to acquire prey. This greater assertiveness usually makes man-eating lions easier to dispatch than tigers. Lions typically become man-eaters for the same reasons as tigers: starvation, old age and illness, though as with tigers, some man-eaters were reportedly in perfect health.

The most famous man eating lions would probably be the Tsavo man eaters. The story of the Tsavo lions begins in March 1898, when a team of Indian workers led by British Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson arrived in Kenya to build a bridge over the Tsavo River, as part of the Kenya-Uganda Railway project. The project, it seems, was doomed from the start. As Bruce Patterson (no relation) writes in his book "The Lions of Tsavo," "Few of the men at the railhead knew that the name itself was a warning. Tsavo means 'place of slaughter'" in the local language. That actually referred to killings by the Maasai people, who attacked weaker tribes and took no prisoners, but it was still a bad omen.

Lt. Col. Patterson and company had only just arrived when they noticed that one of their men, a porter, had gone missing. A search quickly uncovered his mutilated body. Patterson, fearing that a lion had killed his employee, set out the next day to find the beast. Instead he stumbled upon other corpses, all men who had disappeared from previous expeditions.

Almost immediately, a second of Patterson's men disappeared. By April, the count had grown to 17. And this was just the beginning. The killings continued for months as the lions circumvented every fence, barrier and trap erected to keep them out. Hundreds of workers fled the site, putting a stop to bridge construction. Those who remained lived in fear of the night.

The violence didn't end until December, when Patterson finally stalked and killed the two lions that he blamed for the killings. It wasn't an easy hunt. The first lion fell on Dec. 9, but it took Patterson nearly three more weeks to deal with the second. By then, Patterson claimed, the lions had killed a total of 135 people from his crew. (The Ugandan Railway Company downplayed the claim, putting the death toll at just 28.)

But that wasn't the end of the story. Bruce Patterson, a Field Museum zoologist and curator, spent years studying the lions, as did others. Chemical tests of their hair keratin and bone collagen confirmed that they had eaten human flesh in the few months before they were shot. But the tests revealed something else: one of the lions had eaten 11 people. The other had eaten 24. That put the total at just 35 deaths, far lower than the 135 claimed by Lt. Col. Patterson.

I mean…35…135…still fucking crazy

Lions' proclivity for man-eating has been systematically examined. American and Tanzanian scientists report that man-eating behavior in rural areas of Tanzania increased greatly from 1990 to 2005. At least 563 villagers were attacked and many eaten over this period. The incidents occurred near Selous National Park in Rufiji District and in Lindi Province near the Mozambican border. While the expansion of villages into bush country is one concern, the authors argue conservation policy must mitigate the danger because in this case, conservation contributes directly to human deaths. Cases in Lindi in which lions seize humans from the centers of substantial villages have been documented. Another study of 1,000 people attacked by lions in southern Tanzania between 1988 and 2009 found that the weeks following the full moon, when there was less moonlight, were a strong indicator of increased night-time attacks on people.

The leopard is largely a nocturnal hunter. For its size, it is the most powerful large felid after the jaguar, able to drag a carcass larger than itself up a tree. Leopards can run more than 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph), leap more than 6 metres (20 ft) horizontally and 3 metres (9.8 ft) vertically, and have a more developed sense of smell than tigers. They are strong climbers and can descend down a tree headfirst. Man-eating leopards have earned a reputation as being particularly bold and difficult to track.

The Leopard of Panar killed over 400 people during the early 20th century, and is one of the most prolific man-eaters in recorded history, second only to the Great Champawat Tigress who lived at the same time.

The Panar Man-eater was a male Leopard that lived in Northern India. The big cat first began to consume human flesh from the numerous diseased corpses that littered the jungle, as a result of a Cholera plague. When the Cholera pandemic ended, and the corpses ceased, he began to hunt humans. Of this Jim Corbett (this guy again) wrote:

"A leopard, in an area in which his natural food is scarce, finding these bodies very soon acquires a taste for human flesh, and when the disease dies down and normal conditions are established, he very naturally, on finding his food supply cut off, takes to killing human beings"

For many years the villagers attempted to hunt and trap the demon cat, to no avail. Panars man-eating Leopard could recognize the traps and was a master of camouflage and evasion. He was rarely seen until the moment he struck, sometimes even taking people right from inside their homes, in front of their families.

After trekking through hills, crossing a flooded river with no bridges, and sleeping on open ground in the heart of the Leopards territory Corbett reached the village. The most recent attacks had occurred here, four men had just been killed.

Corbett staked out two goats to lure the Panar Leopard and laid in wait. The great cat took the first goat and vanished. Then three days later Corbett had the second goat tied about 30 yards from a tree and he laid in wait, all day, and then into the night. The Leopard finally came, he could only make out the sounds of the Leopard killing his prey and a faint white blur of the goats fur. By hearing alone he fired his shotgun and wounded the great cat, but again it escaped.

Corbett then lined his men up behind him with torches. He made them each promise not to run, so he would have enough torch light to target the wounded cat. They then walked out across the field toward the brush at the far side.

There, suddenly the legendary man-eater lunged from the brush, and charged the legendary hunter. All of the men turned and ran instantly, though luckily one dropped his torch in flight giving Corbett just enough light to shoot the Leopard in the chest, ending its reign of terror. Corbett was simply a fucking bad ass. Period. In a world full of scared villagers, be a Corbett.

Ok so we've talked about cats…how about dogs.

Wolves are generally not known to be man eaters. Contrasted to other carnivorous mammals known to attack humans for food, the frequency with which wolves have been recorded to kill people is rather low, indicating that, though potentially dangerous, wolves are among the least threatening for their size and predatory potential. In the rare cases in which man-eating wolf attacks occur, the majority of victims are children. We did find a couple accounts of man eating wolves though.

Wolf of Gysinge (Hello, Sweden)

A historical account of the attacks says that the wolf involved in the attacks was captured as a wolf pup and kept as a pet for several years starting in 1817. While that may seem like the beginning of a sweet made-for-TV movie, it was almost certainly a deadly mistake. When wolves are kept as pets, the animals lose their instinctual fear of humans.

the Wolf of Gysinge became tired of being cooped up and broke out. We don’t know how long it took for the Wolf of Gysinge to start hunting humans, but we know that it became the world’s deadliest wolf.

The Wolf of Gysinge was responsible for 31 attacks against human beings. The wolf killed 12 people and injured 19 others. Most of the victims were under the age of 12. One 19-year-old woman was killed, and one 18-year-old man was injured during the attacks.

Most of the 12 humans killed during this attack were at least partially eaten by the wolf by the time they were discovered.

The attacks occurred between December 30, 1820, and March 27, 1821. That averages out to one attack every 3 days over 3 months.

The Wolves of Ashta were a pack of 6 man-eating Indian wolves which between the last quarter of 1985 to January 1986, killed 17 children in Ashta, Madhya Pradesh, a town in the Sehore district. The pack consisted of two adult males, one adult female, one subadult female and two pups. Initially thought to be a lone animal, the fear caused by the wolves had serious repercussions on the life of the villagers within their hunting range. Farmers became too frightened to leave their huts, leaving crops out of cultivation, and several parents prohibited their children from attending school, for fear that the man-eaters would catch them on the way. So great was their fear, that some village elders doubted the man-eaters were truly wolves at all, but Shaitans, which of you are truly a fan of the show, you'll remember us talking about shaitan in the djinn episode, episode 118 from back in August of 2021 . With the exception of the pups, which were adopted by Pardhi tribesmen, all of the wolves were killed by hunters and forest officials.

The wolves of Perigord were a pack of man-eating wolves that attacked the citizens of the northwestern area of Perigord. The incident was recorded in February of 1766. Based on the accounts of the authority, at least 18 people were killed during the attack of the wolves before they were finally killed.

Louis XV (15th) offered a reward to those who would manage to kill the wolves. He also offered them prize money and exemption on the military service of their children if they would be able to save a victim. An old man around 60-years of age and with a billhook, which is a large machete type knife with a hooked blade at the end, as his weapon was able to save a marksman and his friends after they were attacked by the rampaging wolves when their armaments have been depleted.

According to the records, citizens that were named Sieurs de Fayard killed three of them and a pro-hunter managed to kill the 4th wolf. One general hunted the wolves and managed to kill 2 of them. When one of the wolves was examined they noticed that the wolf had two rows of teeth on its jaw, a one of a kind wolf that they concluded to be a hybrid.

Here’s one for our Australian listeners.

Attacks on humans by dingoes are rare, with only two recorded fatalities in Australia. Dingoes are normally shy of humans and avoid encounters with them. The most famous record of a dingo attack was the 1980 disappearance of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain. Yes…the “dingo ate my baby” case. We're not gonna go into that much here but…we'll probably do a bonus on it as it's been brought up for us to cover.

Almost all known predatory coyote attacks on humans have failed. To date, other than the Kelly Keen coyote attack and the Taylor Mitchell coyote attack, all known victims have survived by fighting, fleeing, or being rescued, and only in the latter case was the victim partially eaten, although that case occurred in Nova Scotia where the local animals are eastern coyotes or coywolves. A coywolf is a hybrid of coyotes, grey wolves, and eastern wolves.

Now I know what you're thinking…man it's crazy that that many animals eat humans…well, strap in passengers, cus there's more.

How about…well I dunno…polar bears! Polar bears, particularly young and undernourished ones, will hunt people for food. Truly man-eating bear attacks are uncommon, but are known to occur when the animals are diseased or natural prey is scarce, often leading them to attack and eat anything they are able to kill. Scott Haugen learned to hunt elk, cougar and black bear just beyond his hometown of Walterville, Oregon., but nothing he had experienced compared with the situation he faced when he shot a polar bear after it had dragged a man away and eaten part of him.

Haugen, a 1988 University of Oregon graduate, found the body of a man killed by a polar bear in Point Lay, a small whaling village in northern Alaska.

When he pulled the trigger on his 30.06 rifle, Haugen was standing near the body of a man who was “three-fourths eaten.” It was dark and 42 degrees below zero, and the polar bear was less than 100 yards away, moving slowly toward him.

Polar bears can outrun a man and they can give a snowmobile a good chase. Oh, and they can literally take a human’s head off with one swipe of its huge paws.

The dead man, identified as Carl Stalker, 28, had been walking with his girlfriend when they were chased into the village of 150 by the bear. The friend escaped into a house. Stalker was killed “literally right in the middle of the town,” Haugen said.

All that remained in the road where the attack took place were blood and bits of human hair, Haugen said. While villagers on snowmobiles began searching a wide area, Haugen was told by the officer to take his rifle and follow the blood trail.

He tracked the bear’s progress about 100 yards down an embankment toward the lagoon. “I shined a light down there and I could see the snow was just saturated with blood.” A snowmobiler drove up, and in the headlights Haugen discovered what was left of Stalker.

He couldn’t see the bear, however.

Then, as the lights of another snowmobile reflected off the lake, Haugen saw the hunkered form of the polar bear.

“When they hunt, they hunch over and slide along the ice” to hide the black area of their eyes and snout, Haugen said.

“It wasn’t being aggressive toward us, but I wasn’t going to wait,” he said. “I ended up shooting it right there.”

Crazy shit

Brown bears are known to sometimes hunt hikers and campers for food in North America. For example, Lance Crosby, 63, of Billings, Montana, was hiking alone and without bear spray in Yellowstone National Park in August 2015 when he was attacked by a 259-pound grizzly bear. The park rules say people should hike in groups and always carry bear spray - a form of pepper spray that is used to deter aggressive bears. His body was found in the Lake Village section of the park in northwest Wyoming. Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and almost fully eaten by a 28-year-old brown bear on October 5, 2003. The bear's stomach was later found to contain human remains and clothing. In July 2008, dozens of starving brown bears killed two geologists working at a salmon hatchery in Kamchatka. After the partially eaten remains of the two workers were discovered, authorities responded by dispatching hunters to cull or disperse the bears.

Anything else .. Sure is…like…I dunno…pigs?

Although not true carnivores, pigs are competent predators and can kill and eat helpless humans unable to escape them.

Terry Vance Garner, 69, went to feed his animals one day on his farm by the coast, but never returned.

His dentures and pieces of his body were found by a family member in the pig enclosure, but the rest of his remains had been consumed.

The Coos County Oregon district attorney's office said that one of the animals had previously bitten Garner.

Reduced to dentures and "pieces"... Damn.

In 2019, a Russian woman fell into an epileptic emergency while feeding her hogs. She was eaten alive, and her remains were found in the pen.

In 2015, a Romanian farmer died of blood loss after being attacked by his hogs. And a year prior, a 2-year-old toddler from China was eaten when he wandered into a hog enclosure.

In 2013, a mob boss was still alive when he was fed to hogs by a rival family. In fact, it’s been whispered for years that the Mafia uses hogs to help them dispose of bodies.

A pig will “eat meat if they are able to come by it. Fact of the matter is, pigs can eat almost anything they can chew. (They’ve even been known to eat pork if they find it.)” Cannibalistic pigs. Yup.

However, pigs cannot chew the larger bones of the human body, but they will break them into smaller bits to make them more manageable. Human hair and teeth, on the other hand (or hoof), are not digestible to hogs and will get left behind.

But, it should be a simple matter to shave your victims’ heads and pull out their teeth before chow time, right?

So far…all mammals, right? You’re probably thinking, “any reptiles?…well fuck yes we have reptiles!

The saltwater and Nile crocodiles are responsible for more attacks and more deaths than any other wild predator that attacks humans for food.

Each year, hundreds of deadly attacks are attributed to the Nile crocodile within sub-Saharan Africa. Because many relatively healthy populations of Nile crocodiles occur in East Africa, their proximity to people living in poverty and/or without infrastructure has made it likely that the Nile crocodile is responsible for more attacks on humans than all other species combined. In Australia, crocodiles have also been responsible for several deaths in the tropical north of the country. The mugger crocodile is another man-eater that kills many people in Asia each year, although not to the same level as the saltwater and Nile crocodiles. All crocodile species are also dangerous to humans, but most do not actively prey on them.

Gustave is a large male Nile crocodile from Burundi. He is notorious for being a man-eater, and is rumored to have killed as many as 300 people from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika. In order to capture his human prey, Gustave uses his tail and kills them by suffocation. He was allegedly responsible for the death of an employee of the Russian embassy while she was bathing in the water.

Gustave’s fame only grew and in 2010, French hunter Patrice Faye tried to capture the reptile using a large crocodile trap – which clearly did not work. In a note to the BBC, Faye alleges that Gustave is very smart and his survival instinct leaves nothing to be desired.

For two years Faye studied the possibilities, even creating a documentary called Capturing the Killer Croc, which aired in 2014 and recorded Gustave’s several capture attempts.

In the first attempt, a giant cage that weighed a ton and was about 9 meters long was used. Different baits were placed inside the cage, but none of them attracted Gustave or any other creature. The scientists installed three giant traps on strategic river banks to increase their chances of capture; then, only smaller crocodiles were captured by the traps.

In its last week before having to leave the country, the team put a live goat in the cage and, one night, the camera broke due to a storm. The next morning the cage was found partially submerged and the goat wasn’t there. It was not clear what happened that night.

All attempts failed to capture Gustave. He's never been brought to justice. An article rumored he had over 300 victims!

American alligators rarely prey upon humans. Even so, there have been several notable instances of alligators opportunistically attacking humans, especially the careless, small children, and elderly.

A 12ft-long, 504lb alligator believed to have attacked and killed a 71-year-old Louisiana man in Hurricane Ida’s aftermath, was captured with what appeared to be human remains in its stomach, local authorities said.

Timothy Satterlee Sr vanished on 30 August, while checking on the contents of a shed at his home in Slidell, Louisiana, as flood waters engulfed the area.

After his wife heard a splash, she discovered her husband being gripped in a “death roll” by a huge alligator.

By the time she could intervene, the beast had already ripped off Satterlee’s arm and rendered him unconscious.

She pulled him to the steps of their home and — with neither her phone nor 911 working — in a desperate move she climbed into a small boat in search of help.

But when deputies finally arrived, Satterlee wasn’t there any more.

“She just never thought in her wildest nightmares that she would get back and he’d be gone,” said Lance Vitter, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.

Satterlee’s disappearance set off a two-week search that ended after an alligator was caught in a trap near where Satterlee had gone missing, the St Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

Agents euthanized and cut open the alligator, where they discovered “the upper parts of a human body”, according to Vitter.

“Once the alligator was searched, it was discovered to have what appears to be human remains inside its stomach,” the sheriff’s office said.

Oof

Now everyone's favorite…snakes!

Only very few species of snakes are physically capable of swallowing an adult human. Although quite a few claims have been made about giant snakes swallowing adult humans, only a limited number have been confirmed. A large constricting snake may constrict or swallow an infant or a small child, a threat that is legitimate and empirically proven. Cases of python attacks on children have been recorded for the green anaconda, the African rock python, and the Burmese python.

Wa Tiba, 54, went missing while checking on her vegetable garden on Muna island in Sulawesi province. A huge search was mounted by local people.

Her sandals and machete were found a day later - a giant python with a bloated belly was lying about 30m away.

"Residents were suspicious the snake swallowed the victim, so they killed it, then carried it out of the garden," local police chief Hamka told news outlet AFP.

"The snake's belly was cut open, slowly revealing the man's clothed body.

Multiple cases are documented of medium-sized (3 m [9.8 ft] to 4 m [ft]) captive Burmese pythons constricting and killing humans, including several non intoxicated, healthy adult men, one of whom was a "student" zookeeper. In the zookeeper case, the python was attempting to swallow the zookeeper's head when other keepers intervened. In addition, at least one Burmese python as small as 2.7 m (8.9 ft) constricted and killed an intoxicated adult.

How about fish?! Sounds like a good place to do some quick hitters!

Contrary to popular belief, only a limited number of shark species are known to pose a serious threat to humans. The species that are most dangerous can be indiscriminate and will take any potential meal they happen to come across (as an oceanic whitetip might eat a person floating in the water after a shipwreck), or may bite out of curiosity or mistaken identity (as with a great white shark attacking a human on a surfboard possibly because it resembles its favored prey, a seal).

Of more than 568 shark species, only four have been involved in a significant number of fatal unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white shark, tiger shark, bull shark, and the oceanic whitetip shark. These sharks, being large, powerful predators, may sometimes attack and kill humans; it is worth noting that they have all been filmed in open water by unprotected divers.

So, I found a pretty cool yet messed up story.

On July 1, 1916, Charles Vansant was maimed in the water in front of a hotel in Beach Haven, New Jersey. He died as a result of his wounds. Less than a week later, Charles Bruder perished in Spring Lake, just 50 miles up the Jersey Shore. His legless body was pulled from the water.

Then 10-year-old Lester Stilwell was bitten and dragged under the water while playing with his friends in Matawan Creek. A 24-year-old local, Watson Stanley Fisher, hurried into the creek to look for Stilwell's body, but he, too, was mauled by the shark and eventually died.

That same day, just a mile downstream, 14-year-old Joseph Dunn was also bitten. He survived the attack.

These third and fourth deaths thrust New Jersey's shark problem into the national spotlight, and marked a turning point in America's collective psyche, according to Burgess: Sharks were no longer just interesting marine animals, they could be killers.

President Woodrow Wilson allotted federal aid to "drive away all the ferocious man-eating sharks which have been making prey of bathers," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on July 14, 1916.

The Philadelphia Evening Ledger said on July 15 that "the shark menace was formally discussed the day before at a Cabinet meeting in Washington." The newspaper reported that a ship would be dispatched to cooperate with the Coast Guard, and "active warfare against sharks instituted."

Meanwhile, New Jersey fishermen, Coast Guard members, and townspeople threw sticks of dynamite into Matawan Creek and used wire nets to try to capture the offending animal.

Local fishermen ended up catching various shark suspects, including a 215-pound, 9.5-foot-long female shark with 12 babies in her belly.

Finally, New Yorker Michael Schleisser caught and killed an 8-foot, 325-pound great white just a few miles from where Stilwell and Fisher were attacked. The creature had 15 pounds of human remains in its stomach.

This story is what is said to be the inspiration for the movie, JAWS!

Piranhas

Attacks by piranhas resulting in deaths have occurred in the Amazon basin. In 2011, a drunk 18-year-old man was attacked and killed in Rosario del Yata, Bolivia. In 2012, a five-year-old Brazilian girl was attacked and killed by a shoal of P. nattereri. Some Brazilian rivers have warning signs about lethal piranhas.

Catfish

Reports have been made of goonch catfish eating humans in the Kali River in India. The Kali River goonch attacks were a series of fatal attacks on humans believed to be perpetrated by a goonch weighing 90 kilograms (200 lb) in three villages on the banks of the Kali River in India and Nepal, between 1998 and 2007. The first attack occurred in April 1998, when at 13:00, 17-year-old Dil Bahadur, while swimming in the river, was dragged underwater in front of his girlfriend and several eyewitnesses. No remains were found, even after a three-day search spanning 5 kilometers (3.11 miles). Three months later, at Dharma Ghat, a young boy was pulled underwater in front of his father, who watched helplessly. No corpse was ever found. The final attack occurred in 2007 when an 18-year-old Nepalese man disappeared in the river, dragged down by something described as a mud-colored "water pig".

Additionally there have been reports of Wels catfish killing and eating humans in Europe. Large predatory catfish such as the Redtail catfish and Piraiba are thought to have contributed to the loss of life when the Sobral Santos II ferry sank in the Amazon River in 1981.

Groupers

The Giant grouper is one of the largest species of bony fish in the world, reaching a maximum length of 3 meters and weight of 600 kilograms. There have been cases of this species attacking and possibly consuming humans, along with the closely-related Atlantic goliath grouper.

Lizards

Large Komodo dragons are the only known lizard species to occasionally attack and consume humans. Because they live on remote islands, attacks are infrequent and may go unreported. Despite their large size, attacks on people are often unsuccessful and the victims manage to escape with severe wounds.

Well there you have it folks…man eating animals! It seems after this…we are only at the top of the food chain because certain animals allow us to be there.

In closing, here are the man-eater body counts

Individual man-eater death tolls include:

436 — Champawat tiger (Nepal/India)

400 — Leopard of Panar (Northern India)

300+ — Gustave (crocodile) (Burundi), rumoured

150 — Leopard of the Central Provinces of India

135 — Tsavo's man-eating lions (Kenya)

125+ — Leopard of Rudraprayag (India)

113 — Beast of Gévaudan (France)

50+ — Tigers of Chowgarh (India)

42 — Leopard of Gummalapur (India)

40 — Wolves of Paris (France)

Movies:

https://screenrant.com/best-killer-animal-movies/

What Happened to the Sodder Children?

Tue, 17 May 2022 22:00:34 -0400

Welcome aboard for another crazy episode! Today on the train we step into a familiar world…or should we say .. Worlds? A couple episodes ago we did some mass disappearances and you know we love some true crime so today we sort of combine the two. You see, for the mass disappearances episode there was one case that kept popping up. Now this was interesting to us because we've had that particular case on our list of shows to do for some time now. We figured this would be a good time to go ahead and finally do it. Today we are talking about the disappearance of the Sodder children.

The incident happened on Christmas Eve in 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. George and Jenny Sodder lived with 9 of their 10 children. At the time, the oldest son was off fighting in WW2. The night of the incident, Jennie was awoken three times.

First, at 12:30 a.m., she was awoken by a phone call during which she could hear a woman’s voice she didnt recognize asking for a name she didn’t know, as well as glasses clinking in the background. Jennie told the caller she had reached the wrong number, later recalling the woman's "weird laugh". As she did, she noticed that some of the lights were still on and the curtains hadn’t been closed, two things the children normally did when they stayed up later than their parents. Marion had fallen asleep on the living room couch, so Jennie assumed the other children ,who had stayed up later, had gone back up to the attic where they slept. She closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and returned to bed. She then went back to bed only to be startled by a loud bang and a rolling noise on the roof. She soon dozed off again and finally awoke an hour later at around 130, to see the house engulfed in smoke. She found that the room George used for his office was on fire, around the telephone line and fuse box.

Those are pretty much the facts that can be proven for the most part. Everything else…well it's strange to say the least.

George and Jennie made it out of that fire, as did Sylvia, just a toddler at the time. Also two of their teenage children, Marion and George Jr, made it out. 23 year old John rounded out the kids that made it out alive. Or did he? John said in his first police interview after the fire that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings sleeping there, though he later changed his story to say that he only called up there and did not actually see them. The children remaining inside were Maurice 14 , Martha 12, Louis 9, Jennie 8, and Betty 5.

According to accounts, Marion, ran to the neighbors house to call the fire department because their phone was not working. A driver on the nearby road had also seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern; they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there turned out to be broken. It was Christmas Eve and I’ve read that the police chief sent everyone home to their families. She couldn't get an answer so another neighbor went to find the fire chief and let him know what was happening.

While this was going on, George, who climbed an outside wall, barefoot, to get to the attic and Jennie tried desperately to save their other children. This is where some of the strange things happen. First off neither of the Sodders trucks would start, despite having worked perfectly during the previous day.. Then their ladder was found to be mysteriously missing. Because of the family not being able to get help from the neighbor and their trucks oddly not starting when they tried to leave to look for the fire chief, help didn't arrive until 8am, almost 7 hours later. The fire department is just 2 miles from the home. The fire department was low on manpower due to the war and relying on individual firefighters to call each other. Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. Because he was fucking drunk; partying at a local pub, celebrating Christmas Eve. Oh, and one of the firefighters was Jennie’s brother, their children’s uncle.

The fire was initially blamed on faulty wiring, even though the Sodders claim there had never been any kind of issues with the electrical wiring before. In fact, A visitor to the house, seeking work, went around to the back of the house and warned George that a pair of fuse boxes would "cause a fire someday." George was puzzled by the observation, since he had just had the house rewired when an electric stove was installed, and the local electric company had said afterwards it was safe.

During the investigation something happened that makes this case the crazy thing that we are talking about. 5 of the Sodder children allegedly perished in the fire but the body's were never found. The fire chief told them the fire had cremated the bodies. Jennie asked a crematorium worker if that was possible, the worker told Jennie that bones remain even after bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees for two hours. The Sodder home only took 45 minutes to burn to the ground. So we did a little fact checking about this and there is a lot of argument about whether a house fire can burn bones to ash, but, it seems like those who have degrees and a bunch of letters after their name all agree that a house fire typically will not burn hot enough to get rid of bones. Also another thing we found is that even during cremations bones do not actually turn to dust. In fact after being incinerated at usually between 1800-2000°f, for about 2 hours, the bones are the only thing left. Now, the bones are not the same, granted, as with all the heat, it destroys the structure of the bone but does not turn it to ash. The ashes you receive are actually the bones of the deceased that have been put into what is essentially a big mixer, to pulverize them into dust. So enjoy that thought.

At any rate, due to what the experts said, the family did not believe that the other children simply burned up in the fire. They believed something else happened to the kids. But what else could have happened?

What else would lead one to think something possibly nefarious happened? Well according to some reports, some strange things happened in the lead up to the fire. One strange thing that happened was that in the months before the fire a "ominous drifter, hinted at doom '' We're assuming it was like Friday the 13th…the guy just points and goes…you're all dooooooomed, doomed! Whatever happened it sounds funny.

A few weeks earlier, not too far out from the incident, an angry insurance salesman berated George, telling him that his house was going to go up in smoke and his children would be destroyed as a retaliation for his criticisms of Mussolini in the mostly Italian immigrant community. Actually he said "the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini." If it was a sales tactic, it definitely needs work, otherwise, it's oddly specific! Also a bus driver came forward and spoke of how she saw "fireballs" being thrown into the roof of the house, could that be the noise she heard?

In the weeks before Christmas that year, George's older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway through town, its occupants watching the younger Sodder children as they returned from school.

What about the man who cut off the telephone lines at the Sodder residence? Someone witnessed him taking away a block and tackle used to remove car engines during the fire. He admitted to the theft but answered that he had no part in starting the fire; he had just wanted to cut off the power lines but instead clipped the telephone line. He was let go, and no records exist identifying him or questioning why he wanted to cut lines to steal a block and tackle.

Then on top of that you have the incidents on the night of the fire. There was the phone call and then the noise on the roof and she woke up to smoke in the house. Put all that together, and one could see where people may start to form some theories that this was more than just a tragic house fire.

You know we love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next folks…well at least Moody does.

Not only that, sightings of the children started almost immediately. For starters, locals reported seeing the 5 children in a car that was driving past and watching the fire. Then the next morning a woman operating a truck stop claimed she saw the children come in for breakfast with 4 Italian speaking adults. Once pictures began to circulate, more sightings came in. a woman said that she saw four of the children (where was the fifth?) in the company of four adults at a hotel in South Carolina. Which could lend credence to the truck stop story, which also mentioned 4 adults.

Armed with all these facts, George and Jennie went back to the police and demanded to have the fire further investigated. But the police refused, claiming that the coroner’s inquiry determined that no crime had been committed.

This is when George and Jennie decided they would continue the search on their own.

George would constantly go and dig through the rubble trying to find something. At one point his searching seemed to find the first evidence of the children. He found what appeared to be an internal organ and also some small pieces of bone. They were sent for testing and the tests revealed that the "organ" was a cow's liver, and that the bones were from someone older than any of the missing children. The small bone fragments that were unearthed were determined to have been human vertebrae. The bone fragments were sent to Marshall T. Newman, a specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. They were confirmed to be lumbar vertebrae, all from the same person. "Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years", Newman's report said. "The top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused". Thus, given this age range, it was not very likely that these bones were from any of the five missing children, since the oldest, Maurice, had been 14 at the time (although the report allowed that vertebrae of a boy his age sometimes were advanced enough to appear to be at the lower end of the range). Also the bones show no sign of being affected in any way by the fire. It was speculated that the bone fragments were mixed in with some dirt brought in to help fill in the basement. Later, Tinsley supposedly confirmed that the bone fragments had come from a cemetery in nearby Mount Hope, but could not explain why they had been taken from there or how they came to be at the fire site. The Smithsonian returned the bone fragments to George in September 1949, according to its records; their current location is unknown. As far as the liver, it is said that a private investigator found out that the liver was put there by the fire chief at some point in hopes the family would find it and accept the idea that the kids perished in the fire.

George sometimes made his own sightings. On one occasion, George saw a magazine photo of a group of young ballet dancers in New York City, one of whom looked like his missing daughter Betty. He drove all the way to the girl's school, where his repeated demands to see the girl himself were refused.

The investigation and its findings attracted national attention, and the West Virginia Legislature held two hearings on the case in 1950. Afterwards, however, Governor Okey L. Patteson and state police superintendent W.E. Burchett told the Sodders the case was "hopeless" and closed it at the state level. The FBI decided it had jurisdiction as a possible interstate kidnapping, but dropped the case after two years of following fruitless leads.

After this second official investigation ended, George and Jennie continued their search.

George followed up on many leads on his own including heading to St Louis where a woman claimed Martha was being held in a convent but nothing came of that. Another woman in Texas claimed that she overheard two other patrons making incriminating remarks about a fire that happened on Christmas Eve in West Virginia several years before. Again nothing here proved significant.

At one point George heard that a relative of Jennies who lived in Florida had children that looked exactly like his had. He went down there to check it out and only when the relative was able to prove the children were his that George would leave it alone.

In 1967, George went to the Houston area to investigate another tip. A woman there had written to the family, saying that Louis had revealed his true identity to her one night after having too much to drink. She believed that he and Maurice were both living in Texas somewhere. However, George and his son-in-law, Grover Paxton, were unable to speak with her. Police there were able to help them find the two men she had indicated, but they denied being the missing sons. Paxton said years later that doubts about that denial lingered in George's mind for the rest of his life.

That same year the family would receive something pretty crazy. A photo showed up in the mail one day. The photo showed a man that appeared to be around his early 30s with strikingly similar features as their son Louis had had.

Written on the back of the photo was this:

Louis Sodder

I love brother Frankie

Ilil boys

A90132 or 35

Interesting…. Very interesting.

The photo was in an envelope postmarked central city Kentucky. There was no return address.

The Sodders hired a private detective to go to Central city and try and track down where this letter came from and follow this lead. The private detective headed to Central city and guess what he fucking found….. well no one will ever know because after he left he was never heard from again. He never reported back to the Sodders and they were unable to ever locate him. Did he disappear with their money or was he made to sleep with the fishes?

Unfortunately, this took a pretty heavy toll on George. He said in an interview the following year that the lack of information had been "like hitting a rock wall—we can't go any further". "Time is running out for us", he admitted in another interview around that time. "But we only want to know. If they did die in the fire, we want to be convinced. Otherwise, we want to know what happened to them".

George would pass a year later in 1969 believing that his children were never killed in that fire and they were still out there someplace.

After this the rest of the family would continue to search and publicize the case. The only one that would not get involved was John. John believed that the family should accept what happened and all move on with their lives. Jennie stayed in the family home and built a fence around it and added rooms. She wore black for the mourning for the rest of her life and tended the garden at the site of the former house.

These are basically the facts as we know them. Since there's not much in the way of actual forensic evidence in this case, there's no way of telling for sure what happened as far as the children's bodies being burned. Obviously the investigation was quick, taking only 2 hours, and there wasn't a ton of forensic detective work back then. Plus DNA testing wasn't a thing. And just in general investigating wasn't generally as thorough as it is these days.

The surviving Sodder children, joined by their own children, along with older Fayetteville residents, have theorized that the Sicilian Mafia was trying to extort money from George and the children may have been taken by someone who knew about the planned arson and said they would be safe if they left the house. They were possibly taken back to Italy. If the children had survived all those years and were aware that their parents and siblings had survived too, the family believes, they may have avoided contact in order to keep them from harm.

Sylvia Sodder Paxton, the youngest of the surviving Sodder siblings, died in 2021. She was in the house on the night of the fire, which she said was her earliest memory. "I was the last one of the kids to leave home", she told the Gazette-Mail in 2013. She and her father would stay up late, talking about what might have happened. "I experienced their grief for a long time". She believed that her siblings survived that night, and assisted with efforts to find them and publicize the case. Her daughter said in 2006: "She promised my grandparents she wouldn't let the story die, that she would do everything she could".

George and Jennie passed out flyers and put up a billboard on route 16 in Fayetteville. The Sodders purchased the billboard in 1952. It featured black-and-white photographs of each missing child and an account of the fire with a $5000 reward that was increased to $10,000. It was taken down shortly after Jennie’s death in 1989. It read:

“After thirty years, it’s not too late to investigate.

So what happened to the children if they didn't die in the fire? Well there's a few theories but nothing solid.

One of the biggest questions is how someone could abduct 5 children with nobody being woken up. Well truecrimefiles.com say of that question:

"One of the most puzzling questions is how the actual alleged abduction took place. How did the kidnapper(s) get the five children out of the house, considering that the eldest sister was asleep on the sofa in the living room and the parents were asleep in a bedroom less than 20 feet away? Surely at least one of the children would have made some noise had a stranger (or even someone known to the family) come into the house and taken them away. There is at least one scenario that may have happened that would solve this specific puzzle. One of the chores the two boys were told to do was to attend to the family’s handful of farm animals.”

On a side note, Marion, the oldest daughter, had been working at a dime store in downtown Fayetteville, and she surprised three of her younger sisters—Martha, Jennie, and Betty—with new toys she had bought for them. The younger children were so excited that they asked their mother if they could stay up past what would have been their usual bedtime.

At 10 p.m., Jennie told them they could stay up a little later, as long as the two oldest boys who were still awake, 14-year-old Maurice and his 9-year-old brother Louis, remembered to put the cows in and feed the chickens before going to bed themselves.

”It is possible that all five of the children left the house to perform these chores (the three girls went along to watch) and were taken once they were outside and away from the house."

But an even bigger question would be why would someone do this. Many people believe that it had to do with George's and his background.

George immigrated from Italy and changed his last name from Soddu to Sodder upon arrival. Nobody really knows why he came to America or the circumstances behind his immigration. He would never discuss the issues and whenever it was brought up he would change the conversation. So that's kind of strange. Also George owned a coal trucking business, and at that time the coal industry was under a lot of pressure from the mafia. That plus his little known about past, have lead many people to speculate about mafia involvement in the crime.

Another theory suggests the kids were abducted by an illegal child-selling agency similar to Georgia Tann's with help from the local police. And remember that insurance guy George argued with, the guy that warned that their house would burn and the children would vanish. He was also a member of the coroner’s jury which ruled the fire accidental. Leading many to suspect foul play.

For those of you wondering, For more than 20 years, Georgia Tann ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society, where she and an elaborate network of co-conspirators kidnapped and abused children to sell them off to wealthy adoptive parents at a steep profit. This is too crazy a story to not talk about a little here because if there was a network similar to this operating in that area, it seemed like another plausible theory.

Beulah George "Georgia" Tann was born in 1891 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Named for her father, a powerful judge, she hoped to follow in his footsteps and practice law. Instead, her domineering father forbade it, and she instead pursued a career in social work — one of the few socially acceptable positions for a woman of her means.

She first went to work in Mississippi, but she was soon fired for inappropriately removing children from impoverished homes without cause. She made her way to Texas, where it's believed she adopted her daughter, June, in 1922. Later, in 1923, she adopted Ann Atwood Hollinsworth, a woman believed to be Tann's longtime same-sex partner. It was common at the time for same-sex couples to use adult adoption as a means of transferring property or inheritances.

Tann then moved on to Memphis, where her father used his political connections to secure a new job for her as executive secretary at the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children's Home Society in 1922.

By 1929, she had staged a takeover and named herself executive director.

Tann's scheme coincided with a sharp increase in families looking to adopt kids

In the 1900s and 1910s, formalized adoptions were fairly rare, but in the 1920s adoption began to be marketed as a shortcut to societal improvement. According to one ad from the National Home Finding Society, adopting would "reduce divorces, banditry, murder, and control births, fill all the churches and do real missionary work at home and abroad, exchanging immigrants for Americans and stopping some of the road leading to war."

At the time, the theory of eugenics — that is, the controlling of the reproduction of genetically "inferior" people through sterilization — was popular. The movement claimed that people of better genetic endowment were subject to greater infertility. It became important in adoption not just to get babies but to get the best babies. A campaign to explain the superiority of adoption was launched.

This new outlook, along with the popularization of baby formula, helped Tann's baby-trafficking business grow. Suddenly, nonnursing mothers could easily and affordably feed their babies. The demand for adoptable infants rose, especially among busy, successful women.

Tann was calculated in her approach and targeted the rich and famous, who paid premium prices for their adopted children. Actors, authors, and entertainers, including Dick Powell and June Allyson, Lana Turner, Pearl S. Buck, Smiley Burnette, and New York Gov. Herbert Lehman, all adopted Tann babies. In 1947, Joan Crawford adopted twins, Cathy and Cindy, from Tann.

Stealing children wasn't a small side business. During the 21 years Tann ran the Children's Home Society, it's believed she made more than $1 million from taking and selling children — about $11 million in today's money. And she didn't do it alone.

Tann's extensive child-trafficking operation required connections, and she quickly linked up with E.H. "Boss" Crump, who ran a powerful Tennessee political machine. Crump offered Tann protections in exchange for kickbacks.

To kidnap and traffic her victims, Tann paid off a network of social workers, police officers, doctors, and lawyers. Some kidnapped children from preschools, churches, and playgrounds for her. Kidnappers preyed on poor children and families who didn't have the means to fight back. Tann's coconspirators were authority figures — people not to be contradicted — so children often went with them willingly. Sometimes, Tann would approach families and offer medical or other help. Tann would tell parents she could get their children into a clinic at no cost, but if they came along as well they'd be charged a large bill.

In the era before internet and with few phones, Tann relied on her network of spotters. They alerted Tann to children on riverbanks, in shantytowns, or walking home from school. She drove up in her big black car and offered them rides.

Tann was also in cahoots with a local judge who helped procure children, specifically from impoverished single or widowed mothers. One of her most high profile coconspirators was Judge Camille Kelley, who presided over the juvenile court in Shelby County, Tennessee, for 30 years.

"She had a stooge down in the welfare department when someone would apply for assistance, this person would get their name, and get in touch with Camille Kelley," Robert Taylor, an investigator, said in a 1992 interview with "60 Minutes."

In 1950, Taylor, a local lawyer, was asked by newly elected Gov. Gordon Browning to do an in-depth investigation into Children's Home Society and Tann. "Camille Kelley would send a deputy out to pick them up and award custody to Georgia Tann," he added.

Tennessee law required children to be adopted in state for a fee of $7, about $75 in today's money. But Tann moved her "merchandise" at $1,000 per head — $10,000 today. When the state finally investigated, the report on the Children's Home Society, the Browning report, found that Tann conducted "private" adoptions and pocketed up to 90% of the fee. She would gouge prospective parents on everything from travel costs, to home visits, and attorney's fees.

The report also detailed how children were then spirited away from the Home Society in the middle of the night to avoid detection by authorities who weren't in the know or others who might ask too many questions. Her "nurses" had regular circuits to New York and California, though she shipped to all US states and Great Britain.

Elaborate backstories were added to stolen children's files to make them more "marketable." Their files said they came from "good homes" with "very attractive" young mothers. Fathers were described as "intelligent" and often in medical school.

Tann also knew how to capitalize on opportunities in the adoption market. Few agencies adopted to Jewish families, and Tann saw her chance. A few pen strokes turned a Southern Baptist child into a baby from a "good Jewish" family. As the Children's Home Society scandal was exposed, the scenario played out in the adoption records over and over again.

If parents, biological or adoptive, asked too many questions about children, Tann threatened to have them arrested or the child removed. She was known for "repossessing" children whose adoptive parents couldn't make full payments on time. And she wasn't above blackmailing customers for more money later.

Often she would return to adoptive parents months later and say relatives of the child had come around asking for a baby's return. But for a hefty fee she had lawyers who could make the situation go away.

Homes for unwed mothers, welfare hospitals, and prisons were targeted. Doctors, working with Tann, told new mothers their babies had died during birth. Those children were "buried" at no cost to the families.

Other mothers were coerced into signing their children away while still under sedation from labor. Tann preyed on women's desperation, their poverty, and their sense of shame.

"If they were unsedated and tried to hold on to the babies after the baby was born, then Georgia Tann would step in and say, 'Well, you don't want people in your home town to know about [your pregnancy], do you?'" Robert Taylor, a lawyer who investigated the Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal for Gov. Gordon Browning, said in his 1992 "60 Minutes" interview.

By the 1930s, as a result of Tann's scam, Memphis had the highest infant mortality rate in the US.

Archives at the Benjamin Hooks Library, in Memphis, reveal some of the cruelties children were subjected to. Babies were kept in sweltering conditions, and some children were drugged to keep them quiet until they were sold. Other children were hung in dark closets, beaten, or put on starvation rations for weeks at a time. Drug addicts and pedophiles were hired to watch over them.

According to "The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption," sexual abuse was a common occurrence at the home.

Tann was brutally unsparing in her cruelty. Former Home Society employees revealed to Taylor that if an infant was deemed too weak, it might be left in the sun to die. If a child had a congenital disability or was considered "too ugly" or "old" to be of use, Tann had people get rid of them. Many were buried on the property, though about 20 children were buried in an unmarked plot of land within Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.

In the 1940s, Tann developed a new publicity stunt.

"They would raffle 20 or 30 babies off every year in the 'Christmas Baby Give Away' in the newspaper," Wingate said. "How did anyone ever think that was all right?"

For $25 a ticket — about $350 today — purchasers could buy as many raffle tickets as they liked.

Tann pocketed thousands of dollars that ticket holders assumed went to the Home Society, and had to give away just a fraction of her "merchandise" in the process.

Tann's baby-selling scheme carried on unabated for over two decades. But in 1949 things took a turn. Tennessee elected a new governor, Gordon Browning. Weakened, E.H. Crump, Tann's crony, lost his hold on Memphis politics.

On September 12, 1950, Gov. Browning held a press conference during which he revealed Tann and her network managed to amass more than $1 million from her child-selling scheme — again, nearly $11 million in today's money.

But Tann was never held accountable. Three days later, she died at home after slipping into a mysterious coma from untreated uterine cancer.

On November 11, 1950, Judge Camille Kelley, who had worked so closely with Tann, quietly resigned. It took until late November or early December to find safe homes for the remaining children. Somewhere in the waning days of 1950, the doors to the Tennessee Children's Home Society were closed for good.

No one was ever prosecuted for their roles in the black-market baby ring.

Holy fuck…. So we know that was a tangent but you got a 2 fer here with that crazy tale, and again the reason we went into the details on this are because there is speculation that the Sodder children could have been victims of a similar scheme. I mean.. If it happened on that scale in one place who's to say it didn't happen here as well.

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-about-kidnapping/ranker-film

Creepy Portugal

Tue, 10 May 2022 22:30:08 -0400

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This week we're taking the train across the pond for another creepy adventure. That's right, we are doing one of our creepy episodes! It's been a while so we figured it was time. This week we are headed to what some people say is one of the top scariest countries in the world! Not only that…we know we have some awesome listeners here. This week we are headed to creepy Portugal! We are gonna try our best to find the coolest, creepiest places for you guys. I'm just going to assume there's going to be a bridge in here someplace. So without further Ado.. Let's fucking rock and roll!!!

So first up we're gonna do a little history lesson. Will keep it somewhat sorry and sweet since if we got into the complete history of a country of the age of Portugal, it would be an entire episode on its own. To get there history of this country we went to the source, portugal.com and an article written by Goncarlo Costa.

The history of Portugal starts many ages ago, when the so-called Iberian tribes inhabited the territory of today’s Portugal. Then, in the beginning of the first millennium BC, Celtic tribes invaded and intermarried with the local Iberians, creating what is now known as the Celtiberians.

The Lusitanians, who inhabited the interior region of Portugal since the Iron Age, are considered the forefathers of the Portuguese nation. This is why today we have names like Lusophone, someone who speaks Portuguese, or Luso-American, a Portuguese American person. They were known for successfully fending off the Roman armies until the death of their leader, Viriathus, known as a hero in Portugal.

The tribe was considered a worthy adversary by the Romans, so much that they named the province of the whole territory of modern Portugal (south of the Douro River) and part of western Spain after them.

The Romans left various works, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, theaters and statues; some of them are still found in different parts of the country.

This lasted until the Barbarian invasions, when Germanic tribes migrated to various parts of the Roman Empire. In Portugal, the territory became controlled by the Germanic in the 5th century. The Kingdom of the Suebi controlled Galicia and the North and Center of Portugal, while the Visigothic Kingdom controlled the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, including the rest of Portugal, until eventually conquering the Suebi and, consequently, the whole of Iberia. This is when the rigid class structure appeared in the country, with a Nobility and Clergy getting more and more political and social power.

In the 8th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula from the North of Africa. Al-Andalus, the Islamic name for the Peninsula, became a part of the Caliphate, and Portugal with it. The Portuguese kept lots of things from their Muslim past, like many of their words, architecture and the famous ‘azulejos’.

The Christians held on in the North of the Peninsula, creating the Kingdom of the Asturias. This was until the Reconquista, when they reconquered the lands from the Moors, the Muslims.

In this Kingdom, at the end of the 9th century, a county based in the now north of Portugal was established, the County of Portugal. The county grew in power and, at the end of the 11th century, a Burgundian knight named Henry, who was fighting in the Reconquista, was crowned as ‘Count of Portugal’ and merged it with the County of Coimbra.

Henry’s son, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself King of Portugal in 1139 with Guimarães as its capital. This city remains known until this day as the “Cradle of the Nation’ by the Portuguese.

However, it was only in 1179 that a papal bull officially recognized Afonso I as king. The Reconquista continued with the Algarve, the south of the country, finally being conquered in 1249, and Lisbon becoming the capital in 1255. Since then, Portugal’s land borders have remained almost unchanged, being considered one of the longest standing borders in Europe.

The Kingdom of Portugal remained very important in Europe’s (and especially Iberian) politics, waging several wars against Spain, creating an alliance with England (the longest standing alliance in the world, lasting until today) and starting the “Age of Discovery”.

In this Age, the country built a vast empire, having territory all over the world, from South America to Oceania. They started by exploring their coast and adventuring into the Moroccan coast, hoping to continue the Reconquista to the North of Africa. Then, the Portuguese sailors started to adventure into the open sea, when they discovered the islands of the Canaries, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde. Subsequently, the Portuguese explored the coast of Africa, setting trading ports, and tried to discover the maritime route to India, which they did in 1498, under the explorer Vasco da Gama.

They continued to explore and look for trade around the world, from Africa, passing through Arabia, and reaching Japan, setting several outposts, many of them having developed into colonies later on. In 1500, they reached South America and started the colonization of Brazil.

The Empire started to decline, however, when the Dutch, English, and French got in the game. They started to surround or conquer the scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, diminishing their power. On the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578, Portugal lost its king, becoming part of a dynastic union with Spain that lasted until 1640, when it finally gained its independence again.

After that, the country never became the great power it once was. It lost several colonies (including its largest one, Brazil) and trade routes, it saw its capital being destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and it was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars.

From then on, Portugal was a minor power in Europe, having just some colonies in Africa and Asia and never becoming an economic powerhouse.

Then, in 1910, due to corruption, dissatisfaction with the several Kings and the loss of claimed African lands to the English, the monarchy ended and a Republic was created. Fiercely secular, to the point where it was antichurch, filed with corruption, government instability and near to bankruptcy, the regime came to an end with a military coup in 1926.

A military dictatorship was installed and then, a fascist-like regime, the ‘Estado Novo’ (‘New State’), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. This period was marked by authoritarianism, lack of freedom and, from 1961, by the Portuguese Colonial War.

All of this ended when, in April 25th 1974, the Carnation Revolution happened, carried out by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas – MFA), a movement of young left-leaning captains of the Portuguese Armed Forces. With the Revolution, democratic reforms were made and the first free elections with multiple parties happened, as well as the independence of all of Portugal’s colonies.

It also started the PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso – Ongoing Revolutionary Process), a period when conservative and left-leaning forces inside the MFA confronted each other, marked by political turmoil, violence, instability, and the nationalization and expropriation of private lands. It came to an end on the 25 November 1975, when the MFA moderates appeared as the main force.

Nevertheless, revolutionary achievements were not forgotten, with the Constitution pledging until this day to realize socialism, as well as declaring extensive nationalizations and land seizures as irreversible, many, however, now overturned.

Nowadays, Portugal is one of 15 most sustainable states in the world and considered the third most peaceful. It has high living standards and a good economy. It was a founding member of NATO, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It entered the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1986 and is one of its fiercest supporters, even having produced a European Commission President.

Ok so that's a brief…incredibly brief mini history of Portugal. Really the take aways are…super old, plenty of things happened to make the place creepy over that many years. So let's see what creepy stuff Portugal has to offer!

What better way to start than with a sanatorium! Valongo Sanatorium to be exact. The construction of the Mont'Alto Sanatorium began in 1932. Due to the appearance of a large number of people who had contracted tuberculosis, there was a need to expand the facilities, and these expansion works were completed in 1958. construction of these hospital units were carried out in high altitude places, due to the purity of the air, and also because they were away from the populations to avoid the effects of contagion. The sanatorium only operated for a short period, having been inaugurated in 1958 and closed in 1975, after which it entered a profound state of disrepair. Due to its dimensions, it is considered one of the most imposing buildings of its type in Portugal.Its building is large, with an area of approximately 88,000 m², having been built with a view to housing about 300 patients. The building was designed by the architect José Júlio de Brito , who was also responsible for other prominent structures in the city of Porto, such as the Coliseu or Teatro Rivoli . The sanatorium complex, which occupied nine hectares, also included a school, a laundry room, a water reservoir, and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Sick.

The installation of the Sanatorium in Valongo was part of a phase in the history of health in Portugal, during which the government undertook the construction of several specialized establishments to combat tuberculosis, a disease that was ravaging the country at the time. This period began in 1899, with the foundation of the National Institute of Assistance to Tuberculosis, which began the construction of several sanatoriums in different parts of the national territory. In 1930, efforts against tuberculosis were renewed in the north of the country, with the creation of the Assistance to Tuberculosis of Northern Portugal by António Elísio Lopes Rodrigues, and at that time, planning began to build a sanatorium that would house the sick in that region, who had lower economic resources. Serra de Santa Justa was chosen, where the air was healthier, in addition to being isolated from urban centers, in order to reduce the risk of contagion.

Shortly after, the Sá family donated a plot of land in Serra de Santa Justa, allowing the construction of the building, whose works began in 1932. However, the works were suspended due to lack of funding, having been resumed due to the support of the local populations. On July 5, 1940, ATNP began building the Casa de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, to support the children of the sanatorium's patients. According to the Diário Popular of 3 January 1956, the finishing works and equipping of the sanatorium were already under way, and it was expected to be completed during the following year, and that it would have a capacity for 350 beds. However, the works were only completed in 1958. Another reason for the delay in the work may have been the opposition by the Companhia das Minas de São Pedro da Cova to the construction of the building, because it was being installed inside an area destined for coal mining, a few kilometers away from the mines. However, at the time of the sanatorium's inauguration, mining was already entering its final phase, ending up closing in 1970. Some of the users of the hospital were the mine workers themselves, who suffered from occupational diseases such as tuberculosis and silicosis . The Sanatorium of Monte Alto was inaugurated on 1 November 1958, being the last one to be opened in Portugal. The inauguration ceremony included a religious service at the Chapel of Nossa Senhora dos Enfermos, the unveiling of a commemorative tombstone, a tribute to the League of Combatants of theFirst World War, and concluded with a port of honor offered by the board of directors. of the sanatorium. During the ceremony, the admission and accommodation process of the first clients, all veterans of the First World War, was also carried out. Although it was planned for three hundred patients, its initial capacity was only fifty beds, and during its operation it accommodated 350 people.

In the early 1970s, there began to be greater control over the tuberculosis disease, which began to be fought in a different way, through the outpatient system. In this way, the sanatoriums ceased to be useful, and were progressively abandoned or underwent a process of readaptation for other purposes. In the case of the Montalto Sanatorium, the closure process began in 1972, due to the low number of tuberculosis patients in the Porto District. At that time, the building already had only a few patients, having been thought of its adaptation as a psychiatric hospital or for the returnees from overseas, which did not advance. Due to the process of closing the Sanatorium, Casa Nossa Senhora da Conceição ceased to function as a boarding school, starting to support only external students. The building was abandoned after the April 25 Revolution , when the last employee left, although it was only officially closed in 1975. Following its closure, it was completely looted, being a of the main reasons its connection to the Estado Novo, as it was mostly built and used during that regime. This connection to the Estado Novo also had a negative impact on the collection of funds, making it impossible to carry out works on the building. It was also used as a training ground by firefighters and civil protection, who performed drills there and destroyed some walls. Later, the sanatorium was used for paintball games and photo shoots, and various ceremonies related to the supernatural, such as rituals, were also performed there. The building was also hit by several fires, accentuating its degradation. History is awesome and fun and you know we love it but…. The reason we're here is for creepiness! There are stories abound of how haunted this place is. Given the numerous people who died there it makes sense to us! So what kind of stuff are we talking about here ? Well, let's look.

Well paranormal investigators have been spending time here for years, when there's no paintball matches going on, to try and find crazy shit! There have been numerous reports of strange noises and things moving around. There have been entities seen and apparitions spotted. It's hard to find much in English so finding pages from Portuguese websites and trying to find studies was tough but we managed to find one study where a group of friends were exploring the abandoned hospital and had some interesting things happen. They talked about how they started hearing strange noises while they were exploring. The noises seemed to be following them around the building. They talked about how they had a heavy feeling around them as they explored. The sounds seemed to keep getting closer to them. They claim that things started getting knocked over and moved on their own. At one point, one of the group claimed they saw a shadowy figure seemingly watching them. At that point they all decided it was time to go! Sounds like a pretty crazy experience! True or not? We like to think so!

Can't go and episode without fucking tuberculosis…

Teatro Lethes:

The building that today is called Teatro Lethes, began as a Jesuit College – Colégio de Santiago Maior, founded by the then Bishop of the Algarve, D. Fernando Martins Mascarenhas -, whose license was granted to them on 8 February 1599. of learning, above all of a religious nature – the “first university in the Algarve”, as someone has called it. In 1759, the Society of Jesus was banned from the country and its goods were confiscated. The College of Santiago Maior closed its doors. With the occupation of Napoleonic troops commanded by General Junot, the premises of the former College were raided and desecrated in order to enlist the soldiers there. Years later, in 1843, the College was auctioned off by Dr. Lazaro Doglioni, who had publicly expressed his intention to build a theater in Faro similar to S.

The Latin inscription on the facade of the building, monet oblectando , can be translated as “instructing, playing”, thus emphasizing the cultural concerns of the promoter of the construction of this concert hall.

The inauguration of Teatro Lethes took place on 4 April 1845, as part of the celebrations for the birthday of Queen Maria II. Later, in 1860, it was expanded by Dr. Justino Cumano, nephew of Lázaro Doglioni. On September 11, 1898, the so-called animatograph was exhibited for the first time in Faro., installed in the Lethes Theater as it is the largest and most distinguished cultural space in the city. It was restored between 1906 and 1908 to improve acoustics and comfort. The decline of the shows and, consequently, of the hall, begins in 1920, with the Theater closing in 1925, having sold the property to the Portuguese Red Cross, in whose possession it still remains. The Lethes Theater room was later ceded, by protocol, to the Algarve Regional Delegation of the Ministry of Culture. In the North wing, restored and adapted in 1991, the regional services of the Ministry of Culture operated. On October 5, 2012, by protocol between the Municipality of Faro and the Portuguese Red Cross, Teatro Lethes recovered its initial design. The Algarve Theater Company – ACTA was installed as a resident structure. ACTA, in addition to presenting shows of its own creation, also promotes hospitality at the Lethes Theater, and is also responsible for managing the equipment. this history was taken directly from the theatre website!

There are a couple stories about this place that prettier day lead to its hauntings. The first is the story of a ballerina who was in love but was not loved back. She was so distraught that she hung herself in the middle of the stage. Some versions say that she was driven to the brink by the demands of theater life. The second is that of a soldier's body that was found inside one of the walls. There isn't as much info on that story as the ballerina. Staff and visitors claim you can hear the ballerinas footsteps in the theater to this day. There are also reports of a shadowy figure moving about as well. Could this be the ballerina still performing for the people? Or the soldier patrolling the theater? Who knows but it sounds like a cool place to visit!!

The Castelinho of Sao Joao, Estoril

The area between Estoril and Cascais, out on Lisbon’s Atlantic coast, is rife with buildings of character. Many of them are designed to give the impression of miniature castles, indeed some of them were fortified because they were built during times of instability within the Iberian peninsula.

In the 1980s, a wealthy socialite, José Castelo Branco, was looking for just such a property and found one that seemed ideal in Sao Joao, a district on the edge of Estoril. The day he went to view the property was a beautiful sunny one and so he decided to walk along the cliff path which adjoined the property. As he was walking back to the building, he saw a young girl. She didn’t speak, but simply stared at him. In his own account of the events of that day, Mr Castelo Branco said that he felt a compulsion to jump from the edge. This feeling was, he believed, coming from the young girl. He immediately elected to leave the property and ruled out buying it.

On hearing what had happened, someone from the local town hall did some research into the building and discovered that a young blind girl had fallen from the cliffs to her death in the eighteenth century and that several people had reported seeing her at the castelinho since, each claiming that they felt a strong will to jump while she looked at them.

Let's check out a cemetery now…cus those are always fun!

This one is called the cemetery of pleasures. After the city of Lisbon was hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1833, causing thousands of deaths, it was urgent to create a large cemetery for both rich and poorer victims. It has the weird name of Cemetery of ‘Pleasures’, called after the nearby neighborhood (Prazeres) with the same name. Many of its tombs are big mausoleums, some with the size of small chapels.

Most of the Prazeres mausoleums belong to rich, old or ‘important’ families, like the Palmela family. Many of the mausoleums are richly elaborate, have fine sculptures and decorations. There are also statues of the deceased. It’s like a ‘city in a city’ for the dead, with well-defined lanes (70! ) and funerary chapels that were built to look like little houses.

The unusual thing about a lot of these graves is that they have little “front doors” with glass windows through which you can see the caskets and remnants of the dead and their visitors. Most of the trees are a species of cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), much used in Portuguese cemeteries.

The cemetery is one of the largest in Lisbon.

The Autopsy Room , which was in the chapel until the Morgues were created in 1899, is one of the curiosities that can be seen, as well as the Sala do Acervo , where some of the oldest funeral records can be consulted. This is another way of helping the visitor to interpret the different ways that human beings have had to culturally, socially and psychologically approach Death, throughout different times.

As with the many famous families and celebrities, another thing that adds to some people thinking there's more going on at this place is the presence of many freemason symbols and you know how that gets people talking!

At any rate, being a cemetery you can imagine the tales of hauntings surrounding this place! Everything from apparitions being seen wandering the grounds, to Disembodied voices. People have seen orbs in person and in pictures. I mean being able to see into these little houses and see the caskets and remains is creepy enough…add haunting to that…and it's definitely a place we want to go!

Next up, Quinta Das Conchas

The Quinta das Conchas (or the garden of shells) in Lisbon is best known for its expansive parkland, just to the north of the city centre. Families can be found playing here during the warmer months and countless dog walkers can be seen at any time of the year. The house at the heart of the estate though has a darker past which is lesser known. In the early part of the twentieth century, when Portugal was still a colonial power, the owner of the estate was a wealthy man called Francisco Mantero Belard. Like many of his countrymen, he was accustomed to having servants who took care of the running of his home. So, when he moved into the quinta, he acquired the services of a slave from Sao Tomé and Principe. There was nothing unusual about this at the time, other than that he elected to keep this slave woman in a small cage. She was made to live like an animal and, according to local myth, subjected to a variety of cruel treatment for several years. People working in the manor house in modern times have reported hearing wailing coming from empty rooms, as well as dramatic changes in temperature.

Let's switch it up and talk a little about Portuguese folklore! We're gonna talk about the coco or coca. There are also many other names for this guy or gal including Cucuy, Cuco, Cuca, Cucu or Cucuí. It is a mythical ghost-monster, equivalent to the bogeyman, found in many Hispanophone and Lusophone countries. It can also be considered an Iberian version of a bugbear as it is a commonly used figure of speech representing an irrational or exaggerated fear. A bugbear is described as a legendary creature or type of hobgoblin comparable to the boogeyman and other creatures of folklore, all of which were historically used in some cultures to frighten disobedient children. The Cucuy is a male being while Cuca is a female version of the mythical monster. In Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, parents sometimes invoke the Coco or Cuca as a way of discouraging their children from misbehaving; they sing lullabies or tell rhymes warning their children that if they don't obey their parents, el Coco will come and get them and then eat them.

Continuing with the mystery surrounding this child scarer, the Coco also does not take on a specific physical form. For the Portuguese it is a dragon that is represented every year in the celebration of Corpus Christi…at least that is what I've source says.. another says: "In Portuguese côco, refers to a ghost with a pumpkin head. The male form is known as Coco, and the female form as Coca. It is said it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. It seems that parents are to blame for the invocation of the Coco as a way of punishment for their wayward children. They would sing rhymes warning their children if they did not obey their parents the Coco would come and eat them.".... So a pumpkin headed goblin… Although the Coco was ghostly monster like in appearance, that wasn’t the most frightening thing about them. Children would be scared out of their wits at the idea of a monster that could eat them and not leave a trace. So imagine being a child forced to sleep with a lullaby of a monster that was coming to devour them.

Duermete niño, duermete ya…que viene el cuco y te comerá (sleep child, sleep now…or else comes the coco to eat you).

Creepy, so this folk tale seems to have many different versions depending on where you look. We think that due to the fact that many Latin American countries also use this in folklore as well as there being a certain in Brazil, it's hard to actually put the facts together. Every place we looked about this tale had a little bit of a different take, hopefully we got it close as we mean no disrespect to the tales!

You know what else Portugal has…aliens, at least a few. He's a couple stories!

On September 4, 1957, four Portugal Air Force pilots claimed to have seen and chased some UFOs. They took off with their bomber aircraft from the Ota Air Base in Portugal under Captain José Lemos Ferreira leadership (the others pilots were sergeants Alberto Gomes Covas, Salvador Alberto Oliveira e Manuel Neves Marcelino). When they were heading towards the city of Portalegre, Captain Ferreira noticed a light above the horizon and warned the others. The light changed its own sizes a couple of times, first increasing, then shrinking. After several minutes the pilots noticed a small yellow circle getting out of the craft, and 3 more circles appeared later. When the UFOs were near Coruche, the bigger aircraft climbed out of the Earth as the smaller ones disappeared. The bombers landed without any problems and Captain Ferreira declared: "after this, do not come to us with that Venus, weather balloons, aircraft and similar stuff which have been being used as general explanations for almost every case of UFOs".

On September 10, 1990, around 9:30AM and for about 50 minutes, a small "balloon" was seen hovering towards a small football field, on a small village called Alfena in the outskirts of Porto. The object was described as "a small turtle with long legs" with a metallic shine. The people present got scared and a group of construction workers started throwing stones at it, and the object hovered backed away, leaving the site. An amateur photographer took several pictures of the shapeshifting object; the pictures were considered by several experts as real and the witness accounts by the simple folks were not considered hoax.

We also found this first hand account..

"My name is Cristina Marto de Pimental. I am a reporter. On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1997, my husband and I were at a seaside party in Funchal, which is on the South shore of Madeira Island, in the Atlantic Ocean, 912 kilometres East of Morocco. We were watching the New Year's festivities, all the fireworks in the sky. Then several people at the party called my attention to a red and motionless light above Funchal. The OVNI suddenly made a very tight circle, returned to its initial position, and, a few seconds later, it accelerated at great speed in a vertical direction. We were all quite amazed at the sight. A British couple at the festival videotaped the UFO as it hovered. The next day I telephoned the Fuerzas Aereas Portugeses (FAP) headquarters in Lisboa. The Portuguese air force told me that they'd had no flights, neither planes nor helicopters, and no satellites were over Madeira at that time."

Whoooooo aliens!!!

Time for some quick hitters, you beautiful bastards!

Quinta da Paulicea, Agueda:

Not far from the city center of Águeda, Quinta da Paulicea sits in the middle of large unkept plot of land surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It is the classic image of what a Hollywood haunted house should look like. It was inhabited by an Águedense family, who had moved to Brazil in the late 1800s, but returned in the early 1900s, naming the home after the city of São Paulo. Much of the family succumbed to the influenza pandemic in 1918, with the exception of Neca Carneiro. He was a patron of the community’s sports and cultural programs but died childless at the young age of 37. The home has sat vacant ever since, due to legal constraints with the family back in Brazil. Although not certified as haunted, there are many reports of supernatural encounters at Quinta da Paulicea. Some have heard the neighing of horses where the stables once stood. Others have been frightened by the sound of a shotgun blast or a gentle pulling on hair. A worker in the garden suddenly experienced such an intense headache that he fled and never returned. Whether haunted or not, this beautiful home has many stories to tell.

Mines of São Pedro de Cova – Gondomar:

The village of São Pedro da Cova was largely an agricultural community until the discovery of coal in the 1802. The exhausting and dangerous industry of mining soon took over. Several generations of miners worked here until low oil prices forced the mines to shut down in the 1970’s. All that’s left of the mines are these ruins. Neighbors say spirits of the miners protect the ruins and the mine shafts. Others claim to hear screaming from the deep holes.

Termas de Água Radium, Sortelha:

Legend has it that this beautiful structure, in the Guarda District, was built by Spanish Count Don Rodrigo after learning that the natural “healing waters” might cure his daughter’s skin disease. News of the waters quickly spread. In the 1920s, the site became a restorative spa known as the Hotel Serra da Pena. In actuality, the waters were radioactive, seeping from a uranium mine not far away. Radioactivity was all the rage in the 20’s and 30’s, so the site bottled the spring water and sold it under the name “Radium Water.” Of course, after radioactivity was studied further in the 40’s, it became apparent that the healing qualities of radium water actually carried the opposite effect. The hotel went out of business in the 50’s and has been abandoned ever since. It is said the site is haunted by the many people who drank from the contaminated spring.

Sanatório da Serra da Estrela – near Covilhã:

This massive structure was built in 1936 by Portugal’s railway department as a treatment facility for its employees suffering from Tuberculosis. The building was later leased to the Portuguese Society of Sanatoriums on condition of receiving all patients needing treatment. However it was closed in the 1980’s and left to deteriorate for decades to come. Rumors circulate that it is haunted by its many former patients. The Sanatório has now been refurbished and transformed into the luxurious new Pousada Serra da Estrella.

Quinta da Juncosa – Penafiel, Rios de Monihos:

This old farmhouse was home to the Baron of Lages and his family. The Baron was very jealous, and suspected his wife of infidelities. Legends have it, the Baron tied his wife to a horse and dragged her around the farm until she died. After discovering his wife was innocent, the Baron killed his children and committed suicide. They say the Baron’s guilt keeps him from resting in peace. Ghosts of the Baron and his wife are said to be seen around the property.

So we did this episode in honor of our Portuguese listeners who have keep us in the top 10 in Portugal for quite some time. We thank you guys so much for that. But we have one request for you…in every creepy episodes so far until this one…we've found a haunted bridge, Texas had like 50. In all of my searching the recesses of the Internet, I could not find a single reference to a haunted bridge in Portugal, we need our Portuguese listeners to hit us up and let us know any stories about haunted bridges. It was tough to find a ton of information on a lot of these places so hopefully we did them right! If we made any mistakes or got anything wrong, you know what we say…blame the Internet!!

Movie list

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-body-horror-movies/

Unexplained Mass Disappearances. Where’d They Go?

Tue, 03 May 2022 22:55:52 -0400

Ep. 154

Unexplained Mass Disappearances

Today we're talking about unsolved stuff…but in a different way. We're talking about unexplained mass disappearances. How can large numbers of people just disappear without a trace? Where'd they go? Why'd they go? Did somebody make them leave? Bigfoot again? Aliens? Supernatural? Chainsaw? We may never know….but that won't stop us from discussing, speculating, and inevitably making really bad jokes on today's episode. So all aboard bitches let's roll!

Let us begin back…back…waaaaay back in 1918. We're talking about the USS Cyclops. Aside from having a great name, it fits the bill on mass disappearances. USS Cyclops (AC-4) was the second of four Proteus-class colliers built for the United States Navy several years before World War I. A collier is a fancy name for a big ass coal cargo ship. The USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy, was a converted collier. This was actually the second ship to bear the name Cyclops. She had been swimming around hauling coal and helping refugees between the Baltic sea, the Bahamas, and Mexico since 1910. In 1917 she was covered to help haul troops and coal all over the world during WW1. In March 1918, the ship was given a new cargo: tons and tons of dense manganese ore, used in steelmaking. She left Brazil loaded up with the brittle metal, then voyaged to Barbados to resupply for the long journey home to Baltimore. That's where things get interesting. On the journey home something went wrong and the ship was never heard from again. Not even an sos. The last known transmission from the Cyclops was "weather fair, all well" at the beginning of the trip home. When the ship did not reach Baltimore a massive search was undertaken. Every naval ship from Cuba to Puerto Rico was sent out to search for debris. At the time, given it was during the war, the general consensus was that she was sunk by the Germans. But during the search, ships could not find any debris field that would be evident if it was torpedoed. In fact no one found anything…anything at all. It seemed the ship just disappeared. 306 people were just… gone. It remains to this day, the single largest loss of life in the history of the United States Navy that did not directly involve combat! Wow that's pretty crazy. So what exactly happened? Well there are theories abound my friends!

First there is a mini conspiracy theory that the captain sabotaged the ship or even took it all the way to Germany! Why, you ask? Well let us tell you. It is said that the crew was unhappy with the captain. You see, Captain Worley was hated by his staff and officers and was accused of being pro German. It was discovered later that Worley was actually German born and had changed his name at some point. It's not known why he changed his name. On top of that, the US Consulate General of Rio, named Gottschalk, boarded the ship with 73 other local sailors. Gottschalk was very popular with the German community in Brazil. Couple this with the fact that upon leaving Brazil, the ship was said to have been overloaded and people began to speculate. They say that Worley and Gottschalk purposely sabotaged the ship in some way to favor the Germans back home. Either that or the thought is that they essentially stole the crew and cargo and headed back to Germany. Seems plausible, until you try and figure how a few men could have forced 300 men to go back to Germany.

There are several theories of the ship being struck by a rogue wave or breaking up at sea. One sailor reported when they reached Rio, that on the way, the deck of the ship would sway when the ship was struck with large waves. He says the ship was showing signs of structural failure. Could that have been the issue? If so…where was the debris? Another theory was that the ship was overloaded and ran into a storm in which the unstable ship overturned and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Again…why no debris though?

For a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Tom Mangold had an expert from Lloyds investigate the loss of the Cyclops. The expert noted that manganese ore, being much denser than coal, had room to move within the holds even when fully laden, the hatch covers were canvas, and that when wet, the ore can become a slurry. As such, the load could shift and cause the ship to list. Listing is caused by the off-centerline distribution of weight aboard due to uneven loading or to flooding. By contrast, roll is the dynamic movement from side to side caused by waves. If a listing ship goes beyond the point where a righting moment will keep it afloat, it will capsize and potentially sink. Combined with a possible loss of power from its one engine, it could fill with water and go down in bad weather.

Then there's our personal favorite…the Bermuda triangle just straight fucked it up and aliens took it. That's right passengers…this happened in the infamous Bermuda triangle!!! So of course there are numerous theories involving the Bermuda triangle and supernatural goings on. Most of these Bermuda triangle theories involve either aliens coming down and abducting the ship and crew, or aliens under the ocean coming up and claiming the ship for themselves. We here at the train, well at least Moody, think that this is the most plausible explanation of course.

So what do you guys think? Aliens?.... Yea it was aliens…

Ok so up next we’re heading up to the great white north. For those of you who don't know…that's Canada.. You know America's hat. Anyway.. we're looking at the lake Anjikuni incident. The telling of this mystery was taken from mysterioustrip.com. Anjikuni Lake is located deep in the Kivallig area of rural Nunavut in Canada. Placed near the Kazan River, the lake is perfect for fishing and trout. Anjikuni fastly became a home for the Inuit tribe; it developed soon into a colony and became popular almost instantly on a cold November day in 1930. Joe Labelle, a Canadian fur trapper, was more than an efficient individual who spent a lot of time doing outdoor activities. He was very familiar with the area; he knew that the people established a community. Joe was acquainted with the Inuit stories of wood ghosts that were reportedly harmful, and this remote part was soaked in the tales of the Wendigo. Labelle generally didn’t have any fear or anxiety; however, this specific night at the lake became different. The full moon was casting a spooky luminosity all over the village, and no one was moving. The Huskies that were usually loud with the influx of travelers were quiet as well. The only sound he could hear was of his own steps made on the snow and the concave reverb of his greeting. He quickly understood something was not normal, and he started investigating as soon as he entered the village. The village was in complete silence, and he could see no one. No noise of conversation or laughter was detected. What’s worse was the complete lack of smoke originating from chimneys that denoted the presence of living beings.

Joe noticed a fire at a distance and went towards it to inspect; the fire seemed to be burning for a significant amount of time. Upon further investigation, he found that someone started their supper preparations; however, they didn’t finish making it.

LaBelle continued towards the village, ready to bump into someone who could tell her what was really happening here. Joe, stepping out of his uncontrollable feelings, began an investigation into the Inuit’s homes to search for any clues related to the silence and made a sudden and quick decision to leave the village.

He found that several homes were well-stocked with food and weapons; he further found a burnt meal in another house. In one spot, he found a repair of a junior sealskin that was yet to be finished. Sadly, he couldn’t conclude anything.

As there wasn’t any conclusive answer concerning what took place, it must certainly have been an unexpected event that spread widely and involved all 30 men, women & children in the village. Food, clothing, and weapons were left behind. But Why? There was no answer

More investigation directed him to a pair of findings that was enough to give him goosebumps. To the extent that he was able to tell, whatever happened, had happened recently.

He examined the entire village and found no new traces in the snow apart from his own. The most ghastly discovery he made was of the dogs. Seven of them had starved to death. This evidence was enough to persuade him to head to the nearest telegraph office located farther away. That would mean that Joe had to overlook basic requirements such as shelter and food; however, he was in a hurry to leave the place and seek assistance.

As beaten and frostbitten as Labelle was, he finally stumbled into the telegraph office. In a few minutes, he sent an emergency message to the nearest RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) camp. By the time the Mounties reached, many hours later, Labelle had calmed himself enough to talk about his distressing stories.

According to 1984’s article – The world’s most significant UFO mysteries, written by Roger Boar and Nigel Blundell– the Mounties, when on their way to the Angikuni Lake mystery, took a bit of time to rest at a shack alongside a trapper and his two sons. They explained to the trapper and his sons that they are heading towards Anjikuni Lake to solve a ‘problem.’ The Mounties asked the trapper if he had seen anything strange these past few days. Upon asking this question, the trapper was compelled to admit that he and his two sons had noticed an eerie luminous object flying all over the sky a few days ago. He further stated that he had seen giant, gleaming ‘flying objects’ changing shape right before their eyes. And this object was flying towards the village at Anjikuni lake.

So did this event even happen? Or was LaBelle making it up. According to skeptoid.com( see we look at both sides equally) here are a number of things about the Joe Labelle story that raise red flags. For one thing, it happened in November, when average temperatures are 13°C degrees below freezing. Angikuni Lake is a sheet of ice; kayaks pulled up on the beach would not be "battered by wave action". The very presence of kayaks so far inland is suspect, though not impossible. Migratory Inuit would often park their kayaks to hunt caribou. These eastern Iglulik kayaks were made of sealskin stretched over willow branches. But the small Angikuni Lake is landlocked so far inland on the Barrens that neither willow nor sealskin were available, and this would be, by far, the farthest inland that the historical use of Iglulik kayaks would have ever been documented. Not impossible, but highly suspect.

Labelle described a permanent settlement, a "friendly little Eskimo village" of "about thirty inhabitants" that he'd known "for many years". A statement from the Mounted Police says "A village with such a large population would not have existed in such a remote area of the Northwest Territories." They had left sealskin garments behind, in a region where there was caribou hide rather than sealskin; and as a trapper Labelle should have been able to identify it properly. So there was either a series of quite improbable circumstances, or Labelle was wrong.

Today, no physical evidence exists of a village at Angikuni Lake, and nobody has ever published an account of going up there and clearing away any remnants. So we have to rely on documentary evidence to find the true history of the vanishing village.

So with all the contradictory evidence what is real and what isn't. Was there a group of Inuits that completely disappeared or was it a tall tale? Could it be a combination of both and the truth is somewhere in the middle? Who knows…either way…crazy story!

Next up we head to Brazil and the village of Hoer Verde! We got the following info mostly from coolinterestingstuff.com. The Mysterious legend of Hoer Verde, the town with 600 inhabitants that vanished, is certainly confusing and troubling.

The case will cause you to ask questions, questions like “how can anything like that ever happen with absolutely no evidence to suggest anything unusual had happened?”

Like so many legends from the area, information on Hoer Verde is difficult to track down. But what information is accessible is not only disturbing, but incredibly perplexing.

As visitors to the village entered the small town they were immediately struck by how dead everything was. Unlike other villages of six hundred no one was walking through the streets.

Hanging signs waved in the gentle wind creaking noisily juxtaposed with the uneasy footsteps and subdued whispers of those passing through. As they passed by local houses and looked in the windows it was evident immediately that something wasn’t right. No one was anywhere to be seen.

The police were called, and investigators descended on the town to look through the village. As they came to the town’s school they found a gun, which they took to be forensically examined. And then the investigators looked to the blackboard on which the words, “There is no salvation” were written. After a cursory examination, they realized that it had been fired the day before, but by whom they were unsure.

A manhunt ensued for the 600 villagers in the small town. Despite this, no trace of any of the locals was ever unearthed.

As newspaper reports of the town’s disappearance reached the west it was considered a curiosity, but with the shifting political climate of Brazil in 1923 it was considered possible that the town had evacuated to avoid conflict with guerrillas.

Another mysterious element is the original language of the phrase “There is no salvation.” Though the phrase has been largely translated into English, the phrase holds little significance in English or Portuguese. However, if the words had been “Illic est haud salus.” in Latin or some variation of it, this could have been related to the phrase “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” which is a Catholic phrase meaning “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” If this was the case in a largely Catholic area, the lesson could have been a religious lesson which was interrupted by some unknown force, but with no specific significance itself.

So what happened…we don't know…but you know there are some crazy theories!!

Let’s start with the most bizarre theory that is floating around. This theory states the 600 residents of Hoer Verde were swallowed by a black hole taking them all to a fourth dimension. yes…that's a theory. Along those lines there's the inevitable alien abduction talk. Could aliens have really come down and abducted 600 people? We like to think so but who knows.

The next theory people point to is the political landscape in Brazil leading to soldiers or revolutionaries forcing all the villagers to evacuate. The only thing is the villagers disappeared in 1923. There was no civil war going on at the time, as is sometimes referred to with the legend. Also the revolution didn't occur until 1930 and another occurred in 1932. In neither case was a village of 600 reported to be wiped out or relocated.

And then there’s the issues of the names of the towns, one town is completely nameless in the legend while Hoer Verde is a rather strange name for a village or town in Brazil, for one Verde translates to green from Portuguese to English but Hoer is not a word in Portuguese. It seems to be a Dutch word that is a derogatory word for sex workers.

Second, the legend states the town has been forgotten to time but one source we found says they were able to find multiple lists of towns and villages dating back to the 16th century for Brazil. No name comes close to Hoer Verde except for Ouro Preto, which translates to black gold and the history for it goes back to 1698.

So this story is pretty crazy huh. Well turns out it may also be completely made up. There's been a research dive that traces the origins of this story to a fairly recent article in a sketchy Russian newspaper written by a man named Mikhaylov Andrei. To put this guy into perspective, in the same article he blames the disappearance at the colony of Roanoke on protoplasm coming from the ocean and devouring the people off the colony…yea…he claims it happens every few millennia. So while the myth of Hoer Verde lives on…it may just be that…a myth!

Next up we are gonna look at the Moche civilization. Information for this tale we got from an article on Fodors.com. The Moche culture remains one of the most mysterious unknowns of Peruvian history, and with the more prominent Incas filling up most of the pages in the history books, the Moches do not receive as much attention. The Moche believed in gory human sacrifice and produced famously beautiful pottery, built huge, bizarre brick pyramids and had a complex and efficient irrigation system. Some of the aqueducts are still in use today.

All researchers can glean from the Moche civilization is through a collection of artistic masterpieces from archaeological digs, writings from Spanish invaders (the Moche did not use a predominant written language), and other fragments left behind in Peru’s northern coastal regions. The Moche civilization lived and flourished along the northern coast of Peru from the 1st to the 8th century A.D., with their highest concentration of residents in the popular Trujillo region and Chicama valley. Due to the riches of this land, which included access to sturdy clay and precious metals, the Moche civilization accumulated significant wealth and power during this pre-Incan period. At the foot of the Cerra Blanca Mountain, Moche’s capital city covered 300 hectares, or 3 million square meters of an opulent environment that offered residents a tight community of people, storehouses, open plazas, and ramps for easy entry to multiple-level structures. The upper elite also planned fields surrounding the city (indicating a class-based society). Building this capital took the Moches 600 years to complete and involved no fewer than six construction phases.

In addition, the capital included two now-famous pyramids often open to tourists today: the Huaca Del Sol (Temple of the Sun), a structure standing more than 50 meters in height and encompassing an area of 340 by 160 meters, and the Huaca De La Luna (Temple of the Moon), built using millions of adobe bricks. Which, if you know anything about photoshop, is quite a feat. Researchers believed both were used as prodigious religious tombs.

Although monuments and temples remain for archeologists to research today, most of the tangible objects left behind by the Moches were artistic, creative artifacts full of intricate designs and pops of bold colors. Considered skillful metalworkers and adept potters, the Moches produced sophisticated headdresses made of real gold for their goddesses, jewelry of valuable metals, chest plates to show prestige, textiles for ornamentation and wardrobe, utensils for eating, and tools for working in the fields.

In 700 A.D., the Moches moved their capital city to Pampa Grande in the Lambayeque Valley, approximately 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean. They constructed this city to include large pyramids and temples made of dirt using a method called chamber and fill, which allowed loose dirt to clump into cribbed walls. No one knows exactly why the Moche civilization eventually disappeared. Many researchers believe El Niňo caused substantial damage to the fields and irrigation systems, as they found confirmation of flooding at every single ceremonial site. (The chamber and fill approach appeared to hurt them significantly.) Archeologists also think the Moches abandoned Pampa Grande quickly and as they left, set their city on fire—but why?

The El Nino mentioned above is a prevailing theory. It is said that it was…wait for it… A SUPER EL NINO!!!!! So basically the easiest way to describe it is that the Moche faced 30 years of flood condition weather and rain followed by 30 years of drought conditions. Harsh. Some say this led to an issue with fertile soil so the citizens couldn't really dig, plant and grow crops. Also, because of the El nino theory, Dramatic changes in the ocean's environment could also be one of the reasons why the Moche, an early pre-Columbian civilization in Peru, fell apart over 1000 years ago.

No one is 100 percent sure what happened to the Moche. The Moche are not the only civilization to have disappeared without a discernible reason. They are scattered throughout history and the world from the Aztalan civilization in the American West to the inhabitants of great Zimbabwe. The disappearances of civilizations is definitely an interesting topic overall.

Changing the tone a bit, we're next going to look at an airliner that disappeared with 95 military personnel on board. Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, a Lockheed Super Constellation airliner, was scheduled to transport 96 military personnel from the US to Vietnam and disappeared on March 16, 1962.

According to the military, the men were under orders to relieve soldiers in Saigon tasked with training Vietnamese troops to fight the Viet Cong guerillas. As such, the flight was operated by the Military Air Transport Service (MATS). A few stopovers were made along the route—one in Honolulu, one in Wake Island, and a final one in Guam. With nine and half hours of fuel remaining, their final stretch was estimated to take around six hours. Sadly, however, they were never seen again.

Guam Centre grew concerned when the flight failed to make its scheduled position report at 15:30. They attempted to contact the aircraft without luck. When the flight also failed to make its destination, a distress status was initiated, and one of the largest search and rescue operations to date commenced. The search was conducted by the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines and covered more than 200,000 square miles. It came up empty, and nearly 60 years later, not a trace of the flight has been found.

Strangely, another MATS-operated Super Connie in the Flying Tiger Line, this one carrying secret military cargo, also met with tragedy that day. Departing from the same airport at roughly the same time as Flight 739, Flight 7816 (N6911C) crashed during an attempted instrument approach to Adak Island, Alaska. Of the seven people on board, six crew members suffered minor injuries, and one died after becoming trapped in the fire. The timing of the incident with Flight 739’s disappearance raised many red flags.

The only potential clue to Flight 739’s fate came from onboard a Liberian tanker, the SS T L Linzen, where witnesses noticed vapor trails moving west and disappearing into a layer of cumulus clouds. A few seconds later, they observed a large, two-pulse explosion, followed by two fireballs falling from the sky at different speeds. The ship’s radar flagged a target approximately 17 miles from its current position, or roughly 500 miles off the coast of Guam. The location fell in line with the approximate flight path of 739, so search and rescue operations gave focus to the area. It is in the remote Pacific Ocean, so it’s a wonder that anyone witnessed the event at all.

The idea of a Super Connie exploding mid-flight was too improbable for aircraft experts to believe, leading many to the conclusion of sabotage. For one, L-1049Hs were not known to have any fuel problems or electrical issues near fuel tanks. Additionally, nothing on board would have been powerful enough to blow apart. So, if the plane did explode, the theory goes, it would likely have been caused by impact with an external force, such as a meteor or, more sinisterly, a missile. With the United States in the throes of the Vietnam and Cold Wars, proponents of the shoot-down theory have pointed toward the Soviet Union as a possible villain in this scenario.

Assuming the explosion was unrelated, another possibility is that the flight was hijacked and those onboard taken hostage. However, the kidnappers would have likely made demands for the men’s release at some point, and such demands never came—or were at least not made public knowledge. Kidnapping theories are common with disappearances of aircraft, including Malaysia Flight 370.

For surviving families, the most popular theory has always been that the men were part of a secret military operation gone awry. This is supported by claims that they left behind important items, such as their IDs and wedding bands, and gave long, drawn-out goodbyes—as if they knew they were never coming back. Still desperate for answers, some family members recently attempted to submit their DNA to the military database used to identify bodies found abroad. The government denied those requests, citing legal reasons. It has also denied decades of pleading to have the servicemen’s names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, remaining adamant that they were never part of any war mission.

Maintenance problems had already been addressed while the plane was in Guam, but it’s rare for a mechanical issue to cause an explosion, though it can’t be completely ruled out—likewise with sabotage. While neither option can be dismissed entirely, there’s no evidence that they happened.

The missile theory is also speculative. If an enemy had chosen to shoot down this flight, who would that have been? The Soviet Union, which was a Cold War adversary, was the only other nation capable of downing a high-flying plane mid-ocean. But why would the Soviets have done it? And why in such a remote expanse of the Pacific? There’s no clear motive and no evidence to support such a claim. A more likely explanation is the explosion of ordinance, accidentally or as an act of sabotage by some unknown actor, aboard the secret military flight.

In late 2020, surviving family members constructed a monument in South Portland, Maine, honoring the servicemen of Flight 739. We got most of this indoor from a cool article on planeandpilotmag.com

How about some of your favorite quick hitters!

SS WARATAH

In July 1909, the SS Waratah was heading for Cape Town, South Africa, on its way back from Melbourne, Australia, making a scheduled stop in Durban on the way. It was carrying over 200 people, both passengers and crew, but as it left port to complete its journey, one passenger elected to remain behind.

Engineer Claude Sawyer had made many journeys by sea, and he was so concerned by the behavior of this brand new ship that he disembarked in Durban and sent a message to his wife describing the ship as "top heavy." The Waratah left port at 8 a.m. on July 26, and headed into rough seas for its journey to Cape Town. At 6 a.m. the following day it overtook another ship, the Clan McIntyre, and exchanged signals, before the Waratah disappeared into the distance, never to be seen or heard from again.

According to the Master of a vessel called the Clan McIntyre, when the Waratah passed him, his ship was sailing into nine meter waves and a violent storm. Two ships later claimed to have seen bodies and debris in the water, however nothing was ever actually recovered.

An expedition sponsored by author Clive Cussler claimed to have found the ship in the 1980s. However, when the searchers eventually reached the wreck, they actually discovered a World War II transport vessel instead. The mystery of the SS Waratah's fate remains.

AZTALAN INDIANS

Just outside the small town of Lake Mills in south central Wisconsin, on the banks of the Crawfish River, lie the remains of a Native American city called Aztalan. The Wisconsin settlers who discovered it in 1836 named it "Aztalan" due to a misplaced assumption that the Native Americans who lived there had a connection to the Aztecs.

The ancient city contained stepped pyramids, conical mounds, evidence of housing, fishing, and farming, and even a substantial defensive stockade wall containing up to 30 watchtowers. And according to local legend, they even built large stone pyramids in the bottom of what's now called Rock Lake in Lake Mills. But the valley was later flooded, meaning that evidence to prove this legend true is hard to come by.

At its peak, Aztalan would been occupied by around 500 people between 700 to a thousand years ago. But at some point after 1300 AD, the site was mysteriously abandoned, and no one really knows why.

According to an article published by Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine, evidence points to a few different theories about their fate: a lack of resources, drought, and violence from other nearby Native American settlements.

Despite a very obvious intention of these early Wisconsinites to remain — nothing says "I'm staying!" like a large defensive wall — they're now nothing more than local history and legend.

ROMAN 9TH LEGION

The Ninth Legion was a Roman military formation of around 5,000 soldiers stationed in York in Northern England during Rome's occupation of Britain. This unit maintained control of the wild inhabitants of what would later become northern England and Scotland. In 108 AD, an inscription in the City of York places the legion in the city. However, 50 years later, when a new record of the legions was completed, no mention of the ninth appeared

What could've happened to erase the existence of 5,000 soldiers? No one really knows.

According to a Roman writer, many Roman soldiers were killed in Britain at the beginning of the second century, necessitating several reinforcements. This included the arrival of a new Legion, the Sixth, in 122 AD, which took up residence in the now presumably empty York.

No records describe the Ninth Legion's fate. Some theories suggest the Legion was simply sent elsewhere, though there's little evidence to support this. Meanwhile, Emperor Hadrian visited the British Isles at the beginning of the second century. To take control of the Briton-on-Roman violence, he ordered the construction of a 73 mile long, 15 foot high, fortified wall across the island to keep the invaders out of Roman territory. And you don't go doing that unless you've got a good reason — like say losing an entire legion.

Hadrian's wall still stands today. However, there's still no sign of the ultimate fate of the Ninth legion — and there probably never will be.

SS POET

The SS Poet was a former World War II troop transport that was mothballed for 20 years after the war, before being bought and converted to carry cargo. Considered "old but sturdy" in October 1980, the ship had an experienced crew of 34 men — including the captain who'd been at sea for 41 years — when it mysteriously disappeared.

On the morning of October 24, 1980, the SS Poet sailed from Philadelphia with a load of corn bound for Egypt, where it was due to arrive on November 9. As it passed Cape Henlopen later the same morning, the Poet sent its last message before heading out into the Atlantic, and into history.

The following day a storm blew up in the North Atlantic with 30 foot waves and 60 mph winds. But for a ship like the Poet that shouldn't have mattered. When the storm finally passed it left behind no trace of the Poet, no debris, and no distress signal was ever heard.

A popular explanation for the loss proposes an undiscovered hull leak that would have caused the ship to become unstable and founder in the bad weather. However with no evidence to back that up, fingers were soon pointed at the owner who had failed to report the ship missing for several days after losing contact, and at the coast guard who didn't begin a search for another four days after that. Well-built ships with experienced crews don't just vanish without cause, but that doesn't mean we'll ever know what it was.

we got these quick hitters from an article on grunge.com.

The Nantiinaq; Portlock, Alaska and Other Ghost Towns

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 00:04:59 -0400

Portlock Alaska

& Other haunted ghost towns

Today we're talking about a ghost town in Alaska that is rumored to have been abandoned because of…. Wait for it….a killer bigfoot!! dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun!!! We're going to look at Portlock Alaska and after that maybe take a look at other haunted and creepy ghost towns!

History of Portlock:

As per wikipedia

Portlock is a ghost town in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula, around 16 miles south of Seldovia. It is located in Port Chatham bay, after which an adjacent community takes its namesake. Named after Nathaniel Portlock, Portlock was established in the Kenai Peninsula in the early-twentieth century as a cannery, particularly for salmon. It is thought to have been named after Captain Nathaniel Portlock, a British ship captain who sailed there in 1786. In 1921, a United States Post Office opened in the town. The population largely consisted of Russian-Aleuts, indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands. Both the Aleut people and the islands are divided between the US state of Alaska and the Russian administrative division of Kamchatka Krai.

In the early 1900s there were a series of deaths and disappearances in the town. Many people started to blame this on a killer cryptid! It is said that this big bad beast is the reason behind the town being abandoned and left to become a legend.

Nantiinaq:

First off let's talk about the cryptid that is believed to be the cause of all of this mess.

Nantinaq is a large Bigfoot-like creature that is believed to be a key factor in the abandonment of the Alaskan fishing village Portlock. Elders from the nearby town of Nanwalek have kept oral traditions of the creature alive since Portlock’s abandonment in 1950. Stories differentiate Nantinaq from the North American Sasquatch or Bigfoot through its abilities, which many believe to be supernatural and evil in nature.

The earliest descriptions and accounts of Nantinaq can be traced back to European expedition logs in the 1700’s. When Native Alaskans began inhabiting the Portlock area stories and encounters with a mysterious creature began occurring with increasing regularity.

In the early 20th century, as Portlock’s population grew, local and national sources began to record unexplained occurrences in the area. An abnormally high number of disappearances, catastrophes, and deaths eventually lead to village elders to move the population to nearby Nanwalek.

The physical characteristics of Nantinaq are typically described to be similar to the North American Sasquatch. Eye witnesses and historians describe the creature as being upwards of 8 feet tall and being covered in dark fur. Sharp claws capable of ripping mammals with ease have also been identified.

Despite the creatures imposing physical characteristics, many locals identify Nantinaq more through its invisible traits. Strange illnesses, smells and noises have all been recorded in the Portlock area with no known explanation. This has led many locals and elders to believe Nantinaq is spiritual in nature.

The craziness:

Even before Portlock had even existed there had long been sinister stories told by the Natives of the area. They had long told of a creature stalking the wildernesses of the region, which they referred to as a Nantiinaq, roughly translating to “half man- half beast.” The Natives were apparently terrified of these creatures, and would avoid any area in which they were known to lurk. At first Portlock seemed safe, but whether the Nantiinaq had anything to do with it or not, strange things began happening in and around the area, not long after its settlement. In 1900, a group of hair-covered creatures ran at a prospector who had climbed a tree in an attempt to get his bearings near Thomas Bay. The prospector said they were, “the most hideous creatures. I couldn’t call them anything but devils…” The prospector, upon seeing the creatures advancing on him, was able to drop down out of the tree, get to his canoe and make his escape in the nick of time. He had no doubt in his mind that, had he not seen the creatures when he did, they would have made short work of him. Another bizarre incident allegedly happened in as early as 1905, just a few years after the cannery had opened. At this time, many of the workers at the cannery suddenly stopped coming to work and refused to come back, but this wasn’t due to poor pay or working conditions, but rather because the men were deeply spooked. They claimed that there was “something in the woods,” commonly reported by the men as being large dark shapes that would stare at them from the tree line at the shore and sometimes display menacing behavior. The workers were eventually convinced to come back the following season, but this was not the end of the town’s problems.

In the 1920s and 30s there were several mysterious deaths in the area that seemed to have been caused by something very large and powerful. The first was a local hunter by the name of Albert Petka, who was out hunting with his dogs in the 1920s when he came across a massive hairy creature that materialized from the trees to strike him in the chest, sending him flying. Petka’s dogs allegedly managed to chase the beast off, and when rescuers arrived he explained what had happened, before dying from his wounds later. Natives at the time saw this as a bad sign, believing it to be evidence that a Nantiinaq had come to haunt the area. Rumors like this persisted for years, only further perpetuated by stories of miners, loggers, hunters, or cannery workers finding huge tracks in the woods, or of seeing fleeting large dark shapes and sometimes hearing eerie howls at night. Making it even more ominous is that there were some reports from frightened Natives that there was a ghostly entity in the area as well, which took the form of a woman wearing a long black dress and who would appear at the top of the cliffs near town to scream and moan before vanishing.

Brian Weed is the co-founder of a group called Juneau's Hidden History that primarily keeps track of things through their Facebook page. He has traveled all over Juneau and many other Alaskan towns in search of natural history and stories. His group plans frequent hikes in the area to places that have some sort of story to tell or just to see the natural beauty of the state. He related another story of a mysterious death.

"A logger was out working and something or someone hit him over the head with a huge piece of logging equipment, something that one man couldn't have lifted. When they found his body, there was blood on the equipment and there was no way that one person could have done it. He was a good ten feet from the logging equipment, so it's not like he slipped, fell, and hit his head. It looked more like someone picked it up and bonked him over the head."

In 1940 it was reported that a search party had been sent out to look for one such missing hunter, which would claim that they had come across his body in a creek, mutilated and torn apart in a way not consistent with a bear attack. Other bodies would reportedly be found as well, apparently washed down from the mountains into a nearby lagoon, with others still discovered washed up on the shores of Port Chatham, all of them ripped apart and maimed as if by some immensely powerful animal. At the time there were so many people turning up in that lagoon dead that it began to truly freak out the locals, to the point that they spent much time cowering indoors away from those creepy ass woods.

By the 1950s, locals were sick and tired of living in fear so they completely fled the town and left it abandoned. Years later when hunters returned, it is said that they reported seeing 18-inch long human-like footprints with patterns similar to a deer or wolf.

Former Portlock resident Malania Helen Kehl was interviewed by Naomi Klouda of the Homer Tribune back in October of 2009 and said things in Portlock started out well enough but degenerated to such a point that the family left their home and fled to Nanwalek.The family had endured the murder of Malania’s godfather, Andrew Kamluck in 1931. Kamluck was the logger who was killed when someone, or something, hit him over the head.

"We left our houses and the school and started all new here (Nanwalek),” said Kehl.

Port Graham elder, Simeon Kvasnikoff told of the unexplained disappearance of a gold miner near the village during this time.

“He went up there one time and never came back,” said Kvasnikoff. “No one found any sign of him.”

Another interesting aspect of the Portlock story was relayed to Klouda by an Anchorage paramedic who preferred to remain anonymous.

“In 1990, while I was working as a paramedic in Anchorage, we got called out on an alarm for a man having a heart attack at the state jail in Eagle River. He was a Native man in his 70s, and after I got him stabilized with IVs, O2 and cardiac drugs, my partner and I began to transport him to the Native Hospital in Anchorage.”

En route to the hospital, the paramedic and the Native man, an “Aleut'' from Port Graham, talked about hunting. The paramedic had been to DogFish Bay and was once stuck there due to bad weather.

“This old man sat up on the gurney and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. He got right up to my face and said, ‘Did it bother you?’ Well, with that question, the hair just stood up on the back of my head. I said, ‘Yes.’ “Did you see it?” was his next question. I said, “No, did you see it?” He said “No, but my brother seen it. It chased him.”

Ok so that's pretty jacked up….a killer bigfoot! That's one hell of a story. The town had been abandoned ever since and sightings continue to this day. In fact there is a TV series about this place called Alaskan Killer Bigfoot! The series followed a 40 day expedition to the area to try and see if they can get to the bottom of all the mystery! Moody hasn't watched it yet but I'm sure he'll get high and binge it soon.

So on the side of fairness we do have to disclose an interview we found. The interview was with a woman named Sally Ash. Sally is Sugpiaq of Russian-Aleut descent. She has lived in Nanwalek for most of her life and continues to speak her native language Sugt’stun. Her mother was born in Dogfish Bay, near Port Chatham.

“Our people were nomadic, went by the seasons, whatever was in season they would move from one place to another. They went through Port Chatham, Dogfish Bay, Seldovia, Homer, even to Kodiak.”

"Portlock was kind of a creepy place,” she admitted. “They’d tell us don’t go out on a foggy day. That’s when he’s walking around. You could run into him and you never know what he might do.”

The ‘he’ that she is talking about is their local form of Sasquatch, known as Nantiinaq. Nantiinaq pronounced ‘non-tee-nuck,’ is not your typical, everyday Sasquatch brute. Nantiinaq is more of a supernatural being.

“I think he is part-human,” Sally describes. “He lived with people and then didn’t want to be around them anymore so he moved to the forest; away from everybody. He started growing hair and he looked like a bigfoot — scary… My uncles, my grandfathers, they all talked about him. They’d tell us they live far away from people. They don’t mix with people.”

“My brother went up to the lake. He was tying off his skiff. He started smelling something really bad in the bushes, so he opened it, moving the branches. Something’s going on here. Then he looked in there and there was a man with his hands — in the back way (turned around). It looked like a man, but he was all hairy and he looked really scary. So he and our cousin took off running and didn’t want to be up there. He wasn’t sure if it was a bigfoot, but there was a horrible smell,” she said.

“I think it’s a he; he has been living for a long time,” Sally says. “He’s old, he’s tall, he’s strong, he’s hairy. It lives in the woods and you can tell when he’s getting near. You can smell him. My mom used to talk about it a lot. She’d tell stories of the bigfoot, like in Dogfish area, her and her brother would talk about how bigfoot was around. They were getting too close to him and they would be nice to him. Respect him. Keep distance. They live with him but not so close. He moved around — he was quick.”

Sally served as translator for her cousin, Malania Kehl during her historic interview for the Homer Tribune in 2009, that has since taken the bigfoot-believing world by storm. Malania told the reporter that the entire town evacuated Port Chatham in 1949 due to this murderous Nantiinaq. Her story has been perceived as being factual by authors, documentarians, and bigfoot buffs.

Buuuuuuuuttttttt…..

“My cousin Malania was being interviewed and we were sitting with her,” Sally recalls. “Malania kind of made up a story, because she was getting tired of people asking if this (story) is true. She made up this story about how Bigfoot was killing people. It wasn’t true. Everybody knows that, but it was not our place to say nothing. We all knew but we couldn’t just stop her. We were brought up in a way where we can’t tell our elders they are wrong.”

"And that was her story,” Sally giggles… “we knew it. There was me and my sisters and my cousins and we all just sat there. We couldn’t tell her, ‘Don’t say that Malania,’ because she might get mad at us. We were younger than her and we were not allowed in front of her to say anything like that… Malania knew that we knew about her story that she made up and we all had a laugh about it with her.”

Sally said the reason for the exodus from Port Chatham was more practical in nature.

“People would see Nantiinaq, but that wasn’t the reason why people moved this way to Seldovia and Nanwalek. They moved because of the economy, schools and the church. There really was no killing of people.”

Well…that's disappointing…but we here at The train are gonna stick to the fact that there's a killer bigfoot to blame!

Wow so that's fun! But you know what…it's not enough. We strive to bring you the best in podcast entertainment here so we're going to do some of our patented quick hitters and throw in some more crazy ghost towns for ya!

Let's roll!

First up we’re off to Italy. The ghost town of Craco to be more specific.

Craco is a ghost town and comune in the province of Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata.

Haunted, surreal and moving, it’s not surprising that the Craco ghost town and the beautiful surrounding landscape was chosen as the setting for several movies such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and 007 Quantum of Solace.

The first written evidence of the town's existence shows that it was under the possession of a bishop named Arnaldo in 1060 A.D. The town's oldest building, the tall Torre Normanna, predates the bishop's documented ownership by 20 years.

From 1154 to 1168, after the archbishop, the nobleman Eberto controlled the town, establishing Feudalistic rule, and then ownership passed onto Roberto di Pietrapertos in 1179.

A university was established in the 13th century and the population kept growing, reaching 2,590 in the year 1561. By this time, the construction of four large plazas was completed. Craco had its first substantial landslide in 1600, but life went on, and the monastery of St. Peter went up in 1630.

Then, another tragedy hit. In 1656, the Black Death began to spread. Hundreds died and the population dipped.

But Craco wasn't down for the count quite yet. In 1799, the town successfully overthrew the feudal system — only to then fall to Napoleonic occupation. In 1815, a still-growing Craco was divided into two separate districts.

After Italy's unification in the mid-19th century, the controversial gangster and folk hero Carmine Crocco briefly conquered the village.

Mother Nature had more in store for Craco. Poor agricultural conditions caused a severe famine in the late 19th century. This spawned a mass migration of the population — about 1,300 people — to North America.

Then came more landslides. Craco had a series of them — plus a flood in 1972 and an earthquake in 1980. Luckily, in 1963, the remaining 1,800 inhabitants were transferred down the mountain to a valley called Craco Peschiera.

Not everyone was willing to move, however. One man native to the tiny town resisted the relocation, choosing to live the rest of his more than 100 years in his native land.

Some houses still hold traces of the life that once was: old appliances, abandoned tools, a lonely chair in the middle of a room where no one will ever sit anymore. A few facades still bear the signs of their past beauty in what has remained of their decorations.

And of course there are the tales of hauntings that come with most ghost towns. While there isn't a whole lot on a cursory search, if you dig a little you can find some stories of late night expeditions finding some interesting things. There are stories of groups seeing shadow people and apparitions. People hearing strange sounds. Pictures containing orbs and other anomalies. It's a great looking place, definitely check it out.

Next up is Rhyolite Nevada.

The ghost town of Rhyolite and its remnants are definitely a popular destination among those who like seeking out Nevada's abandoned places. Home to many of the town's original and now crumbling buildings, it's a fascinating place to see and think about Nevada's past.

According to the national parks service This ghost town's origins were brought about by Shorty Harris and E. L. Cross, who were prospecting in the area in 1904. They found quartz all over a hill, and as Shorty describes it “... the quartz was just full of free gold... it was the original bullfrog rock... this banner is a crackerjack”! He declared, “The district is going to be the banner camp of Nevada. I say so once and I’ll say it again.” At that time there was only one other person in the whole area: Old Man Beatty who lived in a ranch with his family five miles away. Soon the rush was on and several camps were set up including Bullfrog, the Amargosa and a settlement between them called Jumpertown. A townsite was laid out nearby and given the name Rhyolite from the silica-rich volcanic rock in the area.

There were over 2000 claims covering everything in a 30 mile area from the Bullfrog district. The most promising was the Montgomery Shoshone mine, which prompted everyone to move to the Rhyolite townsite. The town immediately boomed with buildings springing up everywhere. One building was 3 stories tall and cost $90,000 to build. A stock exchange and Board of Trade were formed. The red light district drew women from as far away as San Francisco. There were hotels, stores, a school for 250 children, an ice plant, two electric plants, foundries and machine shops and even a miner’s union hospital.

The town citizens had an active social life including baseball games, dances, basket socials, whist parties, tennis, a symphony, Sunday school picnics, basketball games, Saturday night variety shows at the opera house, and pool tournaments. In 1906 Countess Morajeski opened the Alaska Glacier Ice Cream Parlor to the delight of the local citizenry. That same year an enterprising miner, Tom T. Kelly, built a Bottle House out of 50,000 beer and liquor bottles.

In April 1907 electricity came to Rhyolite, and by August of that year a mill had been constructed to handle 300 tons of ore a day at the Montgomery Shoshone mine. It consisted of a crusher, 3 giant rollers, over a dozen cyanide tanks and a reduction furnace. The Montgomery Shoshone mine had become nationally known because Bob Montgomery once boasted he could take $10,000 a day in ore from the mine. It was later owned by Charles Schwab, who purchased it in 1906 for a reported 2 to 6 million dollars.

The financial panic of 1907 took its toll on Rhyolite and was seen as the beginning of the end for the town. In the next few years mines started closing and banks failed. Newspapers went out of business, and by 1910 the production at the mill had slowed to $246,661 and there were only 611 residents in the town. On March 14, 1911 the directors voted to close down the Montgomery Shoshone mine and mill. In 1916 the light and power were finally turned off in the town.

Today you can find several remnants of Rhyolite’s glory days. Some of the walls of the 3 story bank building are still standing, as is part of the old jail. The train depot (privately owned) is one of the few complete buildings left in the town, as is the Bottle House. The Bottle House was restored by Paramount pictures in Jan, 1925.

And according to only on your state, It also happens to be home to one of Nevada's spookiest cemeteries. After all, nothing says "creepy" like a ghost town graveyard! Known as the Bullfrog-Rhyolite Cemetery, it definitely looks the part of a haunted destination you probably shouldn't visit at night.

The Bullfrog-Rhyolite Cemetery was actually shared between two towns. Home to just a handful of rugged graves, including some that look like nothing more than a human-shaped mound of rocks, it definitely has a serene type of beauty to it...during daylight, that is.

There's no telling what kind of creepy experiences you could have in Rhyolite once the sun sets. In fact, paranormal enthusiasts make trips out here to challenge just that! Disembodied voices and orbs are often reported in this area. And while most of the action seems to be centered on this area there are also reports of the same strange goings on in the town itself. Strange sounds and voices and orbs, as well as strange shadows and apparitions. Sounds awesome to us!

Next up we head to Calico California.

Calico is a ghost town and former mining town in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave Desert region of Southern California, it was founded in 1881 as a silver mining town, and was later converted into a county park named Calico Ghost Town. Located off Interstate 15, it lies 3 miles (4.8 km) from Barstow and 3 miles from Yermo. Giant letters spelling CALICO are visible, from the highway, on the Calico Peaks behind it. Walter Knott purchased Calico in the 1950s, and architecturally restored all but the five remaining original buildings to look as they did in the 1880s. Calico received California Historical Landmark #782, and in 2005 was proclaimed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be California's Silver Rush Ghost Town.

In 1881 four prospectors were leaving Grapevine Station (present day Barstow, California) for a mountain peak to the northeast. After they described the peak as "calico-colored", the peak, the mountain range to which it belonged, and the town that followed were all called Calico. The four prospectors discovered silver in the mountain and opened the Silver King Mine, which was California's largest silver producer in the mid-1880s. John C. King, who had grubstaked the prospectors who discovered the silver vein (the Silver King Mine was thus named after him), was the uncle of Walter Knott founder of Knott's Berry Farm. King was sheriff of San Bernardino County from 1879 to 1882. A post office at Calico was established in early 1882, and the Calico Print, a weekly newspaper, started publishing. The town soon supported three hotels, five general stores, a meat market, bars, brothels, and three restaurants and boarding houses. The county established a school district and a voting precinct. The town also had a deputy sheriff and two constables, two lawyers and a justice of the peace, five commissioners, and two doctors. There was also a Wells Fargo office and a telephone and telegraph service. At its height of silver production during 1883 and 1885, Calico had over 500 mines and a population of 1,200 people. Local badmen were buried in the Boot Hill cemetery

An attempt to revive the town was made in about 1915, when a cyanide plant was built to recover silver from the unprocessed Silver King Mine's deposits. Walter Knott and his wife Cordelia, founders of Knott's Berry Farm, were homesteaded at Newberry Springs around this time, and Knott helped build the redwood cyanide tanks for the plant.

The last owner of Calico as a mine was Zenda Mining Company. After building Ghost Town at Knott’s Berry Farm in the 1940s, Walter Knott, his son, Russell, and Paul von Klieben, who was Knott's art director, made a road trip to Calico. The three of them came back filled with enthusiasm. If they could build an imaginary ghost town at Knott’s Berry Farm, would it not be possible to restore a real ghost town? In 1951, Walter Knott purchased the town of Calico from the Zenda Mining Company and put Paul von Klieben in charge of restoring it to its original condition, referencing old photographs.

Using the old photos, and Walter’s memory and that of some old-timers who still lived in the area, von Klieben was able to not only restore existing structures, but also design and replace missing buildings. Knott spent $700,000 restoring Calico. Knott installed a longtime employee named Freddy "Calico Fred" Noller as resident caretaker and official greeter. In 1966 Walter Knott decided to donate the town to San Bernardino County, and Calico became a County Regional Park.

The site is now a thriving tourist attraction, and is quite interesting to visit despite being neither original nor very atmospheric, as only about four of the buildings are largely unchanged from the mining era, and the whole place is rather commercialized. Some of the replica houses have only a frontage, as if part of a movie set.

The best part?…yup…its friggin haunted. You can take ghost tours through the town to find out for yourself!

According to Haunted Rooms. Com, Amid the claims of paranormal activity, there are 3 main entities who have been identified as residing in Calico Ghost Town and these are the ones that visitors should be on the lookout for.

One of the most commonly spotted entities haunting Calico Ghost Town is said to be a woman by the name of Lucy Lane. History suggests that Lucy ran Calico’s General Store alongside her husband John Robert Lane. Just like so many of the residents, the Lanes moved away from Calico when the town began rapidly depopulating. However, they ended up returning in 1916 after the town was abandoned and live the rest of their days in the town. Lucy was well into her 90s when she finally passed.

It seems only natural then that she would want to stick around in the town where she lived and died. Visitors to Calico Ghost Town have frequently reported seeing Lucy walking between what was once her home and the General Store. She is easily recognizable by her attire – the beautiful black lace dress in which she was buried. Although most of the reports describe seeing Lucy Lane walking from her home to the General Store, there have also been sightings of her inside both buildings as well. Her former home is now a museum dedicated to Lucy and John Robert Lane and she is sometimes seen sitting in a rocking chair slowly rocking back and forth. Some visitors also claim to have seen Lucy behind the counter in the General Store.

Another of the paranormal hotspots in the Calico Ghost Town is definitely the schoolhouse! The names of the teachers have long since been lost, but it is said to be their spirits who are responsible for the plethora of paranormal activity happening in the old schoolhouse. There are frequent reports that the teachers like to stand in the windows of the schoolhouse peering out at those passing by on the outside! There are also reports of a red ball of light moving around inside the schoolhouse. This phenomenon has been witnessed by many visitors to Calico Ghost Town.

The former teachers are certainly not the only ones who are up to mischief! There have also been reports of various ghostly students in the schoolhouse as well. These children’s spirits can be seen flitting around inside the building. They do seem to keep themselves to themselves most of the time, but there is one girl aged around 11 or 12 who is far more outgoing. However, she is most likely to appear to children and teens who will often comment on seeing her only for their parents to turn around and the girl to vanish!

The most prominent ghost that roams around Calico Ghost Town is probably the entity known as ‘Tumbleweed’ Harris. He is actually the last Marshal of Calico and it seems as though he has not yet stepped down from his duty! He is often seen by the boardwalks on Main Street and you will be able to recognize him by his large frame and long white beard. If you do visit Calico Ghost Town be sure to stop by Tumbleweed’s gravestone and thank him for continuing to keep Calico’s peace even in death.

And finally we double back and head back to Alaska for one more ghost town. Kennecott Alaska is our final destination.

In the summer of 1900, two prospectors, "Tarantula" Jack Smith and Clarence L. Warner, a group of prospectors associated with the McClellan party, spotted "a green patch far above them in an improbable location for a grass-green meadow." The green turned out to be malachite, located with chalcocite (aka "copper glance"), and the location of the Bonanza claim. A few days later, Arthur Coe Spencer, U.S. Geological Survey geologist independently found chalcocite at the same location.

Stephen Birch, a mining engineer just out of school, was in Alaska looking for investment opportunities in minerals. He had the financial backing of the Havemeyer Family, and another investor named James Ralph, from his days in New York. Birch spent the winter of 1901-1902 acquiring the "McClellan group's interests" for the Alaska Copper Company of Birch, Havemeyer, Ralph and Schultz, later to become the Alaska Copper and Coal Company. In the summer of 1901, he visited the property and "spent months mapping and sampling." He confirmed the Bonanza mine and surrounding by deposits were, at the time, the richest known concentration of copper in the world.

By 1905, Birch had successfully defended the legal challenges to his property and he began the search for capital to develop the area. On 28 June 1906, he entered into "an amalgamation" with the Daniel Guggenheim and J.P. Morgan & Co., known as the Alaska Syndicate, eventually securing over $30 million. The capital was to be used for constructing a railway, a steamship line, and development of the mines. In Nov. 1906, the Alaska Syndicate bought a 40 percent interest in the Bonanza Mine from the Alaska Copper and Coal Company and a 46.2 percent interest in the railroad plans of John Rosene's Northwestern Commercial Company.

Political battles over the mining and subsequent railroad were fought in the office of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt between conservationists and those having a financial interest in the copper.

The Alaska Syndicate traded its Wrangell Mountains Mines assets for shares in the Kennecott Copper Corporation, a "new public company" formed on 29 April 1915. A similar transaction followed with the CR&NW railway and the Alaska Steamship Company. Birch was the managing partner for the Alaska operation.

Kennecott Mines was named after the Kennicott Glacier in the valley below. The geologist Oscar Rohn named the glacier after Robert Kennicott during the 1899 US Army Abercrombie Survey. A "clerical error" resulted in the substitution of an "e" for the "i", supposedly by Stephen Birch himself.

Kennecott had five mines: Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie and Glacier. Glacier, which is really an ore extension of the Bonanza, was an open-pit mine and was only mined during the summer. Bonanza and Jumbo were on Bonanza Ridge about 3 mi (4.8 km) from Kennecott. The Mother Lode mine was located on the east side of the ridge from Kennecott. The Bonanza, Jumbo, Mother Lode and Erie mines were connected by tunnels. The Erie mine was perched on the northwest end of Bonanza Ridge overlooking Root Glacier about 3.7 mi (6.0 km) up a glacial trail from Kennecott. Ore was hoisted to Kennecott via the trams which head-ended at Bonanza and Jumbo. From Kennecott the ore was hauled mostly in 140-pound sacks on steel flat cars to Cordova, 196 rail miles away, via the Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CRNW).

In 1911 the first shipment of ore by train transpired. Before completion, the steamship Chittyna carried ore to the Abercrombie landing by Miles Glacier. Initial ore shipments contained "72 percent copper and 18 oz. of silver per ton."

In 1916, the peak year for production, the mines produced copper ore valued at $32.4 million.

In 1925 a Kennecott geologist predicted that the end of the high-grade ore bodies was in sight. The highest grades of ore were largely depleted by the early 1930s. The Glacier Mine closed in 1929. The Mother Lode was next, closing at the end of July 1938. The final three, Erie, Jumbo and Bonanza, closed that September. The last train left Kennecott on November 10, 1938, leaving it a ghost town.

From 1909 until 1938, except when it closed temporarily in 1932, Kennecott mines "produced over 4.6 million tons of ore that contained 1.183 billion pounds of copper mainly from three ore bodies: Bonanza, Jumbo and Mother Lode. The Kennecott operations reported gross revenues above $200 million and a net profit greater than $100 million.

In 1938, Ernest Gruening proposed Kennecott be preserved as a National Park. A recommendation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 18 Jan. 1940 for the establishment of the Kennecott National Monument went nowhere. However, 2 Dec. 1980 saw the establishment of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

From 1939 until the mid-1950s, Kennecott was deserted except for a family of three who served as the watchmen until about 1952. In the late 1960s, an attempt was made to reprocess the tailings and to transport the ore in aircraft. The cost of doing so made the idea unprofitable. Around the same time, the company with land rights ordered the destruction of the town to rid them of liability for potential accidents. A few structures were destroyed, but the job was never finished and most of the town was left standing. Visitors and nearby residents have stripped many of the small items and artifacts. Some have since been returned and are held in various archives.

KCC sent a field party under the geologist Les Moon in 1955. They agreed with the 1938 conclusion, "no copper resource of a size and grade sufficient to interest KCC remained." The mill remains however.

Most of this historical info came from an awesome article called A Kennecott Story by Charles Hawley in the University of Utah Press.

So you know we love our history and we thought it was cool cus this was such an important town in Alaska's history and then boom…ghost town. But you know that's not why we're there…it's also haunted!

Reports of paranormal activity along the abandoned train tracks abound and have for decades. That’s not all that makes it one of the most haunted places in America. Some claim to have seen old tombstones along the route. The gravestones then vanish by the time the visitors make their return trip. Others have reported hearing disembodied voices and phantom children laughing. Reportedly, a 1990s construction project here halted after workers were scared away by spooky sounds and inexplicable events.

Ok, last little tid bit of fact. There’s actually a little town up in the far northwest territory of Alaska called Diomede which is located on the island of Little Diomede in the middle of the Bering Straight. During the winter months the water can freeze and you can actually walk… to Big Diomede … an island in Russia. The stretch of water between these two islands is only about 2.5 miles wide. There are two reported cases of people walking from Alaska to Russia in modern history. The last were Karl Bushby, and his American companion Dimitri Kieffer who in 2006 walked from Alaska to Russia over the Bering Straight in 14 days.

So there you have it…killer bigfoot and some cool haunted ghost towns! Maybe we'll drive into some more ghost towns in a future episode!

Bigfoot horror movies

https://filmschoolrejects.com/bigfoot-horror/

Narrenturm & Beechwood Insane Asylums

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Ep. 152

Narranturm &

Beechwood Asylums

Today we're going back to some of our creepy roots. We're gonna visit a couple Asylums!!! First, we're going to look at Narrenturm asylum, and then we'll head to Beechwood Asylum! After that, we'll just hop right into the business!

"Narrenturm" in (Austrian/older) German translates as 'fools' tower,' or more accurately: 'lunatics' tower!

The Narrenturm was indeed the world's first building especially designed, in 1783, for "keeping" such mentally ill "patients" locked up in a central facility. It was finished in 1784, and the first patients were admitted soon after.

Treatment in those days was minimal to non-existent, so the 250 or so inmates in the 28 cells branching off each of the circular corridors on each of the five floors were indeed more or less simply "incarcerated" here. It was little more than a "loony bin," then emphasizing the word "bin." Still, it was argued that this was better than letting the patients roam around freely with the risk that they might harm someone or be subjected to ridicule or even physical mistreatment by other people. So they were locked away inside this tower, two patients in each of the cells, which contained nothing but the beds and bare walls.

The Narrenturm was constructed in 1784 under Emperor Joseph II. It was Constructed by court architect Isidor Canevale. It consisted of a five-story, fortress-like circular building with 28 rooms and a ring of slit windows, plus a central chamber aligned north-to-south. There were, in total, 139 individual cells for the inmates. It was built as part of the Altes Allgemeines Krankenhaus, or "Old General Hospital." It was officially founded by Emperor Josef II in 1784 after the buildings had been used for more than 60 years as a poorhouse. The building of the Narrenturm was prompted by the discovery of underground dungeons used by the Capuchin monks of Vienna for housing their mentally ill brethren; another factor was that Joseph II had learned about similar institutions in France during his travels there. The construction of the Narrenturm points to a new attitude towards the mentally ill – they began to be separated from the rest of society and not simply classified among the general category of "the poor." Each cell had solid and barred doors and chains for restraining inmates. The building's doctors and guards were officed/housed in the center. A visitor to the Narrenturm in the late 1700s said some patients were still made to wear chains or straitjackets while in their cells. Others were allowed to roam free, although the institution was focused on a new way of dealing with the mentally ill.

The Narrenturm had a lightning rod or "lightning catcher" installed on the roof ridge when it was first built. At that time, Václav Prokop Diviš, a clergyman in Přímětice near Znojmo, had studied plant growth and treatment with electrical currents present, publishing his findings to the medical community. There are rumors the 'caught lightning' may have been used to treat the mentally ill, although that has never been proven.

Prokop Divis invented the grounded lightning rod, which is still used in today's modern infrastructures. He was also a natural scientist, theologian, and one of the Czech canon regulars during his time. A man of science from the earlier centuries, Prokop Divis thought ahead of his time and made this classic invention.

Although definitely a man who believed in God and serving the church, Prokop still made his own contribution as an inventor and scientist whose product is still being used today. He earned the needed experience to devise his invention when working in the parish in Prendice.

Prokop was responsible for managing the Abbey's farmland in Prendice. He also took charge of water conduit construction, which gave him the exposure to understand mechanical issues. In addition, Prokop developed an interest in electricity, and he began to perform his own experiments with great success on plant growth and therapy, using a small electric voltage.

When the death of Georg Wilhelm Richmann, one of the professors at St. Petersburg, reached Prokop's knowledge, he became interested in atmospheric electricity. Richmann had perished by being struck by lightning while observing a storm from a hut. This prompted Prokop to build the "weather-machine" in Prendice, a device to protect from lightning strikes.

Prokop devised the very first grounded lightning rod. He observed thunderstorms and deduced that lighting was an electrical spark. He also realized that he could imitate thunder and lightning on a smaller scale.

His grounded lightning rod was first erected on the 15th of June in 1754, six years before Benjamin Franklin invented his lightning rod in the United States.

Prokop's lightning rod consisted of a pointed slender iron bar, and fastened to it, near the top of the bar, were two crossbars, so producing four arms. Then across which, in turn, a shorter bar was laid, making twelve 'ends.' At each of the twelve extremities, a box with 27 brass needles was attached; each compartment was filled with iron shavings. The main bar was supported by a 132-foot wooden column, and iron chains connected the main bar to the ground. The rod was designed to split the lightning spark into as many smaller sparks as there were needles (324) to reduce its force.

His lightning rod invention was not popular and was received with suspicion, so Prokop removed it in 1756 and turned his interest toward music. However, his theory of atmospheric electricity was published in his papers after his death.

Apart from his invention of the first grounded lightning rod, Prokop also created the first electrical musical instrument. This was called the denis d'Or and was played by the hand and the feet, like an organ. It was invented in 1753, and this instrument had properties that allowed it to imitate the sound of other string instruments.

Initially, Prokop only studied science to be able to find the truth. But when he realized that he could utilize his findings, he made the most productive use of his scholarly knowledge. In 1765, Prokop died on the 21st of December in Prendice, aged 67.

Back to the Asylum.

Whatever the rumors, most seem to believe the clinic offered more humane treatments for the mentally ill than other doctors in the general population at the time and protected them from possibly being abused by relatives.

The psychiatric clinic remained in use until 1869, when it was closed down. Vienna's «Fool's Tower» was soon considered a building worthy of condemnation. Some saw the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill at that time as unworthy. Some, therefore, quickly raised the issue of conditions in mental hospitals and prisons, made systematic inventories, and traveled abroad to gather knowledge and experience. Some thought this building and some of the other early ones that needed to be shut down were due more to architecture than anything. We've discussed several other Asylums on the show, and we've gone over their architecture and why they were designed in the specific way they were, so we won't go into that here, but feel free to go back and listen to those other episodes!

So, there's not an exceptional amount of info on this place, but we thought it was incredible, primarily because of what it is now! We know some of you depraved fuckers will like this and maybe plan a trip!

The psych facility closed in 1866 but reopened as a new location for the Anatomical-Pathological Museum in the 1970s. While the circular building (known by locals as "the poundcake") houses only a tiny percent of the museum's total collection, it contains some fascinating pieces. Syphilitic skulls that resemble Swiss cheese, jars of disfigured fetuses, and graphic wax displays of untreated STDs all peer out at you from the old cells. It also contains a recreated wonder cabinet, complete with a narwhal tusk and taxidermied monkeys. In total, 70,000 items make up the collection. Since January 2012, the collection has been administered as a branch of the Natural History Museum of Vienna.

But only a relatively small part of the collection in the museum's possession is regularly displayed to the general public. Most specimens are part of the "study collection" (Studiensammlung) for medical professionals and medical training only. However, some features are occasionally shown to visitors on guided tours.

Some people don't take kindly to the more extreme examples of shocking deformities, so some of these specimens can only be seen by special arrangement. So that's where we're all going!!! Whoooo!

These restrictions are also in force to prevent the Narrenturm from becoming some kind of overtly voyeuristic attraction (this applies in particular to a room with various conjoined twins in large formaldehyde-filled jars – a type of floating twin children's cemetery). They even have a "devil," believe it or not … In actual fact, it's a preserved stillborn baby that back then (1827) was taken to look like the Devil. You need a bit of imagination to see it that way (it doesn't have horns, hooves, or a forked tail), but it's undoubtedly "shocking" to look at. Rather than having been cursed, possessed, or any other such superstitious stuff, the poor thing was simply anencephalic – i.e., a baby deformed so that most of the forebrain, upper skull, and scalp are missing. This is an extreme form of a neural tube defect termed anencephaly, literally meaning 'no brain'). The head ends in big bulging eyes at the top of the front of the head while the flat rear of the head is open, exposing the remnants of brain tissue. The disorder is attributed to a lack of folic acid. Still, it may also result from high mercury exposure, lead, or other toxic heavy metals like Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, and cannibal corpse. Yes, it's the midnight train…and we felt we had to add that during the tour. Apparently, they go into the details of the history of tuberculosis treatment. So, there's that. Also on display are various bone diseases, tumors, birth defects (including a full-size Cyclops baby specimen floating in formaldehyde), and countless models of skin diseases (mainly of the 'moulage' technique, i.e., taken directly from the sufferer's body and then painted more or less realistically), so that's gross.

There is a taxidermy specimen of a "stuffed" child, the whole body! The unfortunate patient had suffered from a severe form of congenital ichthyosis, a skin condition affecting the entire body's surface skin. Next is the skeleton of a woman who had suffered from severe rickets, resulting in such twisted bones and a bent, shortened back that she was only about 20 inches "tall." Finally, there are the leg bones of a man who had been seven feet something tall at the other extreme end – a giant. His shinbone is longer than the rickets woman's entire body.

So on top of all of the asylum stuff, now there's all this craziness in there!

Oh, also there are rumors of it being haunted too, cus…you know, why not!

While we couldn't find much in people talking about any haunted experiences, the Asylum and museum had made many lists of the most creepy haunted Asylums in the world. So we assume there's something there!

Ok, that was Narranturm Asylum. Next, we'll head over to revisit our friends in Australia! We love you crazy fuckers down under! First, we're gonna check out the Beechworth asylum!

In the rolling hills of Beechworth, near Victoria, Australia, you'll find a dilapidated old building known as the Mayday Lunatic Asylum, once one of the largest asylums in all of Australia. When the Asylum closed its doors for good in 1995, numerous patients died during its 128-year reign.

Bone-chilling sightings, horrid smells of rotting flesh, and a history of inducing nightmares in even the most seasoned spook lovers – the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum has the fearsome reputation of one of the most haunted sites in Australia. Very few of its patients walked out of the institution alive from 1867 – to 1995.

Built on a hill in Beechworth, Victoria, the site was chosen because of the belief the town's altitude would cleanse the patients of their illnesses, with the winds carrying away their mental afflictions. Seems reasonable…yea…

The hospital housed 1200 patients, 600 men, and 600 women, at its peak. As medication wasn't introduced until the 1950s, the center's doctors opted to restrain patients with straight jackets and shackles, and in some cases, they received electroshock treatment. Oh, yea…and of course… there were the lobotomies!!! All the lobotomies!! All it took was a pair of signatures to land you in Beechworth–the request of a friend or relative and that of a medical doctor. So if a husband wanted to get rid of his wife, all he had to do was get a doctor to agree she was unstable. Once there, the new patient would be interviewed by the ward physician. Beechworth was one of many mental institutions operating in Australia at the time, alongside Ardale Mental Hospital and the Sunbury Lunatic Asylum. Some physician interviews have survived to the present day. Unfortunately, they speak of troubled patients, brutal treatment, and little hope of escape.

The patients' stories were taken down verbatim by a ward doctor, described by one patient as Dr. O'Brien, who made notes over time about their progress and prospects for work and recovery.

One interview goes as follows:

Daniel Dooley, 59

23/8/1892

"I was brought by a policeman because I was silly, and I was in the habit of saying my prayers. I stayed a night out looking for a quartz reef. I value it at 100 pounds. I've been at Dunolly on an unemployment pass. I brought a tent. I saw a lot of larrikins there, and they burned my tent. When I came back I could not find the place. I met five men dressed like navvies (Irish workers). I spoke to them and they did not answer. I met more and I spoke and they said they were ghosts. I wanted to go into a house, but they said it was haunted. I then saw the Devil — like a steam engine. I then saw the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) and I spoke to her and shook hands with her. She took a tree up to make shelter for me and sent J. C. (Jesus Christ) to obtain another for me. She lifted up the tree as easy as I can this chair. And there was music and ejaculations of the Hail Mary. I asked for money and she had a bird in her hand and placed it on a perch, and one of the men had a purse with him but that money I've not got yet. I told a priest and he told me to be off."

There were 4 other accounts. Unfortunately, none of these 5 men that have these statements survived their time in the Asylum.

Nathaniel Buchanan, a researcher for Aradale Ghost Tours, which covers the Ararat institution and the disused Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum at Beechworth, said treatment in the mid to late 1800s was well behind modern practices.

"Treatment was mostly restraint," he said.

"There were none of the modern medicines, that mostly came in the 1950s."

"Restraint would start with a straight jacket, if that wasn't suitable the 'lunatic' could be placed in an isolation box until they settled down."

"There was no distinction between epilepsy and schizophrenia. In that time, there were four classifications for lunacy — mania, melancholia, dementia and paranoia."

"There number of conditions has increased from four to about 2000 since then."

"Many of the women in the institutions in the late 1800s were likely to have been suffering from post-natal depression, but that was just classified as melancholia," he said.

"Also it took just two signatures for somebody to be taken in. If a man wanted his wife gone, and his friends knew about it, he could get them to say his wife was mad, and she'd be taken.

"At one stage it also took two signatures to be discharged, but that was later increased to eight signatures, meaning it was a lot harder to get out."

Inmates were given work in an 1800s movement towards "moral treatment" — teaching patients proper morals by giving them trades and responsibilities.

Women were tasked with sewing and washing while men made shoes and tended farms.

One particularly cruel feature of Beechworth was what is known as "Ha-Ha walls." The key feature of a Ha-Ha wall was a trench built on the interior of the Asylum's walls. This made the wall appear low enough that inmates weren't imprisoned from the outside while ensuring that none of them could actually escape.

Given the harsh treatment of the patients at Beechwood, it's no wonder that this Asylum is considered another of the most haunted in the world.

Speaking to ABC News in 2008, Adam Win-Jenkins, who ran ghost tours of the site, said there are stories of mass shock treatments in which almost the entire patient population was shocked in one session.

The rooms where these treatments took place are where the paranormal activity seems to occur.

In 2015, a man named Gaurav Tiwari, the founder of the Indian Paranormal Society who has since passed away, saw a little girl kneeling in the darkness of the infamous wing.

Adelaide ghost hunter Allen Tiller also had an experience in a wing called the "bullpen," which housed aggressive young people aged between 18 and 25.

He heard a door slamming and "footsteps up the hallway," he told Nova100 in 2015.

But even before the center closed, it was plagued by ghost stories. Some buildings have since been demolished following an electrical fire.

In 1951, a fire swept through the male wing causing considerable damage. An article from The Herald Sun that year read:

"400 male patients, many naked, were rescued from Beechworth asylum today, minutes before a fire caused the blazing top storey of the mental hospital to collapse... 11 patients escaped into the surrounding mountainous country. Seven were later recaptured, but four — described as not dangerous — are still at large."

Bristol, one of the wards knocked down, was where a deceased male doctor could commonly be spotted roaming the halls.

The other common sighting is Matron Sharpe, who was often seen by the nurses. They report seeing the Matron sitting with patients facing electroshock treatment. Those who witnessed the figure say the room would turn icy cold, but her presence seemed to comfort the patients.

Its rooms each tell an eerie tale, too. One of which is the story of Jim Kelly - Ned Kelly's uncle.

After burning down his sister-in-law's house while a young Ned was inside (but escaped unscathed), Jim was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor by Sir Redman Barry - who later sentenced his nephew Ned Kelly to death.

As part of his sentence, Jim was sent to the institution to help build the hospital. However, after serving his time, his mind "was broken," so he spent the rest of his days as a patient at the hospital until he died in 1903.

Jim's body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the Beechworth cemetery, as were the rest of the Asylum's deceased patients.

Not until the 1980s did patients actually receive their own graves and headstone. Before this, they were also buried in the opposite direction to everyone else. Setting them apart from the rest of society as the Asylum had done while living.

Another story from the haunted grounds involves a man who disappeared. Despite desperate efforts by staff to find him, several weeks after he disappeared, a resident dog called Max was found chewing a leg near the grounds' entry.

This led to finding the man's body up a tree, presumably where he had attempted to escape. But, unfortunately, his body had been there so long that his leg had fallen off into Max's possession. This was also the cause of the stench that lingered on the hospital grounds.

Workmen at the hospital have reported hearing the sound of children laughing and playing; when they investigated the sound, they could not trace its source. Several years ago, a parent noticed their 10-year-old son talking to himself while on a ghost tour. When asked who he was talking to, the boy said he was talking to another boy called James, who lived there.

One patient, a big chain-smoking woman, was thrown out of a window to her death by another patient who wanted her cigarettes. Because the woman was Jewish, her body was not allowed to be moved until a Rabbi had seen it, so her body was left lying out the front of the hospital dead for 2 days while the Rabbi made the trip up from Melbourne. Her ghost has been seen on the spot where she fell by several witnesses over the last decade.

The gardens of Beechworth have long been subdivided into allotments; those who live nearby have seen the ghost of a man wearing a green woolen jacket. The spirit is thought to be a gardener named Arthur, who worked the gardens for many years earning ten shillings a week. He wore his green jacket in winter and summer, and no one could persuade him to remove it. After Arthur died, it was discovered why; Arthur had been secretly storing his wages in the seam of his jacket. When the nurses opened it, they found 140 pounds hidden inside, over four years of his wages.

Well…we know you love this stuff, so we'll throw in another quick one! Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in South Korea! In 1982 the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was established outside Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, by a Mr. Hong. The original building was just over 11,000m² and spread across three floors. Sometime during the early 1990s, two additional buildings were added, which increased the size by another 500m². In July 1996, the hospital closed a short time later and was left abandoned and unmaintained for over two decades.

Nefarious rumors began to spread about the hospital's closure, and ghost hunters and urban explorers started flocking to the spooky site in droves. As a result, Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital quickly gained a reputation as one of the top three haunted buildings in South Korea. But until an article was published by CNN in 2012 featuring Gonjiam as one of the world's most terrifying locations, the hospital mainly had maintained its ghostly reputation domestically.

Sources discussing the history of Gonjiam and the hospital's fate aren't widespread on the English side of the internet, so the majority of research for this article was done using Korean sources. So, however, specific dates and versions of stories and events vary from reference to authority, so it's worth taking some information with a grain of salt. So enjoy Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital for the creepy legacy it left behind, but don't consider it a perfect reflection of the history of psychiatric hospitals in South Korea.

So what's all the fuss about? What makes this particular abandoned hospital so terrifying?

It helps that the entire building looks like a living, breathing 'haunted insane asylum' trope:

Collapsed ceilings.

Long echoing corridors.

Doors that shut on their own.

Patient rooms are littered with old mattresses and forgotten personal items.

The main building is a concrete block with a zigzagging exterior staircase and windowless black holes peering into the eerie interior from the outside. The building just looks haunted. And what do creepy abandoned buildings need? A ghost story, of course. And it didn't take long for one to begin making the rounds.

According to legend, many patients at Gonjiam died mysteriously, forcing the hospital to shut down permanently. Some believe the murders were committed by the hospital owner, who was accused of keeping the patients' hostage. However, it's said that the owner fled to America after the victims' families and government authorities began investigating the unexplained deaths.

Another story says Gonjiam's doctors and director were driven to madness while working alongside the mentally ill patients, which led the director to end his own life. Finally, some believe his suicide was caused by a ghost who possessed his body and drove him to insanity.

And the many other ghosts that haunt Gonjiam's abandoned halls are the victims of the psychotic doctors and murderous owner. So while the hospital is closed for the living, the former patients of Gonjiam are trapped forever in the place where they met their gruesome end.

The real reason for the hospital's closure is much less exciting…

The hospital director didn't commit suicide, nor was Gonjiam closed due to the mistreatment or murder of patients. Business at Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital actually came to an end because of finances, not mad doctors. With the implementation of the Water Source Protection Act in South Korea, a new sewage treatment facility became a sudden legal requirement for the hospital. This caused a disagreement between the owner and the director over whether or not it was worth the financial strain to install a new treatment facility. While talks were ongoing in 1997, the elderly owner passed away, and a new treatment facility was never installed, so the hospital remained closed. When the former owner's son took over the property, he neglected to maintain it, and the hospital fell into disrepair.

As for the former hospital's director, he was alive and well at the closing of Gonjiam and allegedly opened another psychiatric hospital in the province of Gangwon-do, east of Seoul.

Essentially, nothing about the legend surrounding Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital is actually true. And a lot of the rumors seem to come from a South Korean television show called 이영돈 PD 논리로 풀다 (ENG: Solve with the logic of PD Lee Young-don), which had an episode featuring the reported hauntings at Gonjiam.

The Asylum is no longer standing, but it isn't hard to see why stories ran wild about this place. Just look at pictures of it before it was demolished. And despite the legends not being true, the reports of hauntings still existed until the day the place was destroyed. Many people did die there, so there is definitely that possibility. If you look around, you can find chilling stories about sneaking in and experiencing everything from strange sounds, screaming, and even apparitions and shadows moving about.

We wanted to throw this one in because it looks creepy, and it's on a place we've not covered anything in yet.. plus the urban legends surrounding the site are pretty awesome in their own right!

Since we ended in South Korea, we're gonna do the best Korean horror movies as per rotten tomatoes!

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-korean-horror-movies/

Jack the Ripper Part 2. Like Seriously. Who Was This guy?

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 10:37:20 -0400

Ep.151

Pt.2

Ripper suspects

This week in part 2…. Suspects in the jack the ripper case… there's a ton…like pretty much everyone alive at the time of the murders…and maybe some that weren't…who knows. So here we frigging go!

Montague John Druitt:

Although there may not be any concrete, scientific evidence against him, the Jack, The Ripper murders in London's East End ended after Druitt's suicide convinced one London detective (Melville Leslie Macnaghten) that Druitt was, in fact, Jack The Ripper himself.

Montague John Druitt, son of prominent local surgeon William Druitt, was a Dorset-born barrister. He also worked as an assistant schoolmaster in Blackheath, London, to supplement his income. Outside of work, his primary interest was cricket.

He played alongside the likes of Francis Lacey, the first man knighted for services to cricket. His numerous accolades in the game include dismissing John Shuter for a duck. The England batsman was playing for Bexley Cricket Club at the time.

On the recommendation of Charles Seymour and noted fielder Vernon Royle, Druitt was elected to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) on May 26th, 1884. One of the minor matches for MCC was with England bowler William Attewell against Harrow School on June 10th, 1886. The MCC won by 57 runs.

Montague John Druitt's decomposed body was found floating in the Thames near Chiswick on December 31st, 1888. He had a return train ticket to Hammersmith dated December 1st, a silver watch, a cheque for £50 and £16 in gold (equivalent to £5,600 and £1,800 today).

He is believed to have committed suicide, a line of thought substantiated by the fact there were stones in his pockets. Possibly to keep his body submerged in the river.

The cause of his suicide is said to be his dismissal from his post at the Blackheath boys' school. The reason for his release is unclear. However, one newspaper, quoting his brother William's inquest testimony, reported being dismissed because he "had got into serious trouble." Although, it did not specify any further.

Several authors have suggested that Druitt may have been dismissed because he was a homosexual or a pederast. Another speculation is that the money found on his body would be used for payment to a blackmailer, or it could have simply been a final payment from the school.

Another possibility involving his dismissal and eventual death is an underlying hereditary psychiatric illness. His mother had already attempted suicide once by taking an overdose of laudanum. She died in an asylum in Chiswick in 1890. In addition, both his Grandmother and eldest sister committed suicide, while his aunt also attempted suicide.

A note written by Druitt and addressed to his brother William was found in Druitt's room in Blackheath. It read,

"Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die."

The last of the canonical five murders had taken place shortly before Druitt's suicide. Following his death, there were no more ripper murders.

In 1891, a member of parliament from West Dorchester, England, began saying that the Ripper was "the son of a surgeon" who had committed suicide on the night of the last murder.

Assistant Chief Constable Sir Melville Macnaghten named Druitt as a suspect in the case.

He did so in a private hand-written memorandum on February 23rd, 1894. Macnaghten highlighted the coincidence between Druitt's disappearance and death shortly after the last of the five murders.

He also claimed to have unspecified "private information." One that left "little doubt" that Druitt's own family believed him to have been the murderer.

The memorandum read:

"I have always held strong opinions regarding him, and the more I think the matter over, the stronger do these opinions become. The truth, however, will never be known, and did indeed, at one time lie at the bottom of the Thames, if my conjections be correct!"

Macnaghten was convinced that Montague John Druitt was the serial killer they had long been looking for. However, he incorrectly described the 31-year old barrister as a 41-year-old doctor and cited allegations that he "was sexually insane" without specifying the source or details of the allegations.

Macnaghten did not join the force until 1889, after the murder of Kelly and the death of Druitt. He was also not involved in the investigation directly and is likely to have been misinformed.

There is also the case of Druitt playing Cricket games far away from London during many of the murders.

On September 1st, the day after the murder of Nichols, Druitt was in Dorset playing cricket. On the day of Chapman's murder, he played cricket in Blackheath. The day after the murders of Stride and Eddowes, he was in the West Country defending a client in a court case.

Some writers such as Andrew Spallek and Tom Cullen have argued that Druitt had the time and opportunity to travel by train between London and his cricket and legal engagements. He could have even used his city chambers as a base from which to commit the murders. However, several others have dismissed the claim as "improbable."

For instance, Druitt took 3 wickets in the match against the Christopherson brothers at Blackheath on September 8th, the day of the Chapman murder. He was on the field at 11.30 AM for the game and performed out of his skin. An event unlikely if he were walking the streets of London committing a murder at 5:30 AM.

Most experts now believe that the killer was local to Whitechapel. On the other hand, Druitt lived miles away on the other side of the Thames in Kent. Even Inspector Frederick Abberline appeared to dismiss Druitt as a serious suspect because the only evidence against him was the coincidental timing of his suicide shortly after the last canonical murder.

Aaron Kosminski:

Aaron Kosminski was not a stable man. In 1891, he was sent to Colney Hatch Asylum. Psychiatric reports made during Kosminski's time there state that Kosminski heard auditory hallucinations that directed him to do things. Although some claim that Kosminski wasn't violent, there is a record of him threatening his own sister with a knife.

The "canonical five" murders which wrapped up the sum of the Ripper's official kills, stopped soon after Kosminski was put into an asylum. Present-day doctors think Kosminski might have been a paranoid schizophrenic, but it sure is suspicious that his institutionalization fits the timeline of Jack the Ripper.

Kosminski threatened his sister with a knife. Jack the Ripper is infamous for the violent way he murdered his female victims. This serial killer did things like slashing throats, removing organs, and severely disfiguring faces. The crimes he committed were grisly and suggested a severe hatred of women.

Kosminski definitely fits the description of hating women. He was terrible at socializing with women, and according to Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten, he was known for his profound resentment of women.

Macnaghten wrote, "This man became insane due to indulgence in solitary vices for many years. He had a great hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies."

Hating prostitutes and suspected as being capable of murder? Kosminski is looking better and better as the chief Jack the Ripper suspect.

On the night of one of the murders, a woman named Elizabeth Long said she heard the man's voice who led Jack the Ripper victim, Annie Chapman, to her death. Long said she listened to the man ask Annie, "Will you?" as they were discussing their sex work arrangement. Long described the man's voice as having an accent.

Kosminski, as a Polish Jew, had an accent. A clue left on a Goulston Street wall in London suggested that Jack the Ripper had a native language other than English as well. The person who wrote the message spelled the word "Juwes" instead of "Jews." The entire statement read, "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." It was never understood what was actually meant by it.

What's more, Macnaghten wrote this about a suspect spotted fleeing on the night of Catherine Eddowes' murder: "This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square."

Care to guess who "the individual seen by the City P.C." Macnaughten referred to was? That's right. He was talking about Aaron Kosminski! Although reports of Jack the Ripper's appearance, in general, were inconsistent, Kosminski fit the appearance of someone spotted at one of the crime scenes. Macnaghten's report has been discredited, though, so take this information as you will.

In 2007, a man named Russel Edwards wanted to confirm the identity of Jack the Ripper so severely that he acquired the shawl of Jack the Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes. He had the shawl's DNA tested and confirmed that the genetic material on the shawl traced back to one of Kosminski's living relatives.

Edwards had written a book entitled, Naming Jack the Ripper, thus having something to gain, so people didn't believe this analysis. That is until the DNA was studied by an unrelated peer-reviewed science journal. In 2019, The Journal of Forensic Sciences confirmed that the DNA did indeed match Aaron Kosminski. The results were apparently sketchy and not tested again until 2019 by Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Leeds. The DNA presented matched the descendants of Kosminski and Eddowes. Although, the shawl was never documented in police custody.

Francis Craig:

Born in 1837 in Acton, west London, Francis Spurzheim Craig was the son of a well-known Victorian social reformer.

His father, ET Craig, was a writer and advocate of phrenology – interpreting personality types by feeling the shape of the head – a so-called "science" that was already falling out of fashion by the Ripper murders.

However, the family moved into influential west London circles, counting William Morris, the socialist and founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, among their friends.

Craig, like his father, was a journalist but not a successful one. Friends described him as sensitive yet stubborn.

After a period in the United States from 1864 to 1866, Craig spent time in local newspapers but in the 1871 Census listed himself as a person of "No occupation."

By 1875 he had been appointed editor of the Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News.

Here, Craig's journalism career suffered an almost terminal blow when he was caught cribbing reports from The Daily Telegraph and was brutally exposed as a plagiarist by a rival publication.

It is not known how he met Elizabeth Weston Davies – it may have been at William Morris' social gatherings – but they married on Christmas Eve 1884 in Hammersmith.

Just a few months later – on May 19th, 1885 – she was seen entering a private hotel near their marital home in Argyll Square, King's Cross, with a "young man … at 10 o'clock at night".

The book says it was a crushing blow for Craig, who had been unaware of his wife's involvement in prostitution.

She left and went into hiding in the East End under the pseudonym Mary Jane Kelly.

In The Real Mary Kelly, author Wynne Weston-Davies suggests Craig suffered from a mental illness, namely schizo-typal personality disorder.

Craig followed her to Whitechapel, taking lodgings at 306 Mile End Road.

He tried to locate the only woman he had ever loved, and as time passed, his love for her turned to hatred.

Then, he plotted to murder her, disguising his involvement by killing a series of prostitutes beforehand, the book suggests.

A few months after the murder of Elizabeth/Mary Jane, Craig left the East End and returned to west London as editor of the Indicator and West London News, a job he held until 1896.

In 1903, while living in lodgings at Carthew Road, Hammersmith, Craig cut his throat with a razor, leaving his landlady a note which read: "I have suffered a deal of pain and agony."

He did not die until four days later, Sunday, March 8th, 1903, and in an inquest, the coroner recorded a verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind and when irresponsible for his actions."

Dr. Weston-Davies plans to exhume Elizabeth/Mary Jane's body to carry out DNA analysis, which he believes will show the true identity of the Ripper's final victim and, therefore, prove Craig's motive for the murders.

Carl Feigenbaum:

Carl Feigenbaum was most certainly a convicted murderer.

Indeed, he was convicted of and executed for the murder of Mrs. Juliana Hoffman, a 56-year-old widow who lived in two rooms above a shop at 544 East Sixth Street, New York, with her 16-year-old son, Michael.

Feigenbaum told the Hoffman's that he had lost his job as a gardener and therefore had no money. However, he assured them that he had been promised a job as a florist and that, once he was paid, on Saturday, September 1st, 1894, he would be able to pay them the rent that he owed. The Hoffmans took him at his word, a trust that would prove fatal for Mrs. Hoffman.

As a consequence of their having a lodger, who was given the rear of the two rooms, mother and son shared the front room, Juliana sleeping in the bed, and Michael occupying a couch at the foot of her bed.

Shortly after midnight, in the early hours of September 1st, 1894, Michael was woken by a scream, and, looking across to his mother's bed, he saw their lodger leaning over her, brandishing a knife. Michael lunged at Feigenbaum, who turned around and came at him with the knife.

Realizing he would be no match against an armed man, Michael escaped out of a window and began screaming for help.

Looking through the window, Michael watched in horror as Feigenbaum stabbed his mother in the neck and then cut her throat, severing the jugular. Juliana made one final attempt to defend herself and advanced toward her attacker, but she collapsed and fell to the floor.

Feigenbaum then returned to his room. H escaped out of the window, climbed down into the yard, and washed his hands at the pump. He then made his way out into an alleyway that led to the street.

So, how did his name become linked to the Whitechapel murders of 1888?

In a nutshell, he reputedly confessed to having been Jack the Ripper shortly before his execution.

It is noticeable that the British press didn't pay much attention to the trial of Carl Feigenbaum - until, following his execution, one of his lawyers made an eleventh-hour confession public.

Suddenly, articles about his confession began appearing in British newspapers, one of which was the following report, which appeared in Reynolds's Newspaper on Sunday, 3rd, May 1896:-

"An impression, based on an eleventh-hour confession and other evidence, prevails that Carl Feigenbaum, who was executed at Sing Sing on Monday, the real murderer of the New York outcast, nick-named Shakespeare, is possibly Jack the Ripper, of Whitechapel notoriety.

The proofs, however, are far from positive."

A week later, on Sunday, May 10th, 1896, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper published a more detailed account of the confession, which had been made to his lawyer, William Stamford Lawton:-

"THE AMERICAN JACK THE RIPPER

Carl Feigenbaum, who was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing last week, is reported to have left a remarkable confession with his lawyer.

The account of the lawyer reads:-

"I have a statement to make, which may throw some light on the murder for which the man I represented was executed. Now that Feigenbaum is dead and nothing more can be done for him in this world, I want to say as his counsel that I am absolutely sure of his guilt in this case, and I feel morally certain that he is the man who committed many, if not all, of the Whitechapel murders.

Here are my reasons, and on this statement, I pledge my honour.

When Feigenbaum was in the Tombs awaiting trial, I saw him several times.

The evidence in his case seemed so clear that I cast about for a theory of insanity. Certain actions denoted a decided mental weakness somewhere.

When I asked him point blank, "Did you kill Mrs. Hoffman?", he made this reply:- "I have for years suffered from a singular-disease, which induces an all absorbing passion; this passion manifests itself in a desire to kill and mutilate the woman who falls in my way.

At such times I am unable to control myself."

On my next visit to the Tombs I asked him whether he had not been in London at various times during the whole period covered by the Whitechapel murders?

"Yes, I was," he answered.

I asked him whether he could not explain some of these cases: on the theory which he had suggested to me, and he simply looked at me in reply."

The statement, which is a long one, proves conclusively that Feigenbaum was more or less insane, but the evidence of his identity with the notorious Whitechapel criminal is not satisfactory."

Hmmm... Of course, many disagree with this and do not believe the confession.

In truth, there is no compelling evidence to suggest that Lawton may have been lying about what his client had told him, and it might just have been that Feigenbaum may have thought that, in confessing to the Whitechapel murders, he would buy him a little extra time.

Walter Sickert: The English Painter

The name of Walter Sickert has been linked to the Jack the Ripper murders by several authors. However, his role in the killings has been said to have varied enormously over the years.

According to some authors, he was an accomplice in the Whitechapel Murders, while others depicted him as knowing who was responsible for the crimes and duly informing them.

But, according to the crime novelist Patricia Cornwell in her 2002 book "Portrait of a Killer - Jack the Ripper Case Closed," Sickert was, in fact, the man who carried out the crimes that became known as the Jack the Ripper Murders.

According to Cornwell's theory, Walter Sickert had been made impotent by a series of painful childhood operations for a fistula of the penis.

This impotence had scarred him emotionally and had left him with a pathological hatred of women, which, in time, led him to carry out the series of murders in the East End of London.

Doubts were raised about her theory when it was pointed out that St Mark's Hospital, where the operations on the young Sickert were supposedly performed, specialized in rectal and not genital fistulas.

Butts, not nuts.

So what evidence is there to suggest that Sickert possessed a pathological hatred of women?

Again, not shit, really. In "Portrait of a killer," Cornwell cites a series of Sickert's paintings inspired by the murder in 1908 of a Camden Town prostitute by Emily Dimmock. According to Patricia Cornwall's hypothesis, this series of pictures bears a striking resemblance to the post-mortem photographs of the victims of Jack the Ripper.

Now there is little doubt that Sickert was fascinated by murder and finding different ways to depict the menace of the crime and the criminal.

But, to cite this as evidence that he was actually a murderer - and, specifically, the murderer who carried out the Jack the Ripper killings - is hardly definitive proof.

As you passengers more than likely know, when looking at a particular Jack the Ripper suspect or any murder suspect, you need to be able to link your suspect with the crime.

You need to, for example, be able to place them at the scene of the crime, duh.

Here again, the case against Sickert unravels slightly since evidence suggests that he may not even have been in England when the murders were committed.

Many letters from several family members refer to him vacationing in France for a period corresponding to most of the Ripper murders.

Although it's been suggested that he might have traveled to London to commit the murders and then returned to France, no evidence has been produced to indicate that he did so.

Cornwall also contends that Sickert was responsible for writing most of the Jack the Ripper correspondence and frequently uses statements made in those letters to strengthen her case against him.

Authorities on the case and the police at the time, nearly all, share the opinion that none of the letters - not even the Dear Boss missive that gave him his name - was the work of the killer.

In addition, there is the problem that the style of the letters varies so significantly in grammatical structure, spelling, and hand-writing that it is almost impossible for a single author to have created all of them.

In her quest to prove Sickert's guilt, Cornwall also funded DNA tests on numerous stamps and envelopes, which she believed that Sickert had licked and compared the DNA to that found on the Ripper letters. Interestingly, a possible match was found with the stamp on the Dr. Openshaw letter.

Critics, however, have pointed out that the DNA comparisons focused on mitochondrial DNA, which could be shared by anything from between 1% and 10% of the population, so it was hardly unique to Sickert.

The last characters are generally considered the top suspects in the car; however that hasn't stopped many others from being implicated. Including known serial killers and even royalty.

H.H. Holmes:

He is known as "America's First Serial Killer," but some believe America was not his only hunting ground.

Jeff Mudgett, a lawyer and former Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, claims that his great-great-grandfather, H.H. Holmes, was DUN DUN, Jack the Ripper. Mudgett bases his assertions on the writings in two diaries he inherited from Holmes, which detail Holmes's participation in the murder and mutilation of numerous prostitutes in London. Mudgett also claims that the man who died in the public hanging on May 7th, 1896, was not Holmes, but rather a man that Holmes tricked into going to the gallows in his place.

Travel documentation and witness accounts also lend themselves to the theory that Jack the Ripper and Holmes are the same.

The biggest issue with Holmes and the Ripper being the same psychopathic man is that one was in Chicago and the other in London when international travel was not as easy as it is now. Back then, traveling between the U.K. and the U.S. was by boat, which could take about a month. However, with the Ripper killings ending in early 1889 and the first Holmes killing at the end of 1889, the timeline is entirely possible.

It is recorded that a passenger by the name of H. Holmes traveled from the U.K. to the U.S. at that time. Holmes is a pretty popular last name, and H.H. Holmes' legal name was actually Herman Webster Mudgett, but it is possible.

In addition, based on accounts and descriptions of Jack the Ripper, multiple sketch artists were able to come up with a drawing of Jack the Ripper, which looked eerily similar to H.H. Holmes. However, another account describes Jack the Ripper as having "brown eyes and brown hair," which could really be anyone.

Experts deny that H.H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper are the same person because they had different motives.

While Jack the Ripper typically went after poor women who were sex workers, H.H. Holmes was naturally after money. He was adept at moving accounts and signing life insurance over to his many aliases. In addition, he'd try to find people disconnected from family or else murder entire families and siblings to take inheritances.

Of the deniers to the theory, Jeff Mudgett had this to say:

"There are too many coincidences for this to be another bogus theory,"

"I know that the evidence is out there to prove my theory and I'm not going to give up until I find it."

Except for those diaries he claims to have. He refuses to show anyone, even going as far as to not print pictures of them in his book. His excuse for this is that it's "technically evidence" and could be confiscated by law enforcement because there is no statute of limitations on murder.

Prince Albert Victor: The guy with the dick jewelry name.

Everyone loves a conspiracy theory, and there have been few better than the theory of Prince Albert Victor impregnating a "shop girl" named Annie Crook. Obviously, the royal family had Queen Victoria's physician Dr. Gull brutalize her at a mental institution until she forgot everything. She then left the illegitimate child with prostitute Mary Kelly, who blabbed about the relationship to her friends (also prostitutes). With this scandalous knowledge, they were quickly and quietly disposed of – in a series of killings so grisly and high profile that we're still talking about them over a century later. There is also talk of him contracting syphilis from his many days of frolicking in East End brothels, causing him to become "insane" and, naturally, a serial killer. Unfortunately, the story is spoiled by his being out of London during the murders. Oh, and the total lack of evidence for any of this.

Lewis Carroll: Ya know, the Alice in Wonderland author.

Even though more than 500 people have been accused as Ripper suspects at one time or another, the most outlandish must be Richard Wallace's theory in his 1996 book, "Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend." Wallace took passages from Carroll's children's books and derived garbage anagrams from them, changing and leaving out letters as they suited his bizarre purposes. Watch the documentary "Sons of Sam for more idiocy like this." People always seem to find a way to contort information to fit their agendas. But I digress.

From The Nursery Alice, he took "So she wandered away, through the wood, carrying the ugly little thing with her. And a great job it was to keep hold of it, it wriggled about so. But at last she found out that the proper way was to keep tight hold of its left foot and its right ear" and turned it into "She wriggled about so! But at last Dodgson and Bayne found a way to keep hold of the fat little whore. I got a tight hold of her and slit her throat, left ear to right. It was tough, wet, disgusting, too. So weary of it, they threw up – Jack the Ripper".

If that's proof, I don't know what isn't.

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream:

This doctor was hanged for an unrelated murder at Newgate Prison. His executioner, James Billington, swears Cream's last words were "I am Jack the …," Which is weird if your name is Thomas. It was taken by many as a confession to being Jack the Ripper, of course, but being cut off by his execution meant no one managed to quiz him on it. He was in prison at the time of the murders, and the notion that he was out killing prostitutes while a "lookalike" served his prison sentence for him is, to say the least, unlikely.

Mary' Jill the Ripper' Pearcey:

The only female suspect at the time, Mary Pearcey, was convicted of murdering her lover's wife, and some suspect her of being behind the Whitechapel killings as well – though the evidence is pretty much nonexistent. Sherlock creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle speculated that a woman could have carried around blood-stained clothing without suspicion if she had pretended to be a midwife. DNA results found by an Australian scientist in 2006 suggested the Ripper "may have been a woman" – but only because they were inconclusive.

Michael Ostrog:

Much of Michael Ostrog's life is wreathed in shadow; clearly, this was a man who liked to keep his secrets close to his chest.

Ostrog was born in Russia in approximately 1833. However, we know little of his life until he arrived in the U.K. in 1863. Unfortunately, it seems as though Michael Ostrog had already committed to a life of scams, robbery, and petty theft.

In 1863, he was arrested and jailed for 10 months for trying to rob the University of Oxford. He was also using the alias of 'Max Grief,' a trend that would continue later on in his life.

Michael Ostrog was not considered a Jack the Ripper suspect until his name was mentioned alongside several other notable Ripper suspects in a memorandum in 1894. Sir Melville Macnaghten was the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London between 1903 and 1913, yet he also played a role in the Whitechapel Murders case. In this memorandum, he proposed Michael Ostrog as one of the most likely Jack the Ripper suspects (in his opinion) alongside Montague John Druitt and Aaron Kosminski.

However, despite Macnaghten's belief in his guilt, it was never proven that Michael Ostrog committed any murders. Thefts, robberies, scams, and fraud – yes, but murders? The evidence remains inconclusive.

Francis Tumblety:

Born in 1833, Francis Tumblety's humble start in life is a mystery. Some sources say that he was born in Ireland, while others suggest he was born in Canada. Regardless, we know that he moved to Rochester, New York, with his family within his life's first decade or so.

Tumblety moved around a lot during the 1850s and 1860s, staying in various places across the U.S. and Canada but never truly settling or finding a permanent home for himself. He posed as a doctor on his travels, claiming to have secret knowledge of mystical cures and medicines from India, but, likely, this was simply fabricated to drum up more business and interest in his services.

He was arrested in Canada twice – once for performing illegal abortions, then again for a patient's sudden, suspicious death. In 1865, Tumblety lived in Missouri under the fake name of 'Dr Blackburn.' However, this backfired spectacularly when he was mistakenly taken for the real Dr. Blackburn, who was actually wanted by police in connection with the murder of Abraham Lincoln! As a result, Francis Tumblety was arrested once again. Dumbass.

Sometime in the intervening years, Tumblety moved across the pond - possibly to escape further arrests - and was known to be living in London by the summer of 1888. He again posed as a doctor and peddled his fabricated trade to unsuspecting Londoners.

The police began to investigate Tumblety in August of that year, possibly because he was a Jack the Ripper suspect and due to the nature of his business. Sadly, the files and notes from the Victorian investigation have been lost over the years. However, many Ripperologists have since weighed in to give their opinions.

Interestingly, at the time, there had been rumors that an American doctor had approached the London Pathology Museum, reportedly in an attempt to purchase the uteruses of deceased women. Could this have been Francis Tumblety, or was it just a strange coincidence? An unusual request, for sure. However, a line of inquiry like this would have been taken extremely seriously by detectives at the height of Jack the Ripper's reign of terror.

Eventually, Tumblety's luck ran out, and on November 7th, 1888, he was arrested in London. Although the arrest specifics are not known today, we see that he was arrested for "unnatural offences," which could have meant several different things. This could also have referred to homosexual relations or rape, as homosexuality was still illegal.

He was released on bail, which crucially means that he was accessible and potentially able to have committed the horrific murder of Mary Jane Kelly on November 9th, 1888. The timeframe fits, and evidently, the police came to this conclusion, too, as Tumblety was subsequently rearrested on November 12th and held on suspicion of murdering Mary Jane Kelly.

Released on bail once again on November 16th, Francis Tumblety took the opportunity to flee London. Instead, he headed to France before returning to the U.S.

Tumblety then did a vanishing act and seemingly disappeared into the ether.

The next few years were a mystery, and Tumblety did not surface again until 1893, five years later. He lived out the remainder of his life in his childhood home in Rochester, New York, where he died in 1903 as a wealthy man.

The evidence certainly seems to point towards Tumblety's guilt, and indeed, the fact that he was arrested multiple times in connection with the Ripper murders suggests that he was undoubtedly one of the police's top Jack the Ripper suspects.

Today, many of the details have been lost over the years. The original Scotland Yard files are missing, meaning that we don't know why Tumblety was charged – or what he was charged with in connection to the Whitechapel Murders. However, we can learn from the arrests that the evidence brought against Tumblety could not have been watertight. Otherwise, he would never have been released on bail. It seems there was still an element of doubt in the minds of the detectives.

David Cohen:

The theory put together, pinning the chilling Whitechapel murders on one David Cohen, claims that this name was actually the 'John Doe' identity given to him at the time. He was taken in when found stumbling through the streets of East End London in December of 1888, a few short months after the autumn of terror. However, it is claimed that Cohen's real name was Nathan Kaminsky, a Polish Jew that matched the description of the wanted man known as 'Leather Apron,' who would later form the pseudonym of Jack the Ripper.

Cohen, born in 1865, was not actually named as a potential suspect in the Jack the Ripper case until Martin Fido's book 'The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper was published in 1987 – almost 100 years later. The book detailed Cohen's alleged erratic and violent behavior, making him a good fit for the killers' profile.

As per an 1895 article by Sir Robert Anderson, who was the Assistant Commissioner CID at Scotland Yard at the time of the murders, it becomes apparent that the killer was identified by a witness. The witness, however, refused to come forward in an official capacity, leading Anderson to write, "the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him."

Later, in his 1910 book 'The Lighter Side of My Official Life,' Anderson published a memoir hand-written by ex-Superintendent Donald S. Swanson, in which he named Aaron Kosminski as the suspect who matched the description of a Polish Jew. The passage reads: "The suspect had, at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified."

"On suspect's return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by the police (City CID) by day & night. In time, the suspect with his hands tied behind his back, he was sent to Stephney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards - Kosminski was the suspect – DSS."

Last one.

Lastly, on our list is one I didn't know anything about. As I was going through the research Moody so eloquently and diligently accrued, I stumbled up one more suspect.

There is little information about the suspect, but apparently, he was a traveling charioteer with accessibility to and from the White Chapel district during the murders. Unfortunately, his birthdate is unknown, making his age impossible to gauge. The only thing Scotland Yard has on file is a single word found near 2 of the victims and a noise heard by a handful of citizens who were close to the scene of the crimes.

That word was "Candy," and that horrible, unsettling sound was that of a rattling wallet chain...

Honestly, we could go on all day, but everything from here gets pretty convoluted. But, honestly, there's always a link if you stretch it far enough.

https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/films.htm

Episode 150! Who Was Jack the Ripper? Part 1

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 09:43:35 -0400

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FRIGGIN' EPISODES! Thank you all so much!!

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London in 1888:

Victorian London was not a happy place to be, and the facts speak for themselves. Prostitution was rife, poverty and crime were prevalent, and 19th-century housing was barely habitable. Finding work in 1888 was extremely difficult for the residents of Whitechapel, feeding into the cycle of poverty and depravity.

Soot and smoke generally filled the air, and there were still grazing sheep in Regent's Park in the mid-Victorian period — it was said that you could tell how long the sheep had been in the capital by how dirty their coats were. They went increasingly from white to black over days.

The nights were riddled with gas lamp-lit streets and dark, foggy alleyways.

The city was steeped in poverty and all manner of crime and disease.

Many children were seen as a strain on their parents' resources, and it is believed that two in every ten died before reaching five years old.

breeding ground for crime and poor behavioral habits, including murder, prostitution, and violence – and vicious circles like these were rarely broken in such poor districts

Streets were dirty, and fresh food was scarce. Pollution and sewage smells filled the air.

Urine soaked the streets. There was an experiment in Piccadilly with wood paving in the midcentury. It was abandoned after a few weeks because the sheer smell of ammonia coming from the pavement was horrible. Also, the shopkeepers nearby said that this ammonia was discoloring their shop fronts.

London in the 19th century was basically filled with cesspools.

There'd be brick chambers, maybe 6 feet deep, about 4 feet wide, and every house would have them.

It was more common to have a cesspool in the basement in central London and in more crowded areas.

Above the cesspool would be where your household privy, or toilet, would be.

These made the general smell in crowded London pretty awful.

There would have been horses everywhere. By the 1890s, there were approximately 300,000 horses and 1,000 tons of horse droppings a day in London. The Victorians employed boys ages 12 to 14 to dodge between the traffic and try to scoop up the excrement as soon as it hit the streets.

Shit everywhere.

The streets were lined with "mud,"... except it wasn't mud.

Life was much harder for women than men generally.

The lack of proper work and money led many women and girls into prostitution, a high-demand service by those wishing to escape their grim realities.

These women were commonly known as "unfortunates,"

They owned only what they wore and carried in their pockets - their dirty deeds would pay for their bed for the night.

There was an extraordinary lack of contraception for women.

Doctors performed unorthodox abortions in dirty facilities, including the back streets.

Many women would die of infection from these ill-performed surgeries or ingesting chemicals or poison.

The insides of the houses throughout the borough were no less uninviting and more reminiscent of slums.

Many of these dilapidated homes were makeshift brothels.

Prostitution was a dangerous trade, as diseases were passed from person to person very quickly, and doctors did not come cheap.

Most work came through casual or 'sweated' labor, like tailoring, boot making, and making matchboxes.

There was very little job security, and the work premises would more than likely be small, cramped, dusty rooms with little to no natural light.

Workhouses were another alternative, set up to offer food and shelter to the poorest of the community in return for hard, grueling labor in even worse conditions.

large portions of the population turned to drinking or drugs to cope with everyday life

Pubs and music halls were abundant in the East End, and booze was cheap, too, making it a viable means of escapism for many.

Crime rates spiraled and were unmanageable by London's police force in 1888. Petty crime like street theft was normality.

High levels of alcohol-related violence, gang crime, and even protection rackets were everywhere.

The high level of prostitution meant that vulnerable women were often forced to earn a living on the streets, leaving them easy targets for assault, rape, and even murder.

Police stations and the detectives at the helm lacked structure and organization, with many crimes being mislabelled, evidence going missing, or being tampered with was common.

The maze of dingy alleyways and dark courtyards, each with multiple entrances and exit points, made the district even more difficult to police. There were even some parts of Whitechapel that police officers were afraid to enter, making them crime hotspots.

With that brief look into what it was like in Whitechapel, it is no wonder that Jack the Ripper could get away with his crimes. That being said, let's look at the crimes and victims.

Mary Ann Nichols:

Mary Ann Nichols led a brief life marked with hardships. Born to a London locksmith in 1845, she married Edward in 1864 and gave birth to five children before the marriage dissolved in 1880.

In explaining the roots of the separation, Nichols' father accused Edward of having an affair with the nurse who attended one of their children's births. For his part, Edward claimed that Nichols' drinking problem drove them to part ways.

After separating, the court required Edward to give his estranged wife five shillings per month, over 600 pounds today— a requirement he successfully challenged when he found out she was working as a prostitute.

Nichols then lived in and out of workhouses until her death. She tried living with her father, but they did not get along, so she continued to work as a prostitute to support herself. Though she once worked as a servant in a well-off family home, she quit because her employers did not drink.

On the night of her death, Nichols found herself surrounded by the same problems she'd had for most of her life: lack of money and a propensity to drink. On 31st August 1888, she left the pub where she was drinking and walked back to the boarding house where she planned to sleep for the night.

Nichols lacked the funds to pay for the entrance fee, so she went back out to earn it. But, according to her roommate, who saw her the night before someone killed her, she spent whatever money she did earn on alcohol.

That night Mary was wearing a bonnet that none of the other residents of the lodging house had seen her with before. Since she intended to resort to prostitution to raise the money for her bed, she felt this would be an irresistible draw to potential clients. So, she was escorted from the premises by the deputy lodging housekeeper. She laughed to him, "I'll soon get my doss money, see what a jolly bonnet I have now."

At 2.30 on the morning of 31st August, she met a friend named Emily Holland by the shop at the junction of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road.

Mary was very drunk, and she boasted to Emily that she had made her lodging money three times over but had spent it.

Concerned at Mary's drunken state, Emily tried to persuade her to come back to Wilmott's with her. Mary refused, and, telling Emily that she must get her lodging money somehow, she stumbled off along Whitechapel Road.

That was the last time that Mary Nichols was seen alive.

At 3.45 a.m., a woman's body was found with her skirt pulled up to her waist, lying next to a gateway in Buck's Row, Just off Whitechapel Road. This location was around a ten-minute walk from the corner where Mary met Emily Holland.

According to some newspaper reports, the woman's throat had been cut back to the spine, the wound being so savagely inflicted that it had almost severed her head from her body.

Within 45 minutes, she had been placed on a police ambulance, which was nothing more than a wooden hand cart. She had been taken to the mortuary of the nearby Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary.

Here, Inspector Spratling of the Metropolitan Police's J Division arrived to take down a description of the, at the time, unknown victim, and he made the horrific discovery that, in addition to the dreadful wound to the throat, a deep gash ran along the woman's abdomen - The killer had disemboweled her.

The funeral of Mary Ann Nichols took place amidst great secrecy to deter morbid sightseers on Thursday, 6th September 1888.

Strangely, the ruse used to get Mary Nichols's body to the undertaker's could be said to have included an element of foreshadowing.

Mary Nichols's body was brought out of the mortuary's back gate in Chapman's Court, from where it was taken to the undertaker's premises on Hanbury Street.

Two days later, the murderer struck again and murdered Annie Chapman in Hanbury Street.

Annie Chapman:

Annie Chapman didn't always lead a hard life. She lived for some time with her husband, John, a coachman, in West London.

However, after the couple had children, her life began to unravel: Her son, John, was born disabled, and her youngest daughter, Emily, died of meningitis. She and her husband both began to drink heavily and eventually separated in 1884.

After the separation, Chapman moved to Whitechapel to live with another man. While she still received ten shillings per week from her husband, she sometimes worked as a prostitute to supplement her income.

When her husband died from alcohol abuse, that money stopped. According to her friends, Chapman "seemed to have given away all together." Then, a week before she died, Chapman got into a fistfight with another woman over an unreturned bar of soap.

At 5 p.m. on Friday, 7th September, Annie met her friend, Amelia Palmer, in Dorset Street. Annie looked extremely unwell and complained of feeling "too ill to do anything."

Amelia met her again, ten minutes later, still standing in the same place, although Annie was trying desperately to rally her spirits. "It's no use giving way, I must pull myself together and get some money or I shall have no lodgings," were the last words Amelia Palmer heard Annie Chapman speak.

At 11.30 p.m. that night, Annie turned up at Crossingham's lodging house and asked Timothy Donovan if she could sit in the kitchen.

Since he hadn't seen her for a few days, Donovan asked her where she had been? "In the infirmary," she replied weakly. He allowed her to go to the kitchen, where she remained until Saturday morning, 8th September 1888.

At 1.45 a.m., Donovan sent John Evans, the lodging house's night watchman, to collect the fourpence for her bed from her. He found her a little drunk and eating potatoes in the kitchen. When he asked her for the money, she replied wearily, "I haven't got it. I am weak and ill and have been in the infirmary."

Annie then went to Donovan's office and implored him to allow her to stay a little longer. But instead, he told her that if she couldn't pay, she couldn't stay.

Annie turned to leave, but then, turning back, she told him to save the bed for her, adding, "I shall not be long before I am in. I shall soon be back, don't let the bed."

John Evans then escorted her from the premises and watched her head off along Dorset Street, observing later that she appeared to be slightly tipsy instead of drunk.

At 5.30 that morning, Elizabeth Long saw her talking with a man outside number 29 on Hanbury Street. Since there was nothing suspicious about the couple, she continued on her way, hardly taking any actual notice.

Thirty minutes later, at 6 a.m., John Davis, an elderly resident of number 29, found her horrifically mutilated body lying between the steps and the fence in the house's backyard.

Annie had been murdered, and her body mutilated. She had a cut across her neck from left to right and a gash in her abdomen made by the same blade.

Her intestines had been pulled out and draped over her shoulders, and her uterus had been removed. The doctor conducting the post-mortem was so appalled by the damage done to her corpse that he refused to use explicit detail during the inquest. Police determined that she died of asphyxiation and that the killer mutilated her after she died.

She was later identified by her younger brother, Fountain Smith.

The severing of the throat and the mutilation of the corpse were similar to that of the injuries sustained by Mary Ann Nichols a week previously, leading investigators to believe the same assailant had murdered them.

At this point, the killings were known as 'The Whitechapel Murders."

Elizabeth Stride:

The Swedish-born domestic servant arrived in England in 1866, at which point she had already given birth to a stillborn baby and been treated for venereal diseases.

Stride married in 1869, but they soon split, and he ultimately died of tuberculosis in 1884. Stride would instead tell people that her husband and children (which they never actually had) were killed in an infamous 1878 Thames River steamship accident. She allegedly sustained an injury during that ordeal that explained her stutter.

With her husband gone and lacking a steady source of income, like so many of Jack the Ripper's victims, Stride split the remainder of her life living between work and lodging houses.

On Saturday, 29th September 1888, she had spent the afternoon cleaning two rooms at the lodging house, for which the deputy keeper paid her sixpence, and, by 6.30 p.m., she was enjoying a drink in the Queen's Head pub at the junction of Fashion Street and Commercial Street.

Returning to the lodging house, she dressed, ready for a night out, and, at 7.30 p.m., she left the lodging house.

There were several sightings of her over the next five hours, and, by midnight, she had found her way to Berner Street, off Commercial Road.

At 12.45 a.m., on 30th September, Israel Schwartz saw her being attacked by a man in a gateway off Berner Street known as Dutfield's Yard. Schwarz, however, assumed he was witnessing a domestic argument, and he crossed over the road to avoid getting dragged into the quarrel.

Schwartz likely saw the early stages of her murder.

At 1 a.m. Louis Diemschutz, the Steward of a club that sided onto Dutfield's Yard, came down Berner Street with his pony and costermongers barrow and turned into the open gates of Dutfield's Yard. Immediately as he did so, the pony shied and pulled left. Diemschutz looked into the darkness and saw a dark form on the ground. He tried to lift it with his whip but couldn't. So, he jumped down and struck a match. It was wet and windy, and the match flickered for just a few seconds, but it was sufficient time for Diemschutz to see a woman lying on the ground.

He thought that the woman might be his wife and that she was drunk, so he went into the club to get some help in lifting her.

However, he found his wife in the kitchen, and so, taking a candle, he and several other members went out into the yard, and, by the candle's light, they could see a pool of blood gathering beneath the woman.

The crowd sent for the police, and a doctor was summoned, pronouncing the woman dead. It was noted that, as in the cases of the previous victims, the killer had cut the woman's throat. However, the rest of the body had not been mutilated. This led the police to deduce that Diemschutz had interrupted the killer when he turned into Dutfield's Yard.

The body was removed to the nearest mortuary - which still stands, albeit as a ruin, in the nearby churchyard of St George-in-the-East, and there she was identified as Elizabeth Stride.

On the night of her burial, a lady went to a police station in Cardiff, and made the bizarre claim that she had spoken with the spirit of Elizabeth Stride. In the course of a séance, the victim had identified her murderer.

Nothing ever came of this…obviously.

CATHERINE EDDOWES:

Unlike the other Jack the Ripper victims, Catherine Eddowes never married and spent her short life with multiple men.

At age 21, the daughter of a tin plate worker met Thomas Conway in her hometown of Wolverhampton. The couple lived together for 20 years and had three children together. But, according to her daughter, Annie, the pair split "entirely on account of her drinking habits."

Eddowes met John Kelly soon after. She then became known as Kate Kelly and stayed with John until her death.

According to her friends and family, while Catherine was not a prostitute, she was an alcoholic. The night of her murder — the same night Elizabeth Stride was killed — a policeman found Catherine lying drunk and passed out on Aldgate Street.

She was taken to Bishopsgate Police Station, locked in a cell to sober up. But instead, she promptly fell fast asleep.

By midnight, she was awake and was deemed sober enough for release by the City jailer PC George Hutt. Before leaving, she told him that her name was Mary Ann Kelly and gave her address as 6 Fashion Street.

Hutt escorted her to the door of the police station, and he told her to close it on her way out. "Alright. Goodnight old cock" was her reply as she headed out into the early morning.

At 1.35 a.m., three men - Joseph Lawende, Joseph Hyam Levy, and Harry Harris saw her talking with a man at the Church Passage entrance into Mitre Square, located on the eastern fringe of the City of London.

Ten minutes later, at 1.45 a.m. Police Constable Alfred Watkins walked his beat into Mitre Square and discovered her horrifically mutilated body lying in the darkness of the Square's South West corner. The killer had disemboweled her. But, in addition, the killer had targeted her face, carving deep "V"s into her cheeks and eyelids. He had also removed and gone off with her uterus and left kidney. Finally, he had cut open her intestines to release fecal matter.

Dr. Frederick Brown, who performed the post-mortem examination of Eddowes' body, concluded that the killer must have some knowledge of anatomy if he could remove her organs in the dark.

Mary Jane Kelly:

She is the victim about whom we know the least.

We know virtually nothing about her life before she arrives in the East End of London. What we do know is based on what she chose to reveal about her past to those she knew, and the integrity of what she did tell is challenging to ascertain. Indeed, we don't even know that her name was Mary Kelly.

According to her boyfriend, Joseph Barnett, with whom she lived until shortly before her death, she had told him that she was born in Limerick, in Ireland, that her father's name was John Kelly, and that she had six or seven brothers and one sister.

The family moved to Wales when she was a child, and when she was sixteen, she met and married a collier named Davis or Davies. Unfortunately, her husband was killed in a mine explosion three years later, and Mary moved to Cardiff to live with a female cousin who introduced her to prostitution.

Mary moved to London around 1884, where she met a French woman who ran a high-class brothel in Knightsbridge, in which establishment Mary began working. She told Barnett that, during this period in her life, she had dressed well, had been driven about in a carriage, and, for a time, had led a lady's life.

She had, she said, made several visits to France at this time, and had accompanied a gentleman to Paris, but, not liking it there, she had returned to London after just two weeks.

She began using the continental version of her name and often referred to herself as Marie Jeannette Kelly.

After that, her life suffered a downward spiral, which saw her move to the East End of London, where she lodged with a Mrs. Buki in a side thoroughfare off Ratcliff Highway. Soon after her arrival, she enlisted her landlady's assistance in returning to the West End to retrieve a box that contained dresses of a costly description from the French lady.

Mary had now started drinking heavily, which led to conflict between her and Mrs. Buki. Relations between them became so strained that Mary moved out and went to lodge at the home of Mrs. Mary McCarthy at 1 Breezer's Hill Pennington Street, St. George-in-the-East.

By 1886 she had moved into Cooley's typical lodging house in Thrawl Street, and it was while living here that, on Good Friday, 6th April 1887, she met Joseph Barnett, who worked as a porter at Billingsgate Fish Market.

The two were soon living together, and, by 1888, they were renting a tiny room at 13 Miller's Court from John McCarthy, who owned a chandler's shop just outside Miller's Court on Dorset Street.

She and Barnett appear to have lived happily together until, in mid-1888, he lost his market job, and she returned to prostitution, which caused arguments between them. During one heated exchange, a pane in the window by the door of their room had been broken.

The precariousness of their finances had resulted in Mary falling behind with her rent, and by early November, she owed her landlord twenty-nine shillings in rent arrears.

On 30th October 1888, Joseph Barnett moved out, although he and Mary remained on friendly terms, and he would drop by to see her, the last time being at around 7.30 on the evening of Thursday 8th November, albeit he didn't stay long.

Several people claimed to have seen her during the next fourteen hours.

One of them was George Hutchinson, an unemployed laborer, who met her on Commercial Street at 2 a.m. on 9th November. She asked him if he would lend her sixpence, to which he replied that he couldn't as he'd spent all his money.

Replying that she must go and find some money, she continued along Commercial Street, where a man coming from the opposite direction tapped her on the shoulder and said something to her, at which point they both started laughing.

The man put his arm around Mary, and they started walking back along Commercial Street, passing Hutchinson, who was standing under the lamp by the Queen's Head pub at the junction of Fashion Street and Commercial Street.

Although the man had his head down with his hat over his eyes, Hutchinson stooped down and looked him in the face, at which point the man gave him what Hutchinson would later describe as a stern look.

Hutchinson followed them as they crossed into Dorset Street, and he watched them turn into Miller's Court. He waited outside the court for 45 minutes, by which time they hadn't reemerged, so he left the scene.

At around 4 a.m., two of Mary's neighbors heard a faint cry of "Murder," but because such cries were frequent in the area - often the result of a drunken brawl - they both ignored it.

At 10. Forty-five on the morning of the 9th November, her landlord, John McCarthy, sent his assistant, Thomas Bowyer, round to Mary's room, telling him to try and get some rent from her.

Bowyer marched into Miller's Court and banged on her door. There was no reply. He tried to open it but found it locked. He, therefore, went round to the broken window pane, reached in, pushed aside the shabby muslin curtain that covered it, and looked into the gloomy room.

Moments later, an ashen-faced Bowyer burst into McCarthy's shop on Dorset Street. "Guvnor," he stammered, "I knocked at the door and could not make anyone answer. I looked through the window and saw a lot of blood."

"Good God, you don't mean that," was McCarthy's reply, and the two men raced into Miller's Court, where McCarthy stooped down and looked through the broken pane of glass.

McCarthy would later recall the horror of the scene that greeted him. "The sight we saw I cannot drive away from my mind. It looked more the work of a devil than of a man. I had heard a great deal about the Whitechapel murders, but I declare to God I had never expected to see such a sight as this. The whole scene is more than I can describe. I hope I may never see such a sight as this again."

Someone immediately sent for the police, and one of the first officers at the scene was Walter Dew, who, many years later, would recall the horror of what he saw through that window:- "On the bed was all that remained of the young woman. There was little left of her, not much more than a skeleton. Her face was terribly scarred and mutilated. All this was horrifying enough, but the mental picture of that sight which remains most vividly with me is the poor woman's eyes. They were wide open, and seemed to be staring straight at me with a look of terror."

Possible victims:

Martha Tabram

On Tuesday 7th August, following a Monday bank holiday, prostitute Martha Tabram was murdered at about 2:30 a.m. Her body was found at George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel, shortly before 5:00 a.m. She had been stabbed 39 times about her neck, torso, and genitals with a short blade. With one possible exception, a right-handed individual had inflicted all her wounds.

Based on statements from a fellow prostitute and PC Thomas Barrett, who was patrolling nearby, Inspector Reid put soldiers at the Tower of London and Wellington Barracks on an identification parade, but without positive results. Police did not connect Tabram's murder with the earlier murder of Emma Smith, but they did connect her death with later murders.

Most experts do not connect Tabram's murder with the others attributed to the Ripper because she had been repeatedly stabbed, whereas later victims typically suffered slash wounds and abdominal mutilations. However, investigators cannot rule out a connection.

Rose Mylett

On Thursday 20th December 1888, a patrolling constable found the strangled body of 26-year-old prostitute Rose Mylett in Clarke's Yard, off Poplar High Street. Mylett (born Catherine Millett and known as Drunken Lizzie Davis and Fair Alice Downey) had lodged at 18 George Street, as had Emma Smith.

Four doctors who examined Mylett's body thought she had been murdered, but Robert Anderson thought she had accidentally hanged herself on the collar of her dress while in a drunken stupor. At Anderson's request, Dr. Bond examined Mylett's body, agreeing with Anderson. Commissioner Monro also suspected it was a suicide or natural death as there were no signs of a struggle. The coroner, Wynne Baxter, told the inquest jury that "there is no evidence to show that death was the result of violence." Nevertheless, the jury returned a verdict of "wilful murder against some person or persons unknown," and the case was added to the Whitechapel file.

Alice McKenzie:

Alice McKenzie was possibly a prostitute and was murdered at about 12:40 a.m. on Wednesday 17th July 1889 in Castle Alley, Whitechapel. Like most of the previous murders, her left carotid artery was severed from left to right, and there were wounds on her abdomen. However, her injuries were not as deep as in previous murders, and the killer used a shorter blade. Commissioner Monro and one of the pathologists examining the body, Bond, believed this to be a Ripper murder. However, another of the pathologists, Phillips, and Robert Anderson, disagreed, as did Inspector Abberline. Later writers are also divided and either suggest that McKenzie was a Ripper victim or that the unknown murderer tried to make it look like a Ripper killing to deflect suspicion from himself. At the inquest, Coroner Baxter acknowledged both possibilities and concluded: "There is great similarity between this and the other class of cases, which have happened in this neighbourhood, and if the same person has not committed this crime, it is clearly an imitation of the other cases."

Pinchin Street torso:

A woman's torso was found at 5:15 a.m. on Tuesday 10th September 1889 under a railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel. Extensive bruising about the victim's back, hip, and arm indicated that the killer had severely beaten her shortly before her death, which occurred approximately one day before discovering her torso. The victim's abdomen was also extensively mutilated in a manner reminiscent of the Ripper, although her genitals had not been wounded. The dismembered sections of the body are believed to have been transported to the railway arch, hidden under an old chemise. The age of the victim was estimated at 30–40 years. Despite a search of the area, no other sections of her body were ever found, and neither the victim nor the culprit were ever identified.

Chief Inspector Swanson and Commissioner Monro noted that blood within the torso indicated that death was not from hemorrhage or cutting of the throat. The pathologists, however, pointed out that the general bloodlessness of the tissues and vessels told that bleeding was the cause of death. Newspaper speculation that the body belonged to Lydia Hart, who had disappeared, was refuted after she was found recovering in hospital after "a bit of a spree." Another claim that the victim was a missing girl called Emily Barker was also refuted, as the torso was from an older and taller woman.

Swanson did not consider this a Ripper case and instead suggested a link to the Thames Torso Murders in Rainham and Chelsea and the "Whitehall Mystery". Monro agreed with Swanson's assessment. These three murders and the Pinchin Street case are suggested to be the work of a serial killer, nicknamed the "Torso killer," who could either be the same person as "Jack the Ripper" or a separate killer of uncertain connection. Links between these and three further murders—the "Battersea Mystery" of 1873 and 1874, two women were found dismembered, and the 1884 "Tottenham Court Road Mystery"—have also been postulated. Experts on the murders—colloquially known as "Ripperologists"—such as Stewart Evans, Keith Skinner, Martin Fido, and Donald Rumbelow, discount any connection between the torso and Ripper killings based on their different modi operandi.

Monro was replaced as Commissioner by Sir Edward Bradford on 21st June 1890, after a disagreement with Home Secretary Henry Matthews over police pensions.

Frances Coles:

The last murders in the Whitechapel file were committed on Friday 13th February 1891, when prostitute Frances Coles was murdered under a railway arch in Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel. Her body was found only moments after the attack at 2:15 a.m. by PC Ernest Thompson, who later stated he heard retreating footsteps in the distance. As contemporary police practices dictated, Thompson remained at the scene.

Coles was lying beneath a passageway under a railway arch between Chamber Street and Royal Mint Street. She was still alive but died before medical help could arrive. Minor wounds on the back of her head suggest that she was thrown violently to the ground before her throat was cut at least twice, from left to right and then back again. Otherwise, there were no mutilations to the body, leading some to believe Thompson had disturbed her assailant. Superintendent Arnold and Inspector Reid arrived soon afterward from the nearby Leman Street police station, and Chief Inspectors Donald Swanson and Henry Moore, who had been involved in the previous murder investigations, arrived by 5 a.m.

A man named James Sadler, who had earlier been seen with Coles, was arrested by the police and charged with her murder. A high-profile investigation by Swanson and Moore into Sadler's history and his whereabouts at the previous Whitechapel murders indicates that the police may have suspected him of being the Ripper. However, Sadler was released on 3rd March for lack of evidence.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls079111466/?sort=user_rating,desc&st_dt=&mode=detail&page=1&title_type=movie&ref_=ttls_ref_typ

What Are the Archives of Terror?

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 08:00:00 -0400

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Archives of terror

Archivos del Terror were found on december 22, 1992 by a lawyer and human rights activist, strange how those two titles are in the same sentence, Dr. Martín Almada, and Judge José Agustín Fernández. Found in a police station in the suburbs of Paraguay known as Asunción.

Fernandez was looking for files on a former prisoner. Instead, stumbled across an archive describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay with the help of our friendly neighborhood CIA. Known as Operation Condor.

“Operation Condor was a U.S. backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents.”

Let’s go back a ways toward the beginning. One day, a young guy, wanted to fuck up the world and created the CIA. JK… but not really.

So we go back to 1968 where General Robert W. Porter said that "in order to facilitate the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries, we are ... endeavoring to foster inter-service and regional cooperation by assisting in the organization of integrated command and control centers; the establishment of common operating procedures; and the conduct of joint and combined training exercises."

According to former secret CIA documents from 1976, plans were developed among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies in the 1960s and early 1970s to deal with perceived threats in South America from political dissidents, according to American historian J. Patrice McSherry. "In early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia convened in Buenos Aires to prepare synchronized attacks against subversive targets," according to a declassified CIA memo dated June 23, 1976.

Following a series of military-led coups d'états, particularly in the 1970s, the program was established:

General Alfredo Stroessner took control of Paraguay in 1954
General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez takes control of Peru after a successful coup in 1975
The Brazilian military overthrew the president João Goulart in 1964
General Hugo Banzer took power in Bolivia in 1971 through a series of coups
A military dictatorship seized power in Uruguay on 27 June 1973
Chilean armed forces commanded by General Augusto Pinochet bombed the presidential palace in Chile on 11 September 1973, overthrowing democratically elected president Salvador Allende
A military dictatorship headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in Argentina on 24 March 1976

According to American journalist A. J. Langguth, the CIA organized the first meetings between Argentinian and Uruguayan security officials regarding the surveillance (and subsequent disappearance or assassination) of political refugees in these countries, as well as its role as an intermediary in the meetings between Argentinian, Uruguayan, and Brazilian death squads.

According to the National Security Archive's documentary evidence from US, Paraguayan, Argentine, and Chilean files, "Founded by the Pinochet regime in November 1975, Operation Condor was the codename for a formal Southern Cone collaboration that included transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance, and assassination." Several persons were slain as part of this codename mission. "Notable Condor victims include two former Uruguayan legislators and a former Bolivian president, Juan José Torres, murdered in Buenos Aires, a former Chilean Minister of the Interior, Bernardo Leighton, and former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year-old American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C.," according to the report.

Prior to the formation of Operation Condor, there had been cooperation among various security services with the goal of "eliminating Marxist subversion." On September 3, 1973, at the Conference of American Armies in Caracas, Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, the chief of the Brazilian army, urged that various services "expand the interchange of information" in order to "fight against subversion."

Representatives from Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia's police forces met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine Federal Police and co-founder of the Triple A killing squad, in March 1974 to discuss collaboration standards. Their purpose was to eliminate the "subversive" threat posed by Argentina's tens of thousands of political exiles. Bolivian immigrants' bodies were discovered at rubbish dumps in Buenos Aires in August 1974. Based on recently revealed CIA records dated June 1976, McSherry corroborated the kidnapping and torture of Chilean and Uruguayan exiles living in Buenos Aires during this time.

On General Augusto Pinochet's 60th birthday, November 25, 1975, in Santiago de Chile, heads of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Manuel Contreras, commander of the Chilean secret police, to officially establish the Plan Condor. General Rivero, an intelligence officer in the Argentine Armed Forces and a former student of the French, devised the concept of Operation Condor, according to French writer Marie-Monique Robin, author of Escadrons de la death, l'école française (2004, Death Squads, The French School).

Officially, the targets were armed groups (such as the MIR, the Montoneros or the ERP, the Tupamaros, etc.) based on the governments' perceptions of threats, but the governments expanded their attacks to include all types of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by the Valech Commission, which is known as The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report. The Argentine "Dirty War," for example, kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated many trade unionists, relatives of activists, social activists such as the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, nuns, university professors, and others, according to most estimates.

The Chilean DINA and its Argentine counterpart, SIDE, were the operation's front-line troops from 1976 forward. The infamous "death flights," which were postulated in Argentina by Luis Mara Menda and deployed by French forces during the Algerian War (1954–62), were widely used. Government forces flew or helicoptered victims out to sea, where they were dumped to die in premeditated disappearances. According to reports, the OPR-33 facility in Argentina was destroyed as a result of the military bombardment. Members of Plan Condor met in Santiago, Chile, in May 1976, to discuss "long-range collaboration... [that] went well beyond intelligence exchange" and to assign code names to the participating countries. The CIA acquired information in July that Plan Condor participants planned to strike "against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing overseas."

Several corpses washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in late 1977 as a result of extraordinary storms, providing evidence of some of the government's victims. Hundreds of newborns and children were removed from women in prison who had been kidnapped and later disappeared; the children were then given to families and associates of the dictatorship in clandestine adoptions. According to the CIA, Operation Condor countries reacted positively to the concept of cooperating and built their own communications network as well as joint training programs in areas like psychological warfare.

The military governments in South America were coming together to join forces for security concerns, according to a memo prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry W. Shlaudeman to Kissinger on August 3, 1976. They were anxious about the growth of Marxism and the consequences it would have on their dominance. This new force worked in secret in the countries of other members. Their mission: to track out and murder "Revolutionary Coordinating Committee" terrorists in their own nations and throughout Europe.Shlaudeman voiced fear that the members of Operation Condor's "siege mindset" could lead to a wider divide between military and civilian institutions in the region. He was also concerned that this would further isolate these countries from developed Western countries. He argued that some of these anxieties were justified, but that by reacting too harshly, these countries risked inciting a violent counter-reaction comparable to the PLO's in Israel.

Chile and Argentina were both active in using communications medium for the purpose of transmitting propaganda, according to papers from the United States dated April 17, 1977. The propaganda's goal was to accomplish two things. The first goal was to defuse/counter international media criticism of the governments involved, and the second goal was to instill national pride in the local population. "Chile after Allende," a propaganda piece developed by Chile, was sent to the states functioning under Condor. The paper, however, solely mentions Uruguay and Argentina as the only two countries that have signed the deal. The government of Paraguay was solely identified as using the local press, "Patria," as its primary source of propaganda. Due to the reorganisation of both Argentina's and Paraguay's intelligence organizations, a meeting scheduled for March 1977 to discuss "psychological warfare measures against terrorists and leftist extremists" was canceled.

One "component of the campaign including Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina envisages unlawful operations beyond Latin America against expatriate terrorists, primarily in Europe," according to a 2016 declassified CIA study titled "Counterterrorism in the Southern Cone." "All military-controlled regimes in the Southern Cone consider themselves targets of international Marxism," the memo stated. Condor's fundamental characteristic was highlighted in the document, which came to fruition in early 1974 when "security officials from all of the member countries, except Brazil, agreed to establish liaison channels and to facilitate the movement of security officers on government business from one country to the other," as part of a long-tested "regional approach" to pacifying "subversion." Condor's "initial aims" included the "exchange of information on the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta (RCJ), an organization...of terrorist groups from Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay" with "representatives" in Europe "believed to have been involved in the assassinations in Paris of the Bolivian ambassador to France last May and a Uruguayan military attache in 1974." Condor's primary purpose, according to the CIA assessment, was to eliminate "top-level terrorist leaders" as well as non-terrorist targets such as "Uruguayan opposition figure Wilson Ferreira, if he should travel to Europe, and some leaders of Amnesty International." Condor was also suspected by the CIA of being "involved in nonviolent actions, including as psychological warfare and a propaganda campaign" that used the media's power to "publicize terrorist crimes and atrocities." Condor also urged citizens in its member countries to "report anything out of the norm in their surroundings" in an appeal to "national pride and national conscience." Another meeting took place in 1980, and Montensero was apprehended. The RSO allegedly promised not to kill them if they agreed to collaborate and provide information on upcoming meetings in Rio.

So, after all of this mumbo jumbo, let's recap.

50,000 people were killed, 30,000 disappeared, and 400,000 were imprisoned, according to the "terror archives." A letter signed by Manuel Contreras, the chief of Chile's National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) at the time, inviting Paraguayan intelligence personnel to Santiago for a clandestine "First Working Meeting on National Intelligence" on November 25, 1975, was also uncovered. The presence of intelligence chiefs from Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay at the meetings was also confirmed by this letter, indicating that those countries were also involved in the formulation of Operation Condor. Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela are among the countries named in the archives as having collaborated to varying degrees by giving intelligence information that had been sought by the security agencies of the Southern Cone countries. Parts of the archives, which are presently housed in Asunción's Palace of Justice, have been used to prosecute former military officers in some of these countries. Those records were used extensively in Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón's prosecution against Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. Baltasar Garzón interviewed Almada twice after he was a Condor victim.

"[The records] represent a mound of shame and lies that Stroessner [Paraguay's ruler until 1989] used to blackmail the Paraguayan people for 40 years," Almada said. He wants the "terror archives" to be listed as an international cultural site by UNESCO, as this would make it much easier to get funds to maintain and protect the records.

In May 2000, a UNESCO mission visited Asunción in response to a request from the Paraguayan government for assistance in registering these files on the Memory of the World Register, which is part of a program aimed at preserving and promoting humanity's documentary heritage by ensuring that records are preserved and accessible.

Now that we are all caught up, let's talk about a few noteworthy events. First we go to Argentina.

Argentina was ruled by military juntas from 1976 until 1983 under Operation Condor, which was a civic-military dictatorship. In countless incidents of desaparecidos, the Argentine SIDE collaborated with the Chilean DINA. In Buenos Aires, they assassinated Chilean General Carlos Prats, former Uruguayan MPs Zelmar Michelini and Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, and former Bolivian President Juan José Torres. With the support of Italian Gladio operator Stefano Delle Chiaie and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the SIDE aided Bolivian commander Luis Garca Meza Tejada's Cocaine Coup (see also Operation Charly). Since the release of secret records, it has been revealed that at ESMA, there were operational units made up of Italians who were utilized to suppress organizations of Italian Montoneros. Gaetano Saya, the Officer of the Italian stay behind next - Operation Gladio, led this outfit known as "Shadow Group." The Madres de la Square de Mayo, a group of mothers whose children had vanished, began protesting every Thursday in front of the Casa Rosada on the plaza in April 1977. They wanted to know where their children were and what happened to them. The abduction of two French nuns and other founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in December 1977 drew worldwide notice. Their corpses were later recognized among the deceased washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in December 1977, victims of death planes.

In 1983, when Argentina's democracy was restored, the government established the National Commission for Forced Disappearances (CONADEP), which was chaired by writer Ernesto Sabato. It gathered testimony from hundreds of witnesses about regime victims and known atrocities, as well as documenting hundreds of secret jails and detention sites and identifying torture and execution squad leaders. The Juicio a las Juntas (Juntas Trial) two years later was mostly successful in proving the crimes of the top commanders of the numerous juntas that had composed the self-styled National Reorganization Process. Most of the top officers on trial, including Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Ral Agosti, Rubén Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri, Jorge Anaya, and Basilio Lami Dozo, were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Following these trials, Ral Alfonsn's administration implemented two amnesty laws, the 1986 Ley de Punto Final (law of closure) and the 1987 Ley de Obediencia Debida (law of due obedience), which ended prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War. In an attempt at healing and reconciliation, President Carlos Menem pardoned the junta's leaders who were serving prison sentences in 1989–1990.

Due to attacks on American citizens in Argentina and revelations about CIA funding of the Argentine military in the late 1990s, and despite an explicit 1990 Congressional prohibition, US President Bill Clinton ordered the declassification of thousands of State Department documents relating to US-Argentine relations dating back to 1954. These documents exposed American involvement in the Dirty War and Operation Condor.

Following years of protests by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and other human rights organizations, the Argentine Congress overturned the amnesty legislation in 2003, with the full support of President Nestor Kirchner and the ruling majority in both chambers. In June 2005, the Argentine Supreme Court deemed them unlawful after a separate assessment. The government was able to resume prosecution of crimes committed during the Dirty War as a result of the court's decision.

Enrique Arancibia Clavel, a DINA civil agent who was charged with crimes against humanity in Argentina in 2004, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the death of General Prats. Stefano Delle Chiaie, a suspected Italian terrorist, is also said to have been involved in the murder. In Rome in December 1995, he and fellow extreme Vincenzo Vinciguerra testified before federal judge Mara Servini de Cubra that DINA operatives Clavel and Michael Townley were intimately involved in the assassination. Judge Servini de Cubra demanded that Mariana Callejas (Michael Townley's wife) and Cristoph Willikie, a retired Chilean army colonel, be extradited in 2003 because they were also accused of being complicit in the murder. Nibaldo Segura, a Chilean appeals court judge, declined extradition in July 2005, claiming that they had already been prosecuted in Chile.

Twenty-five former high-ranking military commanders from Argentina and Uruguay were charged on March 5, 2013, in Buenos Aires with conspiring to "kidnap, disappear, torture, and kill" 171 political opponents throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Former Argentine "presidents" Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone, both from the El Proceso era, are among the defendants. Prosecutors are relying on declassified US records collected by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental entity established at George Washington University in Washington, DC, in the 1990s and later.

On May 27, 2016, fifteen former military personnel were found guilty. Reynaldo Bignone was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Fourteen of the remaining 16 defendants were sentenced to eight to twenty-five years in prison. Two of the defendants were found not guilty. A lawyer for the victims' relatives, Luz Palmás Zalda, claims that "This decision is significant since it is the first time Operation Condor's existence has been proven in court. It's also the first time former Condor members have been imprisoned for their roles in the criminal organization."

Anyone wanna go to Brazil?

In the year 2000, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso ordered the publication of some military documents related to Operation Condor. There are documents proving that in that year, attorney general Giancarlo Capaldo, an Italian magistrate, investigated the "disappearances" of Italian citizens in Latin America, which were most likely caused by the actions of Argentine, Paraguayan, Chilean, and Brazilian military personnel who tortured and murdered Italian citizens during Latin American military dictatorships. There was a list containing the names of eleven Brazilians accused of murder, kidnapping, and torture, as well as several high-ranking military personnel from other countries involved in the operation.

"(...) I can neither affirm nor deny because Argentine, Brazilian, Paraguayan, and Chilean soldiers [military men] will be subject to criminal trial until December," the Magistrate said on October 26, 2000.

According to the Italian government's official statement, it was unclear whether the government would prosecute the accused military officers or not. As of November 2021, no one in Brazil had been convicted of human rights violations for actions committed during the 21-year military dictatorship because the Amnesty Law had protected both government officials and leftist guerrillas.

In November 1978, the Condor Operation expanded its covert persecution from Uruguay to Brazil, in an incident dubbed "o Sequestro dos Uruguaios," or "the Kidnapping of the Uruguayans." Senior officials of the Uruguayan army crossed the border into Porto Alegre, the capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, with the permission of the Brazilian military administration. They kidnapped Universindo Rodriguez and Lilian Celiberti, a political activist couple from Uruguay, as well as her two children, Camilo and Francesca, who are five and three years old.

The unlawful operation failed because an anonymous phone call notified two Brazilian journalists, Veja magazine reporter Luiz Cláudio Cunha and photographer Joo Baptista Scalco, that the Uruguayan couple had been "disappeared." The two journalists traveled to the specified address, a Porto Alegre apartment, to double-check the facts. The armed men who had arrested Celiberti mistook the journalists for other political opposition members when they came, and they were arrested as well. Universindo Rodriguez and the children had already been brought to Uruguay under the table.

The journalists' presence had exposed the secret operation when their identities were revealed. It was put on hold. As news of the political kidnapping of Uruguayan nationals in Brazil made headlines in the Brazilian press, it is thought that the operation's disclosure avoided the death of the couple and their two young children. It became a worldwide embarrassment. Both Brazil's and Uruguay's military governments were humiliated. Officials arranged for the Celibertis' children to be transported to their maternal grandparents in Montevideo a few days later. After being imprisoned and tortured in Brazil, Rodriguez and Celiberti were transferred to Uruguayan military cells and held there for the next five years. The couple were released after Uruguay's democracy was restored in 1984. They confirmed every element of their kidnapping that had previously been reported.

In 1980, two DOPS (Department of Political and Social Order, an official police unit in charge of political repression during the military administration) inspectors were found guilty of arresting the journalists in Lilian's apartment in Porto Alegre by Brazilian courts. Joo Augusto da Rosa and Orandir Portassi Lucas were their names. They had been identified as participants in the kidnapping by the media and Uruguayans. This occurrence confirmed the Brazilian government's active involvement in the Condor Operation. Governor Pedro Simon arranged for the state of Rio Grande do Sul to legally recognize the Uruguayans' kidnapping and compensate them financially in 1991. A year later, President Luis Alberto Lacalle's democratic government in Uruguay was encouraged to do the same.

The Uruguayan couple identified Pedro Seelig, the head of the DOPS at the time of the kidnapping, as the guy in charge of the operation in Porto Alegre. Universindo and Llian remained in prison in Uruguay and were unable to testify when Seelig was on trial in Brazil. Due to a lack of proof, the Brazilian cop was acquitted. Later testimony from Lilian and Universindo revealed that four officers from Uruguay's secret Counter-Information Division – two majors and two captains – took part in the operation with the permission of Brazilian authorities. In the DOPS headquarters in Porto Alegre, Captain Glauco Yanonne was personally responsible for torturing Universindo Rodriquez. Universindo and Lilian were able to identify the Uruguayan military men who had arrested and tortured them, but none of them were prosecuted in Montevideo. Uruguayan individuals who committed acts of political repression and human rights violations under the dictatorship were granted pardon under the Law of Immunity, which was approved in 1986. Cunha and Scalco were given the 1979 Esso Prize, considered the most significant prize in Brazilian journalism, for their investigative journalism on the case. Hugo Cores, a former political prisoner from Uruguay, was the one who had warned Cunha. He told the Brazilian press in 1993: All the Uruguayans kidnapped abroad, around 180 people, are missing to this day. The only ones who managed to survive are Lilian, her children, and Universindo.

Joo "Jango" Goulart was the first Brazilian president to die in exile after being deposed. On December 6, 1976, he died in his sleep in Mercedes, Argentina, of a suspected heart attack. The true cause of his death was never determined because an autopsy was never performed. On April 26, 2000, Leonel Brizola, Jango's brother-in-law and former governor of Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, claimed that ex-presidents Joo Goulart and Juscelino Kubitschek (who died in a vehicle accident) were assassinated as part of Operation Condor. He demanded that an investigation into their deaths be launched. On January 27, 2008, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published a report featuring a declaration from Mario Neira Barreiro, a former member of Uruguay's dictatorship's intelligence service. Barreiro confirmed Brizola's claims that Goulart had been poisoned. Sérgio Paranhos Fleury, the head of the Departamento de Ordem Poltica e Social (Department of Political and Social Order), gave the order to assassinate Goulart, according to Barreiro, and president Ernesto Geisel gave the permission to execute him. A special panel of the Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly concluded in July 2008 that "the evidence that Jango was wilfully slain, with knowledge of the Geisel regime, is strong."

The magazine CartaCapital published previously unreleased National Information Service records generated by an undercover agent who was present at Jango's Uruguayan homes in March 2009. This new information backs up the idea that the former president was poisoned. The Goulart family has yet to figure out who the "B Agent," as he's referred to in the documents, might be. The agent was a close friend of Jango's, and he detailed a disagreement between the former president and his son during the former president's 56th birthday party, which was sparked by a brawl between two employees. As a result of the story, the Chamber of Deputies' Human Rights Commission agreed to look into Jango's death.

Later, Maria Teresa Fontela Goulart, Jango's widow, was interviewed by CartaCapital, who revealed records from the Uruguayan government confirming her accusations that her family had been tracked. Jango's travel, business, and political activities were all being watched by the Uruguayan government. These data date from 1965, a year after Brazil's coup, and they indicate that he may have been targeted. The President Joo Goulart Institute and the Movement for Justice and Human Rights have requested a document from the Uruguayan Interior Ministry stating that "serious and credible Brazilian sources'' discussed an "alleged plan against the former Brazilian president."

If you thought it wasn't enough, let's talk about Chile. No not the warm stew lie concoction you make to scorn your buddy’s stomach, but the country.

Additional information about Condor was released when Augusto Pinochet was detained in London in 1998 in response to Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón's request for his extradition to Spain. According to one of the lawyers requesting his extradition, Carlos Altamirano, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, was the target of an assassination attempt. He said that after Franco's funeral in Madrid in 1975, Pinochet contacted Italian neofascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and arranged for Altamirano's murder. The strategy didn't work out. Since the bodies of victims kidnapped and presumably murdered could not be found, Chilean judge Juan Guzmán Tapia established a precedent concerning the crime of "permanent kidnapping": he determined that the kidnapping was thought to be ongoing, rather than having occurred so long ago that the perpetrators were protected by an amnesty decreed in 1978 or the Chilean statute of limitations. The Chilean government admitted in November 2015 that Pablo Neruda may have been murdered by members of Pinochet's administration.

Assassinations

On September 30, 1974, a car bomb killed General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofa Cuthbert, in Buenos Aires, where they were living in exile. The Chilean DINA has been charged with the crime. In January 2005, Chilean Judge Alejandro Sols ended Pinochet's case when the Chilean Supreme Court denied his request to strip Pinochet's immunity from prosecution (as chief of state). In Chile, the assassination of DINA commanders Manuel Contreras, ex-chief of operations and retired general Ral Itturiaga Neuman, his brother Roger Itturiaga, and ex-brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and José Zara was accused. In Argentina, DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel was found guilty of the murder.

After moving in exile in Italy, Bernardo Leighton and his wife were severely injured in a botched assassination attempt on October 6, 1975. Bernardo Leighton was critically injured in the gun attack, and his wife, Anita Fresno, was permanently crippled. Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Michael Townley and Virgilio Paz Romero in Madrid in 1975 to plan the murder of Bernardo Leighton with the help of Franco's secret police, according to declassified documents in the National Security Archive and Italian attorney general Giovanni Salvi, who led the prosecution of former DINA head Manuel Contreras. Glyn T. Davies, the secretary of the National Security Council (NSC), said in 1999 that declassified records indicated Pinochet's government's responsibility for the failed assassination attempt on Bernardo Leighton, Orlando Letelier, and General Carlos Prats on October 6, 1975.

In a December 2004 OpEd piece in the Los Angeles Times, Francisco Letelier, Orlando Letelier's son, claimed that his father's killing was part of Operation Condor, which he described as "an intelligence-sharing network employed by six South American tyrants of the time to eliminate dissidents."

Letelier's death, according to Michael Townley, was caused by Pinochet. Townley admitted to hiring five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to set up a booby-trap in Letelier's automobile. Following consultations with the terrorist organization CORU's leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Daz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll were chosen to carry out the murder, according to Jean-Guy Allard. The Miami Herald reports that Luis Posada Carriles was there at the conference that decided on Letelier's death as well as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.

During a public protest against Pinochet in July 1986, photographer Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri was burned alive and Carmen Gloria Quintana received significant burns. The case of the two became known as Caso Quemados ("The Burned Case"), and it drew attention in the United States because Rojas had fled to the United States following the 1973 coup. [96] According to a document from the US State Department, the Chilean army set fire to both Rojas and Quintana on purpose. Rojas and Quintana, on the other hand, were accused by Pinochet of being terrorists who lit themselves on fire with their own Molotov cocktails. Pinochet's reaction to the attack and killing of Rojas, according to National Security Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh, was "contributed to Reagan’s decision to withdraw support for the regime and press for a return to civilian rule."

Operación Silencio

Operación Silencio (Operation Silence) was a Chilean operation that removed witnesses from the country in order to obstruct investigations by Chilean judges. It began about a year before the "terror archives" in Paraguay were discovered. Arturo Sanhueza Ross, the man accused of assassinating MIR leader Jecar Neghme in 1989, departed the country in April 1991.

According to the Rettig Report, Chilean intelligence officers were responsible for Jecar Neghme's killing. Carlos Herrera Jiménez, the man who assassinated trade unionist Tucapel Jiménez, flew out in September 1991. Eugenio Berros, a chemist who had cooperated with DINA agent Michael Townley, was led by Operation Condor agents from Chile to Uruguay in October 1991 in order to avoid testifying in the Letelier case. He used passports from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, prompting suspicions that Operation Condor was still active. In 1995, Berros was discovered dead in El Pinar, Uruguay, near Montevideo. His corpse had been mangled to the point where it was hard to identify him by sight.

Michael Townley, who is now under witness protection in the United States, recognized linkages between Chile, DINA, and the incarceration and torture camp Colonia Dignidad in January 2005. The facility was founded in 1961 by Paul Schäfer, who was arrested and convicted of child rape in Buenos Aires in March 2005. Interpol was notified about Colonia Dignidad and the Army's Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory by Townley. This lab would have taken the place of the previous DINA lab on Via Naranja de lo Curro, where Townley collaborated with chemical assassin Eugenio Berros. According to the court reviewing the case, the toxin that allegedly murdered Christian-Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva could have been created at this new lab in Colonia Dignidad. Dossiê Jango, a Brazilian-Uruguayan-Argentine collaboration film released in 2013, accused the same lab in the alleged poisoning of Brazil's deposed president, Joo Goulart.

Congressman Koch

The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents was released in February 2004 by reporter John Dinges. He reported that in mid-1976, Uruguayan military officers threatened to assassinate United States Congressman Edward Koch (later Mayor of New York City). The CIA station commander in Montevideo had received information about it in late July 1976. He advised the Agency to take no action after finding that the men were inebriated at the time. Colonel José Fons, who was present at the November 1975 covert meeting in Santiago, Chile, and Major José Nino Gavazzo, who led a team of intelligence agents working in Argentina in 1976 and was responsible for the deaths of over 100 Uruguayans, were among the Uruguayan officers.

Koch told Dinges in the early twenty-first century that CIA Director George H. W. Bush informed him in October 1976 that "his sponsorship of legislation to cut off US military assistance to Uruguay on human rights concerns had prompted secret police officers to 'put a contract out for you'." Koch wrote to the Justice Department in mid-October 1976, requesting FBI protection, but he received none. It had been more than two months after the meeting and the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington. Colonel Fons and Major Gavazzo were sent to important diplomatic postings in Washington, D.C. in late 1976. The State Department ordered the Uruguayan government to rescind their appointments, citing the possibility of "unpleasant publicity" for "Fons and Gavazzo." Only in 2001 did Koch learn of the links between the threats and the position appointments.

Paraguay

The US supported Alfredo Stroessner's anti-communist military dictatorship and played a "vital supporting role" in Stroessner's Paraguay's domestic affairs. As part of Operation Condor, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thierry of the United States Army was deployed to assist local workers in the construction of "La Technica," a detention and interrogation center. La Technica was also renowned as a torture facility. Pastor Coronel, Stroessner's secret police, washed their victims in human vomit and excrement tubs and shocked them in the rectum with electric cattle prods. They decapitated Miguel Angel Soler [es], the Communist party secretary, with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone. Stroessner asked that tapes of inmates wailing in agony be presented to their relatives.

Harry Shlaudeman defined Paraguay's militarized state as a "nineteenth-century military administration that looks nice on the cartoon page" in a report to Kissinger. Shlaudeman's assessments were paternalistic, but he was correct in observing that Paraguay's "backwardness" was causing it to follow in the footsteps of its neighbors. Many decolonized countries regarded national security concerns in terms of neighboring countries and long-standing ethnic or regional feuds, but the United States viewed conflict from a global and ideological viewpoint. During the Chaco War, Shlaudeman mentions Paraguay's amazing fortitude in the face of greater military force from its neighbors. The government of Paraguay believes that the country's victory over its neighbors over several decades justifies the country's lack of progress. The paper goes on to say that Paraguay's political traditions were far from democratic. Because of this reality, as well as a fear of leftist protest in neighboring countries, the government has prioritized the containment of political opposition over the growth of its economic and political institutions. They were driven to defend their sovereignty due to an ideological fear of their neighbors. As a result, many officials were inspired to act in the interest of security by the fight against radical, communist movements both within and beyond the country. The book Opération Condor, written by French writer Pablo Daniel Magee and prefaced by Costa Gavras, was published in 2020. The story chronicles the life of Martin Almada, a Paraguayan who was a victim of the Condor Operation.

The Peruvian Case

After being kidnapped in 1978, Peruvian legislator Javier Diez Canseco announced that he and twelve other compatriots (Justiniano Apaza Ordóñez, Hugo Blanco, Genaro Ledesma Izquieta, Valentín Pacho, Ricardo Letts, César Lévano, Ricardo Napurí, José Luis Alvarado Bravo, Alfonso Baella Tuesta, Guillermo Faura Gaig, José Arce Larco and Humberto Damonte). All opponents of Francisco Morales Bermudez's dictatorship were exiled and handed over to the Argentine armed forces in Jujuy in 1978 after being kidnapped in Peru. He also claimed that declassified CIA documents and WikiLeaks cable information account for the Morales Bermudez government's ties to Operation Condor.

Uruguay

Juan Mara Bordaberry declared himself dictator and banned the rest of the political parties, as was customary in the Southern Cone dictatorships of the 1970s. In the alleged defense against subversion, a large number of people were murdered, tortured, unjustly detained and imprisoned, kidnapped, and forced into disappearance during the de facto administration, which lasted from 1973 until 1985. Prior to the coup d'état in 1973, the CIA served as a consultant to the country's law enforcement institutions. Dan Mitrione, perhaps the most well-known example of such cooperation, had taught civilian police in counterinsurgency at the School of the Americas in Panama, afterwards renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Maybe now we can talk about the U.S involvement? The U.S never gets involved in anything so this might be new to some of you.

According to US paperwork, the US supplied critical organizational, financial, and technological help to the operation far into the 1980s.

The long-term hazards of a right-wing bloc, as well as its early policy recommendations, were discussed in a US Department of State briefing for Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, dated 3 August 1976, prepared by Harry Shlaudeman and titled "Third World War and South America." The briefing was an overview of security forces in the Southern Cone. The operation was described as a joint effort by six Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to win the "Third World War" by eliminating "subversion" through transnational secret intelligence operations, kidnapping, torture, disappearance, and assassination. The research begins by examining the sense of unity shared by the six countries of the Southern Cone. Kissinger is warned by Shlaudeman that the "Third World War" will trap those six countries in an ambiguous position in the long run, because they are trapped on one side by "international Marxism and its terrorist exponents," and on the other by "the hostility of uncomprehending industrial democracies misled by Marxist propaganda." According to the report, US policy toward Operation Condor should “emphasize the differences between the five countries at all times, depoliticize human rights, oppose rhetorical exaggerations of the ‘Third-World-War’ type, and bring potential bloc members back into our cognitive universe through systematic exchanges.” According to CIA papers from 1976, strategies to deal with political dissidents in South America were planned among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies from 1960 to the early 1970s. "In early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia convened in Buenos Aires to arrange synchronized attacks against subversive targets," according to a declassified CIA memo dated June 23, 1976. Officials in the United States were aware of the situation.

Furthermore, the Defense Intelligence Agency revealed in September 1976 that US intelligence services were well aware of Operation Condor's architecture and intentions. They discovered that "Operation Condor" was the covert name for gathering intelligence on "leftists," Communists, Peronists, or Marxists in the Southern Cone Area. The intelligence services were aware that the operation was being coordinated by the intelligence agencies of numerous South American nations (including Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia), with Chile serving as the hub. Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, according to the DIA, were already aggressively pursuing operations against communist targets, primarily in Argentina.

The report's third point reveals the US comprehension of Operation Condor's most malevolent actions. "The development of special teams from member countries to execute out operations, including killings against terrorists or sympathizers of terrorist groups," according to the paper. Although these special teams were intelligence agency operatives rather than military troops, they did work in structures similar to those used by US special forces teams, according to the study. Operation Condor's preparations to undertake probable operations in France and Portugal were revealed in Kissinger's State Department briefing - an issue that would later prove to be immensely contentious in Condor's history.

Condor's core was formed by the US government's sponsorship and collaboration with DINA (Directorate of National Intelligence) and other intelligence agencies. According to CIA papers, the agency maintained intimate ties with officers of Chile's secret police, DINA, and its leader Manuel Contreras. Even after his role in the Letelier-Moffit killing was discovered, Contreras was kept as a paid CIA contact until 1977. Official requests to trace suspects to and from the US Embassy, the CIA, and the FBI may be found in the Paraguayan Archives. The military states received suspect lists and other intelligence material from the CIA. In 1975, the FBI conducted a nationwide hunt in the United States for persons sought by DINA.

In a February 1976 telegram from the Buenos Aires embassy to the State Department, intelligence said that the US was aware of the impending Argentinian coup. According to the ambassador, the Chief of the Foreign Ministry's North American desk revealed that the "Military Planning Group" had asked him to prepare a report and recommendations on how the "future military government can avoid or minimize the sort of problems the Chilean and Uruguayan governments are having with the US over human rights issues." The Chief also indicated that "they" (whether he is talking to the CIA or Argentina's future military dictatorship, or both) will confront opposition if they start assassinating and killing people. Assuming this is so, the envoy notes that the military coup will "intend to carry forward an all-out war on the terrorists and that some executions would therefore probably be necessary." Despite already being engaged in the region's politics, this indicates that the US was aware of the planning of human rights breaches before they occurred and did not intervene to prevent them. "It is encouraging to note that the Argentine military are aware of the problem and are already focusing on ways to avoid letting human rights issues become an irritant in US-Argentine Relations." This is confirmation.

Professor Ruth Blakeley says that Kissinger "explicitly expressed his support for the repression of political opponents" in regards to the Argentine junta's continuous human rights violations. When Henry Kissinger met with Argentina's Foreign Minister on October 5, 1976, he said, ” Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context. The quicker you succeed the better ... The human rights problem is a growing one. Your Ambassador can apprise you. We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help.”

The démarche was never provided in the end. According to Kornbluh and Dinges, the decision not to deliver Kissinger's directive was based on Assistant Secretary Harry Shlaudeman's letter to his deputy in Washington, D.C., which stated: "you can simply instruct the Ambassadors to take no further action, noting that there have been no reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme."

President Bill Clinton ordered the State Department to release hundreds of declassified papers in June 1999, indicating for the first time that the CIA, State, and Defense Departments were all aware of Condor. According to a 1 October 1976 DOD intelligence assessment, Latin American military commanders gloat about it to their American colleagues. Condor's "joint counterinsurgency operations" sought to "eliminate Marxist terrorist activities," according to the same study; Argentina developed a special Condor force "structured much like a US Special Forces Team," it said. According to a summary of documents disclosed in 2004, The declassified record shows that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was briefed on Condor and its "murder operations" on August 5, 1976, in a 14-page report from [Harry] Shlaudeman [Assistant Secretary of State]. "Internationally, the Latin generals look like our guys," Shlaudeman cautioned. "We are especially identified with Chile. It cannot do us any good." Shlaudeman and his two deputies, William Luers and Hewson Ryan, recommended action. Over the course of three weeks, they drafted a cautiously worded demarche, approved by Kissinger, in which he instructed the U.S. ambassadors in the Southern Cone countries to meet with the respective heads of state about Condor. He instructed them to express "our deep concern" about "rumors" of "plans for the assassination of subversives, politicians and prominent figures both within the national borders of certain Southern Cone countries and abroad."

Kornbluh and Dinges come to the conclusion that "The paper trail is clear: the State Department and the CIA had enough intelligence to take concrete steps to thwart the Condor assassination planning. Those steps were initiated but never implemented." Hewson Ryan, Shlaudeman's deputy, subsequently admitted in an oral history interview that the State Department's treatment of the issue was "remiss." "We knew fairly early on that the governments of the Southern Cone countries were planning, or at least talking about, some assassinations abroad in the summer of 1976. ... Whether if we had gone in, we might have prevented this, I don't know", In relation to the Letelier-Moffitt bombing, he remarked, "But we didn't."

Condor was defined as a "counter-terrorism organization" in a CIA document, which also mentioned that the Condor countries had a specific telecommunications system known as "CONDORTEL." The New York Times released a communication from US Ambassador to Paraguay Robert White to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on March 6, 2001. The paper was declassified and disseminated by the Clinton administration in November 2000 as part of the Chile Declassification Project. General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, the chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, told White that the South American intelligence chiefs engaged in Condor "kept in touch with one another through a United States communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone that covered all of Latin America."

According to reports, Davalos stated that the station was "employed to coordinate intelligence information among the southern cone countries". The US was concerned that the Condor link would be made public at a time when the killing of Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier and his American aide Ronni Moffitt in the United States was being probed."it would seem advisable to review this arrangement to insure that its continuation is in US interest." White wrote to Vance. "Another piece of increasingly weighty evidence suggesting that U.S. military and intelligence officials supported and collaborated with Condor as a secret partner or sponsor." McSherry rebutted the cables. Furthermore, an Argentine military source told a U.S. Embassy contact that the CIA was aware of Condor and had played a vital role in establishing computerized linkages among the six Condor governments' intelligence and operations sections.

After all this it doesn't stop here. We even see France having a connection. The original document confirming that a 1959 agreement between Paris and Buenos Aires set up a "permanent French military mission" of officers to Argentina who had participated in the Algerian War was discovered in the archives of the Quai d'Orsay, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was kept at the offices of the Argentine Army's chief of staff. It lasted until 1981, when François Mitterrand was elected President of France. She revealed how the administration of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing secretly coordinated with Videla's junta in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet's tyranny in Chile.

Even Britain and West Germany looked into using the tactics in their own countries. Going so far as to send their open personnel to Buenos Aires to discuss how to establish a similar network.

MOVIES

https://islandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/terror%3Aroot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archives_of_Terror

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20774985

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB239d/index.htm

Who was the Texarkana Moonlight Murderer?

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 08:00:00 -0400

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders

Were a series of murders in the spring of 1946 where 8 people were attacked, 5 of which murdered. Similar to the Zodiac and the Monster of Florence, the attacker focused on male/female couples. Also similar to those cases, the attacker has never been caught.

OK, first off, what the hell is Texarkana? You’re probably thinking “that’s not a state I’ve ever heard of.” and you, passenger, would be correct.

Texarkana began as a railroad and lumber center and is considered the two county area between Texarkana, Arkansas in Miller County and Texarkana, Texas in Bowie County and according to the US Office of Management and Budget, the Texarkana metropolitan statistical area (or MSA) has the area with around 137,000 people living in it, as of the 2020 census.

The Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Ammunition Plant seemed to drive the jobs to the area, mainly due in part to that little skirmish called World War 2, in the 1940’s.

It was founded in 1873 and has three possibilities of how it acquired its name.

First, there was a Red River steamboat that tugged around the area named “The Texarkana” and the settlers just liked the name.

Second, a storekeeper named “Swindle” from Louisiana made up a drink called “Texarkana Bitters” and the settlers were a bunch of drunks who liked that name. My kinda folks!

Third, it was named by railroad surveyor, Colonel Gus Knobel, who took one look out his front door and said:

“Well, there’s Texas over there, Arkansas over there and Louisina down there. Hmmm… I got it! “Arkanexasiana!” No… That won’t do. Think, Colonel, think! “Louie’s Assless Exes!” Dammit! No… Texarkana! Eureka! That’s the stuff!”

The area is also home to the Fouke Monster, which resides in Boggy Creek and seems to be their version of the one and only Moody, I MEAN SASQUATCH!

The four violent attacks took place from February to May in 1946, which doesn’t seem like spring but let’s just go with it. The attacker had his sights on couples. Male/female couples to be exact. Although focusing on gay couples would have made the area and the attacker quite progressive for the time. Or much worse.

The first attack was on Friday, February 22 of 1946, right around 11:45 at night. 25 year old Jimmy Hollis and his 19 year old girlfriend, Mary Jeanne Larey decided to head to lovers lane after seeing a movie together. I’m not sure what movie they saw but it was probably either Song of the South, The Stranger or Strangler of the Swamp.

Regardless, after the movie they wanted to do some neckin’ and proceed to park at lovers lane, which was about 300 ft past the last row of houses in that area. Ten minutes later, as they were sitting in the secluded and dark area, probably talking about how the moon was made of cheese, a flashlight suddenly shined through Jimmy’s driver side window. As he looked up, all he could see was a figure resembling a man with a white cloth mask and eye holes cut out, standing outside his door. The mask was said to look like a pillowcase with eye holes. Which is frightening in and of itself.

Jimmy, thinking it may be a joke, told the guy to fuck off and that he had the wrong car, to which the man said: “I don’t want to kill you, fella, so do what I say.”

The masked man then ordered Jimmy and his girlfriend, Mary Jeanne, out of the car, through the drivers door when the man yelled, “Take off your goddamn britches!” This order was directed at Jimmy and as he was doing what the terrifying man said to do, the attacker pulled out a pistol and cracked Jimmy in the head, twice. Later on, Mary Jeanne would say that the sound of him hitting Jimmy was so loud, she thought they were gunshots. Instead, those sounds were Jimmy’s skull fracturing.

Rightfully so, Mary Jeanne assumed the dude with the gun was trying to rob them. She grabbed Jimmy’s wallet and showed the man that he was broke as a joke, when the man smacked her in the head with a blunt object, presumably the gun handle or the flashlight.

The attacker told her to get on her feet and as she stood, he told her to run. She took off running toward a ditch but the man yelled at her and told her to run up the road.

“Not toward the ditch, woman! There’s snakes in there! I hate snakes! Head up the road like a civilized victim!”

Mary Jeanne hightailed it up the road and spotted a car but there was no one inside. Then, as she turned around and like she was magically whisked away to an 80’s slasher flick, the attacker was standing there, asking her why she was running. For some reason, that part freaks me out. Maybe because he’s obviously toying with her or maybe because I was traumatized by Friday the 13th, as a child.

Mary Jeanne responded to the man by telling him that he had told her to run. This set him off and he yelled “Liar!” He then knocked her to the ground and proceeded to sexually assault her… with the barrel of his pistol. YUCK!

After the assault, Mary Jeanne gathered herself up and ran to a house nearby where she banged on the door, waking the residents, who then helped her call the police.

During this time, or shortly after, Jimmy had regained consciousness and flagged down a passing car who ran and called the police, as well.

Bowie County Sheriff Presley and three officers arrived on the scene, short of 30 minutes, but the attacker was nowhere to be found. Mary Jeanne spent the night in the hospital for her head wound and Jimmy was there for several days with multiple skull fractures.

When asked to give detailed descriptions of their attacker, Jimmy and Mary Jeanne had slightly different details. Well, they both agreed that he was around 6 feet tall but Mary Jeanne claimed that she could see under the man’s mask and that he was a light skinned black man. Jimmy, however, said the guy was a tanned white man, around 30 years old but couldn’t really see more than that due to the flashlight being blared into his face.

The police continuously questioned Mary Jeannes account of the attack and they believed that the couple knew their attacker and were just covering for him.

Could it have been a jilted ex of Mary Jeanne’s? Is that why Jimmy was pistol whipped and she had only a minor injury? Is this why she said it was a black man instead of giving up the perpetrators real identity?

The morning of Sunday, March 24th, 1946, a passing motorist saw a parked car on lovers lane, just south of the highway and decided to check if they needed help or to just be nosey. What they first believed to be two people asleep in their vehicle, turned out to be the lifeless bodies of 29 year old Richard Griffin and his girlfriend, 17 year old Polly Ann More.

Richard was found shot twice, on his knees between the front seats, hands crossed, his head laying on his hands and his pockets turned inside out. Polly Ann was lying face down in the back seat with evidence suggesting they had been murdered outside of the car and then placed there. A blood soaked patch of soil and congealed blood on one of the running boards, as it appeared to have flowed out from the bottom of the car door.

They were both fully clothed and both had been shot in the back of the head and a .32 caliber shell was found and investigators believed it may have been fired from a pistol wrapped in a blanket.

There were no pathologist examinations of the bodies, which seems odd, but 1946 Texarkana, I guess. This didn’t stop the rumors from flying around saying that Polly Ann had been sexually assaulted. These rumors were put to rest with later reports.

17 year old Paul Martin picked up his 15 year old girlfriend, Betty Jo Booker from the local VFW (The VFW or veterans of foreign wars is an establishment set up for former military personnel who had fought in wars, and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or airspace.) after a musical performance on Sunday, April 14th right around 1:30 in the morning.

Later, at approximately 6:30 that morning, Paul’s lifeless body was found on the side of a nearby road, lying on its left side. His body had been riddled with bullet holes through his nose, through his ribs from the back, through his right hand and one through the back of his neck. Investigators found blood on the opposite side of the road, leading them to believe that he was allegedly alive when he crossed the road, after being shot four times.

Paul’s girlfriend, Betty Jo was found at approximately 11:30am by a search party. Her body was lying almost 2 miles away from Paul’s, hidden behind a tree. She was fully clothed, laying on her back with her right hand inside the pocket of the buttoned up overcoat she was wearing.

She had been shot twice, once in the face and the other shot went through her chest. According to investigators, the weapon used was a .32 caliber Colt pistol, the same pistol type used in the first set of murders.

Paul’s car wasn’t found near his body but instead was found 3 miles away from where his body was found. The car was sitting parked, keys in the ignition, at Spring Lake Park.

The investigators couldn’t determine if Paul or Betty Jo had been shot first. According to the sheriff and Captain Manuel Gonzaullas of the Texas Rangers, their investigations determined that both of the victims put up a hell of a fight.

Tom Albritton, a friend of Paul’s, stated that he didn’t believe there was an argument between the couple and that Paul didn’t have any enemies.

So on Friday, May 3rd in the same year, around 9 at night, 37 year old Virgil Starks and his wife Katie were in their home, set on a 500 acre farm. Now I’m pretty sure there's a few movies based on similar events such as this one. Their home was just off the local highway, 67 East, which was about ten miles northeast of Texarkana.

Virgil was sitting quietly in his armchair in the living room. He was reading some quality information from his local newspaper when suddenly, he was shot TWICE in the back of the head from a closed double window.

With all the ruckus and the sound of broken glass, Katie hurriedly ran into the living room to see her husband stand up then slowly slump back into the armchair he was sitting in.

She went to check on her husband, only to realize he was dead. In a panic, she quickly went to the old school style, wall-crank phone to call the police. With two rings of the phone she too was shot twice from the same damn window. This time in the face. She fell to the floor, but to the shooter’s dismay, she quickly regained her footing and rushed to grab a pistol from another room. Let’s just say she was a badass, am I right? With the wounds she suffered, she was blinded by her own blood, and was not able to grab the pistol she was looking for.

Hearing the sound of the killer quickly approaching from the back of the house, she burst out of the front door with only her nightgown on, and ran barefoot across the street to her brother and sister-in-law's house.

After trying to get someone to come to the door and being unsuccessful, she took off down the street to her neighbors house, A. V. Prater, where she was only able to let out a gasp and say “Virgil’s dead”, and then she fell over and passed out.

Prater proceeded to fire his rifle into the air to alert another neighbor, Elmer Taylor. Prater had Taylor grab his car so they could all take Katie to the hospital.

While at the hospital, Katie was questioned by sheriff Davis. The Sheriff questioned her again about 4 days later to verify his original statement. She, the sheriff, was then able to confirm that a rumor regarding Virgil was false. This rumor was that he believed he heard a car outside their home for several nights in a row and he feared being killed prior to his murder.

Some good news, though! Katie Starks did, somehow, survive her wounds. Those shots, as crazy as it sounds, did not kill or severely injure her. One bullet went through the right cheek beside the nose, emerging behind the left ear. The other bullet went in her lower jaw below the lip; breaking her jaw and splintering several teeth, where the bullet was lodged right under her tongue. Holy shit, what a strong woman!

Katie lived to the ripe old age of 84. She remarried and is currently buried between both of her husbands in Hillcrest cemetery.

INVESTIGATIONS:

As mentioned before, the police never believed Mary Jeanne Larey’s story and that she and her boyfriend knew the perpetrator. I’m not entirely sure why they would cover up the attack, but Mary Jeanne came back to the area after the first set of murders. Supposedly, she wanted to help in the investigation and link the murderer to her and her boyfriend’s attacker. However, the Texas Rangers insisted that she knew who it was. Was she there to throw them off the trail? Did she just want to see what they knew?

Their attack wasn’t even connected to the murders until the Texarkana Gazette published their interview with Mary Jeanne. This was only when the police asked the public to come forward if they had any knowledge of the murders or any unexplained absences when the murders occured.

The first set of murders launched a huge, citywide investigation. The Texas Police, Arkansas Police, The Texas Rangers (headed by the Texas Department of Public Safety, both Miller and Cass county sheriff's offices and the FBI were all involved in questioning over 200 people. Unfortunately, almost all were false leads.

There were three different people with bloody clothing found, but all three were cleared.

The second double murder case had the police working in 24 hour shifts, questioning everyone and bringing in potential suspects from up to 100 miles away.

At one point, law enforcement attempted to set up a sting operation by asking teenagers to act as decoys in parked cars with the police patiently waiting nearby. Some police would even act as decoys with their partners or even mannequins sitting in their cars next to them. There were even a few officers that would hide in trees in Spring Lake Park in the hopes of seeing and potentially catching some nutjob doing some dirty shit.

After the 3rd set of attacks and the murder of Mr. Starks and the attempted murder of Mrs. Starks, blockades were set up. Anyone driving around in the area were stopped and questioned, including several men who were hanging around.

2 days after the Starks attacks, the investigation had 47 officers involved, trying to solve the case. They even brought in a mobile radio station and a teletype machine, along with twenty additional police from Arkansas to assist in their efforts.

Unofficially, law enforcement believed they had a “sex maniac” on their hands because the attacker left large amounts of money and Mrs. Starks purse in the home. Robbery was obviously not the motive.

At first, the police offered a $500 reward for any new information, but this only brought in over 100 crappy leads that went nowhere. It was then bumped up to $1700, then $7,025 after the Starks attack and within the ten days following, it was up to $10,000.

The police debated on whether or not the Stark’s attack was even related to the other crimes, due to the type of weapon that was used. The sheriff believed it was a .22 caliber rifle as opposed to a .32 caliber pistol.

Eventually, law enforcement stated that the Stark’s attack was NOT related to the other two double murders.

Obviously, the public was scared shitless. Without even knowing about the first set of attacks, the fact that two teenagers that were involved with the church had been murdered, sent the town into a frenzy, calling the killer “The Phantom.”

Where once there were unlocked homes, the townspeople began locking their doors, arming themselves, nailing sheets over their windows, nailing windows completely down and using makeshift window guards.

They set up curfews for businesses to attempt to keep people from going out at night but as the news of Virgil Starks, being murdered, especially in his own home, attached itself to the horrific story, it was all over the news in and around the surrounding areas.

Stores ran out of guns, ammo, locks, window shades and blinds and the search for guard dogs increased.

News outlets even stated that “the killer might strike again at any moment, at any place, and at anyone.”

With its heightened sense of alert and everyone toting guns, Texarkana, once easy going and peaceful, became an area of danger. It was so bad that when the police would answer calls or check on disturbances, they had to turn on their sirens, stand in front of the headlights and yell “HEY! IT’S THE FUZZ!” so they wouldn’t be shot at by some scared, nervous homeowner.

This was only exacerbated when Texas Ranger Gonzaullas told “oil up their guns and see if they are loaded” and to “not hesitate” if people were inclined to bust a cap in someone’s suspicious ass.

Gun sales and fear reached other cities, as well, including Oklahoma City, some 5 hours away. Luckily, the people’s concern diminished after about 3 months, with no other attacks happening, in that time.

Of course the rumors of the murderer being caught, being held in the county jail or sent off to another jail were flying around and the Texas Rangers had to hold a press conference to tell everyone to shut the fuck up because those rumors were making their investigation that much more difficult. Stating the rumors were “a hindrance to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons.”, the same press conference informed the folks around town that the murderer had NOT been caught, despite the rumors suggesting otherwise. Gonzaullas also said “Rumors only take the officers from the main route of the investigation. It is so important that we capture this man that we cannot afford to overlook any lead, no matter how fantastic it may seem.” This was mainly because a lot of innocent people were accused of being “The Phantom.”

Then there were the vigilantes. Teenagers sitting in parked cars HOPING to catch the criminal. One instance had a couple of police officers walk up on a parked car with a couple inside and as the officers announced who they were, a girl inside said “It’s a good thing you told me who you are,” as she showed them the .25 caliber pistol she had pointed at them.

Texas Ranger Gonzaullas gave a statement to the Gazette, telling people that vigilantism was “a good way to get killed.”

SUSPECTS

The “Phantom”, as he was dubbed by the Texarkana Daily News and was continuously called by other news outlets at the time, was described as being around 6 feet tall, wearing a white mask with eye and mouth holes cut out. However, the first attack, where the police were weary of their conflicting statements, was the only time a description was able to be given of the perpetrator. He attacked late at night, on the weekends, focused on young couples, took a 3 week cooling off period and used a .32 caliber pistol. Even though they came out and officially said that the Stark’s attack wasn’t affiliated with the “Phantom Murders”, due to the type of gun used, a lot of law enforcement and citizens believed it was.

Texas Ranger Gonzaullas believed the murderer was a “shrewd criminal who had left no stone unturned to conceal his identity and activities,” was a “cunning individual who would go to all lengths to avoid apprehension” and that his attacks were clever and baffling.

Sheriff Presley stated, “This killer is the luckiest person I have ever known. No one sees him, hears him in time, or can identify him in any way."

A psychologist at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Dr. Anthony Lapalla, believed that the one person committed all five murders and that he was planning on killing people the way he murdered Virgil Starks. In their homes with no one to stop him. He also believed he was motivated by a strong sex drive and sadism.

His shift from the parked cars on the dark and desolate roads to the farmhouse of the Starks also leads Lapalla to believe that the killer was smart enough to know that he had to change his behavior. He also stated that there was evidence of “deep planning, that he worked alone, told no one of his crimes and could shift his crimes to a distant community or overcome the desire to assault and kill people.”

However, this dickhead is the same person that said he didn’t believe the murderer was a black man because… AND I QUOTE… “In general, negro criminals are not that clever.” What the fuck.

Almost 400 suspects were arrested throughout this case.

Of course there were a shit ton of false confessions. There were at least nine people who confessed to being the Phantom, but their shit didn’t line up with the facts of the case.

In the first attack case where no one was murdered, no suspects were ever apprehended. Remember, that’s the one where law enforcement believed the victims were covering for someone.

Ok, let’s talk about Youell Swinney

According to Wikipedia

Youell Swinney was a 29-year-old car thief and counterfeiter. He was arrested in July by Tackett, who was investigating car thefts after realizing that on the night of the Griffin-Moore murders a car had been stolen in the area and a previously stolen car had been found abandoned. Tackett was able to locate the former car and arrested Swinney's wife Peggy when she came to retrieve it. Peggy confessed in great detail that Swinney was the Phantom Killer and had killed Booker and Martin. Her story changed in some details across several interviews, and police believed she was withholding information due to fear of Swinney or of incriminating herself.

Police were able to independently verify some details of Peggy's confession, such as the location of a victim's possessions where she said Youell had discarded them. There was considerable circumstantial evidence against Swinney, but Peggy's confession was the most critical part of the case. However, Peggy recanted her confession, was considered an unreliable witness, and could not be compelled to testify against her husband.

Law enforcement officers worked for six months trying to validate Peggy's confession and tie Swinney to the murders. They found that on the night of the Booker-Martin murders, the Swinneys were sleeping in their car under a bridge near San Antonio. Swinney was never charged with murder and was instead tried and imprisoned as a habitual offender for car theft. Presley reported in his 2014 book that investigators in the Swinney case later said that the sentence was effectively a plea bargain, though the case files indicated no formal agreement. Swinney was apparently concerned about being sentenced to death for the murders, so agreed to not contest the habitual offender charge and in fact tried to plead guilty despite the charge requiring a jury trial.

H. B. "Doodie" Tennison

Henry Booker "Doodie" Tennison was an 18-year-old university freshman who died by suicide on November 4, 1948, leaving behind cryptic instructions which directed investigators to a suicide note in which Tennison confessed to the Booker, Martin, and Starks murders. He had played trombone in the same high-school band as Booker, but they were not friends. Investigators were unable to find any other evidence linking Tennison to the murders. James Freeman, a friend of Tennison, provided an alibi for the night of the Starks murder, stating that they had been playing cards that evening when they heard the news of the attack.

Ralph B. Baumann

Ralph B. Baumann, a 21-year-old ex-Army Air Force (AAF) machine-gunner, claimed to have awoken from a fugue state of several weeks on the day of the Starks murder, with his rifle missing. He said that he heard about a suspect matching his description and hitchhiked to Los Angeles, feeling like he was running from murder. On May 23, he told Los Angeles police that he thought he might be the Phantom. "I'm my own suspect," he said.

Police arrested him but Gonzaullas stated that several parts of the man's story had little basis in fact. Baumann said that he'd been discharged from the AAF for being a psychoneurotic, and he had previously confessed to killing three people in Texarkana in a period of three days (which did not match the timeline of killings).

Saxophone peddler

Investigators had hoped that Booker's saxophone, which she had played the night of her murder and which was missing, might lead them to a suspect. On April 27, a suspicious man was arrested in Corpus Christi, Texas, for trying to sell a saxophone to a music store. He had asked about selling the instrument to the store but became evasive and fled from the store manager." Although no saxophone was found in his possession, the police found a bag of bloody clothing in his hotel room. After several days of questioning,the man was cleared as a suspect. Booker's saxophone was located on October 24, six months after her murder, in underbrush near the place her body had been found.

German prisoner of war

On May 8, it was announced that an escaped German prisoner of war—who was already being hunted as "a matter of routine"—was considered a suspect. He was described as a stocky 24-year-old, weighing 187 pounds (85 kg), with brown hair and blue eyes. He had stolen a car in Mount Ida, Arkansas, and attempted to buy ammunition in several eastern Oklahoma towns. The police kept searching for the POW, but it was said that he had "vanished into thin air."

Unknown hitchhiker

On May 7, a hitchhiker armed with a pistol carjacked and robbed a man, threatening to kill him and stating that he had killed five people in Texarkana, naming Martin and Booker. The hitchhiker went on to say that he was not finished killing people. Gonzaullas said that police were doubtful that this man was the Phantom Killer, noting that the killer had gone to lengths to conceal his identity while the hitchhiker boasted to a living witness.

Atoka County suspect

On May 10, in Atoka, Oklahoma, a man assaulted a woman in her home, ranting that he might as well kill her because he had already killed three or four people, and that he was going to rape her. He then fled. A widespread search for the man included 20 officers and 160 residents. Two days later, police arrested a suspect but did not believe this man was the Phantom. According to the man's story, he could not have been in Texarkana at the time of the Starks murder.

Sammie

Sammie is a pseudonym given to a longtime Texarkana resident with a good reputation whom the police were reluctant to name as a suspect. His vehicle's tire tracks were found across the road from Martin's corpse. He failed a polygraph test so the police decided to have him hypnotized by psychiatrist Travis Elliott. Elliott concluded that Sammie had no criminal tendencies, that he had pulled his vehicle to the side of the road in order to urinate, and that he subsequently visited a married woman with whom he was having an affair—concealing this caused Sammie to fail the polygraph test. After police verified the details, they cleared Sammie as a suspect.

Taxi driver

A taxi driver became a major suspect in the Booker-Marin murders because his cab was seen in the vicinity of the crime scene that morning, but he was soon cleared.

Earl McSpadden

On May 7, at approximately 6 a.m., the body of Earl Cliff McSpadden was found on the Kansas City Southern Railway tracks 16 miles (26 km) north of Texarkana, near Ogden. The body's left arm and leg had been severed by a freight train a half-hour earlier. The coroner's jury's verdict stated, "death at the hands of persons unknown", and that "he was dead before being placed on the railroad tracks." Because the murder is unsolved, locals have speculated that McSpadden was the Phantom's sixth victim. A prominent rumor exists claiming that McSpadden was the Phantom, and had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders are, to this day, still unsolved.

https://screenrant.com/best-small-town-thrillers/

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Simo Hayha, ”The White Death”

Tue, 08 Mar 2022 08:00:00 -0500

www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

Simo Hayha

Let’s talk about Finland

officially called the Republic of Finland.

The country’s name was said to be found on three runestones.

has about 168,000 lakes and 179,000 islands.

Helsinki is capital

As for weather, In Helsinki, the summers are comfortable and partly cloudy and the winters are long, freezing, snowy, windy, and mostly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 17°F to 71°F and is rarely below -3°F or above 79°F.

Member of the EU

338,455 square kilometres (130,678 sq mi) with a population of 5.5 million people.

Helsinki is capital

According to an American study, an average of 7,000 rifle-caliber shots were required to achieve one combat kill during the First World War. During the Vietnam War this number had increased to more than 25,000. So, for Simo Häyhä’s more than 505 kills, more than 13,550,000 bullets would have been needed in Vietnam.

Simo Was born December 17th, 1905

In the Kiiskinen hamlet of the Rautjärvi, Viipuri Province, In southern Finland.

Not far from the Russian border.

His father, Juho Häyhä, was the owner of the Mattila farm while Simo's mother, Katriina was known as a “loving and hard-working farmer's wife”.

He was the the second youngest of eight children,

Went to school in the village of Miettilä in Kivennapa parish

Working on his family's farm and hunting in the Finnish wilderness made him tough, yet very patient.

Built his own farm along with his eldest brother.

Proficient farmer, hunter, and skier.

At 17, Simo joined the Finnish voluntary Militia Civil Guard, kind of like the National Guard in the US.

Was only 5’ 3”

Was great at marksmanship and won several shooting competitions, having many trophies and awards in his home.

Was a shy guy that wasn’t a big fan of the spotlight

At 19, Simo started a 15 month mandatory military service, called Conscription, in the Bicycle Battalion 2 in Raivola.

He didn’t even start sniper training until he was 20.

Simo was supposedly able to estimate distances up to 150 meters (500 ft) within 1 meter or 3.3 ft. That’s over 1 and a half football fields in length.

An author that wrote about Simo said that he once hit a target 16 times from 150 meters away in only one minute. “This was an unbelievable accomplishment with a bolt action rifle, considering that each cartridge had to be manually fed with a fixed magazine that held together five cartridges.” That’s insane.

Simo went back to his farm until the invasion happened.

THE WAR

The Soviets didn’t trust Germany and wanted a buffer zone.

In the autumn of 1939, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland move their border back 25 kilometers from Leningrad.

The Finnish government refused.

The Soviet Union staged an incident at the border, using it as an excuse to attack Finland.

This started the Winter War.

Stalin sent over 750,000 Russian soldiers to invade Finland. Finland’s army had only 300,000, a few tanks and just over 100 aircraft.

Russia had almost 6000 tanks and over 3000 aircraft.

Stalin thought Finland would be a pushover. He was wrong.

Simo was called up. He pulled out his old gun, joined the Finnish army and entered the Winter War between 1939 and 1940.

This war was between Finland and Russia and the temperatures were between -40 and -4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Simo dressed in all white camo where the Russian troops weren’t given any camo, making them easier targets.

They wore their standard Green greatcoats.

This disorganization was due to Stalin freaking out and killing most of his superior generals, leaving confusion and a lack of leadership.

ON A SIDE NOTE

The Finns were also smart in their tactics, the most notable of which were known as “Motti”-tactics. Since the Soviets would invade by the roads, the Finns would hide out in the surrounding wilderness. They would then let the invaders cross the border, and attack them from behind.

the Finns faced both the 9th and 14th Soviet Armies, and at one point were fighting against as many as 12 divisions - about 160,000 soldiers. Also at one point in the same area, there were only 32 Finns fighting against over 4,000 Soviets

The Russian army supposedly gave him the name “white Death”, but some speculation believes it was propaganda created by Finland. Kind of like the new “Ghost Of Kiev”.

Russian prisoners claimed that “white death” was referring to how cold it gets in the deepest parts of the forests.

The Finnish newspapers used the name and the likeness of an “invisible soldier” to create and proport a hero for the war.

He was also called the “magic shooter”.

Even rumors that captured Russian soldiers were disappointed to not get to meet Simo.

AS A SNIPER

All 500 of Simos kills were supposedly done in less than 100 days.

That’s an average of 5 kills a day.

Not a lot of sunlight during this time of the year.

On February 17th, 1940 Simo was awarded an honorary rifle.

Given by Commander Svensson, for 219 confirmed kills with a rifle and 219 with a submachine gun.

December 21, 1939 was his daily high kill count of 25.

Army chaplain Rantamaa claims it was more like 542 confirmed kills, starting from the beginning of the war until he was injured

Some Finnish documents say he had:

138 sniper kills in 22 days, published on December 22, 1939

199 sniper kills published on January 26th, 1940

219 Sniper kills published on February 17th, 1940

259 Sniper kills (40 in 18 days) published on March 7th, 1940

In Simo’s memoirs found in 2017, he had a “sin list” that claims around 500 kills.

Finnish historian Marjomaa claims the number to be like “more than 200 kills” due to the absence of bodies and the use of the press's propaganda. Still a lot.

Simo’s gun of choice was his SAKO M/28-30, a Finnish version of a Mosin-Nagant, known as “The Spitz” because of its front sights resembling the head of a dog. Also, a popular bolt action rifle in the video game, Call of Duty.

Simo liked iron sights, not scopes. He claimed that he could keep his head lower and it gave him a smaller target.

Iron sights were dependable where scopes could fog up in cold weather and made the gun easier to hide. Not to mention the reflection of light from the scope’s lens could show enemies where the sniper was positioned.

Simo knew how cold it could be out there so he dressed for the weather wearing multiple layers. This meant he could stay out in the cold longer, waiting for his attack or to wait after.

He kept sugar and bread in his pockets.

He would eat them for calories to help keep him warm.

Unlike most snipers, Simo didn’t fire from the prone position; he preferred sitting up.

Being shorter helped him as he hid from enemies.

He would go out at night, improve his favorite shooting positions, and perform meticulous maintenance on his rifle so that it would never jam, especially in the cold conditions.

He would head to his spot for the day before sunrise and stay there until after the sun had set.

Daylight only lasted for roughly 3 hours a day.

Simo would pile the snow or pour water on it in a way that the blast from his barrel wouldn’t disturb the snow in front of him and even kept snow in his mouth to keep his breath from showing the enemy where he was.

He’d place his gloves on the snow and his rifle on top of them to lessen the recoil.

In the early days of the fighting, a Soviet sniper had killed three junior platoon leaders and an NCO. Simo’s platoon leader told him to take out the sniper.

As the sun was setting, the Soviet sniper carelessly abandoned his position. As he did, the sunlight glinted off his sniper scope. Simo put a round through his face.

Later another Soviet sniper kept Häyhä’s unit pinned down. Again, Simo was called upon and began to search for his target. Using another Finnish lieutenant as a spotter, he took the Soviet sniper out with a single shot from 400 meters.

Simo told a writer that snipers didn’t aim for headshots. “The head is a small size compared to the torso and for that reason, I always fired at the center of the torso. Shooting an enemy should only be done so when the probability of killing the enemy is at its highest, and if aiming at his head, a slight misjudgment leads to a miss which can give away your position with no gain taken.”

WOUNDED

Russia ordered counter snipers and artillery missions to SPECIFICALLY take out Simo.

Most failed.

Simo was almost killed on March 6th, 1940.

Shot in the face by an explosive, incendiary round, which explodes on impact.

Hit his lower left jaw, removing his upper jaw, most of his lower jaw and most of his left cheek.

Russians thought he was dead and threw him on a pile of bodies.

Finnish soldiers went looking for him and noticed a leg twitching in the pile of bodies.

The soldiers took him to get help and said “half his face was missing.”

Rumors of Simo’s death were everywhere.

One week later, he regained consciousness. The day that peace was declared.

The Finnish Army was exhausted, its ammunition nearly out, and its defensive lines close to being overrun. So, Finland was forced to sign the Treaty of Moscow on March 12, 1940. Under the treaty, it ceded 11 percent of its territory to the Soviet Union, more than the Soviets demanded prior to the start of the conflict.

Took him over 14 months to recover after 26 surgeries.

Saw a story about his death in a newspaper. He sent them a letter saying he was alive.

After recovery, he wanted to go back out to fight but wasn’t permitted.

AWARDS

Simo received the first and second class medals of liberty.

And The Kollaa fighters medal

Was promoted from the lowest ranked non commissioned officer (yes, that was his rank while he did all of this) to First military rank of an officer.

Nominated as a Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, which is considered the greatest Finnish Military honor.

Was given his own farm in southeastern Finland. Fittingly, it was located near the Russian border. Probably to remind them of what he did last time.

AFTER THE WAR

Became a successful moose hunter and dog breeder.

Received death threats from people who thought what he accomplished was wrong.

Never talked about the war or what he had been through.

When asked how he became such a bad ass his response was, “practice.”

When asked if had any remorse he said, “"I did what I was told to do, as well as I could. There would be no Finland unless everyone else had done the same".

Simo died in 2002 at the age of 96 while living in a war veterans nursing home. He never married or had children.

Nobody in history has ever been credited with more confirmed kills than Simo Häyhä.

OH AND BY THE WAY.

Despite gaining around 22,000 square miles of Finnish land, the Soviets lost the Winter War with most of their troops having been killed by the defending Finns. A Russian general later remarked that the land they had conquered was “just enough to bury their dead”.

MK Ultra. Yeah, That Happened.

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0500

MKULTRA/PROJECT ARTICHOKE/SPELLBINDER

MKULTRA- What is it

Code name given for the illegal experimentation done on humans
Done by the C.I.A.
Aim was to develop procedures and drugs to weaken individuals during interrogations and produce confessions
Brainwashing and psychological warfare
Use of LSD
Numerous methods to manipulate subjects’ mental states and brain functions through high doses of psychoactive drugs and other chemicals, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isoloation, and verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture.
Preceded by Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. We’ll discuss these later on.

MKULTRA background

According to author Stephen Kinzer, who is a former New York Times correspondent, who also wrote several books and writes for multiple newspapers and news agencies.( Kind of hard to get an unbiased opinion when one guy writes for most of the news.) Kinzer wrote that the CIA project “was a continuation of the work begun in WWII-era Japanese Facilities and Nazi concentraion camps on subduing and controlling human minds”.
Kinzer also wrote that MKUltra’s use of mescaline on people had begun in the Dachau concentration camp.
Kinzer proposed evidence of the continuation of the Nazi agenda
Kinzer Cited the CIA’s secret recruitment of Nazi torturers and vivisectionists( surgery conducted for experiemnts on living organisms with a central nervous system to view internal structure.) to continue the expriemtns on thousands of people
Nazis brought abck to Fort Detrick, Maryland to teach CIA officers on the lethal use of sarin gas
Project headed by Sidney Gottlieb but began with the order from Allen Dulles in 1953.
They wanted to develop mind controlling drugs to be used against the soviets in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on US POWs during the Korean War.
CIA was interested in using techniques on their own captives and wanted to manipulate forewwign leaders as well
Even creating schemes to drug Fidel Castro
Obviously most experiments were done without the consent of its subjects’
Academic researchers were funded through grants from CIA fronts and completely unaware that the CIA was using their work.

Sheer scale of project- excerpt from 1977 Senate Hearing on MKULTRA summarized by Wikipedia

Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so they may be used for malingering, etc.
Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.
Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down.
Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
A knockout pill which can be surreptitiously administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity.

Project BLUEBIRD-1952

Focused on hypnosis and behavioral modification as a means of preventing any Agency members from disclosing information to allies. (Sleeper Agents?)
Dr. Colin A. Ross wrote a 10 page summary on the Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists
This summary was made to “blow the whistle on extensive political abuse of psychiatry in North America in the second half of the 20th century.”
Bluebird was approved in 1950 and then renamed Artichoke in 1951
Bluebird and Artichoke aimed to establish the Manchurian Candidate
Bluebird/Artichoke was rolled over into MKUltra in 1953 and then into MKSearch in 1964 and ran until 1972. We’ll discuss the turn of events that transpired here later on in the broadcast.
Through electroshock and hypnosis treatment and experimnetation, subjects would be basically given a split personality that had no recollection of the other frame of mind.
This personality was given access codes, protocols/procedures, identities, and several missions to be carried out within the experiment.
Think sleeper agents. Like The Winter Soldier. You say a couple words or show some pictures and it would trigger the other personality to come forth and then the subject would act entirely differently. Much like someone you may know. A.k.a. Lee Harvey Oswald. Its speculation and entirely conspiratorial but is likely that he was under said experiments.

Project ARTICHOKE

Bluebird was basically designed to alter the personality of subjects through drugs, electroshock, hypnosis, and other forms of torture. Which would allow a person to withhold certain pieces of information, influence certain parties without their knowing, or even carry out specific actions. All while never being aware of their doing so.
Artichoke was similar but this time the project was to be used in subjects to force them to do the government's bidding against their will and even against the laws of nature such as self preservation.
They carried out testing within the states and even overseas
Using LSD, hypnosis and total isolation as forms of physiological harassment for interrogations of subjects.
Started off at first using cocaine, marijuana, heroin, peyote and mescaline. They saw that LSD was the most promising though.
Subjects who were able to leave the program had amnesia, and their memories were fogged resulting in faulty and vague recounts of their time.
LSD was even given to unsuspecting CIA agents to see how the drug affects those who aren't entirely of the program
- One Record shows that a single subject was kept on LSD for 77 days
Artichoke even did research on the potential use of dengue fever and other diseases.
- One declassified ARTICHOKE memo read: “Not all viruses have to be lethal… the objective includes those that act as short-term and long-term incapacitating agents.”
  - COVID Anyone?
It was found in the declassified documents that the CIA had a goal of using hypnosis to to create an assassin to assassinate a prominent politician or American official.
Overseas operations included bases in Europe, Japan, southeast asia and the philippines.
- They wanted to use aliens( foreign peoples of the area) as test subjects at these foreign installments.

MKSEARCH

So to fuck with you guys even more lets talk about MKSEARCH.
MKSEARCH was the name given to the continuation of MKULTRA.
It was divided in to two projects named MKOFTEN and MKCHIKWIT
The whole premise of MKSEARCH was incapacitating agents
They wanted to test biological, chemical and radioactive materials and systems to make predictable human behaviors and psychological changes.
The CIA was interested in bird migration patterns for use with chemical and biological warfare.
Subproject 139 designated “Bird Disease Studies” at Penn State.
- Again using a front to give research studies’ grants and using the findings for their own use with in MKULTRA/SEARCH.
- Conspiracies of the bird disease program was the transfer of diseases from avian species to the carrying of said diseases around the world.
MKOFTEN dealt with testing and toxicological transmissivity( tests to show exposure of transmissive diseases and chemical agents) and their behaviors in animals and then humans
- Covid… anyone?
MKCHICKWIT wanted to understand drug development in europe and asia and also acquiring samples.
There are a couple hundred different projects under the umbrella of MKULTRA. It would take hours to talk about all of them, so we are just talking about the popular ones and some of the unknown projects. So now let's talk about the experiments themselves.
- (Project Monarch was another covert front used to determine monarch butterflies' migratory patterns and the usefulness of radiological transmissions and diseases within the group.)
- (Project Spellbinder was creating the Manchurian Candidate with the sole purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro)

Experiments

LSD
- LSD-25 or acid as the kids call it, was the main drug used in MKULTRA
- Effects of acid are typically intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception.
- High doses create visual hallucinations but can also create auditory ones as well
- Can take about 30 minutes to kick in but can last for up to 20 hours.
- Considered non-addictive and low abuse potential.
- Frequent use creates exceptionally quick tolerance which leads to higher doses
- Known to create intermittent or chronic visual hallucinations even without further use.
- LSD overdose is unknown(HA!) but death or injury has been noted from accidents stemmed from psychological impairment
- Adopted by the counterculture movement in the 60’s because it allegedly expanded consciousness. Or it was just more CIA Propaganda to monitor subjects without the use of interrogation tactics.
- LSD was given to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and even prostitutes at the beginning of the MKULTRA trials
  - “People who could not fight back”
  - Given to one mental health patient in Kentucky for over 174 days
  - Even given to other agents, doctors, other government personnel, and even the general public. All without their knowledge.
    - Clear violation of the Nuremberg Code we agreed to follow after WWII
- Idea was to create a truth serum in a sense. A substance to bring out deep confessions or to wipe a subject's mind clean and reprogram them.
- In one attempt, Operation MIdnight Climax, the CIA setup brothels at agency safehouses in San Francisco to gather men too embarrassed to talk about the events at said brothels.
  - Men were given LSD and the brothels had one-way mirrors put in to monitor and film sessions. These sessions were to be used to observe at later times.
- Some people in events were given LSD and then interrogated under bright lights and told they would make their tip even longer if they didn't give up secrets. At one point, heroin abusers were even told they would receive more heroin as a reward for their answers during these events.
- The Chemist who directed MKULTRA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, had other ideas for using the drug.
  - He felt it could be used in covert operations since it’s effects were temporary.
  - Given to high ranking officials to alter the course of important meetings, speeches or other important events. (President Regan perhaps?)
- Gottlieb realized there was a difference between subjects that were given the substance in laboratory experiments and those that were given it in “normal” situations.
- He created more experiments where he gave it to people without warning. Going so far as to say that the surprise trips were considered an occupational hazard of CIA employees at the time.
- Like nobody could have seen this coming but adverse reactions to the drug often occurred.
  - One reaction coming from an operative who was dosed in his morning coffee and became psychotic and ran across Washington seeing a monster in every car that passed.
  - Another event where Frank Olson, an American scientist who studied bacteriology and biological warfare and was even employed to the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories and worked at Fort Detrick.
    - He had never taken LSD
    - Was given some covertly from his CIA Supervisor
    - Nine days later jumped out of his 13th story New York hotel room
    - Supposedly from depression as a result of being on LSD
- LSD deemed too unpredictable
  - Gave up on the notion that LSD was “the secret that was going to unlock the universe”
- Still used however in cloak and dagger operations
- That is until 1962 where a super-hallucinogen was created known as BZ.
- After BZ, LSD was pretty much given up on.
  - BZ is just the codename of an even stronger version of LSD like drug
- Now lets go one step further in experiments. We head to Canada!
Canadian Experiments
- The CIA recruited British psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron who created the psychic driving concept.
  - Psychic driving was a treatment where you were given a muscular paralytic drug and were forced to listen to an audio tape on repeat. Some patients were exposed to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF REPETITIONS!
  - Idea was to depatternize subjects or basically destroy their personality and give them a new one. Kind of like the Multiple personality procedure we talked about earlier.
  - Original intent was to cure schizophrenia by erasing previous memories and reprogramming patients’ psyche.
  - He was unknowingly paid by the CIA to further his experiments.
  - One such experiment was giving his patients LSD or paralytic drug and shocking said patient at thirty to forty times the normal power
  - Known to put patients in a drug induced coma for weeks at a time or even up to 3 months and all while playing a tape on loop to the patient during the coma
Other experiments were done elsewhere around the world. These were called detention centers though.
- The CIA would capture “Enemies of the State” or other “Expendable” people and bring them to these detention centers to avoid criminal prosecution.
- These prisoners were interrogated all while being administered psychoactive drugs, electroshocked, and even exposed to extreme temperatures and sensory isolation, just to develop a better understanding of how to destroy and to control human minds.

End to MKULTRA?

In 1973 during a government-wide panic caused by the Watergate scandal, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA files to be destroyed.
This caused a deep investigation into the matter nearly impossible until a large cache of up to 20,000 documents were found because they had been incorrectly filed and stored.
These files aided in the investigation led by Frank Church in the CHurch Committee as well as the Rockefeller Commission.
- These groups wanted to investigate the practices of the US intelligence agencies.
- Because of these investigations, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities, which prohibited “experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject.”
- This order led to President Carter and Regan expanding to any human experimentation.
The issue took longer to surface in Canada though.
- 1984 the issue came to light on a CBC news show, The Fifth Estate.
- People learned that not only did the CIA fund Dr. Cameron but the Canadian Government had full knowledge and funded him as well.
- The Canadian Government settled out of court and gave $100,000 dollars to each of the 127 patients in the tests.
- Unfortunately Dr Cameron died of a heart attack in 1967 while he was mountain climbing with his son. After his death no personal documentation was found showing his involvement in MKULTRA since his family decided to destroy all of his records after his death.
With a large portion of the documents being destroyed, the number of deaths still remains uncertain from these experiments.
As well as how many other types of projects the governments had designed during this time.

MOVIES

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=government-conspiracy&sort=moviemeter,asc&mode=detail&page=1&title_type=movie&ref_=kw_ref_typ

Who Is The Monster of Florence?

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 11:32:49 -0500

A little about Florence, Italy.

It is the Capital of Tuscany, in Central Italy. Built on both sides of the Arno river.
Florence was Founded as a roman military colony in the first century bce.
Florence’s vernacular became the italian language
Noteworthy celebrities that flourished here were Leonardo da Vinci, Filipp Brunelleschi, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Dante, and Galileo.
Some famous buildings that reside here are the Baptistery of St. John, the Gothic Duomo, and the Uffizi Gallery.
Economy is largely based around tourism… duh duh duuuuuuuuun.

What happened

- Between 1968 and 1985, 14 to 16 people were murdered in florence italy, in what leading criminologists and police officials have declared as one of the most puzzling crimes of their time.
  - Mostly all couples
- First Known victims were Antonio Lo Bianco and his Sardinian lover Barbara Locci
  - Killed on August 21, 1968
  - Small town near florence
  - Locci’s 6 year old son, Natalino Mele, asleep in the back seat. (saw somewhere that they were having sex in the car and kid was asleep in back seat).
  - Kid woke up and found his mother dead and he fled.
    - Kid ran two kilometers and knocked on the door of a house.
    - Kid banged on the door and told the homeowner “open the door and let me in, I'm sleepy and my daddy is sick in bed. THen you have to drive me home, because my mother and my uncle are dead in their car.”
    - Kid was questioned by authorities as to how he ran alone in the dark two kilometers on unpaved country road.
    - Kid originally said that he was scared and alone but changed his story later on saying that his father or an uncle drove him to the house.
    - Kid said years later that he was alone but was too shocked to really remember what happened.
  - Uncle was the name given to the mothers lovers.
  - Mother had the nickname of ape regina or queen bee, due to the countless affairs she had.
  - Lover of several men including 3 brothers; Giovanni, Salvatore and Francesco Vinci. Manual laborers and petty criminals
    - Salvatore lived with Locci and Mele in their own home for a short time.
  - Lovers were shot and killed in the car by a .22 caliber pistol.
  - Suspected killer was Loccis’s husband, Stefano Mele.
    - Considered to be older and mentally slow
  - Cops found a glove that was his that was tested and shown to have gun fire residue.
  - Mele confessed but retracted his confession, and then confessed again but accused the vinci brothers of being involved, but later confessed to doing it alone.
  - Despite changing his story and his son changing stories numerous times, the cuckolded husband was convicted and sent to prison for 14 years
    - Given a light sentence due to suffering from “infirmity of the mind” and deemed mentally dysfunctional.
  - Mele said that he dropped the gun at the crime scene but it was never recovered.
  - Considered a cut and dry case of a simple crime of passion.

UNTIL…

- Saturday night of September 14th, 1974.
  - Young couple, Stefania Pettini and Pasquale Gentilcore were regulars to a small secluded spot in the gentle suburban countryside on the outskirts of Florence, so they can spend some “private time alone”.
  - The young couple was found dead the next morning.
    - The young man was found inside the car leaning on the door
    - Young lady was found in the grass behind the vehicle.
    - Her body was nude and there had been stab wounds found.
      - Not deep
      - Surface wounds
      - Stabbed or “Pricked” over 90 TIMES!!!!
      - Raped? With a thin olive branch
      - An author by the name of Magdalen Nabb wrote in her novel “The Monster Of Florence” -which was a fictional adaptation of the case- saw the act as a sign that the killer was impotent, writing: “He tries to rape the girl, but isnt able, so he violates her with an olive vine instead”.
  - No money was stolen but it was noted that a few pieces of jewelry were stolen from Stefania
  - Florence officials considered this a one-off event
- Seven years go by

Saturday Night June 6th,1981

- - Carmela de Nuccio and Giovanni Faggi were parked on a dirt road just outside of Florence, known as Scandicci which is close to the popular night club, the “Anastasia Club”.
  - They made it a habit to go to this spot alone
  - Next morning bodies were found dead
    - Both shot and stabbed
    - Giovanni was found in the driver's seat with half of his clothes on.
    - Carmela was found 20 feet away from the car with her jeans pulled down and her pubic area had been cut out and taken away.
  - Ballistics were run and the same gun, a .22 caliber long rifle, had been used with each of the Winchester bullets having the letter “H” embossed on the back of the casing.
  - Police were certain that the 1974 murder was not just a “one-off” and that they may have a maniac on the loose.
  - Police also were certain that the killer was strong. Seeing as how the woman was not dragged, but instead carried out of the car and down a hill where her body was found.
  - Police decide to look into a common issue plaguing Florence - peeping toms.
- With Florence being surrounded by hills, woods and countryside, just driving less than 20 minutes would find you in a secluded field or wooded area. Deprived of witnesses or townsfolk.
  - During this time it was common for many Italians to live at home until they were married. Which means that couples didn't really get much privacy or robust ability to be alone together.
    - Lovemaking in cars was common and couples would typically wait for night and secluded areas.
  - Having a culture like this makes it a little easier for the occasional “Peeping-Tom” to have their gross fun.
  - Most onlookers or peeping-toms went into the woods with just a pair of binoculars, although it wasn't uncommon to find the Professional peeping-tom.
    - Armed with advanced night vision goggles or cameras so they could take pictures or even film unaware lovers
  - Disgusting of an act as this may be, the police thought that the “toms” may come in handy to the investigation of the Monster of Florence.
  - Hoping that these people may be able to give tips or see something that could aid in their investigation.
  - Apparently it did help as one “Tom” gave some info.
  - Police had nothing and jumped at this chance.
- Enzo Spalletti was a husband and a father.
  - Taken into custody after seeing two dead bodies in the woods.
  - Main reason he was being incarcerated was his unwillingness to divulge any information as to why he just so happened to be in the woods at the time the crime took place and knowing about the crime before it was officially reported.
    - Eyewitnesses placed him and his vehicle at the crime scene at the time of the murder, although he denied every any part of being apart of the crime.

Thursday night October 22nd, 1981

- - Susanna Cambi and Stefano Baldi had parked their vehicle on a country road just outside of florence.
  - Couple was not known for visiting this spot and police believed they stopped on a whim with the sudden urge of intimacy.
  - Bodies were found in the morning.
    - Stefano was found outside of the car wearing just a shirt and underwear.
    - Susanna had been carried to a spot nearby and her private areas had been horribly disfigured
    - Nothing was stolen from these victims either
  - This murder is known to this day as an anomaly since it happened on a thursday even though the day after, friday, was a national labor strike.
  - The other crimes also took place in the summer where this was in the fall.
  - That evening was also a very bright, moonlit night.
    - Officials believe that the murderer acted out as to throw off the police to the investigation.
  - This anomaly also gave one strong clue to the police that wasn't available prior, a size 44(u.s size 10) shoe print found in the mud.
    - Police believed that the culprit was a “Tall”(Hahahaha) and robust person.
  - With this new crime happening they released Enzo from custody.

Saturday Night June 19th, 1982

- - Antonella Migliorini and Paolo Mainardi were parked by some bushes in Baccaiano which is south of Florence.
  - Vehicle was able to be seen clearly from the street.
    - Friends of theirs have driven by and seen the two in the car and could clearly identify who was in it.
    - Antonella chose this area because it wasn't as private for fears of running into the monster of Florence
  - This particular case could show to be a turning point in the investigation.
    - The monster had shot the couple.
    - What made things interesting however was the shot on Paolo did not kill him right away.
      - He was able to turn on the vehicle and attempt to drive away.
      - Car was facing away from the street so any attempt at fleeing would have to have been done in reverse.
      - Hard to drive in reverse while being shot at
      - Monster shot the headlights out to avoid any attention.
      - Paolo unfortunately got the vehicle stuck in a ditch while trying to flee.
    - Neither of the victims were stabbed nor were there any ritualistic disfigurements of Antonella.
      - Mainly because the Monster most likely had to flee from the disruptive scene, plus it was a rather busy area.
    - Very shortly after the incident, another vehicle passed by
      - Assuming the vehicle was stuck they got out to help
      - Found the blood bath and immediately called for an ambulance and police.
      - Paolo was still breathing when help arrived and drove him to the hospital where he shortly died from his wounds.
    - The prosecutor who was investigating this case at the time, Silvia della Monica, decided to try and create a trap for the Monster.
      - She had the newspapers print off saying that Paolo was able to say some words about what happened before he passed.
      - Hoping to make the Monster second guess everything or at the very least, make a mistake.
- Shortly after the incident at Baccaiano, an envelope arrived at the Carabinieri police station in Florence.
  - Contents of envelope
    - Newspaper clipping with article dating back to the 1968 killing of the two lovers that were shot by the alleged jealous husband, Stefano Mele.
    - Written on top of the clipping was the statement ‘Why dont you take another look at this case?’
- The spent casings of the bullets that were fired in 1968 were still archived.
  - Ballistics tests were ran
  - Ballistics proved that the same gun had been used that day and with the other cases with similar incidents.
    - The bullets were the same type and were to have been from the same box of ammo as well.
- How could this be?
  - The Man that killed the first couple was still in prison.
    - Remember he dropped the gun at the time of the crime allegedly.
  - Since officials had no other leads they decided to look into the Sardinian brothers who Mele accused of being accomplices.
    - Giovanni, Salvatore and Francesco Vinci
      - Salvatore and Francesco being the two more likely suspects due to connections with Mele and past crimes.
- Shortly after the latest killings in Baccaiano, Francesco’s car was found in the south of Tuscany, hidden in the woods.
  - Francesco was then taken into custody on suspicion of being the Monster of Florence!
- One year later with Francesco behind bars,

Friday September 9th, 1983

- - In Galluzzo, which is a residential area of Florence.
    - Two German tourists
      - Uwe Rush and Horst Meyer
      - Chillaxing in their VW camper van
    - One man, at a quick look, could have been mistaken for a woman.
  - Shots fired from outside the van through the window had shattered the glass, but none of it fell on the ground.
    - Killer had to reposition due to lack of visibility in the van
      - Continued firing but on the other side of the window.( since first window was shattered)
      - Killer then entered the vehicle to finish the job but found that he had killed two men and therefore could not do the ritualistic disfigurement they had previously done on other women
  - One piece of evidence officials gained from this incident was the rough guesstimate of the killer's height.
    - Van was taller than a car
    - Bullet entry point gave clear idea on height of killer
    - At least 80 centimeters or 5 foot 10 inches tall.
- Francesco was released but his brother Salvatore was brought in.
- Mele’s brother Giovanni and his brother-in-law, Piero Mucciarini, were also brought in for questioning due to the inconsistent ramblings of Mele during his confession and their names were mentioned.
  - It was believed that due to Mele’s Wifes’ promiscuous nature and also changing lovers on a weekly basis; Officials thought that the Mele and Mucciarini family were embarrassed by this and thought she would tarnish their familys’ name, so they wanted her out of the picture.
  - Now they are suspects too

Sunday July 29th, 1984

- - Pia Rontini and Claudio Stefanacci.
    - Parked in usual spot in a wooded area near Florence
    - Both were shot and stabbed to death
    - Pia’s body was dragged this time to a nearby area and the killer performed the disgusting ritualistic disfigurement on Pia.
    - This time they went one step farther though.
    - Killer cut off Pia’s left breast.
  - Killer left behind some clues this time
    - Hand print on top of the car
      - Investigators believed the killer was right handed and steadied himself atop the car with his left hand
    - Knee marks were found on the side of the car confirming the height of the killer to be around 1,80 - 1,85 meters tall. Or 5’9” and 6’1”
  - Because this all happened while the Sardinian brothers were still in custody they released them.

Sunday September 8th, 1985

- - In a town outside of florence
    - Nadine Mauriot and Jean Michel Kravechvili
      - Took privacy a step forward
        Pitched a tent near their car just off the main road in a clearing behind trees
    - Couple was french
      - Last few couples had been foreign
    - Most likely Florence residents didn't want to venture into isolated areas any longer
    - Foreign tourists wanted to do so even though the city posted signs everywhere to not be alone in isolated areas
    - Jean was a young and strong man who was a trained sprinter.
      - Killer opened up the tent and Jean was able to break free and run away with only being shot in the arm.
        Jean ran the wrong way and instead of going to the street for help, ran deeper into the woods.
        
        Killer caught up to Jean and finished him off, then went back to the tent to finish his ritualistic disfigurement on Nadine.
- The next day, Silvia Della Monica, received another envelope.
  - Looked like a ransom letter with the letters all different shapes and sizes.
  - Spelling error with Repubblica spelled with one “B”
    - Perhaps uneducated and didn't know a common Italian spelling?
  - Contents had no letter
    - But a sliver of Nadine's breast was found inside
- Officials thought that this was a warning of more and worse crimes to come
  - The french couple were the last victims of the .22 caliber killer though.
- Perhaps this was a sign-off from the killer?

Lead Suspect

- - In 1985 right after the incident with the french tourists, police received an anonymous letter telling them to look into a man named Pietro Pacciani
    - Pietro was known for being abusive and violent
    - Investigators decided to use a new tool at the time of the letter, the personal computer.
    - The made a list of all people who had been convicted of a sexual crime and was released from prison during the years of the murders.
    - Pietro was one of few names on this short list.
    - Looking into Pietro’s past they found that he stabbed a man to death in 1951
      - He saw his girlfriend at the time going off with another man.
      - Followed them and right when they were going to get intimate, he jumped out and killed the man
      - Forced his girlfriend ot have sex with him next to the dead man
      - Stole the man's wallet
      - Convicted for 13 years
    - Pietro was a farm worker his whole life and was uneducated
    - Known to have a short fuse
    - Pietro’s daughters testified against him in court and said that not only did he rape abd abuse them and their mother, but were also fed dog food to save money.
    - Known to be a peeping tom
    - Was a self taught artist and poet
    - Basically his rage and artistic ability gave investigators a reason to believe he could be the Monster of Florence.
    - Was convicted of the few circumstantial pieces of evidence in 1994
    - Went to appeals court and was overturned and he was free in 1996
  - A second trial was held based on the testimony of witnesses that the prosecution brought up in court just before Pietro’s initial conviction were to be overturned.
    - Witnesses were at multiple crimes.
    - Witnesses included: a prostitute, Gabriella Ghiribelli, her ‘keeper’ Norberto Galli, and a friend of Pietro’s Giancarlo Lotti
    - According to Gabriella and Norberto, the car of Lotti was found parked near the scene of the attack in 1985
    - Lotti was investigated further
    - They tapped his phone and he confessed to being present at some of the crimes
  - Lotti said it was Pietro that shot the victims and a friend of Pietro that used the knife
    - Friend was Mario Vanni
  - Lotti’s role was lookout
  - Once pressured by police, Lotti confessed to shooting the van with the German men inside.
  - This led to Lotti and Mario’s conviction and were sent to jail.
  - Because of these two there was to be another trial for Pietro
    - Pietro died of a heart attack in 1998 though
  - Lotti was not deemed a valuable enough witness by many because he was an alcoholic living in a halfway house at the time
    - Believed he only confessed to receive recognition to improve his living conditions.
      - By going to prison he would get three meals a day and a warm roof over his head.

Even though Lotti and Mario were convicted, the Monster of Florence case is still open.

MOVIES

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=sexual-murder&sort=moviemeter,asc&mode=detail&page=1&title_type=movie&ref_=kw_ref_typ

Monster of Florence

http://www.florencewebguide.com/monster-of-florence.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_of_Florence

https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/The_Monster_of_Florence

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Monster_of_Florence

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Monster-of-Florence

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-monster-of-florence/304981/

https://www.magentaflorence.com/new-monster-of-florence-suspect/

https://filmschoolrejects.com/the-monster-of-florence-true-story/

http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/5688

Women Pirates!

Tue, 15 Feb 2022 23:41:35 -0500

Research borrowed from:

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/were-there-female-pirates

https://www.piratesquest.co.uk/top-10-famous-female-pirates/

Mentalfloss.com

https://www.badassoftheweek.com/teuta

There have been dramatic Tales of women sailing the open oceans and seas throughout history. Most of these legends began from the Golden Age of Piracy (1650 to 1720). However, there are stories of female pirates dating back thousands of years.

According to history, women weren't permitted to stay on ships once they had set sail. Sailor superstitions thought that women on merchant and military vessels were bad luck and could mean disaster at sea.

The presence of women was believed to anger the water gods, which might cause storms, violent waves, and weather. Others thought that women would just distract the male sailors at sea and fall victim to harassment and even violence.

Women weren't allowed to hold jobs at sea until the 20th Century. Some women would disguise themselves as men, using a fake name, but there could be severe penalties if they were caught. So the only way for most women to participate in running a merchant vessel before 1900 was through their relations or marriage.

Only recently, women were allowed at sea within the British Royal Navy. In October 1990, during the Gulf War, the HMS Brilliant carried the first women officially to serve on a functioning warship. In 1998, Commander Samantha Moore became one of the first female officers to command a Royal Navy warship, HMS Dasher.

The superstitions and old-school customs for military and commercial vessels were also held for pirates. Historically, women who remained on ships at sea would have to do so illegitimately and in disguise.

They would also need to learn the critical skills necessary for a life at sea before setting sail. Without this knowledge, it would have been tough to be a female sailor, let alone a pirate.

Piracy was a criminal act, so becoming a pirate could mean being arrested and even killed. It wasn't a decision taken lightly. Although pirates are often portrayed as swashbuckling heroes or villains, many were ordinary men and women forced into piracy to survive difficult times.

Piracy has been around since people first hopped on a boat, so it's likely women dressed like the women or as sailors of their time. But unfortunately, many of the depictions of male and female pirates we see today are glamorized accounts of the 17th Century's golden age of piracy.

The rise of popular fiction tales in the 1800s dramatically affected our understanding of pirate attire.

One example is "The Penny Dreadful," a famous book series of the 1860s - both in the United States and the British Empire. These cheap books told sensational stories of adventure. They featured pirates and highwaymen, likely a leading source for many tales and imagery of female pirates today.

As we mentioned, many women who became sailors often had to hide their identity and conceal their gender by dressing like men. However, the stories of Grace O'Malley, Mary Read, and Anne Bonny show that these pirates did not hide their gender. They wore whatever they wanted, depending on what they were doing. In the pamphlet "The Tryals of Captain John Rackam and other Pirates" published in 1721, people of the time said:

"When they saw any Vessel, gave Chase, or Attacked, they wore Men's Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women's Cloaths."

Ok, let's talk about some of the more famous lady pirates.

Queen Teuta of Illyria

Queen Teuta of the Illyrians was a badass Classical Age warrior queen who oversaw a fleet of hardcore pirates. She tormented the Spartans in their own backyard, led armies and navies that conquered cities and islands along the Adriatic coast, and told the Romans to eat a bag of dicks. Then she went out on her own terms by hurling herself off a mountain after supposedly burying 6,000 pounds of gold in a secret location at a place called Devil's Island. Her last words were a curse that doomed the Albanian city of Durres to "never have a seafaring tradition." Yet, she's still a national heroine of Albania, appears on their 100 lek coin (basically the $1 bill), and is generally depicted in full armor with a take-no-prisoners demeanor.

Queen Teuta's husband was King Agron, a pretty brutal warrior-type dude. He ruled over one of the more powerful Illyrian tribes. Illyria is what Greeks called anyone who lived on the Adriatic coast north of Greece. Still, Agron and Teuta were almost certainly from present-day Albania. This detail bears mentioning mostly because the Albanians don't really like being confused with Serbs or Croats.

In 231 BC, King Agron put together an awe-inspiring army, conquered Illyria in a whirlwind of blood, and set his sights south towards Greece. One tribe near the Greek border that was really pissing him off was the Aetolians. So when they laid siege on a city allied with Agron, the Illyrian King responded by launching 5,000-guys in a water-based night attack from the Adriatic Sea. The King captured the high ground, charged downhill with heavy infantry, destroyed their camp, and broke their Army's spirit. The victory was considered so awesome that everyone just went nuts and had this colossal rager party. In all of his amazingness, King Agron got so drunk that his lungs exploded.

Rule of the Illyrians technically passed to Agron's son, but he was only two years old. Teuta took over as the boss. She went right to work taking over where her hubby King Agron left off plundering, conquering, destroying everything in sight, and so on. She sent armies to the Peleponnese, sacking and ravaging the lands Sparta was supposed to defend. Her troops captured Phoenice, the wealthiest city in the Northern Greek region of Epirus. She held it for ransom and then gave it back to its people in exchange for money, slaves, treasure, and the undying loyalty of its citizens. When she wasn't dispatching armies to loot and plunder her enemies, she told any Albanian man with a rowboat and a scimitar to step up. She wasn't going to punish them if they raided, pirated, and plundered ships along the Adriatic… as long as she received a percentage of the profits.

For the next few years, no ships were safe. The Illyrian pirate fleet destroyed Greek and Roman shipping, dominating the wealthiest and most trade-heavy waters on earth, taking whatever they wanted.

Yes, they were killing it. However, this craziness didn't really go down well with the new power in the Mediterranean-- the Roman Republic. So Rome sent two brothers to talk to Teuta and tell her to knock it off.

They met her in her throne room in the city of Scoda. They demanded that she order a cease-fire on all Illyrian piracy and pay Rome reparations for all the ships and goods they lost.

Teuta was busy managing the Siege of Issa and all the other conquests she was undertaking. So (according to Roman sources), she told the brothers that "it was contrary to the custom of the Illyrian kings to hinder their subjects from winning booty from the sea." Or, eat one!

Well, as you probably guessed, the Romans didn't like hearing this, especially from a woman.

The ambassadors basically started lecturing Queen Teuta on manners, respect, and yadda yadda yadda.

Naturally, Queen Teuta had that dude's throat cut, and his brother chucked into an Albanian prison.

Things were great until five or six years into Queen Teuta's reign when the Romans showed up with a big ol fleet and 20,000 legionnaires. All battle-hardened from the War with Carthage and drilled by professional Roman drill instructors. Teuta rallied the Illyrian defenses, but she was immediately betrayed by her top General named Demetrius. Teuta fought heroically but ultimately was forced to surrender to Rome in 227 BC. There are rumors that she took a bunch of treasure she'd accumulated from her pirates and armies and buried it in a cave on an island somewhere in her domain.

The Romans allowed Teuta to rule a small domain after she surrendered. Still, they made that traitor Demetrius the regent for King Agron's young son. Not long after, Rome decided to get rid of Demetrius, and of course, our fearless Queen. Upon hearing of Rome's plans, Teuta fled her palace. She climbed to the top of a nearby mountain, placed a curse on the city of Risan so that they'd never be able to build a good ship again, and then hurled herself off a mountain to her death.

Teuta is a pretty common name in Albania to this day. She appears on their money and has a special place in the hearts of the Albanian people. Go to the city of Durres. You'll see that the National Bank of Albania has a statue of her reclining on a chaise lounge and wearing nothing but a spear, a shield, and a helmet.

Ladgerda

Ladgerda (also spelled Lagertha) was a Danish Viking pirate who lived in the 9th Century AD.

She was a shieldmaiden - Viking women who carried a sword and shield, known for their ferocity and skills in battle on land and sea.

With only a few accounts of her life known to exist, historians have controversy whether Ladgerda is, in fact, a legendary figure and a substitute for the actions of a group of women.

One story suggests that she rescued her husband's fleet from a warring tribe but, on saving him, murdered him with a concealed knife and took his place as the leader of the tribe. You may have heard of her from the show "Vikings," kicking ass and taking names.

Jeanne de Clisson

Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Brittany. Noblewoman, wife, mother, pirate. Jeanne swore revenge against the French King after the execution of her husband. She raised a fleet of ships that terrorized the French and led a loyal army to sack many French strongholds for over a decade. And she did so alone in the 14th Century.

Jeanne de Belleville was born in 1300 in Belleville-sur-Vie into the French nobility. She married her first husband, Geoffrey de Châteaubriant VIII, at only 12 years old. He was seven years her senior. In fourteen years of marriage, they had two children. In 1326, Jeanne was widowed.

In 1328, she married Guy of Penthièvre, though this marriage was short-lived and annulled in 1330.

The same year, Jeanne married for the third time, which would lead to her infamy. Olivier de Clisson IV was a wealthy Breton nobleman whose property included Château de Clisson, a manor house in Nantes, and lands at Blain. Jeanne had also inherited land in the province of Poitou, south of the Breton border, and these combined assets made them a real power couple of the 14th Century.

Their marriage resulted in five children, including their son, Olivier V de Clisson, later known as 'The Butcher', due to his brutality in battle. Their eldest child, Isabeau, was born in 1325. At the time, Jeanne was still married to her first husband and Olivier to his first wife, who died in 1329. We know little of their relationship, but it's easy to note the timing of the annulment of her second marriage, in 1330, to the death of Olivier's wife a year prior. Their marriage was likely a rare love match.

Amidst a complex backdrop of conflict, like so many wars, Jeanne and her husband supported Charles de Blois as Duke of Brittany. But for reasons unknown, Charles de Blois was mistrustful of Olivier de Clisson, questioning his loyalty.

Sources differ on the cause for this mistrust. Some claim that Olivier defected to join the English side.

Another story points to Olivier's capture by the English during the capture of the city of Vannes in 1342. Olivier de Clisson had been acting as military commander alongside Hervé VII de Léon, in defense of the city when it fell. What is strange, however, was the terms of Olivier's release. He was released in exchange for Ralph de Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, a prisoner of the French, and for a suspiciously low ransom. Hervé VII de Léon, meanwhile, was never released. It is thought that the low ransom for Olivier's freedom gave Charles de Blois reason to distrust him. He made a devil's deal!

Due to Charles de Blois' suspicion, in 1343, Olivier was captured with fifteen other Breton Lords at a tournament and taken to Paris to be tried in court.

On August 2 1343, Olivier de Clisson was found guilty on several counts of treason and sentenced to be executed by beheading immediately.

Olivier's trial shocked the nobility due to his guilt's lack of available evidence. However, his death was equally shocking, as the public desecrating/exposing a body was usually reserved for low-class criminals rather than members of the nobility.

The death of her third husband was a turning point in Jeanne's life, and it is fair to say that she was never the same again. She took her two young sons to Nantes to show them the head of their father, displayed on a pike at the Sauvetout gate. She did this with the intention of searing hatred in their hearts. She swore her revenge against the French King, Phillip VI, and Charles de Blois in her fury. She considered her husband's execution to be an act of cowardice and murder.

She sold the de Clisson estates, using the money to raise an army of men who had been loyal to her husband.

Leading this Army, she attacked many French strongholds. First, her Army massacred the entire garrison, except for a sole survivor. Then, her Army rampaged along the Normandy coast, burning many villages to the ground.

In 1343, Jeanne was found guilty of treason, confiscating her remaining lands. However, it seems she otherwise escaped the charge without punishment. That same year, King Edward III granted Jeanne income from English-owned lands in Brittany.

Soon, she turned her attention to piracy, building a fleet of ships. Painted coal-black, their sails dyed blood red, others dubbed the ships "The Black Fleet." During this time, she earned her nickname, the Lioness, or Tigress, of Brittany.

Jeanne named her flagship 'My Revenge.'

With the support of the English King, Jeanne's fleet scoured the channel, attacking any French ship that she encountered, massacring entire crews. However, she left a few witnesses to send a warning message to the French King.

Jeanne continued pirating the English channel for another 13 years until the sinking of her flagship in 1356. Along with her two sons, she was adrift at sea for five days, during which Jeanne rowed non-stop in search of rescue. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, her son, Guillaume, died of exposure. Jeanne and her surviving son were eventually rescued and taken to Morlaix.

It is said that Jeanne de Clisson's ghost still haunts Château de Clisson, her beloved third husband's castle, to this day.

Lady Mary Killigrew

Another fearsome pirate of the Elizabethan era, Mary Wolverston, or Lady Killigrew (before 1525 – after 1587) was known for her pirate activities along the Cornish coast. Mary was the daughter of Lord Phillip Wolverton, a former pirate. She later married Sir Henry Killigrew, a pirate who was later made a Vice-Admiral by Queen Elizabeth I.

While Henry was employed to uphold maritime law, some ex-pirates were engaged as "privateers," sailing under the favor of the Crown to amass illicit profits for England. Mary was known to be a champion of her husband's criminal activities. She redesigned their home at Arwenak castle to hide stolen goods, cut deals with smugglers, and raid ships.

It is thought that the Queen turned a blind eye to this and even pardoned her in later life.

Grace O'Malley

Grace O'Malley (a. 1530 - 1603) was a formidable Irish pirate and a decisive leader who successfully defended her lands against English governance and other hostile Irish clans. O'Malley was the daughter of a chieftain and was educated in seafaring by her father. After his death, she took to the seas (even giving birth to her first child while aboard a vessel).

As the English began occupying Ireland, O'Malley fortified important coastal defenses and offered her support to Irish rebels. She even met with Queen Elizabeth I in September 1594 at Greenwich Castle where they created a treaty in Latin.

Mary Read

Mary Read was born in Devon County, England, in the late 17th Century. She had a harsh childhood. Her father had died before she was born, and her half-brother Mark passed away soon afterward. Nevertheless, Mary's paternal grandmother supported Mary and her mother only because she thought her grandson Mark was still alive. To keep the death of Mary's brother a secret from his grandmother, Mary was raised as a boy, pretending to be her older brother.

When Mary Read was about thirteen years old, her grandmother died. Mary still dressed as a boy and had to find a job with boyish habits. She became a footboy to a wealthy French woman who lived in London. Unsatisfied with her current position, Mary escaped and boarded a man-o-war. A few years passed, and she became bored again. This time she joined the Army, where she met her future husband. After confessing love and her true gender to him, they left the Army, married, and opened an Inn called Three Horseshoes near Castle Breda.

Mary Read was always surrounded by death. After just a few months of marriage, her husband got sick and died. Desperate, she just wanted to escape from everything and joined the Army again. This time, she boarded a Dutch ship that sailed to the Caribbean. Mary's ship was attacked and captured by the pirate, Calico Rackham Jack, who took all English captured sailors as part of his crew. Unwillingly she became a pirate. Soon after, she started to enjoy the pirate way of life. When she could leave Rackham's ship, Mary decided to stay.

On Rackham's ship, she met the one and only Anne Bonny. Being the only women on the boat and sharing a lot in common, they quickly became good friends. Some people believe that Mary Read was in a romantic relationship with Anne Bonny, Rackham, or even crewmembers.

Mary's pirate career ended in October 1720. She was captured by Captain Barnet in a desperate battle. In Port Royal, they stood trial. Rackam and his crew were found guilty of piracy, but Mary and Anne were spared because they claimed to be preggers.

Mary Read died with her unborn child in prison from fever. She was buried at St. Catherine's parish in Jamaica.

Anne Bonny

Most of what is known of Bonny’s life comes from the volume A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1724), written by a Capt. Charles Johnson (thought by some scholars to be a pseudonym of English writer Daniel Defoe, not to be confused with the green goblin, Willem Defoe) and considered highly speculative. Anne was thought to be the illegitimate daughter of Irish lawyer William Cormac and a maid working in his household. Cormac separated from his wife after discovering his cheatin’ ass ways and later assumed custody of Anne. Following his hookup with her mother, he lost most of his clientele, and the trio emigrated to Charles Towne (now Charleston, South Carolina). Anne’s mother died of typhoid fever when Anne was 13 years old.

Her father betrothed her to a local man, but Anne resisted. Instead, in 1718 she married sailor John Bonny, with whom she traveled to the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. Her husband became an informant for the governor of the Bahamas. Not happy with her marriage, she became involved with pirate John (“Calico Jack”) Rackham, which hopefully sounds familiar unless you’re drunk like Logan. He offered to pay her husband to divorce her—a common practice at the time—but John Bonny “aw, hell Nah!”

In August 1720, Anne Bonny abandoned her husband and assisted Rackham in commandeering the sloop William from Nassau Harbour on New Providence. Along with a dozen others, the pair began pirating merchant vessels along the coast of Jamaica. Rackham’s decision to have Bonny accompany him was highly unusual, as women were considered bad luck aboard ships. Her fierce disposition may have swayed him: fictional stories claimed that when she was younger, she had beaten an attempted rapist so severely that he was hospitalized. Bonny did not conceal her gender from her shipmates, though when pillaging, she disguised herself as a man and participated in armed conflict. Accounts differ on when her female compatriot Mary Read joined the crew. Some state that Read—who had served as a mercenary while disguised as a man—was among the original hijackers of the William, while others claim that she was aboard a Dutch merchant ship that Rackham’s crew captured.

On November 15, 1720, Capt. Jonathan Barnet caught up with the William at Negril Point, Jamaica. Except for Bonny and Read, who fiercely battled their pursuers, the crew was too drunk to resist, and they were captured and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, for trial. Rackham and the male crew members were immediately found guilty and hung. Bonny and Read were tried on November 28. Though they too were found guilty and sentenced to death, their recently discovered pregnancies won them stays of execution. Read died in prison the following year, but Bonny was released, likely because of her father’s influence. She returned to Charles Towne, where she married, had children, and lived out the remainder of her life.

Jacquotte Delahaye

Delahaye was born around 1630 in Haiti, though there is no evidence of her birth, and many of the stories seem to originate from 1940s writer Léon Treich. Legend believes that the British navy killed her father, and her mother died during childbirth. As she was destitute, she joined a pirate crew and later commanded a fleet of ships.

With striking red hair and the legendary status of surviving many dangerous encounters, she was named "Back From The Dead Red."

Ching Shih

Contrary to popular belief, the most successful pirate-lord in recorded history was not Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Sir Francis Drake, or any other human with a wiener.

Instead, it was an extraordinary Asian woman known today by Ching Shih, which translates to ‘Ching’s widow.’ Her saga is nothing less than an exhilarating rag to riches story. At the height of her power, she commanded over 800 large ships, 1000 smaller vessels, and over 70,000 pirate crew, comprised of both men and women.

In comparison, Blackbeard, at his peak, commanded only 300 ships and a few thousand pirate crew.

Ching Shih was born as Shih Yang, in 1775, in the poverty-ridden society of Guangdong province, in China. Like many of the women of this period, on attaining puberty at the age of thirteen, she was forced into prostitution to supplement her family's income. She worked in one of the floating brothels, also known as flower boats, in the Cantonese port city. These boats would sail along the nearby coast with the customer on board. Back then, the Chinese perceived that the boat's rocking added an entirely new dimension to sexual pleasures and enhanced the overall experience. If the ships a Rockin… you get it.

In a short period, young Ching Shih had become the talk of the town due to her striking beauty, poised nature, and lavish hospitality. These attributes attracted several high-profile customers, including courtiers of the royal palace, army military commanders, wealthy merchants visiting the port city, and many more. Apart from this, very little is known about her early life, given her humble origins.

In 1801, Zheng Yi, a notorious pirate commander of the infamous Red Flag Fleet, encountered Ching Shih in the Cantonese port and was smitten by her beauty. Of course, he visited the floating brothel and met Ching Shih, expressed his feelings, and asked her to marry him. Ching Shih told him that she would marry him if “she was granted fifty percent share over his monetary gains and a partial control over his pirate fleet.” This demand showed that she did not want to end up as eye candy for her husband for the rest of her life. Drowned in his boner-filled love for her, Zheng Yi invariably agreed to her conditions, and they got hitched. The truth of this chain of events is often debated today. Historians claim that Zheng Yi had ordered his men to abduct Ching Shih from the brothel, forcibly marrying her.

Regardless, it was Ching Shih who benefited the most from their union, and her encounter with Zheng Yi is often considered to be her stepping stone to greater glory, which in turn got her etched into history as one of the most successful pirates in recorded human history.

Under the joint command of Zheng Yi and Ching Shih, the Red Flag Fleet began to grow and prosper like never before. The fleet grew from 200 ships, at the time of their wedding, to 1800 ships, in the next few months.

Immediately after joining her husband, Ching Shih implemented some crucial changes and constituted the code of laws to be followed to the T by all the crew. Here are a few:

1) Pirates who gave unauthorized orders or those who refused to follow orders were executed on the spot without a chance to justify themselves.

2) All seized goods had to be presented for inspection. If any pirate was found hiding or under-reporting goods, a part of their body was chopped off depending on the scale of the crime.

3) Loyalty and honesty were greatly appreciated, and worthy pirates were rewarded generously, setting an example for the others.

4) Female captives needed to be treated respectfully. They were segregated based on their looks. The weak, pregnant, and ugly ones were freed as soon as possible.

5) The beautiful women captives were held back for ransom. The pirates were given the freedom to marry these attractive women under mutual consent.

6) Infidelity and rape were treated as serious offenses. These offenders were immediately hanged. In the case of consensual pre-marital sex, both the offenders were executed. In some instances, the man was castrated, and the woman was banished from the fleet.

Apart from these, several economic reforms were implemented, considering the crew's happiness as an expression of gratitude towards them. This addition resulted in many of the pirate groups of the region merging themselves unconditionally under the banner of the Red Flag Fleet, which resulted in it becoming the largest pirate fleet on the face of the planet.

Meanwhile, unable to conceive a future heir, the pirate couple decided to adopt a young angler in his mid-twenties named Cheung Po from a nearby coastal village, which means that Cheung Po became the second in command to Zheng Yi and the most respected crew after him and Ching Shih. This move puzzled many crew members as to why the pirate couple chose to adopt a fully grown man. Let’s find out!

Just six years into their marriage, in 1807, Ching Shih’s life took a sudden tragic turn; Zheng Yi passed away during a devastating storm off the coast of Vietnam. Their adopted son Chang Pao was instated as the leading commander of the Red Flag Fleet and the pirate queen Ching Shih’s confidant.

Amidst this tragedy, there was an internal rift for dominance amongst the power-hungry captains of partnering ships. The future of the Red Flag Fleet was in danger. Ching Shih managed to secure command of the fleet and win the support of factions loyal to Zheng Yi, including his nephew and cousins, by utilizing a few cunning business tactics. Soon after, the power-hungry traitors were captured and executed in public to set an example and deter any future possibilities of a coup.

Following this situation, stricter disciplinary measures and codes of laws were implemented, and the lawbreakers were hacked to death instantly regardless of their rank.

Less than two weeks after the tragic death of her husband, the pirate queen announced that she was getting married to her adopted son, the commander of the Red Flag Fleet. AH HA!!

She had shared a relationship with him for a long time, which is why she was not conceiving from her first marriage. It was under her influence that her sucker husband, Zheng Yi, had adopted the young fisherman and declared him as his willful heir.

Under the leadership of Ching Shih, the Red Flag Fleet set off to capture new coastal villages and flaunted total control and domination over the South China Sea. This onslaught added to the trouble British and French colonizers faced as the pirates regularly plundered their ships.

The Red Flag Fleet was operating its businesses at an enormous scale. Not a single ship moved in the South China Sea without the knowledge of Ching Shih’s army. Entire coastal towns worked for them, supplying them with food, goods, and other provisions. The pirates taxed ships that wanted to cross the South China Sea. If they refused, they were attacked and plundered immediately.

Nevertheless, the Chinese dynasty desperately wanted to end all this. So, the novice Mandarin navy vessels were sent out to confront the Red Flag Fleet in the South China Sea and destroy them. A few hours into the battle, the Mandarin navy began a humiliating defeat. Ching Shih used this opportunity and announced that the Mandarin crew would not be punished if they joined hands with the Red Flag Fleet. So, just like that, the Mandarin navy was absorbed by the pirates, and the Qing dynasty lost a considerable part of their navy.

The Emperor of China was enraged to think that a woman controlled such an enormous amount of the land, sea, resources, and people that belonged to him. So, in an attempt to ink a peace deal with the pirates, the emperor offered an amnesty to all pirates of the Red Flag Fleet, hoping to terminate Ching Shih’s reign over the sea.

Meanwhile, the Red Flag Fleet came under attack from the Portuguese navy. That navy had already been defeated twice before. However, this time things were different because they came prepared with bigger ships and weapons. This superiority gave the Portuguese an upper hand, and the Red Flag Fleet could not return with an attack of the same size. The Europeans were slaughtering them in their own backyard.

Ching Shih recognized no point in fighting; the Portuguese navy ruthlessly destroyed her fleet. So she readily accepted the treaty offered by the Chinese emperor. The entire crew of the Red Flag Fleet was forced to surrender. The emperor allowed pirates to take home all the loot they had accumulated over the years without facing any significant repercussions. Plus, several pirates were granted jobs within the Chinese bureaucracy. Ching Shih’s adopted son and later husband Chang Pao became the captain of Qing’s Guangdong navy. In 1813, she welcomed her first child, Cheung Yu Lin, followed by a daughter whose whereabouts have been long lost in history.

In 1822, her second husband lost his life at sea, after which she relocated to Macau along with her children and opened a gambling house with all the loot she had grabbed at sea. She was also involved in trading salt. Towards the end of her life, she opened a brothel in Macau, bringing her life full circle.

Ironically, after kicking so much ass, she died peacefully in her sleep at the age of, yep, “sixty-nine.”

Sadie the Goat –

In 1869, Sadie the Goat joined the Charlton Street Gang, headquartered at a gin mill at the end of Charlton Street on the West Side of New York. Her real name was Sadie Farrell, but she became known as Sadie the Goat because of her favorite form of fighting: headbutting men in the stomach and having a male sidekick knock the victim out so they could steal his money and valuables.

Before joining the gang, she prowled the streets of the Fourth Ward and was known as a brutal mugger. However, after a terrible fight with another female gangster, Gallus Mag, Sadie the Goat lost her ear fled. Gallus Mag had bitten the ear off entirely and stored it in a jar in a saloon she owned.

After Sadie lost the fight and her ear, she left the Fourth Ward and found a new home on the West Side with the Charlton Street Gang. Before her arrival, the gang had decided to become pirates and cause problems along the shores of the Hudson River, but they weren’t very good at it. However, with Sadie stepping in, things began to turn around.

With Sadie commanding the gang, they stole a ship and made her captain of their pirate crew. These pirates patrolled the Hudson River stealing and terrorizing, becoming rich in the process. It is said that Sadie the Goat was known for her cruelty and made several of her own men walk the plank throughout the pillaging. True to form, her ship carried the Jolly Roger flag.

After a few months of pirate life, local farmers along the river banded together and engaged the pirates in gun battles. As a result, the Charlton Street Gang decided to call it quits and Sadie the Goat returned to the Fourth Ward. There, she surrendered to Gallus Mag, the gangster who ripped off her ear in their last fight. Honored by the gesture, Mag returned Goat’s ear to her, and it’s said Sadie the Goat wore it in a necklace, in a locket, for the rest of her life.

Maria Lindsey – Maria Lindsey met notorious pirate captain Eric Cobham, and it was love at first sight. Cobham revealed his profession to Maria, but she was not put off – in fact, they were married the next day! The two left Maria's hometown of Plymouth and spent around 20 years sailing the seven seas as swashbucklers.

Rachel Wall

Rachel Wall's biography is riddled with myths and legends, but if tales about her are true, she was one of the first and only American women to try her hand at piracy. As the story goes, Wall was a Pennsylvania native who ran away from home as a teen and married a fisherman named George Wall. The couple settled in Boston and tried to survive, but constant money problems eventually led them to turn to a life of crime. In 1781, the couple bought a small boat, hooked up with a few low-life mariners, and began preying on ships off the coast of New England. Their strategy was as ingenious as it was brutal. Whenever a storm passed through the region, the pirates would dress their boat up to look like rough seas had ravaged it. Rachel would stand on the deck and plead for help from passing ships. When the unsuspecting rescuers came near, they were promptly boarded, robbed, and murdered.

Wall may have lured over a dozen ships to their doom, but her luck ran out in 1782 when a real storm destroyed her boat and killed her husband, George. She continued her thieving on land and was later arrested in 1789 for attacking and robbing a Boston woman. While in prison, she wrote a confession admitting to "Sabbath-breaking, stealing, lying, disobedience to parents, and almost every other sin a person could commit, except murder." Unfortunately for Wall, the admittance wasn’t enough to sway the authorities. On October 8, she became the last woman ever executed in Massachusetts when she was hanged to death in Boston

Anne Dieu-Le-Veut

She was also from Brittany, and her name translates to “Anne God-Wants.” She came to the Caribbean island of Tortuga in the late 1660s or early 1670s. From there, she suffered some rocky years that made her a widow twice, as well as a mother of two. But, her second husband was killed by the man who'd become her third. Dieu-le-Veut insisted on a duel with Laurens de Graaf to avenge her late husband. The Dutch pirate was so taken by her courage that he refused to fight her and offered her his hand. They married on July 28, 1693, and had two more children.

Dieu-le-Veut set sail with de Graaf, which was considered odd as many seamen thought women on ships bad luck. Yet Dieu-le-Veut and de Graaf's relationship has been compared to that of Anne Bonny and Calico Jack, inseparable partners who didn’t give a shit about superstition.

Dieu-le-Veut's legend took over as captain when a cannonball blast struck down de Graaf. Others suggest that the couple fled to Mississippi around 1698, where they may or may not have continued to pirate. And still, other tales claim that Dieu-le-Veut's spirit lived on in her daughter, who was said to be a badass in her own right by demanding a duel with a man while in Haiti.

Awilda,

Aghast at the thought of marrying a snake-slayer named Alf, she took off, leaving the palace disguised as a man. She gathered a band of disgruntled women also keen to staying single, commandeered a ship and set sail for a life of piracy; Together Awilda & her female crew learned to weild axes and swords, quickly establishing a fearsome reputation across the Scandinavian seas.

When they came across another ship, full of male pirates whose captain had just died, she managed to convince them all to follow her as their new captain!

Word had spread of this growing band of pirates and the Danes sent their own ships to try and capture her. By this time Awilda commanded a large fleet, when her old flame Alf led an expedition to hunt her down, he found himself outnumbered. However, displaying the same courage & wit as he had when defeating those snakes, he managed to put ship after ship out of action until he finally made it to the lead ship where Awilda was waiting, sword in hand.

He didn’t know that it was Awilda he was hunting and the realisation only hit him when, in the midst of a swashbuckling swordfight he knocked the helmet clean off her head and recognised the girl he had risked life & limb for all those years before by killing all those snakes!

Perhaps she was impressed by his sword skills or his willingness to stand down, perhaps she just had a change of heart or realised how perfect their names would sound together, either way she decided that Alf wasn’t too bad after all and that she would take him as her husband. In true fairy tale style they lived happily ever after as Queen & King of Denmark.

Sister Ping

Cheng Chui Ping, aka Sister Ping, was a woman who ran a successful human smuggling operation between Hong Kong and New York City from 1984 until 2000. She was arrested in Hong Kong in 2000 and extradited to the United States in 2003. She was held in U.S. Federal prison until she died in 2014 and nicknamed "The Mother of All Snakeheads," a translation of the Chinese word for "smuggler."

Skin Walkers?

Tue, 08 Feb 2022 23:55:19 -0500

Info take from:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/skinwalker

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/navajo-skinwalkers/

https://www.wjhl.com

The Uinta Basin is a section of the Colorado Plateaus province, part of the enormous Intermontane Plateaus division. It is also a geologic structural basin in eastern Utah, east of the Wasatch Mountains and south of the Uinta Mountains.

For as long as humans have lived in the Uintah Basin, they’ve seen strange things in the sky. In the 1970s, Utah State professor Frank Salisbury wrote a detailed, profoundly investigative book about hundreds of UFO sightings seen in the basin, called “The Utah UFO Display: A Biologists Report.”

However, the weird stuff goes way beyond strange flying anomalies. For 15 generations, indigenous tribes, including the Utes, have referred to this ridge as being “in the path of the skinwalker.”

In the Navajo culture, a skinwalker is a harmful witch who can turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal.

The legend of the shapeshifting entity known as the Skinwalker has primarily been seen as a hoax. It’s hard to believe that a human-like figure has been transforming into a four-legged animal and terrorizing families in the American Southwest for centuries.

While not precisely proven, the Navajo Skinwalker has profound roots in Native American lore.

So, what is a Skinwalker? As The Navajo-English Dictionary explains, the “Skinwalker” has been translated from the Navajo “Yee Naaldlooshii. The literal translation means “by means of it, it goes on all fours” — and the yee naaldlooshii is just one of many varieties of Skinwalkers, called ‘ánti’jhni and is considered one of the most volatile and dangerous witches.

For the Navajo people, witchcraft is just another part of their spirituality and one of the “ways” of their lives. Witchcraft has long been part of their culture, history, and traditions. Witches exist alongside humans and are not supernatural beings.

The Navajo believe there are places where the powers of both good and evil are present and that those powers can be harnessed for either. Medicine men utilize these powers to heal and aid members of their communities. At the same time, those who practice Navajo witchcraft seek to direct the spiritual forces to cause harm or misfortune to others. This type of Navajo witchcraft is known as the “Witchery Way,” which uses human corpses in various ways such as tools from the bones, and concoctions that are used to curse, harm, or kill intended victims. The knowledge of these powers is passed down from the elders through the generations.

The Navajo are part of a larger cultural area that includes the Pueblo people, Apache, Hopi, Ute, and other groups that also have their versions of the Skinwalker. Still, each consists of an evil witch capable of transforming itself into an animal.

Among these tribes, several stories and descriptions have been told throughout the years about the Skinwalkers.

Sometimes, these witches evolved from living their lives as respected healers or spiritual guides, who later chose to use their powers for evil. Though they can be male or female, they are more often male. They walk freely among the tribe during the day and secretly transform at night.

To become a Skinwalker, they must be initiated by a secret society that requires the evilest of deeds – the killing of a close family member, most often a sibling. Kind of like the soul stone. After this horrible task has been completed, the person then acquires supernatural powers, which give them the ability to shape-shift into animals. They are often seen in the form of coyotes, wolves, freddy foxes, cougars, dogs, and bears but can take the shape of any animal. They then wear the skins of the animals they transform into, hence, the name Skinwalker.

Sometimes, they also adorned animal skulls or antlers atop their heads, which brought them more power. They choose what animal they want to turn into, depending on the abilities needed for a particular task, such as speed, strength, endurance, stealth, claws, teeth, etc. They may transform again if trying to escape from pursuers.

Because of this, the Navajo consider it taboo for its members to wear the pelt of any predatory animal. However, sheepskin, leather, and buckskin are acceptable.

The skinwalkers can also take possession of the bodies of human victims if a person locks eyes with them. After controlling, the witch can make its victims do and say things that they wouldn’t otherwise.

Some traditions believe Skinwalkers are born of a benevolent medicine man who abuses indigenous magic for evil. The medicine man is then given mythical powers of sin that vary from tradition to tradition. Still, the power all traditions mention is the ability to turn into or possess an animal or person. Other practices believe a man, woman, or child can become a Skinwalker by committing any deep-seated evil deed.

The evil society of the witches gathers in dark caves or secluded places for several purposes – to initiate new members, plot their activities, harm people from a distance with black magic, perform dark ceremonial rites and tickle the taints of ceremonial voodoo dolls. These ceremonies are similar to other tribal affairs, including dancing, feasts, rituals, mutual masturbation, and sand-painting, but were “corrupted” with dark connotations. The evildoers are also said to engage in necrophilia with female corpses, commit cannibalism, incest, and grave robberies. During these gatherings, the Skinwalkers shape-shift into their animal forms or go naked, wearing only beaded jewelry and ceremonial paint. The leader of the Skinwalkers is usually an older man, who is a very powerful and longtime Skinwalker.

Skinwalkers also have other powers, including reading others’ minds, controlling their thoughts and behavior, causing disease and illness, destroying property, getting a woman to make up their mind about where to have dinner, and even death.

Those who have talked of their encounters with these evil beings describe several ways to know if a skinwalker is near. They make sounds around homes, such as knocking on windows, banging on walls, and scraping noises on the roof. On some occasions, they have been spied peering through windows. More often, they appear in front of vehicles in hopes of causing a severe accident.

Some claim that, in addition to being able to shapeshift, the Skinwalker is also able to control the creatures of the night, such as wolves and owls, and to make them do their bidding. Some can call up the spirits of the dead and reanimate the corpses to attack their enemies. Zombies. Boom! Because of this, the Native Americans rarely ventured out alone.

The skin walkers' supernatural powers are uncanny, as they are said to run faster than a car and have the ability to jump high cliffs. They are swift, agile, impossible to catch, and leave tracks that are larger than those of any animal. When they have been seen, they have been described as not quite human and not entirely animal. They are usually naked, but some have reported seeing the creature wearing tattered shirts or jeans, kind of like Bruce Banner.

The Skinwalker kills out of greed, anger, envy, spite, or revenge. It also robs graves for personal wealth and collects much-needed ingredients in black magic. These witches live on the unexpired lives of their victims, and they must continually kill or die themselves.

Skinwalkers and other witches have long been blamed for all manner of unexpected struggles and tragedies through the years, including sickness, drought, poor crops, and sudden deaths. Even more minor or individual problems such as windstorms during dances, alienation of affection by mates, the death of livestock, and reversal of fortune, were often believed to be the work of a witch.

This situation was most apparent with the Navajo Witch Purge of 1878, which initially evolved from a cultural response to many people moving across and onto their lands. After a series of wars with the U.S. Army, the Navajo were expelled from their land and forced to march to the Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner) in New Mexico in what is known as the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1864.

The people suffered from inadequate water, failed crops, illness, and death, reducing their numbers dramatically. After four years, the government finally admitted they had made a mistake, and the Navajo were allowed to return to their homeland in the Four Corners area.

During these years, many of the tribe’s members were said to have turned to shape-shifting to escape the terrible conditions. In the meantime, the rest of the tribe were convinced that their gods had deserted them.

Once the people had returned to their homeland, their conditions improved, but the dreaded skinwalkers, whom they blamed for their years on the bleak reservation, were still among them. Accusations of witchcraft and the hunting of the skinwalkers began. When someone found a collection of witch artifacts wrapped in a copy of the Treaty of 1868, the tribal members unleashed deadly consequences. The “Navajo Witch Purge” occurred in 1878, in which 40 Navajo suspected witches were killed to restore harmony and balance for the tribe.

Today, most of the tales of sightings of these witches do not include death or injury but instead are more “trickster-like.” So, the Native American equivalent of Loki.

Numerous people have told stories of swift animals running alongside their vehicles, matching their speed. After a short period, however, they run off into the wilderness. Along the way, these animals often turn into a man, who jumps out and bangs on the hood.

Another story tells of a man making repairs on an old ranch home when he began to hear loud laughter coming from the nearby sheep pens. Thinking he was alone, he investigated and found all sheep but one huddled in one corner of the pen. However, a lone ram was separated from the group, standing upright and laughing very human-like. After the man locks eyes with the ram, he sees that his eyes are not an animal but like a human’s. The animal then casually walked away on all four legs. Peyote’s a wonderful drug.

Some say they have seen the skinwalker running through the night, sometimes turning into a fiery ball, leaving streaks of color behind them. Others have seen angry-looking humanoid figures looking down on them from cliffs, mountains, and mesas.

In the 1980s, one of the most notable events occurred when a family was driving through the Navajo Reservation. As they slowed to make a sharp curve, something jumped from the ditch. It was described as black, hairy, and wore a shirt and pants. A few days after this event, at their home in Flagstaff, Arizona, the family was awakened to the sounds of loud drumming and chanting. Outside their home were three dark forms of “men” outside their fence. However, these shadowy creatures were seemingly unable to climb the fence and soon left.

These events have occurred in the Four-Corners area of southwest Colorado, southeast Utah, northeast Arizona, and northwest New Mexico.

In the 1990s, a ranch in northeast Utah, far away from the Navajo Reservation, became the partial focus of the Skinwalkers. Called the Sherman Ranch, the UFO Ranch, and most notably, the Skinwalker Ranch, this place has a history of UFOs, aliens, cattle mutilations, and crop circles. Located near the Ute Indian reservation, these people have long thought that the Navajo curse their tribe in retribution for many perceived transgressions. Since then, the skinwalkers have plagued the Ute people.

Witchcraft represents the antithesis of Navajo cultural values and is not tolerated. They work to avoid it, prevent it, and cure it in their daily behaviors. However, when it exists, their laws have always said that when a person becomes a witch, they have forfeited their humanity and their right to exist, so they should be killed.

However, skinwalkers are notoriously hard to kill, and attempts are usually unsuccessful. Trying to kill one will often result in the witch seeking revenge. Successful killing generally requires the assistance of a powerful shaman, who knows spells and rituals that can turn the Skinwalker’s evil, back upon itself. Another alternative is to shoot the creature with bullets dipped into white ash. However, this shot must hit the witch in the neck or the head. Double-tap!

Little more is known about the purported being, as the Navajo are reluctant to discuss it with outsiders — and often even amongst each other. Traditional belief threatens that speaking about the malevolent beings is not only bad luck but makes their appearance all the more likely.

Native American writer and historian Adrienne Keene explained how J.K. Rowling’s use of similar entities in her Harry Potter series affected indigenous people who believed in the Skinwalker.

“What happens when Rowling pulls this in, is we as Native people are now opened up to a barrage of questions about these beliefs and traditions,” said Keene, “but these are not things that need or should be discussed by outsiders.”

The rest of us Americans got our first real glimpse into the story of the Navajo legend in 1996 when an article titled “Frequent Fliers?” was published by the Utah-based news outlet, The Deseret News. The story told us of a Utah family’s unsettling experience with the creature that included cattle mutilations and disappearances, UFO sightings, and the appearance of, you guessed it, crop circles.

Terry and Gwen Sherman first observed UFOs of varying sizes hovering above their property, then seven of their cows died or disappeared. One was reportedly found with a hole cut into the center of its left eyeball. Another had its rectum carved out. Damn near killed ‘em.

The Shermans found dead cattle surrounded by an odd, chemical smell. One was found dead in a clump of trees. The branches above appeared to have been cut off.

One of the vanished cows had left tracks in the snow that suddenly stopped.

“If it’s snow, it’s hard for a 1,200- or 1,400-pound animal to just walk off without leaving tracks or to stop and walk backwards completely and never miss their tracks,” Terry Sherman said. “It was just gone. It was very bizarre.”

However, the family’s most traumatizing encounter happened 18 months after moving onto the ranch. Terry Sherman heard voices while walking his dogs late one night. Sherman reported that the voices spoke in a language he didn’t recognize. He estimated that they came from about 25 feet away — but he couldn’t see anything. His dogs went nuts, barked, and ran back hastily to the house.

On a different night, Sherman took his dogs for a walk around the ranch late at night when he came upon a wolf. But, of course, this wasn’t an ordinary wolf. It was three times larger than a regular wolf, had glowing red eyes, and just stood there when three close-range shots by Sherman hit its hide.

The Shermans dipped the hell out and sold the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in 1996 — after only 18 months of owning it.

The Sherman family weren’t the only ones traumatized on the property. After they moved out, several new owners experienced eerily similar encounters with these creatures, and today, the ranch has become a hub of paranormal research that’s aptly renamed Skinwalker Ranch.

While paranormal investigators probe the property with novel inventions, what they're looking for has a history that is centuries old.

The ranch is now fortified with barbed wire, private property signs, and armed guards.

UFO enthusiast and Las Vegas realtor Robert Bigelow bought the ranch for $200,000 in 1996. He established the National Institute for Discovery Science and put up substantial surveillance. The goal was to assess what exactly had been going on there.

Dr. John Alexander retired from Army intelligence as a colonel. He was part of the first scientific study of the ranch under the umbrella of NIDS, the National Institute for Discovery Science.

He continues to work as a consultant to the Department of Defense. After earning a Ph.D., Alexander was directly involved with the U.S. Army’s psychic warrior research program and then became one of the first employees of NIDS.

NIDS was a think tank created and funded by Las Vegas aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. After reading a Deseret newspaper story about UFO activity at the ranch, Bigelow flew to Utah, bought the property, and assigned a team of professionals to study the ranch and the basin.

The rancher and his neighbors told the NIDS team about a crapload of abnormal activity from shadow people appearing in and around the ranch house. In these poltergeist-type events, physical objects moved on their own, strange animals, including giant wolves and sasquatch, have been seen, as well as holes in the sky.

The scientists witnessed much of this for themselves, including animals carved up with surgical precision and ghostly images that appeared on camera. In all, they documented hundreds of paranormal events.

“Something else is in control,” John Alexander told Mystery Wire. “And if it wants you to find out, it may allow that, but if it doesn’t, this thing keeps morphing and changing into, you know, new shapes and forms. We had cameras there and things that happened just off-camera , sometimes in front of the camera, but you wouldn’t see them.”

The NIDS investigation was conducted secretly for years but was hindered by buttholes trying to screw with them.

A 2005 book, Hunt for the Skinwalker, revealed details about the ranch to the world and came to the attention of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). With the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the DIA launched its study of abnormal activity at the ranch and the more significant issue of UFOs.

In all, $22 million was allocated to the research. Reams of documents and reports were generated but have never been made public.

In December 2017 the New York Times revealed the Pentagon’s secret study of UFOs, but that article did not mention the far more mysterious encounters at the ranch.

Lue Elizondo was the intelligence officer in charge of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program – better known as AATIP. This Pentagon group studied the now-famous UFO videos called Tic Tac, Go Fast, and Gimbal, along with other military encounters. Elizondo coordinated with the DIA and the team investigating the ranch.

While the strange happenings at the ranch could be considered a spooky Halloween tale, told to scare the bejeezus out of people, it also involves national security.

“Let’s take the nature of Skinwalker Ranch out of the equation and just look at it from an intelligence problem,” Elizondo told Mystery Wire. “You have to ask yourself, ‘is this something that is occurring naturally? Is it something that is being deliberately done? Is it something that another nation could be behind trying to influence us?’”

The public got an inside look at the first two scientific studies of the ranch in a 2018 documentary film, Hunt for the Skinwalker. This film helped inspire a television program about the ranch's new owner, Utah businessman Brandon Fugal, who financed his own scientific study.

On March 12, 1997, Bigelow’s employee biochemist Dr. Colm Kelleher spotted a sizeable humanoid figure perched in a tree. Detailed in his book, “Hunt for the Skinwalker,” the creature was 20 feet off the ground and about 50 feet away. Kelleher wrote:

“The large creature that lay motionless, almost casually, in the tree. The only indication of the beast’s presence was the penetrating yellow light of the unblinking eyes as they stared fixedly back into the light.”

Kelleher fired at the supposed Skinwalker with a rifle, but it fled. It left claw marks and imprints on the ground. Kelleher described the evidence as signs of a “bird of prey, maybe a raptor print, but huge and, from the depth of the print, from a very heavy creature.”

This was only a few days after another scary incident. The ranch manager and his wife had just tagged a calf before their dog began acting strangely.

“They went back to investigate 45 minutes later, and in the field in broad daylight found the calf and its body cavity empty,” said Kelleher. “Most people know if an 84-pound calf is killed, there is blood spread around. It was as if all of the blood had been removed in a very thorough way.”

The distressing activity continued well into the summer.

“Three eyewitnesses saw a huge animal in a tree and also another large animal at the base of the tree,” continued Kelleher. “We had videotape equipment, night vision equipment. We started hunting around the tree for the carcass, and there was no evidence whatsoever.”

Ultimately, Bigelow and his research team experienced over 100 incidents on the property — but couldn’t amass the kind of evidence that scientific publication would accept with credulity. Bigelow sold the ranch to Adamantium Holdings for $4.5 million in 2016. Adamantium… I think someone’s screwing with us.

Nevertheless, the research on Skinwalker Ranch is more sophisticated and secretive than ever.

There are many stories about Skinwalkers online in such forums as Reddit, which I’ll read through a few in a minute. These experiences commonly occur on Native American reservations and are allegedly only prevented by the blessings of medicine men.

While it’s challenging to figure out just how truthful these accounts are, the descriptions are almost always the same: a four-legged beast with a disturbingly human, albeit marred face, and orange-red glowing eyes.

Those who claimed to have seen these Skinwalkers also said that they were fast and made hellish noises.

Skinwalkers have crept back into popular culture through television shows such as HBO’s The Outsider and the History Channel’s “The Secret Of Skinwalker Ranch” documentary series.

Since taking over Skinwalker Ranch, Adamantium has installed equipment all over the property including cameras, alarm systems, infrared, and more. Most alarming, however, are the accounts from company employees.

According to VICE, employee Thomas Winterton was one of several who randomly experienced skin inflammation and nausea after working on the grounds. Some had to be hospitalized, with no clear medical diagnosis for their condition.

This, and the following account, parallel some of the inexplicable events featured in Sci-Fi shows like The Outsider. As Winterton reported:

“I take my truck up the road, and as I start to get closer, I start to get really scared. Just this feeling that takes over. Then I hear this voice, as clear as you and me talking right now, that says, ‘Stop, turn around.’ I lean out the window with my spotlight out and start searching around. Nothing.”

The area surrounding Skinwalker Ranch has been dotted with crop circles and littered with UFO sightings and the disappearances of people and livestock.

Despite this dreadful experience, Winterton reported that he isn’t leaving Skinwalker Ranch anytime soon.

“It’s like the ranch calls to you, you know,” he said with a weird ass smile.

Reddit user skinwalker stories. Thank you Ranker.com for these

From Redditor /u/Neptune420:

My Father owns a small delivery service that operates out of Farmington, NM. We mostly deliver small packages out to the middle of nowhere that are too much of a hassle for the larger delivery companies to bother with. My Dad is the only employee and we have a few pickup trucks and a trailer.

One day we get a delivery out to Window Rock, AZ, on the Navajo reservation about two hours from Farmington. My Dad gets the call for the job while he is chilling with his Navajo friend, Travis and his girlfriend. Travis mentions how he's got family in Window Rock that he hasn't seen in ages and suggests they go with him.

I was about six or seven at the time and it was the summertime so Dad decides we'll go down together, he can do his delivery really quick, then while Travis sees his family we can go check out the Window Rock (big rock face with a large hole in it that goes to the other side, pretty cool.)

We had to convoy in separate trucks since my Dad's was loaded down with freight. We decided to bring along some talkie talkies so we could communicate with one another.

We spend our time in Window Rock, everything is generally uneventful and we start heading home along the old highway with my Dad and I in front, and Travis and his girlfriend in their truck behind us.

I honestly don't remember most of the Window Rock trip but this next part I can never forget.

We're somewhere on the highway between Window Rock and Gallop, NM. It had just rained earlier in the day and the road was kind of slick so we were taking it pretty slow. On the left of the highway there is nothing but sandstone cliffs and on the right there is a huge field separated from the road by a small barbed wire fence.

We crest the top of this hill and down at the bottom of the hill we see what appears to be a very large dog, sitting back on its haunches in the middle of the road, facing the cliffs.

My Dad calls over the radio "Hey Trav, do you see that big ass dog?" Travis starts yelling back over the radio "That is not a dog! Speed up right now and hit it!" He sounds almost hysterical. He just keeps screaming "Hit it! Jj you have to hit it! Please! PLEASE! Hit that f*cking thing right now!"

So my Dad starts to speed up and as we get a bit closer I can begin to see it a little more clearly. It's covered in this brown, wiry, matted hair that appears to have dried blood all over it. It's still facing the cliffs but the moment our headlights hit it, it turns and looks at us and it has a...face

I don't know how else to describe it other than a mix between a bear's and a humans' face. It looks twisted and distorted and almost in pain. As we get closer to this thing we start to realize it's actually f*cking huge. Though it was still sitting on its' haunches it is about shoulder height with the hood of the truck.

We get literally inches from hitting it when it lets out this scream that sounds like someone screaming as their lungs were filling with water and it leaps backwards, towards the field, landing just on our side of the barbed wire fence. Then with another leap it was gone from sight.

Travis is comes over the radio again, "Holy sh*t! Keep driving! We have to get out of here! We have to go faster!" he kept repeating that last part. We have to get out of here and we have to go faster.

Pretty soon we a speeding like crazy and just as we start to come near the outskirts of Gallup we get pulled over. Travis pulls his truck over with us. Naturally this makes the cop, a Navajo man himself, very on edge and he immediately asks why Travis felt the need to pull over as well. Travis says "We just saw a skinwalker a few miles back and it's been following us!" The officer immediately turns white, stammers something about a verbal warning gets in his car and takes off. We do the same.

We didn't see anything else that night but when we got home Travis refused to let us leave without taking some kind of Navajo totem thing that was supposed to keep it away.

From Redditor /u/Navajo_Joe:

I was a kid when this happened... My uncle and I were finishing up chopping/gathering firewood for my grandmother because it was getting dark. Driving back on a dirt road at about 30mph (give or take 5mph) I had this awful sense of being watched. Before I could turn to look out my window (passenger side) my uncle quickly shouted, "Don't!" I completely froze. My heart felt like it was beating out of my chest then completely stopped when I heard a tap tap on my window. My uncle sped up and was loudly praying in my native language. I didn't know what was going on and thought it was over till our truck suddenly dipped from the bed. My uncle then started saying, "Look at me" and "Don't turn away" over and over. Then I heard it again, tap tap but from the window behind me. It was getting harder for me to breathe and I wanted to cry. A minute or two passed and the truck dipped again. My uncle looked around and sighed. It was quiet besides the truck and the road. He looked at me and said, "We will ask your father to do a prayer in the morning. So the evil will forget our faces." (Navajo to English equivalent). I remember curling up on the seat and just staring at the radio watching the time. Listening to my uncle sing an old prayer till we got to my grandmother's house.

I called my uncle because I had a nightmare about that night. We talked about it for a bit. He said, “I didn’t see faces. Just eyes. Like brake lights you see on the road. It watched you.” (Navajo to English equivalent) Before hanging up I tried joking with him about it. "Why didn’t you just step on the brake when it was in the back?" No laughter. Just a pause. “Because it wasn’t alone.”

From Redditor /u/Iron_Jesus:

Anybody that has been on the Navajo reservation has either probably heard of some creepy things or have experienced pretty creepy things. Namely skinwalkers. I have only seen one. Here is my story.

I come from a small town in northern Arizona that’s sandwiched between the Paiute reservation to the north and the US’s largest Navajo reservation to the south. My high school being so small (a 1A high school that has, on average, 80 students enrolled every year.) always had to travel south about five to 10 hours one way to play another high school in any sport. This means that we traveled A LOT on the Navajo rez. And we also usually stayed at hotels when we would head out to play and come home in the morning but this trip was a little bit different. I remember the basketball coach saying that the school didn’t have enough money to put up the teams in a hotel that trip so we were going to be on the road for a total of about 12 hours.

I was the only male senior to play basketball that season. We had just got done playing our game and headed home on our bus “Big Blue.” We were headed out and it wasn’t long, about two hours of driving, before we had entered the rez. By this time, everyone was asleep with it being about two in the morning. When we had crossed the rez’s border I noticed the bus driver had sped up and was now going about 85 mph. I thought this was a little weird because he never exceeded the speed limit, at least not in my high school career. For some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep like the rest of my teammates, and I just sat at the back of the bus staring out across the desolate desert landscape that was lit up by the full moon.

As I looked out, I could see a figure running towards the bus at an angle of pursuit…and keeping up with the bus at 85 mph. As the figure got closer I saw that it was a humanoid form. As a matter of fact it looked exactly like a human, only that the face was painted half black and half white with glowing eyes. Glowing eyes like a rabbit’s eyes reflecting light from a spotlight. I immediately thought, “Holy crap! It’s a skinwalker!!” The skinwalker ran up to the edge of the road and just kept up pace with the bus hurdling sage brush and rocks while staring at me. After I made eye contact with the thing, I COULD NOT look away.

It was as if something was holding my head and eyes in place. The skinwalker just smiled at me this inhuman smile that went ear-to-ear, showing crooked, yellow, pointed teeth. I felt like I was going to throw up and I was panicking through the whole ordeal. The skinwalker started to crumple down on to all fours, still keeping up with the bus. I could see his bones crack and reform, hair started appearing all over the skinwalker’s body and in about 3 seconds was now a coyote and it ran off back into the desert out of view. As soon as it was gone, I ran to the onboard bathroom and puked a mixture of food and blood.

I didn’t want to tell anyone for fear they would think I was crazy. I confided in my Navajo friend. She told me that I needed to see the chief, who also happened to be a friend of mine, and get a blessing. I saw him the next school day in the parking lot. He just came up to me and mumbled something in Navajo while waving a feathered scepter-like thing, turned around, got in his truck and drove away. To this day, I haven’t seen another skinwalker. It might be due to the fact I moved away from that town and rez, and, if I do have to go south, I go around... WAY around.

From Redditor /u/jibbyjam1:

This all happened about five years ago. One night, a few of my friends decided after a night of hanging out that we’d go on an adventure at about 3 AM. We took a ride about 50 miles to this old Spanish ruin (in New Mexico), that was once the seat of the Inquisition. I can’t for the life of me remember what the place is called.

So we jump the front gate to the place and start exploring. One of my friends brought a flute with him and he started playing it and about 30 seconds into his (mediocre) playing, something started screaming really really loud on the tops of the long-destroyed walls of the place. It was going from wall to wall really quick, screaming the most blood-curdling scream you’ve ever imagined. We noped the f*ck out of there (one of my friends pissed his pants) and drove for a few hours to Bandelier National Monument where we planned to camp out at for the rest of the weekend.

We got to bandelier at probably like 6 or 7am and set up our camp. After a few hours just talking about what the hell happened at the ruins, I went to talked a piss behind a probably only like 300 feet from our camp. This is where everything starts getting a little fuzzy. I remember seeing 2 dust devils coming my way and when I turned around again, 2 of my friends were there and they were motioning me to follow them. I couldn’t help but to follow them, like I was being pulled behind them in shackles.

I followed them for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes and then I snapped out of it. These weren’t my friends they had bright red hair, with my friends faces and cat eyes. Both of these friends were brunette. I stopped walking and they looked at me with probably the most terrifying gaze I’ve ever seen. Monsters in movies are nothing compared to this. I turned around and ran as fast as I could back the way I came from.

After like 5 minutes of a full sprint, I got back to that rock that I pissed at and found our camp. Everyone was there, still sitting around talking and didn’t even notice that I was gone. I told them what happened with the look-alike skinwalkers and we packed up everything and left probably within like 10 minutes and got the hell back to Albuquerque.

Ok, last one!

From Redditor /u/NordicAlchemist:

As many of you might already know, many Navajo people (including my own family), are very reluctant to speak about skinwalkers because it is believed to attract their attention. Well, I however, grew up away from the Navajo Nation and was very naive about the subject. When it came to skinwalkers, I was an absolute skeptic. My mom used to tell a story of how back in the 80's when she lived with her siblings and my grandparents (still in Shiprock, but the southern outskirts) about how she and my aunt saw a skin walker just outside their driveway under a street light. She described it as a black dog with dirty fur, a twisted noodle-like front leg, and these unnatural eyes with a soft burnt orange glow. Me being my own closed minded self doubted every word, but I never said my doubts aloud.

BUT, these doubts totally changed last year when I went to my grandparents house last October. Me and my family had just finished scourging the carnival at the Navajo Nation Fair and called it night. The house was close enough where we could walk home in just 10 minutes, so we did. When we got there it was about 9 at night where we stayed up until about 2 catching up about family affairs and the local news. It was during that time that I just decidedly opened my mouth and blurt out the question, "Hey are skinwalkers real?". "guys?", I asked. "You shouldn't be speaking about that!" my grandma said with almost a disturbed yell in her voice. So she and my grandfather both decide to go to bed. After being scolded by my mom, one of my aunts chimes in with a very cautious tone and says, "They're real alright, had a few start screaming outside of my trailer in Farmington just a few night ago. You're cousin had nightmares the whole night and woke up crying that morning." Not wanting to push the discomfort any further, we all decided to go to bed. Now the trailer/home is pretty old and it was a really nice night, so we slept with the windows open with screens to prevent bugs coming in. Everyone had drifted off to sleep except me, because my mind was still going a million miles a minute about skinwalkers and wondered if I ever encounter one while here on the reservation (As a kid I was told its taboo to think about skinwalkers because it can still call their attention). That's when the sh*t totally hit the fan.

Just as I was settling and finally getting relaxed for sleep, I started to hear something moving outside. I get up from the couch and start wandering over to the kitchen window. In the trailer, all of the rooms have the lights out so the only visible light that can be seen is from the porch light out front. I was thankful for this because I told myself if it really was a skin walker outside then hopefully it wouldn't notice me seeing it. So I muster up the courage and take a quick scan of outside. From the porch light all I can see is the dusty ground and the vehicles that my family drove along with some old metal trashcans that stood beside the road. Looking for about a good 5 seconds, I wasn't able to see anything so I was getting ready to turn around and walk back to bed thinking it was just a stray cat or something. Only have taken two steps, I hear what sound like a distorted scream coming from outside, definitely close by. Fear rising, I look outside again and there I see it! A coyote-like figure was staring at my direction from behind the cars, just outside of the reach of the porch light. Only it looked, awfully wrong, and gave off an evil vibe just from seeing it. It was grey with very disheveled hair and a horrific orange-red soft glow came from its eyes. I noped the hell out and ran back to the bedroom. It was at this moment I had begun to also notice an awful stench in the air that smelled like rotting meat. I started trying to wake up my mom who was like, "omg, its almost 3am, what do you want?". I immediately began in a shaken voice, "there's something scary outside!". Then she said (now annoyed because I woke her up), "Ugh it's probably just a stray animal or something, it's the rez, animals wander all the time at night." She obviously wasn't getting the drift of what I was saying so I screamed, "THERE'S SOME BLAIR WITCH PROJECT SH*T GOING ON OUTSIDE, MA!!!"

that got her attention

"What?! What the hell are you talking about??" she said. Then we heard it, the thing outside started making more of it's dreadful like screams and started what sounded like thrashing outside on the ground. "Hear that?! That's what I'm talking about!" So both her and I got back up looked outside the window and the coyote-thing was making it's way to the door. It walked with an odd limp and dragged it's back right leg as if it has handicapped. We could hear it start to scratch against the door and make this odd muffled moaning sound. My mom went and got my dad and they both started shouted in Navajo all sorts of words telling the thing to go away and saying it's not welcome here. Well all this commotion was enough to get the rest of the trailer up as they came out into the hallway. The only thing my mom did was turn to them and said "skin walker" while proceeding to point to the door (noises STILL happening). Apparently they already knew exactly what to do as my grandfather got out a handgun from a drawer and a bag of ashes. He coated a few bullets and loaded them into the gun and went straight to the door. Yelling out more Navajo that was too fast for me to comprehend he swung open the door and fired twice. Nothing. The thing managed to escape before my grandpa could put a bullet in it. "That's the fastest one I've ever seen", said my grandpa. Next thing you know my aunts and my parents are freaking out about what just happened saying stuff like, "What if it comes back tomorrow?" and "It saw us, does that mean we're targets now?". Afterwards my grandparents calmed everyone down (myself included) saying we'll be fine and we all went to bed (around 3-ish)

Morning comes and my grandparents call one of their neighbors and explain to them what happened. Apparently one of them was a medicine man who used to partake in Yei Bi Chei's (Navajo ceremonies used for healing and curing sickness) and came over to bless each family member and the grounds outside.

The Keddie Cabin Murders

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:53:56 -0500

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In July of 1979, Glenna Susan "Sue" Sharp and her five children, John, fifteen, Ohhhhh Sheila, fourteen, Tina, twelve, Ricky, ten, and Greg, five, left her home in Connecticut after separating from her abusive husband, James Sharp, and their excessively turbulent marriage. She decided to take her children to northern California, where her brother Don lived. She began renting a small one-bedroom trailer formerly occupied by her brother at the Claremont Trailer Village in Quincy. Obviously, the cramped trailer wasn't working for the family so, the following fall, she moved to house #28 in the rural Sierra Nevada resort town of Keddie.

The resort was having financial troubles and had converted its once massively successful cabins into low-income housing. The house was much larger than the trailer and had become available when Plumas County's then-sheriff, Sylvester Douglas Thomas, moved out. The cabin was a bit beat up, but there were three rooms and plenty of other families nearby. The oldest son Johnny took the unfinished basement, her youngest boys, Rick and Greg, took a bedroom, Sue and Tina shared a room, and Sheila had a bedroom. The kids all had friends their own ages to hang out with, and, at least for that moment, everyone seemed happy and content.

Sue's ex-husband, James, had been in the Navy so, the family was familiar with moving a lot, and they looked forward to being in one place for a while. However, sue had a hard time making ends meet. She received $250 from her ex-husband, food stamps, and social welfare. She was also enrolled in a federal education program that gave her money to attend classes at the local community college.

Sue was taking business classes. Her classmates said she was a good student. Sue worked hard and obtained excellent grades. However, her classmates also said she was a loner; she didn't join in on coffee breaks and preferred studying alone rather than in a group setting. Perhaps years of abuse had taken a toll on her.

Sue faced a lot of stigmatism in the community. People didn't seem like she was on welfare and appeared to date many men. People gossiped, as nosy assholes always do, and accused her of dealing drugs or sleeping with men for money.

A significant reason for the gossip was that Sue just kept to herself. She didn't make many friends; this was most likely because she had spent most of her adult life moving and wasn't accustomed to establishing lasting friendships. Coming from someone that moved around a lot, it's always easier to distance yourself than to create relationships that could disappear at any given moment.

Sue didn't seem to mind being alone, and she didn't care what the Bridgettes and Mikes of the neighborhood had thought about her. She just looked forward to building her life. She wanted to own a small business, buy a house suitable for the kids and, most importantly, keep them safe.

On April 11, 1981, around 11:30 am, Sue, Sheila, and Greg drove from their friends' residence, the Meeks family, to pick up ten-year-old Ricky, who was attending baseball tryouts at Gansner Field in Quincy. They happened upon the oldest son, John, and his friend, Dana Hall Wingate hitchhiking from Quincy to Keddie and picked them up, then drove about 6 miles (9.7 km) toward Keddie. Two hours later, around 3:30 pm, John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy, where they may have had plans to visit friends for a party. Around this time, the two were seen in the city's downtown area.

That same evening, fourteen-year-old Sheila had plans to spend the night with the Seabolt family, who lived in a nearby cabin. At the same time, Sue remained at home with Rick, Greg, and the boys' young friend, Justin. The three boys had spent most of the day riding bikes and playing outside. Damn, I miss those days. Sheila left their home shortly after 8:00 pm, leaving her mother alone with the younger children. Twelve-year-old Tina, who had been watching television at the Seabolt's, returned home around 9:30 pm after Sheila arrived at the Seabolts' to spend the night. So, mom's at home with Ricky, Greg, their friend Justin and Tina on a Saturday night, just hanging out. John and his buddy were supposed to come home that night, but it was never apparent when.

Little Greg was the first to go to bed around 8:30 pm. Then Tina around 9:30. Ricky and Justin joined Sue to watch Love Boat, and then they went to bed around 10:00 pm. Sue remained on the couch watching TV, dozing off, but not ready to turn in. More than likely, she was waiting for John and Dana to return before calling it a night.

Around 7:00 am on Sunday, April 12, Sheila returned home to change clothes and head to church with the Seabolt's. What she discovered was something out of a nightmare; the dead bodies of Sue, John, and Dana in the house's living room. She recognized her brother John lying face up, covered in blood. Another boy was face down, and they were both tied at the feet. She saw a yellow blanket covering what she thought looked like another body, but she didn't know who. She ran out of the cabin, screaming, back to the Seabolt's who called the police. All three had been bound with medical tape and electrical cords. Tina was absent from the home, while the three younger children—Rick, Greg, and Justin—were unharmed in an adjacent bedroom. Initial reports stated that the three young boys had slept through the incident, though later contradicted. Sheila and James Seabolt Jr. went back to Cabin 28 to find the rest of the family. Looking into the cabin's windows, they saw the youngest boys and Justin sleeping in their bedroom. They woke them up by tapping on the window and insisted that they crawl through it, so they didn't have to see the horrors in the living room. James Seabolt later admitted to having briefly entered the home through the back door to see if anyone was still alive, potentially contaminating evidence in the process.

The murders of Sue, John, and Dana were incredibly ferocious. Two bloodied knives and one hammer were found at the scene. One of the knives (a steak knife later determined to have been used in the murders) had been bent at roughly 30 degrees, demonstrating the amount of aggression administered in the slayings. Blood spatter evidence from inside the house indicated that the murders of Sue, John, and Dana had all taken place in the living room. Tina was still unaccounted for.

This shit is pretty rough, so you've been warned.

Sue was found lying on her side near the living room sofa, nude from the waist down. She had been gagged with a blue bandana and her own panties, which had been secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest, her throat was stabbed horizontally, the wound going so deep that it went through her larynx and nicked her spine. On the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/pellet rifle. John's throat was slashed. Dana had multiple head injuries and had been manually strangled to death. In addition, John and Dana suffered blunt-force trauma to their heads caused by a hammer or hammers. Autopsies determined that Sue and John died from knife wounds and blunt-force trauma. Dana had died by asphyxiation.

Sheila and the Seabolt family (remember, Sheila had spent the night in the with them) heard no commotion during the night; a couple living in nearby house #16 was awakened at 1:15 am by what sounded like muffled screaming. Tina's jacket, shoes, and a toolbox containing various tools were missing from the house. There were no signs of forced entry, meaning the family possibly knew the killer or killers. The house's telephone had been taken off the hook and the cord cut from the outlet. The drapes were pulled closed.

The crime scene wasn't contained. The Plumas County Sheriff's Office initially handled it. Unfortunately, it was riddled with errors and oversights. Deputy Hank Klement was first on the scene, and he confirmed all three bodies were deceased.

Sergeant Jerry Shaver was next on the scene and spoke to a group of people outside, taking their statements. At some point, Shaver and Klement walked through the house, "reviewing the scene."

Sheriff Sylvester Stillbone Doug Thomas and assistant Sheriff Ken Shanks came to the scene, and then Don Stoy joined them. The scene now had five men walk through it (seven if you consider that James and Sheila had also entered the scene), none of whom knew how to preserve a crime scene.

It wasn't until all five men had walked through the home that photographs of the scene were taken. Next, officers did house-by-house welfare checks and interviewed potential witnesses, and it wasn't until several hours that officers noticed Tina was unaccounted for.

Original composite sketches of two suspects based on testimony from Justin, who claimed to have witnessed the crimes.

Justin gave conflicting stories of the evening, including that he had dreamed details of the murders. However, he later claimed to have actually witnessed them. In his later account of events, told under hypnosis, Justin claimed to have awoken to sounds coming from the living room while asleep in the bedroom with Rick and Greg. Investigating these sounds, he saw Sue with two men: one with a mustache and short hair, the other clean-shaven with long hair; both wore glasses. According to Justin, John and Dana entered the home and began heatedly arguing with the men. A fight ensued, after which Tina entered the room and was taken out of the cabin's back door by one of the men.

Based on Justin's descriptions, composite sketches of the two unknown men were produced by Harlan Embry, a man with no artistic ability and no training in forensic sketching. It was never explained why, with access to the Justice Department's and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's top forensic artists, law enforcement chose to use an amateur who sometimes volunteered to help local police. In press releases accompanying the sketches, the suspects were described as being in their late 20s to early 30s; one stood between 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) to 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall with dark-blonde hair, and the other between 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) and 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) with black, greased hair. Both wore gold-framed sunglasses.

Rumors regarding the crimes being ritualistic or motivated by drug trafficking were dismissed by Plumas County Sheriff Doug Thomas. In the week following the murders, he stated that no drug paraphernalia or illegal drugs were found in the home. Carla McMullen, a family acquaintance, later told detectives that Dana Wingate had recently stolen an unknown quantity of LSD from local drug dealers. However, she was unable to provide proof of this claim. About 4,000 man-hours were spent working the case, which Thomas described as "frustrating." In December 1983, detectives ruled out serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole as potential suspects. (Bonus)

Tina's disappearance was initially investigated by the FBI as a possible abduction. However, it was reported on April 29, 1981, that the FBI had "backed off" the search as the California State Department of Justice was doing an "adequate job" and "made the FBI's presence unnecessary." A grid pattern search of the area covering a 5-mile (8.0 km) radius around the house was conducted with police canines, but the efforts were fruitless.

The hope at the time was that Tina was hiding in the woods. She was known to create forts and hideouts. However, On April 22, 1984, three years and eleven days after the murders, roughly 100 miles (160 km) from Keddie, a bottle collector discovered the top of a human skull and part of a jaw bone at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in neighboring Butte County. Shortly after announcing the discovery, the Butte County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous call that identified the remains as belonging to Tina. Still, the call was not documented in the case. However, a deputy assigned to the case in 2013 found a recording of this call. It was at the bottom of an evidence box. The remains were confirmed by a forensic pathologist to be those of Tina in June 1984. Near the remains, detectives discovered a blue nylon jacket, a blanket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket, and an empty medical tape dispenser.

According to truecrimemysteries.medium.com,

The most confusing thing about the homicide was that three young boys slept through the entire ordeal. The killers just left them as potential witnesses. Ricky and Greg supposedly had no recollection, and the first thing they remembered was Sheila waking them.

Justin reported telling his mother that he had dreamed he had heard noises in the living room. When he opened the bedroom door, he saw Sue talking to two men, and Johnny and Dana walking in the front door and began arguing with the men, a fight broke out, and Tina came into the room but was quickly taken outside by one of the men.

It is important to note that Justin's testimonies changed at various points in his life, and the most detailed recount he gave was under hypnosis. So his statement also doesn't quite align with the evidence, but it is strongly believed that he was a witness, and the trauma of the ordeal is why he doesn't have a robust and consistent memory.

As we mentioned, investigators found two bloody kitchen knives used with such force that one was severely bent, a hammer, and a pellet gun. In addition, each victim had been bound with medical tape and electrical cords taken from various appliances around the home and extension cords.

Evidence collected by investigators were drops of blood on Tina's bed, a bloody footprint in the yard, knife marks on various walls in the home, and a bloody fingerprint on the inside of a door frame and a railing.

It is strongly believed that at least two people would have been needed to control the chaos. The killers were also in no rush. The victims died of their wounds, except for Dana. There were lone pools of blood on the living room floor, indicating the boys had been moved and repositioned. The bottoms of Sue's bare feet and one of the boy's shoes were covered in blood, suggesting that they were mobile and had walked in blood at one point.

Detectives noted a lack of fingerprints and identifiable DNA left at the scene. This led the detectives to believe that the suspects wore gloves and were prepared. Forensic evidence wasn't collected until the mid-1980s, so hair, skin cells, and other DNA transfers weren't gathered from the scene. All blood at the scene was determined to belong to the victims.

The Plumas County Sheriff's department interviewed everyone in the Keddie cabins and anyone else who knew the victims. Among those interviewed was Justin Eason's stepfather, Martin Smartt. A neighbor and main suspect, Martin Smartt, claimed that a claw hammer had inexplicably gone missing from his home. Plumas County Sheriff Sylvester Thomas, who presided over the case, later stated that Martin had provided "endless clues" in the case that seemed to "throw the suspicion away from him." In addition to interviewing the Smartts, detectives interviewed numerous other locals and neighbors; several, including members of the Seabolt family, recalled seeing a green van parked at the Sharps' house around 9:00 pm.

According to Smartt, on the night of the murder, he, his friend John "Bo" Boubede, and his wife Marilyn had stopped at Sue's cabin to invite her to the bar with them. Sue declined, and they went to the bar. Smartt complained to the manager about the music being played at the bar. They left shortly afterward and headed back to the Smartt cabin, walking by cabin 28. Marilyn went to bed around 11 pm, and the men went back to the bar to have more drinks.

He said that he and Bo had returned home around midnight. Since the police hadn't released information that a hammer was missing from the crime scene, this put Martin at the top of the suspect list.

Martin had met Boubede a few weeks before April 11, while in a Veterans hospital where Martin was receiving treatments for PTSD from serving in Vietnam.

The Smartt's moved Boubede into their home until he could get on his feet. Boubede allegedly didn't think highly of Johnny Sharp calling him a "Punk."

Boubede had told the people in Keddie that he had been a cop, and Martin was friendly with most officers. Someone in the sheriff's department allegedly tipped off Martin and Boubede that they were suspects, and both men quickly found work outside of California.

Boubede was thought to have gone back to Chicago, and Smartt found a job in Nevada. Boubede died in Chicago in 1988.

Martin Smartt wasn't the best husband. He was said to have cheated on his wife. He was abusive and prone to violent outbursts and sold drugs. He had worked at the Keddie hotel as a cook but had been fired some weeks before the murders.

Sue, Martin, and Marilyn had all been taking the same business courses, and it was said that Sue had been counseling Marilyn on leaving her husband. After April 11, Martin took work in Nevada, and his marriage to Marilyn began to deteriorate.

He had sent her a letter where it sounds as though he is confessing to the murders. The letter reads as follows:

"I've paid the price for your love, and now I've bought it with four lives and you tell me we're through. Great!"

They did divorce eventually, and Marilyn got remarried.

Martin regularly saw a counselor for his PTSD. According to the counselor, Smartt admitted that he had "killed Sue and Tina but had nothing to do with the boys. Tina had to be killed because she had seen everything".

The counselor allegedly told Plumas County Sheriff's Office what Smartt had told her, but there is no evidence of that statement ever taken.

Martin died of cancer in Portland, Oregon, in June 2000. However, Marilyn did go on the record to state she believed her ex-husband and Bo Boubede were responsible for the murders. After she had gone to bed, she said they went back to the bar, and at 2 am, she woke up to find them burning unknown items in the woodstove.

Although there is no evidence to corroborate her statements, it would explain why Justin was left with the younger boys sleeping. It may also explain why Justin's story changed, he could have blocked it from trauma, or he may have been threatened to stay quiet.

Keddie and the rest of Plumas County were never the same after April 11. It changed the community, and people were haunted. Many believed that someone among them had or knew who had committed the attacks.

People began locking their doors at night. There were strong beliefs in the community that the Plumas County Sheriff's Office had quietly tucked the case away. Many believed that some leads weren't followed, evidence wasn't checked, some evidence was ignored completely.

The house in which the murders occurred was demolished in 2004.

In 2016, a hammer was found in a pond near Cabin 28 by someone using a metal detector in the area. It matched the description of the hammer Martin had claimed to have lost and it and a knife that was also found at the scene was taken into evidence by Plumas County Special Investigator Mike Gamberg. Plumas County Sheriff Hagwood, who was sixteen years old at the time of the murders and knew the Sharp family personally, stated: "the location it was found... It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced." Gamberg also said that six potential suspects were being examined at that time.

In April 2018, Gamberg stated that DNA evidence recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene matched that of a known living suspect. No word on if they have been any aid to the investigation. There is still a $5,000 reward for any leads leading to an arrest and prosecution. The lead investigators currently working on the case are confident that they will have this solved soon. They are quoted as saying,

"There are persons of interest still living who knew or participated in this crime and should now be worried."

Sheila Sharp continues to work with law enforcement and the media to keep her family's cold case alive.

Gamberg and his partner Hagwood say they are closer now to solving this case than ever before.

"I think it would lift an incredible weight to clear the dark skies that have hung over that community and the surviving family members," Hagwood said.

The surviving family members have been severely impacted by this case.

"Things came to an abrupt screeching halt. Opportunities and experiences that were denied. By such a cruel heinous act. It's unforgivable," Hagwood said.

To solve this case, a weight would be lifted. Darkness would no longer cloud Keddie and the minds of all those involved.

"I believe in one-way shape or form we are going to pull this together," Detective Gamberg said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Plumas County Sheriff's office at (530) 283-6360.

Creepy Ireland

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 01:44:54 -0500

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Creepy Ireland

Today's episode is on Creepy Ireland. To kick it off right, we wanted to say "top of the mornin' to ye '’' but seeing as how that's just a silly Hollywood invention, we are instead going to say "A hundred thousand welcomes."

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, I reached out to a friend of ours, Katie, who’s father is directly from Ireland. I asked her to see if he had any sort of creepy interactions over there. She also reached out to a cousin who lives over there and I received this message, this morning:

Oh boy I hit the jackpot reaching out to my cousins in Ireland I had no idea about this but here’s her message.

Ohhh some that I've heard, well as it happens 😅 Our cousin Sibeal, your cousin too (Shib-ale) her dad is part of PSI Ireland, Paranormal Study Investigations they have a whole Facebook/Tiktok following so he could have some good stuff

Yes, they have a website and everyone should go check it out and tell them we sent you. It’s http://psiireland.com/

Oh, and the response from Katie’s father:

(From her mother)

Dad said he can’t think of anything. I asked him about the fairies and the bancheez and he said he never saw any of them. The only thing we can think of was when they had to break his dead great uncles legs to get him in his coffin because they died at home and rigor mortis set in.

Amazing.

Well, it's not much like the Irish or us to beat around the bush, so if you don't like that then, "Fuck off while you still got the legs to carry ya."

First off, let's do what we do and talk about the country of Ireland and its history.

Ireland is a beautiful, lavishly green island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. The first is Greenland. Pretty impressive. By the way, the name "St George's Channel" is said to be recorded in 1578 in Martin Frobisher's record of his second voyage. It derives from a legend that Saint George had voyaged to Roman Britain from the Byzantine Empire, approaching Britain via the channel that bears his name. The name was popularized by English settlers in Ireland after the Plantations.

Funny story about Martin Frobisher; He was a privateer that used to rob French ships. Frobisher also found what he thought was gold ore and carried 200 tons of it home on three ships. They initially determined it to be worth a profit of £5.20 per ton (Roughly $7 U.S. Dollars), Which today would equate to around $237 per ton, making the haul worth approximately $47,400. Encouraged by his newfound wealth, Frobisher returned to Canada with an extensive fleet and dug several mines around Frobisher Bay. He carried 1,350 tons (approximately $319,950 today) of the ore back to England, where, after years and years of smelting, they realized that the ore was an utterly worthless rock called hornblende, which is typically dark green and shows how dumb people were back in the 16th Century.

Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. In 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.6 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. As of 2016, 4.8 million people lived in the Republic of Ireland, and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland.

Ireland has low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several rivers extending inland. Its lush vegetation is a product of its mild but changeable climate, free of extremes in temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. Sounds nice. Much of Ireland was primarily forests until the end of the Middle Ages. Today, woodland makes up about 10% of the island, compared with a European average of over 33%. There are twenty-six land mammal species native to Ireland; this includes the Red Deer, which is believed to have been present in Ireland for at least 12,000 years. The mighty red deer is Ireland's most significant land mammal and the only current species of deer considered "native" to the country. The Irish climate is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and thus very moderate, and winters are milder than expected for such a northern area. However, summers are cooler than those in continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant. Like, a lot.

Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century AD. The island was Christianised from the 5th Century forward. Following the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion, England claimed supreme power over Ireland. However, English rule did not extend over the entire island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonization by settlers from Logan and my distant relatives, the Brits. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially screw over the Catholic majority and Protestant protesters and was extended during the 18th Century. Finally, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. In the early 20th Century, the island's partition followed a war of independence, thus creating the Irish Free State, which became increasingly on its own over the following decades, and Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the United Kingdom.

Ok, that is a little history on the country of Ireland, and just a little side note, the wife and I are actually looking into going over to Ireland with my best pal and Patreon POOPR, Bill Birch, to visit his girlfriend's awesome family!

Now, let's get into the CREEPY side of Ireland.

What would a creepy episode be without a haunted castle or two or 30,000? Yes, there is approximately 30,000 muffin farmin' castles in Ireland, and, HELL NO, we're not talking about them all.

Loftus Hall, County Wexford. Known as the most haunted house in Ireland and said to be haunted by the Devil himself, the fate of Loftus Hall as one of the most haunted places in Ireland was perhaps set in stone due to its construction in 1350 during the time of the Black Death. (head back and listen to that episode) However, the legend of Loftus Hall actually dates from the 18th Century, when a mysterious stranger came calling on the Tottenham family, who occupied the house at the time. Legend has it that the Tottenham daughter, Anne, soon realized that this mysterious stranger was none other than the mother fuckin Devil due to the apparent fact that he had a cloven hoof in place of his foot. Good catch, Anne. Soon after, the mysterious stranger disappeared when he flew up and through the roof. Having disgraced the family due to her supposed hysterics, Anne was subsequently locked away in her room, where she died several years later. Psilocybin, anyone? Odd side note, in 2006, Minister for Health Mary Harney banned the sale and possession of magic mushrooms containing psilocybin following the tragic death of a 33-year-old Dublin man who jumped from a balcony while hallucinating. Oof It is said that mushroom Anne actually haunts Loftus Hall, which is said to be a hive of poltergeist activity, even today. That sonofabitch Devil also left his mark on Loftus Hall, where he left a mysterious mark on the roof, which visitors could view via a pre-booked guided tour of the hall if it were still functioning as a ghost trap. Yep, as far as I know, it's still for sale. As with most ghost stories, especially ones from forever ago, there are always variations to the story, and, of course, I found one.

One evening Charles was resting in his home in 1775 with his second wife and daughter from his first marriage, Anne, while the Loftus family were away on business. A ship unexpectedly arrived at the Hook Peninsula during a storm, where the mansion was located. A young man was welcomed into the mansion. Anne and the young man became very close. One night, the family and the mysterious man were in the Game Room playing cards. Each player received 3 cards apart from Anne, who was only dealt 2 by the mystery man in the game. A butler serving the Tottenham family at the table was just about to question the man when Anne bent down to pick another card from the floor, which she must have dropped. It is said that when Anne bent over to pick up the card, she looked beneath the table to see that the mysterious man had a cloven foot.

It was then that Anne stood up and said to the man: "You have a cloven foot!" So the man went up through the roof, leaving behind a large hole in the ceiling. Soon Anne became mentally ill. It is believed that the family was ashamed of Anne and locked her away in her favorite room, where she would be happy, yet out of everyone's view, which was known as the Tapestry Room. Anne refused food and drink and sat with her knees under her chin, looking out the Tapestry Room window across the sea to where Dunmore East is today, waiting for her mysterious stranger to return until Anne died in the Tapestry Room in 1775. It is said that when she died, they could not straighten her body, as her muscles had seized, and she was buried in the same sitting position in which she had died.

Ballygally Castle, County Antrim. Said to be one of the most haunted places in all of Ulster, the picturesque Ballygally Castle, which sits on the coast, is haunted by several different ghosts. The most well-known of these entities is the ghost of Lady Isabella Shaw. This so-called 'Ghost of Ballygally' has a penchant for knocking on bedroom doors in the dead of night. Though restless, Lady Isabella is a friendly ghost who roams the halls looking for the child taken from her at birth by her cruel husband, Lord James. Once in possession of his child, legend has it that Lord of buttholes James locked his wife away in a tower, where she fell –or was pushed – to her death sometime later. Today, visitors can climb a spiral staircase to view the 'Ghost Room' where Lady Isabella lived her tragic final days. In 2003, manager Olga Henry mentioned that after spending time in the hotel, "I'm sort of very skeptical about the whole supernatural Thing and ghosts. But the more I stay here and work here, the more I think there's definitely something in this hotel." According to Olga, a guest was staying in one of the rooms, located in the tower beneath the "Ghost Room." In the middle of the night, he awoke, half asleep, believing he was at home and that one of his children had laid their tiny hands on his back. He woke up, realizing where he was, and said that he could hear a child running about the room and laughing, but nothing could be seen, so he ran into the lobby wearing nothing but his boxers, scared to shit. In December 2003, Olga had set up the "Dungeon Room" in the tower, as they were expecting guests and requested that the table be neatly prepared for dinner service. She locked the room and later checked on it. The table was a complete mess with unfolded napkins glasses with an unusual scum around them and was now arranged on the table in a circle. Mediums spending the night at the castle have often reported that they've detected more active ghosts than guests actually staying at the hotel.

Ross Castle

Ross Castle is now run as a B&B and was initially built in 1536 by local ruling clan the O'Donoghues Mór (Ross), though ownership changed hands during the Second Desmond Rebellion of the 1580s to the MacCarthy Mór. He then leased the castle and the lands to Sir Valentine Browne, ancestor of the Earls of Kenmare. The castle was the last to surrender to Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads during the Irish Confederate Wars. It was only taken when a boat brought artillery via the River Laune. Lord Muskerry held the castle against Edmund Ludlow, who marched to Ross with 4,000-foot soldiers and 200 horses; however, it was by water that he attacked the stronghold. The Irish had a prophecy that Ross could never be taken until a warship could swim on the lake, an unbelievable prospect.

"Ross may all assault disdain. Till on Lough Lein strange ship shall sail."

Guests often wake at night hearing voices and doors banging and shutting on their own. Paranormal believers say the spirit of an English lord's daughter haunts the castle. So does the ghost of Myles "The Slasher" O'Reilly, the Irish chieftain folk hero, spent his last night here before dying in battle in 1644.

Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin

More than 1.5 million people are buried in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery, none arguably more prominent than Michael Collins, the nationalist leader killed in the Irish Civil War in 1922, among the most visited sites in Glasnevin. At least 183 soldiers of the Irish Free State were buried around him. In 1967 their names were recorded on a memorial around Collin's grave.

In 1993, a mass grave containing the remains of 155 women was uncovered at the site of a "Magdalene laundry" in High Park, Drumcondra. "Magdalene laundries" were institutions used to house "fallen women" (primarily referring to prostitutes). The Sisters from the Convent arranged to have the remains cremated and reburied in a mass grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, splitting the cost of the reburial with the developer who had bought the land.

The cemetery also offers a view of the changing style of death monuments in Ireland over the last 200 years: from the austere, simple, high stone erections of the period up until the 1860s, to the elaborate Celtic crosses of the nationalistic revival from the 1860s to the 1960s, to the plain Italian marble of the late 20th Century.

So, obviously, tales of ghosts and paranormal happenings shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. But it's the story of one Newfoundland dog that seems to get the most notice. When his master died, the faithful canine companion refused to leave the gravesite, eventually starving to death. Sad as fuck. But! The dog's apparition has been spotted at the tombstone.

Loughcrew, Neolithic Cemetery

The Loughcrew Cairns are passage tombs. 32 of them, in fact, were built over 5,000 years ago, and no one knows who made them. The Irish name for the cairns is Sliabh na Cailli, or "the Hills of the Witch." Legend has it that a witch built them by jumping from one hill to the next, dropping stones from her apron to form the cairns.

Castle Leslie, County Monaghan

Built in 1870, Castle Leslie's Red Room is supposedly inhabited by Norman Leslie, who died abroad in 1914 and returned to the castle as a ghost.

This actually comes from their official website:

"The Red Room has been at the centre of family life at Castle Leslie Estate for centuries – a doorway in and out of this life, so to speak. Anita Leslie King gave birth to her daughter Leonie in this room.

Norman Leslie was seen by Lady Marjorie Leslie beside the chest of drawers in 1914, a few weeks after he had been killed on the battlefields of France. He appeared as if in a cloud of light, reading through some of his letters as if he was searching for one in particular. Lady Marjorie sat up in bed with a start and said, `Why Norman – what are you doing here?' He simply turned to her and smiled, then faded away.

Lady Marjorie held court and received visitors in the Red Room until her death in 1951. At the very moment of her departure, she appeared in Desmond Leslie's London flat where his son Sean, then a baby, was dying of a poisoned mastoid. She came up the corridor in a gust of wind touched Sean, who suddenly said, "pain gone." He was perfectly cured.

About the same time, Desmond's mother-in-law, Emmy Bernauer, had a vision of Marjorie pointing across the lake to a fantastic palace glowing in the sky. Marjorie said to her, `Look where I am going to live now.'"

Castle Leslie gained media attention in 2002 when Sir Paul McCartney married Heather Mills in the family church located on the estate.

The Hell Fire Club, County Dublin Montpelier Hill, or the Hell Fire Club, is an old hunting lodge set in the Dublin mountains, with an extraordinary past indeed. Founded in the 18th Century by Richard Parsons, a Freemason and the first Earle of Rosse, the Hell Fire Club invited its members to deviate from the social norms of the day and take a walk on the wild side of life. If the Hell-Fire Club had a motto, it was probably 'Anything Goes.' From debauched behavior to satanic rituals, it seems that nothing was off-limits for members of the Hell Fire Club. Indeed, it is said that the ultimate aim for members of the Hell Fire Club was to summon Satan to their meetings. To this effect, members of the club, led by their president 'The King of Hell,' dabbled in black magic and conducted black masses. If legend is to be believed, the Hell Fire Club also sacrificed animals and even dabbled in cannibalism, offering and then consuming a servant girl in their quest to summon the Dark Lord.

One pretty creepy tale refers to a young man, a visitor to a local farmhouse. Hearing stories about it, he goes to investigate the club's activities. The following day he is found dead. His host and the local priest, believing him to have been murdered, go to the club to investigate. The priest enters only to see a banquet laid out and a black cat prowling the room. But this is no ordinary cat. It's friggin huge, and the priest notices that its ears are shaped like horns. Having a small bottle of holy water in his pocket, as one does, the priest decides to attempt an exorcism. The result tears the beast apart. Outside, the young man's host is found lying on the ground, his face and neck deeply scratched by strong claws.

Leamaneh Castle, County Clare There are a lot of haunted castles in Ireland; however, Leamaneh Castle in County Clare might be the castle with the most popular dark history of all. Red Mary, known for her flaming locks and fiery temper, ruled Leamaneh Castle with her husband and an iron fist. She often hung servant girls from the windows by their hair until they died. Married at least twenty-five times, it's said that one of Mary's many (and possibly last) husbands met an untimely end when she kicked him in the stomach until he died. Not surprisingly, Mary made a shit load of enemies, some of whom eventually captured the ginger widow, throwing her into a hollowed-out tree, where she ultimately starved to death. Today, Red Mary is said to haunt the ruins of Leamaneh Castle with her tormented screams and sightings of a fiery red-headed apparition stalking the area.

Hill of Tara

Yes, the Hill of Tara is a hill and an ancient ceremonial burial site near Skryne in County Meath, in Ireland. The Hill of Tara is one of the most important ancient sites in Europe and an important symbolic and mystical landscape in Ireland itself. It's believed the site was first used for burials around 3200 BC: the oldest passage tomb dates back to this point. An additional 33 Bronze Age burial sites have been discovered, and all were used for high-status individuals.

The Iron Age is when Tara became truly important. By early Christianity, it was the site of over 100 coronations of High Kings of Ireland: all roads in Ireland led back to Tara in this period of its prominence. The Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, reportedly would let out a roar when it was touched by the rightful king. They say it still emits a vibration to this day.

St Patrick is said to have visited the site, and evidence suggests that by the 11th Century, a church had been built on the site.

Early 20th century Israelites came to Tara to unearth the Ark of the Covenant, which they were convinced was buried on this famous site. Digging in the Mound of the Synods, their unsuccessful efforts (shocker) found only some Roman coins. An official archeological dig in the 1950s revealed circles of post holes that indicated the construction of substantial buildings there. A new theory has arisen that Tara was, you ready for it? The ancient capital of the lost kingdom of Atlantis and that Atlantis was actually Ireland.

Charleville Castle, County Offaly

A Gothic-style castle (meaning it wears all black, loves Morrisey, and most likely has Daddy issues), it is located in County Offaly, Ireland, bordering the town of Tullamore, near the River Clodiagh. It is considered one of the finest of its type in the country. The castle itself has been claimed to be the most haunted building and grounds in Europe, appearing on Living TV's Most Haunted and Fox's Scariest Places on Earth. The most famous of these ghosts is a little girl called Harriet, who died after a fall on a staircase in 1961. She's been heard Singing in the middle of the night, screaming and laughing -- this strange mix of sounds has been reported by numerous visitors to the castle. It has also been visited by multiple paranormal investigators and psychics. The castle was photographed by Sir Simon Marsden. It also appeared on Ghost Hunters International. It was also used as a filming location for Becoming Jane (2007), Northanger Abbey (2007), and The Green Knight (2020).

Wicklow Gaol, County Wicklow

Is a former prison, now a museum. There has been a prison on the site since the late eighteenth Century. Prisoners were held at Wicklow Gaol during the 1798 Rebellion, the Great Famine, and many were held there before penal transportation. I just put that last bit in there because of the word "penal." When a paranormal group visited and broadcast their investigation on TV, Wicklow Gaol became known as one of the most haunted places in Ireland. Some of the strange unexplained events and encounters reported include:

A man walked in front of the bars to the holding cell/dayroom on the ground floor.
A woman in a full-length black velvet cloak with the hood up has been seen walking towards the two rooms on the ground level.
A smell of roses or, at other times, bad smells sometimes emanate from Cell 5.
A green mist floating around the main floor.
A man was seen walking from cell 19 to the end of the walkway. Some people have commented that he held his hands behind his back.
A man has been seen standing in the far corner of the ship's upper deck.
Some women have reported feeling extremely uneasy on the upper deck, experiencing a sense of fear or apprehension.
On the lower deck, people often report seeing shadows out of the corner of their eye.
Some visitors have reported seeing or hearing children crying on the top floor.

Leap Castle

Probably the most popular one thus far, fierce family squabbles have plagued this castle, built in the 15th-century. First, brother turned against brother; one was killed as he held Mass in the chapel. Then, centuries later, a gruesome discovery was uncovered: a dungeon filled with human bones – the remains of those imprisoned and executed in the castle. Today, several apparitions have been reported. Among them is "It," a small gray human figure with a skeletal face.

Of the many haunted castles in Ireland, Leap Castle, with a history steeped in betrayal and murder, is possibly the most notorious. However, the castle is also one of the most well-known symbols of haunted Ireland, having achieved fame the world over due to appearances in TV shows such as 'Ghost Adventures' and 'Most Haunted.' From the 'Red Lady' who roams the castle clutching a blade (yikes! This one has a knife!) to the discovery of hundreds of skeletal remains, this is a building with a past that is really high up on the "Nah, I'm good" list.

One of the most unsettling tales is the story of brothers Thaddeus and Teighe O' Connell. Following their father's death, the two brothers found themselves locked in a battle to determine the leadership of their clan. Thaddeus, the older brother, and a priest, was saying Mass when Teighe entered the chapel and fatally stabbed him, thus inheriting the title of Chief. From that day on, the chapel where Thaddeus was brutally slain has been known as the Bloody Chapel, with Thaddeus haunting the creepy-ass building.

Surprisingly, Musician Sean Ryan, who bought Ireland's most haunted castle in the 1990s, still lives there today. We may not have any idea who this dude is, but the fact that he lives there with his family is pretty badass.

Here's a little story from a woman who used to live in the castle:

"On the November 25th, 1915 two of our servants, knowing the 'master' would be late and that I was driving that afternoon, had invited 'friends' two soldiers from the Barracks at Birr distant the other side six miles. They came rather late and my husband came home early so the visitors had to be kept out of his sight in the lower regions of one of the wings (the Priests House) and were unable to be shown the centre tower – the very lofty hall. At 7:15 my husband and I went up to dress for dinner, my room in the extremity of the house from the kitchens, his dressing room next door to me.

"Whilst dressing I was startled by a loud yell of terror stricken male and female voices coming apparently from the hall — and ran out to see the cause. My husband was out ahead of me at his heels. I passed through the corridor of the wing and onto the gallery …. On the gallery leaning with 'hands' resting on its rail I saw the Thing – the Elemental and smelt it only too well. At the same moment my husband pulled up sharply about ten feet from the Thing, and half turning let fly a volley of abuse at me ending up 'Dressing up a thing like that to try and make a fool of me. And now you'll say I've seen something and I have not seen anything and there is nothing to see, or ever was.' This last speech without a pause, begun waving one hand at the Thing and ended up stalking back to his dressing room still abusing me for trying to give him a fright. As he was speaking the Elemental grew fainter and fainter in its outlines until it disappeared. He never made any enquiry as to the yell that called us both out, and from that day to this has not mentioned the incident to me.

I heard from our servants that when we went to dress for dinner they had brought their friends just to show them the hall, when all four had suddenly seen and smelt the Elemental looking down at them from the gallery. They all got such a turn, they couldn't help letting out a bawl then fled to servants quarters where all four were very sick."

Athcarne Castle

Six miles from this 16th-century castle, the tortured cries of soldiers once rose up: At the Battle of Boyne, 1,500 men -- and King James -- died in a bloody sectarian conflict. Athcarne was built for William Bathe in 1590. The Bathe family produced many well-known legal and political personalities around the 16th and 17th centuries. It originally consisted of an Elizabethan tower house, a three-storied mansion, and a corner turret but was renovated around 1830 with a sizeable three-story turret. It lies just six miles from the Battle of the Boyne site, and it is said that James II stayed here on the night before the event in 1690. The last occupant was James Gernon, who lived there until the 1950's when the building was partly demolished. It has stayed in a state of dangerous ruin since. Legends about the castle include cries of dying soldiers heard at night and the specter of a hanged soldier on the great oak tree adjacent. A recent disturbing tale told by a local worker claims to have seen the face of "a demented girl with blood-covered hands."

Kilmainham Jail, Dublin

Opened in 1796 as Dublin's new county jail. It was modern for its time, but conditions were appalling. Prisoners included women and children, crammed into tiny cells, sometimes five at a time. Men could have an iron bed, but women and children slept on straw pallets. A candle had to last two weeks, and there were no windows or heat. However, during the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852, people would commit crimes to be jailed—at least it was a roof over their heads. In 1960, the Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Committee was formed, and workers immediately encountered paranormal phenomena.

Governor Dan McGill lived at Kilmainham in the old warden's quarters, overseeing the restorations. One night he looked out the window and saw the old chapel lights on—which was weird because he had just turned them off. When the Govna investigated, the chapel was empty. So he turned the lights off again and went back to his room. When he looked out the window, the lights were on. He went back and forth with the lights and finally said, "fuck you, ghost!" and gave up.

The most famous ghostly visitation took place around the same time. A volunteer was painting the dungeon area. Suddenly, an unseen force blew him across the room and pinned him against the far wall. The man had to fight to free himself and escape the dungeon. He refused to go back.

Other restoration stories include a man who was renewing the Echoing Corridor. He heard footsteps climbing the stone stairs and walking the hall behind him. The footsteps would stop and then start again throughout the day. Another worker heard footsteps approaching and as he looked up, didn't see anyone, but felt an icy chill. Footsteps trudging along the corridor, echoing with the sound of a soldier's brigade, were also familiar and creepy as shit.

Alright, now it's time for our infamous "quick hitters." When I say “infamous”, of course I mean more than famous.

Drink, fuckers

Ghost River

Home to the first-ever witch trial in Ireland, Kilkenny is no stranger to the supernatural. During a great flood in 1763, a crowd was crossing John's Bridge when it collapsed, drowning 16 people in the swollen Nore below. Ever since, locals and visitors tell of mysterious ghostly figures in the river, scratching at the banks, leaning where the current structure stands, and rising on the morning mist.

The White Lady

Charles Fort, an impressive star-shaped garrison in Cork, has seen its share of bloodshed. But despite the battles, sieges, and rebellions embedded in its walls, the story of the White Lady is the one that really chills the blood. The daughter of the fort's commander was set to wed an officer stationed there, but when her father shot her betrothed, the bride-to-be threw herself into the ocean. Her lost soul continues to wander the grounds, wedding dress and all.

Bishop Higgins' Grave

Don't disturb the dead – unless you want to be haunted. Such was the case at St Columb's Cathedral when renovations in 1867 upset the grave of former bishop William Higgins. His tomb was moved inside the cathedral, and that's when things started to get weird. Workers began hearing footsteps in the locked gallery, apparitions appeared in photographs, the organ would sound without a soul near it, and the light echoes of flatulence could be heard bellowing from inside.

A Jester's Curse

Y'all like clowns?? How about a murdered jester. Just look at Malahide Castle, a medieval fortress on Dublin's coast, where the spirit of one of these sons of bitches can be seen roaming the grounds. Puck was his name, and stories say he'd fallen in love with one of Malahide's prisoners, Lady Elenora Fitzgerald. Puck was found out, stabbed in the heart and with his last breath, swore to haunt the castle.

Hangman's Noose

Crumlin Road Gaol is a historic Victorian-era prison that once held some of Belfast's most notorious characters. It also happens to be one of Northern Ireland's most haunted places. Here, tortured souls of deceased inmates pace the wrought iron walkways and wail in the night. One was an American executed for a crime he didn't commit, another a teenager who took his own life to avoid the hangman's noose.

This last one is something Logan found that isn't so much creepy as sad.

Miscarriage of Justice

While Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, a highly controversial trial took place over the death of a local family in Maamtrasna, which is on the border of County Mayo and County Galway. It was believed that the reason for the murders was over sheep rustling and the Land War.

The Land War was a debacle between 1879 and 1882. It began during a downward spiral due to economic depression, so to speak. This pretty much halted the post-famine economic progress of many of Ireland's farmers and increased the worries of lower-class families and people that resided under landlords. As a result, some Irish farmers started a movement to "fix" so-called landlordism in Ireland.

In short, due to the famine, many people who were starting to get their lives back in order afterward were not making enough to adjust to the rise in living costs. Some were being forced out of the homes they didn't directly own or were blatantly abandoned to deal with the crappy living conditions they were forced to deal with.

Known as the Maamtrasna Murders, which took place in August of 1882, a family was found slaughtered in a mountainside cottage In Maamtrasna. Unfortunately, John Joyce, his wife Bridget, his daughter Peigi, and his Mother Margaret were found murdered. His son Michael had survived only to perish the next day from his injuries. Two others had survived the murders. One was there when it happened, and the other was absent from their home. Patsy was injured but did survive, and Martin was at service in Clonbur during the family's demise.

Several men were arrested and charged, one of which being the prime suspect and the most prominent person in the murders, Maolra Seoighe. (Malra Soy). Otherwise known as Myles Joyce in English. The men were as follows, Myles' brothers Martin and Paidin, his nephew Tom; Pat Michael and John Casey, Pat Joyce and Tom Casey. Sadly most of these men only spoke Irish but were tried in a court before a judge and jury without any of them knowing or understanding Irish. During the trials, two men were afraid for their lives and became informants, giving information and evidence on their neighbors and friends.

Myles Joyce was one of the first three men tried and sentenced to death for the murders. The others were Pat Joyce and Pat Casey. The other men were advised by their priest, Father Micheal Mac Aoidh, to plead guilty to avoid being hanged. They were sentenced to death, but the queen's deputy, Earl Spenser, sentenced the men to penal servitude for life, although it is reported that Queen Victoria herself wanted all men hanged.

After the trial, the three convicted men sentenced to death were brought back to Galway. Before being hanged, Pat Casey and Pat Joyce admitted they were guilty, but they also revealed that Myles Joyce was utterly innocent. BASTARDS! This evidence was unfortunately not substantial enough to change the decision of Earl Spenser. In a telegram he sent to the prison's governor the night before the hanging, he stated, "The law must take its course."

The three men were hanged on December 15th, 1882, buried in the prison grounds, known as the Cathedral car park.

On Myles' way to the scaffold, it has been reported that he said in Gaelic, a bunch of very hard-to-say words. So to save me the trouble of trying to read them aloud, Logan found an English translation which is just as disheartening, and it goes as follows; "I will see Jesus Christ in a short while - he too was unjustly hanged … I am going … God help my wife and her five orphans". Holy shit.

There are records from the hangman himself that explain that Myles' hanging did not go as planned. Instead of a quick death, Myles' died from strangulation. This means that his neck did not snap from the hanging, but rather, he hung there, choking to death for several minutes; a torturous and painful death for a man who was to be later, and by later, I mean over a hundred years later, pardoned for the crime of the Joyce Murders.

A couple years after the trials, new evidence was brought forth that was concealed from the initial trial that would have absolved Myles from all wrongdoing. In 2018, President Michael D. Higgins said, "Maolra Seoighe was wrongly convicted of murder and was hanged for a crime that he did not commit ." He later called the trial a "miscarriage of justice ." He pointed to a history of systemic discrimination and linguistic differences, which apparently Ireland still deals with today. Makes sense when a man who spoke only Gaelic was brought forth to a court among his so-called peers who didn't speak a lick of Gaelic. Unfortunately, as it is, at least the family of Myles Joyce, aka Maolra Seoighe, can continue to live knowing that he was indeed an innocent man.

The Shocking History of Execution.

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 10:20:08 -0500

Tonight we are going to tell you a tale. A superb tale. A tale as old as time that takes us from the beginnings of civilization until today. This tale will thrill you and chill you. It may elicit feelings of dread and sadness. It may make you angry. At times it may make you uneasily laugh like the friend at school that was kicked in the balls but couldn’t show his weakness. It's a subject that people continually argue about and debate with savage ferocity. Tonight we are talking about executions! We'll talk about the methods and the reasons behind executions throughout the years. Then we'll talk about some famous executions, as well as some of the more fucked up ones. And by fucked up, we mean botched. Bad stuff. This episode isn't meant to be a debate for or against executions but merely to discuss them and the crazy shit surrounding them. So with all that being said, Let’s rock and roll!

Capital punishment has been practiced in the history of virtually all known societies and places. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The Code of Hammurabi was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes and was proclaimed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. Hammurabi expanded the city-state of Babylon along the Euphrates River to unite all of southern Mesopotamia. The Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules, established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Hammurabi’s Code was carved onto a massive, finger-shaped black stone stele (pillar) that was looted by invaders and finally rediscovered in 1901. The text, compiled at the end of Hammurabi’s reign, is less a proclamation of principles than a collection of legal precedents, set between prose celebrating Hammurabi’s just and pious rule. Hammurabi’s Code provides some of the earliest examples of the doctrine of “lex talionis,” or the laws of retribution, sometimes better known as “an eye for an eye the greatest soulfly song ever!
The Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party’s tongue, hands, breasts, eye, or ear. But the code is also one of the earliest examples of an accused person being considered innocent until proven guilty. The 282 laws are all written in an “if-then form.” For example, if a man steals an ox, he must pay back 30 times its value. The laws range from family law to professional contracts and administrative law, often outlining different standards of justice for the three classes of Babylonian society—the propertied class, freedmen, and slaves.

A doctor’s fee for curing a severe wound would be ten silver shekels for a gentleman, five shekels for a freedman, and two shekels for a slave. So, it was less expensive when you were a lower-class citizen. Penalties for malpractice followed the same scheme: a doctor who killed a wealthy patient would have his hands cut off, while only financial restitution was required if the victim was a slave. Crazy!

Some examples of the death penalty laws at this time are as follows:

If a man accuses another man and charges him with homicide but cannot bring proof against him, his accuser shall be killed. Holy shit.

If a man breaks into a house, they shall kill him and hang him in front of that same house.

The death penalty was also part of the Hittite Code in the 14th century B.C., but only partially. The most severe offenses typically were punished through enslavement, although crimes of a sexual nature often were punishable by death. The Hittite laws, also known as the Code of the Nesilim, constitute an ancient legal code dating from c. 1650 – 1500 BCE. The Hittite laws were kept in use for roughly 500 years, and many copies show that other than changes in grammar, what might be called the 'original edition' with its apparent disorder, was copied slavishly; no attempt was made to 'tidy up' by placing even apparent afterthoughts in a more appropriate position.

The Draconian constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code enforced by Draco near the end of the 7th century BC; its composition started around 621BC. It was written in response to the unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats. Aristotle, the chief source for knowledge of Draco, claims that he was the first to write Athenian laws and that Draco established a constitution enfranchising hoplites, the lower class soldiers. The Draconian laws were most noteworthy for their harshness; they were written in blood rather than ink. Death was prescribed for almost all criminal offenses. Solon, who was the magistrate in 594 BCE, later repealed Draco’s code and published new laws, retaining only Draco’s homicide statutes.

In the 5th century B.C., the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables also contained the death penalty. Death sentences were carried out by such means as beheading, boiling in oil, burying alive, burning, crucifixion, disembowelment, drowning, flaying alive, hanging, impalement, stoning, strangling, being thrown to wild animals, and quartering. We'll talk more about that later. The earliest attempt by the Romans to create a code of law was the Laws of the Twelve Tables. A commission of ten men (Decemviri) was appointed (c. 455 B.C.) to draw up a code of law binding on patrician and plebeian and which consuls would have to enforce. The commission produced enough statutes to fill ten bronze tablets.

Mosaic Law codified many capital crimes. There is evidence that Jews used many different techniques, including stoning, hanging, beheading, crucifixion (copied from the Romans), throwing the criminal from a rock, and sawing asunder. The most infamous execution of history occurred approximately 29 AD with the crucifixion of that one guy, Jesus Christ, outside Jerusalem. About 300 years later, Emperor Constantine, after converting to Christianity, abolished crucifixion and other cruel death penalties in the Roman Empire. In 438, the Code of Theodosius made more than 80 crimes punishable by death.

Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire, which is not only the character from Family Guy, and another word for dilemma but in this case is a soft boggy area of land.

By the 10th Century, hanging from the gallows was the most frequent execution method. William the Conqueror opposed taking life except in war and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offense. Nice guy, right? However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes.

During the middle ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows, and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. For example, in 1279, two hundred and eighty-nine Jews were hanged for clipping coins. What the fuck is that you may be wondering. Well, Clipping was taking a small amount of metal off the edge of hand-struck coins. Over time, the precious metal clippings could be saved up and melted into bullion (a lump of precious metal) to be sold or used to make new coins.

Under Edward I, two gatekeepers were killed because the city gate had not been closed in time to prevent the escape of an accused murderer. Burning was the punishment for women’s high treason, and men were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Beheading was generally accepted for the upper classes. One could be burned to death for marrying a Jew. Pressing became the penalty for those who would not confess to their crimes—the executioner placed heavy weights on the victim’s chest until death. On the first day, he gave the victim a small quantity of bread, on the second day a small drink of bad water, and so on until he confessed or died. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the number of those put to death is estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people cooked for up to two hours before death took them. When a woman was burned, the executioner tied a rope around her neck when she was connected to the stake. When the flames reached her, she could be strangled from outside the ring of fire. However, this often failed, and many were burnt alive.

In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700’s when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house for forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps. However, juries tended not to convict when the penalty was significant, and the crime was not. Reforms began to take place. In 1823, five laws were passed, removing about a hundred crimes from the death penalty. Between 1832 and 1837, many capital offenses were swept away. In 1840, there was a failed attempt to abolish all capital punishment. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more and more capital punishments were abolished, not only in Britain but also all across Europe; until today, only a few European countries retain the death penalty.

The first recorded execution in the English American colonies was in 1608 when officials executed George Kendall of Virginia for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish. In 1612, Virginia’s governor, Sir Thomas Dale, implemented the Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws that made death the penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, killing dogs or horses without permission, or trading with Indians. Seven years later, these laws were softened because Virginia feared that no one would settle there. Well, no shit.

In 1622, the first legal execution of a criminal, Daniel Frank, occurred in, of course, Virginia for the crime of theft. Some colonies were very strict in using the death penalty, while others were less so. In Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first execution was in 1630, but the earliest capital statutes did not occur until later. Under the Capital Laws of New England that went into effect between 1636-1647, the death penalty was set forth for pre-meditated murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault in anger, rape, statutory rape, manstealing, perjury in a capital trial, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning, and bestiality. A scripture from the Old Testament accompanied early laws. By 1780, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts only recognized seven capital crimes: murder, sodomy, burglary, buggery, arson, rape, and treason. And for those wondering, The Buggery Act of 1533, formally An Act for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie, was an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed during the reign of Henry VIII. It was the country's first civil sodomy law.

The Act defined buggery as an unnatural sexual act against the will of God and Man. This term was later determined by the courts to include only anal penetration and bestiality.

The New York colony instituted the so-called Duke’s Laws of 1665. This list of laws directed the death penalty for denial of the true God, pre-meditated murder, killing someone who had no weapon of defense, killing by lying in wait or by poisoning, sodomy, buggery, kidnapping, perjury in a capital trial, traitorous denial of the king’s rights or raising arms to resist his authority, conspiracy to invade towns or forts in the colony and striking one’s mother or father (upon complaint of both). The two colonies that were more lenient concerning capital punishment were South Jersey and Pennsylvania. In South Jersey, there was no death penalty for any crime, and there were only two crimes, murder, and treason, punishable by death. Way to go, Jersey Raccoons!

Some states were more severe. For example, by 1837, North Carolina required death for the crimes of murder, rape, statutory rape, slave-stealing, stealing banknotes, highway robbery, burglary, arson, castration, buggery, sodomy, bestiality, dueling where death occurs, (and this insidious shit), hiding a slave with intent to free him, taking a free Negro out of state to sell him, bigamy, inciting slaves to rebel, circulating seditious literature among slaves, accessory to murder, robbery, burglary, arson, or mayhem and others. However, North Carolina did not have a state prison and, many said, no suitable alternative to capital punishment. So, instead of building a fucking prison to hold criminals, they just made the penalty for less severe crimes punishable by death. What the shit, North Carolina?!?

The first reforms of the death penalty occurred between 1776-1800. Thomas Jefferson and four others, authorized to undertake a complete revision of Virginia’s laws, proposed a law that recommended the death penalty for only treason and murder. After a stormy debate, the legislature defeated the bill by one vote. The writing of European theorists such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Bentham had a significant effect on American intellectuals, as did English Quaker prison reformers John Bellers and John Howard.

Organizations were formed in different colonies for the abolition of the death penalty and to relieve poor prison conditions. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a renowned Philadelphia citizen, proposed abolishing capital punishment. William Bradford, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was ordered to investigate capital punishment. In 1793 he published “An Enquiry How Far the Punishment of Death is Necessary” in Pennsylvania. Bradford strongly insisted that the death penalty be retained but admitted it was useless in preventing certain crimes. He said the death penalty made convictions harder to obtain because in Pennsylvania, and indeed in all states, the death penalty was mandatory. Juries would often not return a guilty verdict because of this fact, which makes sense. In response, in 1794, the Pennsylvania legislature abolished capital punishment for all crimes except murder “in the first degree,” the first time murder had been broken down into “degrees.” In New York, in 1796, the legislature authorized construction of the state’s first prison, abolished whipping, and reduced the number of capital offenses from thirteen to two. Virginia and Kentucky passed similar reform bills. Four more states reduced their capital crimes: Vermont in 1797 to three; Maryland in 1810, to four; New Hampshire in 1812, to two and Ohio in 1815 to two. Each of these states built state penitentiaries. A few states went in the opposite direction. Rhode Island restored the death penalty for rape and arson; Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut raised death crimes from six to ten, including sodomy, maiming, robbery, and forgery. Many southern states made more crimes capital, especially for slaves. Assholes.

The first profound reform era occurred between 1833-1853. Public executions were attacked as cruel. Sometimes tens of thousands of eager viewers would show up to view hangings; local merchants would sell souvenirs and alcohol. Which, I’m not sure if I hate or absolutely love. Fighting and pushing would often break out as people jockeyed for the best view of the hanging or the corpse! Onlookers often cursed the widow or the victim and would try to tear down the scaffold or the rope for keepsakes. Violence and drunkenness often ruled towns far into the night after “justice had been served.” People are fucking weird, dude.

Many states enacted laws providing private hangings. Rhode Island (1833), Pennsylvania (1834), New York (1835), Massachusetts (1835), and New Jersey (1835) all abolished public hangings. By 1849, fifteen states were holding private hangings. This move was opposed by many death penalty abolitionists who thought public executions would eventually cause people to cry out against execution itself. For example, in 1835, Maine enacted what was in effect a moratorium on capital punishment after over ten thousand people who watched a hanging had to be restrained by police after they became unruly and began fighting. All felons sentenced to death would have to remain in prison at hard labor and could not be executed until one year had elapsed and then only on the governor’s order. No governor ordered an execution under the “Maine Law” for twenty-seven years. Though many states argued the merits of the death penalty, no state went as far as Maine. The most influential reformers were the clergy, of course. Ironically, the small but influential group that opposed the abolitionists was the clergy.

Ok, let’s talk about electrocution. Want to know how the electric chair came to be? Well, Electrocution as a method of execution came onto the scene in an implausible manner. Edison Company, with its DC (direct current) electrical systems, began attacking Westinghouse Company and its AC (alternating current) electrical systems as they were pressing for nationwide electrification with alternating current. To show how dangerous AC could be, Edison Company began public demonstrations by electrocuting animals. People reasoned that if electricity could kill animals, it could kill people. In 1888, New York approved the dismantling of its gallows and the building of the nation’s first electric chair. It held its first victim, William Kemmler, in 1890, and even though the first electrocution was clumsy at best, other states soon followed the lead.

Between 1917 and 1955, the death penalty abolition movement again slowed. Washington, Arizona, and Oregon in 1919-20 reinstated the death penalty. In 1924, the first execution by cyanide gas took place in Nevada, when Tong war gang murderer Gee Jon became its first victim. Get this shit. The frigging state wanted to secretly pump cyanide gas into Jon’s cell at night while he was asleep as a more humanitarian way of carrying out the penalty. Still, technical difficulties prohibited this, and a special “gas chamber” was hastily built. Other concerns developed when less “civilized” methods of execution failed. In 1930, Mrs. Eva Dugan became the first female to be executed by Arizona. The execution was botched when the hangman misjudged the drop, and Mrs. Dugan’s head was ripped from her body. More states converted to electric chairs and gas chambers. During this time, abolitionist organizations sprang up all across the country, but they had little effect. Several stormy protests were held against the execution of certain convicted felons, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple was convicted of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. At that time, the United States was supposedly the only country with nuclear weapons. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the United States federal government in 1953 in the Sing Sing correctional facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to receive that penalty during peacetime.

However, these protests held little opposition against the death penalty itself. In fact, during the anti-Communist period, with all its fears and hysteria, Texas Governor Allan Shivers seriously suggested that capital punishment be the penalty for membership in the Communist Party.

The movement against capital punishment revived again between 1955 and 1972.

England and Canada completed exhaustive studies which were largely critical of the death penalty, and these were widely circulated in the U.S.

Death row criminals gave their moving accounts of capital punishment in books and films. Convicted robber, kidnapper, and rapist Caryl Chessman, published “Cell 2455 Death Row” and “Trial by Ordeal.” Barbara Graham’s story was utilized in the book and movie “I Want to Live!” after her execution. She was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison on the same day as two convicted accomplices, Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins. All of them were involved in a robbery that led to the murder of an elderly widow.

Television shows were broadcast on the death penalty. Hawaii and Alaska ended capital punishment in 1957, and Delaware did so the following year. Controversy over the death penalty gripped the nation, forcing politicians to take sides. Delaware restored the death penalty in 1961. Michigan abolished capital punishment for treason in 1963. Voters in 1964 abolished the death penalty in Oregon. In 1965 Iowa, New York, West Virginia, and Vermont ended the death penalty. New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 1969.

The controversy over the death penalty continues today. There is a strong movement against lawlessness propelled by citizens’ fears of security. Politicians at the national and state levels are taking the floor of legislatures and calling for more frequent death penalties, death penalties for more crimes, and longer prison sentences. Those opposing these moves counter by arguing that harsher sentences do not slow crime and that crime is slightly or the same as in the past. FBI statistics show murders are now up. (For example, 9.3 persons per 100,000 were murdered in 1973, and 9.4 persons per 100,000 were murdered in 1992, and as of today, it's upwards of 14.4 people per 100,000. This upswing might be because of more advanced crime technology, as well as more prominent news and media.

Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, which has a moratorium and has not conducted an execution since September 1996. The complete ban on capital punishment is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU). Two widely adopted protocols of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe are thus considered a central value. Of all modern European countries, San Marino, Portugal, and the Netherlands were the first to abolish capital punishment, whereas only Belarus still practices capital punishment in some form or another. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU member state to abolish capital punishment in wartime.

Ok, so now let's switch gears from the history of capital punishment and executions in general and get into what we know you beautiful bastards come here for. Let's talk about some methods used throughout the years, and then we'll talk about some famous executions and some fucked and messed up ones.

Methods:

We've discussed a few of these before, but some are so fucked up we're going to discuss them again.

Boiling To Death:

A slow and agonizing punishment, this method traditionally saw the victim gradually lowered — feet-first — into boiling oil, water, or wax (although uses of boiling wine and molten lead have also been recorded).

If the shock of the pain did not render them immediately unconscious, the person would experience the excruciating sensation of their outer layers of skin, utterly destroyed by immersion burns, dissolving right off their body, followed by the complete breakdown of the fatty tissue, boiling away beneath.

Emperor Nero is said to have dispatched thousands of Christians in this manner. At the same time, in the Middle Ages, the primary recipients of the punishment were not killers or rapists but coin forgers, particularly in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. In Britain, meanwhile, King Henry VIII introduced the practice for executing those who used poison to commit murder.

Shockingly, the practice is believed to have been carried out as recently as 2002, when the government of Uzbekistan, led by Islam Karimov, was alleged to have tortured several suspected terrorists to death by boiling.

The Blood Eagle:

A technique ascribed to ancient Norse warriors, the blood eagle, mixed brutality and poetic imagery that only the Vikings could. First, the victim’s back would be hacked open, and the skin ripped apart, exposing the spinal column.

The ribs would then be snapped from the spine and forcibly bent backward until they faced outwards from the body, forming a pair of bloody, shattered eagle’s wings. As a horrifying finale, the lungs would then be pulled from the body cavity and coated with stinging salt, causing eventual death by suffocation.

There is some question whether this technique was ever actually used as the only accounts come from Norse literature. Odin did this shit, you know it.

Several scholars claim that the act we know of today is simply a result of poor translating and misunderstands the strong association of the eagle with blood and death in Norse imagery. That said, every account is consistent in that in each case, the victim is a nobleman being punished for murdering his father.

The good news for any poor soul who might have suffered this brutal death? The agony and blood loss from the initial wounds would probably have caused them to pass out long before the lungs were removed from their bodies.

Impalement:

Most famously used by Vlad the Impaler, 15th-century ruler of Wallachia (in present-day Romania) and inspiration for Count Dracula, the act of impalement has a long, grim history. While images tend to depict people skewered through the midsection and then held aloft — in a manner that would almost certainly bring about a rapid death — the actual process was a much longer, horrifically drawn-out ordeal.

Traditionally, the stake would be partially sharpened and planted, point up, in the ground. The victim would then be placed over the spike as it was inserted partway into the rectum or vagina.

As their body weight dragged them further onto the pole, the semi-greased wooden stake would force its way up through their body, piercing organs with agonizing slowness as it eventually penetrated the entire torso, finally tearing an exit wound through the skin of the shoulder, neck or throat. Holy shishkabob. Or bill. Or Karen.

The earliest records of the torture come from 1772 B.C. in Babylon, where the aforementioned King Hammurabi ordered a woman be executed in this way for killing her husband. But its use continued until as recently as the 20th century when the Ottoman government employed the technique during the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923. Which is super fucked up.

According to some accounts, it could take the victim — exposed, bleeding, and writhing in tormented agony — as long as eight whole days to die. Oh my hell!

Keelhauling:

Walking the plank might not be the most pleasant of deaths, but it seems moderately more humane than the other favored maritime punishment of keelhauling.

A punishment that often ended in death due to the severity of the wounds sustained (or was simply carried out until the point of death), it saw the victim, legs weighted and suspended from a rope, dropped from the bow of the ship, and then rapidly pulled underwater along the length of the hull — and over the keel (the beam that runs longitudinally down the center of the underside to the stern.

In the age of old, old wooden sailing ships, the hull of a vessel would generally be coated in a thick layer of barnacles, whose shells could be rock hard and razor-sharp.

As the drowning sailor was yanked relentlessly through the saltwater, these barnacles would strip the skin from his body, gouging out raw chunks of flesh and even, by some accounts, tearing off whole limbs or severing the head.

If the sailor was still alive, they might be hung from the mast for 15 minutes before going in again. In some cases, the victim would have an oil-soaked sponge — containing a breath of air — stuffed into their mouth to prevent a “merciful” drowning.

Employed mainly by the Dutch and the French from the 1500s until it was abolished in 1853, accounts of its use date back to Greece in 800 B.C.

The Roman Candle:

Many of the worst execution methods ever devised involve fire — from burning witches at stake in medieval Britain to roasting criminals alive in the hot metal insides of the brazen bull in Ancient Greece — but few match the sheer lack of humanity as the Roman Candle.

A rumored favorite of the mad Roman Emperor Nero, this method saw the subject tied to a stake and smeared with flammable pitch (tree or plant resin), then set ablaze, slowly burning to death from the feet up.

What sets this above the many other similar methods is that the victims were sometimes lined up outside to provide the lighting for one of Nero’s evening parties.\

Being Hanged, Drawn, And Quartered:

First recorded in England during the 13th century, this unusually extreme — even for the time — mode of execution was made the statutory punishment for treason in 1351. Though it was intended to be an act of such barbarous severity that no one would ever risk committing a treasonous act, there were nevertheless plenty of recipients over the next 500 years.

The process of being hanged, drawn, and quartered began with the victim being dragged to the site of execution while strapped to a wooden panel, which was in turn tied to a horse.

They would then experience a slow hanging, in which, rather than being dropped to the traditional quick death of a broken neck, they would instead be left to choke horribly as the rope tore up the skin of their throat, their body weight dragging them downwards.

Some had the good fortune to die at this stage, including the infamous Gunpowder Plot conspirator Guy Fawkes, who ensured a faster death by leaping from the gallows.

Once half-strangled, the drawing would begin. The victim would be strapped down and then slowly disemboweled, their stomachs sliced open, and their intestines and other significant organs hacked apart and pulled — “drawn” — from the body.

The genitals would often be mutilated and ripped from between their legs. Those unlucky enough to still be alive at this point might witness their organs burned in front of them before they were finally decapitated.

Once death had finally claimed them, the recipient’s body would be carved into four pieces — or “quartered” — and the parts sent to prominent areas of the country as a warning to others.

The head would often be taken to the infamous Tower of London, where it would be impaled on a spike and placed on the walls “for the mockery of London.”

Rat Torture:

As recently depicted in that horrible show, Game Of Thrones, rat torture is ingenious in its disgusting simplicity. In its most basic form, a bucket containing live rats is placed on the exposed torso of the victim, and heat is applied to the base of the bucket.

The rats, crazy with fear from the heat, tear and gnaw their way into the abdomen of the victim, clawing and ripping through skin, flesh, organs, and intestines in their quest to escape.

Possessing the most powerful biting and chewing motion of any rodent, rats can make short work of a human stomach. Along with the unimaginable pain, the victim would also suffer the sick horror of feeling the large, filthy creatures writhing around inside their guts as they died.

While associated with Elizabethan England — where the Tower of London was said to have housed a “Dungeon of Rats,” a pitch-black room below high watermark that would draw in rats from the River Thames to torment the room’s inhabitants — the practice has been used far more recently.

General Pinochet is said to have employed the technique during his dictatorship of Chile (1973-1990), while reports from Argentina during the National Reorganization Process in the late 1970s and early ’80s claimed victims were subjected to a version in which live rats — or sometimes spiders — were inserted into the subject’s body via a tube in the rectum or vagina….yep.

Bamboo Torture

Forcing thin shards of bamboo under the fingernails has long been cited as an interrogation method, but bamboo has been used to creatively — and slowly — execute a person, too. Allegedly used by the Japanese on American prisoners of war, it saw the victim tied down to a frame over a patch of newly sprouting bamboo plants.

One of the fastest-growing plants in the world, capable of up to three feet of growth in 24 hours, the sharp-tipped plants would slowly pierce the victim's skin — and then continue to grow. The result was death by gradual, continuous, multiple impalements, the equivalent of being dropped on a bed of sharpened stakes in terrible slow motion.

Despite the practice having roots in the former areas of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Siam (now Thailand) in the 19th century, there are no proven instances of it being used during WWII.

It’s certainly possible, however, and it has been shown that the technique, among the worst execution methods ever, works: A 2008 episode of MythBusters found that bamboo was capable of penetrating a human-sized lump of ballistic gelatin over three days.

https://m.imdb.com/list/ls059738828/

Pro Wrestling Deaths

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 09:00:00 -0500

Today we're entering the world of sports. That's right, we're talking about everyone's favorite sport… Curling! Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite rocks, also called stones, across the ice curling sheet toward the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones, with each player throwing two. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the center of the house after each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends…

Um...What the fuck.. Fucking Moody… This is why we can't trust him to do research while hunting Sasquatch in Canada… Hold on, let me find the right notes… Son of a bitch, where are they… Ah, here we go. Today we are actually going into the wonderful world of… WRESTLING!!! But you know us… we're actually not looking at the wonderful part… No sirs and madams, we take it to the not-so-wonderful side. We'll be discussing some crazy and tragic wrestler Deaths. Many of our beloved childhood wrestling favorites have passed on over the past decade or so. Many were related to the job's rigors, leading to drug use and overdose, heart attacks, suicides, and a host of other causes. Today, we're going to look at some more… "interesting," if you will... wrestler deaths. Some of these guys you'll know, some only hardcore wrestling fans will know, and some, none of you may know, at all. Also, we're going to skip some of the biggest ones because they've been covered more times than podcasts covering Ted Bundy and in much more detail within the time we have, so you won't be hearing about some of the more popular ones. So without any more curling bullshit (fucking Moody). Let's get to it!

First up is an old-timer that primarily wrestled in Australia… We love you beautiful sumbitches in Australia, so we wanted to throw this one in. Also, maybe you guys have some stories about this guy if you're old enough to remember him. His name is Brute Bernard! He initially made his name as tag team partner of Skull Murphy in the WWF. Brute toured the world with Skull until he died in 1969. Brute won the IWA World Tag titles in Australia with Murphy 6 times. They defeated Mark Lewin & Dominic de Nucci, Lewin & Bearcat Wright, Mario Milano & Billy White Wolf, Mario Milano & Antonio Pugliese, and Lars Anderson & Dick Murdoch. They lost to Lewin & Wright twice, Milano & Pugliese twice, Don Leo Jonathan & Antonio Pugliese, and Mario Milano & Spiros Arion. Brute continued as a solo wrestler in Australia, where he had his most tremendous success, winning the Austro-Asian title from Spiros Arion before dropping it back to him. He also wrestled extensively in the Carolinas, teaming up with the Missouri Mauler in Texas. Brute was also married to pro wrestler Betty Joe Hawkins.

He was famous for his 'camel walk.' I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything about it, but I think it was probably something like the iron Shiek's "Camel Clutch."

So when you look up the cause of death of this guy, you get a common reason of "shot while cleaning gun," which is still fucked up. The thing is, if you do a little more digging, it doesn't seem so simple. While there isn't an incredible amount of information on his death, if you look, you can find enough people that are suspicious of the "accidental" death ruling. Some think it was an intentional self-inflicted gunshot. There is a small amount that believes it was murder. And then some say that he was drunk and decided to play a game of Russian roulette. So what is the real story? Who knows? But there are enough people asking questions and spewing theories to make this an exciting appetizer for the show! Suicide? Russian roulette? Courtney Love? Who knows! And if that's "too soon", fuck off... she had SOMETHING to do with it.

Ok, so who's next? Oh, how about Neil Allen Caricofe. His ring name "Neil Superior" was better known, and he was born on April 6, 1963, in Hagerstown, Maryland. He was at one point a corrections officer, and he also served in the army reserve. He was trained by one of the Wild Samoans, who you definitely remember if you're Chainsaw's age. Superior made his pro debut in 1989. He and his father, Dick Caricofe, founded the All-Star Wrestling League (later known as the National Wrestling League) in Hagerstown, Maryland, that same year. Caricofe formed a tag team with fellow Wild Samoan graduate Doug Stahl called The Superior Brothers, "Nasty" Neil, and "Desirable" Doug Superior. At some point, the two also wrestled under the team name...The Satanic Warriors… yea… Anyway.

After splitting with Stahl, Superior embarked on a singles career. One of his first significant opponents was "The Honky Tonk Man" (who I loved as a kid) and who he faced in Hagerstown on August 10, 1991. Superior also feuded with Rasta the Voodoo Mon. Later that year, Superior defeated Helmut Hesler to win the NWL Heavyweight Championship. After that, he worked for many other independent companies throughout the 90s. Finally, he became the south Atlantic pro wrestling heavyweight champion in 1992 and held the belt for 4 months until the promotion folded. He would then go back and finish his career in the NWL until his death… Which is why we're here.

Early on the morning of August 23, 1996, Caricofe, who had left his hotel room around 4:00 A.M., was observed acting erratically and running naked on the seventh floor of the Fenwick Inn in Ocean City, Maryland. Which, of course, we've all done at some point in our lives. It was believed that Caricofe had left his room accidentally and was unable to find his way back. Caricofe may have suffered from a medical condition caused by seizures, which made him sleepwalk. According to the Caricofe family, it wasn't unusual for him to sleep either in his underwear or nude. The night desk clerk, Lisa Mulvihill, became aware of the situation when a concerned guest called the front desk. When Mulvihill investigated, she saw Caricofe "jumping around and banging himself against the wall ."She briefly attempted to communicate with Caricofe but returned to the front desk and called the police, finding him unresponsive. Mulvihill received a second call that Caricofe was banging on the doors of several rooms. Mulvihill then made a second call to the police, informing them that she was returning to the seventh floor and requesting that officers meet her there. Officers would arrive and find Superior roaming the hallway, and when they approached him, they said he appeared to be in a boxer's stance, dancing around on his tiptoes and doing some kind of shadowboxing. They say he was not responding to their commands, and they called for backup when they assumed he was under the influence and dangerous. An attempt by two officers to handcuff Superior failed. They continued shouting commands to lay down on the ground and, when Caricofe failed to respond, all four officers used pepper spray, which they later claimed had no effect. Caricofe then moved toward the officers, pinning Officer Freddie Howard up against the wall, and held the officer by his shirt. Sergeant Braeuninger and Officer Alban radioed for backup, the latter calling in a "Signal 13," indicating an officer needed emergency assistance. Alban, Braeuninger, and Jones began hitting Caricofe on his lower back and legs with nightsticks to free Howard. Caricofe would run away and mash his way down 7 flights of stairs; along the way, police say he ran into a vending area and began beating his head and shoulders into the vending machines. Once he made it down the stairs, he headed into the parking lot, where more police were waiting. They sprayed him with pepper foam and beat him with nightsticks in another attempt to subdue him. Finally, the over officer grabbed him and held him long enough for the others to restrain him. The group held Caricofe down while attempting to handcuff him and place the "violent prisoner restraining device" on his legs. While police were waiting for paramedics to arrive, the officers observed that Caricofe was no longer breathing. They assisted paramedics in performing CPR on Caricofe but could not revive him. He was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later. The story does not end there, though.

The circumstances surrounding Caricofe's death were questioned during the next few weeks. It was not learned until afterward that Caricofe had been diagnosed with a medical condition two years earlier, a neurological problem possibly resulting from a wrestling-related injury that caused seizures and made him appear to be sleepwalking. Ya know, CTE... for those that don't know, Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive brain condition that's thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head and repeated episodes of concussion. It's mainly associated with contact sports, such as boxing or American football. The Caricofe family was given little information from authorities regarding the death of their son. They learned from Gerald Minnich, director of Minnich Funeral Home in Hagerstown, who described their son's injuries, that Neil Caricofe had sustained "a possible broken nose, swelling around his eyes and a bruise on the back of his head ." Caricofe's father did not initially hold Ocean City police liable for the death of his son. He was told by a Maryland State Police investigator and a friend who was a state trooper at the Berlin police barracks that his son had hit his head on a vending machine as he was running from police. The family believed that the responding police officers, three of whom were temporary, seasonal patrolmen, were inexperienced and had overreacted due to Neil Caricofe's size. In an article from the Washington Post, shortly after the incident, a woman who said she was staying at the hotel and witnessed the incident said Caricofe "didn't yell back or attack but refused to lay down and kept running around."

The woman, who spoke on the condition that her name not be used, said she believes that officers put something resembling a dog collar around Caricofe's neck just before he became unconscious. "There were at least 10 of them on top of him," she said. "When they were finished, he was unconscious."

City spokesman Jay Hancock said he had "not heard about anything being placed around {Caricofe's} neck at all." He said officers are trained to use a baton to strike someone in "the extremities."

The witness also said police officers did not attempt to revive Caricofe by giving him CPR, contradicting police statements that officers had done so.

The autopsy ruled the cause of death was heart disease combined with the ingestion of drugs and alcohol. A toxicology report found the presence of ephedrine, gamma hydroxybutyrate, anabolic steroids, and ethanol in his system. The family would challenge this ruling, though, as they believed he was perfectly healthy and that the police used excessive force, which caused his death. A year after Caricofe's death, his parents were still unable to find out the details of what occurred that night. The family's Baltimore attorney, Gerald Ruter, believed his clients were being stonewalled by law enforcement. So the family began their own investigation. On June 2, 1998, Caricofe's parents filed a $350 million federal lawsuit against the Ocean City Police Department, claiming that their son had died due to police brutality. The case was heard in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Gerald Ruter, an attorney for the Caricofe family, claimed that the officers "jumped on him and knocked him down and emptied several cans of pepper spray into his face," causing him to suffocate to death. It was further claimed their use of nightsticks and pepper spray to subdue Neil Caricofe was unnecessary and constituted excessive force. Among those named in the lawsuit included former mayor Roland F. Powell, Police Chief David Massey, and 13 Ocean City police officers charged with wrongful death, excessive force, inadequate training and supervision of police, and false arrest.

The case was dismissed by Judge Frederic Smalkin, who believed the officers had appropriately responded. The ruling was upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 1, 2002, concluding that the officers had never resorted to deadly force.

Sounds pretty fucked up. More police bullshit? Justified force? Who knows, but that's a crazy tale!

Next is one of the more prominent wrestlers we're gonna talk about. He started out as the Blue Angel, which transformed him into the Blue Blazer, the character that first brought him success. He is none other than the legendary Owen Hart. This is another one that's been covered a ton, but we wanted to talk about it because some of us here at the train remember watching this happen live. A member of the Hart wrestling family, he was born in Calgary, Alberta, the youngest of twelve children of Stampede Wrestling promoters Stu and Helen Hart. Among other accolades, Owen was a one-time USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion, a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, a one-time WWF European Champion, and a four-time WWF World Tag Team Champion, as well as the 1994 WWF King of the Ring. He headlined multiple pay-per-view events for the WWF and was widely regarded as one of the company's best in-ring performers. And if you've never seen him in action, the guy was an absolute specimen in the ring. On May 23, 1999, Hart fell to his death in Kansas City, Missouri, during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event.

Hart was in the process of being lowered via harness and grapple line into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena for a booked Intercontinental Championship match against The Godfather. In keeping with the Blazer's new "buffoonish superhero" character, he began a dramatic entrance, being lowered to just above ring level. At that time, he would act "entangled," then release himself from the safety harness and fall flat on his face for comedic effect—this necessitated the use of a quick-release mechanism. It was an elaboration on a Blue Blazer stunt done previously on Sunday Night Heat before Survivor Series in 1998. While being lowered into the ring, Hart fell 78 feet (24 m), landing chest-first on the top rope (approximately a foot from the nearest turnbuckle), throwing him into the ring. Hart had performed the stunt only a few times before. Hart's widow Martha has suggested that Hart unintentionally triggered an early release by moving around to get comfortable with both the harness and his cape. Television viewers did not see the incident. Instead, a pre-taped vignette was being shown on the pay-per-view broadcast and on the monitors in the darkened arena during the fall. A vignette is any piece of video footage featuring characters or events shown to the audience for entertainment or edification. It is usually meant to introduce a debuting character, get a wrestler over before their TV wrestling debut, or signify an impending return. Afterward, while medical personnel worked on Hart inside the ring, the live event's broadcast showed only the audience. Meanwhile, WWF television announcer Jim Ross repeatedly told those watching live on pay-per-view that what had just transpired was not a wrestling angle or storyline and that Hart was hurt badly, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation. Jim Ross would later say in an interview.

"Being at ringside the night he fell [and announcing live on air that he had died] was the toughest thing I ever did. To this day, I've still never seen the tape. I was pretty numb. Everyone was in shock that night. I still have nightmares about it. Owen was as warm-hearted as any human being I have ever known. He loved to laugh, and he loved to make other people laugh. He had a great spirit, a good soul, and a good heart."

Five months before his tragic death, Owen Hart opened up to Slam Wrestling about his desire to soon leave wrestling:

"When my contract is up, I'm out of wrestling. I've made plans. I've been smart with my fiscal affairs. Financially, I'll be set. I really want to devote a lot of time to my family. I've bought some property on a lake. I plan on doing a lot of boating and fishing. I want to continue to stay in shape. And who knows, I might do ten weeks a year in Japan. Something just to motivate me to keep in shape, keep involved a little bit but not have to deal with the politics, the pressures that are so intense right now. I've paid my dues for twelve years now. If I continue for five more, that's seventeen years working at a pretty hard clip. I think that at that point, my family, my wife, and my kids, have been compromised enough. I would like to kind of just disappear from wrestling fans and stuff. I don't want to forget the fans and what they've done. They've supported me and stuff, but at the same time, I'd like to just — I don't want to be hanging on like one of these wrestlers who's sixty years old, saying, 'Hey, I'm a wrestler.' Let it go. Make your money out of it and get on. Going out and performing- it's an art. I'd like fans to remember me as a guy who would go out and entertain them, give them quality matches. Not just the same old garbage every week."

There was a lot of controversy over the incident. One of the main things that people talked about was how they went on with the show that night after the fall. So many people were upset that they would do this.

Vince McMahon would say of the decision:

"Knowing Owen as the performer he was, it is my belief that he would have wanted the show to go on. I didn't know if it was the right decision. I just guessed that it was what Owen would want." This is bullshit and just shows the kind of person McMahon was, in my personal opinion.

Referee Jimmy Korderas, who Hart almost landed on when he fell, would say:

"It's easy for us to say afterward, 'Well, the show should have stopped…' I was kind of on the fence with that. I kind of liken it a little bit to a Nascar race, where the race continues even after a tragic accident. Again, it's a tough call. I'm just glad I'm not the one who had to make that call."

There were lawsuits filed by Hart's wife against the WWE and the harness company. A settlement was reached with the WWE for 18 million dollars which his wife used much to set up the Owen Hart Foundation. The lawsuit against the harness company was dropped after the settlement.

A traffic end to the life of a great wrestler.

Next up Adolfo Bresciano! You may know him better as Dino Bravo! After training under Gino Brito, he started his career in Montreal in the 1970s, working for Lutte Internationale. He became one of Canada's top professional wrestling stars, winning several major titles, including the Canadian International Heavyweight Championship six times, the NWA Canadian Heavyweight Championship (Toronto version), and the NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship. He later signed with the World Wrestling Federation, where, as a partner to Dominic DeNucci, he won the WWF World Tag Team Championship. He was also the sole holder of the WWF Canadian Championship before the title was abandoned in 1986.

Bravo returned to the WWF in late 1986 with a new look. He was now noticeably more muscular and almost immediately began bleaching his brown hair blonde. Again, he was a heel and began working as part of Luscious Johnny Valiant's stable with Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. Bravo was known as more of a technical wrestler in his days of wrestling in Canada. Still, with his strongman gimmick, his technical side was pushed into the background and his style changed to using power (brawling) moves such as bodyslams, clotheslines, punches, kicks, and other power holds such as the bearhug.

In contrast, his finishing move changed from an airplane spin to a sidewalk slam. Bravo left the WWF and retired from wrestling following a European tour in April 1992. After retiring, he helped train wrestlers in Montreal.

After retiring from the WWF, Dino reportedly struggled to make ends meet. Related by marriage to Montreal mobster Vic Cotroni, Dino became involved with crime. Using his status as a wrestling celebrity, he smuggled and sold illegal cigarettes in Canada, mainly to Aboriginals. The story goes that while his wife was taking his daughter to ballet class, he sat down to watch a hockey game on television and ended up shot 17 times with seven hits to the head and 10 to his torso. The crime remains an unsolved murder; however, it is widely accepted that Dino's involvement in smuggling was the reason for his death. As there were no signs of a break-in and no footprints outside the home's windows, there is speculation that Dino knew his killer, that the person was watching hockey with him when the assassination happened. While this can't be confirmed, what is certain is that Dino's wife found him later that evening when she returned home with their daughter. Dino Bravo was killed on Wednesday, March 10, 1993.

In an interview, his former opponent Bret "The Hitman" Hart revealed that Bravo confided to friends shortly before his death that he knew his days were numbered.

Canadian Mafia… Not gonna lie… Didn't know that was a thing!

Speaking of murdered wrestlers, it's time for everyone's favorite…. The midnight train's quick hits!

John Meek wrestled under the name "Iron" Mike Steele, and in his career, he shared the ring with the likes of Marc Mero and Dean Malenko. Unfortunately, his wrestling career and life came to an end on August 29, 2007.

Harry Brian Taylor intentionally ran over Steele from behind with his van while he was riding his motorcycle. Steele passed away two hours later next to his damaged motorcycle.

On July 10, 2008, Taylor was found guilty of second-degree murder for killing Mike Steele. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Frank' Bruiser Brody' Goodish found success as a main eventer and became one of the most talented big men in wrestling. Brody was scheduled to face Dan Spivey in Puerto Rico, but he was called into the shower area by wrestler José Huertas González to talk about some business.

Brody was stabbed in the gut by González and died in the hospital from his stab wounds. He was only 42. González was charged with murder but pleaded self-defense and was acquitted.

Tank Morgan was born in 1933, and his name died down following his tenure in WWF (now WWE) from 1966-1967.

On December 12, 1966, he lost to former WWE Champion Bruno Sammartino in a two out of three falls match inside Madison Square Garden's, the world's most famous arena.

This was the most notable moment in Morgan's entire career, but sadly, he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on August 15, 1991, while walking his dog. Unfortunately, the details concerning his death are pretty scarce.

Many people believed that Morgan was caught up in the crossfire and was a victim of mistaken identity. What we do know, however, is that he was murdered.

"Gentleman" Chris Adams had a successful wrestling career. He's also the man who trained a guy named Steven James Anderson, aka Steve Williams "The Ringmaster," aka "Stunning" Steve Austin, aka... you guessed it! Stone Cold Steve Austin. Adams worked for World Class Championship Wrestling as a mid-carder in the late 1990s.

After Adams' short-term girlfriend Linda was found dead in 2000 following a drug or alcohol overdose, Adams was charged for manslaughter. However, he was passed out too, but he survived the overdose.

He waited to find out whether or not the court found him guilty, but he never lived to hear the verdict. Adams was shot in the chest after a heated argument with his friend on October 7, 2001.

The charges were acquitted after the friend claimed that he shot Adams in self-defense.

Ricky Lawless was considered an excellent technician during his career in the '80s. He trained a lot of independent wrestlers such as Joey Maggs, Bobby Starr, and Axl Rotten.

Lawless was discovered dead at the age of 28 after he, too, was shot. It was determined by the police that Raymond Swartz, the husband of the woman Lawless had reportedly had an affair with, was the man responsible for the shooting.

There you have it… murdered wrestler quick hits.

No wrestling family has been through more tragedy than the Von Erichs. The family's actual last name is Adkisson. However, every member of the family who joined the wrestling business used the Von Erich name. This was in dedication to the patriarch of the family, Jack (Fritz Von Erich) Adkisson.

Fritz lived to the age of 68, though unpleasantly, five of his six sons preceded him in death, three by suicide.

The firstborn son, Jack Jr., was electrocuted at the age of six in 1959 in a household accident.

In 1984, David Von Erich died in Japan from an unconfirmed cause, although it is widely believed he died from a drug overdose.

On April 12, 1987, Mike Von Erich left a suicide note for his family, then went to Lewisville Lake, where he drank alcohol and overdosed on the sleeping aid Placidyl. A few days before his death, Mike was arrested after a DUI. His body was found four days later and buried at Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas.

On September 12, 1991, at about 9 P.M., Chris Von Erick was found by his brother Kevin and mother outside of their family farm in Edom, suffering from a self-inflicted 9mm gunshot wound to the head. According to Kevin, he discovered Chris sitting alone on top of a hill. Chris reassured him, and after Kevin left, he shot himself in the head. Although Chris was hospitalized at the East Texas Medical Center shortly after 10 P.M., he died 20 minutes after arriving, eighteen days before his 22nd birthday. Toxicology reports also revealed cocaine and valium were in his system at his death. Kevin had talked to Chris earlier that day about 100–150 yards north of their home where an apparent suicide note had been left. After the 1987 suicide of brother Mike, Chris began to experience depression and drug issues. He was also frustrated by his inability to make headway as a wrestler due to his physical build. His interment was located at Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas.

On June 4, 1986, Kerry von Erich was in a motorcycle accident that nearly ended his life. He suffered a dislocated hip and a badly injured right leg. Doctors were unable to save his right foot, eventually amputating it. According to his brother Kevin, Kerry injured the foot following surgery by attempting to walk on it prematurely, thus forcing the doctors to amputate it. He continued wrestling after the accident with a prosthesis. He kept the amputation secret to most fans and fellow wrestlers, even going to the extreme of showering with his boots on. His amputation was kept secret from the public until after his death. However, Roddy Piper stated in his autobiography: "We were the best of friends. In fact, he felt comfortable enough to sit with me in a hotel and shoot the breeze with his prosthetic off".

After the amputation of his foot, Kerry became addicted to pain killers, followed by several drug problems. Among the many of them were two arrests, the first of which resulted in probation. Kerry died by suicide with a single gunshot to the heart with a .44 caliber pistol on February 18, 1993, on his father's ranch in Denton County, Texas, just 15 days after his 33rd birthday. His death came just one day after being indicted for the second drug charge, which would have more than likely resulted in extensive jail time (being a violation of his probation),

In his autobiography, "My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling", Brett "the Hitman" Hart stated that Kerry had told him that he had decided to join his late brothers in heaven and was waiting for God to tell him when. Bret told Kerry that his living daughters would need him more than his late brothers. Kerry mostly convinced Bret that he had changed his mind, but Bret feared that it was only words. Kerry told Bret again in the summer of 1992 that he wanted to follow his three late brothers David, Mike, and Chris and that they were calling him. Kerry's marriage had fallen apart earlier in 1992, and according to Hart, Kerry believed that his death was inevitable.

Fritz lived to the age of 68 and had to bury 5 of his sons.

Kevin Von Erich talks about being the last Von Erich brother left alive in an interview from 1994. He says:

"My brothers and I lived real dangerously.

"We were a really reckless group always showing off for each other – like walking on bridges in Japan and taking every chance we could. We were just young kids. I'm really surprised that I survived…

"We used to have this thing called the 'chance of the day,' where every day we'd take a chance on our lives. Dave was always too smart for that, so he'd just watch. We'd jump on wild bulls' backs, jump on trains going fast. "We'd get on the roof of a car at highway speed. You start thinking nothing can get you, and you're indestructible. That's part of being in sports. We were blessed with good bodies and good balance. We felt like we could do anything, and nothing would hurt us."

He goes on about the pain killers and drugs:

"Mike was into painkillers. All the brothers had painkillers prescribed by doctors. Kerry was the only one who got into illegal drugs [that weren't prescribed].

"Kerry figured he didn't have anything to live for. He was rootless. He had no home. Seeing me with my family made his pain greater. It reminded him of what he was missing. It was such a sad, tragic thing.

"He had his two beautiful daughters and a wife he loved, but then he'd come home, and all his stuff would be moved out. She'd move all his stuff out. Kerry was no saint [but] they both treated each other kind of rough.

"He had pretty much come to an understanding the day he killed himself. He just left having lunch with Kathy, his wife. Kerry was going to jail*, and he was afraid of never seeing his girls again.

"He said, 'Kevin, I'm about to kill myself…'

"We had talked for about an hour. We told some good dirty jokes, we laughed, and he told me, 'I'm going to kill myself.' I thought I had him talked out of it.

"He said, 'I didn't want to be like Mike and not say goodbye.'

"That's when I begged him. I said, 'Don't do this. Don't leave me alone. You're my only brother. Don't leave me.'

"I thought I had talked him out of it.

"Thirty minutes later, they found his body. He must have gone right out and done it.

If you want to talk about tragic wrestler deaths, there you go. We can't even imagine going through something like that. And remember, if you or someone you know are having thoughts of harming yourself or someone else, please reach out to your local mental health professionals. It takes a stronger person to get help than to do something you can't take back.

Those are some of the crazier deaths we found. This list is but a small fraction of the tragic deaths from the world of wrestling. Tons of guys we grew up watching have died recently due to health complications and drug issues. There have been some younger guys that have passed on recently as well. There have been tons of suicides in wrestlers under the age of 50. Also, as we've seen, a pretty good amount of murders. As we stated earlier, we stayed away from many more prominent names, mainly because they were health-related and covered extensively in recent years. Also, we don't want to talk about a guy who decided it was best to end his wife's and son's lives, as well as his own. CTE is a raging bitch. We'd like to hear what you guys think and maybe some crazy ones we've missed since we're not perfect! But before we talk about anything else, I am going to show you wonderful listeners some of my favorite moves in the ring on my boy Logan and check this out on our youtube page!

Top wrestling movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/wrestling-movies-list-of-all-wrestling-films/ranker-film

What happened to the Jeff Davis/Jennings 8?

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 14:13:38 -0500

http://www.theblood-shed.com/top-10-drug-horror-movies/

Hello, you crazy, beautiful bastards. And happy new year. We hope your Christmas or whatever holiday you chose to celebrate was a great one. As you probably know, we took the week off to be with our families, and this week we're back with another banger, as the cool kids say. We are hopping back into the dark, twisted world of UNSOLVED true crime—the best and only way to serve that horrible cold dish. We know you guys love that shit, and so do we. Of course, not in a weird "sitting alone in front of my computer masturbating to unsolved terrible crimes" sort of way, but in more of a "gee-whiz Mr. Wilson, that's interesting, I'd like to learn more" kind of way. And with that out of the way, let's get into today's episode on the Jennings 8!

The Jennings 8, sometimes also referred to as the Jeff Davis 8, is a series of unsolved murders in Jefferson Davis Parish in Louisiana between 2005- 2009. And for those of you wondering, no, Moody wasn't living there yet. So he's been cleared of this one. This one.

Two of the victims had their throats slit; the other six were in such a bad state of decay that a cause of death could not be determined, but asphyxiation is thought to be the cause. Law enforcement would have you believe a serial killer was on the loose but is that really what happened? Or was something crazier going down?

Let's take a look at the unfortunate victims first.

The first body found was that of Loretta Lynn Chaisson Lewis. She was 28 and last seen on 05/17/05 in Jennings, Louisiana. Her body was found in the Grand Marais Canal 05/20/05 and floating in Grand Marais Canal's east fork, a few miles southwest of Jennings. She was partially clothed and shoeless. The advanced decomposition caused difficulty identifying and collecting evidence, and an autopsy found Loretta had no physical injuries. A toxicology report showed "high levels of drugs and alcohol" in her system, but no cause of death was determined. Investigators believe she may have been in the canal for three to four days.

The second victim, Ernestine Patterson, was a mother of four and a lifelong Jennings resident. The 30-year-old was last seen on June 16, 2005. On June 18, her body was discovered in a drainage canal off LA Highway 102. She was partially clothed, and her throat had been slit. The death was ruled a homicide, and two people were arrested and charged with 2nd-degree murder but were later released due to "lack of evidence." She worked at Iota State University.

The third victim was Kristen Elizabeth Gary-Lopez. Kristen was last seen alive by friends and family on March 6, 2007. By all published accounts, Kristen was involved in a high-risk lifestyle of drugs and prostitution. Because it was not unusual to not hear from her for extended amounts of time, she was not reported missing until ten days later.

On March 18, a fisherman discovered Lopez's utterly nude body in the Petitjean Canal, a rural area near Cherokee Road right off LA 99, about 10 miles south of the town of Welsh. Investigators felt her body had been placed in that location but killed elsewhere. According to autopsy results, the cause of death for Kristen Gary Lopez is undetermined. However, toxicology results showed elevated levels of drugs and alcohol in Lopez's system. In May 2007, Frankie Richard and his niece, Hannah Conner, were arrested in connection with Lopez's death. Richard and Conner were also questioned about the other deaths before Lopez's body was found. Richard was reportedly seen with three of the victims in the last days of their lives. Charges were eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence and conflicting witness statements.

Also arrested in May 2007 was Tracee L. Chaisson. The police booked her on Accessory After the Fact charges. Chaisson was the person who reported Kristen missing. Investigators believed she knew where the body was when she made the report. Like Richard and Conner, charges were dropped against Tracee Chaisson due to lack of evidence and conflicting statements.

Whitnei Charlene Dubois, 26, was last seen on 05/10/07. Her remains were found 05/12/07 at the intersection of Bobby and Earl Duhon Roads, approximately five miles outside of Jennings, Louisiana.

According to the family, "Whitnei enjoyed listening to music, absolutely adored her daughter, was tough on the outside despite her vulnerabilities within, and left a lasting impression on all those who knew and loved her."

The nude body of Whitnei Dubois was found 05/12/07 near the intersection of Bobby and Earl Duhon Roads, approximately five miles outside of Jennings. Investigators believe she had been dead "a couple of days." Officials never determined the cause of death, but high levels of alcohol and drugs were found in her body.

Her family has doubts about the investigation into her death. Whitnei's sister Brittney Jones wonders, "why haven't we been questioned? Why haven't we been asked when was the last time we saw our sister? Where her whereabouts was? Why haven't we been asked about the evidence? Why haven't we been contacted?"

Lolita Doucet, her aunt, believes Whitnei and the other victims were dismissed as women who lived high-risk lifestyles involving drugs and prostitution.

23-year-old LaConia Shontel "Muggy" Brown was last seen on May 27, 2008. Around 2 am on May 29, a Jennings police officer discovered her body lying on Racca Road, leading to the police firing range. Although in a rural area, Brown's body was the first found within the city limits of Jennings. She would become the 5th victim of the Jennings 8. LaConia was clothed but had no shoes on. Her throat had been slit, and someone had doused her body with bleach. Brown was wearing a white, tank-top style shirt stained from white to pink. Police believed the stain to be blood and that some type of liquid had diluted it from red to pink. They discovered more evidence and potential leads in this case than in any of the previous deaths since Brown's body was found about six hours after it was left on the road.

LaConia's family stated that she may have known something horrible was about to happen to her and that she was living in fear just days before her death. She was a lifelong resident of Jennings and attended Jennings High School.

Crystal 'Shay' Benoit Zeno, 23, was last seen 08/29/08. Her remains were found on 09/11/08 near a dry irrigation canal a few miles from Jennings, Louisiana.

Crystal was employed with Sonic in Lake Arthur until May 2008, when she moved to Jennings. She enjoyed spending time with her daughter, fishing, singing, and listening to music. She was a people-person, who also enjoyed spending time with friends.

According to her parents, Shay was diagnosed with bipolar at 12 and started using drugs early to cope with the illness.

On 09/11/08, hunters reported a foul smell in a wooded area to authorities. The remains of Crystal Shay were found around 3:00 pm on the LaCour Road levee, off LA Highway 1126, a few miles southeast of Jennings. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, she was not identified with DNA until nearly two months later, on 11/07/08. Her death was ruled a homicide, although the cause of death and toxicology reports have not been released to the public.

Crystal, who went by "Shay," was married and had a young daughter. She also knew many of the other victims, including Brittney Gary.

17-year-old Brittney Gary became the 7th and youngest victim. Brittney walked out of the Family Dollar Store in Jennings, never to be seen alive again; sometime after 5:30 pm that day, she was abducted. Thirteen days passed as her family, and a concerned public held out hope that Brittney was safe and would be located soon. Sadly, on November 15, 2008, her deceased body was found in a grassy area outside Jennings. According to her family, Brittney loved to swim, hang out with her friends, and listen to music. She enjoyed spending time with her friends and family and was a friendly and loving person. She was also trusted by the third victim Kristine Gary Lopez. She also knew several of the other victims.

Necole Jean Guillory, 26, was last seen on 08/16/09. Her remains were discovered on 08/19/09 near the westbound I-10 exit in Egan, Louisiana.

She was a resident of Lake Arthur, and according to her family, enjoyed listening to music and loved being outdoors.

Necole's remains were discovered on 08/19/09 by a highway worker mowing grass. She was left between mile markers 72 & 73, near the westbound I-10 Egan exit (between Crowley and Jennings) in Acadia Parish. Mark Dawson, Acadia Parish Coroner, ruled the death of Necole murder by probable asphyxia.

According to Necole's mother, shortly before her daughter's disappearance, she'd asked her what kind of icing she wanted for her birthday cake. Necole replied it didn't matter because she wouldn't see her birthday. Unfortunately, her premonition was correct: her body was found just days before her birthday. She also confided in her Mom that police killed the other young women, and it would only be a matter of time before she ended up dead too. Holy shit! What the hell is going on down there?

Ok, so those are the unfortunate victims in the case. Did a serial killer kill them? In December 2008, Officials formed a multi-agency investigative team (MAIT) of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to solve the killings. At the time, there were seven dead women, and the reward for information leading to the guilty party's arrest was increased from $35,000 to $85,000. From the outset, the task force was searching for a serial killer.

"It is the collective opinion of all agencies involved in this investigation," said then Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff Ricky Edwards, who was flanked by FBI agents, Louisiana State Police, and sheriffs from neighboring parishes at a press conference announcing the task force's inception, "that these murders may have been committed by a common offender."

In 2012 the new Jefferson Davis sheriff claimed they still had no evidence that these deaths were all related or even homicides. Now, he may be technically correct, but most find this incredibly hard to believe, given the evidence and connections. At the time, most people chalked this up to the work of a serial killer preying on sex workers. If you're interested in serial killers, you'll know that this is not unusual. Many serial killers get started by killing sex workers as they are viewed as less important and less likely to be missed. Killers believe they can easily get away with murders of women who partake in this work line because nobody cares about them. As far as suspects go, some were arrested and released, as we've mentioned earlier.

However, one man believes that this was not the work of a serial killer. Writer Ethan Brown spent several years investigating this case and had discovered some interesting things in the process.

Buckle up bitches. This is about to be a crazy ride!

In one article he wrote for medium.com, Brown says, "Over the past two years, I have obtained and reviewed hundreds of pages of task force witness interviews, the homicide case files on several of the victims, the Jeff Davis Parish sheriff's office's and Jeff Davis Parish district attorney's files on all of the victims, federal and state court records, and the complete personnel files of the cops and sheriff's deputies at the center of the case. I have interviewed friends and family of all eight victims, as well as some of the possible suspects.

The details of the Jeff Davis 8 case can be murky; the connections between victims, suspects, and police tangled. My investigation, however, casts serious doubt on the theory that the Jeff Davis 8 is the work of a serial killer."

Brown goes on to say, "One fact is clear: local law enforcement is far too steeped in misconduct and corruption—and this extends to the task force, which is dominated by detectives and deputies from the sheriff's office—to run an investigation with the integrity that the murdered women and their families deserve after nearly a decade in which no one has been brought to justice."

One reason Brown doesn't believe this was the work of a serial killer is the connections between all of the victims. Generally, serial killers kill victims who have no relation to other victims. However, the women themselves all knew one another intimately. Some were related by blood (such as cousins Kristen Gary Lopez and Brittney Gary) or lived together (Gary bunked down with Crystal Benoit in South Jennings just before being killed in 2008). They solicited prostitution at the Boudreaux Inn, a now-shuttered motel in Jennings that, with its sloping blue metal roof and nondescript white façade, could be mistaken for a storage facility. The inn was ideally situated in Jennings's heady drugs and sex trade—just off a 400-mile stretch of Interstate 10 connecting Houston to New Orleans, favored by marijuana and cocaine traffickers and prescription-pill "doctor shoppers"—and cops were there on a near-nightly basis for busts. Loretta Lewis, the first victim, was the subject of several complaints to the police based on her activity at the inn.

Brown also says, "It wasn't simply that they traded their bodies at the same address. According to my reporting, all but one of the victims—Ernestine Patterson—were associated with the same fixture of the Jennings underworld: a 58-year-old oil-rig worker turned strip-club owner named Frankie Richard. "We shared something," he said of the murdered women, his voice so raspy it sounded as though he had been gargling rocks. "When we were at the lowest point of our life, and no one wanted to have anything to do with us, we had something to do with each other. And that means something to me. Them girls were my friends no matter how fucking low my life was. And I was their friend no matter how fuckin' low their life was."

Richard described the city of Jennings when the killings began: "It was wide open… The drugs, the prostitution, the bars, the crooked cops." Since the early 1990s, there have been nearly 20 unsolved homicides, including the slain eight women, in Jefferson Davis Parish, a statistic any competent sheriff's department would regard as both a shallow clearance rate and an astonishingly high murder rate for a small area.

As for suspects, Brown had found several while going through the reports from the task force and interviewing witnesses. In 2007, Frankie Richard himself was briefly charged in the Lopez killing, but those charges were dropped after witnesses provided conflicting statements and an essential piece of physical evidence was mishandled. Richard died in 2020.

Byron Chad Jones and Lawrence Nixon (a cousin of the fifth victim, Laconia Brown) were briefly charged with second-degree murder in the Ernestine Patterson case. But despite several witnesses implicating them, the sheriff's office did not test the alleged crime scene until 15 months after Patterson's murder and found it "failed to demonstrate the presence of blood." That messed-up crime scene work contributed, in part, to the collapse of the case against the two men. According to case files, Jennings street hustlers with connections to Richard were suspected in the deaths of some of the other women.

Brown claims no credible suspects outside the Jennings drug circle have been found, yet the official narrative is still that of a serial killer.

Another strange connection is that the murdered women of the Jeff Davis 8 (aka, the Jennings 8) provided information to law enforcement about other Jeff Davis 8 victims—and then turned up dead themselves. For example, Laconia Brown (the fifth victim) was interrogated about the 2005 killing of Ernestine Patterson (the second victim). Brown, the article author, obtained by a task force report in which one witness claims that Brown, the murder victim, spotted the body of Loretta Lewis (the first victim) floating in the Grand Marais Canal before Jerry Jackson discovered her there in May 2005. In 2006, detectives investigating Lewis's murder interrogated Kristen Gary Lopez (the third victim).

"She knew what was going on," Melissa Daigle, Lopez's mother, told Brown. She trailed off, tearing up at the memory. "They were scared, them girls. I think she knew about it and was too scared to say."

Brown also claims that he discovered that all of the women at one point had been informants for local law enforcement regarding the Jennings drug trade.

When Brown confronted Sheriff Edwards with the allegation that the Jeff Davis 8 were informants, the sheriff stammered a non-denial. "I wouldn't respond," he told me. "If they were informants, I would still continue to protect their anonymity. I don't know that's the truth. I won't comment on it."

Brown writes that at the end of 2008, a Jennings prostitute warned task force investigators that Necole Guillory "might be the next victim."

Guillory was known for her street savviness, and in 2006, when she was 24, she savagely attacked a sex customer with the handle of a sledgehammer.

Brown says of Guillory," I've reviewed the parish district attorney office's case files on Guillory, and in at least six cases, the charges against her ended in a nolle prosequi (a legal term meaning "be unwilling to pursue" on the district attorney's part). Though there is no record of Guillory's cooperation—excluding a theft case in which she agreed to testify against her codefendant—snitches routinely have charges nolle prossed in exchange for their off-the-record cooperation."

"Necole knew a whole lot," said Frankie Richard, "about a whole lot."

Necoles mother Barbara would tell Brown, "She was always paranoid," "It got to the point where she did not want to go anywhere by herself," she said. "I think she could feel that they were closing in on her." With her 27th birthday approaching, Guillory refused even to entertain the idea of celebrating. "I bought some icing and cake for her birthday," Barbara recalled. "She said, 'Momma, it doesn't matter—I'm not gonna be here.'"

Guillory also had her four kids placed with relatives. A task force witness supports the claim that in her final days, she "was scared of someone," but she would not say who and that she "knew who killed the girls."

Barbara believes that her daughter was murdered because she witnessed local law enforcement corruption or misconduct or worse. "She used to tell us all the time it was the police killing the girls," Barbara said. "We'd say, 'Necole, a name. Something. Write a letter and leave it somewhere. Let us know. We can help you.' No, momma. It's too far gone. It's too big. I'd rather y'all not know nothing, that way nothing can happen to y'all… She knew, she knew, she knew, and that's why they killed her."

Brown writes that several other families of victims have similar stories.

He says, "Gail Brown, a sister of the fifth victim, Laconia "Muggy" Brown, told me that just before Muggy was killed, she worriedly informed her family that "she was investigating a murder with a cop; the cop wanted to give her $500 to tell what happened." Gail put it as bluntly as Barbara Guillory: "She knew what was going on," she told me, referring to her sister's work as a cooperator. "I think it was a cop that killed my sister."

Taskforce witness interviews corroborate the Brown family accounts; one was noted as saying that "Laconia Brown told her that…three police officers were going to kill her."

According to Brown, the Jennings police force and Jeff Davis sheriff's offices have been plagued by misconduct for years.

Veterans of Jennings' streets trace the unwinding of local law enforcement back to the '70s when they say cops began getting involved in drug trafficking. But this is not merely street gossip. In March 1990, two local men burglarized the sheriff's office, making off with a staggering 300 pounds of marijuana. According to court documents, investigators interviewed one of the burglars. He named a surprising pair of accomplices—Frankie Richard and a man named Ted Gary, who was then chief deputy sheriff. (Officials brought no charges against Richard and Gary.)

From sheriff's using parish funds to purchase personal items illegally, to unlawfully and purposefully stopping cars with out-of-state plates, to improper dealings with inmates, and even the murder of one officer and his wife by another officer, things were getting pretty nuts.

In October 2003, eight female Jennings cops filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against Jennings police chief Donald "Lucky" DeLouche, a gaggle of male cops, and the City of Jennings, alleging widespread acts of sexual violence and harassment. Among the allegations in the complaint: a captain who shook his penis at female officers, saying, "You know I like to lick pussy, I can numb it all night," and forced oral sex on a female officer, as well as a lieutenant who waved a knife at a female officer, warning, "Girl, I'll cut you."

In January 2013, former Jennings police chief Johnny Lassiter was hit with a battery of charges after a Louisiana State Police audit found $4,500 in cash, 1,800 pills, more than 380 grams of cocaine, and several pounds of marijuana missing from the department's evidence room.

In December 2007, Sergeant Jesse Ewing received word that two female inmates at the city jail wanted to talk about the unsolved homicides (at the time totaling four). He was stunned by what he heard: Ewing said both women told him that "higher-ranking officers" had been directly involved in covering up the murders.

Brown claims Ewing had long been wary of his fellow cops, and he feared that the audiotapes would simply vanish, just as drugs and cash had a way of disappearing from evidence. So Ewing handed the interview tapes over to a local private investigator named Kirk Menard, who rushed copies to the FBI's office in nearby Lake Charles.

Brown goes on to write, "Ewing's gambit to grab the attention of the feds backfired. The tapes ended up right back with the sheriff's office–dominated task force, and Ewing's fears of retaliation turned out to be justified. As a result, the parish district attorney charged Ewing with malfeasance in office and sexual misconduct. (One of the female inmates claimed that Ewing touched her inappropriately during the interview. Ewing denies it, and that charge was dismissed.)

Brown says, "Ewing and I sat in his trailer in the Paradise Park development in Jennings in July 2011. He is a short, wide-shouldered man with a cleanly shaved head, a graying goatee, and the bulky frame of a rugby player. Ewing decorated the trailer with little more than a TV set and a couch—a no-frills lifestyle that he blamed on employment troubles since his termination after 20 years on the job. "I felt screwed for doing the right thing," he said."

Although the tapes were never made public, Brown says he had listened to them in their entirety. He claims they provide highly specific information about the murders of two of the prostitutes—Whitnei Dubois and Kristen Gary Lopez—as well as local law enforcement's alleged role in covering up Frankie Richard's role in at least one of the killings.

The first inmate says that a prostitute named Tracee Chaisson had told her that she was there when Richard and his niece Hannah Conner killed Dubois. They'd all been getting high, and when Dubois refused Richard's sexual advances, he "got aggressive, he started fighting with her, and when she started fighting back he got on top of her and started punching her." According to the inmate, Chaisson then said that Hannah held her head back and drowned her.

The two inmates told another story about a truck and a conspiracy between Richard and a top sheriff's office investigator to destroy evidence in the Lopez case.

The second inmate said Richard put Lopez's body "in a barrel," and used a truck to transport it. The truck, she said, was later purchased by "an officer named Mr. Warren, I don't know his exact name, he bought the truck to discard the evidence."

By "Warren," the inmate meant the sheriff's office chief criminal investigator, Warren Gary. The first inmate had also spoken of Lopez's body, a truck, and an officer named Warren.

Public records would seem to corroborate the second witness' account. On March 29, 2007, Warren Gary purchased a 2006 Chevy Silverado truck for $8,748.90 from Connie Siler, a Richard associate who had just been hauled into the sheriff's office for questioning in the case of a bad check.

On April 20, Gary resold Siler's Silverado for $15,500, a nearly 50 percent profit in less than one month. (Siler, in turn, used profits from the sale, $3,207.13, to pay the parish district attorney's office for the bad checks she had issued.)

Gary's truck purchase was possibly illegal and definitely unethical—the Louisiana Board of Ethics fined him $10,000 in the incident. "What [Gary] did with that was wrong," former sheriff Ricky Edwards told Brown. "Buying from an inmate, that's what was ethically wrong." He insisted, however, that his office "had no clue that [the truck] was even part of evidence [in the Lopez case]. That didn't come out until way after the fact."

Brown says there is some reason to doubt this claim. According to their reports, investigators knew that Siler was one of the last to see Lopez alive. In addition, Paula Guillory, a former detective in the sheriff's office who was later investigated for her ties to the Jennings drug scene, recently spoke to Brown and told him, "We knew that Connie Siler's vehicle was probably involved."

In a town where everyone was related and where the atmosphere had the feeling of a vicious family feud, it was Paula's then-husband Terrie Guillory, the warden at the jail, who brokered the Siler truck deal, according to the ethics board report on Gary. (Note: That he shares a last name with one of the victims is not a coincidence: Necole Guillory was his cousin.)

Because of Warren Gary and Terrie Guillory, two members of law enforcement, the Lopez case lost an essential piece of physical evidence. Because of Terrie Guillory, one suspect found herself with an alibi. And because Conner refused to flip on Richard, and Chaisson had changed her story repeatedly, the charges against all of them were dropped.

Brown writes, "Put simply: The statements from the two female inmates portrayed Richard and his associates working with the sheriff's office to dispose of evidence in the Lopez case. Yet the sergeant who took the statements was forced out of his job, and the allegations were ignored by law enforcement."

A review of hundreds of pages of task force investigative reports by Brown reveals a series of witness interviews where local law enforcement was implicated in the murders. However, these allegations have never been made public.

Danny Barry, a 12-year veteran of the sheriff's office when he died in 2010 at the age of 63, was named a suspect by at least three separate task force witnesses in a single day of interrogations in November 2008. "Deputy Danny Barry would ride around on the south side with his wife," one witness said. "And they would try to pick up girls….[Barry's vehicle was] a small blue sports car…Barry would drop off his wife, Natalie, and she would get the girls. The couple would 'spike' a drink and then take the girls back to the Barrys' house…."

One witness even told investigators that "Danny Barry had a room in his trailer that had chains hanging from the ceiling and that a person could not see in or out of the room." What the fuck?

There was only one task force interview with Barry on February 25, 2009. He wasn't questioned about the abundance of allegations against him, and there hasn't been any substantive follow-up investigation.

Brown goes on to write, "As the murders in the parish crescendoed in 2009, Guillory participated in a raid on Frankie Richard's family home. This was part of a sprawling investigation by the sheriff's office into a drugs and theft ring that Richard, his mother, and Teresa Gary (the mother of the seventh victim, Brittney Gary) were later charged with running, in which guns, jewelry, and rare coins had been pilfered from residences across Jennings. Yet when Guillory turned over evidence, nearly $4,000 was missing. So the theft case collapsed under the weight of serious law enforcement misconduct."

"Guillory denies that she stole or disposed of evidence in the case. She told me that she realized the money was missing when she was cataloguing the evidence from the raid and immediately contacted her superiors. (Warren Gary, the former chief investigator who had purchased the truck allegedly used to dispose of Lopez's body, helped catalogue the evidence, which is another troubling coincidence.) She was sent home from work and, even though she offered to take a polygraph test regarding the missing money, she was promptly fired by Sheriff Edwards. "I never even gave my own side of the story," she told Brown.

Yet again, the charges against Richard were dropped. It was a break that he relishes to this day. "I'm not mad at that," Richard told Brown when he asked him about the missing evidence in his case. "In fact I thank her for doing that. If she had handled her business right, my momma would still be in jail."

Most of the murdered women seemed to know about the other prostitute killings. But at least one victim from the Jeff Davis 8 witnessed a killing at the hands of state and local law enforcement during a drug bust in Jennings that went awry.

During a drug bust brought on by a tip from a snitch, Leonard Crochet, a pill dealer, was shot and killed by Probation and Parole agent John Briggs Becton. Briggs Becton told Crochet to show his hands, and, according to a statement he gave later to investigators, Crochet "then made a sudden movement with his hands toward his belt line." Believing that Crochet was reaching for a weapon, Briggs Becton fired his departmentally issued Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun, with a single shot striking Crochet in the chest.

According to a later statement by a fellow Probation and Parole agent at the raid, Briggs Becton approached Crochet's body, muttering, "Oh shit." Briggs Becton called an ambulance to the scene, and the inhabitants at 610 Gallup were taken into custody and transported to the Jennings Police Department for questioning. Police investigators concluded that they were "unable to locate any items near Crochet's location in the residence which could have been construed as a weapon. Further, no persons inside the residence at the time of the shooting, whether law enforcement or civilian, could provide any evidence that Crochet had brandished a weapon."

That July, a parish grand jury heard prosecutors make their case that Briggs Becton committed the crime of negligent homicide. However, they came back with a decision of "no true bill"—no probable cause or evidence to show that Briggs Becton had committed a crime.

Could this be the reason the Jennings 8 we're killed? It is one theory suggested by some in the parish. "The victims were being killed because they were present when Leonard Crochet was killed by the police," one witness told task force investigators. "The girls were being killed because they had seen something they were not supposed to see." Even Richard connected the Crochet killing to the murdered women: "Most of them girls was at a raid…when that Crochet boy got killed. Most of the girls that are dead today were there that night."

Brown obtained a witness list from the Louisiana State Police on the incident. He says, "it reads like a who's who of players in the Jeff Davis 8 case, including the third victim Kristen Gary Lopez, Alvin "Bootsy" Lewis (the boyfriend of the fourth victim, Whitnei Duboisi, and the brother-in-law of the first victim, Loretta Lewis), and Harvey "Bird Dog" Burleigh, who later told Dubois' older brother Mike that "I'm close to finding out who killed your sister" and was then found stabbed to death in his Jennings apartment. His murder, too, remains unsolved."

The slaying of witnesses appears to be a pattern in Jefferson Davis Parish. Soon after Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno (the sixth victim) was found in a wooded area in South Jennings in September 2008, a tip was called into the parish district attorney's office from a 43-year-old Lafayette man named Russell Carrier. Carrier said that he had seen three African-American men exiting the woods. Richard associate Eugene "Dog" Ivory, Ervin "Tyson" Mouton (who is named as another possible suspect in the Lopez homicide in the task force documents), and Ricardo "Tiger" Williams.

On October 10, 2010, Carrier was struck and killed by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Train in Jennings early in the morning. Police Chief Todd D'Albor said that "for whatever reason," Carrier laid on the tracks and was run over.

God damn, this shit is nuts!

Brown concludes his article with information about one of the leading players in the case, Frankie Richard, whom we've talked about a lot.

Brown writes of Frankie, "Though Richard was well aware that I was deeply investigating the Jeff Davis 8, he never turned me down for an interview and didn't flinch when I confronted him with my reporting—he has a knack for explaining away bad facts and constructing theories on alternative suspects." Deceased deputy Danny Barry is also a favorite. "All these girls or most of these girls was found within a three-mile radius of Danny Barry's house," Richard told Brown. "Since he been dead, nobody died. All these motherfuckers on the sheriff's department are some crooked sons of bitches."

Brown describes one interview with Frankie as follows "On an unusually warm and muggy late spring night in 2012, Richard sat shirtless, exposing his meaty upper body, on a pair of rockers on the front porch of his family home in Jennings. He has expressionless brown eyes, a thick head of black hair streaked with gray, and a salt-and-pepper goatee. He was trying very hard to project the image of a wrongly accused, down-on-his-luck, sobered-up former hustler. "I was a dope addict, a coke head, meth head, alcoholic, no-good sonofabitch," Richard told me. "But I'm determined to get my head on right. I'm one year clean from meth and 100 days clean from alcohol and cocaine after 42 years. That's a long fuckin' time for a motherfucker like me."

Brown continues, "Standing nearby, on the ground below, was an associate of Richard's, a towering African-American man in his 30s wearing baggy jeans and a white T-shirt. At one point, he interrupted the conversation to warn me that the story I'm working on will likely put me in the crosshairs of local law enforcement. "You a bold-ass little man, dog," he said. "Don't get caught in Jeff Davis Parish at night."

Brown continues about Frankie Richard:

"That Richard continues to sit atop what police files and my own reporting suggest is an empire of drugs and prostitution is no spectacular stroke of luck. He is a prized informant who, according to task force documents, has provided a steady stream of intel to investigators. (Richard was debriefed in 2008, which Brown says challenges another official narrative: that no one is talking to the multi-agency investigative team, and that all investigators have is a series of unhelpful dead ends.) He goes on to say, "Criminal activity sanctioned by high-level law enforcement is hardly uncommon; a 2011 FBI report concluded the agency gave its informants permission to break the law at least 5,658 times that year.

Richard would push back against the snitch label vigorously. But, in May 2012, Kirk Menard, the private investigator, sent a pair of female witnesses who said they had tips in the killings related to Richard to the task force offices to be interrogated. "Do not worry about Frankie," one high-ranking task force investigator told the stunned women, "because he works for me." According to the witness account, the investigator added that Richard has a task force–issued cellphone. Menard forwarded me an e-mail he sent to the task force outlining his concerns about the interview. Nearly two years later, he has yet to receive a response."

Brown says that the possibility that Richard is just circumstantially connected to all of the eight murdered women has also been undermined again and again. Soon after charges against Richard in the 2007 Lopez slaying were dismissed, he and associate Eugene "Dog" Ivory—who is, according to task force witnesses, a suspect in the murder of Crystal Benoit—beat a rape case in which, according to case files, Richard allegedly told the victim, "If you tell anyone, bitch, you will end up like the others."

Brown also recounts another story relayed to him:

"One night, not long before Richard and I met, Beverly Crochet, the sister of slain drug dealer Leonard Crochet, was leaving Tina's Bar, a South Jennings haunt frequented by the Jeff Davis 8. Tracee Chaisson, the former prostitute who was once charged with being an accessory after the fact of second-degree murder in the slaying of Kristen Lopez, approached her in the parking lot.

"When I was walking out with my ride," Crochet told me when we spoke several weeks later on the front porch of her home, which is just down the street from the Richard family home, "she was screaming out the car with some black people, 'You're gonna be number 9.'"

Crochet said she reported the incident to the task force. She cleared her throat nervously. "I could tell you more," she said, "but I'm scared. I'm scared for my own life." The Jeff Davis 8 killings, she said, "started right after" her brother Leonard was killed. "Right after. All them girls were in there at one point. They were all in there for two days in and out."

Brown concludes his article by saying The Jeff Davis 8 case is begging for a takeover by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. They had intervened in a now-notorious New Orleans Police Department case from 2005, where cops shot and killed innocent bystanders on the Danziger Bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Brown claims his investigation raises several genuine questions about the prevailing serial-killer theory of these murders. It also indicates that local law enforcement is a hindrance, not a help, to a resolution being reached. Whatever the truth, these eight women, and their surviving families, deserve a fresh inquiry by an outside investigative body.

Holy shit! What seemed like a pretty clear-cut case on the outside; Serial killer preying on sex workers turned into THAT fucking crazy story. Wow. What do you all think? Fucking nuts, huh! The case remains unsolved, and if the things Brown uncovered are accurate, we will most likely never get to the bottom of this!

Movies:

Top ten drug horror movies, keeping with the drug theme

A Midnight Carol (Rerelease) Our take on the Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 18:00:00 -0500

Due to popular demand, we've decided to rerelease our epic remake of the the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol".

WARNING! This isn't exactly PG so listener discretion is always advised.

Happy Holidays! Thank you for listening.

Don't miss this years Christmas bonus as well as all of the other amazing content available only at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

Christmas Disasters

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 09:00:00 -0500

For bonuses and to support the show, sign up at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast

This week is our Christmas special here on the train. First, we've covered Krampus, Christmas killings, and ghost story Christmas traditions. Then, in keeping with our tradition of crazy Christmas episodes, today, we bring you some crazy Christmas disasters! Christmas isn't immune to crazy shit going on, from natural disasters to fires. Not only that, we're giving you guys a pretty good dose of history today. So with that being said, let's get into some crazy Christmas stuff!

While this first topic isn't necessarily a disaster in the usual sense, it definitely caused nothing but problems. And yes, it's a disaster. In 1865 on Christmas Eve, something happened that would change things for many people in this country and still causes grief to this day. While most people in the u.s. were settling down for the night with their families, leaving milk out for Santa, and tucking the kids in for the night, a group of men in Pulaski, Tennessee, were getting together for a very different purpose. Frank McCord, Richard Reed, John Lester, John Kennedy, J. Calvin Jones, and James Crowe were all officers with the Confederacy in the civil war. That night, they got together to form a group inspired at least in part by the then largely defunct Sons of Malta. While it started as a social club, within months, it would turn into one of the most nefarious groups around, the Ku Klux Klan. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities (1907), "Beginning in April, 1867, there was a gradual transformation. ...The members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. They had played with an engine of power and mystery, though organized on entirely innocent lines, and found themselves overcome by a belief that something must lie behind it all – that there was, after all, a serious purpose, a work for the Klan to do." It borrowed parts of the initiation ceremony from the sons of Malta with the same purpose: "ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members were the only objects of the Klan," according to Albert Stevens in 1907.

In the summer of 1867, local branches of the Klan met in a general organizing convention. They established what they called an "Invisible Empire of the South." Leading Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest was chosen as the first leader, or "grand wizard," of the Klan; he presided over a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans, and grand cyclops. The organization of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the beginning of the second phase of post-Civil War Reconstruction, put into place by the more radical members of the Republican Party in Congress. After rejecting President Andrew Johnson's relatively lenient Reconstruction policies from 1865 to 1866, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act over the presidential veto. Under its provisions, the South was divided into five military districts. Each state was required to approve the 14th Amendment, which granted "equal protection" of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people and enacted universal male suffrage. From 1867 onward, Black participation in public life in the South became one of the most radical aspects of Reconstruction. Black people won elections to southern state governments and even the U.S. Congress. For its part, the Ku Klux Klan dedicated itself to an underground campaign of violence against Republican leaders and voters (both Black and white) to reverse the policies of Radical Reconstruction and restore white supremacy in the South. They were joined in this struggle by similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia (launched in Louisiana in 1867) and the White Brotherhood. At least 10 percent of the Black legislators elected during the 1867-1868 constitutional conventions became victims of violence during Reconstruction, including seven who were killed. White Republicans (derided as "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags") and Black institutions such as schools and churches—symbols of Black autonomy—were also targets for Klan attacks. By 1870, the Ku Klux Klan had branches in nearly every southern state. The Klan did not boast a well-organized structure or clear leadership even at its height. Local Klan members, often wearing masks and dressed in the organization's signature long white robes and hoods, usually carried out their attacks at night. They acted on their own but supported the common goals of defeating Radical Reconstruction and restoring white supremacy in the South. Klan activity flourished particularly in the regions of the South where Black people were a minority or a slight majority of the population and were relatively limited in others. Among the most notorious zones of Klan activity was South Carolina, where in January 1871, 500 masked men attacked the Union county jail and lynched eight Black prisoners. Though Democratic leaders would later attribute Ku Klux Klan violence to poorer southern white people, the organization's membership crossed class lines, from small farmers and laborers to planters, lawyers, merchants, physicians, and ministers. In the regions where most Klan activity took place, local law enforcement officials either belonged to the Klan or declined to act against it. Even those who arrested Klansmen found it difficult to find witnesses willing to testify against them.

Other leading white citizens in the South declined to speak out against the group's actions, giving them implicit approval. After 1870, Republican state governments in the South turned to Congress for help, resulting in three Enforcement Acts, the strongest of which was the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

For the first time, the Ku Klux Klan Act designated certain crimes committed by individuals as federal offenses, including conspiracies to deprive citizens of the right to hold office, serve on juries and enjoy the equal protection of the law. In addition, the act authorized the president to suspend the habeas corpus, arrest accused individuals without charge, and send federal forces to suppress Klan violence. For those of us dummies that may not know, a "writ of habeas corpus" (which literally means to "produce the body") is a court order demanding that a public official (such as a warden) deliver an imprisoned individual to the court and show a valid reason for that person's detention. The procedure provides a means for prison inmates or others acting on their behalf to dispute the legal basis for confinement.

This expansion of federal authority–which Ulysses S. Grant promptly used in 1871 to crush Klan activity in South Carolina and other areas of the South–outraged Democrats and even alarmed many Republicans. From the early 1870s onward, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South as support for Reconstruction waned; by the end of 1876, the entire South was under Democratic control once again.

Now, this was just the first version of the Klan. A second version started up in the early 1900s and later on another revival which is the current iteration of the Klan. We're not going to go into the later versions of the Klan because well…. Fuck 'em! We've already given them too much air time! But… This most definitely qualifies as a Christmas disaster.

Next up, we have a couple natural disasters.

First up, Cyclone Tracy. Cyclone Tracy has been described as the most significant tropical cyclone in Australia's history, and it changed how we viewed the threat of tropical cyclones to northern Australia.

Five days before Christmas 1974, satellite images showed a tropical depression in the Arafura Sea, 700 kilometers (or almost 435 miles for us Americans) northeast of Darwin.

The following day the Tropical Cyclone Warning Center in Darwin warned that a cyclone had formed and gave it the name Tracy. Cyclone Tracy was moving southwest at this stage, but as it passed the northwest of Bathurst Island on December 23, it slowed down and changed course.

That night, it rounded Cape Fourcroy and began moving southeast, with Darwin directly in its path.

The first warning that Darwin was under threat came at 12:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve when a top-priority flash cyclone warning was issued advising people that Cyclone Tracy was expected to make landfall early Christmas morning.

Despite 12 hours' warning of the cyclone's impending arrival, it fell mainly on deaf ears.

Residents were complacent after a near-miss from Cyclone Selma a few weeks before and distracted by the festive season.

Indeed in the preceding decade, the Bureau of Meteorology had identified 25 cyclones in Northern Territory waters, but few had caused much damage. Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but intense system at landfall.

The radius of the galeforce winds extended only 50 kilometers from the eye of the cyclone, making it one of the most miniature tropical cyclones on record, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Records show that at least six tropical cyclones had severely impacted Darwin before Tracy.

The worst of these was in January 1897 when a "disastrous hurricane" nearly destroyed the settlement, and 28 people died.

However, unlike Tracy, it is thought this cyclone did not directly pass over Darwin.

And while Tracy was reported as a category four cyclone, some meteorologists today believe it may have been a category five shortly before it made landfall.

At midnight on Christmas Day, wind gusts greater than 100 kilometers or over 62 miles per hour began to be recorded.

The cyclone's center reached East Point at 3:15 a.m. and landed just north of Fannie Bay at 3:30 a.m.

Tracy was so strong it bent a railway signal tower in half.

The city was devastated by the cyclone. At least 90 percent of homes in Darwin were demolished or badly damaged. Forty-five vessels in the harbor were wrecked or damaged.

In addition to the 65 people who died, 145 were admitted to the hospital with serious injuries.

Vegetation was damaged up to 80 kilometers away from the coast, and Darwin felt eerily quiet due to the lack of insect and birdlife.

Within a week after the cyclone hit, more than 30,000 Darwin residents had been evacuated by air or road. That's more than two-thirds of the population at that time.

Cyclone Tracy remains one of Australia's most significant disasters.

As Murphy wrote 10 years after the cyclone: "The impact of Cyclone Tracy has reached far beyond the limits of Darwin itself. All along the tropical coasts of northern Australia and beyond a new cyclone awareness has emerged."

Merry fucking Christmas! Damn, that sucks. The information in this section came from an article on abc.net.au

Next up, we are going way back. The Christmas Flood of 1717 resulted from a northwesterly storm, which hit the coastal area of the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia on Christmas night of 1717. During the night of Christmas, 1717, the coastal regions of the Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia were hit by a severe north-western storm. It is estimated that 14,000 people died. It was the worst flood for four centuries and the last significant flood to hit the north of the Netherlands.

In the countryside to the north of the Netherlands, the water level rose up to a few meters. The city of Groningen rose up to a few feet. In the province of Groningen, villages that were situated directly behind the dikes were nearly swept away. Action had to be taken against looters who robbed houses and farms under the fraudulent act of rescuing the flood victims. In total, the flood caused 2,276 casualties in Groningen. 1,455 homes were either destroyed or suffered extensive damage. Most livestock was lost.

The water also poured into Amsterdam and Haarlem and the areas around Dokkum and Stavoren. Over 150 people died in Friesland alone. In addition, large sections of Northern Holland were left underwater and the area around Zwolle and Kampen. In these areas, the flood only caused material damage. In Vlieland, however, the sea poured over the dunes, almost entirely sweeping away the already-damaged village of West-Vlieland.

We also found this report from a German website. It's been translated, so our apologies if it's wonky.

"According to tradition, several days before Christmas, it had blown strong and sustained from the southwest. Shortly after sunset on Christmas Eve, the wind suddenly turned from west to northwest and eased a little. The majority of the residents went to bed unconcerned, because currently was half moon and the next regular flood would not occur until 7 a.m. At the time when the tide was supposed to have been low for a long time, however, a drop in the water level could not be determined.

Allegedly between 1 and 2 a.m. the storm began to revive violently accompanied by lightning and thunder. Between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning the water reached the top of the dike. The current and waves caused the dike caps to break, so that the tide rolled over the dike into the flat land with a loud roar of thunder. Many only had time to save themselves in the dark on the floor under the roof. Most of the time there was not even time to take clothes, drinking water and some food with you. Numerous houses could not withstand the rising water and the current. In the higher and higher water and the increasing current, windows were Doors and entire walls dented. Allegedly the hurricane and the storm surge raged against the coast for three full days, so that it was not until December 28 that the water fell so far that one could come to the aid of one's neighbors with simply built "boats."

In many places, the dykes had been razed to the ground, which meant that in lower-lying areas, every regular flood caused renewed flooding. At the places where the dykes were broken, deep valleys, some of which were large, formed. In many places where the dike is led around in a semi-arch, these walls, also known as pools or bracken, are still visible and testify to the force of the water. At that time, many people are said to have believed that the march was forever lost. In the low-lying areas, the water was later covered with ice floes, sometimes held up for months. Up until the summer months, bodies were said to have been found repeatedly during the clean-up work on the alluvial piles of straw and in the trenches. Many people who survived the flood later fell victim to so-called marching fever. New storm surges in the following years ruined the efforts for the first time to get the dike back into a defensible condition, and many houses, which were initially only damaged, have now been completely destroyed. Numerous small owners left the country so that the Hanover government even issued a ban on emigration."

Looks like the Netherlands got a proper Christmas fucking as well! Some towns were so severely destroyed that nothing was left, and they simply ceased to exist. Damn.

Cyclones and floods… What else does mother nature have for us? Well, how's about an earthquake! On Friday, December 26, 2003, at 5:26 a.m., Bam city in Southeastern Iran was jolted by an earthquake registering a 6.5 magnitude on the Richter scale. This was the result of the strike-slip motion of the Bam fault, which runs through this area. The earthquake's epicenter was determined to be approximately six miles southwest of the city. Three more significant aftershocks and many smaller aftershocks were also recorded, the last of which occurred over a month after the main earthquake. To date, official death tolls have 26,271 fatalities, 9000 injured, and 525 still missing. The city of Bam is one of Iran's most ancient cities, dating back to 224A.D. Latest reports and damage estimates are approaching the area of $1.9 billion. A United Nations report estimated that about 90% of the city's buildings were 60%-100% damaged, while the remaining buildings were between 30%-60% damaged. The crazy part about the whole thing… The quake only lasted for about 8 seconds.

Now I know what you're thinking… That's not Christmas… Well, there spanky, the night of the 25th, Christmas, people started to feel minor tremors that would preface the quake, so fuck you, it counts.

We have one more natural disaster for you guys, and this one most of you guys probably remember. And this one was another that started last Christmas night and rolled into the 26th, also known as boxing day. So we're talking about the Boxing Day Tsunami and the Indian ocean earthquake in 2004.

A 9.1-magnitude earthquake—one of the largest ever recorded—ripped through an undersea fault in the Indian Ocean, propelling a massive column of water toward unsuspecting shores. The Boxing Day tsunami would be the deadliest in recorded history, taking a staggering 230,000 lives in a matter of hours.

The city of Banda Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra was closest to the powerful earthquake's epicenter, and the first waves arrived in just 20 minutes. It's nearly impossible to imagine the 100-foot roiling mountain of water that engulfed the coastal city of 320,000, instantly killing more than 100,000 men, women, and children. Buildings folded like houses of cards, trees, and cars were swept up in the oil-black rapids, and virtually no one caught in the deluge survived.

Thailand was next. With waves traveling 500 mph across the Indian Ocean, the tsunami hit the coastal provinces of Phang Nga and Phuket an hour and a half later. Despite the time-lapse, locals and tourists were utterly unaware of the imminent destruction. Curious beachgoers even wandered out among the oddly receding waves, only to be chased down by a churning wall of water. The death toll in Thailand was nearly 5,400, including 2,000 foreign tourists.

An hour later, on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean, the waves struck the southeastern coast of India near the city of Chennai, pushing debris-choked water kilometers inland and killing more than 10,000 people, primarily women and children, since many of the men were out fishing. But some of the worst devastations were reserved for the island nation of Sri Lanka, where more than 30,000 people were swept away by the waves and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

As proof of the record-breaking strength of the tsunami, the last victims of the Boxing Day disaster perished nearly eight hours later when swelling seas and rogue waves caught swimmers by surprise in South Africa, 5,000 miles from the quake's epicenter.

Vasily Titov is a tsunami researcher and forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center for Tsunami Research. He credits the unsparing destructiveness of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the raw power of the earthquake that spawned it. The quake originated in a so-called megathrust fault, where heavy oceanic plates subduct beneath lighter continental plates.

"They are the largest faults in the world and they're all underwater," says Titov.

The 2004 quake ruptured a 900-mile stretch along the Indian and Australian plates 31 miles below the ocean floor. Rather than delivering one violent jolt, the earthquake lasted an unrelenting 10 minutes, releasing as much pent-up power as several thousand atomic bombs.

In the process, massive segments of the ocean floor were forced an estimated 30 or 40 meters (up to 130 feet) upward. The effect was like dropping the world's most giant pebble in the Indian Ocean with ripples the size of mountains extending out in all directions.

Titov emphasizes that tsunamis look nothing like the giant surfing break-style waves that many imagine.

"It's a wave, but from the observer's standpoint, you wouldn't recognize it as a wave," Titov says. "It's more like the ocean turns into a white water river and floods everything in its path."

Once caught in the raging waters, the debris will finish the job if the currents don't pull you under.

"In earthquakes, a certain number of people die but many more are injured. It's completely reversed with tsunamis," says Titov. "Almost no injuries, because it's such a difficult disaster to survive."

Holy fuck…

That's insane!

Well, there are some crazy natural disasters gifted to us by mother nature. So now let's take a look at some man-made disasters… And there are some bad ones.

First up is the 1953 train wreck on Christmas Eve in New Zealand. So this is actually a mix of mother nature fucking people and a man-made structure failing. This event is also referred to as the Tangiwai disaster. The weather on Christmas Eve was fine, and with little recent rain, no one suspected flooding in the Whangaehu River. The river appeared normal when a goods train crossed the bridge around 7 p.m. What transformed the situation was the sudden release of approximately 2 million cubic meters of water from the crater lake of nearby Mt Ruapehu. A 6-meter-high wave containing water, ice, mud, and rocks surged, tsunami-like, down the Whangaehu River. Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m., this lahar struck the concrete pylons of the Tangiwai railway bridge.

Traveling at approximately 65 km per hour, locomotive Ka 949 and its train of nine carriages and two vans reached the severely weakened bridge at 10.21 p.m. As the bridge buckled beneath its weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking all five second-class carriages with it. The torrent force destroyed four of these carriages – those inside had little chance of survival.

The leading first-class carriage, Car Z, teetered on the edge of the ruined bridge for a few minutes before breaking free from the remaining three carriages and toppling into the river. It rolled downstream before coming to rest on a bank as the water level fell. Remarkably, 21 of the 22 passengers in this carriage survived. Evidence suggested that the locomotive driver, Charles Parker, had applied the emergency brakes some 200 m from the bridge, which prevented the last three carriages from ending up in the river and saved many lives. Even still, 151 of the 285 passengers and crew died that night in the crash.

This information was taken from nzhistory.gov.

Next up is the Italian Hall disaster.

Before it was called Calumet, the area was known as Red Jacket. And for many, it seemed to be ground zero for the sprawling copper mining operations that absorbed wave after wave of immigrants into the Upper Peninsula.

Red Jacket itself was a company town for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, a large firm that in the 1870s was known as the world's largest copper producer. For a time, C&H had the world's deepest copper mines.

But the company wasn't immune from the organized labor push that swept across the Keweenaw Peninsula and other parts of the U.P. in 1913. Miners in Montana and Colorado had unionized, and in July of that year, the Western Federation of Miners called a strike against all Copper Country mines. According to a mining journal published that year, they were pushing for a $3 daily wage, 8-hour days, safer working conditions, and representation.

"The strike took place in a very complicated time in American history," said Jo Holt, a historian with the National Park Service's Keweenaw National Historical Park. "We had all these different things coming together. An increasingly industrialized country was grappling with worker's rights, gender issues, and immigration. We were moving from a gilded age into a progressive era, and recognizing the voice of labor.

"We see this event happen in the midst of that struggle."

"The reason it resonates today is we are still having these conversations. How do we create a just economy that functions for everybody? ... We are still, almost hundred and 10 years later, in the midst of these conversations."

As the strike wore into fall and the holiday season, a women's auxiliary group to the WFM organized a Christmas Eve party for the miners' families at the Italian Benevolent Society building, better known as the Italian Hall.

It was a big, boisterous affair, researchers have said. The multi-story hall was packed, with more than 600 people inside at one point. Children were watching a play and receiving gifts. Organizers later said the crowd was so large that it was hard to track who was coming in the door.

When the false cry of "Fire!" went up, pandemonium reached the sole stairway leading down to the street.

"What happened is when people panicked, they tried to get out through the stairwell," Holt said. "Someone tripped or people started to fall, and that's what created the bottleneck. It was just people falling on top of each other."

The aftermath was horrifying. As the dead were pulled from the pile in the stairwell, the bodies were carried to the town hall, which turned into a makeshift morgue. Some families lost more than one child. Other children were orphaned when their parents died.

One black and white photo in the Michigan Technological University Archives shows rows of what looks like sleeping children lying side-by-side. Their eyes are closed. Their faces were unmarred. The caption reads: "Christmas Eve in the Morgue."

After the dead were buried, some families moved away. Others stayed and kept supporting the strike, which ended the following spring.

Rumors emerged later that the Italian Hall's doors were designed to open inward, preventing the panicked crowd from pushing them outward to the street. Those were debunked, along with the suggestion in Woody Guthrie's "1913 Massacre" song that mining company thugs were holding the doors shut from the outside that night.

Damn… Mostly kids. On Christmas. That's a tough one.

Here's another touchy one. A race riot erupted in Mayfield, Kentucky, just before Christmas 1896.

Although slavery in the U.S. ended after the Civil War, the Reconstruction period and beyond was a dangerous time to be black. Things were awful for non-whites in the former Confederacy, amongst which Kentucky was especially bad for racial violence. In December 1896, white vigilantes lynched two black men within 24 hours of each other between the 21st and 22nd, one for a minor disagreement with a white man and the other, Jim Stone, for alleged rape. A note attached to Stone's swinging corpse warned black residents to get out of town.

In response to this unambiguous threat, the local African-American population armed themselves. Rumors spread amongst the town's white people that 250 men were marching on the city, and a state of emergency was called. The whites mobilized, black stores were vandalized, and fighting broke out between the two sides on December 23. In the event, three people were killed, including Will Suet, a black teenager who had just got off the train to spend Christmas with his family. It was all over on Christmas Eve, and a few days later, an uneasy truce between the races was called.

Ugh!

Y'all know what time it is? That's right, it's time for some quick hitters.

Many of us enjoy the Christmas period by going to the theatre or watching a movie. In December 1903, Chicago residents were eager to do just that at the brand-new Iroquois Theatre, which had been officially opened only in October that year. 1700 people in all crammed themselves in to see the zany, family-friendly musical comedy, Mr. Bluebeard. But just as the wait was over and the show started, a single spark from a stage light lit the surrounding drapery. The show's star, Eddie Foy, tried to keep things together as Iroquois employees struggled to put the curtains out in vain.

However, even the spectacle of a Windy City-native in drag couldn't stop the terrified crowd stampeding for the few exits. These, preposterously, were concealed by curtains and utterly inadequate in number. When the actors opened their own exit door to escape, a gust of wind sent a fireball through the crowded theatre, meaning that hundreds died before the fire service was even called. 585 people died, either suffocated, burned alive, or crushed. The scene was described in a 1904 account as "worse than that pictured in the mind of Dante in his vision of the inferno".

Next up, the politics behind this ghastly event are pretty complicated – one Mexican lecturer described the massacre as "the most complicated case in Mexico" – but here's an inadequate summary. The small and impoverished village of Acteal, Mexico, was home to Las Abejas (the bees'), a religious collective that sympathized with a rebel group opposing the Mexican government. Thus, on December 22, 1997, members of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party crept down the steep hill slopes above the village. They chose their moment to attack carefully as people gathered at a prayer meeting when they finally slunk into Acteal.

Over the next few hours, assassins armed with guns executed 45 innocent people in cold blood. Amongst the dead were 21 women, some of whom were pregnant, and 15 children. Worst of all, investigations into this cowardly act seem to implicate the government itself. Soldiers garrisoned nearby did not intervene, despite being within earshot of the gunfire and horrified screams. In addition, there was evidence of the crime scene being tampered with by local police and government officials. Though some people have been convicted, there are suspicions that they were framed and that the real culprits remain at large.

-Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring… except the Soviet Union. The Marxist-Leninist Khalq and Parcham parties had ousted the Afghan president in April 1978. Still, communism was so unpopular in Afghanistan that the mujahideen succeeded in toppling them just over a year later. So Khalq and Parcham turned to the Soviet Union for help, and on Christmas Eve that year, they obliged by sending 30,000 troops across the border into Afghanistan by the cover of darkness. Bloody fighting ensued, and soon the Soviet Union had control of the major cities.

The Soviets stayed for nine years, at which time the mujahideen, backed by foreign support and weapons, waged a brutal guerrilla campaign against the invaders. In turn, captured mujahideen were executed, and entire villages and agricultural areas were razed to the ground. When the Soviets finally withdrew in February 1989, over 1 million civilians and almost 125,000 soldiers from both sides were killed. From the turmoil after the Afghan-Soviet War emerged, the Taliban, installed by neighboring Pakistan, and with them Osama bin Laden. This indeed was a black Christmas for the world.

-How about another race riot… No? Well, here you go anyway. Although, this one may be more fucked up. The Agana Race Riot saw black and white US Marines fight it out from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, 1944.

Guam was host to both black and white US Marines in 1944. But instead of fighting the enemy, the white troops elected to turn on the all-black Marine 25th Depot Company. First, the white Marines would stop their fellow soldiers from entering Agana, pelt them with rocks, and shout racist obscenities at them. Then, on Christmas Eve 1944, 9 members of the 25th on official leave were seen talking to local women, and white Marines opened fire on them. Then, on Christmas Day, 2 black soldiers were shot dead by drunken white Marines in separate incidents.

Guam's white Marines were decidedly short on festive cheer and goodwill to all men. Not content with these murders, a white mob attacked an African-American depot on Boxing Day, and a white soldier sustained an injury when the 25th returned fire. Sick of their treatment by their fellow soldiers, 40 black Marines gave chase to the retreating mob in a jeep, but further violence was prevented by a roadblock. Can you guess what happened next? Yep, the black soldiers were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, and attempted murder, while the white soldiers were left to nurse their aching heads.

One more major one for you guys, and then we'll leave on a kind of happier note. This one's kind of rough. Be warned.

In late December 2008 and into January 2009, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) brutally killed more than 865 civilians and abducted at least 160 children in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). LRA combatants hacked their victims to death with machetes or axes or crushed their skulls with clubs and heavy sticks. In some of the places where they attacked, few were left alive.

The worst attacks happened 48 hours over Christmas in locations some 160 miles apart in the Daruma, Duru, and Faradje areas of the Haut-Uele district of northern Congo. The LRA waited until the time of Christmas festivities on December 24 and 25 to carry out their devastating attacks, apparently choosing a moment when they would find the maximum number of people altogether. The killings occurred in the Congo and parts of southern Sudan, where similar weapons and tactics were used.

The Christmas massacres in Congo are part of a longstanding practice of horrific atrocities and abuse by the LRA. Before shifting its operations to the Congo in 2006, the LRA was based in Uganda and southern Sudan, where LRA combatants also killed, raped, and abducted thousands of civilians. When the LRA moved to Congo, its combatants initially refrained from targeting Congolese people. Still, in September 2008, the LRA began its first wave of attacks, apparently to punish local communities who had helped LRA defectors to escape. The first wave of attacks in September, together with the Christmas massacres, has led to the deaths of over 1,033 civilians and the abduction of at least 476 children.

LRA killings have not stopped since the Christmas massacres. Human Rights Watch receives regular reports of murders and abductions by the LRA, keeping civilians living in terror. According to the United Nations, over 140,000 people have fled their homes since late December 2008 to seek safety elsewhere. New attacks and the flight of civilians are reported weekly. People are frightened to gather together in some areas, believing that the LRA may choose these moments to strike, as they did with such devastating efficiency over Christmas.

Even by LRA standards, the Christmas massacres in the Congo were ruthless. LRA combatants struck quickly and quietly, surrounding their victims as they ate their Christmas meal in Batande village or gathered for a Christmas day concert in Faradje. In Mabando village, the LRA sought to maximize the death toll by luring their victims to a central place, playing the radio, and forcing their victims to sing songs and call for others to come to join the party. In most attacks, they tied up their victims, stripped them of their clothes, raped the women and girls, and then killed their victims by crushing their skulls. In two cases, the attackers tried to kill three-year-old toddlers by twisting off their heads. The few villagers who survived often did so because their assailants thought they were dead.

Yeah...so there's that. We could go much deeper into this incident, but we think you get the point.

We'll leave you with a story that is pretty bizarre when you stop and think about it. But we'll leave you with this story of an unlikely Christmas get-together. This is the story of the Christmas truce.

British machine gunner Bruce Bairnsfather, later a prominent cartoonist, wrote about it in his memoirs. Like most of his fellow infantrymen of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, he was spending the holiday eve shivering in the muck, trying to keep warm. He had spent a good part of the past few months fighting the Germans. And now, in a part of Belgium called Bois de Ploegsteert, he was crouched in a trench that stretched just three feet deep by three feet wide, his days and nights marked by an endless cycle of sleeplessness and fear, stale biscuits and cigarettes too wet to light.

"Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity," Bairnsfather wrote, "…miles and miles from home. Cold, wet through and covered with mud." There didn't "seem the slightest chance of leaving—except in an ambulance."

At about 10 p.m., Bairnsfather noticed a noise. "I listened," he recalled. "Away across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices." He turned to a fellow soldier in his trench and said, "Do you hear the Boches [Germans] kicking up that racket over there?"

Yes," came the reply. "They've been at it some time!"

The Germans were singing carols, as it was Christmas Eve. In the darkness, some of the British soldiers began to sing back. "Suddenly," Bairnsfather recalled, "we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again." The voice was from an enemy soldier, speaking in English with a strong German accent. He was saying, "Come over here."

One of the British sergeants answered: "You come half-way. I come half-way."

In the years to come, what happened next would stun the world and make history. Enemy soldiers began to climb nervously out of their trenches and meet in the barbed-wire-filled "No Man's Land" that separated the armies. Typically, the British and Germans communicated across No Man's Land with streaking bullets, with only occasional gentlemanly allowances to collect the dead unmolested. But now, there were handshakes and words of kindness. The soldiers traded songs, tobacco, and wine, joining in a spontaneous holiday party in the cold night.

Bairnsfather could not believe his eyes. "Here they were—the actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of hate on either side."

And it wasn't confined to that one battlefield. Starting on Christmas Eve, small pockets of French, German, Belgian, and British troops held impromptu cease-fires across the Western Front, with reports of some on the Eastern Front as well. Some accounts suggest a few of these unofficial truces remained in effect for days.

Descriptions of the Christmas Truce appear in numerous diaries and letters of the time. One British soldier, a rifleman, named J. Reading, wrote a letter home to his wife describing his holiday experience in 1914: "My company happened to be in the firing line on Christmas eve, and it was my turn…to go into a ruined house and remain there until 6:30 on Christmas morning. During the early part of the morning the Germans started singing and shouting, all in good English. They shouted out: 'Are you the Rifle Brigade; have you a spare bottle; if so we will come halfway and you come the other half.'"

"Later on in the day they came towards us," Reading described. "And our chaps went out to meet them…I shook hands with some of them, and they gave us cigarettes and cigars. We did not fire that day, and everything was so quiet it seemed like a dream."

Another British soldier, named John Ferguson, recalled it this way: "Here we were laughing and chatting to men whom only a few hours before we were trying to kill!"

Other diaries and letters describe German soldiers using candles to light Christmas trees around their trenches. One German infantryman described how a British soldier set up a makeshift barbershop, charging Germans a few cigarettes each for a haircut. Other accounts describe vivid scenes of men helping enemy soldiers collect their dead, of which there was plenty.

One British fighter named Ernie Williams later described in an interview his recollection of some makeshift soccer play on what turned out to be an icy pitch: "The ball appeared from somewhere, I don't know where... They made up some goals and one fellow went in goal and then it was just a general kick-about. I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part."

German Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134 Saxons Infantry, a schoolteacher who spoke both English and German, described a pick-up soccer game in his diary, which was discovered in an attic near Leipzig in 1999, written in an archaic German form of shorthand. "Eventually the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon, a lively game ensued," he wrote. "How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time."

So much more can be said about this event, but that seems like an excellent place to leave off this Christmas episode! And yes, when you really do stop and think about it… That's a pretty crazy yet fantastic thing.

Greatest disaster movies of all time

https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-greatest-disaster-movies-of-all-time

Mary Shelley, The Birth of Frankenstein

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 09:00:00 -0500

We've all heard the story of "Frankenstein's Monster." A bat shit crazy scientist wants to reanimate dead tissue and basically create a fucking zombie baby… BECAUSE THAT'S HOW YOU GET FUCKING ZOMBIES! Anyway, Dr. Frankenstein and his trusty assistant, Igor, set off to bring a bunch of random, dead body parts together, throw some lightning on the bugger and bring this new, puzzle piece of a quasi-human back to "life." At first, the reanimated corpse seems somewhat ordinary, but then flips his shit and starts terrorizing and doing what I can only imagine REANIMATED ZOMBIES FUCKING DO!

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist, and journalist William Godwin.

So, she was brought into this world by some smart fucking people. Mary's mother died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born. Puerperal fever is an infectious, sometimes fatal, disease of childbirth; until the mid-19th century, this dreaded, then-mysterious illness could sweep through a hospital maternity ward and kill most new mothers. Today strict aseptic hospital techniques have made the condition uncommon in most parts of the world, except in unusual circumstances such as illegally induced abortion. Her father, William, was left to bring up Mary and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Mary's mother's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay. A year after her mother's death, Godwin published his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which he intended as a sincere and compassionate tribute. However, the Memoirs revealed Mary's mother's affairs and her illegitimate child. In that period, they were seen as shocking. Mary read these memoirs and her mother's books and was brought up to cherish her mother's memory.

Mary's earliest years were happy, judging from the letters of William's housekeeper and nurse, Louisa Jones. But Godwin was often deeply in debt; feeling that he could not raise Mary and Fanny himself, he looked for a second wife. In December 1801, he married Mary Jane Clairmont, a well-educated woman with two young children—Charles and Claire SO MANY MARY'S! Sorry folks. Most of her father's friends disliked his new wife, describing her as a straight fucking bitch. Ok, not really, but they didn't like her. However, William was devoted to her, and the marriage worked. Mary, however, came to hate that bitch. William's 19th-century biographer Charles Kegan Paul later suggested that Mrs. Godwin had favored her own children over Williams. So, how awesome is it that he had a biographer? That's so badass.

Together, Mary's father and his new bride started a publishing firm called M. J. Godwin, which sold children's books and stationery, maps, and games. However, the business wasn't making any loot, and her father was forced to borrow butt loads of money to keep it going. He kept borrowing money to pay off earlier loans, just adding to his problems. By 1809, William's business was close to closing up shop, and he was "near to despair." Mary's father was saved from debtor's prison by devotees such as Francis Place, who lent him additional money. So, debtor's prison is pretty much EXACTLY what it sounds like. If you couldn't pay your debts, they threw your ass in jail. Unlike today where they just FUCK UP YOUR CREDIT! THANKS, COLUMBIA HOUSE!!!

Though Mary received little education, her father tutored her in many subjects. He often took the children on educational trips. They had access to his library and the many intelligent mofos who visited him, including the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the former vice-president of the United States Aaron Burr. You know, that dude that shot and killed his POLITICAL opponent, Alexander Hamilton, in a fucking duel! Ah… I was born in the wrong century.

Mary's father admitted he was not educating the children according to Mary's mother's philosophy as outlined in works such as A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. However, Mary still received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time. She had a governess, a daily tutor, and read many of her father's children's Roman and Greek history books. For six months in 1811, she also attended a boarding school in Ramsgate, England. Her father described her at age 15 as "singularly bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge is great, and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost invincible." My father didn't know how to spell my name until I was twelve.

In June of 1812, Mary's father sent her to stay with the family of the radical William Baxter, near Dundee, Scotland. In a letter to Baxter, he wrote, "I am anxious that she should be brought up ... like a philosopher, even like a cynic." Scholars have speculated that she may have been sent away for her health, remove her from the seamy side of the business, or introduce her to radical politics. However, Mary loved the spacious surroundings of Baxter's house and with his four daughters, and she returned north in the summer of 1813 to hang out for 10 months. In the 1831 introduction to Frankenstein, she recalled: "I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered."

Mary Godwin may have first met the radical poet-philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley in between her two stays in Scotland. When she returned home for a second time on 30 March 1814, Percy Shelley became estranged from his wife and regularly visited Mary's father, William Godwin, whom he had agreed to bail out of debt. Percy Shelley's radicalism, particularly his economic views, alienated him from his wealthy aristocratic family. They wanted him to be a high, upstanding snoot and follow traditional models of the landed aristocracy. He tried to donate large amounts of the family's money to projects meant to help the poor and disadvantaged. Percy Shelley, therefore, had a problem gaining access to capital until he inherited his estate because his family did not want him wasting it on projects of "political justice." After several months of promises, Shelley announced that he could not or would not pay off all of Godwin's debts. Godwin was angry and felt betrayed and whooped his fuckin ass! Yeah! Ok, not really. He was just super pissed.

Mary and Percy began hookin' up on the down-low at her mother Mary Wollstonecraft's grave in the churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, and they fell in love—she was 16, and he was 21. Creepy and super fucking gross.

On 26 June 1814, Shelley and Godwin declared their love for one another as Shelley announced he could not hide his "ardent passion,." This led her in a "sublime and rapturous moment" to say she felt the same way; on either that day or the next, Godwin lost her virginity to Shelley, which tradition claims happened in the churchyard. So, the grown-ass 21-year-old man statutorily raped the 16-year-old daughter of the man he idolized and dicked over. In a graveyard. My god, how things have changed...GROSS!

Godwin described herself as attracted to Shelley's "wild, intellectual, unearthly looks." Smart but ugly. Got it. To Mary's dismay, her father disapproved and tried to thwart the relationship and salvage his daughter's "spotless fame." No! You don't say! Dad wasn't into his TEENAGE DAUGHTER BANGING A MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD!?! Mary's father learned of Shelley's inability to pay off the father's debts at about the same time. Oof. He found out after he diddled her. Mary, who later wrote of "my excessive and romantic attachment to my father," was confused. Um… what?

She saw Percy Shelley as an embodiment of her parents' liberal and reformist ideas of the 1790s, particularly Godwin's view that marriage was a repressive monopoly, which he had argued in his 1793 edition of Political Justice but later retracted. On 28 July 1814, the couple eloped and secretly left for France, taking Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont, with them.

After convincing Mary's mother, who took off after them to Calais, that they did not wish to return, the trio traveled to Paris, and then, by donkey, mule, carriage, and foot, through France, recently ravaged by war, all the way to Switzerland. "It was acting in a novel, being an incarnate romance," Mary Shelley recalled in 1826. Godwin wrote about France in 1814: "The distress of the inhabitants, whose houses had been burned, their cattle killed and all their wealth destroyed, has given a sting to my detestation of war...". As they traveled, Mary and Percy read works by Mary Wollstonecraft and others, kept a joint journal, and continued their own writing. Finally, at Lucerne, lack of money forced the three to turn back. Instead, they traveled down the Rhine and by land to the Dutch port of Maassluis, arriving at Gravesend, Kent, on 13 September 1814.

The situation awaiting Mary Godwin in England was packed with bullshit, some of which she had not expected. Either before or during their journey, she had become pregnant. She and Percy now found themselves penniless, and, to Mary's stupid ass surprise, her father refused to have anything to do with her. The couple moved with Claire into lodgings at Somers Town, and later, Nelson Square. They kept doing their thing, reading, and writing and entertained Percy Shelley's friends. Percy Shelley would often leave home for short periods to dodge bill collectors, and the couple's heartbroken letters would reveal their pain while he was away.

Pregnant and often sick, Mary Godwin had to hear of Percy's joy at the birth of his son by Harriet Shelley in late 1814 due to his constant escapades with Claire Clairmont. Supposedly, Shelley and Clairmont were almost certainly lovers, which caused Mary to be rightfully jealous. And yes, Claire was Mary's cousin. Percy was a friggin' creep.

Percy pissed off Mary when he suggested that they both take the plunge into a stream naked during a walk in the French countryside. This offended her due to her principles, and she was like, "Oh, hell nah, sahn!" and started taking off her earrings in a rage. Or something like that. She was partly consoled by the visits of Hogg, whom she disliked at first but soon considered a close friend. Percy Shelley seems to have wanted Mary and Hogg to become lovers; Mary did not dismiss the idea since she believed in free love in principle. She was a hippie before being a hippie was cool. Percy probably just wanted to not feel guilty for hooking up with her cousin. Creep. In reality, however, she loved only Percy and seemed to have gone no further than flirting with Hogg. On 22 February 1815, she gave birth to a two-months premature baby girl, who was not expected to survive. On 6 March, she wrote to Hogg:

"My dearest Hogg, my baby is dead—will you come to see me as soon as you can. I wish to see you—It was perfectly well when I went to bed—I awoke in the night to give it suck it appeared to be sleeping so quietly that I would not awake it. It was dead then, but we did not find that out till morning—from its appearance it evidently died of convulsions—Will you come—you are so calm a creature & Shelley (Percy) is afraid of a fever from the milk—for I am no longer a mother now."

The loss of her child brought about acute depression in Mary. She was haunted by visions of the baby, but she conceived again and had recovered by the summer. With a revival in Percy's finances after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, the couple holidayed in Torquay and then rented a two-story cottage at Bishopsgate, on the edge of Windsor Great Park. Unfortunately, little is known about this period in Mary Godwin's life since her journal from May 1815 to July 1816 was lost. At Bishopsgate, Percy wrote his poem Alastor or The Spirit of Solitude; and on 24 January 1816, Mary gave birth to a second child, William, named after her father and soon nicknamed "Willmouse." In her novel The Last Man, she later imagined Windsor as a Garden of Eden.

In May 1816, Mary, Percy, and their son traveled to Geneva with Claire Clairmont. They planned to spend the summer with the poet Lord Byron, whose recent affair with Claire had left her pregnant. Claire sounds like a bit of a trollop. No judging, just making an observation. The party arrived in Geneva on 14 May 1816, where Mary called herself "Mrs Shelley." Byron joined them on 25 May with his young physician, John William Polidori, and rented the Villa Diodati, close to Lake Geneva at the village of Cologny; Percy rented a smaller building called Maison Chapuis on the waterfront nearby. They spent their time writing, boating on the lake, and talking late into the night.

"It proved a wet, ungenial summer," Mary Shelley remembered in 1831, "and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house." Sitting around a log fire at Byron's villa, the company amused themselves with German ghost stories called Fantasmagoriana, which prompted Byron to propose that they "each write a ghost story." Unable to think up an account, young Mary became flustered: "Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative." Finally, one mid-June evening, the discussions turned to the principle of life. "Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated," Mary noted, "galvanism had given token of such things." Galvanism is a term invented by the late 18th-century physicist and chemist Alessandro Volta to refer to the generation of electric current by chemical action. The word also came to refer to the discoveries of its namesake, Luigi Galvani, specifically the generation of electric current within biological organisms and the contraction/convulsion of natural muscle tissue upon contact with electric current. While Volta theorized and later demonstrated the phenomenon of his "Galvanism" to be replicable with otherwise inert materials, Galvani thought his discovery to confirm the existence of "animal electricity," a vital force that gave life to organic matter. We'll talk a little more about Galvani and a murderer named George Foster toward the end of the episode.

It was after midnight before they retired, and she was unable to sleep, mainly because she became overwhelmed by her imagination as she kept thinking about the grim terrors of her "waking dream," her ghost story:

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

She began writing what she assumed would be a short, profound story. With Percy Shelley's encouragement, she turned her little idea into her first novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818. She later described that time in Switzerland as "when I first stepped out from childhood into life." The story of the writing of Frankenstein has been fictionalized repeatedly, and it helped form the basis for several films.

Here's a cool little side note: In September 2011, the astronomer Donald Olson, after a visit to the Lake Geneva villa the previous year and inspecting data about the motion of the moon and stars, concluded that her waking dream took place "between 2 am and 3 am" 16 June 1816, several days after the initial idea by Lord Byron that they each write their ghost stories.

Shelley and her husband collaborated on the story, but the extent of Percy's contribution to the novel is unknown and has been argued over by readers and critics forever. There are differences in the 1818, 1823, and 1831 versions. Mary Shelley wrote, "I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world." She wrote that the preface to the first edition was her husband's work "as far as I can recollect." James Rieger concluded Percy's "assistance at every point in the book's manufacture was so extensive that one hardly knows whether to regard him as editor or minor collaborator." At the same time, Anne K. Mellor later argued Percy only "made many technical corrections and several times clarified the narrative and thematic continuity of the text."

Charles E. Robinson, the editor of a facsimile edition of the Frankenstein manuscripts, concluded that Percy's contributions to the book "were no more than what most publishers' editors have provided new (or old) authors or, in fact, what colleagues have provided to each other after reading each other's works in progress." So, eat one, Percy! Just kidding.

In 1840 and 1842, Mary and her son traveled together all over the continent. Mary recorded these trips in Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843. In 1844, Sir Timothy Shelley finally died at the age of ninety, "falling from the stalk like an overblown flower," Mary put it. For the first time in her life, she and her son were financially independent, though the remaining estate wasn't worth as much as they had thought.

In the mid-1840s, Mary Shelley found herself in the crosshairs of three separate blackmailing sons of bitches. First, in 1845, an Italian political exile called Gatteschi, whom she had met in Paris, threatened to publish letters she had sent him. Scandalous! However, a friend of her son's bribed a police chief into seizing Gatteschi's papers, including the letters, which were then destroyed. Vaffanculo, Gatteschi! Shortly afterward, Mary Shelley bought some letters written by herself and Percy Shelley from a man calling himself G. Byron and posing as the illegitimate son of the late Lord Byron. Also, in 1845, Percy Shelley's cousin Thomas Medwin approached her, claiming to have written a damaging biography of Percy Shelley. He said he would suppress it in return for £250, but Mary told him to eat a big ole bag of dicks and jog on!

In 1848, Percy Florence married Jane Gibson St John. The marriage proved a happy one, and Mary liked Jane. Mary lived with her son and daughter-in-law at Field Place, Sussex, the Shelleys' ancestral home, and at Chester Square, London, and vacationed with them, as well.

Mary's last years were blighted by illness. From 1839, she suffered from headaches and bouts of paralysis in parts of her body, which sometimes prevented her from reading and writing, obviously two of her favorite things. Then, on 1 February 1851, at Chester Square, Mary Shelly died at fifty-three from what her doctor suspected was a brain tumor. According to Jane Shelley, Mary had asked to be buried with her mother and father. Still, looking at the graveyard at St Pancras and calling it "dreadful," Percy and Jane chose to bury her instead at St Peter's Church in Bournemouth, near their new home at Boscombe. On the first anniversary of Mary's death, the Shelleys opened her box-desk. Inside they found locks of her dead children's hair, a notebook she had shared with Percy Bysshe Shelley, and a copy of his poem Adonaïs with one page folded round a silk parcel containing some of his ashes and the remains of his heart. Romantic or disturbing? Maybe a bit of both.

Mary Shelley remained a stout political radical throughout her life. Mary's works often suggested that cooperation and sympathy, mainly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view directly challenged the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories. She wrote seven novels / Two travel narrations / Twenty three short stories / Three books of children's literature, and many articles. Mary Shelley left her mark on the literary world, and her name will be forever etched in the catacombs of horror for generations to come.

When it comes to reanimation, there's someone else we need to talk about.

George Forster (or Foster) was found guilty of murdering his wife and child by drowning them in Paddington Canal, London. He was hanged at Newgate on 18 January 1803, after which his body was taken to a nearby house where it was used in an experiment by Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini.

At his trial, the events were reconstructed. Forster's mother-in-law recounted that her daughter and grandchild had left her house to see Forster at 4 pm on Saturday, 4 December 1802. In whose house Forster lodged, Joseph Bradfield reported that they had stayed together that night and gone out at 10 am on Sunday morning. He also stated that Forster and his wife had not been on good terms because she wished to live with him. On Sunday, various witnesses saw Forster with his wife and child in public houses near Paddington Canal. The body of his child was found on Monday morning; after the canal was dragged for three days, his wife's body was also found.

Forster claimed that upon leaving The Mitre, he set out alone for Barnet to see his other two children in the workhouse there, though he was forced to turn back at Whetstone due to the failing light. This was contradicted by a waiter at The Mitre who said the three left the inn together. Skepticism was also expressed that he could have walked to Whetstone when he claimed. Nevertheless, the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death and also to be dissected after that. This sentence was designed to provide medicine with corpses on which to experiment and ensure that the condemned could not rise on Judgement Day, their bodies having been cut into pieces and selectively discarded. Forster was hanged on 18 January, shortly before he made a full confession. He said he had come to hate his wife and had twice before taken his wife to the canal, but his nerve had both times failed him.

A recent BBC Knowledge documentary (Real Horror: Frankenstein) questions the fairness of the trial. It notes that friends of George Forster's wife later claimed that she was highly suicidal and had often talked about killing herself and her daughter. According to this documentary, Forster attempted suicide by stabbing himself with a crudely fashioned knife. This was to avoid awakening during the dissection of his body, should he not have died when hanged. This was a real possibility owing to the crude methods of execution at the time. The same reference suggests that his 'confession' was obtained under duress. In fact, it alleges that Pass, a Beadle or an official of a church or synagogue on Aldini's payroll, fast-tracked the whole trial and legal procedure to obtain the freshest corpse possible for his benefactor.

After the execution, Forster's body was given to Giovanni Aldini for experimentation. Aldini was the nephew of fellow scientist Luigi Galvani and an enthusiastic proponent of his uncle's method of stimulating muscles with electric current, known as Galvanism. The experiment he performed on Forster's body demonstrated this technique. The Newgate Calendar (a record of executions at Newgate) reports that "On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion."

Several people present believed that Forster was being brought back to life (The Newgate Calendar reports that even if this had been so, he would have been re-executed since his sentence was to "hang until he be dead"). One man, Mr. Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons' Company, was so shocked that he died shortly after leaving. The hanged man was undoubtedly dead since his blood had been drained and his spinal cord severed after the execution.

Top Ten Frankenstein Movies

https://screenrant.com/best-frankenstein-movies-ranked-imdb/

The Michigan Lake Triangle. Was it aliens?

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:33:59 -0500

We're going back to the creepy, mysterious, and strange this week. We're heading up to Lake Michigan, where tons of ships and planes have gone missing, and other odd things have occurred in what is known as the Lake Michigan triangle. Full disclosure, being from Ohio, the only reason we are covering this is that it's not the actual state of Michigan, just a lake that was unfortunately cursed with the same name. So we'll only discuss the state if we absolutely have to. We kid, of course.. Or do we… At any rate, this should be another interesting, fun, historically jam-packed episode full of craziness! So without further ado, let's head to lake Michigan!

So first off, let's learn a little about Lake Michigan itself because, you know, we like to learn you guys some stuff!

Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is the largest lake by area in one country. Hydrologically Michigan and Huron are the same body of water (sometimes called Lake Michigan-Huron) but are typically considered distinct. Counted together, it is the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area. The Mackinac Bridge is generally considered the dividing line between them. Its name is derived from the Ojibwa Indian word mishigami, meaning large lake. We've also seen the title translated as "big water," so honestly, we're not sure of the translation, but those are the two we see most often. Lake Michigan touches Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. According to the New World Encyclopedia, approximately 12 million people live along the shores of Lake Michigan. Major port cities include Chicago, Illinois (population: 2.7 million); Milwaukee, Wisconsin (600,000); Green Bay, Wisconsin (104,000); and Gary, Indiana (80,000). Water temperatures on Lake Michigan make it to the 60s in July and August and can sometimes make it into the 70s when air temperatures have been in the 90s for several successive days.

The water of Lake Michigan has an unusual circulatory pattern — it resembles the traffic flow in a suburban cul-de-sac — and moves very slowly. Winds and resulting waves keep Lake Michigan from freezing over, but it has been 90 percent frozen on many occasions. Ocean-like swells, especially during the winter, can result in drastic temperature changes along the coast, shoreline erosion, and difficult navigation. The lake's average water depth is 279 feet (85 meters), and its maximum depth is 925 feet (282 meters).

Marshes, tallgrass prairies, savannas, forests, and sand dunes that can reach several hundred feet provide excellent habitats for all types of wildlife on Lake Michigan. Trout, salmon, walleye, and smallmouth bass fisheries are prevalent on the lake. The lake is also home to crawfish, freshwater sponges, and sea lamprey, a metallic violet eel species.

The lake is also home to a wide range of bird populations, including water birds such as ducks, Freddy the fox in bird costume, geese, swans, crows, robins, and bald eagles. Predatory birds such as hawks and vultures are also prevalent on the lake. This is mainly due to the wealth of wildlife to feast upon. The pebble-shaped Petoskey stone, a fossilized coral, is unique to the northern Michigan shores of Lake Michigan and is the state stone.

Today, the formation that is recognized as Lake Michigan began about 1.2 billion years ago when two tectonic plates were ripped apart, creating the Mid-Continent Rift. Some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Native Americans. However, their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the next few hundred years, the area was the home of peoples known as the Late Woodland Native Americans. In the early 17th century, when western European explorers made their first forays into the region, they encountered descendants of the Late Woodland Native Americans: the historic Chippewa; Menominee; Sauk; Fox; Winnebago; Miami; Ottawa; and Potawatomi peoples. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, possibly in 1634 or 1638. In early European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has also been found to be that of "Michigan," named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes.

The Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. Located on the southern side of the straits is the town of Mackinaw City, Michigan, the site of Fort Michilimackinac, a reconstructed French fort founded in 1715, and on the northern side is St. Ignace, Michigan, the site of a French Catholic mission to the Indians, founded in 1671. In 1673, Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and their crew of five Métis voyageurs followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters, searching for the Mississippi River. By the late 18th century, the eastern end of the straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, a British colonial and early American military base and fur trade center founded in 1781.

With the advent of European exploration into the area in the late 17th century, Lake Michigan became used as part of a line of waterways leading from the Saint Lawrence River to the Mississippi River and thence to the Gulf of Mexico. French coureurs des Bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan was integral to the development of Chicago and the Midwestern United States west of the lake. For example, 90% of the grain shipped from Chicago traveled by ships east over Lake Michigan during the antebellum years. The volume rarely fell below 50% after the Civil War, even with the significant expansion of railroad shipping.

The first person to reach the deep bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1985. Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a research expedition. In 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College. This formation lies 40 feet (12 m) below the lake's surface. One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. The construction needed more study before it could be authenticated. The warming of Lake Michigan was the subject of a 2018 report by Purdue University. Since 1980, steady increases in obscure surface temperature have occurred in each decade. This is likely to decrease native habitat and adversely affect native species' survival, including game fish.

Fun fact… Lake Michigan has its own coral reef! Lake Michigan waters near Chicago are also home to a reef, although it has been dead for many years. Still, it is an exciting feature of the lake, and scientists at Shedd Aquarium are interested in learning more about its habitat and the lifeforms it supports. Dr. Philip Willink is a senior research biologist at the Shedd Aquarium who has conducted research at Morgan Shoal to find out what kind of life there is and what the geology is like. "Morgan Shoal is special because it is so close to so many people. It is only a few hundred yards from one of the most famous and busiest streets in Chicago (Lake Shore Drive)," he said in an interview.

"Now that more people know it is there, more people can make a connection with it, and they can begin to appreciate the geological processes that formed it and the plants and animals that call it home. It is a symbol of how aquatic biodiversity can survive in an urban landscape."

"I hope people continue to study and learn from Morgan Shoal. We need to keep figuring out how this reef interacts with the waves and currents of Lake Michigan," he said. "We need to continue studying how the underwater habitat promotes biodiversity."

Passengers, have you heard about the Stonehenge under lake Michigan? Well, in 2007, underwater archeologist Mark Holley was scanning for shipwrecks on the bottom of Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay. Instead, he stumbled on a line of stones thought to be constructed by ancient humans. They believe that this building, similar to Stonehenge, is about 9000 years old, but interestingly, on one of the stones, there is a carving in the form of a mastodon, which died out more than 10,000 years ago. The exact coordinates of the find are still kept secret – this condition was put by local Indian tribes who do not want the influx of tourists and curiosity seekers on their land. The boulder with the markings is 3.5 to 4 feet high and about 5 feet long. Photos show a surface with numerous fissures. Some may be natural while others appear of human origin, but those forming what could be the petroglyph stood out, Holley said. Viewed together, they suggest the outlines of a mastodon-like back, hump, head, trunk, tusk, triangular-shaped ear, and parts of legs, he said.

"We couldn't believe what we were looking at," said Greg MacMaster, president of the underwater preserve council.

Specialists shown pictures of the boulder holding the mastodon markings have asked for more evidence before confirming the markings are an ancient petroglyph, said Holley. "They want to actually see it," he said. But, unfortunately, he added, "Experts in petroglyphs generally don't dive, so we're running into a little bit of a stumbling block there."

Featured on ancient aliens below clip:

Stonehenge in Northern Michigan - traverse city skip to 4:40

Soooo what's up with that… Michigan Stonehenge? Well, maybe not…

Sadly, much of the information out there is incorrect. For example, there is not a henge associated with the site, and the individual stones are relatively small compared to what most people think of as European standing stones. It should be clearly understood that this is not a megalith site like Stonehenge. This label is placed on the site by non-visiting individuals from the press who may have been attempting to generate sensation about the story. The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones that is over a mile in length.

Dr. John O'Shea from the University of Michigan has been working on a broadly similar structure in Lake Huron. He has received an NSF grant to research his site and thinks it may be a prehistoric driveline for herding caribou. This site is well published, and you can find quite a bit of information on it on the internet. The area in Grand Traverse Bay may possibly have served a similar function to the one found in Lake Huron. It certainly offers the same potential for research. Unfortunately, however, state politics in previous years have meant that we have only been able to obtain limited funding for research, and as a result, little progress has been made.

Honestly, even if it's not a Stonehenge but still possibly dating back 10,000 years, that's pretty dang terrific either way. Hopefully, they can figure out what's really going on down there!

So that's pretty sweet! Ok with that brief history and stuff out of the way, let's get into the fun stuff!

The Lake Michigan Triangle is a section of Lake Michigan considered especially treacherous to those venturing through it. It stretches from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, before heading south to Benton Harbor, Michigan.

It was first proposed by Charles Berlitz. A proponent of the Bermuda Triangle, he felt Lake Michigan was governed by similar forces. This theory was presented to the public in aviator Jay Gourley's book, The Great Lakes Triangle. In it, he stated: "The Great Lakes account for more unexplained disappearances per unit area than the Bermuda Triangle."

The Lake Michigan Triangle is believed to have caused numerous shipwrecks and aerial disappearances over the years. It's also been the scene of unexplained phenomena, from mysterious ice blocks falling from the sky to balls of fire and strange, hovering lights. This has led many to believe extraterrestrials are drawn to the area or perhaps home to a time portal.

Let's start with the disappearances. The first ship that traveled the upper Great Lakes was the 17th-century brigandine, Le Griffon. However, this maiden voyage did not end well. The shipwrecked when it encountered a violent storm while sailing on Lake Michigan.

The first occurrence in the Lake Michigan Triangle was recorded in 1891. The Thomas Hume was a schooner built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1870. The ship was christened as H.C. Albrecht in honor of its first owner, Captain Harry Albrecht. In 1876, the vessel was sold to Captain Welch from Chicago. In the following year, the ship was bought by Charles Hackley, a lumber baron who owned the Hackley-Hume Lumber Mill on Muskegon Lake. The boat was then renamed as the Thomas Hume in 1883, after Hackley's business partner. The Hume would make many successful trips across Lake Michigan until May 21, 1891, when it disappeared, along with its crew of seven sailors. After that, not even a trace of the boat was ever found. The Hume was on a return trip from Chicago to Muskegon, having just dropped off a load of lumber. The ship remained lost until Taras Lysenko, a diver with A&T Recovery out of Chicago, discovered the wreck in 2005. Valerie van Heest, a Lake Michigan shipwreck hunter and researcher who helped identify the wreckage, and Elizabeth Sherman, a maritime author and great-granddaughter of the schooner's namesake, presented the discovery at the Great Lakes conference at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum. The last trip of the schooner began like many others it had completed for two of Muskegon County's prominent lumbermen, Thomas Hume and Charles Hackley. It took a load of lumber to Chicago in May of 1891.

The unloaded vessel left to return to Muskegon, riding empty and light alongside one of the company's other schooners, the Rouse Simmons, which years later would go on to legendary status as the Christmas Tree Ship.

Sherman relayed the history of the Thomas Hume's final moments. She said the two vessels encountered a squall, not a major storm or full gale that took many Great Lakes ships.

"It made the captain of the Rouse Simmons nervous enough to turn back to Chicago," she told conference members.

The Thomas Hume continued on, and no signs of the vessel, the captain, nor the six-man crew were ever seen again. Sherman said Hackley and Hume called for a search of other ports and Lake Michigan, but nothing was found, not even debris.

That's when the wild theories began. Sherman said one of the most far-fetched was that the captain sailed to another port, painted the Thomas Hume, and sailed the vessel under a different name. Another theory was a large steamer ran down the schooner, and the steamer's captain swore his crew to secrecy.

Hackley and Hume put up a $300 reward, which seemed to squelch that theory because no one stepped forward.

The wreck remains in surprisingly good shape. The video shot by the dive group of the Thomas Hume shows the hull intact, the three masts laying on the deck, the ship's riggings, and a rudder that is in quality shape. The lifeboat was found inside the sunken vessel, presumably sucked into the opening during the sinking.

So what happened? Simple explanation… Maybe a storm or squall. Better explanation… Probably aliens… Or lake monster… Yeah, probably that.

Another mysterious incident believers in the Triangle seem to reference is the Rose Belle. From their archives, the news bulletin for the day reads: "October 30, 1921: the schooner Rosabelle, loaded with lumber, left High Island bound for Benton Harbor and apparently capsized in a gale on Lake Michigan. She was found awash 42 miles from Milwaukee, with no sign of the crew. After she drifted to 20 miles from Kenosha, the Cumberland towed her into Racine harbor. A thorough search of the ship turned up no sign of the crew. She was purchased by H & M Body Corp., beached 100 feet offshore, and attempts were made to drag her closer to shore north of Racine. The corp. planned to remove her lumber."

According to the Wisconsin Historical Society's Maritime Preservation Program, the Rosabelle was a small two-masted schooner and was used to bring supplies to High Island for the House of David. It was 100 feet long, with a beam of 26 feet.

Despite appearing to have been involved in a collision, there were no other shipwrecks or reports of an accident. What's more, the 11-person crew was nowhere to be found.

We're gonna go with aliens again.

Mysterious disappearances have continued to occur along the lake's waters. For example, on April 28, 1937, Captain George R. Donner of the freighter O.M. McFarland went to rest in his cabin after hours of navigating his crew through icy waters. As the ship approached its destination at Port Washington, Wisconsin, a crewmember went to wake him up, only to find him missing and the door locked from the inside. A search of the ship turned up no clues, and Donner hasn't been seen since.

Over the years, shipwrecks stacked up, drawing attention to this region of Lake Michigan. Then, during the blizzard of November 1940, three massive freighters and two fishing tug boats sank off the coast of Pentwater, Mich., well inside this triangular boundary. Wrecks of the three freighters have been found, but the two tugboats have yet to be discovered. Whether the wreckages are lost or found, experts find it highly unusual that five ships – killing a total of 64 sailors – all sank on the same day so close together.

But did aren't the only thing that had disappeared here.

Theories surrounding UFOs and extraterrestrials roaming the skies of the Lake Michigan Triangle are spurred on by the mysterious disappearance of Northwest Airlines flight 2501. The plane was traveling from New York to Seattle, with a stop in Minneapolis, on June 23, 1950, when it seemingly disappeared out of the sky.

At 11:37 p.m. that evening, its pilot requested a descent from 3,500 to 2,500 feet due to an electrical storm. The request was denied, and minutes later, the plane disappeared from radar. Despite a massive search effort, only a blanket bearing the Northwest Airlines logo indicated the plane had gone into the water.

As days passed, partial remains began to wash ashore across Michigan, but the plane never resurfaced. According to two police officers near the scene, there had been a strange red light hovering over the water just two hours after the plane disappeared. This has led some to theorize it was abducted by aliens. However, their reason for taking the aircraft remains a mystery.

See, told you… Aliens!

Do you need more proof of aliens? Here ya go

Steven Kubacki was a 23-year-old student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. On February 20, 1978, he was on a solo cross-country skiing trip near Saugatuck, Michigan, when he disappeared.

The next day, snowmobilers found his equipment abandoned, and police located his footprints on the ice. The way they abruptly ended suggested Kubacki had fallen through the ice and died of either hypothermia or by drowning. Seems pretty cut and dry, eh... Well, you're fucking fucking wrong, Jack! The mystery appeared all but solved until May 5, 1979, when Kubacki showed up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Fifteen months after seemingly disappearing into the icy depths of Lake Michigan, he found himself lying in the grass, some 700 miles away.

Kubacki told reporters he had no memory of the past year and a half. However, when he awoke, he was wearing weird clothes, and his backpack contained random maps. This led him to believe he'd been traveling. He also had a T-shirt from a Wisconsin marathon, which he explained by saying, "I feel like I've done a lot of running."

The location of Kubacki's disappearance has led many to suggest he was yet another victim of the Lake Michigan Triangle. While some don't believe him regarding his supposed amnesia, others feel an alien abduction is a reason behind his disappearance and lack of memory.

So you may be asking yourself… But if this was all alien activity, why is that no mention of UFOs… Well, you're in luck cus… There are!!! In fact, Michigan, in general, has a pretty good share of UFO sightings; coincidentally, there was a sharp rise in sightings about a month after weed was legalized in the state. I'm kidding, of course…or am I. So let's take a look at s few sightings in the area!

On March 8, 1994, calls flooded 911 to report strange sightings in the night sky. The reports came in from all walks of life — from police and a meteorologist to residents of Michigan's many beach resorts. Hundreds of people witnessed what many insisted were UFOs — unidentified flying objects.

Cindy Pravda, 63, of Grand Haven remembers that night in vivid detail — four lights in the sky that looked like "full moons" over the line of trees behind her horse pasture.

"I got UFOs in the backyard," she told a friend on the phone.

"I watched them for half an hour. Where I'm facing them, the one on the far left moved off. It moved to the highway and then came back in the same position," Pravda told the Free Press. "The one to the right was gone in blink of an eye and then, eventually, everything disappeared quickly."

She still lives in the same house and continues to talk about that night.

"I'm known as the UFO lady of Grand Haven," Pravda laughed.

Daryl and Holly Graves and their son, Joey, told reporters in 1994 they witnessed lights in the sky over Holland at about 9:30 p.m. on March 8.

"I saw six lights out the window above the barn across the street," Joey Graves told the Free Press in 1994. "I got up and went to the sofa and looked up at the sky. They were red and white and moving."

Others gave similar accounts, including Holland Police Officer Jeff Velthouse and a meteorologist from the National Weather Service Office in Muskegon County. What's more, the meteorologist recorded unknown echoes on his radar the same time Velthouse reported the lights.

"My guy looked at the radar and observed three echoes as the officer was describing the movement," Leo Grenier of the NWS office in Muskegon said in 1994. "The movement of the objects was rather erratic. The echoes were there about 15 minutes, drifting slowly south-southwest, kind of headed toward the Chicago side of the south end of Lake Michigan."

The radar operator said, "There were three and sometimes four blips, and they weren't planes. Planes show as pinpoints on the scope, these were the size of half a thumbnail. They were from 5 to 12,000 feet at times, moving all over the place. Three were moving toward Chicago. I never saw anything like it before, not even when I'm doing severe weather." Hundreds of reports of suspected UFOs were called in not only to 911 dispatchers but also to the Mutual UFO Network's (MUFON) Michigan chapter.

MUFON, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization founded in 1969, bills itself as the "world's oldest and largest civilian UFO investigation and research organization."

The reported UFO sightings were the largest since March 1966, Bill Konkolesky, Michigan state director of MUFON, told the Free Press.

"It was one of the big ones in the state. We haven't seen a large UFO (reported sighting) wave since that time," Konkolesky said.

Wow… Awesome!

A mysterious video, apparently shot from Chicago in late 2020 or early 2021, shows a fleet of UFOs above Lake Michigan, and most of them look like bright orbs. These UFO orbs hovered in the skies for several minutes, and at one point in time, some of these lights disappeared before appearing again.

The eyewitness who witnessed this eerie sighting claimed that these UFO lights used to appear above Lake Michigan several times in the past.

The video was later analyzed by self-styled alien hunter Scott C Waring, who enjoys a huge fan following online. After analyzing the mysterious footage, Waring claimed that something strange was going on in the skies of the United States. He also suggested that there could be an underground alien base in Lake Michigan.

"The lights were so close to the water that sometimes the reflection of the UFOs could be seen. Aircraft can be seen flying over the lights once in a while, but the lights and aircraft stay far apart. These lights are a sign that there is an alien base below lake Michigan. Absolutely amazing and even the eyewitnesses noticed other people not looking at the UFOs. Very strange how people are too busy to look out the window. 100% proof that alien base sites at the bottom of Lake Michigan off Chicago coast," wrote Waring on his website UFO Sightings Daily.

There have been shitload UFO sightings in the area of the Lake Michigan Triangle, only fueling more speculation. So here are some of the patented midnight train quick hitters!

An early sighting occurred in November 1957, when a cigar-shaped object with a pointed nose and blunt tail, with low emitting sounds, was seen. Subsequent civilian and military air traffic controllers cited no aircraft were in the vicinity at the time.

In July 1987, five youths had seen a low-level cloud expel several V-shaped objects which hovered quietly, with bright lights. Then, the things reentered the cloud formation and rapidly departed toward the lake's north end.

In August 2002, seven miles off the Harrisville shoreline, two freighter sailors observed a textured, triangular-shaped object soar above and follow their ship. Then, the thing made a 90-degree turn and quickly disappeared.

In September 2009, a couple left their residence to close their chicken coop for the evening. They jointly observed a large, triangular object pursued by a military jet. In addition, they noted two bright and beaming white lights when the object was overhead.

In June 2007, an 80-year-old resident inspected what appeared to be a balloon-shaped object near his fenceline. Upon his arrival, the object immediately increased to the size of a car and shot upward. He stated his body hair stood on end and when he later touched where the thing was, his hands became numb.

In October 2010, a couple experienced a sky filled with a variety of low-flying white and red objects. The couple returned to the village, where five individuals from a retail establishment joined in the observation. Later, a massive yellow orb appeared and quickly exited into the sky. The viewing lasted for nearly an hour.

Well… We're convinced, well maybe at least Moody is anyway.

Anything else weird, you ask? Why yes… Yes, there is.

Yet another odd aerial phenomenon occurred on July 12, 1883, aboard the tug Mary McLane, as it worked just off the Chicago harbor. At about 6 p.m., the crew said large blocks of ice, as big as bricks, began falling out of a cloudless sky.

The fall continued for about 30 minutes before it stopped. The ice was large enough to put dents in the wooden deck. The crew members brought a two-pound chunk of ice ashore with them that night, which they stored in the galley icebox, proving they didn't make up the story. Ouch… That's nuts.

Littered on the bottom of the Great Lakes are the remains of more than 6,000 shipwrecks gone missing on the Great Lakes since the late 1600s when the first commercial sailing ships began plying the region, most during the heyday of commercial shipping in the nineteenth century. Just over twenty percent of those vessels have come to rest on the bottom of Lake Michigan, second only in quantity to Lake Huron. So many of those have disappeared mysteriously in the Michigan triangle area. What the hell is going on there! Aliens? Weather? Portals to other dimensions?

We may never know for sure, but most likely… Aliens

Movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/ship-horror-movies/ranker-film

The Banana Massacre - Yep, bananas. Happy Thanksgiving 2021

Tue, 23 Nov 2021 21:47:21 -0500

So we're gonna get into something a bit different this week. Not really truecrime, not unsolved, but definitely crazy. This is another one we got from a listener that we had no clue ever happened. While the official death toll of this incident is usually put at around 45, some estimates say it could be up to 2000. Those bodies are said to either have been dumped in the sea or buried in mass graves. So what was the incident about you ask? Well, long story very short… Bananas. We're gonna dive into what is simply known as the Banana massacre, a crazy tale of a government squashing a banana strike with excessive force and what came after. Buckle up guys, here we go!

Before we start, I want to acknowledge the great sources of info for this episode. 90% of the information on this week's episode came from two amazing sources that had tons of info that we couldn't find anywhere else. First a paper by Jorge Enrique Elias Caro and Antonino Vidal Ortega on the website scielo.org was our source for the actual massacre info while an article called Rotten Fruit by Peter Chapman on the Financial Times website was our source for the company history.

So, let's start by talking about a fruit company. United Fruit company to be exact. United Fruit began life in the 1870s when Minor Cooper Keith, a wealthy young New Yorker, started growing bananas as a business sideline, alongside a railway line he was building in Costa Rica. Both ventures took off, and by 1890 he was married to the daughter of a former president of Costa Rica and owned vast banana plantations on land given to him by the state. The bananas were shipped to New Orleans and Boston, where demand soon began to outstrip supply.Keith teamed up with Andrew Preston, a Boston importer, and in 1899 they formed United Fruit. Bananas sold well for their tropical cachet: they were exotic, a luxury only affordable to the rich. But the rapidly rising output of United Fruit’s plantations brought down prices. The company created a mass market in the industrial cities of the US north-east and Midwest. The once bourgeois banana became positively proletarian.

By the 1920s, United Fruit’s empire had spread across Central America. It also included Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In South America the company owned chunks of Colombia and Ecuador. It came to dominate the European as well as the US banana markets with the help of its Great White Fleet of 100 refrigerated ships, the largest private navy in the world.

There are more than 300 varieties of banana, but United Fruit grew only one: the Gros Michel or ”Big Mike”. This variety suited most tastes; it was not too big or too small, too yellow or too sweet - if anything, it was a little bland. This was the forerunner of the transnational products we have today.

But mass production took its toll. In 1903, disease hit United Fruit’s plantations in Panama. An array of pathogens kept up the attack, and the banana was discovered to have a genetic weakness. Its seeds are ill equipped for reproduction, so growers take cuttings from one plant to create another. The banana is a clone, with each inbred generation less resilient.

Although the banana was diseased, United Fruit marketed it as a product that exemplified good health. Banana diseases did not affect humans, and the fruit was said to be the cure for many ills: obesity, blood pressure, constipation - even depression. In 1929, United Fruit set up its own ”education department”, which supplied US schools with teaching kits extolling the benefits of the banana and the good works of the company. Meanwhile, United Fruit’s ”home economics” department showered housewives with banana recipes.

One of United Fruit’s most successful advertising campaigns began in 1944, designed to boost the banana’s profile after its scarcity during the war. It featured Senorita Chiquita Banana, a cartoon banana who danced and sang in an exuberant Latin style. Senorita Chiquita bore a close resemblance to Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian entertainer who, in her ”tutti-frutti” hat, wowed Hollywood at the time. Sales soon regained prewar levels.

By the 1960s, the banana had become an inseparable accompaniment to the morning cereal of most American children. And today, in countries such as the US and Britain, it has ousted the apple as the most popular fruit. In the UK, figures indicate that more than 95 per cent of households buy bananas each week, and that more money is spent on them than on any other supermarket item, apart from petrol and lottery tickets.

Soooo sounds like a pretty typical big business rise to power by providing a wholesome treat to the people right? Wrong… There was more going on than almost everybody knew.

Over the years, United Fruit fought hard for low taxes and light regulation. By the beginning of the 20th century, troublesome anti-trust laws had been passed in the US to crack down on business behaviour such as price-fixing and other monopolistic practices. Taxes on large corporations were increased to fund welfare benefits in the US and fully fledged welfare states in Europe. But, with a centre of operations far from the lawmakers of Washington DC, United Fruit largely avoided all this.

The company also gained a reputation as being ruthless when crossed, and acted to remove governments that did not comply with its wishes. United Fruit had first shown its tough nature in the invasion of Honduras in 1911, which was planned by Sam ”The Banana Man” Zemurray, a business partner of United Fruit who later headed the company. Efforts by Zemurray and United Fruit to set up production in Honduras had been blocked by the Honduran government, which was fearful of the power it might wield. United Fruit was not so easily deterred. Zemurray financed an invasion, led by such enterprising types as ”General” (self-appointed) Lee Christmas and freelance trouble-shooter Guy ”Machine Gun” Molony. Thanks to United Fruit, many more exercises in ”regime change” were carried out in the name of the banana.

In 1941, the company hired a new consultant, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, who had adapted the early disciplines of psychoanalysis to the marketplace. Bernays is known as the ”father of public relations” following his seminal 1928 book, Propaganda, in which he argued that it was the duty of the ”intelligent minority” of society to manipulate the unthinking ”group mind”. This, Bernays asserted, was for the sake of freedom and democracy.

United Fruit had become concerned about its image. In Central America, it was commonly known as el pulpo (the octopus) - its tentacles everywhere. In the US, United Fruit’s territories were seen as troubled and forbidding. Under Bernays’ guidance, the company began issuing a steady flow of information to the media about its work, rebranding the region as ”Middle America”.

America”.

In 1954, Bernays exercised his manipulative powers to get rid of the Guatemalan government. Democratically elected, it had taken some of United Fruit’s large areas of unused land to give to peasant farmers. Bernays’ response was to call newspaper contacts who might be amenable to the company view. Journalists were sent on ”fact finding” missions to Central America and, in particular, Guatemala, where they chased false stories of gunfire and bombs. In dispatches home, Guatemala became a place gripped by ”communist terror”.

The company looked, too, to friends in high places, both in the corridors of power and in the offices where the big decisions were made. During the Guatemalan crisis, John Foster Dulles, one of the world’s most esteemed statesmen, was secretary of state. His brother, Allen Dulles, was head of the CIA. Both were former legal advisers to United Fruit. Together, the Dulles brothers orchestrated the coup that overthrew Guatemala’s government in 1954.

Despite its ugly reputation, United Fruit often made philanthropic gestures. Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company, played a part in coining the term ”corporate social responsibility” when, in reference to earthquake relief sent to Nicaragua in 1972, he extolled the company’s deeds as ”our social responsibility”. And in the 1930s, Sam Zemurray donated part of his fortune to a children’s clinic in New Orleans. He later gave $1m to the city’s Tulane University to finance ”Middle American'' research; he also funded a Harvard professorship for women. Philanthropy, however, did not prevent United Fruit’s abuses, and, in the 1950s, the US government decided it had to act. The company’s activities had caused such anti-US feeling in Latin America that leftwing revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had prospered. And so Washington began to take away some of United Fruit’s land.

Ironically, Castro had benefited from the presence of United Fruit in Cuba. His father, a sugar planter, leased land from the company, and had made enough money to afford a good upbringing for his children. Guevara had fought both United Fruit and the CIA during the Guatemalan coup; he maintained thereafter that Latin America had no choice but ”armed struggle”. At New Year 1959, Castro and Guevara seized power in Cuba and kicked out the US-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista.

Like an ailing dictator, United Fruit lashed out - and nearly took the world with it. In 1961, it lent part of its Great White Fleet to the CIA and Cuban exiles in the US who were plotting to overthrow Castro. When the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, Castro, fearing another attack, ushered in armaments from the Soviet Union, prompting the missile crisis of 1962.

United Fruit battled on through the 1960s, its product ever more the victim of disease. Big Mike flagged, died and gave way to the dessert banana most of the developed world eats today, the Cavendish. It was said to be ”disease resistant”. Now that’s dying, too.

Eli Black took over the company in 1970, imagining he could turn it back into the colossus it once was. The early 1970s, however, were a terrible period for the image of multinational corporations. Chief among them, oil companies made huge profits from the crisis after the 1973 Middle East war, to the inflationary ruin of rich and poor countries alike. United Fruit became an embarrassment. It was weak where others, such as the oil moguls, remained strong. When its stock market value crashed and regulators moved in, it looked like natural selection.

Early on Monday February 3 1975, a man threw himself out of his office window, 44 floors above Park Avenue, New York. He had used his briefcase to smash the window, and then thrown it out before he leapt, scattering papers for blocks around. Glass fell on to the rush-hour traffic, but amazingly no one else was hurt. The body landed away from the road, near a postal service office. Postmen helped emergency workers clear up the mess so the day’s business could carry on.

This jumper was quickly identified as Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company.

It emerged that Black, a devout family man, had bribed the Honduran president, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, with $1.25m to encourage him to pull out of a banana cartel which opposed United Fruit. The story was about to come out in the US press. United Fruit’s Central American plantations were also struggling with hurricane damage and a new banana disease. Facing disgrace and failure, Black took his own life. His death was shocking, not least because he had the reputation of a highly moral man. Wall Street was outraged, the company’s shares crashed and regulators seized its books to prevent ”its further violation of the law”. The company subsequently disappeared from public view and was seemingly erased from the collective mind.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, in a born-again spirit of globalisation, the world’s main banana companies picked up the free-market banner once carried by United Fruit. The companies - Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole from the US, and Noboa from Ecuador - did not have anything like the force of United Fruit individually, but they were still a formidable presence. Together they were known to their critics, if not to themselves, as the ”Wild Bunch”.

In the 1990s, the US took its case to the World Trade Organisation, the new high court of globalisation. The companies protested that west European countries unfairly protected the producers of so-called ”Fairtrade” bananas in former European colonies through a complex system of quotas and licences. The Wild Bunch characterised this as revamped colonialism and outmoded welfare state-ism and, instead, promoted their own ”Free Trade” bananas.

In the new millennium, after what had become a general trade war, the Europeans backed down and agreed to concessions. They did so with some rancour, protesting that Washington had again allowed itself to be manipulated by narrow interests. Some spoke of a return of the ”old and dark forces”. They were thinking of United Fruit.

Ok so that's kind of a basic history of United Fruit company to get us going in the right direction to talk about one of the most brutal things they carried out on their workers. You've seen the connection they had and the power they had.. Pretty nuts for a fucking banana company.

On the evening of October 5, 1928, the delegates for Colombia’s banana workers in Magdalena gathered to discuss their grievances. Among their concerns were their long hours and low pay; one worker, Aristides López Rojano, remembered: “We worked from six in the morning until eleven and then from one in the afternoon until six.... The contractor paid the salary and reserved up to thirty percent for himself.” Erasmo Coronel (the one wearing the bowtie in the group portrait) spoke in favor of a strike, and the others agreed. At around five in the morning on October 6, 1928, the workers issued the United Fruit Company a list of nine demands.

Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors

Mandatory collective insurance

Compensation for work accidents

Hygienic dormitories and 6 day work weeks

Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month

Weekly wage

Abolition of office stores

Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money

Improvement of hospital services

The strike turned into the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country until then. Radical members of the Liberal Party, as well as members of the Socialist and Communist Parties, participated.

The workers wanted to be recognized as employees, and demanded the implementation of the Colombian legal framework of the 1920s.

After U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, the United States government threatened to invade with the U.S. Marine Corps if the Colombian government did not act to protect United Fruit’s interests. The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.

As there was no agreement the Government militarized the zone. The newspaper "La Prensa" published the following:

"MORE TROOPS FOR THE BANANERA REGION. We have been informed that the leaving of the Commissioner sent by the Industry Ministry due to the existing conflict between the workers and the company has turned the situation critical. For this reason, the War Ministry ordered the concentration of more troops in Ciénaga. Therefore, yesterday night, a numerous contingent was dispatched from here on a special ship"

By the end of November the Magdalena Agriculture Society tried to find a solution to the situation. They named a Commission and along with the Chief of the Work Office and the workers' delegates would have a meeting with the UFC since the conflict was affecting everyone's interests. The multinational rejected meeting the Commission stating that the workers were out of the law. The representatives of the workers left for Ciénaga with the aim of convincing their fellow workers to abandon the region. They also demanded the arbitration as a last legal resort.

Social Party (PSR) founded in 1927 in Bogotá. The strike was also supported by the national and departmental union leaders ascribed to the Magdalena Workers Federation, the Magdalena Worker Union and the General Union of Workers of the Union Society (popularly known as the Yellow Union which integrated railway, port and construction workers of Santa Marta).

The first week of December everything was at a standstill, without a solution. The company hired a steamboat and brought 200 military men and took over the town hall without the mayor's authorization. To this respect the Ciénaga newspaper "Diario del Córdoba" noted:

"We do not know who ordered changing the town house into a campsite of troops, but we are certain that the municipality spokesman was not consulted for this illegal occupation. He would have certainly opposed it since there was no alteration of public order according to the norms in force. We see that the procedures here are "manu militari", without any consideration under the obvious alarm of these peoples, panic in society and business."

Military roadblocks were displayed. Trains were searched and the army prevented strikers from using them33. Tension increased and temporary workers started to return to their hometowns. Military pressure blocked the communication systems and the mail, telephones, telegraph and even the press stopped working. The strikers seized the train from Ciénaga to the plantations and they prevented its exit during the day.

On December 3rd, the press was conscious of the extreme situation: The situation of the Banana Strike is worse than ever. Especially because of the uneasiness caused by the Governor's Office for having called the Army. Any kind of meeting was banned, as it was assumed that they questioned the state legitimacy and stability and the government decisions. This measure outraged workers, because some detentions took place in Ciénaga and they were justified by the police since some documents of an apparently communist campaign were confiscated.

From this moment on, American Diplomats started to worry for the security of the American employees up to the point that the Government of the United States sent a ship to Santa Marta for the protection of their citizens as was stated by the US ambassador in Bogotá. He made clear that it was not a war cruise. Anyhow, it was possible to confirm that in the ports of Ciénaga and Santa Marta war ships docked with the aim of reinforcing troops.

To break the strike, on December 2nd, a military contingent of 300 men arrived in Ciénaga from the interior of the country. The major of the zone considered that these soldiers would be better at facing the situation than those native of the region. At the same time that same day some municipalities protested against the disposition of the governor's office. The workers exodus continued, the general situation of commerce aggravated, many commercial houses closed and some of them stopped paying their debts alleging the scarce security conditions and low sales. Similarly occurred with the stores of the UFC which closed due to lack of business activity. There was a total lack of supplies of basic products in the banana zone.

With the excuse that in Ciénaga the strikers were committing all kinds of outrages, the army seized the train to mobilize troops to the different towns, preventing normal circulation; this information proved false and the train returned to Cienaga during the first hours of the next day. The community remained isolated and without the possibility to use the train as a transportation means. The train was used by the militaries for the surveillance of plantations.

A State of Siege declaration was expected and this increased tension among strikers who organized collective bodies in different locations to prevent the work of producers. Detentions continued. The train detention by the military and the impossibility to take bananas out due to the positions of the strikers and small landowners, the harvested fruit began to rot.

The Workers Union used the newspaper Vanguardia Obrera and other pasquinades to inform about their position and to keep public opinion updated. On December 5th, alleging that the strikers had managed to get weapons, the government decreed the State of Siege. This was not made public to the workers and for this reason they became more exacerbated.

A pressure mechanism used to obtain the support of merchants was the fact of creating solidarity to boycott the public market stores and other commercial firms if the transaction was not authorized by the Workers Union. This way, merchants could not sell if they did not have the "permission". To accomplish this policy the union had 5.000 workers acting as vigilantes. This situation led the UFC to ask the government if the State was in condition to protect its interests. The State response was dubious. In its effort to reach an equilibrium between the pressure of the company and that of the workers, it submitted a communication where it stated that it would analyse the situation and would take the corresponding steps.

The workers' unrest for not feeling the State support led them to radicalization of their protest and since that moment, seizures of banana farms took place in different municipalities. There were confrontations between land owners, the military and the workers. It is worth mentioning the events in Sevilla, where workers detained a group of soldiers.

As the tension increased with this last event the Ministry Council declared general alteration of public order on December 5th, and gave special faculties to Minister Arrazola to act as a mediator between the parties and positioned General Cortés Vargas as Civil and Military Chief. This intervention was justified by the economic losses of the socio-economic and political system of the nation because it had been estimated that up to that moment the losses exceeded one million dollars and given the fact that the fierce position of the workers had stopped communications and transportations and even there had been seizures in several localities and there was fear concerning the situation of Santa Marta.

The government sent information to the United Press as follows: "The government has decreed the State of Siege in the Province of Santa Marta where the workers of the United Fruit Company maintain a strike lasting several days. General Carlos Cortés Vargas has been appointed Civil and Military Chief". On the other hand, the national press and especially that of the capital announced: " there has never been a longer and more numerous strike in the country than this of the workers of Magdalena. Thirty-two thousand workers have been in total inactivity for more than thirty days in the banana region, there are no signs that this situation will have a favourable solution"

Events reached their peak in Ciénaga. The workers had concentrated for a pacific demonstration in the evening of the 5th of December. The Governor Nuñez Roca decreed the dispersion of the demonstration. The workers did not receive this well; they declared that authorities had taken this decision with the support of the UFC and the militaries without the presence of workers' representatives. This made clear to them that authorities were defending the interests of the Company and the local "bananacracy"and not theirs as Colombian workers. The concentration ended in a protest.

The militaries obeyed the orders of the Governor and it was authorized to follow orders and demand the workers to dissolve the demonstration as it was not authorized.

The text was read in the square and at the same time the troop took positions. There were approximately 1.500 strikers in the square.

The army gave the strikers 15 minutes to disperse and the workers' answer was a the massive agitation of the Colombian flags and shouts related to the workers movement. The army responded with drumbeats and the menace to repel the strikers. Three bugle warnings were given, but nevertheless the strikers remained in their positions. A deep silence reigned in the square and the menace of the army became an unfortunate reality when the shout "Shoot" was uttered. Rifles and machine guns were discharged against the defenceless and unarmed demonstrators. In minutes the ground of the square was tinted with blood.

Once the attack of the army against their own fellow citizens ended, the sight was dantesque. The cadavers, the wounded and their relatives were troubling scenes. These events took place at the dawn of December 6th: a brutal aggression against a workers' demonstration.

The news invaded the media and the first chronicles appeared with living information about the tragic balance of the events. The first report on the newspaper "La Prensa" from Barranquilla informed of 8 people killed and 20 wounded. After a week, the same newspaper mentioned 100 dead and 238 wounded. Meanwhile official sources and diplomatic communications signalled the number of people killed as being 1.000. This number, and along with other kind of testimonies collected, agree that the number of killings was over a thousand and that the militaries loaded the trains with the corpses and buried them in mass graves in inaccessible areas and up to the present times they have not been localized.

This repression caused a massive exodus of the terrified population. They abandoned the zone and migrated to different parts of the country for fear of military persecution and arrestment. Many of them left their scarce possessions behind.

National and international media widely covered this event. Both the UFC and the government tried to manipulate the information to protect their image. The press echoed and broadcasted the sometimes biased news, informing about "combats" between the army troops and the "revolutionaries" and that as a result of these combats, 8 "bandits" were killed and 20 were wounded. The War Ministry insisted that "in Magdalena there was no strike, but a revolution".

Other newspapers such as "La Prensa" from Barranquilla, issued their edition of December 8th in red characters as a reference to this event that brought mourning to the entire country and as a symbolic commemorative act.

Referring to a communication sent to the United Press, the War Ministry informed officially that in the attack of the strikers against the troops there had been 8 dead and 20 wounded and that in order to control the revolutionary outbreaks against state order, the immediate mobilization of more troops had been ordered. They would arrive from cities of the interior of the country. It also emphasised the position of the government that the workers' situation in Magdalena was delicate and that vigorous decisions had to be taken in order to solve this issue. It also informed that beside Ciénaga, other localities had to be intervened.

The Times from New York informed in a biased and extended way that the turmoil in the Colombian Banana Region was provoked by Mexican incendiaries, who had led the process of the Mexican Revolution, two decades earlier. It also gave details about the aspects of the banana strike that were consequences of the expiration of the Barco Concession .

At the same time the UFC issued a press communication to the New York agencies and the worldwide correspondents declaring: "the difficult situation experienced during the past days in the Colombian banana region, where the company has valuable interests, has quite improved in the last 24 hours and the dispatches sent from the scene, give rise to expectations for a prompt solution of the conflict surged between the workers and the company which ended in an extended strike of revolutionary nature".

While the American press provided biased information, trying to defend the multinational interests and that of their government, the national press analysed the situation with greater objectivity. The daily newspaper "El Tiempo" from Bogotá commented in an extended note that most of the claims of the strikers were righteous improvement of working conditions. Nevertheless, due to its conservative position, the editorial stated that they did not agree with the strike since they considered that the workers had a bad leadership and they made the leaders responsible for what had happened. They reminded the authorities that force is not the supreme reason as the only system to solve a conflict since violence is not a valid option to impose certain vindications.

In response to these events and as a protest for the massacre, several offices of the United Fruit and the railway were set on fire and destroyed. The hard situation caused by the army repression and the lack of jobs led to the assault of the company's stores where people seized food.

"It is not about fixing anyhow a difficult situation, it is about avoiding more critical events in the immediate future. Therefore we need a wise, prudent, political Colombian, who does not forget the circumstances regarding the conflict. Someone who does not forget how the United Fruit Company manipulates the political and civil life of Magdalena and who does not think it indispensable to send troops for hunting workers as animals. Someone who will not be hard and inflexible with them and subordinated and honey mouthed with the company agents"

After the massacre, the workers who managed to escape emigrated to other areas of the region and new versions of the events started to become public. It was the version of the defeated. This version informed the public opinion about the concentration in the Ciénaga square and not in farms as had been informed by authorities to justify the fact of not being able to notify the exact number of deaths.

On December 10th after a convulsed weekend, the headings announced "the revolutionaries' flee in stampede to the Sierra Nevada," "government troops completely defeated the strikers "; the War Minister informs that there were more deaths during the last combats". In general, the press informed about a revolutionary movement which confronted the military forces and that the army was responding with rigor, but that there had not been any excess on their part. The banana zone was returning to normal, as well as the train service between Ciénaga and Santa Marta and the steam boat service between Ciénaga and Barranquilla. They also informed that since public order had been reestablished, businesses had already opened and that the exodus of the population had ended.

General Cortés Vargas issued a decree through which the revolutionaries of Magdalena were declared a gang of outlaws. The decree consisted of three articles and in one section, as a justification, it was stated that the rebel strikers committed all kinds of outrages: arson in public and private property, pillage, interruption of telegraphic and telephonic communications, destruction of railways, assault of citizens who did not agree with their communist and anarchist doctrine. This was the justification for decreeing martial law to give security to citizens and to re-establish public order. On the other hand the workers' leaders and accessories should be prosecuted to face their responsibilities. And to finish, the public force was authorized to use their guns.

At the same time troops were sent to avoid the surviving strikers' flee to the Sierra Nevada and the Departament of Atlántico. To accomplish this all the towns neighbouring the banana zone were alerted. Numerous detentions occurred and the prisoners were sent to Ciénaga to be judged by a Martial Court.

Wow…. Fucking bananas caused all this shit… Well obviously not than JUST bananas but holy shit man.

So the crazy thing is United Fruit company continued to operate did so long after this incident until eventually after the the suicide of Eli Black things unraveled and the company went away. Or did it? Well it did not. In fact the company is now still a huge banana company called… Chiquita! But at least all that bullshit is on the past… Oh wait wait… No it's not!

While Chiquita is not actively massacring people, in 2007, it admitted to paying $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (A.U.C.), a far-right paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings and some of the worst massacres in Colombia. The A.U.C. was designated by the United States as a terrorist group at the time and Chiquita was forced to pay $25 million for violating counterterrorism laws. In particular, the A.U.C. targeted labor leaders, liquidated problem employees, and removed people from lands needed for cultivation.

“They are so bad that in 2001, even the Bush administration was forced to designate them as a terrorist organization,” said Terry Collingsworth, a Labor and Human Rights Attorney. He proceeds to say that multinational corporations had automatically aligned with the A.U.C. “They’ve made it safe for business here. That’s what they do.” Collingsworth states, from his and his associates’ reporting, that Chiquita likely paid much more than $1.7 million to the A.U.C.

Over much of the 20th century, banana companies like United Fruit effectively took over governments in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, leading to the countries’ model being known as “banana republics”. A banana republic would describe politically unstable countries economically dependent on bananas as a sole export and product, and it has been diversified to include other limited-resource products. The CIA would strong-arm these governments to protect the business interests of banana companies at the expense of workers and people who lived in those countries, often propping up repressive regimes.

With a historic priority of keeping the costs of bananas low, banana companies were willing to do whatever it took to keep prices low, from stifling labor movements, keeping wages low, and strong-arming governments. The United Fruit Company did it then, and Chiquita Brands does it now.

In 1999, President Clinton apologized to Guatemala, saying that “support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.”

Movies:

Horror movies about killer food

https://screenrant.com/funniest-horror-b-movies-murderous-food/

Unsolved: The Springfield Three

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:14:48 -0500

Tonight we are taking the train back to true-crimeville. Unsolved as per the usual, the case, or cases if you will, also has a crazy connection to one of our own here in the midnight train family. First we are going to talk about the Springfield 3. The Springfield 3 is an unsolved missing persons case that began on June 7, 1992, when friends Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter and Stacy McCall, and Streeter's mother, Sherrill Levitt, went missing from Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri. Then we are going to roll into a talk about a giant hunk of shit named Larry Dewayne Hall. And in our discussion of Mr. Hall we shall get to the personal connection to us at the train! So without further ado… Let’s get into today's episode!

29 years ago Suzie Streeter, 19, her mother Sherill Levitt, 47, and her friend Stacy McCall, 18 disappeared without a trace from their central Springfield home. Authorities have gathered many theories to explain what could have happened. Some people have even gone as far as blaming alien abduction and the rapture. Can't we go a single unsolved true crime episode without an alien abduction theory?

Anyways, the day before the three went missing, the two girls were celebrating. They had graduated from highschool that day and were planning on going to a friend's house for a party later that day. The two initially intended to head to their friend Janelle Kirby's house, but it was too crowded, and instead, they went back to the home Streeter shared with her mother, Sherrill Levitt. The next day the girls were supposed to meet up with Kirby and her boyfriend to go to a water park. They did not show up at Kirby's house so Kirby and her boyfriend went to the girl's house to see what was going on. They assumed the girls had just overslept. When they got to the house the girls were not there and there was no sign of the mother either. When they arrived at the home, Kirby found the front door unlocked and entered the house to find it empty despite the women's cars still being outside. The family dog, however, was present and was described as agitated. Kirby also noticed that the porch light was smashed and there was glass everywhere. She decided to go ahead and clean up and unfortunately, not realizing it, may have destroyed some evidence while cleaning the mess. Kirby and her boyfriend started to look around the house and the phone rang. Kirby answered the phone call and said that the call was full of "sexual innuendo". She hung up and then another call came through and it was basically the same as the first. A few hours later, McCall's mother arrived at the property after she failed to reach her daughter on the phone. She noted Suzie's clothes, purse and cigarettes were still in the house and decided to call the police. While doing so, she noticed there was a message on the answering machine. Listening to it, she later described it as "strange" but inadvertently deleted it. Police believe the message may have contained evidence and it was unconnected to the sexual calls made when Kirby was present, which are largely dismissed as a prank.

It was now 16 hours since the two girls had been confirmed to have been seen. The mother had been last heard from at 11:15 the night before when she had called a friend of hers. When Kirby first accessed the property at 9 a.m., more and more friends and relatives came looking for their loved ones, with up to 20 people walking through the house. The crime scene became utterly compromised, and, needing a warrant, police were unable to enter until June 8. By June 9, they had called the FBI.

"The only thing unusual about this house was that three women were missing from it," retired Springfield Police Capt. Tony Glenn told News-Leader in 2006. "You had this feeling as you looked around that something was missing, that something had to be missing. But there wasn't. Just them."

Regardless, there was very little evidence at the property, with no signs of a struggle or blood present. All three women owned a car, and all three vehicles were still present; Levitt's blue Corsica was in the carport, Streeter's red Ford Escort and McCall's Toyota Corolla were in the circle drive. The keys were all in the house. Their purses were at the bottom of the stairs, and an inviting graduation cake was waiting in the fridge.

Meanwhile, Levitt's bed had been slept in, and her book was even turned over on the nightstand, ready to be resumed. The two young women had also certainly gotten prepared for bed, washing their make-up off and leaving their jewelry by the basin. McCall left her shorts and placed them by Streeter's waterbed, and given that no other clothing appeared to be missing, she is likely to have vanished in just a t-shirt and underpants. The only sign of any disturbance at all was the shattered porch light. The possibility exists that the light was deliberately broken to draw Levitt, Streeter and McCall out of the house just after the two young women arrived home, or another deception was used to the same effect, yet that can only be speculation.

Thousands of posters went up throughout Springfield. Police logged 5,200 tips in the case and gave polygraphs to numerous people. They searched woods and fields throughout the Ozark area and made inquiries in 21 states. All to little avail.

One potential piece of evidence was a letter left at a News-Leader rack at Smitty's. The letter had a drawing of the Bolivar Road Apartments with the phrase "use Ruse of Gas Man checking for Leak" written on. What it may have meant is unknown.

An image of a transient man in the area was distributed, as was a photo of a retouched dodge van seen by the home on June 7. The van is seemingly crucial to the case as an eyewitness claims to have seen Streeter driving a green Dodge later in the day on June 7 and, apparently under duress, a male voice telling her not to do anything stupid. Another witness reported seeing the van with a blonde female driver at a local grocery store and was suspicious enough to write down the license plate on a newspaper. Unfortunately, he threw the newspaper away before contacting authorities.

The hunt for the three women was relentless, with police logging 1,632 hours of overtime on the case over ten days, theorizing the transient might have been involved or the answer lay in the background of Sherrill Levitt.

A new lead appeared on June 24 when a waitress came forward to say the three missing women had been at George's Steakhouse between 1 a.m., and 3 a.m., with earlier evidence on the timing of the younger women's movements suggesting this is likely to have been near the end of that window. The witness said Streeter appeared to be drunk, and her mother tried to calm her. The sighting has never been confirmed.

Going nowhere, the investigation was featured on the Dec. 31 edition of "America's Most Wanted" and produced 29 calls. One stood out above the others when a caller claimed he had information about the three disappearances. However, attempts to link the caller with investigators failed, as he became spooked and hung up. Police appealed for him to get in touch again, but he never did, and his identity remains a mystery.

Another program, "48 Hours," shadowed police for weeks as they investigated the case, showing pictures from the search and officers sifting through the many leads. Nothing led to a workable angle, and the case went cold. Five years later, Springfield police announced it could no longer justify the money spent on the matter, officially shutting the case down.

Ok so that's fucking odd… Three women just disappeared. No signs of a struggle… No robbery… No blood.. everything left in place. Maybe it was aliens!

No you may be asking yourself...but guys… There's gotta be a suspect or something, well we found a couple.

Here's what we found:

Gerald Carnahan: A businessman, he was convicted in the 1985 killing of Jackie Johns 25 years after it happened. He has ties to Springfield and a long history of legal troubles including:

Jan. 13, 1994, second-degree burglary of a business, two-year prison sentence;

-- Jan. 13, 1994, stealing from that business, four-year prison sentence;

-- Jan. 13, 1994, arson at that business, three-year prison sentence;

-- Jan. 10, 1994, attempted kidnapping of a girl in Springfield in 1993;

-- June 1, 1994, assault of a law enforcement officer, 11 months in county jail;

-- June 1, 1994, unlawful use of a weapon, one-year prison sentence; and

-- other prison sentences for attempted kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

So, he’s an all around, grade A butthole

Then there’s Dustin Recla, Michael Clay and Joseph Riedel: Recla is the ex-boyfriend of Streeter who told police he wanted her dead because she gave officers a statement about the men, who were charged with the felony institutional vandalism of a cemetery in February 1992. Which seems a bit excessive to want to kill someone over.

Riedel is accused of breaking into a mausoleum at Springfield’s Maple Park Cemetery on Feb. 21 1992 and stealing a skull and some bones. Police have said Dustin Recla sold 26 grams of gold teeth fillings from the skull at a Springfield pawn shop for $30. So, these jerks were working together, breaking into graves and stealing their gold fillings. In the early 90s.

Steven Garrison:

Garrison told police a friend had confessed to killing the three women during a drunken party. He told police information unknown to the public that led investigators to serve three search warrants at two sites in western Webster County; that info was that they would find the women’s bodies and clues about their abduction and deaths. He also said a moss green van believed used to take the women would be found about 12 miles away, south of Fordland.

The property searched was the same site where in 1990 LE searched for two of three missing Springfieldians. Property owner Francis Lee Robb Sr. pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in a case authorities said at the time they believed involve a drug deal gone awry.

Garrison was believed enough that a gag order concerning the three search warrants was issued by a judge.“…certain aspects of the information we received fit with other (private) aspects of the case,” Springfield Police Capt. Todd Whitson said. Whitson said the gag order was rare, but he could not say why it was issued,“other than to say there is such an order, and it governs the operation and everything related to the operation out here.” Added Webster County Sheriff C.E. Wells:“We can’t tell you anything about it until the order’s lifted.”

Garrison is serving 40 years in prison for raping, sodomizing and terrorizing a female Springfield college student in the summer of 1993.

After tracking him and several associates almost exclusively for more than a year, police have since backed off Garrison. But not all the way off. They last approached him last summer. Six months ago, investigators looked to Colorado for information on Garrison, who is in a Missouri prison.

"They've never let up on me," Garrison says.

But even with all these buttholes on the list, there is one main suspect that the police and many others like in this case, Robert Craig Cox. It's always about Cox on this fucking show…

In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl in Decatur, Texas. He is presently serving a life sentence for that robbery and a consecutive 15-year federal sentence.

Robert Craig Cox was convicted of killing a 19-year-old Florida woman who was somehow intercepted while driving home from work at Disney World one night in 1978. Cox - who lived in Springfield the summer of 1992 - walked away from death row in 1989 after the Florida Supreme Court said the jury didn't have enough evidence to convict him.

Through the years, Cox has toyed with Springfield police - saying he knows the women are dead and that they're buried near the city. Having discovered that Cox lied about his alibi on the morning of June 7, 1992, officials are skeptical about his claims.

Cox declined to be interviewed by the News-Leader, but in recent letters to the newspaper, he acknowledges police consider him a suspect and that years ago he worked as a utility locator in south-central Springfield. Get that? Remember the “gas ruse” note??

Robert Craig Cox was convicted in 1988, of first degree murder, in the 1978 beating death of Sharon Zellers, 19, an employee of Walt Disney World. The case was weak, and Cox was not charged until eight years after the murder. Cox and his family were staying at a motel in Orlando where the victim’s body was found. He had a cut on his tongue, and hair and blood samples found near the victim were compatible with his. Cox testified he bit through his tongue during a fight.

The Florida Supreme Court reversed Cox’s conviction, ruling that, at best, the evidence created “only a suspicion” of guilt. The court ordered his acquittal and release from death row in1990

He was immediately taken into custody to complete a prison sentence in California for an unrelated 1985 kidnapping. Then he returned to his boyhood home of Springfield, Mo., where he came under suspicion — but was never charged — in the 1992 disappearance of the three females. Texas police also questioned him about an abduction in Plano. In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl during a robbery in Decatur, Texas. He is serving a life sentence for that robbery and is not eligible for parole until 2025.

A couple years After being sent to prison in 1995, Cox claimed he knew what happened to the three women. Cox claimed all three had been murdered and buried, taunting that their bodies would never be found. Cox was living in Springfield at the time of the murders and didn't claim to be the killer, saying he was in church that morning as corroborated by his girlfriend.

However, that would not discount his involvement earlier in the morning, and in any case, the girlfriend later recanted her statement and said Cox asked her to lie for him. Cox said he was at his parents' home when asked where he was earlier, which was again corroborated.

Police remain uncertain as to Cox's involvement with the crimes, observing that he only ever tells them enough for them to believe he knows something but never enough to incriminate himself. Some believe Cox is merely seeking infamy through a false confession. For his part, Cox said he will reveal the truth once his mother dies, but the bodies are buried somewhere around Springfield. wow what a stand up fella. Someone kill that old lady! I’m kidding… Can we at least fake her death??

Also one more interesting tidbit. In 2007, investigators revealed they'd received a tip that the bodies were buried in the foundations of the Cox Hospital parking lot. (yay more Cox) That same year, crime reporter Kathee Baird had a corner of the parking lot scanned with ground-penetrating radar and found three anomalies. However, it remains doubtful that the site is the burial location as construction didn't begin there until September 1993, over a year after the disappearances. Equally, the tip came not from anyone connected with a burial but somebody professing psychic abilities. So there's that…

While the claims of Cox possibly have merit, there is no evidence to say for sure. Despite 50,000 tips from the public, the case remains unsolved, and with nearly 30 years having now passed, the case of the Springfield Three may never actually be resolved.

Ok so by now you may have forgotten that there is a personal connection to this case. You're kind of getting a twofer today.

Let's talk about another fine upstanding citizen, scratch that, a huge giant hunk of shit, Larry DeWayne Hall. Larry DeWayne Hall was born on December 11th 1962 in Wabash, Indiana, US. He was born 2nd of 2 children and raised by both parents. He was raised as a youngest child and had one older (by a few seconds) twin brother, Gary Hall. His father, Robert Hall, was an abusive alcoholic. His mother, a homemaker. His father abused alcohol and/or drugs. He had a speech defect. During his education he had academic, social or discipline problems, including being teased or picked on. Larry DeWayne Hall was physically and psychologically abused at some point of his life. Sound like the makings of a serial killer, what say ye passengers!

Police believe that Hall, 54, may have killed 30 to 40 women. He’s confessed to rapes, murders and abductions of women all over the Midwest to reporters, book authors and police investigators. He was convicted in federal court of abducting and raping a 15-year-old Illinois girl.

But he’s never been convicted of murder.

Hall is serving a life sentence in federal prison in North Carolina for the 1993 kidnapping of school girl Jessica Roach, whose ravaged body was found in a cornfield. She had been out riding her bicycle. In Hall’s confession, which was read to the jury, he admitted that he raped Jessica and strangled her with a belt, the ends of which he held from behind a tree where the child was forced to sit so he wouldn’t have to see her face. He was not tried for murder because the teenager’s remains were mangled by a farmer’s combine to the extent that a cause of death could not be determined. HOLY HELL!! That's a new and extremely disturbing one on this show, folks.

Without a cause of death, the case was transferred to federal court and Hall was charged with bringing a minor across state lines for purposes of sex.

However, in 1996, the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that Hall should be given a new trial because the trial judge erred by not allowing the testimony of a psychologist that Hall’s mental condition led him to falsely confess, to please police. He was convicted again at a second trial and sentenced to life without parole.

Hall also confessed to police to killing 20-year-old Laurie Depies after abducting her in Menasha in northern Wisconsin. But he was never charged in connection with her 1992 disappearance, even though he said he killed her and scraps of paper were found in his van on which he had written “Lori” and “Fox River Mall,” where Depies worked. Authorities said they could not corroborate his confession, a legal requirement to bring murder charges.

The strange, 30-year odyssey of Larry Hall, a twin who once lived in an Indiana cemetery and wandered the Midwest in a van, involved occasionally attending Civil War re-enactments dressed as a Union soldier, and toying with police despite a low IQ of 85, according to a police report. Hall sent a letter to author Christopher H. Martin, who is from Hall’s hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Martin wrote a book about Hall’s alleged murderous sprees titled, “Urges: A Chronicle of Serial Killer Larry Hall.”

On page 39 of the book, Paulette Webster, 19, is listed as a victim. She was walking to a local bowling alley to meet a friend when she disappeared. Hall’s letter to Martin was taunting, noting that, “If I did it, I would have put her in a river or in a field.”

Eulalia “Lolly” Chavez was found in a field near Summerfield.

Paulette’s mother, Mary Webster, 68, said she and her husband William first learned about Hall when Martin visited them, around 2010. Martin had the letter from Hall, but Mary Webster declined to look at it.

Hall also confessed to a television reporter that he killed and sexually mutilated Chavez, who was known for years as the Summerfield Jane Doe until her exhumation in 2008 led to her identification. He later recanted.

St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson recently revived an investigation involving Hall and the murder of Chavez, which happened 31 years ago.

So where are we going with this? Well well tell you.

Larry was also a suspect in the Springfield 3 disappearances after his twin brother, who people claim looked exactly like Larry, said his brother claimed to have murdered the three women. They were in the area for a civil war reenactment at the time of the disappearances. Twin brothers that traveled around the country doing Civil War Reenactments, known serial killers. Larry claims his brother Gary was stalking one of the teens that night. There are many that believe both men were involved as it would have been hard for one man to subdue and kidnap and murder three women at once. The disappearances fit Larry's mo. And he's a giant piece of shit that's definitely capable. So that brings us full circle to the disappearance of Tricia Reitler. The following details of her disappearance we're taken from the Charley project. Org website:

Reitler was a freshman psychology major at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana in 1993. She was a good student with a high grade point average. She was last seen at approximately 8:00 p.m. on March 29, 1993.

Reitler was writing a term paper that evening, and decided to take a break. She walked to Marsh Supermarket, which was approximately half a mile from the university's campus. She purchased a soda and a magazine and left the store, intent on returning to her dormitory in Bowman Hall.

She never made it there and has never been seen or heard from again. Reitler's bloodstained jeans, shirt and shoes were discovered in a field near Seybold Pool and Center Elementary School, which is located between Marsh's Supermarket and the campus.

Investigators said six or seven unidentified people were playing basketball in the Center School playground adjacent to the pool at the time Reitler disappeared, but none of the possible witnesses have come forward with information regarding her case. Authorities believe that Reitler was taken against her will while walking back to campus. Foul play is suspected in her disappearance.

Donald W. Grenier was considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case at one time. Grenier was arrested in 1999 and charged with the abduction and molestation of a young girl from the Marion area. His home was searched for evidence connecting him to Reitler's case and the 1987 Indiana disappearance of Wendy Felton, which seemed to share common traits.

Nothing was discovered in the search and Grenier has since been cleared of involvement in both Reitler and Felton's cases. Grenier has always maintained his innocence in both cases.

Tony R. Searcy, a habitual criminal offender, has also long been considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case. He has denied all involvement and authorities have never arrested Searcy in connection with Reitler's disappearance.

Another possible suspect emerged when authorities discovered materials related to Reitler's case in a van owned by Larry DeWayne Hall several months after her 1993 disappearance. Hall resided with his parents in the 300 block of Grant Street in Wabash, Indiana at the time.

Investigators found maps, ether, photos and newspaper articles concerning Reitler inside Hall's vehicle. A photograph of him is posted with this case summary. He was arrested in December 1994 and charged with abducting Jessica Roach, a teenager whose remains were discovered in an Indiana cornfield in 1993.

Hall signed a statement confessing to Reitler's kidnapping and murder, but he later recanted and was never charged in connection with her disappearance due to a lack of evidence. Investigators searched an area of Grant County, Indiana near the Mississinewa Reservoir for Reitler's body. Hall led them to the scene, saying he'd buried her body there, but no evidence was located.

Hall is presently incarcerated in a psychiatric prison in North Carolina, serving a life sentence for Roach's kidnapping. He is still considered a suspect in Reitler's presumed abduction. He confessed to the murder of Laurie Depies, who disappeared from Wisconsin in 1988, and implied he was involved in the 1988 disappearance of Paulette Webster from Illinois. Police believe he may have killed thirty to forty women, but he hasn't been charged in any cases besides Roach's.

Reitler's case remains open and unsolved. She has never been located. Her family lived in Olmsted Township, Ohio, southwest of Cleveland, at the time she disappeared. She is the oldest of four children in a conservative Christian family. Her parents believe she is deceased.

Now you may say to yourself… Olmsted falls? That sounds awfully familiar.. Well friends that's because that's where the train station is located and where both I and Logan live. And now the crazy connection to the case and today's episode? Tricia was Grace, my wife’s, babysitter! (Jon take over and give more back story)

Movies:

Horror movies involving planes… Cus why not

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-horror-movies-about-airplanes/ranker-film

Cursed Movies

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:36:34 -0500

In a world, where the midnight train podcast is at the top of the podcast game, one thing has the power to destroy everything they have worked for. This week their world will come crumbling down as everything they've achieved will be tested and possibly destroyed due to the madness that is (dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnn) cursed Movies!!!

Tonight on the midnight train we are combining two of our favorite things…. This podcast and lots and lots of beer…YEAH! Oh wait, we do that every week… Oh, that's right, it’s this podcast and….moooovies!! But… In true midnight train fashion, we can't just talk about movies…. We're gonna talk about cursed movies!!! That's right we are going to look at movies that for one reason or another have led to tragedy during and after the movies were made! Everything is on the table from health issues like cancer, accidental deaths while filming, people going crazy after filming, and just about everything else you can think of. Should be a fun and creepy ride discussing all these movies with you passengers and, in case you're wondering, yes we're still going to have a movies list at the end.

Ok so let's get into this and see what we have as far as cursed movies!

We're gonna start it with a big one since we just covered the subject matter of the film! The first cursed movie on our list is the exorcist. The filming of THE EXORCIST was done over nine months. The main set, a reproduction of the Georgetown home, was built in a warehouse in New York. During the filming, several curious incidents and accidents took place on the set and plagued those involved with the production. In addition, the budget of the film rose from $5 million to more than twice that amount. Obviously, any film production that lasts for more than a month or so will see its share of accidents and mishaps, but THE EXORCIST seems to have been particularly affected by unforeseeable calamities. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it left the cast and crew rightfully shaken.

The first incident occurred around 2:30 a.m. one Sunday morning when a fire broke out on the set. There was only one security guard at the Ceco 54th Street Studios when the McNeil house set caught fire and burned. The fire was the result of a bad electrical circuit, but it shut down filming for six weeks while the set was reconstructed from scratch. Ironically, as soon as the new set was ready, the sprinkler system broke down, causing an additional two-week delay.

Few of the actors in the film escaped personal troubles during the shoot. Just as Max Von Sydow (who played Father Merrin) touched down in New York to film his first scenes, he received a phone call saying that his brother died unexpectedly in Sweden. Von Sydow himself later became very ill during the filming. Irish actor Jack MacGowran (who played Burke Dennings) died only one week after his character was killed by the demon in the movie. Jason Miller (who played Father Karras) was stunned when his young son, Jordan, was struck down on an empty beach by a motorcyclist who appeared out of nowhere. The boy ALMOST died. THAT'S GOOD NEWS! Ellen Burstyn (who played Chris McNeill) wrenched her back badly during one scene when she was slapped by the possessed girl. The stunt went badly awry and she was laid up in bed for several weeks afterward, causing more delays in the filming. They had a rig attached to her where a guy offscreen would pull a rope that was tied to her to get that “smacked hard as shit and launched across the room” look the director wanted. Apparently, the director didn’t like the first take or two and told the guy with the rope to yoke the living piss out of her. He got his shot. She screwed up her back.

In New York, one of the carpenters accidentally cut off his thumb on the set and one of the lighting technicians lost a toe. This was all over the news at the time due to the mixup at the hospital where they put the wrong appendages on the wrong patients. Yep, they switched the toe for the thumb. And if you believed that, well… I’m not sorry even a little bit. Anyway, The exorcist's location trip to Iraq was delayed from the spring, which is relatively cool, to July, the hottest part of the summer, when the temperature rose to 130 degrees and higher. Out of the eighteen-man crew that was sent there, Friedkin lost the services of nine of them, at one time or another, due to dysentery (which is super shitty) or sunstroke. To make matters worse, the bronze statue of the neo-Assyrian winged demon Pazazu, which was packed in a ten-foot crate, got lost in an air shipment from Los Angeles and ended up in Hong Kong, which caused another two-week delay.

"I don't know if it was a jinx, really," actress Ellen Burstyn later said. "But there were some really strange goings-on during the making of the film. We were dealing with some really heavy material and you don't fool around with that kind of material without it manifesting in some way. There were many deaths in the film. Linda's grandfather died, the assistant cameraman's wife had a baby that died, the man who refrigerated the set died, the janitor who took care of the building was shot and killed … I think overall there were nine deaths during the course of the film, which is an incredible amount… it was scary." Unholy shit, batman!

Things got so bad that William Friedkin took some drastic measures. Father Thomas Bermingham, S.J., from the Jesuit community at Fordham University, had been hired as a technical advisor for the film, along with Father John Nicola, who, while not a Jesuit, had been taught by Jesuit theologians at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. Friedkin came to Bermingham and asked him to exorcise the set. The priest was unable to perform an actual exorcism, but he did give a solemn blessing in a ceremony that was attended by everyone then on the set, from Max Von Sydow to the technicians and grips. "Nothing else happened on the set after the blessing,” Bermingham stated, "but around that time, there was a fire in the Jesuit residence set in Georgetown."

And while nothing else tragic occurred on the set, strange events and odd coincidences were reported during the post-production work on the film. "There were strange images and visions that showed up on film that were never planned," Friedkin later claimed. "There are double exposures in the little girl's face at the end of one reel that are unbelievable."

As we talked about in previous episodes, The film opened on December 26, 1973, to massive crowds. Within weeks of the first public screenings of the film, stories started to make the rounds that audience members were fainting and vomiting in the theaters. There were also reports of disturbing nightmares and reportedly, several theater ushers had to be placed under a doctor’s care, or quit their jobs, after experiencing successive showings of the movie. In numerous cities that were checked after THE EXORCIST had run for several weeks, reporters found that every major hospital had been forced to deal with patients who reported, after seeing the film, severe cases of vomiting and hallucinations. There were also reports of people being carried out of theaters in stretchers. What do you think, passengers? Mere publicity stunts, or was this the real thing?

The info for this cursed movie came from a great article on americanhauntingsink.com check them out!

Next up we're gonna dive into a sweet little movie about a tree, a child’s toy, and REAL SKELETONS IN THE SWIMMING POOL! Yep, you guessed it, poltergeist! The curse of Poltergeist spawned many theories about why the movie and its sequels were cursed with so much tragedy, with one suggesting the use of real-life human bones in the original film caused the hauntings.

Actress JoBeth Williams - who played the mother, Diane Freeling - is seen dropping into a pool of skeletons in one spooky scene and she later reveals the bones were real. She told TVLand: "In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed that these were not real skeletons.

"I assumed that they were prop skeletons made out of plastic or rubber . . . I found out, as did the crew, that they were using real skeletons, because it’s far too expensive to make fake skeletons out of rubber."

Just four months after the film's release, tragedy struck with actress Dominique Dunne, who played the family's eldest daughter Dana, who became the victim of a grisly murder. On the day before Halloween in 1982, the actress, 22, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney outside their home in West Hollywood.

She survived the attack but was left in a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. Sweeney was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and spent three and half years of a six-year sentence behind bars for the killing. He changed his name to John Maura so if you want to let him know what a twat he is, I mean… we can’t stop you.

In the years after the film's release movie bosses plowed ahead with plans for a sequel and Poltergeist II: The Other Side hit cinemas in 1986. Among the cast was Will Sampson, best known for playing Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest opposite Jack Nicholson. The actor - cast as shaman Taylor in the movie - was concerned about the use of real skeletons in the first film and offered to perform a real-life exorcism. He's believed to have conducted the ceremony alone and in the middle of the night, but the cast reportedly felt relieved afterward. However, less than a year after the film's release - the curse had claimed another victim.

Sampson had long-term health problems as he suffered from a degenerative condition called scleroderma, which affected his heart and lungs. He underwent a heart and lung transplant in the summer of 1987 but died of post-operative kidney failure on June 3.

Ok, this one is sad and you’ve probably heard of it. The most famous victim of the Poltergeist curse was Heather O'Rourke. She appeared as Carol Anne in the first two films as well as the third installment, Poltergeist III, which hit cinemas in 1988. She died just four months before the movie's release at only 12 years of age. In January 1988, Heather fell ill with what appeared to be flu-like symptoms. She collapsed at home the following day and was rushed to the hospital. She suffered a cardiac arrest but doctors were able to revive her and they diagnosed her with intestinal stenosis - a partial obstruction of the intestine. She underwent surgery, but went into cardiac arrest again in recovery and doctors were unable to save her. She passed away in February 1988, just weeks after her 12th birthday, and it was later reported she died from congenital stenosis and septic shock. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Character actor Lou Perryman became the second cast member to fall victim to murder. He played Pugsley in the original movie and suffered a brutal end in 1992 when he was hacked to death with an ax aged 67. A convict recently released from prison, Seth Christopher Tatum, confessed he had killed Perryman at his home after coming off his medication and going on a drinking binge. Tatum pleaded guilty to his murder in 2011 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Actor Richard Lawson played one of the parapsychologists, Ryan, in the original film (not the guy who ate the chicken with the maggots… you’re welcome) and he came close to becoming another victim of the curse in 1992. He was involved in a terrifying plane crash in 1992 when the USAir Flight 405 crashed into New York City's Flushing Bay on route to guess where? Cleveland friggin Ohio. The crash claimed the lives of 27 of the 51 passengers, but Lawson was among the survivors.

He put his lucky escape down to a last-minute seat change that saved his life. Lawson went on to be part of showbiz royalty when he married Beyonce's mother, Tina Knowles in 2015.

Info for this movie was taken from mirror.co.uk.

Next up how about… Hmm…. Oh, I know… The omen! The 2976 version of course. Obviously, Moody is a time traveler and saw the upcoming remake, 955 friggin years in the future! No! It was 1976! Of all the world's cursed film productions, The Omen is considered to have one of the worst movie curses of all time. The 1976 film tells the story of a man who accidentally adopts Damien the Antichrist as his son and the movie remains one of horror's most successful franchises. But what was so odious about the set that led producers to believe the devil was punishing them for making the movie? Is The Omen really cursed? The Omen film set haunting includes death, injury, and lots of lightning bolts: after all, the creator himself warned the cast and crew that Satan wasn't going to like what they were doing. Here's what happened behind the scenes of The Omen movie and why, despite its several sequels and a 2006 remake, it remains one of history's movies that indeed may have angered Satan himself!

In June 1975, Gregory Peck's son, Jonathan Peck, killed himself with a bullet to the head, two months before filming was to start. Several strange events then surrounded the production.

For protection on the set of "The Omen," Bernhard wore a Coptic cross. In an interview, Bernhard spoke about the production's eerie events, which included the death of an animal trainer.

Precisely one day after they shot the sequence involving the baboons at the animal center, Bernhard said that a tiger seized the animal trainer by the head, causing his death immediately. Whhhaat the fuuuuuck?

One of the most haunting stories surrounding The Omen didn't happen during the shoot, but during the production of the World War II epic A Bridge Too Far. John Richardson, who did special effects on The Omen, was involved in a head-on collision that beheaded his girlfriend, eerily mirroring the decapitation scene with David Warner. Supposedly, after the crash, Richardson saw a street sign that said, "Ommen, 66.6 km." This accident occurred after The Omen had wrapped production, but many of course linked it to the evil aura of the film.

Several planes were also set ablaze, including the plane carrying Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer. Meanwhile, Bernhard said they had to land in Nova Scotia after flying back from England. He added:

"We had the film on board... Dick [Donner] and I were very, very nervous."

IRA bombs ripped through a hotel, in which executive producer Mace Neufeld and his wife stayed, and another in which prominent executives and stars, including Peck, were to have dinner.

Once word got back to Fox about all the terrible incidents that plagued production, the studio saw it as a great way to drum up a ton of publicity and add to the film's ominous aura. They also put a great tagline into the film's ad campaign:

You have been warned. If something frightening happens to you today, think about it. It may be The Omen.

As Donner recalled in The Omen: Curse or Coincidence, "If we had been making a comedy, you would have recalled all the funny, great, ridiculous, silly moments that happened in that film. if you were doing a love story, you'd remember all the times somebody left their wife, fell in love... You're doing The Omen, anything that happens on that film, you don't tell about the jokes, you don't talk about the love stories, you don't even think about them. You think about things that coincidentally could have been something to do with The Omen. We had lots of them."

Creepy stuff right there my friends.

Next up we have one of my personal all-time favorites, the crow! The Crow began filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1993. Cursed Films revealed that before production got underway, a mysterious caller left a voicemail message warning the crew not to shoot the movie because bad things would happen. Eerily, two on-set electricians were involved in an accident in which their truck hit a live wire. One of the men experienced second and third-degree burns and lost both ears.

Disaster also struck the entire production when a hurricane destroyed the movie set. That is when the “curse of The Crow” rumors began circulating in Hollywood. The star of The Crow, Brandon Lee, was the son of martial arts legend, Bruce Lee. The elder Lee died during the production of his final film. Some fans speculated that the Chinese mafia had placed a hit on the actor for betraying martial arts secrets. Others suspected that he had been struck by an insidious death blow at an earlier time.

The most popular theory about The Dragon’s death is that he was a victim of the Lee Family Curse. His older brother had died, and Lee’s parents believed there was a demon targeting the males in the Lee family.

Like his father, Brandon Lee died before he finished filming The Crow. In a fluke accident, the performer was shot while completing an action sequence, as described in Cursed Films. The crew used what are called ‘dummy rounds,’ for the scene, but there was something in the barrel of the gun that acted as a lethal projectile, killing Lee.

To complete the final photography for The Crow, the man who had been working as Lee’s stunt double wore a mask in his image.

Crazy stuff!

How about some of our patented quick hitters!

The Conqueror" is a whitewashed 1956 film with John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The film was shot at a location downwind from a nuclear testing site, causing dozens of crew members to eventually die of cancer. so maybe not so much a curse as a poor choice of locations.

Apocalypse Now"

The horror! Francis Ford Coppola was tempting fate when he decided to film "Apocalypse Now" during monsoon season. Big mistake. The monsoon destroyed multiple sets, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, and Coppola was so stressed that he suffered a seizure, according to The Independent. "Apocalypse Now" (1979) turned out to be a masterpiece anyway, but the documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" about its making is just as engrossing.

"Fitzcarraldo"

Dysentery. Injuries. Fights among the crew. Nothing seemed to go right during the filming of 1982's "Fitzcarraldo." The story concerns hauling a boat over a hill, which the crew literally accomplished, but not without the same nightmarish difficulty as is depicted in the film. And in the end, director Werner Herzog looked as mad and overly driven as its hero. Check out the documentary "Burden of Dreams" for more.

The Superman Curse

Comic book movie fans may know about the "Superman Curse," which is said to afflict multiple actors involved in Superman films. Christopher Reeve was paralyzed following a horse accident. And Margot Kidder, who played Lois opposite Reeve, suffered from bipolar disorder, according to TCM. Also, the original Superman, George Reeves, supposedly committed suicide. His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a controversial subject; the official finding was suicide, but some believe that he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

Bad luck ran amok in Middle Earth during the filming of 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." DVD interviews revealed that multiple actors and stuntmen suffered injuries while shooting the film's elaborate fight sequences. The worst was Viggo Mortensen, who broke his toe and chipped his tooth while filming.

The Exorcism of Emily rose

Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter reported that during the making of The Exorcism of Emily Rose — in which she played a big-screen version of German woman Anneliese Michel, whose poor health and subsequent death was blamed on a failed exorcism — her radio would mysteriously turn on and off. From an interview with Dread Central:

Q: A common question when making a film like this; did anything weird happen during filming?

JC: I thought about that when it happened, and two or three times when I was going to sleep my radio came on by itself. The only time it scared me was once because it was really loud and it was Pearl Jam’s “Alive” (laughs). Laura’s TV came on a couple of times.

Q: At 3:00 a.m.?

JC: Mine wasn’t 3:00 a.m. I was born at 3:00 a.m. but it hasn’t happened to me. I did check.

We’ll totally do an episode on Analiese one of these days

Psycho

Myra Jones (aka Myra Davis) was the uncredited body double/stand-in for Psycho star Janet Leigh during the making of Hitchcock’s 1960 film. A handyman named Kenneth Dean Hunt, who was supposedly a Hitchcock “obsessive,” murdered her.

The Conjuring

Real-life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, who aided the real-life Amityville Horror case, investigated the haunting of the Perron family home — a farmhouse plagued by generations of death, disaster, and a possessed doll. The case inspired James Wan’s supernatural film, which left some audiences in the Philippines with such a fright there were priests available at screenings to bless viewers and provide counseling. On and off-set paranormal incidents — including strange claw marks on star Vera Farmiga’s computer, Wan’s tormented dog growling at invisible intruders, a strange wind (that apparently put Carolyn Perron in the hospital), and fire — were reported.

The Innkeepers

Filmed at the reportedly haunted hotel the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, The Innkeepers director Ti West was skeptical about the strange occurrences during the making of his movie. Still, creepy stories from the set became the focus in the press. From an interview with West:

I’m a skeptic so I don’t really buy it. But I’ve definitely seen doors close by themselves; I’ve seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on the crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange.

The one story that is the most intriguing to me — In the film, the most haunted room is the Honeymoon Suite. That’s where the ghost stuff started in the hotel. The only reason I picked the room that I picked to shoot in, was because it was big enough to do a dolly shot. No more thought went into it other than pure technical reasons. So when we’re finishing the movie, I find out that the most haunted room in real life is the room I picked to be the haunted room in the movie. It could be a coincidence. It’s weird that it happened that way. . . . [Star] Sara Paxton would wake up in the middle of the night thinking someone was in the room with her. Everyone has stories, but I was too busy saying, “Let’s shoot this! We have 17 days!

Atuk"

"Atuk" is a movie so cursed that it never got made. The project, based on a 1963 Mordecai Richler novel about an Eskimo in New York, had four different men attached to play the lead while in development hell through the 1970s and '80s: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, and Chris Farley. All four died shortly after entering negotiations to be in the film. Holy shit!

Ok how about twilight zone the movie. The 1983 film 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' directed by John Landis and Steven Spielberg gained publicity pre-release because of the deaths of lead actor Vic Morrow and two child extras during the filming of the helicopter crash scene. The children were illegally hired to play the role in this scene, as Landis would go on to reveal in the subsequent trial. It was also prohibited to make children work after a certain hour in the evening. However, Landis insisted that the scene would have to entail a late-night setting to seem more authentic. This was the last scene in the film. It also included explosions as a helicopter flew over the village while Morrow would run across the street to save the Vietnamese children from the explosion. Testing for the scene sparked concerns when the helicopter seemed to vigorously rock at the explosion but despite this, Landis' need to capture the explosion took priority. He reportedly said, "You think that was big? You ain't seen nothing yet." At the controls of this helicopter was a Vietnam War veteran named Dorcey Wingo, who had just joined the movie business. When the cameras began filming, the pyrotechnic fireball that had been fired as part of the explosion hit the helicopter, engulfing it in flames. The helicopter then crashed into the river where the actors were standing — Morrow, 6-year-old Renee Chen, and 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le. Almost a hundred people were present when the tragedy occurred. The helicopter skidded right onto Renee, crushing her to death and when it toppled over, the main blade sliced through Morrow and Myca.

Rosemary's baby is next up on the list. Over the years, the myth surrounding Roman Polanski’s 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby has only grown in stature. The film is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by American novelist Ira Levin. He came up with the idea for the book in 1965, drawing inspiration from his wife who was pregnant at the time, his New York apartment, and the anxiety of being a parent.

The struggling writer imagined a world where there was no God and the devil was allowed to reign freely. This is evident in the iconic ending where Rosemary finds out that her husband sold her womb to Satan and that her child is the Antichrist. Levin was catapulted into the highest echelons of the literary world due to the success of his novel and a year later, a European auteur who was looking for his own Hollywood break decided to direct the film adaptation of his novel.

However, not everyone was pleased with Levin’s attacks on religion. He faced severe backlash from the Catholic Church for his “blasphemy” and his wife left him the year the film was released. He was never the same man again, growing increasingly paranoid over the years. Levin repeatedly had to make public statements denouncing Satanism and told Dick Cavett that he had become “terrified” as he grew older. 30 years after the release of the film, Levin came up with a sequel titled Son of Rosemary but it tanked.

William Castle was the man who first recognized the potential of Levin’s work and secured the rights to make a film adaptation. Best known for his work on B-grade horror films, Castle wanted to direct it initially but Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans agreed to go ahead with the project only if Castle worked as a producer. In April of 1969, Castle was hospitalized because of severe kidney stones. He was already under a lot of stress due to the sheer volume of hate mail he received, a terrible consequence of being attached to Rosemary’s Baby. In his autobiography, he claimed that he began to hallucinate scenes from the film during his surgery and even shouted, “Rosemary, for God’s sake drop that knife!” Although Castle recovered, he never reached that level of success again.

Producer Robert Evans was not exempt from this alleged curse either. He had risen to the top with major hits like Rosemary’s Baby and The Godfather. However, he was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980 and got a suspended prison sentence. As a part of his plea bargain, Evans had to make an anti-drug commercial. Three years later, the producer would get caught up in the high-profile murder of Roy Radin which has come to be known as the “Cotton Club murder”. Despite two witnesses testifying that Evans was involved in the case, he was later cleared of the charges. In 1993, he told The New York Times, “I had 10 years of a horrific life, Kafkaesque. There were nights I cried myself to sleep.”

This is arguably the most renowned story that is related to Rosemary’s Baby. In autumn of 1968, composer Krzysztof Komeda, who worked on the film, fell off a rocky escarpment while partying and went into a four-month coma. Coincidentally, this affliction is exactly what the witches in Levin’s book subject Rosemary’s suspicious friend to. Komeda never came out of the coma and died in Poland the following year.

John Lennon was assassinated outside The Dakota in 1980, the famous building where they filmed Rosemary’s Baby. Producer Robert Evans claimed that the whole time he was on set at the apartment building he felt a “distinctly eerie feeling”. Lennon was gunned down by alleged “fan” Mark David Chapman who was influenced by Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye and the loneliness of protagonist Holden Caulfield. However, the fleeting association with the film has led fans of the film to link Lennon’s assassination with the “curse” of the film. It can be said that the primary reason why the myth of the curse came about was the brutal murder of Polanski’s wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski even wanted to cast Tate as Rosemary but Evans was adamant about Mia Farrow’s involvement. A year after the film’s release, Tate and her friends were stabbed to death by followers of cult leader Charles Manson. Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time of her demise. The members of the Manson Family delivered around 100 stab wounds to the four victims and wrote “Helter Skelter” on the wall in blood.

After his wife and unborn son were killed, Polanski indulged in substance abuse to cope with things but he ended up exemplifying human depravity. While guest editing the French edition of Vogue in 1977, the director preyed upon a 13-year old girl and persuaded her to participate in multiple photoshoots. During the second shoot at Jack Nicholson’s house, he incapacitated the minor with champagne and half a Quaalude before sexually violating her multiple times.

Although he was arrested for the felony and spent 42 days in jail, Polanski became a fugitive and fled to France to avoid facing charges. Since then, he has lived the life of a criminal and has avoided traveling to countries where he can be extradited back to the US.

Ok, let's round things out with the wizard of oz. Despite its commercial success, The Wizard of Oz is seen by some as cursed. There were so many serious accidents onset that those Oscar-nominated special effects almost cost cast members their lives, from the two actors playing winged monkeys crashing to the ground when the wires that hoisted them up in the air broke, to the Wicked Witch of the West’s stunt double Betty Danko injuring her left leg when the broomstick exploded.

Buddy Ebsen was originally cast in the role of the Tin Woodman, a.k.a. the Tin Man, but he was essentially poisoned by the makeup, which was made of pure aluminum dust. Nine days after filming started he was hospitalized, sitting under an oxygen tent. When he was not getting better fast enough, the filmmakers hired Jack Haley to be the Tin Man instead. This time, instead of applying the aluminum powder, the makeup artists mixed it into a paste and painted it on him. He did develop an infection in his right eye that needed medical attention, but it ended up being treatable.

Margaret Hamilton — who played the Wicked Witch of the West and was the one tipped who Harmetz off to the turmoil on set more than three decades later for her 1977 book — got burns, and the makeup artists had to rush to remove her copper makeup so that it wouldn’t seep through her wounds and become toxic. Unlike Ebsen, she didn’t get fired because they could live without her on the set for several more weeks.

An actor playing one of the Wicked Witch of the West’s soldiers accidentally jumped on top of Dorothy’s Toto, Carl Spitz, the dog trainer on set, told Harmetz. The dog (a female Cairn terrier named Terry) sprained its foot, and Spitz had to get a canine double. Terry did recover and returned to the set a few weeks later.

In a memoir by Judy Garland’s third husband, Sid Luft, published posthumously in 2017, he writes that, after bar-hopping in Culver City, the actors who played the munchkins “would make Judy’s life miserable by putting their hands under her dress.” Harmetz says it’s true that the actors would go drinking near the Culver City hotel where they stayed, but she says their interactions with Garland did not rise to the level of what Luft described. “Nobody on the movie ever saw her or heard of a munchkin assaulting her,” said one worker on the film. Garland did say the drinking was annoying in an interview with talk-show host Jack Paar, but experts on Garland’s life say that her rant about being scarred by the rowdy behavior on set may have been a deflection from the real damage she suffered during that time, at the hands of the studio. Garland was only 16 when she made The Wizard of Oz, and her struggles with depression and disordered eating started at an early age and continued for the rest of her life. She claimed that the studio executives gave her uppers and sleeping pills so she could keep up with the demanding pace of show business. She struggled with drug addiction and attempted suicide several times before she died of an accidental overdose on June 22, 1969, at just 47 years old.

The film went through four different producers by the time it was through.

Richard Thorpe, the first director, insisted that Judy Garland wear a blonde wig and thick makeup to depict Dorothy. When Buddy Epsen got sick from his Tin Man makeup and filming shut down for two weeks, the studio fired Thorpe and replaced him with George Cukor of My Fair Lady fame. Cukor encouraged Garland to wear natural makeup and play Dorothy less cartoonish and more natural. Cukor later left the film to work on Gone with the Wind instead and Viktor Fleming took his place. However, Cukor came back a few weeks later after getting fired from Gone With the Wind by Clark Gable (supposedly he was fired when Gable found out he was homosexual).

Director King Vidor was responsible for most of the sepia sequences and also helped Mervyn LeRoy with editing in post-production.

Not only did the public think former kindergarten teacher Margaret Hamilton was really evil following the first airing of The Wizard of Oz — she also suffered physically for the role. Hamilton received second and third-degree burns all over her body when the green copper makeup she was wearing got too hot during the fire scene. Her stunt double spent months in the hospital after a prop broom exploded — they were using a double because Hamilton got injured on an earlier take.

Stage makeup and prosthetics in 1939 were nowhere near what they are today. Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow makeup left deeply embedded marks in his skin that didn’t disappear for more than a year after the movie wrapped up filming. Luckily, this would never happen today.

How bout that hanging munchkin… Well, sorry folks. That seems to be fake. In a scene where Dorothy, the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and the Tin Man (Jack Haley) are skipping down the Yellow Brick Road, singing “we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,” some think the dark, moving figure hanging from a tree in the background is an actor who hanged himself on set. More likely, it’s one of the exotic birds that the filmmakers borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo to create a wilderness setting. The rumor has been circulating since around 1989, the time of the 50th anniversary of the film’s release.

Alright, there you have it… Cursed movies!!!

Obscure 90s horror movies you need to see

https://www.ranker.com/list/obscure-1990s-horror-movies/christopher-myers

Creepy Antarctica

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 02:27:50 -0400

Grab your parkas, put on those winter boots, don't forget those big ol mittens and hang out with us tonight as we head to the place where the coldest temperature on earth has ever been recorded, a mild -89.2°C (-128.6°F). Maybe we should bring swim trunks instead, eh? Well, aside from the coldest temps known anywhere, there is also possibly Nazis, maybe a hole to the center of the earth, a blood waterfall, and giant sea spiders with legs ranging up to 70cm, and for those of you who aren't sure if that's big or not cus we’re a bunch of archaic buttholes that don't do metric… It's big.. Like close to 28 inches big… oh and how could we forget… the Penguins!! Lots of penguins! Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're heading to Antarctica! We're going to be discussing the continent and find out a little about it and then we'll talk about some creepy natural things going on and of course creepy conspiracies. It should be a fun one so let's get going!!!

So let's learn a little about Antarctica first off. Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert, with annual precipitation of 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland; yet 80% of the world's freshwater reserves are stored there, enough to raise global sea levels by about 60 metres (200 ft) if all of it were to melt. The temperature in Antarctica has dropped to −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) (or even −94.7 °C or −138.5 °F, as measured from space), although the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. Wanna know some fun facts… Well, tough shit negative Nancy, we're gonna tell ya anyways.

Antarctica holds most of the world’s fresh water

An incredible 60-90% of the world’s freshwater is locked in Antarctica’s vast ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest on Earth, covering an incredible 14 million km² (5.4 million square miles) of Antarctic mountain ranges, valleys and plateaus. This leaves only 1% of Antarctica permanently ice-free. Some areas are ice-free in the summer, including many of the areas we visit on the Antarctic Peninsula.

At its deepest, Antarctica’s ice is 4.5km (2.7 miles) thick – that’s half the height of Mt Everest! Again, If it all melted, global sea levels would rise about 60 m (200 ft).

As mentioned, Antarctica is a desert

With all of that fresh water held in the ice sheet, how could Antarctica be a desert?

When most of us think of deserts we think of sand dunes, cactuses and sizzling temperatures, but technically a desert doesn’t have to be hot or sandy, it’s more about how much precipitation the area receives as rain, snow, mist or fog. A desert is any region that receives very little annual precipitation.

The average annual rainfall at the South Pole over the past 30 years was just over 10 mm (0.4 in). Although there is more precipitation towards the coast, the average across the continent is low enough to classify Antarctica as a polar desert.

So, while Antarctica may be covered in ice, it has taken an incredible 45 million years to grow to its current thickness, because so little rain falls there.

As well as being one of the driest continents on Earth, Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest and highest.

Antarctica used to be as warm as Melbourne Australia!

Given that the coldest ever land temperature was recorded in Antarctica of -89.2°C (-128.6°F), it can be hard to imagine Antarctica as a warm, temperate paradise. But Antarctica hasn’t always been an icy land locked in the grip of a massive ice sheet. In fact, Antarctica was once almost as warm as Melbourne is today.

Researchers have estimated that 40-50 million years ago, temperatures across Antarctica reached up to 17°C (62.6°F). Scientists have also found fossils showing that Antarctica was once covered with verdant green forests and inhabited by dinosaurs!

The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth

The Antarctic Peninsula is warming more quickly than many other areas on Earth. In fact, it is one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet. Over the past 50 years, average temperatures across the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 3°C (37.4°F), five times the average increase on Earth.

This has led to some changes, for example where and when penguins form colonies and sea ice forms. It also means that the lush mosses of the Antarctic Peninsula have a slightly longer growing season.

There is no Antarctic time zone

The question of time in Antarctica is a tricky one. At the South Pole the lines of longitude, which give us different time zones around the globe, all meet at a single point. Most of Antarctica experiences 6 months of constant daylight in summer and 6 months of darkness in winter. Time starts to feel a little different without the normal markers for day and night.

Scientists working in Antarctica generally stay in the time zone of the country they departed from, but this can cause some issues. For example, on the Antarctic Peninsula you can find stations from Chile, China, Russia, the UK and many other countries. You can imagine that if all of these neighbouring stations keep to their home time zones it could get a little confusing trying to share data and resources without accidentally waking one another up in the middle of the night!

For travellers with Aurora Expeditions, they generally stay on Ushuaia time – unless they’re travelling to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Then they adjust to their local times, changing as they travel.

Every way is north!

If you stand at the South Pole, you are at the southernmost point on Earth. It doesn’t matter which way you look, every direction is north. So why do we talk about the Antarctic Peninsula as being in West Antarctica, and the section directly south of Australia as East Antarctica?

It’s based on the prime meridian, an imaginary line which passes through Greenwich in the UK at 0 degrees of longitude. If you stand at the South Pole and face towards Greenwich, everything to your left is west Antarctica and everything to your right is east Antarctica. Got that?

Antarctica has active volcanoes

Antarctica is home to several volcanoes and two of them are active. Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica, is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Located on Ross Island, this icebound volcano has some unique features such as ice fumaroles and twisted ice statues that form around gases that seep from vents near the volcanic crater.

The first ascent of Mt Erebus was made in 1908, when a team led by Australian scientist Edgeworth David, and including Douglas Mawson, completed an arduous and very chilly five day climb to the steaming crater.

The second active volcano is on Deception Island, a volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands. Once home to a thriving whaling station and later a scientific station, it was abandoned after the most recent eruption in 1969, and today it is a fascinating place that we visit on some of our Antarctic Peninsula voyages.

Antarctica has its own Treaty

When humans caught their first glimpse of Antarctica in 1820, it was the only continent without an indigenous population. Several nations quickly made claims to the continent, which led to significant tension. While some countries argued that Antarctica was rightfully theirs, others heartily disagreed.

As tension mounted, everyone agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution. In December 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, an unprecedented international agreement to govern the continent together as a reserve for peace and science. Since then, 41 other countries have signed the Treaty and participate in annual meetings, where decisions are made about how human activity in Antarctica is managed. All decisions made within the Antarctic Treaty System are made by consensus, with collaboration and agreement as the central pillars. Today, the Antarctic Treaty System has expanded to include strict guidelines for commercial fishing, sealing, and a complete ban on mining and mineral exploration.

We got those fun facts from Aurora expeditions. Com

So let's look at some of the weird natural phenomena that goes on in Antarctica.

You guys like weird sounds? Well we got weird sounds for you. Scientists and researchers at the Ross ice shelf have recorded a slow seismic hum being generated by wind whipping across the Antarctic ice shelves. The scientists also discovered that the frequency of the vibrations changed in response to changing weather conditions on the shelf — when the temperature rose or fell, for instance, and when storms resculpted the shelf's snow dunes. The firn was "alive with vibration," Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist at the University of Chicago, said in a written commentary that accompanied the paper. "This vibration was found to be driven by the wind blowing across the firn layer and interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the surface called sastrugi." MacAyeal also offered a more poetic description of the sound, comparing it to "the buzz produced by thousands of cicada bugs when they overrun the tree canopy and grasses in late summer."

Julien Chaput, a geophysicist and mathematician at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the leader of the research, told NBC News MACH in an email that the sound was "a little like yodeling, except with 10 people all singing in dissonance. It's a little eerie." But the singing ice is more than a sonic curiosity. Chaput and his colleagues argue in their paper that it might be possible to tap into seismic data to help monitor the health of ice shelves, which have been thinning in response to global warming — and causing sea levels to rise around the world. so that's all pretty crazy. Antarctica is singing to us. (Play sound)

Ever hear of a solar pillar? Well you're about to. The air in Antarctica is frequently very dry. The low temperatures mean that little or no water vapour is held in the air, instead it freezes and falls out, or builds up on surfaces as frost. Sometimes however, depending on the particular atmospheric conditions, the frozen water vapour remains in the air as suspended ice crystals. In these conditions the crystals can reflect sunlight in a variety of ways forming atmospheric phenomena of different types.

One of these phenomena is the "Solar Pillar" in the picture. The sun is reflected very strongly off tiny suspended flat ice crystals in the air which are oriented at or almost horizontally, so that the reflection is almost as bright as the sun itself. Like a rainbow, this sight depends on the viewing angle, where the light is coming from and where the observer is standing. The pillar appears to move when the observer moves, but always remains directly below the sun because the ice crystals are found throughout the air but only act as mirrors for the sun at the correct viewing angle.

Most of you have heard of the northern lights, but did you know there are southern lights? The Southern Lights, commonly known as the Aurora Australis, is one of the world’s greatest wonders. The Southern lights are much more elusive than their Northern Hemisphere counterpart-Aurora Borealis. There is significantly less land mass in the Southern Hemisphere and fewer ideal viewing spots to see the Aurora. However, the Southern Lights are just as, if not more, impressive. Boasting a breathtaking colour palette that goes beyond the green and blues commonly seen at the Northern Lights, to include pinks, purples, oranges and golds.

Here's a little nerdy science for ya: The Aurora Australis phenomenon occurs when charged particles from solar winds bombard the Earth’s atmosphere and interact with gases in our planet.

These highly energised particles are emitted from the sun and smash into the Earth’s magnetic field at more than 6 million kilometres per hour.

For the most part, Earth is protected from solar winds by the magnetosphere, which sounds like Magneto from the X-Men franchise’s bachelor pad. The magnetosphere is a region of space that surrounds the Earth's magnetic field and has a primary purpose of preventing cosmic rays, such as solar winds from entering Earth’s atmosphere. However, occasionally, at particular times of the year, a few charged particles from solar winds make their way through the magnetosphere into our atmosphere. The charged particles move along the Earth's magnetic field lines towards the south and north pole. When they reach the each pole, they collide with atoms in the atmosphere, particularly nitrogen and oxygen, and become increasingly charged. Once the electrons settle back down to their normal level of excitement they glow, creating the magnificent light display, we know as an Aurora.

One more fun natural thing for you guys and probably the creepiest. BLOOD FALLS! THIS FIVE-STORY, BLOOD-RED WATERFALL POURS very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but it's true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

Roughly two million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a place with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of “primordial ooze.” The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within. If you've never seen the falls it's pretty awesome and metal. We'll post pics for sure.

Ok so enough of the sciency and nerdy stuff let's get into the crazy shit.

The first one is a fun one. In 2020 a clip from Google Earth was loaded onto youtube showing what appears to be an ice ship! So what exactly is it? Well friends, it depends on what you want to believe. The video sparked a conversation of epic conspiracy proportions! Some think that the "ship" is something connected to a secret Nazi base, which we’ll get to later. Others claim ties to the secret elite and illuminati.

“I was told a couple of years ago that there are ships built underground somewhere on upper east coast (like the ones in the movie 2012) to save the rich and powerful when canary islands get hit with massive earthquake that will take out east coast,” one commenter wrote.

Other theory's range from military and government cover ups to some claiming it to be Noah's ark. The mundane exfoliation is that it's our minds playing a trick on us… but that’s fucking lame and we’re going with the fact that it's something creepy and crazy!!

Another fun thing found by Google Earth is a giant mountain sized alien face. Yes you heard right. And if you don't think this is leading to crazy talk… You are seriously mistaken.

Conspiracy theorists Blake and Brett Cousins – of YouTube channel thirdphaseofmoon – shared their thoughts on the Google Earth image.

"It appears to be a massive, ancient structure of some kind of face that is being revealed for the first time on Google Earth,” Blake said in his video.

"I would have to concur that whatever we’re looking at resembles some sort of megastructure."

Brett added: "Could this be something that was left behind by the ancient civilisations of Antarctica?

"Ice melting could be revealing structures that would baffle the world."

There it is folks, a giant alien face structure hiding a civilization under Antarctica. Can't argue with the facts. I mean I guess you could say that it's just a case of pareidolia but that's not really that fun so… You know… Alien civilization it is.

Speaking of aliens, A video posted to an “alien" sub-section on Reddit shows how zooming in on a certain area of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands reveals a mysterious vast section of disturbed snow. It shows what looks like something that crashed into the snow and skidded some 3000ft. Of course that brought out the nut jobs, and moody, claiming that it is a ufo crash site.

Reddit user Hey-man-Shabozi captioned the post: "What’s over 200ft long, casts a shadow of 50ft, and appears to have crashed on an antarctic island, moving so fast that it slid over 3,000ft?”

The island, located near Antarctica, has a strange snow formation in the area near Mount Carse.

It looks very similar to an avalanche but the video posted on Reddit goes into detail about how it could be more than what it seems. The main point of contention for the Reddit user is that there appears to be a long thin object that has created a lengthy straight track away from the disrupted area as if it crashed at speed. The Reddit user estimated that the tracks were more than 3,000 feet long.

He also claims to have worked out that the object responsible was 200 feet long.

Let's be honest… If you can't trust a reddit user… Who can you trust these days? Of course most people will say “oh it was just a big rock falling during an avalanche”, but everyone else who actually knows… They know it's a ufo. And they all know that the claims of a rock falling during an avalanche is just another global cover up to hide the fact that there are aliens.

Another one comes thanks to a visual grab from Google Earth, which seems to suggest that there might actually be a tall building standing on the ice in Antarctica. These findings have been uploaded to YouTube Channel MrMBB33 (who coincidentally was also responsible for finding the ice ship we discussed earlier) and the conspiracy theorist who runs this channel suggests that this structure is as much as 2,000 feet in height and the width spans six football fields. Viewers are clearly interested in what they are seeing. “Strange that all countries want to take over land but no country claims Antarctica. I think there is something they know that we don’t," comments a user Lorrie Battistoni. Another user suggested that something on the lines of the Project Iceworm was active in Antarctica—the Project Iceworm was a then top-secret project of the United States Army which attempted to build a network of tunnel based and mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the ice sheet in Greenland. Equally, there are sceptics who suggest this is nothing more than a block of ice, albeit with a slightly different shape.

Since we brought up tunnels, there's supposedly an air vent on top of a “metallic shield” in a no-fly zone on the icy continent. Estimates are that the area is over 150 feet wide — based on measurements using Google Earth tools. Its two distinctive features: a pitch-black “opening” and a metal-like “shield.”

"That looks like some sort of vent, a thermal vent that goes underground. You can tell that the snow is darker than any other snow in the surrounding area,” one person said “That would imply to me that there is heat transfer going on” and suggests the top section is some metal or metal alloy man-made structure “over an opening that goes underground.

Someone else points out there is no volcanic activity nearby: “It is just there all by itself.”

So what is it? Just a cave? A man made structure hiding a secret underground base? Should we just go back to aliens for this one? What do you guys think?

Ok how about Hitler and the Nazis? Well since people believe there are Nazis and maybe even Hitler himself still hiding out in Antarctica. This theory originates from a story about a Nazi expedition to Antarctica. The story says that while exploring and mapping the area, they uncovered a multitude of underground caves and rivers. One of the caves was particularly large and was turned into a large city that would be home to both Nazi’s and other powerful groups, like the illuminati. Along the way, the Germans either came across alien technology or made contact with the aliens. The Germans learned how to use the technology and were able to build a number of weapons. This belief is extraordinary because there is no evidence that the Nazis ever did, or were even capable of building such a base. Geologist and Oceanographer, Colin Summerhayes, partnered with journalist and historian, Peter Beeching, to examine evidence about Antarctica and the Nazis. In support of this claim is the fact that the Nazis did at one point carry out an expedition to Antarctica in 1938. Many conspiracy theorists claim that this was a large-scale expedition, with militarized and scientific ships. Another bit of evidence for this theory is about the Nazi’s agreeing to The Antarctic treaty. The treaty makes Antarctica a research zone and states that Antarctica cannot be targeted in any way by bombs or missiles. Conspiracy theorists jump on this and say why would Nazi Germany sign this agreement? The claim is that they signed this agreement to deter other nations from visiting Antarctica and stumbling upon their base and the research being done there. There has been no evidence found to corroborate that point. Additionally, some claim that Hitler himself is actually in Antarctica. The evidence for this idea is based on the claim that a German ship arrived at an Argentinian base located in Antarctica after the war ended. Another popular conspiracy theory is that Hitler escaped to Argentina at the end of the war, and so therefore he was picked up by a German ship, and sent to Antarctica to live at the secret bunker. However there is no evidence that Hitler ever made it to Argentina or that the supposed German boat ever went to Argentina’s Antarctic base… At least that's what they want you to believe! Since there have been other strange military activity there such as supposed German boats coming or the U.S. project “Operation Highjump”, since people really think that this is a feasible thing. Of course These strange events, and the lack of information around them, often lead people to conclude that it must be because there is something going on there that the government doesn’t want us to know about. Many of these beliefs actually come from Flat Earth. Flat Earthers often propose that it is illegal to go to Antarctica and has a constant military presence, that’s why none of them can go investigate if the ice wall is out there. There is a subgroup of flat earth who believes that part of the reason you “can’t go” to Antarctica is because of the Nazi base there. So think about that one...flat earthers believing there are Nazis bases in Antarctica… Good Lord. In 1978, Miguel Serrano, a Chilean diplomat and Nazi sympathizer, published El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico [The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism] (in Spanish), in which he claimed that Adolf Hitler was an Avatar of Vishnu and was, at that time, communing with Hyperborean gods in an underground Antarctic base in New Swabia. Serrano predicted that Hitler would lead a fleet of UFOs from the base to establish the Fourth Reich. In popular culture, this alleged UFO fleet is referred to as the Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica. Oh boy. We really gotta figure out if the Nazis are on the moon or in Antarctica!

How about pyramids… You like pyramids? We got pyramids… maybe.

THE oldest pyramids on Earth are hidden away under the deep cold snow of Antarctica, conspiracy theorists have shockingly claimed . Ancient alien theorists who are certain secret pyramids are concealed all around the globe, think some may be hidden on Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists, in particular, point to a pyramid-like structure near the Shackleton mountain range on the icy continent. The “pyramid” in question, when viewed on satellite imagery, does appear to have four steep sides much like the Great Pyramid of Giza. Conspiracy theory author David Childress told Ancient Aliens there is a distinct possibility the Shackleton pyramid is the oldest of its kind on Earth.

He said: “If this gigantic pyramid in Antarctica is an artificial structure, it would probably be the oldest pyramid on the planet and in fact, it might be the master pyramid that all the other pyramids on planet Earth were designed to look like.” Another conspiracy theorist agreed, saying: "All the way around the world we find evidence of pyramid structures.

"We should start looking at the possibility there was habitation on Antarctica.

"Was it a lost civilization? Could it be ancient astronauts?

"And just maybe, the earliest monuments of our own civilization came from Antarctica.”

But the theory was challenged by Dr Michael Salla, author of Exopolitics Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence. The alien expert argued the Antarctic pyramid is just one node in a global network of power-generating pyramids strategically placed around Earth.

A popular pyramid conspiracy claims the triangular structures act as power generators of sorts, built for the purpose of transiting vast amounts of energy wirelessly.

Dr Salla said: “There has been extensive research done on pyramids throughout the world, in terms of their structure and what they really are.

“One of the theories is that pyramids are power generators and so if you have these pyramids strategically placed around the world generating a charge, it’s possible to create a general standing wave around the world that is a wireless transmission of energy.”

Also There is a claim that the British set up a base called Maudheim-1 (there are no records) in Dronning Maud Land during the war to observe the apparent Nazi base, this was supposedly attacked by the Nazis in July 1945 followed by SAS led (failed) retaliatory attacks from October to December that year.

How about a couple quick hits:

Some think that the remains of a Motte and Bailey castle were uncovered. Motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The structure is about 120m across which makes it of the appropriate size range and has two sort-of circles, though the whole thing appears to be more or less completely flat rather than having any significant raised earthworks which in part define a Motte and Bailey castle, the mounds of such castles in towns, cities and in the countryside in Europe are particularly enduring across the centuries. There's a scientific explanation for it but that doesn't stop people from believing what they want.

Then of course you have the flat earthers . There is a weird conspiracy theory that Antarctica and the South Pole do not exist. This belief is most common among flat-earthers who claim that our planet is flat. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth. According to flat-earthers, Antarctica is actually a thick wall about 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 ft.) high that surrounds our planet. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Flat-earthers say we cannot confirm the existence of the wall because world governments and the United Nations have strict no-fly and no-sail zones around Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists believe that the British Captain Cook is one of the few humans to have ever seen the wall apart from government agents. Supposedly, Captain Cook reported seeing the huge wall during the three voyages he made to Antarctica. The wall covered the entire coastline, and he could not land anywhere because it was just too tall to climb.

Speaking if stupid, we touched on this not long ago so we'll just mention it in passing… But apparently there's a hole at the south pole that is the entrance to the hollow earth...I mean… Come On people… Is this where we are as a society??

Going along with this theory of a hole at the pole, there are people that think the world is hiding that fact with a fake south pole. So when people go to the spot that is thought to be the south pole is actually an arbitrary random spot chosen by the powers of the world to throw everyone off the trail of hollow earth.

Some people also believe that there is actually a tropical region that is hidden in Antarctica. Yes, a tropical region. Some say it is in the no fly zone that is also attributed to the spot where the hole to hollow earth is… we think these guys should fight it out. To the death. Like, no survivors. On the other hand there is recent evidence that there used to be rain forests on the continent so maybe the believers aren't as crazy as we think. Just kidding. They’re nuttier than squirrel turds.

Some other crackpots also really believe Antarctica is the Land of The Ancient Race of Super-Beings With Big Angular Heads. Some of them tried to leave many years ago and made it to Easter Island where their enormous weight made them sink into the ground and a simple common bacterial infection turned them to stone. The bacterium cannot live in Antarctica so they continue their highly sophisticated secret society under the ice, dude we can't make this stuff up. Maybe it was Medusa… see, we can make shit up, too!

And finally… Is Antarctica really the lost city of atlantis? The theory that Antarctica is Atlantis is a relatively new one, dating back to the mid 20th Century.

According to Charles Hapgood's 1958 book 'Earth's Shifting Crust', the continent of Antarctica was in fact originally much further north than its current position. Due to the shifting of the Earth's crust, the continent was displaced, and the climate of the continent, which had been mild, plummeted to below freezing.

This shift in location and temperature has led some to argue that an ancient Civilisation existed on the continent, which was subsequently destroyed by this monumental geographical realignment.

In 2016, faint credence was given to this claim with the revelation that remains of a human settlement had been found under the Antarctic ice.

One report claimed, 'the pictures, taken using remote sensing photography for NASA's Operation IceBridge mission to Antarctica, show what online sleuths believe could be a city.'

Ranker list of best winter thriller movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/thriller-movies-set-in-snow/ranker-film

The Exorcism of Roland Doe. Halloween 2021

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 22:54:29 -0400

Happy Halloween you beautiful bastards… Well… in a couple of days, but this is our Halloween episode so keep it or leave it. We've got some pretty crazy and creepy stuff going on today. Let's get into it!

Do you guys believe in demons? Possession? Are you afraid that at some point in your life a being from hell or possibly another plane of existence could enter your body and wreak havoc on your body, mind, and soul? That they could possibly even kill you or cause injury or death to someone you know? What must it be like to not be in control of your own being? Well, we're gonna discuss all of that today while talking about perhaps the most famous possession incident out there. The one that inspired what many think it's one of, if not the, scariest horror movies ever. Today we are discussing the possession and Exorcism of Roland Doe, also sometimes referred to as Robbie Manheim. While there are many versions of what happened, we will try to stay as close to what is thought to be the actual events. "Robbie Mannheim" was Allen's alias for the 13-year-old boy at the center of the exorcism story; the Catholic Church referred to him as "Roland Doe." None of the eyewitnesses publicly revealed the boy's true identity, and it was never disclosed from the unedited diary of Raymond Bishop that was used by Thomas B Allen to write the book "Possession: The True Story Of An Exorcism, which is thought to be the closest account to what actually happened.

From here on out we will be referring to the boy as Roland since that was the name given to him by the Catholic Church and we don't want to cause any confusion by switching names during the show.

In January of 1949 strange things started to happen in the house where Roland lived in maryland. Roland was born into a Lutheran family and was an only child. He spent a lot of time with his Aunt Harriet. Most accounts of the story day that when Aunt Harriet died that's when the whole ordeal began. You see it seems that Roland took an interest in the… Wait for it… Ouija board!!! Oh yeah the good old wholesome family entertainment known as the Ouija board. Well Aunt Harriet decided to help Roland learn the ways of the Ouija board when he showed interest and when she died the family thought that the things they were experiencing were caused by the deceased Aunt and things having to do with the Ouija board. So what types of things are the family experiencing you ask? Well we're not going to tell you. Goodnight everyone!!! Anyways… started with the usual small stuff. There were scratching sounds coming from the walls. They claimed to hear dripping water but couldn't locate a source of the sound. They claimed that objects around the house would levitate or move on their own when Roland was around. They claim they witnessed his mattress moving on it's own. The family was understandably concerned. They began to seek the opinions of physicians and psychiatrists who predictably couldn't really find anything wrong with the boy. They also sought advice from a minister from their local Lutheran Church. They go to Rev. Luther Miles Schulze, a Lutheran minister who happened to be greatly interested in the paranormal, as it was called at that time, and he said, 'Go to a Catholic priest; the Catholics know about this kind of thing. well thanks for nothing I guess!

Interestingly enough, later on Rev. Schulze spoke at a meeting of a Washington, D.C., branch of the Society for Parapsychology about this case. That information made its way to the press, and the published Schulze interview led to the leaking of the exorcism story by Catholic sources. Studying at Georgetown at that time, William Peter Blatty read the story in the Washington Post and years later used it as inspiration for The Exorcist.

On Schulze's advice, the family went to a local priest, Father E. Albert Hughes, who "gave them a bottle of holy water and candles and sent them on their way.

Unfortunately the holy water and candles didn't really do the trick. Things kept happening and things kept getting worse. Roland was getting more violent but it only seemed to come out at night. According to witnesses in the evening Roland would put on his pajamas and get in bed and that's when the trouble would start. He seemed to come into a trance-like state. He would claim to have no recollection of the night's events the following morning.

Come February things were getting a little more intense. Around February 26 scratches started to appear randomly on Roland's body. Several nights later words supposedly began to appear on his body either scratched or "branded" on him. At this point around Feb 28th, it seems Roland's first Exorcism took place at Georgetown hospital. Que the return of father Hughes. Hughes asked the archbishop of Washington, D.C., for permission to perform an exorcism on the boy. This was the first time that something major seemed to have taken place. During the Exorcism Roland supposedly broke of a piece of a bedspring from the mattress he was on and slashed the good father from his shoulder to his wrist although Later when the case was looked at a little more in depth there was no evidence that this event ever actually happened but will get to that later.

At this point Roland's mother thought that maybe a change of scenery would be good. She began thinking about moving back to where she used to live...St. Louis. Now low and behold weird had it that after they discussed the move, the word Louis magically appeared scratched onto Roland. Mama took this as a sign and they packed up and headed to St Louis sometime around March 4 or 5th. The boy ended up staying in a house with a relative who had attended Saint Louis University. One of her professors was Father Bishop, who became one of several Jesuits to participate in the exorcism and kept the day-by-day account on which Allen's book is based. Bishop talked to his friend William Bowdern, S.J. After both men consulted with Paul Reinert, S.J., then president of Saint Louis University, and St. Louis Archbishop Joseph Ritter, all agreed that an exorcism would be performed according to the Roman Ritual. It was something that Bowdern, who was chosen to be the lead exorcist, knew little about.

"Father Halloran said the first thing Bowdern did was hit the books," Allen, who wrote the book about the incident, said. "He would have learned something about it while becoming a Jesuit, but there isn't much call for exorcism to the modern-day priest. But Bowdern was a veteran of World War II, he'd been in combat -- so he was a combination of a religious man who was very tough."

The process ended up taking more than a month, during which Bowdern fasted. Several priests, Alexian Brothers and family members participated in or witnessed the rite, which always began in the evening.

"The pattern was that the boy would act normally during the day, and then he would put on his pajamas and go to bed, and go into a trance and start screaming and yelling and acting wild," Allen said. In the morning, the boy apparently never remembered what transpired the night before.

Many things were related to have happened during these weeks of Exorcism including the mattress moving as it did before, objects levitating and moving on their own during the rites, Roland speaking in latin and other random languages, more scratches appearing on the boys body and road beginning more angry and violent during the rites.

Halloran stated that during this scene words such as "evil" and "hell", along with other various marks, appeared on the teenager's body. Allegedly, during the Litany of the Saints portion of the exorcism ritual, the boy's mattress began to shake.

A Jesuit priest named John Walsh, a friend of Bowdern's, talked about the Roman numeral X that appeared on the boy's chest. It was believed that 10 demons were involved, Walsh said.

A voice coming from the boy supposedly told an attending Jesuit, who was assisting Bowdern, that he would die in 10 years and would burn in hell. The Jesuit had a fondness for strong drink, and the voice so unnerved him that he stopped drinking, for a time.

Another incident supposedly written about in the diary was when One night, sitting on the bed beside the boy, Bowdern watched a tiny, nearly invisible pitchfork, or lines, move from under the boy's upper thigh all the way to the ankle. Droplets of blood occurred. Bowdern was only a foot away, and there were the usual four or five witnesses.

Often, according to the priests, he had to be forcibly restrained. In one of these incidents, he broke the nose of Walter Halloran. He said of the incident

''I got in on the business with the prayers of exorcism, and the little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent. So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him.'' (Halloran is a former high school football player.) ''Yes, he did break my nose.''

Halloran said he observed the streaks and arrows and words like ''hell'' that would rise on the child's skin. ''That happened a number of times. And it wasn't a case of taking a pin and scratching himself. It just appeared, and with quite a bit of pain.

''On Holy Thursday that year, this phenomenon started occurring as I was reading the prayers. 'Don't talk about it anymore, this hurts too much, ' the kid said. The markings were most visible, and there were many obscenities. He was a nice little kid.''

Throughout the ordeal, Bowdern fasted on bread and water. ''He looked terrible, '' said his brother, Dr. Edward H. Bowdern of St. Louis. He looked thin and wasted, and developed styes and boils, Dr. Bowdern said.

Other accounts attributed a frightening degree of strength to young Roland, and claimed that he spoke in perfect Latin, though the boy was unschooled in the language. Some sources state that at least one of these exorcisms was observed by no less than 48 people, nine of them Jesuits.

After all of this craziness took place...a miracle of sorts happened. At 11:00pm on 18 April 1949, while wearing saint medals and holding a crucifix, Roland screamed, “Satan! Satan! I am St. Michael! I command you, Satan, and the other evil spirits to leave this body, in the name of Dominus, immediately! Now! Now! Now!” After a final spasm, Roland fell quiet and proclaimed that “He is gone.” and with that the Exorcism was finished and Road seemed to well again. Following the final exorcism, Roland claimed to experience a vision of St. Michael slaying a dragon. Believing it was a sign that his ordeal was over, the family returned home from Missouri 12 days later. The strange behavior ceased and Hunkeler returned to school. After this not many people know what happened to Roland but a few people did keep tabs on him and the results are that the boy went on to live a normal life and eventually married and had a son he named Michael after St. Michael.

The following is a timeline of events that took place according to the diary that was kept. There are a few extras details about dinner if the effects as well and it's a pretty good summary.

15 January 1949

A dripping noise was heard in his grandmother’s bedroom by the boy and his grandmother.

A picture of Christ on the wall shook and scratching noises were heard under the floorboards.

Scratching was heard every night from 7 p.m. until midnight for 10 days. This was attributed to a rodent at the time

26 January 1949

Aunt “Tillie”/Harriet dies of multiple sclerosis in St. Louis.

Waves of air reportedly strike the grandmother

3 knocks are heard on the floor. Roland's mom asks, “If you are Harriet, tell me positively by knocking four times.” Four knocks were heard.

Scratchings on Hunkeler’s mattress.

28 January 1949

After 3 days of silence, nighttime “squeaking shoes" on rolands bed heard for 6 nights

17 February 1949

Roland spends the night with Lutheran minister Schulze.

Reportedly Schulze heard scratching noises, and witnessed:

bed vibrations;

a chair in which Roland sat tipping over;

and, the movements of a pallet of blankets.

Schulze's family take Roland to the Mental Hygiene Clinic of the University of Maryland for testing.

After two rounds of testing, nothing abnormal was discovered.

Schulze also contacted J.B. Rhine, the founder of the parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. Rhine and wife, Louisa Rhine, drove up from North Carolina to evaluate the boy but saw no activity.

26 February 1949

Scratches or markings appeared on the boy’s body for 4 consecutive nights.

Circa

27 February 1949

Words began to appear on the boy’s body and seemed to be scratched by claws.

Father Edward Albert Hughes of St. James Catholic Church in Mount Rainier is called upon to review the case. Hughes suggested the family use blessed candles, holy water, and special prayers.

Hughes reportedly witnessed:

Unassisted movements of a telephone and other objects in his office.

Roland make obscene and blasphemous remarks at him in a strange, diabolical voice.

And the room became unexplainably cold.

Father Hughes was convinced that Roland was possessed and requested Cardinal Patrick A O’Boyle at authorize exorcism.

28 February 1949

Until

3 March 1949

Roland is a patient at Georgetown University Hospital.

This is the point that the alleged first exorcism took place.

Mother sees the bloody word “Louis” scratched on Roland. When the boy is asked if word “Louis” means “St. Louis.” The word “Yes” is said to appear.

Family departs for Normandy, Missouri, near St. Louis to stay at the home of an aunt.

8 March 1949

The shaking of the mattress and scratching resumed at aunt’s home in Normandy.

9 March 1949

Father Raymond J. Bishop of St. Louis University sees Roland for the first time.

Bishop witnesses the scratching of the boy’s body as well as the motion of the mattress.

11 March 1949

Father William S. Bowdern of St. Francis Xavier Church asked to meet Roland.

Father Bowdern read the Novena prayer of St. Francis Xavier, blessed the boy with a relic and placed a crucifix under the boy’s pillow.

After everyone has left the room, a loud noise was heard and, reportedly, a large book case had moved about. A bench was turned over and the crucifix had been moved to the edge of the bed.

The mattress was also reported to shake.

16 March 1949

Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter gave Father Bowdern permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism.

The first of the second series of exorcisms is performed at the Normandy, Missouri home.

A number of priest were in attendance including:

Bowdern as chief exorcist,

Rev. Walter Halloran as the assistant exorcist (but he was removed before the final exorcism)

Father Lawrence Kenny

And Father Charles O'Hara of Marquette University.

During the exorcism:

Roland becomes violent, spits at the priests, with howls and growls.

The bed shakes.

Allegedly, word such as “Satan” and “devil” appear on chest as scratches.

Proving too violent for the exorcisms to be performed in home, the exorcisms were moved to the rectory at St. Francis Xavier Church.

When this proves to be too dangerous, Roland is transferred to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward.

Exorcisms continue at the hospital.

1 April 1949

Roland is baptized Catholic.

4 April 1949

In brief trip back to Maryland by train, Roland becomes violent and attacks Father Bowdern, kicking him in the testicles.

9 April 1949

Roland is returned to St. Louis and briefly stays at “White House,” a Jesuit retreat along the Mississippi near St. Louis. Roland attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself over the bluff into the river but is prevented from doing so by Halloran.

Roland is then returned to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward where he is restrained.

Communion was refused.

Easter

18 April 1949

Final exorcism

So who was Roland? Well most people seem to think it's a man named Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. And there are many that believe he was never actually possessed. According to one report Hunkeler was nothing more than a bully and a brat looking for attention.

The identity of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was confirmed by T. Weston Scott Jr., a Cottage City resident since 1919 and a lifelong member of the Cottage City-Colmar Manor Fire Department. Having served as the local fire chief for over twenty years, Scott stated:

The boy involved was [Ronald Edwin Hunkeler] and he lived at 3807 40th Avenue… I knew the boy but I didn’t know too much about what was going on to be frank. They kept it quiet at the time and later on there was a lot of stuff about it. The Hunkelers lived there since the thirties and they stayed in that house for about 20 years. I think most of the older neighbors who were around at the time knew about it. Most of them are gone now, though.

One of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler’s contemporaries and neighborhood friends submitted himself to an interview with Opsasnick to discuss the case under the grant of animity. JC, as he is referred to by Opsasnick, stated:

No, I don’t think he was ever possessed. I think it was psychological. As far as any real possession or anything like that, I don’t think so. There are some interesting psychological aspects to it. They were German Lutherans and he was an only child and I think the grandmother is actually the central figure. She played a very influential role in all of this. You had this old world religion superstition and the mother got caught up in it and the father just kind of stayed in the background—I think he could see what was going on which is why he is never mentioned. The true story is much more intriguing from a psychological point of view. The basis of the real thing could be a damn good story, no doubt about it in my mind. The rest of it I can run a parallel. You had these two mischief makers that had a strong tendency to take advantage of people who were weaker than themselves. They were a pair of connivers and they had their act down. In pairs like that they compete with each other and they don’t get along well and they have to keep doing something to retain their relationship and all the time this is mischief in one form or another. They were trying to outdo each other.

JC’s brother, called BC in the interview, was for many years the best friend of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. In discussions with BC, Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was described as being submerged in a household with a fanatically religious mother and grandmother that embraced spiritualism. Hunkeler was hated by his classmates and prone to tantrums. He frequently showed violent tendencies and exhibited sadistic behavior to animals and people around him. In short, may of the traits used to describe the possessed boy had been a fundamental part of his character. JC summed up Hunkeler’s personality with “People ask what he was like back then and I can tell you that he was never what you would call a normal child. He was an only child and kind of spoiled and he was a mean bastard. We were together all the time and we used to fight all the time.”

JC did recall Hunkeler’s last day in class during the 1948-1949 school year:

We were in a class together at Bladensburg Junior High. He was sitting in a chair and it was one of those deals with one arm attached and it looked like he was shaking the desk—the desk was shaking and vibrating extremely fast and I remember the teacher yelling at him to stop it and I remember he kind of yelled “I’m not doing it” and they took him out of class and that was the last I ever saw of him in school. The desk certainly did not move around the room like that book [Possessed] said, it was just shaking. I don’t know if he was doing it or what was doing it because I just can’t clear it in my mind.

JC summarized Hunkeler’s character with his own story about life with Hunkeler:

There was this dog that ran around the neighborhood at that time…. It was half-red cocker spaniel and it looked like it was half-chow. This dog was mean and nobody ever knew who owned it. It just came out of nowhere. Well, [Ron] basically adopted that dog. That dog was really his best friend, not me. That dog hated everyone and everything and would bite anyone in sight but he loved [Ron]. [Ron] would feed it and bring it in the house with him. One time he called me up and told me to come over and I never really trusted him because he was sneaky and a real mean little bastard. I was going over there and he was looking out from the basement window and when I got to his house I heard the back porch door slam and I knew right away what he’d done. He’d done this sort of thing many times before to different kids. I started running like hell because he’d sicked that dog on me. When I got home he called me up and was laughing like hell. That’s what kind of person he was. He did that all the time.

So it seemed like little Roland may not have been the good kid everyone claimed him to be. But did that mean he was crazy enough to fake a possession?

There have been several investigations into the exorcisms. So what did they find? Well one came up with dinner interesting stuff. According to various reports, Father Edward Albert Hughes (?-1980), was the first priest to attempt an exorcism on Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. The claim is that after an initial session with the boy, Hughes had the boy sent to the Georgetown University Hospital where three days of exorcisms were performed and that Hughes was injured in the process. However, Opsasnick suggests there is no evidence to suggest Hughes ever visited Hunkeler in his Cottage City home or at Georgetown University Hospital. Instead, there seems evidence to suggest Mrs. Hunkeler took her son to a single consultation in February 1949 with Hughes at St. James Church in Mount Rainier, Maryland where he was assigned as assistant pastor. There is also no evidence to suggest that Hughes was ever attacked. On the other hand, Father William Sauders, writing for the Catholic Herald in 1998, asserts firmly that Hughes did conduct the exorcism at the Georgetown University Hospital.

Hughes’s assistant pastor, Frank Bober confirmed that most likely it was Mrs. Hunkeler that initiated the interested of the clergy. According to Bober, “Father Hughes never went to the boy’s home… Basically it was the mother that brought the kid to the rectory and the thing is she’s the one who gave Father Hughes all the information. Everything that I know of that he shared with me took place in the rectory, not at the house.” Bober also stated that Father Hughes had described the Hunkeler boy as having a “dark stare, almost as if there were nothing behind the eyes”. Bober further claims that Hughes experienced an unseen force pressing him against the wall.

In an effort to clarify the events surrounding the exorcisms back in 1949, one of the few witnesses willing to go on record was Father Walter Halloran, who was called by Father William Bowdern to assist in the exorcism. When asked if Hunkeler was possessed, Halloran said “I can’t go on record… I never made an absolute statement about the things because I didn’t feel I was qualified. I hadn’t studied the phenomena and that sort of thing. All I did was report the things that I saw and whether I would make a statement one way or another wouldn’t make any difference…” When questioned about reports of the boy speaking other languages, Halloran stated, “Just Latin… I think he mimicked us.” Halloran said there were no demonic changes in the boy’s voice and that when the boy struck him it wasn’t with extraordinary strength.

In his 1993 book Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism, author Thomas B. Allen offered "the consensus of today's experts" that "Robbie was just a deeply disturbed boy, nothing supernatural about him".

Author Mark Opsasnick[1] questioned many of the supernatural claims associated with the story, proposing that "Roland Doe" was simply a spoiled, disturbed bully who threw deliberate tantrums to get attention or to get out of school. Opsasnick reports that Halloran, who was present at the exorcism, never heard the boy's voice change, and he thought the boy merely mimicked Latin words he heard clergymen say, rather than gaining a sudden ability to speak Latin. Opsasnick reported that when marks were found on the boy's body, Halloran failed to check the boy's fingernails to see if he had made the marks himself. Opsasnick also questioned the story of Hughes' attempts to exorcise the boy and his subsequent injury, saying he could find no evidence that such an episode had actually occurred.

During his investigation Opsasnick discovered:

The exorcism did not take place at 3210 Bunker Hill Road in Mount Rainier, Maryland

The boy never lived in Mount Rainier

The boy's home was in Cottage City, Maryland

Much of the commonly accepted information about this story is based on hearsay, is not documented, and was never fact-checked

There is no evidence Father E. Albert Hughes visited the boy's home, had him admitted to Georgetown Hospital, requested that the boy be restrained at the hospital, attempted an exorcism of the boy at Georgetown Hospital, or was injured by the boy during an exorcism (or at any other time)

There is ample evidence refuting claims that Father Hughes suffered an emotional breakdown and disappeared from the Cottage City community

According to Opsasnick, individuals connected to the incident were influenced by their own specializations:

To psychiatrists, Rob Doe suffered from mental illness. To priests this was a case of demonic possession. To writers and film/video producers this was a great story to exploit for profit. Those involved saw what they were trained to see. Each purported to look at the facts but just the opposite was true — in actuality they manipulated the facts and emphasized information that fit their own agendas

Opsasnik wrote that after he located and spoke with neighbors and childhood friends of the boy (most of whom he only referenced by initials) he concluded that "the boy had been a very clever trickster, who had pulled pranks to frighten his mother and to fool children in the neighborhood".

Skeptic Joe Nickell[8] wrote that there was "simply no credible evidence to suggest the boy was possessed by demons or evil spirits" and maintains that the symptoms of possession can be "childishly simple" to fake. Nickell dismissed suggestions that supernatural forces made scratches or markings or caused words to appear on the teenager's body in unreachable places, saying, "A determined youth, probably even without a wall mirror, could easily have managed such a feat - if it actually occurred. Although the scratched messages proliferated, they never again appeared on a difficult-to-reach portion of the boy's anatomy." On one occasion the boy was reportedly seen scratching the words "hell" and "christ" on his chest by using his own fingernails.[8] According to Nickell:

Nothing that was reliably reported in the case was beyond the abilities of a teenager to produce. The tantrums, "trances", moved furniture, hurled objects, automatic writing, superficial scratches, and other phenomena were just the kinds of things someone of R's age could accomplish, just as others have done before and since. Indeed, the elements of "poltergeist phenomena", "spirit communication", and "demonic possession"—taken both separately and, especially, together, as one progressed to the other—suggest nothing so much as role-playing involving trickery.

Nickell also dismissed stories of the boy's prodigious strength, saying he showed "nothing more than what could be summoned by an agitated teenager" and criticized popular accounts of the exorcism for what he termed a "stereotypical storybook portrayal" of the Devilm

Two Christian academics, Terry D. Cooper, a professor of psychology, and Cindy K. Epperson, a professor of sociology, wrote that advocates of possession believe that "although they are not frequent, exorcisms are necessary for casting out the demonic" and "cases of genuine possession cannot be explained by psychiatry". Cooper and Epperson devoted a chapter of their book Evil: Satan, Sin, and Psychology to the case and dismissed natural explanations in favor of a supernatural perspective regarding the nature of evil.

Ok so after all that what are we thinking out there? Possession? Jerk kid? Is the exorcist that scary of a movie? This case spawned a ton of movies and stories and tv shows and documentaries and everything else. Honestly it's crazy because not a huge amount is known about what exactly took place. Only a few people truly knew what went down and they are all gone now. No one is sure if Hunkeler is still alive… He'd be in his 90s today if he was still alive. With all of the media that was produced around this case it will most likely never go away but we may never actually know what happened.

To possession movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-demonic-posession-movies/ranker-horror

http://www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com

The Bedlam Asylum... um...Bethlem Royal Hospital. OLD AF.

Thu, 21 Oct 2021 00:37:24 -0400

Today we are taking the train to a wonderful little building… Actually scratch that… This place was once so crazy( no pun intended) that its nickname became a common word. The definition of the word is "A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails. " The word is Bedlam. The place is Bethlehem Royal Hospital. The hospital is considered the first lunatic asylum. The word "bedlam" is derived from the hospital's nickname. Bedlam is a bastardization of the word bethlem, which in turn was a corruption of the name Bethlehem. Although the hospital became a modern psychiatric facility, historically it was representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform. We're gonna get into all that craziness tonight and see what kind of "Bedlam" actually went on there.

Bethlem Royal Hospital's origins are unlike any other psychiatric hospital in the western world. As a formal organization, it can be traced to its foundation in 1247, during the reign of King Henry III, as a Roman Catholic Monastery for the Priory of the 'New Order of St Mary of Bethlem' in the city of London proper. It was established by the Italian Bishop of Bethlehem, Goffredo de Prefetti, following a donation of personal property by the London Alderman and former City-Sheriff, the Norman, Simon FitzMary. It bears its name after its primary patron and original overseer. The initial location of the priory was in the parish of Saint Botolph, in Bishopsgate's ward, just beyond London's wall and where the south-east corner of Liverpool Street station now stands. Bethlem was not initially intended as a hospital, much less as a specialist institution for the mentally ill. Rather, its purpose was tied to the function of the English Church; the ostensible purpose of the priory was to function as a centre for the collection of alms to support the Crusaders, and to link England to the Holy Land. Bishop De Prefetti's need to generate income for the Crusaders, and restore the financial fortunes of his apostolic see was occasioned by two misfortunes: his bishopric had suffered significant losses following the destructive conquest of the town of Bethlehem by the Khwarazmian Turks in 1244; and the immediate predecessor to his post had further impoverished his cathedral chapter through the alienation of a considerable amount of its property. The new London priory, obedient to the Church of Bethlehem, would also house the poor, disabled and abandoned; and, if visited, provide hospitality to the Bishop, canons and brothers of Bethlehem. The subordination of the priory's religious order to the bishops of Bethlehem was further underlined in the foundational charter which stipulated that Bethlems's prior, canons and male and female inmates were to wear a star upon their cloaks and capes to symbolize their obedience to the church of Bethlehem.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, with its activities underwritten by episcopal and papal indulgences, Bethlem's role as a center for the collection of alms for the poor continued. However, over time, its link to the mendicant Order of Bethlehem increasingly devolved, putting its purpose and patronage in severe doubt. In 1346 the Prior of Bethlem, a position at that time granted to the most senior of London's monastic brethren, applied to the city authorities seeking protection; thereafter metropolitan office-holders claimed power to oversee the appointment of prios, and demanded in return an annual payment of 40 shillings from the coffers of the order. It is doubtful whether the City of London ever provided substantial protection, and much less that the priorship fell within their patronage, but dating from the 1346 petition, it played a role in the management of Bethlem's organization and finances.

By this time the crusader bishops of Bethlehem had relocated to Clamecy, France under the surety of the Avignon papacy. This was significant as, throughout the reign of King Edward III (1327–77), the English monarchy had extended its patronage over ecclesiastical positions through the seizure of alien priories, mainly French. These were religious institutions that were under the control of non-English religious houses. As a dependent house of the Order of Saint Bethlehem in Clamecy, Bethlem was vulnerable to seizure by the English crown, and this occurred in the 1370s when Edward III took control of all English hospitals. The purpose of this appropriation was to prevent funds raised by the hospital from enriching the French monarchy, via the papal court, and thus supporting the French war effort. After this event, the Head Masters of the hospital, semi-autonomous figures in charge of its day-to-day management, were crown appointees, and Bethlem became an increasingly secularized institution. The memory of Bethlem's foundation became muddled. In 1381 the royal candidate for the post of master claimed that from its beginnings the hospital had been superintended by an order of knights, and he confused the identity of its founder, Goffredo de Prefetti, with that of the Frankish crusader, Godfrey de Bouillon, the King of Jerusalem. The removal of the last symbolic link to the mendicant order was confirmed in 1403 when it was reported that master and inmates no longer wore the symbol of their order, the star of Bethlehem. This was exclusively a political move on the part of the hospital administrators, as the insane were perceived as unclean or possessed by daemons, and not permitted to reside on consecrated soil.

From 1330 Bethlehm was routinely referred to as a "hospital" does not necessarily indicate a change in its primary role from alms collection – the word hospital could as likely have been used to denote a lodging for travellers, equivalent to a hostel, and would have been a perfectly apt term to describe an institution acting as a centre and providing accommodation for Bethlem's peregrinating alms-seekers or questores. It is unknown from what exact date it began to specialise in the care and control of the insane. Despite this fact it has been frequently asserted that Bethlem was first used for the insane from 1377. This rather precise date is derived from the unsubstantiated conjecture of the Reverend Edward Geoffrey O'Donoghue, chaplain to the hospital, who published a monograph on its history in 1914. While it is possible that Bethlem was receiving the insane during the late fourteenth-century, the first definitive record of their presence in the hospital is provided from the details of a visitation of the Charity Commissioners in 1403. This recorded that amongst other patients then in the hospital there were six male inmates who were "mente capti", a Latin term indicating insanity. The report of the 1403 visitation also noted the presence of four pairs of manacles, eleven chains, six locks and two pairs of stocks although it is not clear if any or all of these items were for the restraint of the inmates. Thus, while mechanical restraint and solitary confinement are likely to have been used for those regarded as dangerous, little else is known of the actual treatment of the insane in Bethlem for much of the medieval period. The presence of a small number of insane patients in 1403 marks Bethlem's gradual transition from a diminutive general hospital into a specialist institution for the confinement of the insane; this process was largely completed by 1460. In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948.

In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948.

The position of master was a sinecure largely regarded by its occupants as means of profiting at the expense of the poor in their charge. The appointment of the early masters of the hospital, later known as keepers, had lain within the patronage of the crown until 1547. Thereafter, the city, through the Court of Aldermen, took control of these appointments where, as with the King's appointees, the office was used to reward loyal servants and friends. However, compared to the masters placed by the monarch, those who gained the position through the city were of much more modest status. Thus in 1561, the Lord Mayor succeeded in having his former porter, Richard Munnes, a draper by trade, appointed to the position. The sole qualifications of his successor in 1565 appears to have been his occupation as a grocer. The Bridewell Governors largely interpreted the role of keeper as that of a house-manager and this is clearly reflected in the occupations of most appointees during this period as they tended to be inn-keepers, victualers or brewers and the like. When patients were sent to Bethlem by the Governors of the Bridewell the keeper was paid from hospital funds. For the remainder, keepers were paid either by the families and friends of inmates or by the parish authorities. It is possible that keepers negotiated their fees for these latter categories of patients.

In 1598 the long-term keeper, Roland Sleford, a London cloth-maker, left his post, apparently of his own volition, after a nineteen-year tenure. Two months later, the Bridewell Governors, who had until then shown little interest in the management of Bethlem beyond the appointment of keepers, conducted an inspection of the hospital and a census of its inhabitants for the first time in over forty years. Their express purpose was to "to view and p[er]use the defaultes and want of rep[ar]ac[i]ons". They found that during the period of Sleford's keepership the hospital buildings had fallen into a deplorable condition with the roof caving in, the kitchen sink blocked up and reported that: "...it is not fitt for anye man to dwell in wch was left by the Keeper for that it is so loathsomly filthely kept not fitt for anye man to come into the sayd howse".

The 1598 committee of inspection found twenty-one inmates then resident with only two of these having been admitted during the previous twelve months. Of the remainder, six, at least, had been resident for a minimum of eight years and one inmate had been there for around twenty-five years. Three were from outside London, six were charitable cases paid for out of the hospital's resources, one was supported by a parochial authority, while the rest were provided for by family, friends, benefactors or, in one instance, out of their funds. The precise reason for the Governors' new-found interest in Bethlem is unknown but it may have been connected to the increased scrutiny the hospital was coming under with the passing of poor law legislation in 1598 and to the decision by the Governors to increase hospital revenues by opening it up to general visitors as a spectacle. After this inspection, the Bridewell Governors initiated some repairs and visited the hospital at more frequent intervals. During one such visit in 1607 they ordered the purchase of clothing and eating vessels for the inmates, presumably indicating the lack of such basic items.

The year 1634 is typically interpreted as denoting the divide between the mediaeval and early modern administration of Bethlem.

Although Bethlem had been enlarged by 1667 to accommodate 59 patients, the Court of Governors of Bethlem and Bridewell observed at the start of 1674 that "the Hospital House of Bethlem is very olde, weake & ruinous and to[o] small and straight for keeping the greater numb[e]r of lunaticks therein att p[re]sent". With the increasing demand for admission and the inadequate and dilapidated state of the building it was decided to rebuild the hospital in Moorfields, just north of the city proper and one of the largest open spaces in London. The architect chosen for the new hospital, which was built rapidly and at great expense between 1675 and 1676, was the natural philosopher and City Surveyor Robert Hooke. He constructed an edifice that was monumental in scale at over 500 feet (150 m) wide and some 40 feet (12 m) deep. The surrounding walls were some 680 feet (210 m) long and 70 feet (21 m) deep while the south face at the rear was effectively screened by a 714-foot (218 m) stretch of London's ancient wall projecting westward from nearby Moorgate. At the rear and containing the courtyards where patients exercised and took the air, the walls rose to 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The front walls were only 8 feet (2.4 m) high but this was deemed sufficient as it was determined that "Lunatikes... are not to [be] permitted to walk in the yard to be situate[d] betweene the said intended new Building and the Wall aforesaid." It was also hoped that by keeping these walls relatively low the splendour of the new building would not be overly obscured. This concern to maximise the building's visibility led to the addition of six gated openings 10 feet (3.0 m) wide which punctuated the front wall at regular intervals, enabling views of the facade. Functioning as both advertisement and warning of what lay within, the stone pillars enclosing the entrance gates were capped by the figures of "Melancholy" and "Raving Madness" carved in Portland stone by the Danish-born sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber.

At the instigation of the Bridewell Governors and to make a grander architectural statement of "charitable munificence", the hospital was designed as a single- rather than double-pile building, accommodating initially 120 patients. Having cells and chambers on only one side of the building facilitated the dimensions of the great galleries, essentially long and capacious corridors, 13 feet (4.0 m) high and 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, which ran the length of both floors to a total span of 1,179 feet (359 m). Such was their scale that Roger L'Estrange remarked in a 1676 text eulogising the new Bethlem that their "Vast Length ... wearies the travelling eyes' of Strangers". The galleries were constructed more for public display than for the care of patients as, at least initially, inmates were prohibited from them lest "such persons that come to see the said Lunatickes may goe in Danger of their Lives"

The architectural design of the new Bethlem was primarily intended to project an image of the hospital and its governors consonant with contemporary notions of charity and benevolence.

By the end of the 18th century the hospital was in severe disrepair. At this point it was rebuilt again on another site. As the new facility was being built attempts were made to rehouse patients at local hospitals and admissions to Bethlem, sections of which were deemed uninhabitable, were significantly curtailed such that the patient population fell from 266 in 1800 to 119 in 1814. The Governors engaged in protracted negotiations with the City for another municipally owned location at St. George's Fields in Southwark, south of the Thames.

The deal was concluded in 1810 and provided the Governors with a 12 acres site in a swamp-like, impoverished, highly populated, and industrialised area where the Dog and Duck tavern and St George's Spa had been.

A competition was held to design the new hospital at Southwark in which the noted Bethlem patient James Tilly Matthews was an unsuccessful entrant. Completed after three years in 1815, it was constructed during the first wave of county asylum building in England under the County Asylum Act ("Wynn's Act") of 1808. Female patients occupied the west wing and males the east, the cells were located off galleries that traversed each wing. Each gallery contained only one toilet, a sink and cold baths. Incontinent patients were kept on beds of straw in cells in the basement gallery; this space also contained rooms with fireplaces for attendants. A wing for the criminally insane – a legal category newly minted in the wake of the trial of a delusional James Hadfield for attempted regicide – was completed in 1816. Problems with the building were soon noted as the steam heating did not function properly, the basement galleries were damp and the windows of the upper storeys were unglazed "so that the sleeping cells were either exposed to the full blast of cold air or were completely darkened". Faced with increased admissions and overcrowding, new buildings, designed by the architect Sydney Smirke, were added from the 1830s. The wing for criminal lunatics was increased to accommodate a further 30 men while additions to the east and west wings, extending the building's facade, provided space for an additional 166 inmates and a dome was added to the hospital chapel. At the end of this period of expansion Bethlem had a capacity for 364 patients. In 1930, the hospital moved to the suburbs of Croydon,[211] on the site of Monks Orchard House between Eden Park, Beckenham, West Wickham and Shirley. The old hospital and its grounds were bought by Lord Rothermere and presented to the London County Council for use as a park; the central part of the building was retained and became home to the Imperial War Museum in 1936. The hospital was absorbed into the National Health Service in 1948. 1997 the hospital started planning celebrations of its 750th anniversary. The service user's perspective was not to be included, however, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement saw nothing to celebrate in either the original Bedlam or in the current practices of mental health professionals towards those in Mneed of care. A campaign called "Reclaim Bedlam" was launched by Pete Shaughnessy, supported by hundreds of patients and ex-patients and widely reported in the media. A sit-in was held outside the earlier Bedlam site at the Imperial War Museum. The historian Roy Porter called the Bethlem Hospital "a symbol for man's inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty."

The hospital continues to operate to this day in this location.

Ok so with that history out of the way let's drive into what really transpired to give this hospital it reputation and that drove Bedlam to strain it's current meaning in our lexicon.

Early on Sanitation was poor and the patients were malnourished. Most of the patients were able to move about freely, but those who were considered dangerous were kept chained to the walls. Patients’ families often dumped unwell family members in the asylum and disowned them. We've discussed other asylums and things dealing with them so we won't get into the fact that most of the patients were horribly misdiagnosed due to little to no understanding of mental health until relatively recently. Some of the treatments used ranged from barbaric and esoteric to just plain crazy.

One of those crazy ass ones was called rotational therapy. Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, began using “rotational therapy”, which involved spinning a patient around and around on a chair or swing for up to an hour. They would sometimes be spun over 100 times per minute. Obviously this would create issues for the patient. Many would get sick and vomit. Most would become very upset and distraught while becoming severely disoriented. The vomiting was seen as a good thing and progress in the treatment. Doctor Joseph Mason Cox was a doctor who actually picked up this type of treatment later on. The time spent spinning, and the speed of the spin, were to be determined by the good doctor. Considering the fact that the common side effect was fear, extreme pallor, vomiting, and voiding the bowels and bladder, the doctor evidently commonly overdid it. Of course he didn’t think so at the time. He wrote happily that, “after a few circumvolutions, I have witnessed the soothing lulling effects, when the mind has become tranquillized and the body quiescent.” It’s true that after being spun until fluid leaves the body via every available orifice, most people have had the fight taken out of them and are ready for a nap. There is one positive side effect of this kind of rampant torture of the insane. Scientists started noticing that vertigo has visual effects, and used the chairs to study them. These rotating chairs mark the beginning of a lot of visual and mental experiments done on perception.

The early 1800s were a particularly grim time, and many patients were chained to the walls naked or almost naked, as the medical director felt that it was necessary to break each person’s will.

Some of the more barbaric and esoteric treatments included bloodletting, leeches and good old fashioned starvation and beatings. Ice baths would often be used to try and calm down hysterical patients.

At the time, bloodletting was believed to be a completely acceptable and normal way to cure a patient of a variety of mental and physical ailments. Doctors thought that they could literally bleed a sickness out of a patient, which not only doesn't work, it extra-double doesn't work on mental illnesses. Many of the patients were forced to undergo treatment with leeches and the induction of blisters, which mostly just sounds unpleasant, but it often proved fatal. Reportedly, the physicians at the time at least understood that everyone needs blood, so only patients who were deemed strong enough to undergo treatment were allowed to have this "cure."

Here's another fun one. A doctor named William Black wrote that patients were placed in straitjackets and given laxatives, which was seen at Bethlem as one of the "principal remedies." Hearing voices? Some explosive diarrhea oughta clear that up. Seizures? One diarrhea for you. Diarrhea for everyone!

We all know the best thing for someone who may not be in their right mind is to be left alone… in the dark… for long periods of time… Like really long periods of time. Well we may know that's probably NOT the best, but Bedlam never got the message. Some patients were left alone in solitary for days, weeks, even months at a time. Seems very counterproductive.

One of the worst ones was the example of the inhumane conditions was that of James Norris. Norris, an American Marine, had been sent to Bethlem on the 1st of February 1800. Her was kept in Bethlem’s “incurable wing,” Norris’ arms were pinned to his sides by iron bars. He was also kept chained to the wall by his neck. This fifty-five-year-old man had been continuously kept in this position for “more than twelve years.”

The apathy of families abandoning their relatives to a hellish existence in Bethlem led to a new form of exploitation. From the 1700s to the 1800s, there was a marked increase in the dissection of bodies to learn more about human anatomy. In the 1790s, Bethlem’s chief surgeon was Bryan Crowther, a man who saw opportunity in the search for corpses to study. Crowther would dissect Bethlem’s dead patients in the name of medical science, believing that he would be able to find a difference in the brains of his mentally ill patients, compared to “normal” people. Of course, he did these operations without any kind of consent or legal right.

One of the best ways to sum up the reasoning behind this torture is to let you know from the man who was behind the worst of it. John Haslam was one of the most sinister figures in the history of Bethlem, and it was while he was the head of management that the institution sunk to a new low in depravity. While Bryan Crowther was conducting illegal dissections as chief surgeon, Haslam used various tortures against the patients. He was adamant that the first step to curing the patients was breaking their wills first. So ya… They figured fuck em… Break their will and they'll be fine… Wow.

Oftentimes patients would lack even basic amenities for living. That includes proper clothing and food.

To make things even worse for the patients, from approximately the early 1600s until 1770, the public was able to go for a wander through Bedlam. Money was collected as entrance fees, and it was hoped that seeing the crazy people would make people feel sufficiently compassionate that they would donate funds to the hospital. Another reason for this is that they hoped it would attract the families of these patients and that they would bring those patients food and clothing and other things they needed so the hospital would not have to provide them.

Oh if that's not bad enough, how about the mass graves. Modern-day construction of the London Underground unearthed mass graves on the grounds of Bethlem, created specifically to get rid of the corpses of those who didn't survive the hospital's care. Discovered in 2013, the mass graves dating back to 1569, and there are somewhere close to 20,000 people buried in them. Amazingly, authorities have managed to identify some of the deceased, but many others will likely never get a face and name.

Anything about any of these areas being haunted? Yup we got that too. Although the first few sites have long been transformed into other things, the girls that happened there could have left tons of negative juju. We found this cool story.

"The Liverpool Street Underground Station was opened in February of 1874 on the site of the original Bedlem Hospital. Former patients haunt this busy section of the London Underground.

One compelling sighting happened in the summer of 2000. A Line Controller spotted something strange on the CCTV camera that he was monitoring that showed the Liverpool Station. It was 2:00 am in the morning and the station was closed for the night. This witness saw a figure wearing white overalls in an eastbound tunnel. He became concerned since he knew no contractors worked the station this late at night. He called his Station Supervisor to report what he was seeing on the screen.

The Supervisor went to investigate. The Line Controller watched as his Supervisor stood nearby the mysterious figure. So he was confused when his Supervisor called to say he had not seen any figure. The Line Controller told his boss that the figure had stood so close to him that he could have reached out and touched it. Hearing this the Supervisor continued to search for the figure.

Again the Line Controller saw the figure walk right passed his boss on his screen, but again his boss did not see the figure. The Supervisor finally giving up went to leave the station but as he did so he spotted white overalls placed on a bench that he had passed before. He stated that they could not have been placed there without him seeing who did it.

Even before the Liverpool Station was built the area where the hospital stood was considered haunted. Between 1750 and 1812 many witnesses reported hearing a female voice crying and screaming. It is believed that this is a former patient from Bedlam.

Rebecca Griffins was buried in the area. While alive she always frantically clutched a coin in her hand. Witnesses state they hear her asking where her ha' penny is."

Fun stuff!

The following comes from the old building that was turned into the imperial war museum.

It is said that to this day the spectres of those who suffered in Bedlam still roam the hallways and rattle their chains in remembered anguish.

During the Second World War, a detachment of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was stationed inside the Imperial War Museum with barrage balloons. Much of the museum has parts that date back to Bedlam and it isn’t hard to imagine them as cells full of the damned inmates. Many of the young girls who were garrisoned inside had never heard of the buildings sordid past, so had no reason to fear it. Yet soon complaints began to flood in as during the night many found they couldn’t sleep, kept up by strange moaning and the rattling of chains. The long passed inmates of Bedlam made their displeasure well known. Eventually the complaints became so bad the entire detachment had to be rehoused nearby.

Possibly the most famous ghost of Bedlam is the sad spectre of poor Rebecca. At a merchant’s house by London Bridge lived a lovely young girl by the name of Rebecca. She fell head over heels in love with a handsome young Indian man who had come to lodge with the family. So besotted was she that when he packed up his bags to return to India she was shocked that he hadn’t loved her quite nearly as much as she’d loved him. She helped him to pack his things, hoping all the while that he would change his mind and agree to stay. But all she received was a gold sovereign that he slipped into her hand before leaving forever.

The grief of her spurning was too much for her mind to handle and she snapped, soon being admitted to Bedlam Hospital. The golden sovereign he had given her was gripped firmly in her fist for the remainder of her short life, the final token from her lost love, never to be given up. When she finally wasted away into death it didn’t go unnoticed by one of the guards who prised the coin from her hand and then buried her without her most prized possession. It was after that the guards, inmates and visitors all began to report a strange sight indeed. A wan and ghostly figure began to roam the halls of Bedlam, searching for her lost love token, her spirit refusing to be put to rest until she had it back in her hand. It is said that she still wanders the halls to this day, looking for that stolen coin to make her whole once more.

Well… There you have it, the history and craziness of Bedlam Asylum!

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The British Columbia Foot Problem

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 21:31:19 -0400

Today on the train we're switching up gears a bit. Tonight we are discussing British Columbia's foot problems. Did you know that the most common foot problem in British Columbia and actually the world is athlete's foot? Well it's true! The feet are made of up 26 bones each, making them one of the most intricate areas of the body. Nevertheless, according to the College of Podiatry, a person will walk an estimated 150,000 miles in their lifetime, roughly the equivalent of walking around the world six times. Improper footwear, diabetes, and aging are some of the chief contributors to foot problems. Bunions are another of the biggest four problems. Bunions are abnormalities of the feet that cause a bump to develop on the large toe joint. This can cause the big toe to turn slightly inward. Doctors call bunions “hallux valgus.”

Women are more likely to have bunions due to increased pressures from narrow footwear. Wait...I think I got the wrong notes… What are we talking about? Oh… Shit… Yes, the British Columbia foot problem… Sorry, it had nothing so with actual foot problems. If you know it's… It is much stranger and a bit more macabre than bunions… Maybe… Bunions are gross.

So the British Columbia foot problem… What exactly is it? Well when most people go to the beach they are on the lookout for cool shells, maybe some crabs or other animals, good looking ladies and gents, but on the shores of the Salish sea, in the Pacific northwest, people are on the lookout for something else… Human feet. Yep… Human feet.

On August 20, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a lone blue-and-white running shoe—a men’s size 12—on a beach of British Columbia’s Jedediah Island. She looked inside, and found a sock. She looked inside the sock, and found a foot. That in and of itself, while kinda gross, isn't necessarily a really strange thing. But Six days later on nearby Gabriola Island, a Vancouver couple enjoying a seaside hike came across a black-and-white Reebok. Inside it was another decomposing foot. It, too, was a men’s size 12. The two feet clearly didn’t belong to the same person; not only were the shoes themselves different, but they both contained right feet.

Police were stunned. “Two being found in such a short period of time is quite suspicious,” Garry Cox of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Vancouver Sun. “Finding one foot is like a million to one odds, but to find two is crazy. I’ve heard of dancers with two left feet, but come on.”

So now we've got something weird going on right… Well maybe but let's not jump the gun….ok let's jump the gun. In the following year, 2008, five more feet were found on the shores of the islands of British Columbia in the Salish Sea.

Needless to say people started freaking out. Speculation came from everyone. Ranging from plane crashes and ship wrecks to serial killers, to aliens. Moody thinks it was all people who pissed off sasquatch.

All in all as of January 1st 2019, 21 feet have been found in total. So what is going on up there? Well let's take a look at the first and see if that helps.

The ass says before the first four was found in Augusta 2007. According to an article on the Vancouver Sun, a girl visiting from Washington picked up a size 12 Adidas shoe and opened the sock to find a man's right foot. What a vacation! They ended up finding out that The remains were those of a missing man suffering from depression. There's not much known about the man other than that. The family never revealed much.

Within a week, on August 26, 2007, another foot was found. A man's right foot, discovered by a couple, also disarticulated due to decay. It was waterlogged and appeared to have been taken ashore by an animal. It probably floated ashore from the south. According to the Vancouver Sun again. This foot was found in a size 12 Reebok shoe. It was obviously a different person due to the site you're and the fact it was another right foot.

February 8, 2008, number 3 popped up. It was another right foot belonging to a man. This time on a size 11 Nike.

May 22, 2008 number 4. This time it was a woman's foot that was found. And yes we're 4 for 4 on the right feet. CBS news reported The fourth foot was discovered on an island in the Fraser Delta between Richmond and Delta, British Columbia. It was also wearing a sock and sneaker. the shoe was a new balance. It is thought to have washed down the Fraser River, having nothing to do with the ones found in the Gulf Islands. According to our friends at the Vancouver sun.

June 16th, 2008 two hikers came across number five. CBS news reported that it was a man's left foot. It was found floating in the water in Delta. According to cbs, It has been confirmed that the left foot found on June 16 on Westham Island and the right foot found February 8 on Valdes Island belonged to the same man. We have a match!!!

So number 3 and number 5 are a match!

Number six showed up on August 1, 2008. This was the first one not found in British Columbia, it was found near Pysht, Washington. According to CTV news, it was confirmed that the foot was human. Police say the large black-top, size 11 athletic shoe for a right foot contains bones and flesh.The RCMP and Clallam County Sheriff's Department agreed on August 5 that the foot could have been carried south from Canadian waters.

November 11, 2008, number 7. a

A shoe that was found floating in the Fraser River in Richmond.The shoe was described as a small New Balance running shoe, possibly a woman's shoe. New balance eh? Sound familiar? A woman's new balance. Well it should because the foot was linked via DNA testing to foot number 4. They belonged to the same woman. Eventually it would be known that this woman jumped from the Pattullo Bridge in New Westminster in April 2004. This one was seemingly a suicide.

Number 8 come on down, your the next contestant on Who's Foot Is This! October 27, 2009A right foot in a size 8½ Nike running shoe on a beach in Richmond. The remains were identified as a Vancouver-area man who was reported missing in January 2008. The Vancouver Sun gave us this info… shocker we know.

Number 9. A woman's or child's right foot was found on Whidbey island on August 27 2010, without a shoe or sock. This foot was determined to have been in the water for two months. Detective Ed Wallace of the Island County Sheriff's Office released a statement saying the foot would be tested for DNA. However, there was no match found in the national DNA database. Guess where we got this info from...WRONG… CBS news.. Hahaha got ya bitches!

On December 5th 2010 we reach#10. Ten fucking feet found.. only two matching pairs.

This was another one found outside, but near British Columbia. It was found in the tidal flats in Tacoma Washington. Sadly this one likely belonged to a young boy. The boot was a boys size 6 hiking boot. Thanks Vancouver Sun.

Hey Vancouver Sun any info on number 11? Oh you do? Well let's hear it. On August 30, 2011, in a man's size 9 running shoe. It was a blue and white shoe. It was found floating next to the Plaza of Nations marina, attached to the lower leg bones. Yuck. Investigators said that there wasn't any sign of foul play though and the leg was naturally disarticulated due to decomposition in the water. The sex of this victim was not determined.

Hey guys, guess what, there's more.. Shall we press on?

November 4, 2011 number 12 is found. A man's right foot inside a size 12 hiking boot was discovered by a group of campers in a pool of fresh water at Sasamat Lake near Port Moody. Fucking Moody. A year later this foot was identified by the B.C. Coroner's Service as that of Stefan Zahorujko, a local fisherman who went missing in 1987. Again foul play was not expected as chickens are generally not able to remove the feet of humans.

Lucky number 13, well not so lucky in this case. This one brings us back to the states. Lake Union in Seattle to be more specific. Human leg bone and foot in a black plastic bag under the Ship Canal Bridge. As of January 2, 2012, the medical examiner had not found a cause of death or identified the body. This one sounds nice and shady. Also where the fuck were you on this one Vancouver Sun, we had to get this info from the Seattle times.. Jeeze.

Anyway, back to Vancouver. January 26, 2012 number 14 is found. According to, of course, the Vancouver Sun, On January 26, 2012, the remains of "what appears to be human bones inside a boot" were found in the sand along the water line at the dog park near the Maritime Museum at the foot of Arbutus Street, in Vancouver. This one doesn't show up in some of the stories about this issue only because it seems that they never confirmed it was human. At least not that we could find, which is strange. But… Whatever.

According to fox news "Adding to one of the great mysteries of the Pacific Northwest, a human foot still in a tennis shoe was found near Seattle's Pier 86 Tuesday." Tuesday was may 6 2014, and this was number 15. "It could be debris from Japan. It could be debris from the airplane that had crashed into the water. I wouldn't be surprised,” resident Karen Klett said. Volunteers cleaning up trash made the discovery and immediately called police.A local expert on tides told Q13 Fox News the feet could be local or they could come into the Sound by way of the Strait of Georgia in Canada or the Strait of Juan de Fuca here at home. The New Balance model 622 athletic shoe was white with blue trim, size men's 10½. It was A left foot.

Ladies, do you remember your sweet sixteen? Was it memorable? Did you get a car? Big party? Severed foot? Wait… What? Well number 16 was found February 7, 2016. Hikers on Botanical Beach, near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, found a foot in a sock and running shoe. We could not find any information on if this one was ever identified.

She's only 17...SEVENTEEN! Only five days after number 26 was found… Number 17 popped up. On February 12, 2016 A foot washed up near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. This foot was found to match the one that washed up 5 days before.

Now to number 18. Almost there folks! The discovery was made by a man walking his dogs along the beach at around 8 a.m. along the Jordan river again on Vancouver Island. One of the dogs found the foot.

Number 19 was found May 6, 2018 on gabriola Island in British Columbia. Around noon, a man walking along the shore near South Road found a foot inside a hiking boot stuck in a logjam.

Number 20. September 20, 2018. The foot was found within a light grey Nike Free RN shoe on the shore near the 30th Street beach access point in West Vancouver.

The size 9.5 shoe was manufactured between February 1 and April 17, 2017, and has a white base and a black Nike swoosh. The foot was in a blue sock. The test revealed that the foot belonged to a male.

The B.C. Coroners Service's identification specialist believes that the foot belonged to a man under the age of 50, based on its bone structure.

According to the West Vancouver Police Department, there is no evidence of a death from foul play at this point. DNA testing would eventually link this to a male who went missing in 2018.

Number 21 was another one that was found in the US. January 1, 2019 it was found on jetty Island in Everett Washington. The foot was found in a bit and DNA later linked it to Antonio Neill. At the time of the identification officials shockingly attenuated that Neill was presumed dead. His mother Jenny Neill believes someone harmed her son.

“We are no closer to finding what happened to him,” she said Tuesday. “We have had a lot of leads that are just rumors. We feel that someone is responsible for this, and we need help finding whoever did this.” He’d been staying in his car or on couches in 2016. Around the time he went missing, his car was stolen. Antonio was 22 when he went missing. His mother has seen no evidence confirming he was alive after December 2016.

Ok so those are the feet that have been found. We will post a picture that shows locations, and another with a little more info on the people they may have belonged to. Many of the get have been linked to missing people, and a couple to suicide. But aside from those suicides, what happened to those linked to missing people.

Theories range far and wide. From plane crashes, to human trafficking, aliens, and yes… Bigfoot.

One early suggestion was the quadra Island plane crash.

The locations each of the first give feet were found in the first year seems to indicate they were from the similar sources (via body decomposition) and the time of discovery Oceanographists determined no known currents could have contributed to the spread. Detectives at the time had theorized the feet came from the 5 person fatality Quadra Island plane crash that occurred approximately 60–90 miles northwest in 2005 . The image below shows the locations of the five feet found in 2007–2008 with the location of the Quadra Island plane crash in Blue. It is likely that some of the feet originate from this plane crash, but there is no proof to date that this is the case; four bodies remain unrecovered.

At first, the Quadra Island plane crash makes sense regarding the origin of said feet, but later DNA testing showed one of the feet was female, with the plane crash victims (5 total) were all men.

Other theorists believe the coastline is being used as a body dump for organized crime activity; a third scenario is a serial killer is at work.

In the past few years, more than 20 men in the Vancouver area have gone missing. Their disappearances have never been accounted for despite pleas from families for information.

There is a faction of the public who believe that many of these discoveries are due to alien abduction and that of course the fact is being covered up. There may be some evidence to back up this claim! Ufology Research, an organization in Canada, has collected and analyzed Canadian UFO report data since 1989. Their 2017 survey showed that a total of 1,101 sightings were reported across the country, at a rate of roughly three per day — the fifth highest number since the group began collecting data in 1989. The survey also showed that there was an average of two witnesses per UFO sighting and that the sightings lasted about 15 minutes each. Many witnesses were police officers, pilots and other people with keen observational skills. In 2017 British Columbia had the third most reported UFO sightings in Canada. Hmmm maybe… Just maybe there's something to this.

Then again maybe not. 10 out of the 15 feet have been identified as belonging to people who died either accidentally—by falling off a boat or being swept away by a large wave—or by suicide. but what about the rest?

The location of the feet washing up isn't that that strange actually. Given the tidal currents of the area it actually makes sense that the feet are collecting in the area. It's seems the bigger mystery is what happened to all of those other people but identified?

…..

……

…...

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The Oakland County Child Killer AKA The Babysitter Killer

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 01:07:10 -0400

Today's episode is taking us back to the world of unsolved true crime. This episode deals with pretty tough stuff so consider this your trigger warning as the episode does talk about the killings of young children.

We are heading to the state of Michigan for this one. Oakland county to be exact. Oakland county is part of the metropolitan Detroit area, located northwest of the city. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, behind neighboring Wayne County. The county seat is Pontiac. The county was founded in 1819 and organized in 1820. Oakland County is among the ten highest income counties in the United States with populations over one million people. The county's knowledge-based economic initiative, coined "Automation Alley", has developed one of the largest employment centers for engineering and related occupations in the United States. This county would spawn a serial killer. From February 1976 to March 1977 four children were abducted and murdered with their bodies left in various locations within or just outside Oakland County.

There were at least two other murder cases that investigators believe may have been victims of the “Oakland County Child Killer” or “The Babysitter Killer,” as some called him.

The ensuing murder investigation was the largest of its kind in U.S. history at the time. One suspect was even from our neck of the woods! We'll check out the victims and then get into the suspects. Again, this is definitely a touchy episode for some so if you're uncomfortable with this sort of thing, you might want to skip this episode.

Still with us? Ok so here we go.

Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. Approximately 840,000 people are reported missing each year in the United States and the F.B.I. estimates that between 85 and 90 percent of these are children. On a positive note, More than 99 percent of children reported missing in America in recent years have come home alive.

According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Child Abduction Murder Research:

In 74 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child murder victim was female and the average age was 11 years old.

In 44 percent of the cases studied, the victims and killers were strangers, but in 42 percent of the cases, the victims and killers were friends or acquaintances.

Only about 14 percent of the cases studied involved parents or intimates killing the child.

Almost two-thirds of the killers in these cases have prior arrests for violent crimes, with slightly more than half of those prior crimes committed against children.

The primary motive for the child abduction killer in the cases studied was sexual assault.

In nearly 60 percent of the cases studied, more than two hours passed between the time someone realized the child was missing and the time police were notified.

In 76 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child was dead within three hours of the abduction–and in 88.5 percent of the cases the child was dead within 24 hours.

Pay attention to your kids, folks. Be that parent. The one who annoys them constantly by asking where they are and knowing who they’re with. Protect the fuck out of them with every last fiber of your being. THAT is your number one job as a parent.

The First victim was 12 year old Mark Stebbins. Mark was from Ferndale Michigan and was last seen at 1:30 pm on Feb. 15 1976. His body was found three days later in Ferndale. He was sexually assaulted and suffocated to death.

Mark was last seen and heard from at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 15. He talked to his mother on the phone. He was letting her know that he was leaving the American Legion Hall to head home. He never made it and at 11 p.m. that night Mark’s mother called the Ferndale Police Department to report Mark missing.

At about 11:45 a.m. Feb. 19, 1976, a businessman named Mark Boetigheimer left his office building and headed toward a drug store located inside the New Orleans mall at 10 Mile and Greenfield roads. On his way something caught his eye in the northeast corner of the parking lot. He saw what looked like a mannequin dressed in a blue jacket and jeans. But as he got closer he knew he stumbled into a situation much more grim. It was a body, a human body. It was the lifeless body of 12-year-old Mark Stebbins.

Another person told police that they walked their dog around that parking lot, just so it could get some exercise. That was around 9:30 a.m. the same morning the body was found. The man said his dog was on a 20-foot leash and they walked that part of the lot. He said if that body was there at the time, his dog would have found it. If that’s true, Mark’s body wasn’t there at 9:30 a.m. But it was at 11:45 a.m. when Mark Boetigheimer found him. That means there was a 2-hour-and-15-minute window in which someone or some people dumped Mark’s body in the area.

Mark was a 7th-grader at Lincoln Junior High School. He stood 4 feet 8 inches and weighed about 100 pounds. He had strawberry-blond hair. The autopsy showed the cause of death as asphyxia by way of smothering, but the report also showed rope burns on his neck, wrists and ankles. It appeared that Mark was also sexually assaulted.

Brooks Patterson, who was the Oakland County prosecutor at the time, said Mark’s body was washed by an autopsy team, washing away any fingerprints.

The second victim was also 12 years old. Jill Robinson was from Royal oak Michigan.

Karol Robinson had three daughters and was recently divorced. She and her oldest, Jill, would butt heads and on one occasion in December of 1976 they did just that. It was an argument that led to Jill running away from home. She was last seen at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, then the Donut Depot on Maple Road between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Dec. 23. According to Karol, Jill’s mother, the two were arguing about biscuits. Jill was asked to help make them for dinner, she refused. Sometime after a heated back-and-forth, Karol told her to leave until she became part of the family. Jill went to her room, packed up her clothes and a plaid blanket into a denim bag. Before she left she dressed herself in blue jeans, a shirt, an orange winter coat and a blue knit cap with a yellow design on it, and then she would leave, just like her mother asked her to. She rode her bike away from her mother and her home.

Jill would later be seen by a family friend at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, just four and 1/2 blocks away from her mother’s home. The next morning, two witnesses said they saw her in the Donut Depot on Maple Road -- this was between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Jill’s father, Thomas Robinson, made a call to police at 11:30 p.m. the day she left. Jill was found on the side of I-75, north of Big Beaver Road. She was laying on her back, fully clothed, not bound in any way, but a ring of deep dark red surrounded her head. The killer had transported her here, then shot her at close range in the head with a shotgun. It was later decided that Jill was fed and cared after for at least three days. She seemed to be washed, clean and with no signs of sexual abuse at all.

The third victim was 10 year old Kristine Mihelich. Kristine was from Berkley Michigan. She was last seen on January 2nd, 1977. Her Body was found on Jan. 21, 1977 -- she was missing for 19 days -- she was found in a snowbank along Bruce Road in Franklin Village, Mich. The cause of death was suffocation -- she was not sexually assaulted.

Police said there were no signs of violence and that she was in the same clothes she was last seen in. Her body was on its back, knees drawn up. That’s when a Franklin Village mailman, Jerry Wozny, saw her. He saw her blue jacket in the snow on the same route he’d been driving for eight years. State police Sgt. Robert Robertson supervised the removal of the girl’s body. Thirty-five officers from nine different departments made a task force that Prosecutor Patterson called “the strongest effort I’ve ever seen in this county.” The task force was headquartered in Southfield. Police Sgt. Joseph Krease was charged with tracking down Kristine’s abductor.

Kristine’s mother, Deborah Ascroft said “people keep talking about the Royal Oak girl (Jill Robinson) but I’m just not even going to think about that.” Ascroft said that in an interview on Jan. 5, 1977. At the time, Kristine had two younger brothers and according to her mother they kept asking “when is she coming home?”

Shortly after Kristine’s disappearance, a child from the elementary school she attended was missing, which set off a panic at the school. A frantic search went on for about 20 minutes and the child eventually was found on school grounds. Tensions were at an all-time high.

Parents at Pattengill Elementary School were lined up outside school to pick up their children -- many of them used to walk home, but not now. When Kristine’s body was found in a snowbank at the end of a dead end street in Franklin Village, it was so frozen officials had to wait until the following day to perform an autopsy, because of the body’s frozen state.

Wozny -- the mail carrier who found her -- said: “I saw a hand ... It scared the hell out of me.”

Kristine was the fifth young person from Oakland County to die within the year. As of late January 1977, Patterson had no evidence to link Mark and Kristine’s deaths.

11 year old Timothy King was the fourth victim. He was last seen on March 16, 1977 and his body was found on March 23, 1977 in a ditch along Gill Road, about 300 feet south of 8 Mile Road in Livonia -- He was missing for seven days. The cause of death was again suffocation -- he also was sexually assaulted.

Timothy King left his Birmingham home with 30 cents he borrowed from his older sister, Catherine, and headed to the corner store. He wanted some candy and it wasn’t rare for him to make this trip of about three blocks. He left with his skateboard and football, headed toward the Hunter-Maple Pharmacy.

Tim’s older brothers -- he had two -- were not around. One was babysitting a neighbor’s kids while the other was rehearsing for a school play. Tim’s parents were out to dinner at a nearby Birmingham restaurant.

A clerk, Amy Walters, said she sold Tim candy and he left through the back door into a dark parking lot around 8:30 p.m.. Birmingham Police Chief Jerry Tobin said “whatever happened to Tim happened between the time he left the store and before he got home. It doesn’t look particularly good at this time.”

This was now the seventh child that had gone missing in the area. The six prior to Timothy had been found -- murdered. Tim was only the second boy. The hysteria was at an all-time high. According to Catherine, Tim’s sister, Tim asked that she leave the front door ajar, so when he got back from the store he could get back in easily.

Catherine also left for the night. It would have been the first time little Timmy would be home alone at night for any period of time. Timothy’s parents got back to the house around 9 p.m. to find the door ajar, but there was no sign of Tim.

The King family searched everywhere for Tim. They called his friends, searched the neighborhood and surrounding area. By 9:15 a.m. the next day, Chief Tobin called on the task force, requesting their full involvement. By the afternoon -- the day after Timmy went missing -- headquarters were established in the Adams Fire House, just a few blocks from the King family home. Door-to-door searches were conducted and classmates questioned.

Tim was abducted on a Wednesday. By Thursday, 100 lawmen from Oakland County, volunteers, Oakland County Sheriff’s investigators, the county helicopter and the special Oakland County Task Force all were scouring the area. That Thursday the Kings stayed behind closed doors most of the day, but did say “we very much want Tim to come home.” That was Barry, Tim’s father.

“We love him very much. He had a basketball game Saturday and missed practice today (Thursday). He’s active in a school play. He’s an achiever and a participator. We just love Tim and want him to come home.” Barry said.

Barry told reporters that the week before Tim told his mother that he wouldn’t speak to strangers, that “he’d run away from them.”

“It’s awful,” said a neighbor of the King family who also had an 11-year-old daughter. “When it happens to other people, you feel sympathy. When it strikes your neighborhood, you’re scared.”

Other possible victims

Cynthia Rae Cadieux was 16 years old from Roseville Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 15, 1976

Body found: 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, 1976 in Bloomfield Township, Mich.

Cynthia Cadieux lived with her mother and stepfather. She attended Roseville High School, which was within walking distance from her home. Even though the school was close, one of her friends, Rose DeStesafano, offered to give her a ride home. On a cold January day in 1976, Rose offered Cynthia a ride.

“Cynthia refused, just like she always does,” said DeStesafano.

That decision may have been a fatal mistake.

The date was Jan. 15, 1976, and Cynthia walked, not to her mother and stepfather’s home, but to a girlfriend’s house. It was a planned visit. In fact, her parents thought Cynthia was spending the night there, but the girls didn’t think so. Cynthia planned to go home that Thursday night. Police were able to verify that she’d made it to the friend’s house that evening. They were also able to figure out she’d left her friend's home around 8 p.m., presumably heading back to her home. Her body would later be found that night -- technically morning in Bloomfield Township, which is about 26 miles away.

At 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, a driver noticed something on the side of the road. What the person saw was the naked, lifeless body of Cynthia Rae Cadieux. It appeared that her skull was crushed by a blunt instrument. Police revealed Cynthia was raped and sodomized -- possibly by more than one person.

This case was looked at under a proverbial microscope that was designed to find the link or links between several other dead children in the Oakland County area.

Sheila Srock was 14 years old and from Birmingham Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 19, 1976

Body found: Jan. 19, 1976

Birmingham is “the place” most consider to be the model community in southeastern Michigan. It’s a place everyone wanted to live, but most couldn’t afford. Those who knew of Birmingham would never have associated it with violence or crime, but that would change Jan. 19, 1976.

January in Michigan is a cold time and place, usually snow-covered. That’s why a resident on Villa Street was shoveling snow from his roof a little after 8 p.m. Monday. While he was up there, he saw something through a neighbor’s window -- something horrible.

Inside the next house over was 14-year-old Shiela Srock. She was babysitting her brother’s baby while he was out. Shiela and the baby were upstairs, likely playing. At the same time a dark figure slithered in and out of homes in the neighborhood, stealing anything and everything he could. Eventually this intruder found himself on the doorstep of Shiela’s brother’s house. He rang the doorbell, and there was no answer. From there he popped the lock open and made his way in. The neighbor was able to see him as he ran into Shiela, gun drawn. The robber was upset that he didn’t find anything of value and that now he’d been seen. According to police, the robber had Shiela remove her clothing. He then raped her, sodomized her and ultimately killed her.

The neighbor apparently saw most or all of these horrible actions. Obviously, he didn’t have a cell phone in 1976, so he couldn’t call for help right away since he was on the roof.

The assailant was described as a thin, white man between 18 and 25 years old, who stood about 6 feet tall. He had a prominent nose and a pointed chin, according to witnesses. The attacker’s car also was identified. He drove away in a 1967 Cadillac. People at the crime scene said the killer mingled and chatted with onlookers. He asked questions about what was going on as he subtly fit into the crowd.

Eventually a man did admit to this killing. In March 1976, Oliver Rhodes Andrews confessed to and later was convicted of the murder of Srock. He is serving a life sentence in prison. According to a March 4, 1976 report from the Ludington Daily News, Andrews was wanted for questioning “in some 200 burglaries in several states.”

“(He) admitted in a four-hour confession late Monday that he raped the girl and shot her five times when the babysitter surprised him as Andrews broke into a home he thought was empty,” reads the report.

Jane Louise Allan was a 14-year-old girl from Royal Oak. She was considered a runaway because she had done so five times before. She was last seen hitchhiking along I-75 in Pontiac on Aug. 7, 1976. Her body was found in a lake in Miamisburg, Ohio five days later. Police said she died from carbon monoxide poisoning after being kept in the trunk of a car.

The information about the victims was taken from a great article on clickondetroit.com.

Ok so now you're asking yourselves, well there must be suspects right? The answer is… Yes there are… And we're gonna talk about em.

Let's talk about the profile the police came up with.

All related killings happened on days that it snowed. All children were last seen within a mile of Woodward Avenue between 9 Mile and 15 Mile roads. All children were fed and cared for.

The killer(s) either bathed them or made them bathe. Both male victims had rope burns on his wrists and ankles.

A psychological profile created by police described the killer as fanatically clean, smart and sexually abnormal. The big lead police had -- even as of March 24, 1977 -- was the witness who saw TimothyKing speaking with a man inside a blue AMC Gremlin.

Speaking of the gremlin… Let's run through that real quick.

Eventually a woman came forward with some vital information. She said she saw Tim talking to a man in the pharmacy parking lot. She said Tim and the man were about two car-lengths away from her. She was able to describe the man she saw talking to the boy, whom she believed to be Timothy King. This witness also described the vehicle she believed the man to be driving; a dark-blue AMC Gremlin with a white stripe on its side, she called it a “hockey stick” stripe.

Police say the man described by witnesses was between 25 and 35 years old, white, with a dark brown hair cut in a shag style. He had muttonchop sideburns, a fair complexion and a husky build. He was driving a late model blue AMC Gremlin with whitewall tires.

Police also said they suspected Tim was abducted by one or possibly two men, and that person -- or people -- could have been involved in the other six cases of murdered children from the area.

The Oakland County Task Force released the following suspect profile on March 16, 1977:

Male

20-30 years old

Above average education

Above average intelligence

Caucasian

Ability and capacity to store child for at least 18 days

Homosexual

Plus mental problems

Compulsively clean -- fanatically so

No substance abuse involving drugs or alcohol

Different (stranger ranger)

Work -- schedule

December-January, vacation off work

Clean car, clean house

Single dwelling -- attached garage, cost above $30,000

Prior contact with police

Seeing psychiatrist

White collar job, 9-5 schedule

Area of southern Oakland County

Wants bodies found

A few weeks after King's murder, a psychiatrist who worked with the task force received a letter, riddled with spelling errors, written by an anonymous author ("Allen") claiming to be a sadomasochist slave of the killer ("Frank").[12] "Allen" wrote that they had both served in the Vietnam War, that "Frank" was traumatized by having killed children, and that "Frank" had taken revenge on more affluent citizens, such as the residents of Birmingham, for sending forces to Vietnam.[12] "Allen" expressed fear and remorse in his letter, saying he was losing his sanity and was endangered and suicidal, and admitted to having accompanied "Frank" as the latter sought boys to kill.[13] He instructed the psychiatrist to respond by printing the code words "weather bureau says trees to bloom in three weeks" in that Sunday's edition of the Detroit Free Press,[12] before offering to provide photographic evidence in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The psychiatrist arranged to meet "Allen" at a bar, but "Allen" did not show up and was never heard from again.

Suspects:

Ted Lamborgine

Ted Lamborgine, a retired auto worker believed to have been involved in a child pornography ring in the 1970s, was arrested in parma heights Ohio. Ted had transferred from Detroit to the Ford plant in Brook Park Ohio around the time the killings stopped. Before his arrest he moved from apartment to apartment like a man trying to escape creditors. Sometimes he'd stay for only a few months. Once he moved from an apartment in one tower of a complex to an identical apartment in another tower, for no apparent reason.

Even when he was in one place, he couldn't sit still. A neighbor who lived next to Ted in an Olmsted Township trailer park says he constantly moved his furnishings around. And he never once used his kitchen, eating out every day, even for breakfast.

Ted tried the stable life. He bought a little lemon-colored home in Slavic Village that had a tiny patch of front yard. His elderly mother and his sister even drove down from Detroit to see the place on a rare visit. It didn't last long though and he sold there house and moved again. He was running from his last in Michigan Theodore Lamborgine and his partner in crime, Richard Lawson, were part of a 1970s sex ring that preyed on young boys in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. According to Lawson,Cass Corridor was a six-block section of dope dealers, hookers, bars, and poverty. Big families had moved from the South to work the auto plants. Hundreds of kids ran wild in the streets. It was a pedophile's paradise. Those poor kids from the neighborhood had nothing. So the men put money in their pockets and food in their bellies. In some cases the men even helped the mothers out, taking care of those gas bills to get families through the cold northern winters. Back at their homes, in motel rooms, and in the greasy basement of a neighborhood bike shop, the men used the boys -- some as young as nine -- to enact their darkest fantasies. Lawson said they tried not to be too rough. After all, they wanted the boys to come back the next time they cruised up with a crisp 10-spot. And so the boys came back, some of them for years. Sometimes, though, Ted got a little carried away. On special occasions he'd bring kids from the hood up to mossy suburbs like Royal Oak for "parties" at other pedophiles' homes. Police suspect there may have been hundreds of men involved, networking like members of a book club. The parties were potluck orgies: Everyone brought a kid to share, and things were known to get wild. Kids were sodomized, photographed, then thrown in a bathtub and hosed off.

Then there was the time Ted scared even Lawson. They were at the apartment of Bob Moore, owner of the bike shop, when Ted whipped out a photo album Moore kept of their little sweethearts. Ted pointed to one picture of a little boy with a wing-cut and a cute, dimpled chin. The kid wasn't one of the Cass hood-rats the men usually settled for. This was a kid from the other side of 8 Mile Road, the dividing line between the dust and crumble of the city and the bird's nest of suburbs in northern Detroit. This kid was clean and had nice clothes. "Looks like the King boy, doesn't it?" Ted had said, winking. Lawson never forgot the moment. Out of the five men involved in their Lamborgine and Lawson were the only two living members of that ring when they were charged in 2006. Lamborgine faced 19 counts of sexually assaulting children, while Lawson faced 28 similar charges.

Lawson, who was already serving a life sentence for murder, told WDIV in 2006 that he knows who the Oakland County Child Killer is. WDIV later obtained documents detailing molestations of many children in the 70s and 80s. Three new names of suspects in the investigation were listed and one of those names matched the one Lawson gave as the Oakland County Child Killer. The name Lawson gave was Bobby Moore, one of the deceased members of the sex ring. Investigators said they were looking into all of those people.

Investigators also said they did not believe Lamborgine or Lawson to be the killer, but they did think the men had valuable information that could help solve the case.

Lamborgine is serving a life sentence at Kinross Correctional Facility in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Many people believe that Ted was the killer dealer investigators believing it was somebody else. At the very least it's send that Ted could have been involved in some way.

Archibald Edward Sloan:

In July 2012, Prosecutor Cooper discussed Archibald Edward Sloan and his 1966 Pontiac Bonneville. A hair found in the car is a DNA match to evidence at two of the crime scenes -- Mark Stebbins’ and Timothy King’s. The hair is not his but police believe it belongs to an acquaintance.

Sloan is reportedly the owner of the car where the hair was found. Prosecutors were considering him an accomplice to the suspect. He could be a direct link to whoever the killer is, prosecutors said.

It is believed Sloan worked at a garage or gas station near 10 Mile and Middlebelt roads during the time of the Oakland County Child Killer murders. Seven years after the death of Timothy King, Sloan was arrested again. He was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The offense took place in October 1983. He was sentenced to life in prison in January 1985. In February 2019, the Investigation Discovery channel aired a two-part, four-hour documentary about the killings. At this same time, WXYZ-TV investigative reporter Heather Catallo announced that Arch Edward Sloan had failed a polygraph test when he was interviewed by the Oakland County Child Killer Task Force in 2010 and 2012.

Sloan, 77, is serving his life sentence at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Mich.

James Vincent Gunnels:

At one point investigators said James Vincent Gunnels was the best lead in the decades-old serial killer mystery. His DNA is a mitochondrial DNA match to a hair found on the body of victim Kristine Mihelich. A mitochondrial match means the hair belongs to Gunnels or a male relative on his mother’s side.

In 2012 Gunnels told WDIV that he had nothing to do with the child killings.

“I’m not guilty. There it is there. But at the same time, I know how the state police twist words to their advantage,” Gunnels said. “My heart goes out to those families. It really really, really does. I don’t feel that they were served justice through any of this.”

After WDIV spoke with Gunnels, he decided he wanted to speak to the victim’s family face-to-face. He reached out to the King family.

“When the request first came in, I was hesitant to go,” said Chris King. “I felt it would be too hard to be in the same room as a suspect in this case. It’s clearly theoretically possible that he somehow aided in (Kristine Mihelich’s) abduction, or killing.”

The King family contacted police who have questioned Gunnels on several occasions. According to police records, Gunnels failed a lie detector test. They wondered what Gunnels might say to the family.

“We weren’t sure what to expect,” Chris King said. “But we had just been told to ask open-ended questions, see what he says, listen to his story. Um, who knows. He might be able to shed some light on, or tell us something he hadn’t before.”

It wouldn’t be easy. Chris King took his father Barry King along with him to the meeting with Gunnels.

“It was grueling,” Chris King said. “My dad is a lot tougher than I am. I found it exhausting, you know, mentally and physically.”

Barry King said Gunnels’ story wasn’t off-the-wall, but not exactly promising.

“I believe that the story he told Chris and I was believable,” Barry King said. “But it was contradicted by previous stories that he has told other people.”

Gunnels told the Kings that Bush was a child predator who lived in Oakland County at the time.

“It seems clear that he must have had at least some knowledge of the crimes,” Chris King said.

However, Gunnels denied knowing anything about the Oakland County Child Killings.

“I say right now I have no idea what that man did to anyone else,” Gunnels said.

Chris King asked him about two polygraph tests.

“My questions for him were, you know it’s hard to understand you tried to cheat on one polygraph exam and failed a second polygraph exam,” Chris King said. “So, if you had absolutely no involvement or knowledge of these crimes, why would you feel that you had to cheat in the first place and then why would you fail the second one? It doesn’t make sense.”

Gunnels told the Kings that he felt terrible.

“I couldn’t imagine having that happen and not knowing all those years,” Gunnels said. “I really really couldn’t.”

Chris and Barry King have been going the extra mile to try and solve the case, not knowing if they have done any good.

“It was kind of a long shot that it would help,” Chris King said. “But law enforcement said, ‘Who knows. Sometimes these guys have remorse and they end up telling you things.’ So, we went with that hope.”

Christopher Busch:

Christopher Busch was a convicted pedophile who lived in Bloomfield Hills and killed himself in 1978. For decades, victims’ family members had believed Busch could have been the killer.

In 1977, Gregory Greene, 27, was arrested on child sexual assault charges. Greene led investigators to 26-year-old Busch, telling them Busch killed Stebbins. However, Busch and Green both passed polygraph examinations. Greene was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting young boys. Busch first got probation for the same charges before ultimately killing himself.

However, in 2012 it was revealed that there is zero evidence suggesting Busch is the Oakland County Child Killer. His DNA does not match the physical evidence that investigators have.

“Whatever evidence that may or may not exist does not come back to Busch,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper.

Police sources had told WDIV that Busch’s suicide scene was suspicious and may have been a murder. They know he had a drawing of a tortured boy that closely resembled victim Mark Stebbins. Ropes were found in his closest. He had a blue Vega car which looked like the infamous blue Gremlin spotted at one of the abductions.

It was later revealed by investigators that Busch was in custody while police investigated the killings and admitted he was a pedophile. Investigators wanted to keep him in jail but he was let go after he agreed to a plea deal.

However, none of that matters now after investigators said Busch did not commit the murders.

“There isn’t a piece of evidence that we can point to and say Mr. Bush killed Timothy King, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich or Mark Stebbins,” said Paul Walton, chief assistant Oakland County prosecutor.

Chis King, Timothy King’s brother, said he thought Busch was involved because the suicide scene photos show potential evidence linked to the cases. One photograph shows the drawing that was pinned on Busch’s wall, which closely resembles Stebbins.

The photographs also show ropes that appear to have blood on them and a shotgun shell. However, the shotgun shell in Busch’s room cannot be matched with the caliber used to kill Jill Robinson.

“They even took it to NASA to try and see if they could get an identification of the caliber and there was no way in which they could do that,” said Cooper.

Prosecutors also said they tracked down the scientist who analyzed the ropes found at the home of suspect Busch.

“He conclusively told us that he was aware of these facts and that had there been any blood on that rope or ligature he would have sent it on to the evidence unit,” said Walton.

So there's the main suspects in the case. What do you guys think? Was it one of these guys? Did one of these guys have at least some involvement? We may never know.

Oh and one other quick note, John Wayne Gacy makes an appearance in this story briefly. One witness described two men he claimed to have seen abducting King. One of those men's descriptions bite a striking resemblance to John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was rumored to have been in Michigan at the time of the killings. It was found that gacy's DNA did not match DNA found on the victims however, and that was the end of that. But who knows… There's plenty of people that think there were multiple people involved, could he have been one?

Well that's almost everything, there were a few things that we found from around 2013 but they were just small nuggets that we could not find anything to really update the situations with. So we have left those out as well. There is also a side plot, if you will, involving a man using the alias Jeff claiming that he was part of an investigative team putting over 10,000 hours into their own investigations. They claim to know the identity of the killer but would not divulge the name unless they were able to set the information the police had to confirm the person's identity. The police would not share the info. There were lawsuits and other crap and the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous. You can check it out on your own if you'd like though.

So there you have it! What do you guys think?

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Creepy Germany

Tue, 28 Sep 2021 12:37:07 -0400

Guten abend meine freunde! Heute machen wir eine reise nach deutschland. Welche Seiten werden wir sehen? wen werden wir treffen? Wird Jon das lesen können? Ich denke, wir werden es herausfinden!

Anyways, for those of you that don't speak German… Well you'll never know what we said there, and for those of you that do, Moody's German is rusty and we're sure Google's help in translating was probably off, so hopefully it wasn't too ridiculous. At any rate, today on the train we are back to our creepy series, and if you're remotely intuitive, you'll already know we are heading to the great country of Germany! The country that gave us some amazing inventions like the hole punch, the mp3, the coffee filter, and everyone's favorite...Fanta...and all the other crazy and cool shit they've given the world! All of that cool stuff aside, we are looking at some other stuff that Germany is giving to the world… Creepy shit! So without further ado, let's get into it!

Let's start with a cryptid legend! First up we have the Nachtkrapp. The origins of the Nachtkrapp legends are still unknown, but a connection possibly exists to rook infestations in Central Europe. Already feared due to their black feathers and NoNscavenging diet, the mass gatherings quickly became an existential threat to farmers and gave rooks and crows their place in folklore as all-devouring monsters. Several versions of the Nachtkrapp exist. In most legends, the Nachtkrapp is described as a giant, nocturnal raven-like bird.

The most popular (and hideous) of the legends claim that the Nachtkrapp leaves its hiding place at night to hunt. If it is seen by little children, it will abduct them. The giant bird then flies to its nest whereby it grossly devours the child by first ripping off their limbs and then picking out their heart.

There are of course, other legends, in which the Nachtkrap will merely abduct children by placing them in his bag (how he holds this bag I do not yet know) and take them 'away'.

There is also the Wütender Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Angry Night Raven). Despite its name, this appears to be a tamer version of the Nachtkrapp; instead of abducting children, it simply crows loudly and flutters its wings, until the children have been terrorized into silence.

Then, there is the Guter Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Good Night Raven) This scary sumbitch is a benevolent version of the Nachtkrapp. This bird enters the children's room and gently sings them to sleep. Creepy shit for sure

Let's stick with cryptid legends for a second. We're gonna throw the Aufhocker in here real quick too. The word Aufhocker literally means to 'lean upon'. It is a creature that is said to jump on the back or shoulders of lone wanderers at night, its attack instilling such horror in their victims that they collapse in fright. Although some myths state that the individual collapses not from fright but because once the Aufhocker attaches to a victim it grows dramatically in size/weight.

The Aufhocker statue in Hildesheim Germany has depicted the Aufhocker as a human in shape. However the actual form and nature of this mythological creature is quite unclear. Interestingly, many stories apparently describe the Aufhocker as a shapeshifter, who may appear in the guise of a dog or a sad old lady (personally the sad old lady guise would be the scariest). However, the link with the dog shape-shifter is interesting because in Belgium there is a hell hound called the Kludde, whose modus operandi is remarkably similar to the Aufhocker, in that it stalks lonely roads at night, and jumps on the back of travellers ripping their throats out.

However, there are other descriptions of the Aufhocker as a type of zombie (corporal undead), or kobold (type of Germanic imp) or as some type of vampire or werewolf.

According to some reports the Aufhocker is "considered to be a very dangerous theriomorph that tears the throats out of humans. The connection to attacking victims in the throat is what links the aufhocker to vampirism."

(A theriomorph is: a creature (usually a deity) capable of taking the form of an animal)

According to myth, the aufhocker can not be killed. However, as the Aufhocker seems to have been blended with vampirism, lycanthropy and hell-hound mythology throughout the ages, it is said that they can be driven off by prayer, church bells, dawn or profuse swearing which should be no problem for us.

Ok those sound pretty crazy. Let's go visit a creepy place now. The Bärenquell Brewery East Berlin Germany

The fall of the Berlin Wall impacted Germany, Europe, and the world in oh so many different ways. It changed the entire world. But it also changed the world of one of our favorite things... beer. It was known among all of the Germans that the West side made much better beer than the East side. The construction of this humongous beer factory started in 1882 when the first building was constructed, the official residence of the brewery. Over the next forty years or so ten more buildings were added on the premises around the official residence. One was the administrative building with its tower in neo-Renaissance style, built in 1888. Three years later the bottle bearing building was added to the lo, sketched up and built in the Gothic revival architectural style. Just a year afterward (1902) another neo-Gothic wing was added to it. This one would function as a barrel factory and a storage room. In 1906 the main four-stories central brewery building was constructed in the same Gothic style with a castle-like appearance. After the central building was done, business was booming, and the brewery was doing nicely. What was left was to construct the other small but necessary facilities. Like a horse stable with a water tower in 1910, and the beer bottling cellar with a loading station that was used as a smaller warehouse as well. A couple more smaller warehouse buildings were built in 1920. As time moved forward some of the machinery needed repairs and the solution was very simple. They constructed a workshop building in 1927, this time diverging from the usual Gothic style the workshop was done in the style of Expressionism. The architects behind all of the buildings were Emil Holland, Robert Buntzel, and H.O.Obrikat. Sadly today only two of them remain standing, the official residence building from 1882 and the Renaissance administrative building of the Director that was added in 1888. Under Socialist rule, the Bärenquell Brewery had operated as a state-owned Volkseigenen enterprise. During the Treuhandanstalt programme of privatizing these businesses at the end of this era, the brewery was bought in 1990 by the Henniger brewery. The last Berliner Pilsener Spezial beer was bottled on 1st of April 1994 when Bärenquell beer production was moved to Kassel. Since the beer was no longer brewed in Berlin, they changed the name from Berliner Pilsener Spezial to Original Pilsener Spezial. The brand changed hands one more time. However, Bärenquell beer ceased to be brewed in 2009. After the brewery was closed some of the buildings remained to function as rental warehouses. Others were rented for different private business and small-time production factories. After a while all of them left the premises and every single building was abandoned. The place became closed to the public but that never stopped urban explorers and graffiti artist. It was also a place where young local people hung out and ironically drank beer. The buildings days are not over and even though it is heavily damaged it just may be saved and renovated. As of 2014, Bärenquell Brauerei has a new owner, a firm that owns a chain of furniture shops has the papers for the property. The plan most likely is to open another mega furniture store on the premises. Some of the brewery’s smaller buildings have already been torn down to open place for the new shopping mall structure. There's not a ton of stories about hauntings here but there are a few and that's enough for us… Because it's a brewery and fuck it we can do what we want, you don't like it… Get your own podcast. Most of the things we found about hauntings here involve creepy sounds and a few shadow people stories. People claim to hear disembodied voices late at night and many report hearing sounds like things being thrown out, dropped, and banging and clanging noises. There's also been reports from kids hanging out in the brewery at night of strange shadows and possible apparitions, but to be fair… They were most likely under the influence.

Ok now that we got our obligatory alcohol reference into the episode let's see what else we can find.

Well let's take a nice hike… How's that sound? We could hike through the Black Forest, that could be fun… Or could it…

This forest is surrounded by castles, monasteries, and ruins. The wilderness of this site has many tales to its name, making it one of the most haunted sites in Munich. Based on local folklore, ghosts, witches, werewolves and even the devil are believed to haunt this forest. One of the more well known tales from the black Forest is that of Der Grossman! Der Großmann (der Grossman), or “The Tall Man”/ "The Great Man", is a supposed mythical creature associated with woodcuts carved by an unknown artist in 16th century Germany. Said woodcuts portrayed it as a tall, disfigured man with white spheres where his eyes should be, similar in appearance to the Slender Man. Der Großmann was commonly described as a fairy of the Black Forest who abducted bad children that entered the forest at night, and would stalk them until they confessed their wrongdoings to a parent. We found A supposedly translated account from 1702 describes an alleged incident involving Der Großmann:

My child, my Lars… he is gone. Taken from his bed. The only thing that we found was a scrap of black clothing. It feels like cotton, but it is softer… thicker.

Lars came into my bedroom yesterday, screaming at the top of his lungs that "The angel is outside!" I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me some nonsense fairy story about Der Großmann. He said he went into the groves by our village and found one of my cows dead, hanging from a tree.

I thought nothing of it at first…But now, he is gone. We must find Lars, and my family must leave before we are killed. I am sorry, my son… I should have listened. May God forgive me.

Wow… Well that's unsettling. We also found a story involving a haunted hostel in the black Forest.

"When I was 12 years old I went on a school trip to the Black Forest in Germany. The hostel we were staying at seemed relatively normal to begin with but each night we were more and more convinced that there was a ghostly presence.

I was in a shared dormitory with 3 of my friends. It started on the first night when I was the first to fall asleep. When I awoke the next morning they asked if I had heard someone come and stand outside our bedroom door at 1am in the morning. I was asleep so I had not heard anything, so it didn't really occur to me it was anything scary. The second night we all sat up talking and at 1am we heard someone come up the stairs and stand outside our dormitory. My friend nervously laughed and the person must have heard us because they ran down the stairs so fast it left us speechless.

The third night we all went to sleep quite early hoping we would sleep past 1am, however this time we awoke to one of the girls in our dorm screaming and crying. When we turned the lamp on and calmed her down she said she had turned over and saw a man sitting on the end of my bed.

After that nothing happened. We sat up each night and waited until 1am but the person never came back. The day I came back from Germany I went for a nap because I was exhausted from the long journey. My mum came into my room to get my suitcase when apparently I shot upright in bed, eyes wide open, deeply breathing.

My mum said she had never seen me do anything like that before and she had to lie me back down and wait for me to go back to sleep. I have no recollection of this. Since then nothing has happened but I definitely know something traumatised us in that hostel."

What else can you find in the black Forest, well let us tell you. There are stories of Water nymphs that are supposed to live in the dark depths of the Mummel Lake at the foot of Hornisgrinde at Buhl, Baden. Then there's the Legend of Fremersberg Mountain

A small cloister of Franciscans had a monastery on the southern slope of Fremersberg Mountain from 1426 until 1826. It was named Kloesterle. The monks were not only concerned with the spiritual health of the people, they also concerned themselves with their earthly peace. For instance, when ghosts raising a ruckus on the mountain, raised fear and anxiety among the villagers with their rumblings, the monks caught the troublemakers, put them in sacks, and carried them to poltergeist graves, where they remain banned once and for all. So the story goes.....

How about the Legends of Yberg Castle

Myths of this ancient castle tell of fair ladies who appear in the night; of unusual Bowling games on the first Monday of every month and of a mysterious vault, that no one could find, filled with delicious wines.

Or you could go with the Myth of the Village of Ittersbach

In 1232 Herman, Margrave of Baden, gave his villages of Utilspur (today called Ittersbach) and Wolmerspur to the convent St. Gallen. As a settlement Wolmerspur disappeared, but the cause is unknown whether war, plague or famine. According to myth, at midnight during Advent a headless horseman on a white steed rides in the cemetery over the terrain of the destroyed village of Wolmerspur.

Then there's The Legend of Hex Von Dasenstein

In the village of Kappelrodeck (Kreis Ortenau) there is an old legend surrounding the town's namesake family. High on a hill sits Rodeck Castle that was, for centuries, the seat of this aristocratic family. Centuries ago, legend has it, that a beautiful daughter of the family fell in love with a peasant boy. Her powerful father forbid her to marry the boy. The girl ran away to the other side of the valley and took up life as a hermit in a huge outcrop of rocks in the middle of the mountainside vineyards. The outcropping was known as Dasenstein. Over the years, the townsfolk came to believe that the girl was a powerful and good witch who watched over their blessed grape crops. The local wine cooperative goes by the name, Hex von Dasenstein (Witch of Dasenstein). Its wines are renown throughout Europe and in 1982, its spatburgunder (pinot noir) was named best wine in Europe and served to President Reagan during his ill fated visit to Bitburg.

The Mummelsee The Mummelsee is a 17-metre-deep (about 55ft) lake at the western mountainside of the Hornisgrinde in the Northern Black Forest of Germany. The Mummelsee has a legend of a king who lived beneath the water and dragged down women to his kingdom under the water many years ago.

I mean we could go on, sometimes you get a twofer… This was like a 7fer

This forest is on pretty much every list of the most haunted forests in the world, sounds like for good reason! You can find all sorts of stories from the area that will make you think twice before hanging around.

It seems in our travels that religious sites are usually good for some creepiness and it's no different here. We're gonna check out the Wessobrunn Monastery. Wessobrunn Abbey (Kloster Wessobrunn) was a Benedictine monastery near Weilheim in Bavaria, Germany. According to tradition, it was founded in 753 by Duke Tassilo III, but its origins probably are associated with the important Huosi family, founders of benediktbeuern. It soon became an imperial abbey. In the 9th century, when it colonized the wastelands between the Ammer and Lech Rivers, a monk wrote the famous Wessobrunn Prayer, one of the oldest and best examples of Old High German literature. In 955 Hungarians destroyed the monastery, whose lands were ruled by provosts until 1065, when Benedictines returned from sankt emmeram in Regensburg and established a double monastery. One of the nuns, Diemud, c. 1150 excelled as a poet and calligrapher (45 MSS). Romanesque stone sculpture of the 12th–13th century discovered in Wessobrunn belongs among the German masterpieces of the period. The abbey joined the reforms of hirsau and melk (1438). In 1414 Abbot Ulrich Höhenkirchner was mitered. Under Leonhard Weiss (1671–96) began a period of glory, as Wessobrunn became a center of scholarship and baroque art with its famous school of stucco artists and painters. In the 18th century 30 monks taught at Salzburg University and at other Benedictine schools of higher learning. Wessobrunn monks compiled a Bible concordance that became a standard exegetic work. Three-fourths of the buildings, including the Romanesque church, were demolished after suppression of the abbey in 1803. Only the hostelry, with stuccoed and painted floors and halls, still stands. The grounds are owned by the archabbey of St. Ottilien; the buildings of Wessobrunn are occupied by the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing. The monastery is also known as one of the haunted sites in Germany. Based on an event in the 12th century, a sister in the monastery went into hiding in the underground tunnel because she broke her vows. She was locked inside and reported to have died of starvation. This resulted in the tale that the sister’s spirit is never at rest and still roams the areas of this monastery. Many many people have reported seeing an apparition roaming the halls and grounds. There are also many reports of people hearing a lady weeping and crying.

Sticking with the religious places, let's check out Kloster Unterzell. The Kloster cell was a former convent of the Premonstratensians in Zell am Main in Würzburg in Bavaria in the diocese of Wuerzburg. A dark chapter in the history of the Unterzell Monastery is the fate of the superior Maria Renata Singer von Mossau , who was sentenced to death and executed in 1749 during the witch persecution in the Würzburg monastery. This story is where the Hauntings are believed to come from. Locals and visitors to the monastery have reported witnessing her spirit passing through the corridors of the Kloster Unterzell. They say you can also see her lurking in shadows and just outside of your field of vision but disappearing when you look. You can find some stories on different reddit type sites that'll creep you out for sure.

There are tons of creepy haunted castles in Germany and most of them are pretty fucking awesome to see. We've got a few for you here! We'll start with Hohenzollern Castle.

The White Lady of Hohenzollern

Around 500 years ago, the prince-elector of Brandenburg, Joachim II, took a mistress called Anna Sydow after his second wife, Hedwig Jagiellon of Poland, suffered a severe injury. The injury put a great strain on his marriage and the elector grew very close to Anna, putting her up in the Jagdschloss Grunewald, a Renaissance-style castle in Berlin.

Joachim grew so fond of Anna that he was even seen in public with her, which disgruntled the public. They had several children together and Joachim even bestowed the title of Countess von Arneberg on his daughter, Magdalene. The years passed and one day, Joachim made his son, Johann Georg, swear an oath to protect Anna after his death. He made his son swear the oath again a year later and, a year before his death, arranged for Magdalene to be placed in the care of Johann.

Despite his promises, Johann reneged on his oath and imprisoned Anna in Spandau Citadel, almost immediately after his father died. Johann then married Magdalene to a court pension clerk. Anna remained in the prison for four years until she died.

Johann continued his life as elector of Brandenburg, imposing taxes on the poor and exiling the Jewish people from Brandenburg. He thought he had seen the last of Anna Sydow, but he was wrong. Eight days before his death, Anna appeared as a ghastly apparition; the White Woman.

Sightings of the White Woman have persisted since that time, particularly before the death of one of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia. In the mid-1800s, King Frederick William IV of Prussia, stopped by Pillnitz Castle to visit his cousins, the King and Queen of Saxony.

That night, everything was still. The air was cold and crisp, and it was silent as a strange fog descended on the castle. Reports by on-duty sentries from that night tell of five ghastly spectral figures walking through the castle walls and towards the King’s chambers. One figure, a White Woman, led the other four, headless men carrying a casket. Inside the casket, another man lay, a crown where his head was supposed to be.

The next day, King Frederick William began to suffer from terrible symptoms, which would continue for three months. He suffered a haemorrhagic stroke which would leave him incapacitated. He remained this way for three years, until he finally died.

The White Woman has all but disappeared, mainly due to the German monarchy being abolished, as the House of Hohenzollern had no more kings in its line. It is said, however, that she might appear to the forsaken few who wander around the Berlin Schloss or the Spandau Citadel.

Well that is a fun story… Let's check out another!

Burg Eltz is a picturesque medieval castle, tucked away in the hills in the west of Germany, between Koblenz and Trier. It is one of Germany’s more famous castles and has never been destroyed or taken in battle. Since its construction, and even to this day, the castle has been owned by the Eltz family.

The castle is also said to be haunted by the forlorn ghost of Agnes, daughter of a fifteenth-century earl from the noble Eltz family. Agnes’ hand in marriage was promised to the squire of Braunsburg when they were both just children. Years passed and as the two passed into adulthood, their engagement day drew close. Their families arranged for them to finally meet for the first time, just days before the engagement took place.

Upon meeting the young squire, Agnes was shocked at how rude and callous he was. Agnes begged her father to call off the engagement, but he refused - the marriage had been sealed years ago and had to be honoured. Negotiations concerning dowry and heritage began between the two families. In the final meeting, when everything had been agreed, the squire turned to kiss his soon-to-be bride. Agnes refused to kiss her betrothed and he responded angrily, swearing vehemently at her.

Tensions rose and the squire’s family were expelled from the castle. The Braunsberg squire raised his forces and laid siege. The Eltzer guards were tricked into leaving the castle and chasing an expeditionary force, allowing the squire to sneak in with his heavily armoured bodyguard one night. They began massacring the Eltzer residents, servants and the few guards that were left behind.

Agnes awoke to the sound of murder and upon seeing the slaughter from the window of her tower, rushed to the castle armoury. She took her brother’s ornate breastplate and sword and rushed into battle, ferociously hacking back the attackers. Her courage inspired the few remaining defenders to slowly turn the tide of the battle. The attackers seemed all but beaten until an arrow struck and pierced Agnes’ armour, fatally wounding her.

Upon seeing her fall, the Eltzer defenders rushed the squire, hacking him down and driving off the attackers. The castle was saved but Agnes succumbed to her wounds, her spirit forever cursed to haunt the very castle she fought to defend.

And what tour of creepy castles would be complete without…. Fucking Frankenstein's castle.

On a hilltop in the Odenwald mountain range, overlooking the German city of Darmstadt, are the crumbling remains of the real-life Frankenstein Castle. The stone structure has stood upon the hilltop since the mid-13th century. Some say that the castle’s dark legend made its way to a young Mary Shelley, providing inspiration for her great novel. While “Frankenstein” conjures thoughts of mad scientists and lumbering monsters, the phrase is in fact a fairly normal phrase for castles in southern Germany. The term “Frank” refers to the ancient Germanic tribe, while “stein” means stone. “Frankenstein” means “Stone of the Franks.” Lord Conrad II Reiz of Breuberg constructed the castle sometime around 1250. He christened the structure Frankenstein Castle, and afterward adopted the name “von und zu Frankenstein.” As founder of the free imperial Barony of Frankenstein, Lord Conrad held power over nearby Darmstadt, Ockstadt, Nieder-Beerbach, Wetterau, and Hesse.

As for the castle’s dark legend, that can be traced back to alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel, who was born in the castle in 1673. It is suggested that Dippel influenced Mary Shelley's fantasy when she wrote her Frankenstein novel, though there is no mention of the castle in Shelley's journals from the time. However, it is known that in 1814, prior to writing the famous novel, Shelley took a journey on the river Rhine. She spent a few hours in the town of Gernsheim, which is located about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the castle. Several nonfiction books on the life of Mary Shelley claim Dippel as a possible influence. Dippel created an elixir known as Dippel’s Oil. Derived from pulverized animal bones, the dark, viscous oil was used as late as World War II, as a chemical warfare agent that rendered wells undrinkable without actually making the water poisonous. Rumors surrounding Dippel hold that, during his time at Frankenstein Castle, he practiced anatomy as well as alchemy, even going so far as to exhume corpses and perform medical experiments on them. There are some reports claiming that Dippel actually created a monster that was brought to life by a bolt of lightning—though it seems most likely that Shelley’s tale inspired these stories, and not the other way around. Rumours about Dippel appear to be modern inventions, too. For example, he is said to have performed experiments with cadavers, in which he attempted to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. Soul-transference with cadavers was a common experiment among alchemists at the time and was a theory that Dippel supported in his writings, thus making it possible that Dippel pursued similar objectives, but there is no direct evidence to link him to these specific acts. There is also no evidence to the rumour that he was driven out of town when word of his activities reached the ears of the townspeople — though he was often banned from countries, notably Sweden and Russia, for his controversial theological positions. He also eventually had to flee to Giessen after killing a man in a duel.

An intriguing local legend tells of a Lord Georg of Frankenstein, who lived in the castle and fought a dragon that lurked at a nearby well. The legend goes that the lord was stung by the dragon’s poison tail during the skirmish, and died after making his way back to the castle. The supposed tomb of Lord Georg can still be visited in the church in the nearby village of Nieder Beerbach.

The forest near the castle is also home to a particularly eerie natural anomaly. Due to magnetic stone formations within the mountains, there are places near Frankenstein Castle where compasses cease to work properly. Legends say that witches used these areas for their sabbaths on Walpurgisnacht.

In 2008, the SyFy show Ghost Hunters International dedicated an entire episode to Frankenstein Castle. While there, the investigators met with a Frankenstein expert and claimed that the castle held “significant paranormal activity.” Sounds were recorded in the castle’s chapel and entrance tower, including a recording of what some believe was a voice speaking in Old German saying, “Arbo is here.”

Also, Hidden behind the herb garden of the castle, there is a fountain of youth. Legend has it that on the first full-moon after Walpurgis Night, old women from the nearby villages had to undergo tests of courage. The one who succeeded became rejuvenated to the age she had been on the night of her wedding. It is not known if this tradition is still being practiced these days.

Sounds like a fun place!

This next one isn't necessarily a haunted spot but we found the story and thought it was cool. It's about a "devil's bridge". One of the most famous Devil's bridges in the world is the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) in Regensburg, Germany. The legend behind the Stone Bridge is quite the amazing tale. The story involves a race between two builders, the mentor versus his protégé. The mentor was building a cathedral while his protégé was constructing a bridge—the two of them made a bet, and the bet was to see who could finish their structure first.

Eager to beat his mentor, the protégé made a deal with the Devil. In this pact, the Devil would receive the first three souls to cross the bridge. With the Devil's help the protégé won the bet. Filled with regret, the protégé guarded the bridge, refusing to let anyone cross. He was later visited by his mentor who was concerned by his behavior. The protégé broke down and confessed to his mentor of the deal he made with the Devil. The mentor came to the young man's aid, sending a rooster, a hen and a dog over the bridge. The Devil was so enraged that he was tricked by the cunning mentor, he attempted to destroy the bridge, but it was too strong to be ruined. However, the Devil's attempt did leave a bump in the middle of the bridge that is still there to this day.

Awesome story.

Next up we headed back to school… Wait no fuck that. We’ll just talk about a school haunted by… Well.. Nazis of course. Bitburg school is no ordinary school. It's an American school for children of service members. The school is also taught by military servicemen, which means that people who see ghosts here have military connections. Back before Bitburg became a United States military base, it was a Nazi military zone. In the interwar years, Bitburg, like most of the Eifel region, was impoverished and comparatively backward. Economic growth began after the Nazi Seizure of Power and the Nazi regime's introduction of employment-boosting public works projects, including infrastructure for war, particularly the Westwall; new armed forces barracks; and the development of the Kyll Valley railway. It is said that the building now used as the post office at Bitburg Annex (what is left of Bitburg Air Base) was the headquarters for Adolf Hitler when he was in the city.

In late December 1944, Bitburg was 85 percent destroyed by Allied bombing attacks, and later officially designated by the U.S. military as a "dead city." Subsequently, the town was occupied by Luxembourg soldiers, who were replaced by French forces in 1955.

As you can imagine… Some pretty fucked up things probably went on in the area which would most likely lead to some crazy hauntings. Most of them seem to be focused at the bitburg middle school. There are many reports from reputable military individuals about the strange goings on at the school. Many people have their lights flickering on and off throughout the school. It's apparently a pretty common occurrence. People also report that at night the sounds of people screaming at the top of their lungs can be heard. Are these the voices of people that were tortured or killed in the area? There are a few stories about people seeing shadows and apparitions as well.

Damn maybe we would have actually liked going to school if our school was like this!

Lastly for this episode we're gonna visit Osnabrück Hünenbetten. This place used to be a major pagan temple and gravesite. When Charlemagne set out on a tirade to convert the inhabitants of the region to Christianity, a bloody massacre took place here. Now massacres, as we all know, are not a pleasant thing and this one led to the deaths of many pagan priests. The troops destroyed the largest altar stone to prove the supremacy of the Christian God over paganism. So it's no surprise that there are some crazy tales that come from this place. Take for instance the stories of how people see bloodstains appear on the rocks at the site, especially on the winter and summer equinox. There are reports of poltergeist activity as well. It's also said that on quiet nights you can hear the screens of the people who were massacred. There's also reports of strange lights and orbs being seen at the site as well.

Okay, meine Freunde, das ist alles, was wir für diese Episode haben. wir hoffen, euch hat unsere Zugfahrt im gruseligen Deutschland gefallen.

For those of you who don't speak German, you'll never know what I've just said. And for those that do speak German, well you're probably laughing at the translation and ALSO still probably never know what we actually were saying. And in saying that, it's time for … DIE FILME!!!

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Hollow Earth Shenanigans

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 02:40:17 -0400

Hollow Earth Theory

Well hello there passengers, and welcome to yet another exciting day aboard the MidnightTrain. Today we delve deep into the mysterious, creepy, possibly conspiratorial world that is our own. What do I mean by that? Well we are digging our way to the center of truth! Today, we learn about Hollow Earth… and for the flat earthers out there… you’re gonna wanna hang out for a minute before you dip outta here… also fuck you.

(Cinematic trailer voice) In a World where there exists people who think the world is a flat piece of paper with trees growing out of it and a big guy who flips the piece of paper over to switch between day and night. One man wants to change that idea. His name… is Edmund Halley. Yes that Halley. The one known for the comet he discovered. But before we explore more about him and his findings, let's discuss what led us to this revolutionary hypothesis.

So besides idiots who believe the earth is flat, I mean stupid-endous personalities, there are other more interesting characters that believe the earth is completely hollow; or at least a large part of it. This is what we call the Hollow Earth Theory. Now where did this all come from? Well, nobody cares, Moody. That's the show folks!

Ok, ok, ok… fine. Since the early times many cultures, religions, and folklore believed that there was something below our feet. Whether it’s the lovely and tropical Christian Hell, the Jungle-esque Greek Underworld, the balmy Nordic Svartálfaheim, or the temperate Jewish Sheol; there is a name for one simple idea. These cultures believed it to be where we either come from or where we go when we die. This may hold some truth, or not. Guess we will know more when the time comes.

The idea of a subterranean realm is also mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist belief. According to one story from Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is an ancient city called Shamballa which is located inside the Earth.

According to the Ancient Greeks, there were caverns under the surface which were entrances leading to the underworld, some of which were the caverns at Tainaron in Lakonia, at Troezen in Argolis, at Ephya in Thesprotia, at Herakleia in Pontos, and in Ermioni. In Thracian and Dacian legends, it is said that there are caverns occupied by an ancient god called Zalmoxis. In Mesopotamian religion there is a story of a man who, after traveling through the darkness of a tunnel in the mountain of "Mashu", entered a subterranean garden. Sounds lovely.

In Celtic mythology there is a legend of a cave called "Cruachan", also known as "Ireland's gate to Hell", a mythical and ancient cave from which according to legend strange creatures would emerge and be seen on the surface of the Earth. They are said to be bald, taller than most with blue eyes and a big, bushy beard… fucking Moody. There are also stories of medieval knights and saints who went on pilgrimages to a cave located in Station Island, County Donegal in Ireland, where they made journeys inside the Earth into a place of purgatory. You guys know purgatory, that place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are shedding their sins before going to heaven. In County Down, Northern Ireland there is a myth which says tunnels lead to the land of the subterranean Tuatha Dé Danann, who are supposedly a group of people who are believed to have introduced Druidism to Ireland, and then they said fuck it and went back underground.

In Hindu mythology, the underworld is referred to as Patala. In the Bengali version of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it has been depicted how Rama and Lakshmana were taken by the king of the underworld Ahiravan, brother of the demon king Ravana. Later on they were rescued by Hanuman. Got all that?

The Angami Naga tribes of India claim that their ancestors emerged in ancient times from a subterranean land inside the Earth. The Taino from Cuba believe their ancestors emerged in ancient times from two caves in a mountain underground.

Natives of the Trobriand Islands believe that their ancestors had come from a subterranean land through a cavern hole called "Obukula". Mexican folklore also tells of a cave in a mountain five miles south of Ojinaga, and that Mexico is possessed by devilish creatures who came from inside the Earth. Maybe THAT’S where the Chupacabra came from!

In the middle ages, an ancient German myth held that some mountains located between Eisenach and Gotha hold a portal to the inner Earth. A Russian legend says the Samoyeds, an ancient Siberian tribe, traveled to a cavern city to live inside the Earth. Luckily, they had plenty of space rope to make it back out. The Italian writer Dante describes a hollow earth in his well-known 14th-century work Inferno, in which the fall of Lucifer from heaven caused an enormous funnel to appear in a previously solid and spherical earth, as well as an enormous mountain opposite it, "Purgatory". There’s that place, again.

In Native American mythology, they believed that the ancestors of the Mandan people in ancient times emerged from a subterranean land through a cave at the north side of the Missouri River. There is also a tale about a tunnel in the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona near Cedar Creek which is said to lead inside the Earth to a land inhabited by a mysterious tribe. It is also the belief of the tribes of the Iroquois that their ancient ancestors emerged from a subterranean world inside the Earth. The elders of the Hopi people believe that a Sipapu entrance in the Grand Canyon exists which leads to the underworld.

Brazilian Indians, who live alongside the Parima River in Brazil, claim that their forefathers emerged in ancient times from an underground land, and that many of their ancestors still remained inside the Earth. Ancestors of the Inca supposedly came from caves which are located east of Cuzco, Peru. So, this is something that has been floating around a shit ton of ancient mythos for a long ass time. Well, ya know… before that silly thing called SCIENCE. Moving on.

Now to circle back to our friend Edmund. He was born in 1656, in Haggerston in Middlesex (not to be confused with uppersex or its ill-informed cousin the powerbottomsex). He was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist; because what else was there to do in the 1600’s but be a know-it-all? He was known to work with Sir Isaac Newton among other notable (but not gonna note them here) proponents to science.

In 1692 he proffered the idea that the earth was indeed hollow and had a shell about 500 miles thick with two inner concentric (having a common center, as circles or spheres… hear that flat earthers??) shells and an inner core. He proposed that the atmospheres separated the shells and that they also had their own magnetic poles and that the shells moved at different speeds. This idea was used to elucidate(shed light upon… yes pun intended) anomalous(ih-nom-uh-luhs) compass readings. He conceptualized that the inner region had its own atmosphere and possibly luminous with plausible inhabitants. MOLE PEOPLE!! He also thought that escaping gases from the inner earth caused what is now known as the Northern Lights.

Now another early ambassador to this idea was Le Clerc Milfort. Jean-Antoine Le Clerc, or known by a simpler name, Louis Milfort. Monsieur Milfort was a higher ranking French military officer who offered his services during the late 1700’s. He is most notably known for leading Creek Indian warriors during the American Revolutionary War as allies of the British. I guess having a common enemy here would make sense as to why he chose this group to lead. He emigrated in 1775 to what was then known as the British Colonies of North America. But we all know there is nothing Bri’ish about us.

Now why would a higher ranking French military Officer want to emigrate from his home to a place of turmoil? Great question Moody! I knew you were paying attention. Well, a little about this French saboteur.

He was known by many aliases, but we will just stick with Louis (Louie) for all intents and purposes. Louis was born in Thin-le-Moutier, near Mezieres, France. He served in the French Military from 1764 to 1774. Now this is according to his memoir that was dated in 1802. He left France after he ended up killing a servant of the king’s household in a duel. Apparently, the king’s servant loved the king. So much so that when Louis read aloud a poem that he had written that included the king, the servant jumped up, tore off his glove and slapped Louis across the face not once, but 4 fucking times! This is obviously something that Louis could not just let happen, so he challenged the servant to a duel. Not just any duel, mind you. He challenged him to a duel of what was then known as a “mort de coupes de papier.” The servant died an excruciating death and Louis fled. Here is the poem that started the feud.

There’s a place in France

Where the naked ladies dance

There’s a hole in the wall

Where the men can see it all

But the men don’t care

Cause they lost their underwear

And the cops never shoot

Cause they think it’s kind of cute

There a place in France

Where the alligators dance

If you give them a glance

They could bite you in the pants

There’s a place on Mars

Where the ladies smoke cigars

Every puff she makes

Is enough to kill the snakes

When the snakes all die

They put diamonds in their eye

When the diamonds break

The dancing makes them ache

When the diamonds shine

They really look so fine

The king and the queen

Have a rubber ding-a-ling

All the girls in France

Have ants in their pants

Yes, this is 100% bullshit… but, you’ll have that shit stuck in your head for days.

Now as much as we tried to find ACTUAL information as to why there was duel and why it was with a servant of the king, we couldn't find much. But after digging up some more information on Louis we found out that he ended up going back to France to be a part of the Sacred Society of Sophisians.

This group is also known as the secret society of Napoleon's Sorcerers… This may have to be a bonus episode so stay tuned for more!

Now back to the “Core” of our episode. The Creek Indians who are originally from the Muscogee [məskóɡəlɡi](Thank wikipedia) area which is southeast united states which roughly translates to the areas around Tennessee, Alabama, western Georgia and Northern Florida. Louis adapted their customs and assimilated into their Tribe. He even married the sister of the Chief.

Now after Louis and the rest of the people in the American Revolutionary War lost to the U.S. he decided to lead the Creek Tribe on an expedition in 1781 because, well, they had nothing else to do. On this expedition they were searching for caverns where allegedly the Creek Indians ancestors had emerged from. Maybe even the Origin of Bigfoot.

Yes, the Creek Indians had believed that their ancestors lived below the earth and lived in caverns along the Red River junction of the Mississippi River. Now during the expedition they did come across these caverns which they suspected could hold 20,000 of their family in. That's pretty much all they found. They didn't have video cameras back then otherwise, I'm pretty sure they would have found footage of bigfoot though.

Another advocate was Leonhard Euler, yes, you heard right. Buehler… Buehler… No Leonard Euler. A great 18th century mathematician; or not so great if you didn't enjoy math in school unlike moody who was the biggest nerd when it came to math.

Euler founded the study of graph theory and topology. No moody, not on-top-ology. Mind always in the gutter. Euler influenced many other discoveries such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and the coolest subject ever; Infinitesimal Calculus. Which is Latin for BULLSHIT.

But anyways I digress. This guy knew his stuff BUT he did think with all his “infinite” wisdom that the earth was in fact hollow and had no inner shells but instead had a six hundred mile diameter sun in the center. The most intriguing and plausible theory he had within this whole idea was that you could enter into this interior from the northern and southern poles. Let’s hold to that cool hypothesis for right now and move along with our next Interesting goon of the hollow earth community.

With Halley’s spheres and Eulers’s Holes came another great man with another great theory. Captain John Symmes! Yes you know Captain Symmes. HE was a hero in the war of 1812 after being sent with his Regiment to Canada and providing relief to American forces at the battle of Lundy’s Lane. He was well known as a trader and lecturer after he left the army.

In 1818 Symmes announced his theory on Hollow Earth to the World! With his publication of his Circular No. 1.

“I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.”— John Cleves Symmes Jr., Symmes' Circular No. 1

While there were few people who would consider Symmes as the “Newton of the West”, most of the world was less than impressed. Although his theory wasn't as popular as one would expect, you gotta admire the confidence he had.

Symmes sent this declaration at a rather hefty cost to himself to “each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go.”15]

Symmes would then be followed by an exorbitant amount of ridicule for his proclamation, as many intellectuals were back then. This ridicule would later influence a rather bold move, Cotton. We’ll touch on this later.

What was so special about his theory that got 98% of the world not on the edge of their seats? Well, to start he believed the Earth had five concentric spheres with where we live to be the largest of the spheres. He also believed that the crust was 1000 miles thick with an arctic opening about 4000 miles wide and an antarctic opening around 6000 miles wide.

He argued that because of the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation that the poles would be flattened which would cause such a gradual gradation that you would travel into the Hollow Earth without even knowing you even did it.

Eventually he refined his theory because of such ridicule and criticism. Now his theory consists of just a single hollow sphere instead of five concentric spheres. So, now that we know all about symmes and his theory, why don't we talk about what he decided to do with his theory?

What do you think, Moody? You think he created a cult so he could be ostracized? Or do you think he gave up and realized he was silly? Hate to be the bearer of bad news here but he decided to take his theory and convince the U.S. congress to fund and organize an expedition to the south pole to enter the inner earth.

Good news and bad news folks. Good news, congress back then actually had some people with heads on their shoulders as opposed to those today and they said fuck that noise and denied funding for his expedition. Hamilton, Ohio even has a monument to him and his ideas. Fuckin’ Ohio.

Next up on our list of “what the fuck were they thinking?” We have Jeremiah Reynolds. He also delivered lectures on the "Hollow Earth" and argued for an expedition. I guess back in those days people just up and went to the far reaches of the earth just to prove a point. Reynolds said “look what I can do” and went on an expedition to Antarctica himself but missed joining the Great U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, even though that venture was a result of his craziness, I MEAN “INTEREST”.

He gained support from marine and scientific societies and, in 1828, successfully lobbied the House of Representatives to pass a resolution asking then-President John Quincy Adams to deploy a research vessel to the Pacific.

The president, for his part, had first mentioned Reynolds in his November 4, 1826, diary entry, writing:

“Mr Reynolds is a man who has been lecturing about the Country, in support of Captain John Cleves Symmes’s theory that the Earth is a hollow Sphere, open at the Poles— His Lectures are said to have been well attended, and much approved as exhibitions of genius and of Science— But the Theory itself has been so much ridiculed, and is in truth so visionary, that Reynolds has now varied his purpose to the proposition of fitting out a voyage of circumnavigation to the Southern Ocean— He has obtained numerous signatures in Baltimore to a Memorial to Congress for this object, which he says will otherwise be very powerfully supported— It will however have no support in Congress. That day will come, but not yet nor in my time. May it be my fortune, and my praise to accelerate its approach.”

Adams’ words proved prophetic. Though his administration opted to fund Reynolds’ expedition, the voyage was waylaid by the 1828 presidential election, which found Adams roundly defeated by Andrew Jackson. The newly elected president canceled the expedition, leaving Reynolds to fund his trip through other sources. (The privately supported venture set sail in 1829 but ended in disaster, with the crew mutinying and leaving Reynolds’ ass on shore.) Per Boston 1775, the U.S. Exploring Expedition only received the green light under the country’s eighth president, Martin Van Buren.

As Howard Dorre explains on his Plodding Through the Presidents blog, multiple media outlets (including Smithsonian, in an earlier version of this article) erroneously interpreted Adams’ description of Reynolds’ ideas as “visionary” as a sign of his support for the hollow earth theory. In fact, notes Bell in a separate Boston 1775 blog post, the term’s connotations at the time were largely negative. In the words of 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson, a visionary was “one whose imagination is disturbed.”

The president, adds Dorre, only agreed to support the polar expedition “after Reynolds abandoned the hollow earth idea.” I had always heard that he was a believer in mole people and hollow earth, turns out his words were just misinterpreted. Hmm… I wonder if there are any other books out there where the overall ideas and verbage could and have been misinterpreted causing insane amounts of disingenuous beliefs? Nah!

Though Symmes himself never wrote a book about his ideas, several authors published works discussing his ideas. McBride wrote Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1826. It appears that Reynolds has an article that appeared as a separate booklet in 1827: Remarks of Symmes' Theory Which Appeared in the American Quarterly Review. In 1868, a professor W.F. Lyons published The Hollow Globe which put forth a Symmes-like Hollow Earth hypothesis, but failed to mention Symmes himself. Because fuck that guy, right? Symmes's son Americus then published The Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1878 to set the record straight. I think the duel would have been a better idea.

Sir John Leslie proposed a hollow Earth in his 1829 Elements of Natural Philosophy (pp. 449–53).

In 1864, in Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne described a hollow Earth containing two rotating binary stars, named Pluto and Proserpine. Ok… fiction. We get it.

William Fairfield Warren, in his book Paradise Found–The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole, (1885) presented his belief that humanity originated on a continent in the Arctic called Hyperborea. This influenced some early Hollow Earth proponents. According to Marshall Gardner, both the Eskimo and Mongolian peoples had come from the interior of the Earth through an entrance at the North Pole. I wonder if they knew that.

NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages, first serialized in a newspaper printed in Topeka, Kansas in 1900 and considered an early feminist utopian novel, mentions John Cleves Symmes' theory to explain its setting in a hollow Earth.

An early 20th-century proponent of hollow Earth, William Reed, wrote Phantom of the Poles in 1906. He supported the idea of a hollow Earth, but without interior shells or inner sun. Ok, no sun. Got it.

The spiritualist writer Walburga, Lady Paget in her book Colloquies with an unseen friend (1907) was an early writer to mention the hollow Earth hypothesis. She claimed that cities exist beneath a desert, which is where the people of Atlantis moved. Mmmk. Deserts and Atlantis. Check. She said an entrance to the subterranean kingdom will be discovered in the 21st century. Pretty broad brush she’s painting with there.

Next up we're gonna talk a little about Admiral Richard E. Byrd. According to Hollow Earth theorists, Byrd met an ancient race underground in the South Pole. According to Byrd’s “diary,” the government ordered Byrd to remain silent for what he witnessed during his Arctic assignment:

March 11, 1947

“I have just attended a Staff Meeting at the Pentagon. I have stated fully my discovery and the message from the Master. All is duly recorded. The President has been advised. I am now detained for several hours (six hours, thirty- nine minutes, to be exact.) I am interviewed intently by Top Security Forces and a Medical Team. It was an ordeal!!!! I am placed under strict control via the National Security provisions of this United States of America. I am ORDERED TO REMAIN SILENT IN REGARD TO ALL THAT I HAVE LEARNED, ON THE BEHALF OF HUMANITY!!! Incredible! I am reminded that I am a Military Man and I must obey orders.”

After many polar accomplishments, Byrd organized Operation Highjump in 1947. The objective: construct an American training and research facility in the South Pole. Highjump was a significant illustration of the state of the world and the cold war thinking at the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exercise there in the summer of 1946 and felt it needed to do more. The northern winter was coming, and Highjump was a quickly planned exercise to move the whole thing to the South Pole. Politically, the orders were that the Navy should do all it could to establish a basis for a [land] claim in Antarctica. That was classified at the time.Now Operation High jump could probably be its own episode, or is at minimum a bonus. But we'll get some of the important details on how it pertains to this episode. Some say the American government sent their troops to the South Pole for any evidence of the rumored German Base 211.

Nazis were fascinated with anything regarding the Aryan race. They traveled all over the world including Antarctica to learn more of alleged origins.

The Germans did make their mark in the South Pole. However, what they have discovered doesn’t compared to what Byrd recorded in his diary. the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exerci but was that all it was

“For thousands of years, people all over the world have written legends about Agartha (sometimes called Agarta or Agarthi), the underground city. Agartha (sometimes Agartta, Agharti, Agarath, Agarta or Agarttha) is a legendary kingdom that is said to be located in the Earth's core. Agartha is frequently associated or confused with Shambhala which figures prominently in Vajrayana Buddhism and Tibetan Kalachakra teachings and revived in the West by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. Theosophists in particular regard Agarthi as a vast complex of caves underneath Tibet inhabited by demi-gods, called asuras. Helena and Nicholas Roerich, whose teachings closely parallel theosophy, see Shambhala's existence as both spiritual and physical. Did Byrd find it?

He claims to have met “The Master,” the city’s leader, who told him of his concerns about the surface world:

“Our interest rightly begins just after your Race exploded the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It was that alarming time we sent our flying machines, the ‘Flugelrads’ to your surface world to investigate what your Race had done…You see, we have never interfered before in your Race’s wars and barbarity. But now we must, for you have learned to tamper with a certain power that is not for your Man, mainly that of atomic energy. Our emissaries have already delivered messages to the power of your World, and yet they do not heed.”

Apparently, the government knew about Agartha before Byrd.

Marshall Gardner wrote A Journey to the Earth's Interior in 1913 and published an expanded edition in 1920. He placed an interior sun in the Earth (ah ha! The Sun’s back!) and built a working model of the Hollow Earth which he actually fucking patented (U.S. Patent 1,096,102). Gardner made no mention of Reed, but did criticize Symmes for his ideas. DUEL TIME! Around the same time, Vladimir Obruchev wrote a novel titled Plutonia, in which the Hollow Earth possessed an inner Sun and was inhabited by prehistoric species. The interior was connected with the surface by an opening in the Arctic.

The explorer Ferdynand Ossendowski wrote a book in 1922 titled Beasts, Men and Gods. Ossendowski said he was told about a subterranean kingdom that exists inside the Earth. It was known to Buddhists as Agharti.

George Papashvily in his Anything Can Happen (1940) claimed the discovery in the Caucasus mountains of a cavern containing human skeletons "with heads as big as bushel baskets" and an ancient tunnel leading to the center of the Earth. One man entered the tunnel and never returned. This dude was a sniper with the Imperial Russian Army during World War I

Moody is going to love these next examples.

Novelist Lobsang Rampa in his book The Cave of the Ancients said an underground chamber system exists beneath the Himalayas of Tibet, filled with ancient machinery, records and treasure. Michael Grumley, a cryptozoologist, has linked Bigfoot and other hominid cryptids to ancient tunnel systems underground.

According to the ancient astronaut writer Peter Kolosimo a robot was seen entering a tunnel below a monastery in Mongolia. Kolosimo also claimed a light was seen from underground in Azerbaijan. Kolosimo and other ancient astronaut writers such as Robert Charroux linked these activities to DUN DUN DUNNNN….UFOs.

A book by a "Dr. Raymond Bernard" which appeared in 1964, The Hollow Earth, exemplifies the idea of UFOs coming from inside the Earth, and adds the idea that the Ring Nebula proves the existence of hollow worlds, as well as speculation on the fate of Atlantis and the origin of flying saucers. An article by Martin Gardner revealed that Walter Siegmeister used the pseudonym "Bernard", but not until the 1989 publishing of Walter Kafton-Minkel's Subterranean Worlds: 100,000 Years of Dragons, Dwarfs, the Dead, Lost Races & UFOs from Inside the Earth did the full story of Bernard/Siegmeister become well-known. Holy fucking book title, Batman!

The science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories promoted one such idea from 1945 to 1949 as "The Shaver Mystery". The magazine's editor, Ray Palmer, ran a series of stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver, claiming that a superior pre-historic race had built a honeycomb of caves in the Earth, and that their degenerate descendants, known as "Dero", live there TO THIS DAY, using the fantastic machines abandoned by the ancient races to torment those of us living on the surface. As one characteristic of this torment, Shaver described "voices" that purportedly came from no explainable source. Thousands of readers wrote to affirm that they, too, had heard the fiendish voices from inside the Earth. The writer David Hatcher Childress authored Lost Continents and the Hollow Earth(1998) in which he reprinted the stories of Palmer and defended the Hollow Earth idea based on alleged (cough… “alleged”) tunnel systems beneath South America and Central Asia.

Hollow Earth proponents have claimed a number of different locations for the entrances which lead inside the Earth. Other than the North and South poles, entrances in locations which have been cited include: Paris in France, Staffordshire in England, Montreal in Canada, Hangchow in China, and The Amazon Rain Forest.

Ok, have you two gents heard of the Concave Hollow Earth Theory?

It doesn’t matter, we’re still going to talk about this lunacy.

Instead of saying that humans live on the outside surface of a hollow planet—sometimes called a "convex" Hollow Earth hypothesis—some whackamuffins have claimed humans live on the inside surface of a hollow spherical world, so that our universe itself lies in that world's interior. This has been called the "concave" Hollow Earth hypothesis or skycentrism.

Cyrus Teed, a doctor from upstate New York, proposed such a concave Hollow Earth in 1869, calling his scheme "Cellular Cosmogony". He might as well have called it Goobery Kabooblenuts. See, I can make up words, too. Anyway, Teed founded a group called the Koreshan Unity based on this notion, which he called Koreshanity. Which sounds like insanity and would make far more sense. The main colony survives as a preserved Florida state historic site, at Estero, Florida, but all of Teed's followers have now died. Probably from eating Tide Pods. Teed's followers claimed to have experimentally verified the concavity of the Earth's curvature, through surveys of the Florida coastline making use of "rectilineator" equipment. Which sounds like something you use to clean out your colon.

Several 20th-century German writers, including Peter Bender, Johannes Lang, Karl Neupert, and Fritz Braut, published works advocating the Hollow Earth hypothesis, or Hohlweltlehre. It has even been reported, although apparently without historical documentation, that Adolf Hitler was influenced by concave Hollow Earth ideas and sent an expedition in an unsuccessful attempt to spy on the British fleet by pointing infrared cameras up at the sky. Oh boy.

The Egyptian mathematician Mostafa “Admiral Akbar” Abdelkader wrote several scholarly papers working out a detailed mapping of the Concave Earth model

In one chapter of his book On the Wild Side (1992), Martin Gardner discusses the Hollow Earth model articulated by Abdelkader. According to Gardner, this hypothesis posits that light rays travel in circular paths, and slow as they approach the center of the spherical star-filled cavern. No energy can reach the center of the cavern, which corresponds to no point a finite distance away from Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. A drill, Gardner says, would lengthen as it traveled away from the cavern and eventually pass through the "point at infinity" corresponding to the center of the Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. Supposedly no experiment can distinguish between the two cosmologies. Christ, my head hurts.

Gardner notes that "most mathematicians believe that an inside-out universe, with properly adjusted physical laws, is empirically irrefutable". Gardner rejects the concave Hollow Earth hypothesis on the basis of Occam's razor. Occam’s razor is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one."

Purportedly verifiable hypotheses of a Concave Hollow Earth need to be distinguished from a thought experiment which defines a coordinate transformation such that the interior of the Earth becomes "exterior" and the exterior becomes "interior". (For example, in spherical coordinates, let radius r go to R2/r where R is the Earth's radius; see inversive geometry.) The transformation entails corresponding changes to the forms of physical laws. This is not a hypothesis but an illustration of the fact that any description of the physical world can be equivalently expressed in more than one way.

Contrary evidence

Seismic

The picture of the structure of the Earth that has been arrived at through the study of seismic waves[52] is quite different from a fully hollow Earth. The time it takes for seismic waves to travel through and around the Earth directly contradicts a fully hollow sphere. The evidence indicates the Earth is mostly filled with solid rock (mantle and crust), liquid nickel-iron alloy (outer core), and solid nickel-iron (inner core).[53]

Gravity

Main articles: Schiehallion experiment and Cavendish experiment

Another set of scientific arguments against a Hollow Earth or any hollow planet comes from gravity. Massive objects tend to clump together gravitationally, creating non-hollow spherical objects such as stars and planets. The solid spheroid is the best way in which to minimize the gravitational potential energy of a rotating physical object; having hollowness is unfavorable in the energetic sense. In addition, ordinary matter is not strong enough to support a hollow shape of planetary size against the force of gravity; a planet-sized hollow shell with the known, observed thickness of the Earth's crust would not be able to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium with its own mass and would collapse.

Based upon the size of the Earth and the force of gravity on its surface, the average density of the planet Earth is 5.515 g/cm3, and typical densities of surface rocks are only half that (about 2.75 g/cm3). If any significant portion of the Earth were hollow, the average density would be much lower than that of surface rocks. The only way for Earth to have the force of gravity that it does is for much more dense material to make up a large part of the interior. Nickel-iron alloy under the conditions expected in a non-hollow Earth would have densities ranging from about 10 to 13 g/cm3, which brings the average density of Earth to its observed value.

Direct observation

Drilling holes does not provide direct evidence against the hypothesis. The deepest hole drilled to date is the Kola Superdeep Borehole,[54] with a true vertical drill-depth of more than 7.5 miles (12 kilometers). However, the distance to the center of the Earth is nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers). Oil wells with longer depths are not vertical wells; the total depths quoted are measured depth (MD) or equivalently, along-hole depth (AHD) as these wells are deviated to horizontal. Their true vertical depth (TVD) is typically less than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

Ok, then let’s discuss what actual scientists, like ALL OF THEM, believe the earth is actually composed of.

The inner core

This solid metal ball has a radius of 1,220 kilometers (758 miles), or about three-quarters that of the moon. It’s located some 6,400 to 5,180 kilometers (4,000 to 3,220 miles) beneath Earth’s surface. Extremely dense, it’s made mostly of iron and nickel. The inner core spins a bit faster than the rest of the planet. It’s also intensely hot: Temperatures sizzle at 5,400° Celsius (9,800° Fahrenheit). That’s almost as hot as the surface of the sun. Pressures here are immense: well over 3 million times greater than on Earth’s surface. Some research suggests there may also be an inner, inner core. It would likely consist almost entirely of iron.

The outer core

This part of the core is also made from iron and nickel, just in liquid form. It sits some 5,180 to 2,880 kilometers (3,220 to 1,790 miles) below the surface. Heated largely by the radioactive decay of the elements uranium and thorium, this liquid churns in huge, turbulent currents. That motion generates electrical currents. They, in turn, generate Earth’s magnetic field. For reasons somehow related to the outer core, Earth’s magnetic field reverses about every 200,000 to 300,000 years. Scientists are still working to understand how that happens.

The mantle

At close to 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) thick, this is Earth’s thickest layer. It starts a mere 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) beneath the surface. Made mostly of iron, magnesium and silicon, it is dense, hot and semi-solid (think caramel candy). Like the layer below it, this one also circulates. It just does so far more slowly.

Near its upper edges, somewhere between about 100 and 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles) underground, the mantle’s temperature reaches the melting point of rock. Indeed, it forms a layer of partially melted rock known as the asthenosphere (As-THEEN-oh-sfeer). Geologists believe this weak, hot, slippery part of the mantle is what Earth’s tectonic plates ride upon and slide across.

Diamonds are tiny pieces of the mantle we can actually touch. Most form at depths above 200 kilometers (124 miles). But rare “super-deep” diamonds may have formed as far down as 700 kilometers (435 miles) below the surface. These crystals are then brought to the surface in volcanic rock known as kimberlite.

The mantle’s outermost zone is relatively cool and rigid. It behaves more like the crust above it. Together, this uppermost part of the mantle layer and the crust are known as the lithosphere.

The crust

Earth’s crust is like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. It is extremely thin, cold and brittle compared to what lies below it. The crust is made of relatively light elements, especially silica, aluminum and oxygen. It’s also highly variable in its thickness. Under the oceans (and Hawaiian Islands), it may be as little as 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) thick. Beneath the continents, the crust may be 30 to 70 kilometers (18.6 to 43.5 miles) thick.

Along with the upper zone of the mantle, the crust is broken into big pieces, like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. These are known as tectonic plates. These move slowly — at just 3 to 5 centimeters (1.2 to 2 inches) per year. What drives the motion of tectonic plates is still not fully understood. It may be related to heat-driven convection currents in the mantle below. Some scientists think it’s caused by the tug from slabs of crust of different densities, something called “slab pull.” In time, these plates will converge, pull apart or slide past each other. Those actions cause most earthquakes and volcanoes. It’s a slow ride, but it makes for exciting times right here on Earth’s surface.

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The Charley Project

Haunted Phone Calls & Evil Phone Numbers

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 22:11:56 -0400

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The Charley Project

https://screenrant.com/most-underrated-phone-horror-suspense-movies-when-stranger-calls-back-caller-dont-hang-up/

Tonight we're going to discuss phone calls. Yay… Phone calls. Att, T-Mobile, Boost, Sprint, you know all the big ones. Oh wait… That's the bonus episode. We're actually talking about creepy phone calls, ranging from the seemingly paranormal to the downright strange. Are some phone numbers cursed? Should we call some from Logan’s phone right here on the show? Can dead people make phone calls to the living? Would you want dead people to call you? Why didn't anyone call Logan? Seriously, we'll give you his number… He's a sad lonely man. Not a ton of history or set up today, this is mostly going to be a storytelling episode to make everyone scared to answer their phones, and seriously we're gonna call at least one cursed number today live right here. Well anyway let's get into this hullabaloo.

The extraordinary claimed phenomenon of telephone calls from the dead, one of a variety of new forms of contact with the dead using modern technology, was raised by parapsychologists D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless in their 1979 book Phone Calls From the Dead. Their research had been stimulated by a report in the September 1976 Fate Magazine from Don B. Owens of Toledo, Ohio, oh boy, Toledo… yay… concerning his close friend Lee Epps. They had lived in the same neighborhood for years before Lee moved away and their contact became limited to occasional meetings or telephone calls. On October 26, 1968 at 10:30 P.M. , Don's wife Ethel answered a telephone call and immediately recognized the voice as that of Lee. He said: "Sis, tell Don I'm feeling real bad. Never felt this way before. Tell him to get in touch with me the minute he comes in. It's important, Sis." Ethel tried to ring him back but got no answer; neither did Don when he came in. That evening Don learned that Lee was in a coma in hospital, six blocks from their home and died at 10:30 P.M. It would have been impossible for Lee to have made the call himself in his condition, yet Ethel had immediately recognized his voice. Rogo and Bayless were sufficiently intrigued to follow up the phenomenon of "phone calls from the dead." After collecting a few cases, they wrote an article in the October 1977 issue of Fate Magazine titled "Phone Calls from the Dead?" More cases came to hand and led to a two-year investigation of the claimed phenomenon. It proved oddly difficult to establish in a manner acceptable to the present standards of psychical research, since the accounts dealt with spontaneous events, usually without the opportunity of rigid factual verification. Moreover, it was difficult to rule out coincidental hoaxes. Rogo and Bayless concluded, however, that such paranormal phone calls actually did occur and might even be more common than initially thought. Is there an actual PK manipulation of the telephone apparatus, or are the ringing tone and the voices actually in the subject's mind? Many individuals have experienced the hallucination of "phantom bells'' when they think they hear a doorbell or a telephone ringing but find no one there. In some of the cases examined by Rogo and Bayless, it seemed that the call was placed in a normal way through an exchange that caused the phone to ring. In other cases the phone calls appeared to be placed through long-distance operators. Some subjects reported hearing the familiar "click" at the end of the call as the communicator apparently hung up. Rogo and Bayless suggested PK-mediated electromagnetic effects and discussed the possible relevance to the related phenomenon of Raudive voices or electronic voice phenomenon. E.V.P.! Let’s get Stanz, Venkman, Zeddmore and Spengler on this bitch! (Shame on you if you don’t get that reference. Reevaluate your life decisions)

Anyhoo, This investigation was one of the earliest accounts of people actually looking into the phenomena of paranormal phone calls.

As technology has advanced so have the amount of stories of haunted phones and cursed phone numbers. With the advent and popularity of cell phones, it's inevitable that people will get phone numbers that others have once used. Ya know, like dead people ! We bet you’ve never thought about that until now! You’re welcome! And God forbid anyone get Moody's phone number… The amount of student loan refinancing and auto warranty calls they get will probably drive them insane. So what happens when you get a haunted phone or cursed phone number? Well let's check out some stories.

This first story comes from somebody with the screen name Sza1 from a thread about this very topic. Here we go:

"About 8 years ago, I was working for a company that set up our office like a trading floor with lots of open space. The group I worked in sat together in one area, and our director had a desk on the floor with us. He also had a separate office, but most of the time, he sat with us and had his phone set up to ring in our area.

One day, our director was in a meeting. My group (there were five of us) was working, and we were all fairly occupied. A call came to our director’s line. It rang a few times and bounced over to us. They guy I sat next to answered the phone. It was clear that it was not a call related to our work, and my colleague kept asking the person on the other end to speak up. He wrote something down, and the call ended quickly thereafter. My colleague remarked that the person on the other end either got cut off, or hung up abruptly.

Fifteen minutes later, or so, my director came back from his meeting. He asked if anything came up, and my neighbor told him that he received a call from a woman named Pam. He went on to say that she called him to say hello and that she missed him. My director said “Pam?” And my coworker said yes, that was the name she gave. He then said that she sounded like she was calling from the bottom of the ocean, and once she gave the message, she was abruptly disconnected, or hung up on him.

The boss’ face turned gray. He told us that he only knew of one Pam. She was a friend of his and his wife who lived several states away, and she had just died of cancer the week before."

Ok so that's definitely strange. Was it a phone call from a dead friend? Was it somebody playing a fucked up joke on this guy? I can't imagine getting that message though.

This next one comes from another forum thread from a person called screenwriter70.

"After my aunt passed away from bone cancer, and her daughter had the land-line disconnected, my mother started receiving phone calls from that number. (They called each other daily, sometimes 2-3 times a day.) My mom was afraid to answer them at first as she knew the number was no longer in service - and she feared her sister was 'calling her to the grave' to join her. She called back twice, and got the "this number has been disconnected" recording. Once, she actually answered the call yet all she heard was static on the other end. This went on till my mother, afraid, got rid of that mobile phone and number. Then an old family friend started getting the calls. I Googled the phenomenon and even asked a local psychic with a paranormal team about it. She told me that my aunt only wanted my mom to know that she's okay where she is now. Has anyone else ever experienced this?"

Well we haven't experienced this yet. What about you guys? This could be a glitch in the phone system maybe, or maybe not!!!

This next one is pretty creepy and comes from a user named BOS2IAD. He told a story he heard from his dad.

"My dad once told me that his phone rang one day and when he picked it up, it was my aunt (mother's sister) on the other end. The thing is that my aunt died almost 3 years ago. He said my aunt told him that my mother had something to say to him. My mother had long since died. After my aunt said that to him, he heard 2 people in the background talking. To him it sounded like my aunt was trying to convince my mother to talk to him. Then the line went dead."

Ok so this guy gets a 2fer. His deceased sister and his deceased wife are supposedly trying to contact him. Honestly it's kind of sad if his wife didn't want to talk to him given the chance. But who knows!

Ok so this next story involves a haunted house, demons on the phone and some straight up evil shit.

"My home sits on what use to be a graveyard. There was an evil entity here one time and my brother challenged it one time when he was visiting. After my brother went into my laundry room and cursed it out basically challenging it he went home to WV where he lived. My brother always calls me when he gets home from the long drive so when he called to tell me he made it home this happened:

The phone rang and I picked it up saying hello. My brother came on and said hello back then , we were both blocked couldn't hear each other on the receiver and an evil voice came on over both our phones saying DON'T you Fucking call here and all kinds of screams were in the back ground. I hung up and my brother did also. I then called my brother back and said did you hear that and my brother asked me if I heard it to. We both know what we heard. Then months later I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. As I walked back into my bedroom I heard 3 loud bang knocks on my bedroom wall. I was scared so I looked it up. 3 knocks or bangs on your door or wall means either you're gonna die or 3 people you know are gonna die. The same night at my daughters home, she and my grandson were in bed and something knocked 3 times loudly on her bed and the whole bed shook. A few months later my uncle died then my father died and my brother died. My heart was broken.The evil did its work and is still doing it today .So many things have happened but I know the Lord Jesus is on my side ."

Wow… That's pretty fucking crazy right there. A haunting that involved a really messed up phone message. Then the knocking, then the deaths, man I'd never use the phone again, oh and I'd move the fuck out of that house.

So this next one isn't from a dead person, but from the story tellers past self!!

"I received a phone call from my past self

I have never posted on here but recently read a story about a phone call that reminded me of something that once happened to myself.

I grew up in a rural village with most of my close friends living close by. We would call on each other and play outside together a lot, as most children do. One day, I was around eleven years old at the time, the phone rang and, assuming it was a friend, I ran downstairs to answer it. I answer and say “hello”, the voice on the other end says “hello” back. It’s a young girl. I ask who it is as it doesn’t sound like any of my friends. And, without answering my question, she asks “do you want to come out and play?”. Before I can answer she continues talking. I begin to realise she isn’t having a conversation with me. At the same time I realise the girl is me. The conversation is one I had with my friend months earlier, but only my half of it.

I know sometimes wires can get crossed and you can hear other people’s conversations, especially in rural areas. Though it was me speaking, not someone else, and I know it was my friend I was speaking to as I referred to her in the conversation. After it ended the line went dead and I sat there mystified. To this day I cannot come up with an explanation for this and every time I think about it a chill runs down my spine.

Additional information: Not sure if this is relevant but we had recently moved to a new house (within a year) and I can’t be sure if the original phone call was made in our old house or the new one."

Well that's a new one! Could it have been some kind of weird phone glitch somehow playing back the conversation! Or was it something more?

This next one is creepy but also pretty heartwarming in a way.

"My ex’s mom passed away & sent us a message on my phone

This is my first post, so bear with me, but after reading many other glitch stories, I wanted to share mine here.

In early December 2015, my now ex-boyfriend’s mother passed away in the home following surgery and other health problems related to her heart (she was born with a rare condition). Unfortunately she went into cardiac arrest and we were unable to save her, so the event in and of itself was extremely traumatic and unexpected.

A couple of nights later, we decided to go see some friends who wanted to offer their condolences to my ex; everyone loved his mom. We were all sitting in our friends’ living room watching tv and, to be honest, they were really trying to distract us from everything.

One friend was just being her goofy self and I was taking Snapchat videos and I DISTINCTLY remember taking a video of (let’s call her) Amy... I saved the video, but when I looked at my screen to watch it, it was not Amy.... it was a grainy video with a background that appeared to be outside and 100000% not in a living room, but on the screen was my ex’s mom...

She said the words, “I’m okay baby. I’m okay” and multiple other friends saw it on my phone before it disappeared. She looked young and vibrant and has a huge smile on her face. Someone had tossed my phone to another friend across the couch to see and the video then disappeared. When we watched the original video back immediately after, my ex’s mom was gone. It was Amy in the video again just like I saw it while recording it in the first place.

My ex and his mom had a very close relationship, best friends really, so when we saw her on my screen letting him know she was okay... it was astounding.

I saw it first and everyone noticed i was visibly upset. I cannot imagine what went through my ex’s mind and heart when he saw that, but to this day, it’s something we talk about and something he shares with new friends... something we simply cannot explain other than her coming thru in a glitch to let us know she was okay."

So I mean ya definitely creepy but also being able to see your mother young and healthy and happy one last time, while at first incredibly jarring, must have felt pretty good after the fact.

Ok a couple more then we're moving on to cursed phone numbers!

This next one is pretty quick. It's another user whose dad experienced something crazy. Now for us, coming from your dad, you would tend to believe something like this could have happened. Most of us don't expect something like this from our fathers, except maybe Moody's kids, those poor poor children. Anyways:

"My mom died 13 years ago. About four years ago my dad was on vacation in Arizona with his girlfriend. He said he was up watching tv and the hotel phone rang. He answered it and said it was my moms voice saying “I’m ok” he said he said “Cass?” And he said the phone was crackly and said tell HEATHER (me) I am ok” he said his girlfriend was confused why the phone ring. He immediately called me even though it was late and he was crying. My dad doesn’t believe in the supernatural but still to this day can’t explain that call."

Fuck man, that's gotta be a tough thing to hear on the other end of the phone. Again, it's a reassuring message but where is it freaking coming from!

Ok one last ghost call we found. This is from a girl who said this happened when she was a teenager. At least a weird traumatic event didn't happen in her formative years...yea….

"I Had a phone conversation with someone who had died two weeks previously.

When I was a teenager, my mum lived in a house with a big garden. We had a huge cherry tree, and my mum decided she should get a tree surgeon in to look at cutting it back. The guy came to have a look and said he would get back to her with a quote and they could make an appointment. It has to be mentioned at this point that the man had a very distinctive German accent.

About three weeks later, I was home alone making dinner while my mum was at work, and the phone rang. I answered it, and it was the German tree surgeon. He asked me if my mum was in, and I said she wasn't and asked if I could pass along a message. He said I should tell her that he had called to follow up on cutting the cherry tree and ask her to phone him back. And that was the end of the conversation.

When my mum got home I told her that he had called, and she looked at me very strangely and asked if I was sure. I was quite confused and said I was. He had identified himself on the phone, and he had a very distinctive accent. My mum was silent for a moment, and then she told me that he had died of a heart attack a few days after his visit to our house."

Wonder if it was the moustache!!! So there you go, some phone calls from ghosts! There's some pretty crazy stories out there if you wanna look.

So what causes these calls? Could it be the dead using the electromagnetic energy to manipulate electronics? If you're up on your ghost hunting you know that many people use different electronic devices to try and detect spirits. So why couldn't the spirits manipulate telephones? Some of the stories we came across definitely reeked of pranks or straight out storytelling. But hey if a couple are true… Then who knows!

Ok now to the part of the show where we convince one of us other dickheads to call a supposedly cursed phone number or two. First we'll look at a list of supposedly cursed numbers and why people feel they are cursed… Then we'll fucking call a couple! Well...Logan will.

The first one seems obvious enough. 666-666-6666...I mean… Right? Seems self explanatory. But you know here we go. For years, people all over the world have been receiving creepy messages from the phone numbers 666-666-6666 or 1-666

666-6666. Some people believe these phone calls come from the devil. In many cases, the calls do not show up on the phone bill. Now it's story time:

"We were in a car going home one night when our friend received a call on his cell phone from (666) 666-6666. He never picked up the phone and we even joked about how the devil was calling him from hell. Several minutes later he received a voicemail. Now this was the oddest voicemail I have ever heard. It sounded like a hollow voice and there was a lot of static in the background. We were only able to determine a couple of words, but it scared the shit out of us. And for some reason the message was erased several hours later, and there was no sign of it on his bill."

To quote the amazing movie the Burbs: I want to kill everyone. Satan is good. Satan is our pal.

But anyhoo we digress. Next number please!!

646-868-1844…

The area code for the number

848-868-1844 is based in White

Plains, New York - but that

doesn't really mean much,

because it's a VOIP (meaning

its owner could be based

anywhere). And while it's true

that the initial message you'll

hear upon dialing is weird - it

starts with odd, bell-like tones,

leads into garbled, unintelligible

words, and then ends with an

answerble tone

the really weird thing about this one

doesn't happen during the call

itself. It happens after you hang

up: Within seconds, you'll

receive a text message

containing a jumbled mix of words.

That's definitely one we are trying! Well Logan.

Next up is 090-4444-4444. The Japanese community believes that this is one of the numbers you should never call. Number 4 in Japan sounds like (shi) which means death in their language. It is assumed that this contact is associated with death that occurs within one week of interaction. Similarly, the number is referred to as Sadako’s Number, where Sadako was The ghost from the movie “the Ring”…spooky!

From Japan we head to Bulgaria. The number 0888 888 888 is associated with misfortunes. The Bulgarians consider it one of the most cursed phone numbers in the world. The first owner died of radioactive poisoning cancer, while the second and third owners were shot dead in Bulgaria's streets. Following these incidents, Mobitel, the phone company, was forced to suspend the contact. To date, any attempt to call the number directs you to a voicemail message stating "no network".

The phone company even said fuck this phone number!

Another haunted phone number is 1- 000-000-0000. The Asian community attributes it to strange deaths. It is reported that a male voice would be heard on the other end of the call, demanding that the recipient tell fifteen or more people about the number. Failure would result in immediate death.

Hope Logan has free long distance…

Another creepy phone number to call is 630-296-7536. Once the call goes through, a woman's voice is heard on the receiving end, telling callers that their information is being traced. Soon afterwards, callers would be given an appointment with the agenda to "remodel your life." Based on that plan, you may get goosebumps at the thought of what might happen to you.

Some of the world’s scary phone numbers present themselves in the colour red. The Nigerians and Pakistan community have been sending out communication warning people about such contacts. It was reported when recipients answered these calls, they'd hear a high-frequency noise that would result in deafness or death due to brain haemorrhage.

Ok one last number that Logan is definitely calling! 801-820-0263. This number has no factual data on its creepiness. Nevertheless, those who dial it out of curiosity report that the receiver can tell you your full names and see what you are doing.

There are some other ones that get listed but they are creepy for other reasons some are promotional stunt's from band like Nine Inch Nails , some are for stores or websites selling horror related stuff and some just connect you with chainsaw, which is really fucking creepy.

(Make Logan make phone calls here)

Well there you have it, friends, tales of ghostly phone calls. Hope you enjoyed them. Hope you guys try calling some of these numbers as well. Tell us what you guys think of these creepy calls.

Movies

The Stanley Hotel

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 13:00:14 -0400

Today we are taking a cross country train ride to the great state of Colorado. On a side note fuck John Elway for crushing our childhood hopes and dreams. Anyway, off to Colorado we go… And yes it's for the weed… Well partly. It's also to visit a landmark known to scores of horror movie fans the world over. The Stanley Hotel! Why, you ask? Cus it's creepy, possibly haunted and because we can do whatever the fuck want… It's our show, even if we do get snubbed by our local entertainment paper for best local podcast. Jerks. But we digress. Today's episode is about a hotel but it starts with a man. Freelan Oscar Stanley. And with that we dig into the history and creepiness of the Stanley hotel!

Freelan Oscar Stanley was born, along with his twin brother Frances Edgar Stanley, On June 1st 1849 in Kingfield Maine. Although their family was not wealthy, education was highly valued and knowledge of science, poetry and music were encouraged from a young age. In 1859, At the age of nine, Freelan and Francis started their first business together refining and selling maple sugar. At eleven, their great-uncle, Liberty Stanley, who had raised their father as his own son, taught them the art of violin making. By the age of sixteen, Freelan had completed three instruments. In 1883, Francis developed a machine that coated dry photographic plates. After receiving a patent for their process, the brothers set up a factory in Newton, Massachusetts, to manufacture the plates. In the summer of 1897, they attended a local fair where they witnessed a French inventor demonstrate his steam-driven car. Apparently impelled by his wife's inability to ride a bicycle, Francis vowed to build something that his wife could ride. The French inventor's steam car was the driving force (get it?) Francis needed. After the fair, the brothers began to develop a steam car of their own. The brothers formed a car company in 1898 and produced their first steam car, which was dubbed The Flying Teapot. An instant success, the car was easy to run and achieved a top speed of 35 miles per hour (56 kph), quite fast for the turn of the century. Its major drawback was the need to stop every ten miles or so to refill the boiler. The brothers sold their company after only a few months, but they returned to the business of making cars in 1902 when they formed the Stanley Motor Carriage Company. They staged various events to publicize their steam cars, including racing up mountains and racing against gas-powered cars. Eventually the Stanleys sold their photographic plate business to George Eastman and concentrated on the manufacture of their steam cars, which came to be known unofficially as Stanley Steamers. The brothers continued to build race-winning, steam-powered cars. In 1906, one of their cars--The Rocket, driven by Stanley employee Fred Marriott--set the world's record for the fastest mile: 28.2 seconds, which is a speed of more than 127 miles per hour (204 kph). In 1918, Francis was killed while driving one of his automobiles. He swerved to avoid an obstruction in a mountain road and plunged down an embankment near Ipswich, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, the Stanley Motor Company had suspended automobile production to manufacture engines to pump out Allied trenches during World War I. After The war, Henry Ford's Model T soon came to dominate the American automobile industry. Developments in gas-powered engines, and the limitations of steam cars, signalled the end of the steam-auto era. The Stanley Motor Carriage Company ceased production in 1924.

In 1903, at the age of 54, Stanley was stricken with a life-threatening resurgence of tuberculosis. The most highly recommended treatment of the day was fresh, dry air with lots of sunlight and a hearty diet. Therefore, like many "lungers'' of his day, he resolved to take the curative air of Rocky Mountain Colorado. He and Flora arrived in Denver in March and were followed shortly by his Stanley Runabout which was shipped by train. After one night at the famous Brown Palace Hotel, Stanley arranged an appointment with Dr. Charles Bonney (MD, Harvard, 1889), the preeminent American expert in the disease. Dr. Bonney, a great advocate for home treatment, recommended he leave the hotel for a rented house at the first possible convenience. Stanley spent the remainder of the winter at 1401 Gilpin Street but, when his symptoms had not improved by June, he was determined to summer in the Colorado mountains. Bonney recommended Estes Park whose climate he compared with that of Davos, Switzerland, a posh resort for European tuberculetics. On June 29, Stanley saw Flora off by train and stagecoach while he set out in his steam car. Having gotten lost and spent the night in Boulder, Stanley arrived a day later, on June 30. During their first summer the couple stayed in a primitive cabin rented to them by the owners of the Elkhorn Lodge. Over the course of the warm season, Stanley's health improved dramatically. Impressed by the beauty of the valley and grateful for his recovery, he decided to return every year. By the end of the summer of 1903, Stanley had acquired property in Estes Park and, with the help of English architect Henry "Lord Cornwallis'' Rogers who the Stanleys had recently met, he began the construction of Rockside, his home in Colorado. Completed in 1904, the Stanley cottage was built with four bedrooms, gracious living areas and a modern kitchen, so that Flora could entertain summer guests. By 1907, Stanley had all but recovered and he returned to Newton for the winter rather than Denver. However, he and Flora had become enamored with the beauty of the Colorado mountains, often comparing them in speeches with those "rock-ribbed" hills "ancient as the sun" of William Cullen Bryant's poem, “Thanatopsis”. Not content with the rustic accommodations, lazy pastimes and relaxed social scene of their new home, Stanley resolved to turn Estes Park into a resort town. In 1907, construction began on the Hotel Stanley, a grand hotel catering to the class of wealthy urbanites who composed the Stanleys' social circle in Newton. To power the new hotel, Stanley constructed the Fall River Hydro-Plant which consequently brought electricity to Estes Park for the first time. In 1909, their 100-room, East Coast colonial-style “house” was unveiled. Equipped with running water, electricity and telephones, the only amenity the hotel lacked was heat, as the hotel was designed as a summer resort. A two-thirds scaled-down second lodge was finished a year later. (While this might seem ambitious, it’s worth noting the top floor was dedicated exclusively to children and nannies.) The buildings were designed by F.O. Stanley with the professional assistance of Denver architect T. Robert Wieger, Henry "Lord Cornwallis" Rogers, and contractor Frank Kirchoff. The site was chosen for its vantage overlooking the Estes valley and Long's Peak within the National Park. The main building, concert hall and Manor House are steel-frame structures on foundations of random rubble granite with clapboard siding and asphalt shingle roof. Originally, Stanley chose a yellow ocher color for the buildings' exteriors with white accents and trim. Every guest room had a telephone and each pair of rooms shared an en suite bathroom with running water supplied by Black Canyon Creek, which had been dammed in 1906. The floor plan of the main hotel (completed 1909) was laid out to accommodate the various activities popular with the American upper class at the turn of the twentieth century and the spaces were decorated accordingly. The music room, for instance, with its cream-colored walls (originally green and white), picture windows and fine, classical plaster-work was designed for letter-writing during the day and chamber music at night – cultured pursuits perceived as feminine. On the other hand, the smoking lounge (today the Piñon Room) and adjoining billiard room, with their dark stained-wood elements and granite arch fireplace were designated for enjoyment by male guests. Stanley himself, having been raised in a conservative household and having recovered from a serious lung disease, did not smoke cigars or drink alcohol, but these were essential after-dinner activities for most men at the time. Billiards, however, was among Stanley's most cherished pastimes.

With no central heating or ventilation system, the structure was designed to facilitate natural airflow; the Palladian window at the top of the grand stair could be opened to induce a cross-breeze through the lobby, French doors in all the public spaces open onto verandas, and two curving staircases connecting the guest corridors prevent stagnant air in the upper floors. Although the main hotel is now heated in the winter, guests still depend on natural ventilation for cooling in the summer. Within a few years of opening, a hydraulic elevator was put in operation. In 1916, the east wing of the main building was extended in the rear adding several guest rooms. Around this time, the alcove of the music room was added. In 1921, a rear veranda was enclosed forming a room that currently serves as a gift shop. Around 1935, the hydraulic elevator system was replaced with a cable-operated system and extended to the fourth floor necessitating the addition of a secondary cupola to house the mechanical apparatus. Originally, a porte-cochere or a covered entrance large enough for vehicles to pass through, extended from the central bay of the front porch, but this was removed when the south terrace was converted into a parking lot. In 1983, a service tunnel was excavated, connecting the basement-level corridor to the staff entrance. It is cut directly through the living granite on which the hotel rests. The concert hall, east of the hotel, was built by Stanley in 1909 with the assistance of Henry "Lord Cornwallis" Rogers, the same architect who designed his summer cottage. According to popular legend, it was built by F.O. Stanley as a gift for his wife, Flora. The interior is decorated in the same manner as the music room in the main hotel and vaguely resembles that of the Boston Symphony Hall (McKim, Mead & White, 1900) with which the Stanleys would have been familiar. The stage features a trap door, used for theatrical entrances and exits. The lower level once housed a two-lane bowling alley which was removed during the ownership of Maxwell Abbell. It possibly resembled the bowling alley at the Stanley's Hunnewell Club in Newton, pictures of which are archived in the Newton Free Library. The hall underwent extensive repair and renovation in the 2000s. Once called Stanley Manor, this smaller hotel between the main structure and the concert hall is a 2:3 scaled-down version of the main hotel. Unlike its model, the manor was fully heated from completion in 1910 which may indicate that Stanley planned to use it as a winter resort when the main building was closed for the season. However, unlike many other Colorado mountain towns now famous for their winter sports, Estes Park never attracted off-season visitors in Stanley's day and the manor remained empty for much of the year. Today it is called The Lodge and serves as a bed-and-breakfast that is off-limits to the public. To bring guests from the nearest train depot in the foothills town of Lyons, Colorado, Stanley's car company produced a fleet of specially-designed steam-powered vehicles called Mountain Wagons that seated multiple passengers. Upon opening, the hotel was alleged to be one of the few in the world powered entirely by electricity. However, lack of available power induced the installation of an auxiliary gas lighting system in June 1911. On June 25 – the day after the pipes had been filled – an explosion occurred that injured a maid and damaged the structure, though contemporary newspaper articles differ on certain details. An article from a newspaper at the time started the following

"The Stanley Hotel, built at a cost of $500,000, was partly wrecked last night by an explosion of gas. Eight persons were injured, one seriously. None of the guests were injured. Elizabeth Wilson, of Lancaster, Pa., a hotel employee, was hurled from the second to the first floor, and both ankles were broken. The other seven are negro [sic] waiters."

When the Lancaster paper reprinted the story, the editor noted that Elizabeth Wilson's name did not appear in local directories and she could not be identified as a Lancastrian. Similar accounts in local Colorado papers give the maid's name as Elizabeth Lambert and convey various dramatic details that are not confirmed by other articles. The most comprehensive and detailed article on the incident appeared on June 29 in the Fort Collins Express and seems to be the most accurate – positively refuting that the maid had been "hurled from the second to the first floor.” That article said this is the incident

"The chambermaid, Lizzie Leitenbergher, had both ankles broken, it is thought from the concussion of the explosion, and was thrown into a hole in the floor. She was not, however, thrown through into the dining room, being caught by the timbers and held until rescued. She was taken to a hospital in Longmont. She had been in the employ of the hotel ever since it was built and came here from Philadelphia."

The only other injuries mentioned in that article were as follows "Two waiters also sustained slight injuries, one suffering a dislocated hip and the other being struck across the face by a flying plank. Neither of these, however, is in serious condition."

Stanley operated the hotel almost as a pastime, remarking once that he spent more money than he made each summer. It was an invite-only gathering place for friends, and haut monde of the time. Haut monde meaning “for fashionable society”. The boujie bastards. John Philip Sousa, the renowned former US Military composer, directed the band at the house’s opening. His autograph on the bottom of Flora’s piano, which Sousa tuned himself, was mistaken for graffiti by a tuner in the 1990s and removed.

Harry Houdini performed in the ornate concert hall; the trapdoor he used for his famous escape act still exists onstage. And while the men shot pool and drank, the women would gather for various letter writing campaigns. The whiskey bar – now one of the state’s largest – provided a common ground between the sexes. Yay, whiskey!

In 1930, Freelan sold the buildings to a corporation who transformed the property into a hotel. With the nearby national park still growing, their success was minimal. After attempts at a revival, the property was sold to John Cullen in the mid-1990s. Budgets were so stretched that at the time of the sale, the turndown service consisted of the top bed duvet being placed on nails across the window because they couldn’t afford drapes.

The hotel was not really in a great place for a while. That would change thanks in part to someone we've talked about before… this weird guy named Stephen King. King has told the story many times over the years. In a 1977 interview by the Literary Guild, King recounted "While we were living [in Boulder] we heard about this terrific old mountain resort hotel and decided to give it a try. But when we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place—with all those long, empty corridors." King and his wife were served dinner in an empty dining room accompanied by canned orchestral music: "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book [The Shining] in my mind." In another retelling, King said "I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of The Shining firmly set in my mind.

In the front matter of the book, King tactfully states "Some of the most beautiful resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these pages is based on none of them. The Overlook and the people associated with it exist wholly in the author's imagination."

So not only was this hotel the institution of the book the Shining, it was the location of the doll shot for the 1997 tv miniseries of The Shining. Not only that, the hotel was the filming location for another fantastic movie. It serves as the hotel that the dynamic duo of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne stay in the critically acclaimed, and one of my personal favorite movies; Dumb and Dumber. Several tv shows have also recorded episodes there and the band Murder By Death have played an annual winter show at the location since 2014. I highly recommend their track “As Long As There is Whiskey in The World”.

King's novel is based on the famous Stanley Hotel in Colorado, but the exterior shots in the movie are of Oregon's Timberline Lodge. Kubrick agreed to change the infamous room number from 217 to 237 (which does not exist) in the movie because the hotel was worried people would not want to stay in the room in the future.

Ironically, room 217 is most often requested at Timberline Lodge, according to the hotel's website.

Ok so all of that is well and good but let's be honest, We're here for another reason, the creepy shit! Oddly enough the history of the hotel didn't hold much to attribute to possible haunting or paranormal activity. But that hasn't stopped the belief by many people that the hotel is haunted. Let's check out some of the haunted spots and some stories.

Room 217

Perhaps the most famed spot in the Stanley Hotel, this is where horror writer Stephen King spent the night and got the inspiration for his 1977 bestseller "The Shining." You can soak up the same Rocky Mountain views that King got when he stayed there. An added amenity? The room has a library of King novels. The room is thought to be haunted by Elizabeth Wilson, AKA Mrs. Wilson. She was the hotel’s head housekeeper and, during a storm in 1911, was injured during an explosion as she was lighting the lanterns in room 217. She survived, though broke her ankles and her spirit seems to be a regular in the room. Guests have reported items moved, luggage unpacked, and lights being turned on and off. Oh, and Mrs. Wilson is old-fashioned: She doesn’t like it when unmarried guests shack up together, so some couples have reported feeling a cold force come between them. One of the biggest myths about the room is that it’s never available. Not true! You can actually book it and stay there if you have the balls to. We’re in!

The Vortex

From an architectural standpoint, the staircase between floors in the hotel’s main guesthouse is a stunner. But the area has also been dubbed “The Vortex” a natural spiral of energy. It’s also known as the “rapid transit system” for ghosts that are known to haunt the hotel.

Concert Hall

There’s a lot of paranormal hubbub said to be happening in this famed concert hall. Paul, one of the well-known ghosts haunting The Stanley, was a jack-of-all trades around the hotel. Among his duties? Enforcing an 11 p.m. curfew at the hotel, which could be why guests and workers hear “get out” being uttered late at night. The area is also a favorite spot for hotel founder Flora Stanley’s ghost to play the piano. A few of Paul’s antics: A construction worker reported he felt Paul nudge him while he was sanding the floors and tour groups on The Stanley ghost tour have reported he flickered a flashlight for them. Another ghost known to wander about the Concert Hall is Lucy, who quite possibly was a runaway or homeless woman who found refuge in the hall. She entertains the requests of ghost hunters, often communicating with them with flashing lights. Stanley historians, however, aren’t quite sure about her pre-death connection to the hotel.

Room 401

More than a century ago, the entire fourth floor was a cavernous attic. It’s where female employees, children, and nannies stayed. Now, today’s guests will report hearing children running around, laughing, giggling and playing. Plus, there’s a famous closet that tends to open and shut on its own in this room.

Room 428

Really, you get a badge of bravery for staying in any room on the fourth floor. But, bonus points if you can book room 428. Guests have reported hearing footsteps above them and furniture moving about. But that’s actually physically impossible given the slope of the roof, tour guides say. The real haunt in this room, though, is a friendly cowboy who appears at the corner of the bed.

Grand Staircase

From antique mirrors and portraits, there’s plenty to distract the eye on the grand staircase at The Stanley. But it could also be a popular passageway for the hotel’s resident ghosts. In 2016, a visitor from Houston snapped some photos on the grand staircase and, upon returning home and reviewing them, spotted an apparatus at the top of the staircase. The thing is he doesn’t remember anybody else being on the staircase at the time he was taking the photographs. The ghostly image of a woman is at the top of the stairs.

Underground Caves

If you go on the 75-minute night spirit tour at the Stanley (you don’t have to be a hotel guest to get in on it, but you should book in advance!), your tour will come to an eerie halt at the end with a visit to the underground cave system. Workers moved about the hotel through the caves in the early days so it makes sense this is a popular haunt. Skeptics will pass off the haunts as breezes from the historic piping and ventilation systems. But, beneath the hotel is a higher-than-average concentration of limestone and quartz, which some ghost hunters believe help capture energy at the property.

Well, now that we've talked about some of the hotspots, let's check out some stories about things that have happened there!

This first group comes from Kirin Johnson. He has had three separate incidents!

My Story

Now I will share the three separate paranormal experiences that have changed my belief in ghosts. Despite being a former skeptic, I came to the Stanley with an open mind. While I’ve seen orbs and have had several strange experiences that I can’t explain, what I experienced on Friday, May 26, 2017, was certainly the most intense and frightening experience of them all.

Experience #1: A Trolley By The Door

At approximately 8:00 p.m., my partner and I came back from a quick trip to the grocery store. Out of nowhere, we heard the sounds of what seemed to be a trolley that was outside of our door. My partner immediately walked over to the door to see who it was. I thought to myself that perhaps it was room service, but I knew we didn’t make any requests. Shockingly, my partner looked through the peephole, and there was no one in sight. Although what happened was certainly a shock to us, it wasn’t enough to convince me that it was a ghost.

At around 11:00 p.m., we decided to reach out to Ms. Elizabeth Wilson (or any other ghost that may have been hanging out in our room). I figured that even if nothing were to come out of it, I can at least say “I tried.” I said to Ms. Wilson: “If you are really here with us, prove it.” I repeated this a couple of times. This was the last thing I had said before I finally went to bed.

Experience #2: A Big Bang That Woke Up Other Visitors

It was around 2:30 in the morning when I was woken up from a loud noise. Despite my partner being a heavy sleeper, the noise was loud enough to wake him up as well. The loud noise sounded like it came from someone who picked up a large and heavy object, and then slammed it to the floor.

Interestingly, it wasn’t just my partner and I who woke up from this mysterious noise. Just a moment or two after we woke up, we heard other guests around the hotel speaking and whispering. I was so scared, I asked my partner to put the television on so I could just forget about it and go back to sleep. However, he didn’t want the television on. He was more interested in finding out where the noise came from, then going back to sleep.

A Strange Discovery The Next Morning

When I woke up the next morning, I saw a 20 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew on the floor. My partner’s soda somehow fell to the floor in the middle of a quiet night. What’s even more odd is that this bottle was loud enough to wake up not just my partner and I, but also other guests who were near our room. I don’t believe it was the soda that caused the loud noise. I believe it was a ghost responding to our request to prove it really exists.

Other Guests Who Say They Heard A Loud Bang

Before we left room 217, I overheard a conversation between several people outside of our room. They were talking about hearing a loud noise late in the night. I spoke with a woman who told us she was staying in a room directly above ours. After I asked her about the loud noise, she said it woke her up around 2:30. The woman described the noise as the fall of a “large barrel.” According to the woman, there was another guest in room 324 who also heard the noise.

While on our way to check-out, we ran into a young man who stayed in room 326 with his father. In addition to taking pictures of orbs that were floating outside of room 217 the previous night, he too said he was woken up from what he described as a “loud boom.”

Experience #3: The Creepy Laugh Of A Woman

While I thought that the extremely loud and unexplained bang was enough to convince me that there really are ghosts roaming the Earth, one more thing happened that night.

At around 4:00 a.m., I woke up and realized that less than two hours after the loud bang occurred, it was completely silent in our room. My partner was sound asleep. Just a minute or two after I woke up, out of nowhere I heard the sounds of a chuckle from a woman. Interestingly, it sounded like the ghost was giggling just centimeters away from my ears.

I believe that the chuckle had probably come from Elizabeth Wilson. Although it certainly was frightening and quite creepy to me, I was extremely tired. I quickly went back to sleep.

For more information on this strange ghost story, visit OdditiesBizarre.com. For information on the fascinating history of the Stanley Hotel, visit their official website: StanleyHotel.com

After staying just one night in the Stanley’s room 217, I went from a skeptic, to a believer in ghosts. If I ever go back to this hotel, I will likely request another room with many reports of supernatural activity. However, regardless of what room you visit at the Stanley Hotel, if you come with an open mind, you just might have a paranormal experience you will never forget.

Wow... That's a crazy stay!

This next one did not have a name associated with it.

“Over the weekend, about 15 coworkers and myself had our company trip to The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, known for being Stephen King’s inspiration for “The Shining”. We took an 8pm ghost tour, where we joined about 15 other people to get guided around the property and told stories about it’s history and creepy things that are said to have happened. We were told to take lots of pictures, I’m sure to try and capture orbs or ghosts. Many green orbs were caught in pictures, but I don’t think anything is as creepy as the photo taken by my coworker- a little girl in a hot pink dress, who was definitely not on our tour. And apparently years ago, a young girl (12-13) by the name of Lucy was squatting in the basement of the concert hall (which is where this photo was taken), and discovered upon plans to begin some construction. She was forced to leave, the night got below freezing, and she froze to death. Everyone on my tour has vouched that this girl was not on our tour (who wouldn’t remember someone wearing that hot pink?). The man pictured is our tour guide- no one would have been in front of him. I am convinced this is the ghost of Lucy. Just one more added note, though I doubt if anyone would believe me, but there was only ONE time throughout the tour where I felt any strange energy or feeling, and it was right here, heading down to the basement of the concert hall.”

Fucking little kid ghosts… No thanks.

This next one is fun! Again no name was presented in the article.

“I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to supernatural or paranormal happenings but one thing in particular really messed with my head; at the beginning of the tour you follow tour guide to the music hall which would often be occupied by children playing during the day time.When you arrive in the hall you’re are seated in the observation box and given an introduction of sorts explaining that none of the spirits or activity are angry or violent and that alot of the activity was thought to be that of children (especially in this hall). So, our guide asked by show of hands if any of the tour members are good with kids to which I, along with 4 or 5 others raised our hands; everyone who raised their hands she gave a dum dum sucker to for us to hold out on our palm as if we were handing it to a child and depending on the spirits comfortablity with you they would supposedly pull on the the sucker. Some people claimed to feel movement, some didn’t feel a thing but, I personally felt and watched this fucking sucker drag from the middle of my hand all the way off to the ground.

Nice… sounds like fun!!

Here's another fun story'

“When I was a kid, the Stanley was just a pretty hotel with dumpy rooms (1970s canary yellow and olive drab. Borderline craphole). We never stayed there, it was just a place to get a good, cheap lunch. (Obviously, this was before the miniseries, when it was still cheap and not haunted).

Anyway, I’d screw around and explore the hotel because hotels are fun to screw around in and explore. My brother, my sister, and myself were wandering the hotel after lunch, poking our heads into open rooms and whatnot. Well, we round the corner of the hallway and to our right is an small opening in the wall of the hall leading to a set of very narrow and steep circular stairs descending into pitch black darkness. None of us had the cojones to check it out. Wish we had, I never saw that staircase again.”

3rd floor

“My ex-girlfriend and I went there around New Years a couple of years ago. I can confirm it is very haunted. On the 3rd floor, my ex turned white as a sheet after stopping in front of a particular door. I asked her what had happened, she said that something had ran their hand from her backside up to the nape of her neck. There was no one else around but us. When the docent got all of the tour members gathered around the door she had the experience at, she began to tell the group about an apparition that likes to grope pretty young ladies and run his hand from their back side up to their neck. Super Spooky!”

Here's another!

The ballroom, “It’s absolutely beautiful- and haunted. My sister lived in Colorado for years so one winter we were visiting we decided to make the trip to Estes Park. Well being the rule breakers we are in my family, we ditched the official tour and took our own. We came across this big room with chairs covered in white cloth. We decided to “play ghost” and drape the cloths over ourselves, pretend to be ghosts, and take pictures. We, of course, thought we were hilarious. The ghosts decided to delete every picture we took in that room. All the pictures we took before and after were still on the camera, just the ones where we were playing ghost were deleted. Weird place!”

Interesting!

Here's a quick one from an investigator.

“In a bathroom at the Stanley the shampoo bottle was thrown into the tub once when we were investigating 1302 once. I’ve had my voice recorder knocked over. As far as seeing anything with my own eyes or objects thrown at me, no. Not yet. I think it takes a lot of energy for spirits to manipulate our physical environment, so it’s rare, but it does happen, yeah.”

Well that's some crazy shit.

Ok one more…. This is a retelling of a coyote of sisters doing a ghost hunt with numerous paranormal investigators from the Ghost Hunters tv show.

"Our night started in Room 401. I have to admit: I was a bit nervous. I had never been on an investigation of this scale before. It didn’t take long for things to start happening.

Sitting patiently, my sister began to feel what she would later describe as "waves of rolling chills" that extended from her feet all the way up to her head, as well as the sensation that all of her hair was standing up on her head. Simultaneously, a fellow investigator’s K-II meter (which measures electromagnetic frequency, or EMF) began to light up, denoting a change in the room’s electromagnetic field. Paranormal or not, we were jacked, and the night was only beginning!

Down the hall in Room 418, my sister and I had our first encounter with an Ovilus, or "ghost box" or "spirit box."At one point, the Ovilus said "Dawn" (my sister’s name) as well as "dime," which was a word/image that a fellow investigator had agreed to use as a trigger word to communicate with her recently deceased mother.

Soon we were out of the main hotel and into the balcony of the property’s Music Hall. Once our group got settled in, we heard shuffling sounds from the stage and main floor. At one point, a mini Maglite flashlight, which was set up to turn on and off with an-ever-so-slight twist of its lamp head, turned on without assistance. This technique has been utilized on numerous episodes of "Ghost Hunters," yet continues to draw scrutiny from naysayers. Was a spirit in fact making contact, or was the battery simply completing the circuit and turning on the flashlight’s beam? Who knows? I’m still not sure. But I’ve certainly never experienced a flashlight turning on by itself like that before. I chalked it up as another new experience in a weekend of new experiences.

But what happened next had to be the climax of our weekend at the Stanley Hotel. As our group shifted down to the basement of the Music Hall, my sister and I decided to separate from the larger group to check out an interior room with a door that a spirit named Lucy liked to close, and had already closed, several times so far that evening – even with a heavy, upholstered chair propped in front of it.

Dawn and I sat down with a handful of other investigators in the pitch-black room and began introducing ourselves to Lucy, asking her politely to shut the door if she was present. It wasn’t long before she obliged. I was literally about four feet away from the doorway when, sure enough, the door began move away from the wall and toward the jamb, closing the door almost completely. Elated, we thanked Lucy for her efforts. Then we asked her to do it again, and after hearing rustling noises behind me and to my left, it happened again a second time.

Upping the ante, we put a chair in front of the door to see if we could get it to happen with the chair blocking the door’s path, to no avail. A few minutes later, the group decided to try to get the door to close again without the chair to block its path, like it had two times prior. Moving the chair myself, I pushed the door tightly against the wall to ensure the door wasn’t leaning forward, building momentum and closing due to some mechanical issue such as a faulty hinge. But I couldn’t make it start a closing motion without a deliberate effort. Clearly something had to be shutting this door, right? We asked Lucy a third time to please shut the door, and almost as if on command, the door began to shut again. About halfway between the completed motion, I yelled, "Slam it!" and that’s exactly what happened. We experienced the door shutting a total of five times (a fourth time after asking Lucy to give us a sign she wanted us to leave, and the final time when the door closed behind us as we were leaving the room).

Before long, we were off to famed room 217: the one that had King himself had stayed in, the one that had inspired King to write his book and the one that was the impetus for coming all this way in the first place.

Purportedly haunted by an extremely tidy chambermaid, the host investigators purposely littered random items across the bathroom floor in hopes that Mrs. Wilson would tidy up during our time there. Interestingly, my sister heard something in the bathroom almost immediately upon turning the lights out. It turns out that a photo taken before the lights were turned out would show the items had indeed moved from their original locations. Coincidence? Could very well be. But hard to argue at the same time. As 1 a.m. came and the night’s investigation ended, the activity continued, even into the next morning. Up at 6 a.m. to pack up, check out and make the drive back to the airport, I heard the distinct sound of female laughter. I immediately thought, who would be up at this hour, especially after a long night of investigating? Then something told me to check the closet, the bathroom closet. I really didn’t want to look, but I did anyway.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw a plastic access panel to the crawl space behind the closet removed, now laying precariously in front of the opening. A quick glance into the space revealed the customary plumbing and electrical works, but why the laughter? Was it children playing in the hall? Was it coming through the way from Room 401? What exactly caused the panel to become dislodged from the screw that was holding it in place anyway? The questions raced and the answers eluded. It really was anyone’s guess, and considering where I was and the weekend I had just experienced, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Crazy stuff!!! What do you guys think about this place? What have you heard? Let us know.

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The Honolulu Strangler (He Totally Did It.)

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 13:27:21 -0400

Today we're taking the train to a land of paradise. Warm climate, great surf, beautiful women, and…. the Honolulu Strangler? That's right we're taking a trip to Hawaii and the land of unsolved murders. You know how we like our unsolved crimes here at the midnight train! So without further ado… Let's get into what we do know about the case and see if we can solve it like we do with so many other things.

So the Honolulu Strangler was a serial killer who was active between 1985-1986. He tortured and killed 5 women. The five victims were found with their hands bound behind their backs, sexually assaulted and strangled. The strangler’s victims ranged in ages between 17 and 36 and came from different walks of life. The police had several suspects including one that… Well… is most likely the killer but… You know, the police let him go. Well get to him in a bit. First we are going to discuss the victims and then the few suspects they had. There's not a huge amount of information out there. Every source has the same information so we'll give you what we have found.

Let's start with the victims.

The first victim was Vicki Gail Purdy. She was an attractive, petite 25 year old blonde who was a transplant from North Carolina. She lived in Miliani with her husband Gary. Gary was stationed in Hawaii as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army. Vicki worked at the Wahiawa Video Rental store, which was a point of contention between her and Gary. Gary Purdy had long objected to his wife’s place of work, for the video store was known to sell pornographic films. The police found that Vicki liked to go dancing at clubs with her friends. On May 29 Vicki went to a club with a couple friends in Waikiki. Gary was expecting her back around 9. When she did not return home Gary started to page Vicki and continued to page her throughout the night. For you young kids out there, a pager is what you used to get ahold of someone before there were cell phones. You'd get a page and then you'd have to find this thing called a pay phone to call the number back. A PayPhone is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with pre-payment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit card, or a telephone card.… It was nuts! At any rate… the next morning Gary finds his wife's car in the parking lot of the Shorebird Hotel. Police were contacted by a cab driver who said he had dropped Vicki off there the night before sometime around midnight. Vicki's body was found the morning of may 30th on an embankment near Keehi Lagoon. She was found with her hands tied behind her back. She had been raped, then strangled, and then killed. At first the police checked out any possible connection to the video store. On top of Gary not liking her working there, the store had a bit of a reputation already. In December of 1984, two women, a worker and the co-owner of the store, were stabbed to death at the store. Police initially took the angle that a porn obsessed man had stalked and killed Vicki. After investigation though police could find no link to the video store and the crime. They were back to square one. Her husband, Gary Purdy was a chief warrant officer with the 24th Aviation Battalion. At six feet tall and 165 pounds, he could obviously handle his own. He told media Purdy she had once “knocked the —- out of me” during an argument. He believed it would have taken two people to nab her.

Victim number two was 17 year old Regina Sakamoto. Regina was petite like Vicki, but moreso. She was only 4'11" and weighed only 105lbs. Also like Vicki, Regina was a transplant. She was originally from Kansas. People said Regina was a shy quiet girl who had planned on attending college in Hawaii in the fall. Regina's father was a military serviceman stationed in Hawaii. On January 14,1986 Regina spoke with her boyfriend at around 7:15am. She had told him that she would be late as she was not catching her usual bus. She would be missing for about a month after this. In February her body was found. She had been bound with her hands behind her back, raped and strangled just like Vicki. Oh and she was found near Keehi Lagoon as well… Same as Vicki.

After the discovery of Regina's body, homicide detectives became convinced they had a serial killer on their hands. Due to the fact that both women were found with their hands tied behind their backs, both had been raped, and both had been strangled, police surmised the cases were linked. Add to that they were both found in the same area, and it was all but assured. The Keehi Lagoon area was part of an urban beach park. There was ready access to the ocean and it was dotted with tiny islands. It was fairly secluded and made for a good dumping ground for the killer.

Two weeks after Regina Sakamoto disappeared, but before her body was found, the killer struck again. This time it was 21 year old Denise Hughes that was the victim. Denise was a native of Washington state. Like Regina, she was also used to using the bus system and regularly took the bus to and from work. Denise failed to show up to work at her job as a secretary for a phone company. Police suspect she met the killer at the bus stop or on the bus. In February, three fishermen would find her body. There were a few differences between her body and the first two. First off she was found near Moanalua stream and not by Keehi Lagoon. Second, her body was wrapped in a blue tarp. Despite these differences and the fact that the body was pretty decomposed, they were able to assess that it was the same killer, due to the fact that she'd been bound the same way and strangled. Regina's brother would later do an interview with khon2.com and say

“She was late for school that day,” “It was in Waipahu. She was sitting at the bus stop in front of Diners in Waipahu.”

Her brother was in 5th grade at the time. He would go on to say:

"I used to look up to her. She’d babysit me and stuff like that", adding that she was “very bookish, smart, fun loving, everybody’s friend, that kind of thing.”

When asked about revisiting the case, her brother says he wished they could test for DNA. Unfortunately they could only test for blood type at the time.

“It’s kind of sad that both my parents, you know, they’re not here to, even if it does get resolved, they’re not here to see it,” Omar Sakamoto said. “I just want, what is that, closure.”

This interview was about 5 years ago when there was talk of reopening the case or at least revisiting some of the evidence.

The killings prompted the Honolulu Police Department to form a task force that included an FBI profiler who helped put together a profile of the person they believed could be the suspect.

He was described as a Caucasian male in his 30s to 40s with no criminal record. The profiler also suspected the killer targeted women near where he lived or worked.

“He’s an individual who may be, at this particular juncture, may be experiencing girlfriend or marital problems and the selection of victims is probably the result of opportunity or chance encounters,” former Honolulu Police Chief Douglas Gibb said back in 1986.

Former homicide lieutenant Gary Dias was the head of HPD’s homicide detail at the time. “DNA could’ve been a much greater asset for us in that particular case,” Dias said, “and it’s useless in today’s age, because 82 percent of the world are types O and A.”

“Digital evidence is extremely important toward the advancement of investigations,” Dias said. Unfortunately back then, there was no cell phone video, and surveillance video wasn’t common.

The next victim was 25 year old Louise Medeiros. According to a newspaper article we found from Hawaii from 1986, Louise J. Medeiros was a young woman who had lived much of life before she knew how to live it anyway. She'd left her large family on Kauai as a teenager, opting for independence and uncertainty on her own on Oahu. In six years, she'd returned to Kauai once, for a bowling tournament, and then only called home. She'd been on welfare, gotten in trouble with the law and lived with beach people at Makaha. Three months pregnant when she was killed, the 25-year-old had never married, had three children and a daughter in a foster home. But most of the family worries about their prodigal sister were soothed when Louise came home in March for a reading of her mother's will. The family found her centered and motivated, no longer the alienated rebel. Then the day after the reunion she was gone... abducted, police assume, from a bus stop near the airport on the evening of March 26. "She was finally happy. She had found peace within herself," recalled her eldest sister, Brenda Durant, of the last visit. "We were lying in my bedroom. She'd laugh

and laugh." On March 26, 1986,

Medeiros boarded a red-eye flight to Oahu. From there, Medeiros told her family that she planned to take a bus to Waipahu in order to meet them following the tragic death of their mother. Medeiros was last seen alive leaving the plane after it landed in Honolulu.

Medeiros's body was found by construction workers on April 2 near the Waikele Stream. Like the other four victims, Medeiros was found partially clothed. (The killer always removed the pants and undergarments and left his victims nude from the waist down.) She had also had her hands tied behind her back. Medeiros had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

In order to catch the killer, the HPD began sending their female officers undercover to the Honolulu International Airport and to Keehi Lagoon. By now, it was clear that the killer favored out-of-town victims or those with limited connections to Hawaii.

The killer's last known victim was 36 year old Linda Pesce. Her roommate would be the last person to see her alive. Her roommate said she saw Linda when she left home on the morning of April 29, 1986. The next morning the roommate was informed that Linda had not shown up for work. This was odd to the roommate. She was informed a little later that Lindas car had been found near a viaduct on route 92/interstate H-1. It was at this point the roommate reported her missing to the police. Motorists claimed that on the evening of April 29 they saw the car’s emergency lights flashing, indicating it had stalled. They also described a Caucasian or mixed ancestry man in his 30s or 40s, of medium build, and a cream-colored, american made van with letters on its rear windows, both beside Pesce’s vehicle.

In May of 2018, the TV show Breaking Homicide returned to the case and the show’s investigators suggested that the Honolulu Strangler may have also killed 19-year-old Lisa Au in 1982. Au was last seen alive just after midnight on January 21, 1982. Her car was later found near Kapaa Quarry Road. Ten days later, on January 31, 1982, a jogger found Au’s nude, decomposing body on Tantalus Lookout in Waikiki. Police were never able to officially list Au’s cause of death.

Ok, now… This is where shit kinda gets crazy! Depending on the source things get a little mixed up. We've found at least two different accounts of what happened next but they both involve the same man, a man who most people think is the killer.

The first story we found was that an unidentified(at the time) 43 year old white male came to the police claiming that a psychic (also unidentified) told him where Linda Pesces body was. He said the psychic informed him the body was located on Sand Island. The man then led police to a spot on the island but Pesces body was not there. Police decided to search the entire island and then found her body. She had been strangled and her hands were bound with parachute cord like the other victims. From what I've encountered on this particular part of the story, he purposely did not go near the spot where they eventually found her body. Sounds sus af. And that just sounded weird coming from me. Moving on.

OK so that's the first version of the story. We found another version that goes a little something like this:

The as yet unidentified mean first came to police attention when Linda Pesce’s body had not yet been found. He voluntarily presented himself to the authorities claiming he had found some bones on Sand Island. When investigators processed the bones they discovered they were from a pig. The man was put under surveillance and, on May 9, was arrested due to circumstantial evidence linking him to the serial killings.

So we found both of these stories in several different places and wanted to present them both. From here on out everything pretty much lines up through most sources.

So who the hell is this guy? Well it would come out much later that the mans name was Howard Gay Dutcher. So who was Howard Gay and why was he considered the prime suspect even though he'd helped find the body of Linda Pesce? Let's have a look at this guy shall we?

Gay was born in 1943 in Buffalo, New York. Not much is known about his personal history other than he joined the army and was stationed at George Air Force Base, a 30-minute drive from Apple Valley, California, where he lived for fifteen years. He was eventually discharged in 1965. Gay attended Victor Valley College, received his associate degree, and was employed by Continental Telephone in Victorville, where he held jobs as a lineman and teletype repairman. In the same year as his discharge, he married Rita Thompson, his college sweetheart, and fathered two children with her: Justin and Jason. In 1968, he was employed by Flying Tiger Line at Los Angeles International Airport. Gay’s role was to train cargo aircraft mechanics around the world and, in 1980, he was relocated to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Howard lived in a rented three-bedroom home in Ewa Beach. He divorced from his wife in 1983. One day, his family decided to surprise him by traveling to Honolulu, but when they showed up he was upset and even refused to let them in his home. He made them stay in a hotel and shipped them back to California two days later. His neighbors told reporters he was a gentleman, always willing to help others. A female assistant manager who worked at La Mariana Sailing Club in 1986 recognized Gay as a man who routinely stared at her, asked her to accept rides from him, and once reacted furiously when she once again refused.

The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit profiled the Honolulu Strangler as being a Caucasian male in his late 30s or early 40s who had no prior criminal record and may have been experiencing marital or girlfriend problems at the time. It said the killer may have lived or worked in the area between Sand Island and Waipahu. He was also an opportunist who cruised for victims and struck when opportunity presented itself, rather than a stalker who chose his victims. And due to prior witnesses, they had suspected the killer drove a cream colored van with words on the back.

All of these things fit Gay to a T. On May 9th 1986, police arrested Gay. Gays girlfriend had started to police the he like bondage sex and would routinely tie her up with her hands behind her back, like the victims. Another way he fit the profile and the police thought him to be a viable suspect is that his ex wife told police that each killing coincides with a domestic dispute the couple had. The ex wife says that Gay would leave the house after the fights and would not return until the next day. On top of that he was connected to all the crime scenes since he worked at the airport (near where most of the victims were dumped) and lived in close proximity to Waipahu, where two victims disappeared and Louise Medeiros’ body was found. He also drove a cream-colored, american made van with letters on its rear windows, had a vasectomy like the man who raped three of the victims, and possibly had access to parachute cord due to his job. If that were not enough, Linda Pesce’s boss claimed she had written down Gay’s phone number on a note pad on the day she disappeared, since at that time Linda was looking for customers in the airport area. Gay offered to take a polygraph examination which (depending on the source) gave an inconclusive result, or a failure result, and consented to a search at his home. Despite all the elements against him, he was released after being held and questioned for ten hours, since prosecutors Peter Carlisle and Michael McGuigan decided they had insufficient evidence to win a case.

Two months after the arrest a woman came forward to claim she'd seen Linda chatting with a man the night she disappeared. The woman was brought in and shown a lineup and picked Gays photo out of the line up. The woman said she did not want to be a witness as she was scared because the man had seen her as well.

So what happened to Gay after this. Well… We'll tell ya. The killings stopped after Gay’s arrest and release. After his release he stated, “The police have released me, that’s all I know. They (the investigators) have plenty of good cause. They’re doing their job”..Gay returned to California in June 1986 to see his son, Jason, graduate from high school. Three days later, Jason was killed in an automobile accident, while changing a tire on the side of the road which prompted Howard to become a born-again Christian. Gay later worked for FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, presumably when the latter acquired Flying Tiger Line, in 1988. He died of kidney failure in November of 2003.

We found his obituary… Not one mention of his time in Hawaii...it reads as follows:

Howard Gay lived in Apple Valley, California, for fifteen years. He was stationed at George Air Force Base, where he was honorably discharged in 1965. He attended Victor Valley College, where he received his associate degree. Howard was employed at Continental Telephone in Victorville, California, as a lineman and later a teletype repairman. In 1968, he was employed by Flying Tiger Lines at LAX, and later Federal Express in Memphis, Tennessee. Howard traveled throughout the world, training aircraft mechanics on airframe and powerplant systems on large cargo planes.

Interesting….

At any rate, police spoke to many people and followed other leads on cream colored vans and things like that. Nothing solid ever came from anything else other than the Howard Gay stuff. Police that worked the case spoke years later and they all are certain that Gay was the killer. Unfortunately since he is dead and since no DNA evidence is available we may never actually get a solid answer on this case, despite there being a reward of $25,000. This seems to be one of those weird unsolved cases that everyone seems to know who did it. Crazy case!

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Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:59:46 -0400

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Creepy Ohio

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 14:07:25 -0400

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Be on the lookout for the upcoming documentary all about The Midnight Train Podcast!!

Well well well, here we are. Home state time. Creepy Ohio is where we are heading today! We're probably going to skip over the big boys like the Ohio State reformatory and places like that because well… You know about them. There will be plenty of good stuff though we promise!

Let's start off in good ol… Dayton? Sure Dayton it is! We're going to visit the Victoria Theatre. Fun fact about this place...The Victoria is one of the oldest continually operated theaters on the continent! It cost $225,000 to build and opened as the Turner opera house in 1866. If you're wondering, that's just under 4 million in 2021 money. According to an article, newspapers at the time called it the best theater west of Philadelphia! Impressive! General admission was $1. The best seats in the house were between $10 and $12. Arson was suspected of having caused an all-consuming fire May 16, 1869, which destroyed the theater at a loss of $500,000, about 10 million today, of which insurance covered only $128,000, 2.5 million, so that sucks pretty bad. The rebuild took a few years and the theater reopened in 1871. The opera house resumed operations as "The Music Hall". In 1885 it became "The Grand Opera House". On September 18, 1899, it became the "Victoria Opera House", and in 1903, it became the Victoria Theatre, two years after the death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Smooth sailing from here on out right? Wrong? 1913 brought about the Great Dayton Flood. The Dayton flood of March 1913 was caused by a series of severe winter rain storms that hit the Midwest in late March. Within three days, 8–11 inches (200–280 mm For all you civilized people out there) of rain fell throughout the Great Miami River watershed on already saturated soil, resulting in more than 90 percent runoff. The river and its tributaries overflowed. The existing levees failed, and downtown Dayton was flooded up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep. This flood is still the flood of record for the Great Miami River watershed. The volume of water that passed through the river channel during this storm equaled the monthly flow over Niagara Falls. Daaaaaaaang! The ground floor of the theater was severely damaged. The theater's interior was rebuilt and remodeled. Ok now that disaster is out of the way…. Wait… What's that? There's more? Jeez… On January 16, 1918, fire struck again and gutted portions of the building. Due to WW1 the rebuild was delayed due to a materials shortage. After the Armistice, The Victoria saw extensive interior remodeling and in 1919 re-opened as "The Victory Theatre" – a name commemorating the American war effort and its result. For many years after this, the theater had an amazing run and saw many of the top performers of the days come through. Al Jolson, The Marx Brothers, Helen Hayes, Fannie Brice, George M. Cohan, Lynn Fontayne, Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt, and some schhlub named Harry Houdini were just some of the big names to grace the theater! In the thirties the theatre was fitted to also play talking pictures! Here's another fun tidbit of trivia, chainsaw was one of the pioneers of talking pictures! He started in the first talkie ever, it was called, "I Can't Believe This, What is this voodoo?" It was not good. In fact, don’t look it up on YouTube, it's really really bad. Over the years the change in times and the way the city of Dayton was headed, threatened to close the theater. In 1975 it was slated for demolition, in favor of a proposed parking lot. A public outcry for the theater's preservation that year helped to earn the building its listing in the National Register of Historic Places and, thus, it escaped demolition. However, portions of the building were in poor or fading condition. All the while, it continued to be visited extensively by traveling theater companies.The theatre had a network of access tunnels stretching out beneath the city's streets for several blocks. It was said that, during Vaudeville times, the tunnels allowed circus animals to be unloaded from railroad cars blocks away from the theatre, and held underground until showtime. As late as 1979, much of the tunnel network was accessible to employees, although some sections were blocked off by city steam pipes. In 1978, the theatre was greatly benefited by the donation of a cache of equipment and stage draperies from National Cash Register's (NCR) auditorium, which had been slated for demolition. NCR also donated its historic five-rank Estay pipe organ to the Victory, which was renovated and installed by aficionados. In 1986, Virginia Kettering donated $7 million to fund a downtown arts center, conditioning her donation on the requirement that the center include the Victory Theater and be located within the same one-block area.The 1989 rebuilding of the theater was extensive. It involved razing the interior commercial space within the forward, Main Street-facing section of the building as well as the stage house, while carefully preserving and restoring the 1866–71 facade and the 1919 auditorium. At the same time, the interior auditorium portion of the structure was completely renovated. All of the commercial space at street level was reclaimed for a grand, new lobby. The result was an extensively-new Victoria Theatre (as it was now so renamed) designed expressly for the performing arts. The auditorium retained its original appearance with completely restored plaster work, drapery, marble work, gilding, and fresco detailing. Additionally, the house received state-of-the-art upgrading to its wiring, lighting, and sound systems and now accommodated infrared sound transmitters for headphone use.

The current theater accommodates 1,154, with 635 seats in the orchestra, and 519 in the balcony. The proscenium measures 37'7" wide by 29'0" high by 39'3" deep. A full-sized orchestra pit lies just below the stage lip. Ten dressing rooms, accommodating up to 18 people, are off-stage left, in the basement and at stage level.

You know we love to get the history of these places and this one is pretty cool. So what about creepy stuff? Well let's check it out! First off according to a dayton.com article, there's the story of a touring actress in the early 1900s who went to her dressing room to change for the next scene, and never came out of the room. No trace of her was ever found, though fewer and fewer actors would use that dressing room, with reports that some would look into the mirror and see her face staring back again. The same article talks about how in the 1950s, a man committed suicide in the theater by wedging a knife into the seat in front of him and throwing himself upon it. When the curtains around the left exit door are pulled, some people claim to see his face. Staff members through the years have said they heard strange noises like the rustling of satin or taffeta, or suddenly smelled the scent of roses in the air. Others are said to have seen the ghost of the Victoria’s founder when they’re alone in the building.

Diane Schoeffler-Warren, Victoria spokeswoman, told us that many of the historic theater’s long-time volunteers and staff like to blame these strange occurrences on “Miss Vicki,” who was not a real person.

PARANORMAL FINDINGS

Staff, patrons and performers have had a boatload of experiences with the spirits who visit or reside here.

Project Paranormal Investigations caught some hard evidence that greatly increases the known number of spirits who adore this theatre.

Apparently, the spirits here are a talkative group. They caught a boatload of EVP’s of many spirits. One spirit once worked there as an usher, some crew members, actors and actresses, a director and a well dressed man with a dirty hat who watches people who come into the auditorium.

One EVP possibly suggests that the spirit of Vicki’s killer is grounded here. “They will never catch me!”

This well-dressed man could be the spirit of the Victoria’s founder keeping a close eye on the living and still enjoying his theer.

Spirits freely gave up their names: Isaac, Jacob, Alice, Jennifer Price, Bill and Miss Josephine Swartz who was a well-known ballet instructor.

One male spirit pleaded for help.

One gruff spirit didn’t believe he was dead, and asked the investigator. “Do you want to fight?” This fiesta spirit said that the year was 2000.

One male spirit keeps the spirit of Vicky company. Hopefully he is a friend and her protector.

There was a negative, evil one there as well, reported by the other spirits. This spirit said that he was sent to keep another spirit stuck here. That's…. Nuts...ooh boy.

So that's fun stuff, haunted theaters are always good. Where should we head now?

How about a lunatic asylum that's now part of a college… We know that seems crazy but just run with us. The Ridges, a building formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, has been a constant source of ghost stories and sightings for years. The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities. The original design included an administration building with two wings, one that would house the males and the other for females. The building itself was 853 feet long, 60 feet wide, and built with red bricks fired from clay dug on-site. Built onto the back were a laundry room and boiler house. Seven cottages were also constructed to house even more patients. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double of what Kirkbride had recommended, leading to overcrowding and conflicts between the patients.The administrative section, located between the two resident wings, included an entrance hall, offices, a reception room on the first floor, the superintendent’s residence on the second floor, and quarters for other officers and physicians on the 3rd and 4th floors. A large high ceiling amusement hall filled the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a chapel was included on the 4th floor. Behind and beneath the building’s public and private spaces were the heating and mechanical systems, kitchens, cellars, storerooms, and workspaces. The site, which was first comprised of 141 acres, would eventually grow to 1,019 acres, including cultivated, wooded, and pasture land. The grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati and would incorporate landscaped hills and trees, decorative lakes, a spring, and a creek with a waterfall. Not only would the patients enjoy the beautiful landscape, but citizens also enjoyed the extensive grounds. Though the facility would never be fully self-sustaining, over the years, the grounds would include livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a receiving hospital, a Tubercular Ward, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop in the earlier years. The hospital, first called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, officially began operations on January 9, 1874. Within two years, it was renamed the Athens Hospital for the Insane. Over the years, its name would be changed many times to the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients, including Civil War veterans, children, the elderly, the homeless, rebellious teenagers being taught a lesson by their parents, and violent criminals suffering from various mental and physical disabilities. With diagnoses ranging from the slightest distress to severely mentally ill, these patients were provided various forms of care, many of which have been discredited today. The asylum was best known for its practice of lobotomy, but it was also known to have practiced hydrotherapy, electroshock, restraint, and psychotropic drugs, many of which have been found to be harmful today. More interesting are the causes listed for admission, including epilepsy, menopause, alcohol addiction, and tuberculosis. General “ill health” also accounted for many admissions, which included in the first three years of operation 39 men and 44 women. For the female patients hospitalized during these first three years of the asylum’s operation, the three leading causes of insanity are recorded as “puerperal condition” (relating to childbirth), “change of life,” and “menstrual derangements.” According to an 1876 report, the leading cause of insanity among male patients was masturbation. The second most common cause of insanity was listed as intemperance (alcohol). Depending upon their condition, a patient’s treatment could range from full care to amazing freedom. Over the years, numerous buildings were added, including a farm office, a new amusement hall, additional wards and residences, a laundry building, power plant, garages, stables, mechanics shops, a firehouse, therapy rooms, and dozens of others. By the 1950s, the hospital was using 78 buildings and was treating 1,800 patients. In the 1960s, the total square footage of the facility was recorded at 660,888 square feet. At this time, its population peaked at nearly 2,000 patients, over three times its capacity. However, the number of patients would begin to decline for the next several decades as de-institutionalization accelerated. As the number of people at the Asylum declined, the buildings and wards were abandoned one by one. Comprised of three graveyards, burials began soon after the institution’s opening as there were deceased patients who were unclaimed by their families. Until 1943 the burials were headed only by stones with numbers, with the names of the dead known only in recorded ledgers. Only one register exists today, which contains the names of 1,700 of the over 2,000 burials. In 1972 the last patients were buried in the asylum cemetery. Today the cemeteries continue to be maintained by the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

In 1977, Athens Asylum made news when it housed multiple personality rapist Billy Milligan. In the highly publicized court case, Milligan was found to have committed several felonies, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. In preparing his defense, psychologists diagnosed Milligan with multiple personality disorder, from which the doctors said he had suffered from early childhood. He was the first person diagnosed with multiple personality disorder to raise such a defense and the first acquitted of a major crime for this reason. Milligan was then sent to a series of state-run mental hospitals, including Athens. While at these hospitals, Milligan reported having ten different personalities. Later 14 more personalities were said to have been discovered. After a decade, Milligan was discharged. He died of cancer at a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio, on December 12, 2014, at 59. The next year, the hospital made the news again when a patient named Margaret Schilling disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979, 42 days later that her body was discovered by a maintenance worker in a locked long-abandoned ward once used for patients with infectious illnesses. Though tests showed that she died of heart failure, she was found completely naked with her clothing neatly folded next to her body. More interesting is the permanent stain that her body left behind. Clearly, an imprint of her hair and body can still be seen on the floor, even though numerous attempts have been made to remove it. By 1981 the hospital housed fewer than 300 patients, numerous buildings stood abandoned, and over 300 acres were transferred to Ohio University. In 1988, the facilities and grounds (excluding the cemeteries) were deeded from the Department of Mental Health to Ohio University.

The Athens Center officially closed in 1993, and the remaining patients transferred to another facility. The property stood vacant for several years before restoration began. The name of the property was changed to the “Ridges” and in 2001 renovation work was completed on the main building, known as Lin Hall. Today it houses music, geology, biotechnology offices, storage facilities, and the Kennedy Museum of Art. Over the years, other hospital buildings were modeled and used by the University, although many others still sit abandoned. wow… Crazy stuff. The info and the history cave from a great article at legends of America.com.

When the University took over the property, some students began to spend time at the Ridges. This is when many reports of paranormal activity began to surface. This includes hearing disembodied screams in the middle of the night, electric anomalies, rattling door handles and vanishing spectral images. Some of these events occurred in the area where Margaret Schilling’s remains were found and, were thus, attributed to her. Her spirit is said to have appeared staring down from the window of the room where her lifeless body was discovered. Her apparition has been seen attempting to escape. Others have seen her wander in various parts of the building at night.

Other former patients are also said to remain in residence as well. Visitors have reported seeing strange figures standing in the empty wings of the former hospital. Many have heard the disembodied voices of those in agony and warning those that wish to listen to them. You may also hear the squeaks of gurneys that are no longer there. Some folks see strange lights and hear screams echoing through the walls. More frightening, many have come across the spirits of patients in the basement, who remain shackled there in their afterlife. Sadly, these may be the many spirits who died or suffered at the hands of staff in the asylum.

The cemetery is also said to be haunted by shadowy people and strange lights. In one area, the linear shapes of the graves form a circle, rumored to be a witches’ meeting point.

Let's switch it up for a minute and talk about Moody's favorite things … The cryptids! So what kind of cryptids can one expect to find in Ohio? Well we are gonna let ya know!

Let's start with the Loveland Frogmen. Stories started popping out in the 50's, tales that differed slightly from one another, about a massive frog causing all manner of mischief. Most of the stories start the same but there seem to be three major variations. In one story, the motorist is heading out of the Branch Hill neighborhood when he shines his car’s headlights on the huge figures. The trio stood on their hind legs and just stood in the middle of the road. The man honks his horn. The figures perk up. They twist their necks around. A gasp!!!! All three look at the driver with leathery skin and frog faces.

Version number 3: same bridge, the motorist pulls over, he gets out of his car and spots the creatures. All three are conversing animatedly. The driver calls out to them. One of the Loveland Frogman gets up, points his finger at his friends in the universal gesture of “put a pin in it,” turns to the bothersome intruder, “can’t you see we’re holding a conversation? How rude,” holds out a wand over its heads, and flicks the Harry Potter approved apparatus… a blazing fire of sparks cannons out of the wand. The motorist flees the scene.

The other version goes like this: the motorist spots the creatures under the Loveland bridge, one of many going over the Little Miami river – he honks his horn. The creatures shot out from under the bridge, one lands on his hood and croaks… the driver passes out. On 3 March 1972 at 1:00 am, the Loveland police department goose marched into the madness. Officer Ray Shockey was gliding his car on Riverside Drive near the Totes boot factory and the Little Miami River when a suspicious animal ran across the road in front of his vehicle. He hit his brakes. Hit the steering wheel and looked on. The animal, now fully illuminated in his patrol car’s headlights, blinked at Shockey… who was having a meltdown true to his last name; Shockey was in shock. Framed in his car’s lamp stood the legendary Loveland Frogman. Shockey reported the sighting and stated, “it’s crouched like a frog.” The creature then climbed over the guardrail and jumped into the river.

Two weeks after that wild incident, a second Loveland police officer, Mark Matthews, did Shockey a solid and reported seeing an unidentified animal, similar in height and facets, near the same road. And you know what… He shot the damn thing! That's right, killed it! Unfortunately Matthews didn't actually shoot a frogman…nope. According to Matthews, it was “a large iguana about 3 or 3.5 feet long”, and he didn’t immediately pinpoint the creature’s ID because it was missing its tail… not a freaking Loveland Frogman.

“It either got loose or was released when it grew too large"

In August 2016, local Cincinnati TV stations reported that "a night of fun turned into a chilling tale of horror" when two teenagers playing Pokémon Go between Loveland Madeira Road and Lake Isabella claimed to see a giant frog near the lake on August 3 that "stood up and walked on its hind legs".[7][8] It was later revealed to be a local student from Archbishop Moeller High School in a homemade frog costume.

Real or not? We may never know! You don't believe in the Frogmen you say well how about the grass man!

Often referred to as the Eastern Bigfoot, the Grassman is reportedly a 7-foot tall, 300-pound hominid.

According to famed cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman, the Ohio Grassmen have a more human-like appearance and are more human-looking and are shorter than the classic “Bigfoot”. The Grassman is often seen around farms and especially eating tall grasses such as wheat, which is what its main diet is, and where its name comes from. In addition to a different diet, the Grassman also seems much more sociable than Bigfoot. Many Grassman sightings include more than one Grassman, and it is reported that mothers have been seen with babies. The first sightings of the Grassman date all the way to 1869, however, one of the most prominent sightings was in 1978. The grandchildren of Minerva residents Evelyn and Howe Clayton, along with their friends, ran inside screaming about a hairy monster they saw in the gravel pit outside. When the couple went out to investigate, they saw the Grassman, just as the children had described, and it quickly ran off. The family saw the creature a few more times, and claimed that it would leave the smell of rotten eggs wherever it passed through, though it never seemed to steal anything.

Yet another Bigfoot-type creature lurks in Ohio, this time near Minerva. The Minerva Monster was first spotted by the Cayton family in the late 1970s when they followed the sound of their barking dogs to a pit on their property where they disposed of trash. Inside the pit, they found a massive, 7-foot tall, 300-pound creature, covered in fur, staring at them as they approached. The creature returned to the family’s property so often that it was witnessed by several other friends and family members and even investigated by the sheriff. During the creature’s final appearance at the property, two creatures were spotted after the home was pelted with several rocks while the family was inside. We suspect this may have been chainsaw.

Although sightings continued in nearby counties, none were as detailed as the Cayton families, whose stories remained unchanged for decades.

How about the Charles Mills Lake Monster! This mysterious cryptid has only been documented one time. In March of 1959, teenagers Denny Patterson, Wayne Armstrong, and Michael Lane were running amok near the shores of Charles Mills Lake when they saw something that terrified them.

Out of the water came a 7-foot tall, armless, humanoid. The boys noted that the creature had glowing green eyes and massive webbed feet. After the boys reported what they had seen, authorities searched the area, finding footprints that they thought resembled tracks that scuba and snorkel diving fins would leave behind.

Crosswick Monster

Around 20 miles north of the Loveland Frogman’s territory lies Crosswick. Although the monster hasn’t been spotted in nearly 200 years, the legend of the Crosswick Monster is still told in the area. According to reports, two young boys were playing on the banks of a small creek when they were startled by a massive, snake-like creature. The monster sprouted arms and snatched one of the boys, dragging him nearly 100 yards to a massive sycamore tree that was assumed to be its den.

The Crosswick monster dropped the child just outside a hole in the tree’s bank. The 26-foot diameter tree was eventually chopped through by dozens of men from the town and when the serpent-creature reappeared, the men noted that it was between 12-14 feet tall. The monster escaped the men, crashing through a fence before darting into a cavern.

The full description read, “It is described as being 30 to 40 feet long, 12 to 14 feet tall when erect, 16 inches in diameter, and legs 4 feet long. It is covered with scales like a lizard’s, of black and white color with large yellow spots. Its head is about 16 inches wide, with a long forked tongue, and the mouth inside deep red.”

Although the Crosswick Monster was never seen again, it is remembered as one of the most believable cryptid experiences in Ohio, as more than 60 men claimed to have witnessed it.

Dogman

Described as a werewolf-like creature, the Dogman has reportedly been seen all throughout Ohio. Eyewitnesses describe the Dogman creatures as between 4-6 feet tall, often very muscular, and with pink or gray skin. It is sometimes seen on all fours or walking bipedally.

One of the most recent accounts was in 2016 in Allen County. The Dogman is typically associated with Michigan, but in the past decade, several sightings have taken place throughout Ohio, an understandable migration.

Ok so let's get back to creepy places!

How about a haunted hotel? The Buxton inn fits the bill! Buxton Inn was originally called the Tavern and it was built in 1812 by Orrin Granger. Today, the Buxton Inn is the oldest continuously running inn in Granville, Ohio. Aside from being an inn, Buxton also served as Granville’s first post office and a stagecoach stop. The Buxton became very popular and was patronized by no less than President William Harrison himself. After Orrin Granger died, ownership of the inn changed. Although it went through several owners, it never closed down because of its popularity. In 1829, more additions were constructed for the building. In the 1850s, the inn was purchased by James W. Dilley and it was renamed to “The Dilley House”. Major Buxton and his wife acquired the property in 1865. They attracted many guests and the inn continued to thrive under their ownership. After the death of the Buxtons, retired opera singer Ethel Bounell took over the inn. The current owners of the inn are Orville and Audrey Orr. The Buxton Inn’s long history lives on with the ghosts frequently seen there, the majority of which are the ghosts of its former owners. The first ghost ever reported at the hotel was Orrin Granger in the 1920’s who built the hotel in 1812.

During the 70’s, workers of the inn saw a man dressed in blue and since then they have refused to enter the inn after dark. Major Buxton (the man who the inn was named after) is also said to haunt the inn. He has been spotted in several locations around the inn.

Ethel “Bonnie” Bounell, the former innkeeper, is said to have died in room number nine. Guests who have stayed in the room have reported seeing a lady dressed in blue, Bonnie’s favourite color. Shadowy figures have been seen in rooms number seven and nine and even in the basement. Guests have also felt the presence of a ghostly cat jumping on their beds. Other reports include heavy doors slamming shut and opening of their own accord, with no apparent breeze or other valid explanation. People have also reported hearing footsteps behind them in empty hallways, and their names being called out.

Definitely spooky… anyone want to take a trip to hell? No? How about just helltown? Well that is where we're headed!

The village known as “Helltown” is purportedly teeming with crybaby bridges, spooked school buses, mass human sacrifice scenes, and a mutant python for good measure. The extreme folklore surrounding the region formerly known as Boston, Ohio is ironic since the only verifiable legend about the town is that it is deserted for a very frighteningly tragic reason. Founded in 1806, Boston Village’s original claim to fame was its standing as the oldest village in Summit County. Boston’s relatively uneventful life took a turn for the worse in 1974, when it became the unlucky victim of nationwide anxiety over the country’s disappearing forestland. Using the laws of eminent domain, President Gerald Ford signed a bill that gave the federal government’s National Park Service jurisdiction to expropriate land for the establishment of National Parks. The NPS decided that Boston Township would be the new home for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and began buying the properties of its longtime residents. The sentiment among citizens who had no choice but to leave their homes was expressed in a message scribbled on the wall of one of the houses: “Now we know how the Indians felt.” The empty homes were boarded up and adorned with U.S. “No Trespassing” signs. The government quickly fell behind on its plan to create the park and the village sat neglected. The remaining buildings, remnants of a “vanished” town, have created a fertile soil for the innumerable urban legends that have popped up over the years.

The hellish aura of the area only continued to grow when the NPS acquired Krejci Dump in 1985. Rangers visiting the site became ill and covered in rashes. It was soon discovered the dump was highly polluted with toxic chemicals improperly disposed of. The dump became a Superfund site and as of 2015 the NPS is wrapping up restoration of the area.

Helltown is home to six or seven separate legends, which has led this area in Boston Township in Ohio to be grouped as one large haunted site. The overgrowth creates a dark, almost cursed place, where ghosts, cults, Satanists, and even a wild-eyed serial killer were said to lurk. Helltown is the nickname given to the northern part of Summit County. The areas most associated with the legends are Boston Township and Boston Village, as well as portions of Sagamore Hills. First settled all the way back in 1806, Boston stands as the oldest village in Summit County. The construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal brought loads of people to the region in the mid-1820s. The area then began to flourish when a railroad station was constructed in the town. The station was named ‘Boston Mills,’ and the name stuck.

Loads of legends come out of the Boston Cemetery, which sits deep in the middle of the area known as Helltown, including tales of a ghost who sits on a bench and stares out into space, forlorn, waiting for his family to come back for him. The only souls not forced to leave the area were the dead, now stuck in this abandoned ghost town, looking for their families which have left so long ago.

There are two roads through Helltown, both labeled as ‘dead ends’ even though you can watch them continue on into the distance. Legend says that local Satanic cults put up these signs to keep people out of their secret hideouts. Stanford Road, one of the main roads in Helltown, is sometimes referred to as The End of the World, or Highway to Hell. It is a twisting, dangerous road with a very sharp incline, so steep that when a car crests the top of the hill, it looks as if it is driving off a cliff. Some stories indicate that the road itself is evil, and is known to take possession of your vehicle, causing fatal accidents. It is said that if you park your car at the end of Stanford Road, you may meet your gruesome fate at the hands of the strange people who still patrol the area, protecting it.

One rumor persists through the ages that the town’s residents were actually evacuated due to a large chemical spill, and the National Park was just a cover-up. The chemical spills were said to have caused mutations in local children, and even created the Peninsula Python, a gigantic snake that slithers the area.

An account given by a local paranormal researcher who explored the area truly sums up the overall vibe of Helltown – “I have experienced much in my explorations of there, some of which I don’t care to remember and some of which I can never hope to explain.

Helltown is not truly abandoned. It does have residents, but they are a strange and frightening breed. I have gone exploring the woods and cemetery of the area in the late night and wee morning hours, and have returned to my car to find strange people looking into its car windows. This has happened twice––once at 2:00 AM and once at 4:30 AM. Both times, the people fled as soon as they saw me approaching the car before I had a chance to speak to them. Both times, they were dressed in all black.

A part of me is glad that I didn’t get to converse with them because I have heard too many tales about the ways of Hell Town residents. Supposedly, they are all Satanists and worship at the town’s two evil churches. I have been to both of these churches, however not inside them. One, the Mother of Sorrows, has upside-down crosses hanging from it.

I have also been to the Boston Cemetery, where a ghost has been seen sitting on a bench. This cemetery is as dark a place as I have ever been. The graves date back to the early 1800s. I didn’t see the ghost when I visited, but I did hear strange growls and howls from the depths of the graveyard. This was more than enough to convince me to leave, as the prospect of getting attacked by some strange boneyard dwelling beast was not appealing, to say the least.”

Welllllll we might not be heading there any time soon!

Ok we got one more place for ya. The Bellaire house. The history of Bellaire House stretches back to 1904, when it was constructed by Jacob Heatherington, who also owned a coal mine that ran directly beneath the property on Belmont Street.

When the original owner died, he left the land and the five-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house to his daughter Eliza and son Edwin.

But not long after coming into her inheritance, Eliza Heatherington collapsed dead on the dining room floor in the house.

Legend has it that her grieving brother became obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dearly departed sister from beyond and invited mediums from across the country to his home for that purpose. Paranormal researchers believe that it was Edwin Heatherington who, through his experiments with the occult, unwittingly opened nearly a dozen different portals to the 'other side' throughout the house, allowing malevolent spirits to cross over.

Research suggests that the plot of land on which the house sits also conceals Native American burial caves, and it has been intimated, though not confirmed, that prior to the Civil War the site was part of the Underground Railroad used by fugitive slaves.

The Bellaire House sits on what is known as a Leyline. This means there is a consistent wellspring of paranormal activity that goes all through the house. A virtual spring of ghosts coming back from the dead.

Kristin Lee, the current owner of the house was affected by two floods which left her family homeless. After they moved into the home they saw “odd” things. Kristin Lee blamed everything except for the paranormal until the point when it was impossible to deny. She describes the history and her time there on the home's website.

"The house gained a mysterious reputation even during the years when it was sitting abandoned. The neighbors in the area claimed to see people roaming around in the house or peeking out of the windows. This was when the house was locked and no one was living there. There were some who thought that the kids were up to something nifty, but when I moved in there, it didn’t take long for its history to resurface because that’s when paranormal activities in the Bellaire House began to manifest in more violent ways. Jacob Heatherington built the Bellaire House in the vicinity of sacred Shawnee Native American burial caves. That makes the house 172 years old. Those caves were right behind the Bellaire House and the Ohio River is right in the front. Physics proves that water is a portal because it is always moving and the magnetic pull of the water creates a powerhouse of energy where spirits can cut through earthbound gravity, gain energy to port back and forth from their dimension to ours. The craziest part is that the portal sits right under the Bellaire House.

This area is still known as the Native American Internment Area. The thing is that the Native Americans who lived in this area used to bury their leaders, chieftain, shamans, healers, and witchdoctors in these caves. They used to hold their ceremonies in this area and practiced magic. In 1754 the French & Indian War rampaged through Bellaire. The native massacres by the hands of French soldiers were large. Blood still stains the grounds of the entire town of Bellaire. The residual energy of the slaughter still seeps inside the soil today.

She goes on to say:

Although Joe Estes & Associates cleaned the inhuman spirits, the house is always active to this day despite all the cleansing and Catholic rituals.

The ley line over which the Bellaire House is built is one of the alignments of ancient monuments and prehistoric sites in straight lines. It is believed by some that it indicates paths of positive energy inherent in the Earth. The Bellaire House is on the tip of one of the most ancient ley lines in the world! This could possibly be the reason why the Native Americans chose the land that the Bellaire House sits on because it is supercharged with such a profound energy source that it caused a direct connection to the great spirit, the old world gods, and intergalactic beings!

Research revealed that when Jacob Heatherington, who was a millionaire and used to run the city, died he left the coal mine company to his son Alex Heatherington, who was assisted by his daughter Lyde.

Unfortunately, the business started to fail due to Alex hearing and seeing things that were not there. He also began to have epileptic seizures and declared that "demons were trying to kill him." Back then people believed that he was haunted and cursed because of the coal mine explosions.

According to paranormal investigators, there are as many as 11 portals throughout the house. The most interesting thing is that no matter how hard paranormal investigators try, these portals refuse to stay closed. Edwin and Lyde were also known to have servants. Mostly, all of them were named Mary. There was one particular Mary that had a child inside of the Bellaire House and it was rumored that the child had the bloodline that was needed to allow an entity inside of the Bellaire House to grow stronger to do Lyde’s bidding. There are village rumors that a servant’s child was lured to the attic and plunged to his death out of the window.

In March 1940, there was another explosion in the mines. This time in Coal Mine #2, which was commonly referred to as Willow Grove Mine at the time. It was about twenty minutes from Bellaire. The explosion trapped 180 men in the mine and took the lives of at least fifty men. Also, it left more than a hundred men burned and severely wounded. Although many members of the community tried to rescue the trapped men, only a few men could be saved. It’s said that the rescue attempt continued for several days to no avail. This explosion at Coal Mine #2 further contributed to the haunting of the Bellaire House..

So what exactly happened to Kristen Lee and her family in that house. One day, Lee said she was home when she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the attic. She assumed it was her boyfriend, Jeff, whom she thought was working upstairs.

When sometime later she heard Jeff come through the front door downstairs, Kristen was shocked, but figured that the noise she heard from the attic was just the old house settling. A few weeks later, Kristen was napping on the couch when she was awakened by a presence next to her. She opened her eyes to discover a man's greyish figure in a cap.

She screamed in terror and demanded to know who he was. The man said nothing in response, got up from the couch, made his way to the foyer and vanished into thin air.

Lee noted that her boyfriend and son were asleep at the time, but the family dog appeared panic-stricken. She also pointed out that it was so cold in the room she could see her breath.

Lee says that was her first startling encounter with the supernatural inside the house, which she would later dub ‘a portal to hell.’

In the following months, Lee and her family would allegedly experience strange voices and footsteps, objects moving on their own and ghostly figures popping up out of nowhere. It came to a point where Lee sent her youngest son to stay with her parents and her oldest with his father because she feared for their safety inside the house.

Things finally came to a head one evening when Lee says the family dog was hurled against a bedroom wall by an invisible force, which at the same time pinned her down, rendering her motionless.

After that incident, Lee and her family promptly decided to move and rent out the house, but her tenants did not linger there either.

One family that briefly called Bellaire House their home allegedly lost six of eight family members while residing at 1699 Belmont Street.

Kristen Lee then tried to offload the house by selling it to the town of Bellaire for a dollar, but there were no takers, as the locals were well aware of its bad reputation.

Out of options she decided to turn the house into a spot where people could come and ghost hunt. And that is where it sits today. Maybe that'll be our next trip!

That's since creepy Ohio for you! Again we left out some of the more well known stuff and didn't have room to include every cool thing so we may be back for round two of creepy Ohio say since point as well! There are tons of cool creepy places in Ohio. Check them out!

The Djinn or Jinn...

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 00:11:22 -0400

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