Here’s a chilling story for your Monday evening:
In Berlin, after World War II, money was short, supplies were tight, and it seemed like everyone was hungry. At that time, people were telling the tale of a young woman who saw a blind man picking his way through a crowd. The two started to talk. The man asked her for a favor: could she deliver the letter to the address on the envelope? Well, it was on her way home, so she agreed.
She started out to deliver the message, when she turned around to see if there was anything else the blind man needed. But she spotted him hurrying through the crowd without his smoked glasses or white cane. She was, naturally, suspicious, so she went to the police.
When the police paid a visit to the address on the envelope, they made a gruesome discovery, three butchers had been harvesting human flesh and selling it to the starving people.
And what was in the envelope the man gave to the woman? A note, saying simply “This is the last one I am sending you today.”(via fyeahcreepyshit)

This letter appears in an English journal in 1800 relating to events on 10 April 1744. It is an interesting document because it combines two paranormal facts typically kept apart: witchcraft and spontaneous human combustion.
The following narrative will probably amuse some of your readers: though many may think it is a falsehood, it is an absolute fact and there are still living, in this town [Ipswich, Suffolk], witnesses to the truth of it… Grace Pett, about 60 years of age, the wife of a fisherman, at Ipswich was burnt, in a supernatural or miraculous manner, to ashes. When her husband was at sea, one of her daughters used to sleep with her: the mother had a custom for several years of going down stairs every night when she was half undrest, on some private occasion; and on the night preceding the above day she went down as usual, and her daughters fell asleep. When she awoke it [sic] the morning, finding her mother was not come down to bed, she ran down in a fright, and found her, about half on the hearth, and half on the deal floor: the floor was not hurt by the fire, nor were her feet and ankles burnt; neither did they appear to be hurt by the fire. Her daughter said she had no other apparel on her beside her cap, shift, a cotton gown, an upper petticoat, stockings and shoes which certainly could not be thought sufficient fuel to reduce a human body to ashes in a natural way. Mrs Pett had a daughter who came home from Gibraltar on the preceding day. They had been making merry on the occasion, drank plentifully of gin, and sat up late; which accounts for her daughter’s sleepiness.
The gin might account for more than her daughter’s failure to wake up! However, what is really extraordinary here is the way that witchcraft now threads into this already curious tale.
The poor old woman had the reputation of being a witch among some of her ignorant neighbours; and at that time a neighbouring farmer, one Garnnham, had some of his sheep taken in an odd way: they were supposed to be betwitched, and he was advised to burn one of them. The farmer was too wise to entertain such an idea; but his wife, more credulous in such matters, resolved to try the experiment. Accordingly in the very night that this woman was burnt, Mrs Garnham, afer her husband was gone to bed, made their head man bring in a diseased sheep, and make a great fire, and burn it to death.
Pretty remarkable stuff for Suffolk in the mid eighteenth-century, though in the west of Britain reports of such things carry on into the mid nineteenth century.
This circumstance gave encouragement to the report of the poor old woman’s being a witch; and they thought sufficient reason was found why her feet and ankles were not burnt, as it was reported, that the feet of the sheep were not, and that they were fixed in the ground when the animal was burnt. This was not true; for the poor creature was burned in the backhouse. Its four legs being tied together, it was laid on the hearth, and a miserable death it had; for soon after the fire began to burn fiercely about it, the bandage on its legs was burnt off, and the distressed sheep jumped up, and ran from the fire: the man than ran a pitch-fork into its body, forced it into the fire again, and held it there till it was destroyed.
Charming! A kind of sympathetic magic then between the sheep and witch burning.
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In the Fall of 2010 it seemed pretty creepy that thousands of dead birds had fallen from the sky, millions of dead fish were turning up, and tens of thousands of dead crabs were littering beaches. But it turns out these aren’t the only bizarre mass animal deaths that have occurred over the years. The most bizarre, IMO, has occurred at Scotland’s Overtoun Bridge, located near the village of Milton in the burgh of Dumbarton.
In the past fifty years, 50 to 600 dogs have jumped over Scotland’s Overtoun Bridge and plummeted to their deaths. A few years ago, five dogs jumped in under six months. The Daily Mail wrote an article featuring reports of horrified pet owners who walked their dog over the bridge, when suddenly the dog would, without warning, leap over the bridge, falling 50 ft to the rocky bottom below. Perhaps even more disturbing, there are reports of “second timers”…of the few dogs who have survived the fall, some jumped over the same bridge again.
Many theories have circulated about why dogs react this way to the bridge. Some suggest that the dogs are deliberately committing suicide, perhaps due to depression in their owners or even a supernatural force.
Most of the dogs were long-nosed breeds; Labradors, Collies and Retrievers. Dog deaths have occurred in every season, but notably, on clear days, a rarity in this grey, wet part of Scotland. All of the dogs leapt from the same side of the bridge.
The most logical theory would seem to indicate something with the ‘scent’ at the bridge. RSPB researcher David Sexton planted several traps under the bridge and found mice and mink living there, and many squirrel nests nearby. He isolated the three animals’ scents and placed samples of each in a large field. He then unleashed ten dogs of the same breeds that routinely jump from the bridge. Only two dogs showed no interest in any of the scents…while seven of the dogs immediately went for the scent of the mink. In fact, it seemed that they were driven crazy by it.
So it may be that the smell of mink is irresistible to dogs, and not knowing about the 50 foot drop from the bridge, simply go wild and jump when they get a sniff of the scent. This would also explain why the “suicides” only seem to happen to clear days, when the mink scent is undiluted by rain. It also lines up nicely with the timeline for mink populations in Scotland. The animals were only released into the wild in Scotland in the 1920s, and only began breeding in large numbers in the 1950s.
But there’s still the matter of why some dogs, once they’re on the ground after their jump, often go back up the bridge and jump again instead of chasing the mink. Or why the dogs only seem to jump from one specific point of the bridge and not others. Or why dogs go crazy for mink only here, when there are an estimated 26,000 mink all over Scotland?
According to legend, this is a place of dark deeds, tragedy and superstition. On one occasion, a man, behaving very erratically, threw his young baby from the bridge, believing it to be possessed by the devil.
In recent years the number of deaths has risen dramatically, with five animals jumping in six months. The story continues to attract widespread media attention, giving rise to the theory that these dogs could be committing suicide.
Overtoun House and it’s grounds have garnered a reputation as a centre for unexplained phenomena. In Celtic mythology, Overtoun is known as a “thin” place. A place where Heaven and Earth are reputed to be close. Some have speculated that sensitive dogs are being spooked by something at the bridge.
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Case Number: 33266
Log Number: US-11112011-0002
Submitted Date: 2011-11-11 02:21 GMT
Event Date: 2011-11-08 20:02 GMT
Status: Submitted
City: Tampa
Region: Florida
Country: US
Longitude: -82.4571776
Latitude: 27.950575
Shape: Circle,Oval,Sphere
Distance: One mile or less
Description: (unedited)
On November 8, 2011 in Tampa, Florida at approximately 8:02PM (Roughly) I was headed towards Lee Roy Selmons restaurant via Memorial Highway to then get on the Veterans Expressway. I was headed towards the airport, so East. I was right by the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in an area called “Town and Country” Keep in mind, I live nearby to the airport and am quite used to seeing airplanes and helicopters. I have seen some UFO’s in the past (about 5) but never made a report, but considering I took a video of this one, I see no excuse not to. Why did I have a camera with me to go out to eat? Especially my new one I just got for a trip? Good question. I’m one to definitely trust my “gut” and since my buddy recently had a sighting on Hilsborough and Racetrack Rd (my extremely skeptical friend who DOES NOT believe in this stuff), I felt the need to trust my gut and bring my camera with me. Its really just for pictures (Canon PowershotSX 150) but videos are always fun. So yes, a gut feeling told me to bring my camera and I did. Within about a mile of my house, I see this Orange Orb-like object quite low than what a normal airplane would be doing in the area. Living by the airport, you get quite used to seeing many many objects in the sky, and I knew IMMEDIATELY that this object was not normal. First, it was low and I could tell it was low. I had perspective. It loooked like a floating Jack O Lantern, a floating pumpkin, or some sort of illuminated object. But it wasnt lit from within, it was lit on the outside as well. When I say floating, I don’t mean that it was ascending, not by any means. It did NOT ascend at all. I saw it coming towards me, below any cloud cover and much lower than any airplane. Do you realize how strange it is to see something and know IMMEDIATELY that it shouldn’t be there? So I quick pulled over to a blocked entrance to a Scottish Rite Masonic Temple. I got my camera, turned it on and had enough time to catch the object seemingly pass over the Masonic building and continue its path along Memorial. Memorial does curve, so it’s difficult to tell which way it was heading. I want to Say Northwest, over the bay. Not entirely sure. However, when I did see it, it was headed straight toward me (seemingly) on Memorial. I got out, saw it basically above me car, but out like 300 or 400 yards. It is difficult to judge distance when you don’t know the size of the object you are seeing. To me visually, it looked like a large Basketball. Giving off Orange Hue. Glow, whatever you want to call it. There were NO FAA LIGHTS. And it was coming from the direction of the airport but not in any flight pattern I’ve ever seen. (When its windy, yes, the runways change) but it was too low to be an airplane from the airport, because it was unlike any flight plan i’d seen. It was moving in the same direction as Memorial Hwy, it was moving (from my vision) left to right if I’m facing the building that was in front of me. It did not ascend, it kept a distinct flight path. It moved quickly, but for how low it was, I would bet it was moving about 60 or 70mph. I do have contacts but I was not wearing them. Way too low, not ONE Flashing light. And thankfully, I caught an airplance in my shot. Unfortunately, I have a typical UFO video in that its shaky, and there are little reference points. I tried to do my best, but it all happened so fast. I zoomed in too much causing it to be blurry and zoom in RIGHT when the airplane was flying over it. But at least I caught that. So again, I saw an object, headed toward me, I saw it from my field of Vision while driving. It was low enough for me to basically slam on my brakes and pull over meaning that I knew it was abnormal as far as an airplane or helicopter are concerned. It couldn’t have been a Hot Air balloon. It couldn’t have been a remote controlled helicopter and it wasn’t a blimp (Ive seen plenty living in Tampa) However, suppose it was a Chinese Lantern, well, it wasn’t internally lit. and it moved laterally not up. Never once to did it seeem to rise in height. My first thought was “Wow, that looks like a pumpkin shooting across the sky.” I have seen a ball of light very similar and at the same height over St Pete beach (I have no visual evidence of this event). About a year after seeing the Orange ball over the beach, i googled it and found out they are seen ALL over Florida (with video) and there is one instance in Indiana, where I’m from. (I saw a pinpoint of white light fly around an airplane over Grissom AFB while driving by and saw an Orange Orb over the base as well while recounting the pinpoint of light story to my sister…) the more you get into the UFO phenomenon, the more you notice the synchronicity of when and where you see them, and yes, they do seem to know when you see them. So I had the sense literally IMMEDIATELY upon seeing this pumpkin (at this point, coming toward me) Upon stopping, hopping out and grabbing the video, the object was now over me (but i was looking up at it, not directly up, but definitely below any cloud cover and definitely low enough to realize it was way too low? Hard to explain. No flashing or internal light, outside illumination only. No pulsing really, maybe a slight slow strobe, couldn’t really make out a shape. I could understand if this was a remote control floating Pumpkin, but darn it if it wasn’t out of my sight in about a minute. What kind of long range antennae did this thing have? If it was a prank. IF IF IF, why would they risk being so close to the airport and violating there airspace? Where were ANY flashing lights per FAA regulations? Just another note, the sighting in June or so from the Gandy bridge, the girl and her boyfriend witnessing a giant object that came up to the bridge, was an aquaintance of mine. I have friends left and RIGHT seeeing things in Tampa. My guess is this, there are SOOOO many airplanes in the sky at all times, that a majority of people don’t take notice to the objects, so in essence, its a perfect environment for them to blend in. The sightings in Clearwater and St Pete (which are all within an half hour drive) are also quite frequent.
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Because we know you were dying to know. This video features Piers Gibbon — a British explorer, author, and National Geographic TV show host — describing the head-shrinking process long performed by the Shuar people of Ecuador and Peru.
Below is a quick recap of the process, also provided by Gibbon, in a recent interview with the folks over at Life’s Little Mysteries.
First stage, kill your enemy…and chop his head off, leaving a decent amount of neck flap underneath the head. Then, second stage — absolutely crucial — you need to crush and remove the human skull, so you break it up with rocks and pull it out of the neck and all of the brain matter and everything else. So you’re left with, basically, a head bag.
This head bag is then boiled in water with, I think, herbs and spices added to tan it — like with leather — and that is effectively shrinking it in the same way you would shrink any leather if you boiled it.
And then, what you really need to do is get out all of the last little bits of fatty tissue from…say, around the lips. You need to get rid of that. And you use hot sand from the fire to get rid of those. So you push it into the head, and get rid of all the fatty tissue…and then pull that out.
Then, you have to sew up the eyes and the mouth so that the soul of your vanquished enemy cannot see you and cannot call for vengeance.
Then you have won.
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Despite the hoopla surrounding the date Dec. 21, 2012, the world is not at risk of coming to a halt, NASA says.
Aside from that date marking next year’s winter solstice, the longest night of that year, nothing else interesting is expected.
All in all, “sleep well on Dec. 21 of next year,” said astronomer Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at a public talk yesterday (Dec. 8) about rumors of a 2012 apocalypse.
“What’s so special about Dec. 21 of next year?” Yeomans asked. “A lot of people think it’s the end of the Maya calendar.”
The ancient Mayan calendar was, like the modern Gregorian calendar, 365 days long. In addition to the year, the ancient Maya measured time in longer periods, with a short-count and a long-count calendar, just as we measure time in decades, centuries and millennia.
“The short-count was 52 of our years, and the long-count was 5,125 years long. This long-count calendar is coming to an end on Dec. 21,” Yeomans said.”Of course, a new calendar would start on Dec. 22. It would be like saying that our calendar ends Dec. 31, and that’s the end of time, the end of days, that’s it, no regard for how a new cycle would begin. The Maya never predicted the end of the world occurred at that time.”
Although there are those who believe Dec. 21, 2012 will bring about a new age of enlightenment, many, many others fear a catastrophe. “I Googled ‘2012 disasters,’ and you know how many hits I got? 35 million hits,” Yeomans said. “A lot of people are concerned about Dec. 21, 2012.”
One concern is over how, from Earth’s point of view, the sun will cross in front of the plane of our galaxy on Dec. 21. However, the sun routinely does this twice a year without fanfare, Yeomans said.
Another fear is that a planet dubbed “Nibiru” or “Planet X” is supposedly headed toward Earth.
Yeomans noted that well-known UFO aficionado Nancy Leider, who describes herself as being in contact with aliens from the star system Zeta Reticuli, first said Nibiru would cause widespread disaster in May 2003, only to later change her prediction to Dec. 21, 2012.
“There’s no evidence whatsoever that Nibiru exists,” Yeomans said. Notions that it might be hiding behind the sun are unfounded, as “it can’t hide behind the sun forever, and we would’ve seen it years ago,” Yeomans said.
While believers in Nibiru claim that astronomers and NASA are engaged in a conspiracy to cover up Nibiru to prevent panic, “there’s no way on Earth to keep astronomers quiet about anything,” Yeomans joked.
There are also claims that gravitational effects from planets lining up with each other in 2012 will somehow affect Earth.
“But there is no planetary alignment on Dec. 21, 2012,” Yeomans said.
Even if there were a planetary alignment then, it would not cause problems. The only bodies that have significant gravitational effects on Earth are the moon and the sun, effects we see as the tides. The tidal effects induced by the other bodies in our solar system are negligible, and we have experienced them for millions of years without troubles.
Another 2012 fear rests on solar storms.
Solar storms — torrents of energetic particles from the sun — do occur. These usually come and go in cycles 11 years long. When they slam into Earth, they create auroras and can cause damage to satellites and power lines, but it’s “nothing that causes lasting damage,” Yeomans said.
There are records of a solar “super-storm” striking the Earth in 1859. Although that caused little damage back then, there are fears that such a storm would inflict much more harm now that our world is far more dependent on electronics.
Still, “there is no evidence that one will happen on Dec. 21 next year,” Yeomans said. It’s impossible to predict solar activity that far out, and even an extremely strong solar storm wouldn’t likely bring the apocalypse that some fear.
The Earth has two kinds of poles — its geographical poles, which mark the planet’s axis of rotation, and its magnetic poles, which are associated with the planet’s magnetic field that makes our compasses point toward north.
Some fear that either or both of these poles will flip in 2012.
However, the geographical poles cannot flip because the moon stabilizes our planet’s spin.
The magnetic poles do flip sometimes, but on time scales of about 500,000 years. These shifts are not sudden, but take place very gradually over thousands of years, “and there’s no evidence of a flip on Dec. 21, 2012,” Yeomans said. “Even if it did flip, it would not cause any real problems, other than us having to change our compasses from north to south.”
Ultimately, smart people can believe weird things for any number of reasons, Yeoman noted. For instance, real data is often confused with junk science, while anecdotal evidence and passionate arguments on the Internet and on television shows purporting to be fact are often mistaken for the real thing.
“Scientists really have their work cut out for them,” Yeomans said. “We really have to do a better job educating people about science.”
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Every night, amateur ghost-hunting groups across the country head out into abandoned warehouses, old buildings and cemeteries to look for ghosts. They often bring along electronic equipment that they believe helps them locate ghostly energy.
Despite years of efforts by ghost hunters on TV and in real life, we still do not have good proof that ghosts are real. Many ghost hunters believe that strong support for the existence of ghosts can be found in modern physics. Specifically, that Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, offered a scientific basis for the reality of ghosts.
A recent Google search turned up nearly 8 million results suggesting a link between ghosts and Einstein’s work covering the conservation of energy. This assertion is repeated by many top experts in the field. For example, ghost researcher John Kachuba, in his book “Ghosthunters” (2007, New Page Books), writes, “Einstein proved that all the energy of the universe is constant and that it can neither be created nor destroyed. … So what happens to that energy when we die? If it cannot be destroyed, it must then, according to Dr. Einstein, be transformed into another form of energy. What is that new energy? … Could we call that new creation a ghost?”
This idea shows up — and is presented as evidence for ghosts — on virtually all ghost-themed websites as well. For example, a group called Tri County Paranormal states, “Albert Einstein said that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change from one form to another. When we are alive, we have electrical energy in our bodies. … What happens to the electricity that was in our body, causing our heart to beat and making our breathing possible? There is no easy answer to that.”
In fact, the answer is very simple, and not at all mysterious. After a person dies, the energy in his or her body goes where all organisms’ energy goes after death: into the environment. When a human dies, the energy stored in his or her body is released in the form of heat, and transferred into the animals that eat us (i.e., wild animals if we are left unburied, or worms and bacteria if we are interred), and the plants that absorb us. If we are cremated, the energy in our bodies is released in the form of heat and light.
When we eat dead plants and animals, we are consuming their energy and converting it for our own use. Food is metabolized when digested, and chemical reactions release the energy the animal needs to live, move, reproduce, etc. That energy does not exist in the form of a glowing, ghostly ball of electromagnetic energy, but rather in the form of heat and chemical energy.
Many ghost hunters say they can detect the electric fields created by ghosts. And while it’s true that the metabolic processes of humans and other organisms actually do generate very low-level electrical currents, these are no longer generated once the organism dies. Because the source of the energy stops, the electrical current stops — just as a light bulb turns off when you switch off the electricity running to it.
Most of the “energy” that any dead person leaves behind takes years to re-enter the environment in the form of food; the rest dissipates shortly after death, and is not in a form that can be detected years later with popular ghost-hunting devices like electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors. Ghost hunters who repeat the claim that Einstein’s theories provide a sound basis for ghosts reveal less about ghosts than they do about their poor understanding of basic science. Ghosts may indeed exist, but neither Einstein nor his laws of physics suggests that ghosts are real.
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There is an old adage among hunters: know your prey. This is a good mantra for ghost hunters as well. Most of us associate the term “ghosts” with the beings we have defined and known in Western culture (mainly North America, Great Britain, and Ireland). But, interestingly, ghosts are a universally-known phenomena that have been witnessed throughout the world. I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the more interesting, yet lesser known, types of ghosts from all around the world.
In days past, big game hunters would travel to foreign lands to snare the types of prey they preferred (big cats, deer, bear, etc.). Let’s take a look at some of the categories of ghosts that we can hunt abroad.
But what about “evil” spirits? In Western culture, an evil spirit is thought to be the ghost of a once-living person who was, simply, a bad person and has now stuck around to plague the living. These spirits are separated from other traditional evil entities-such as certain elementals, demons, etc. In other locales, however, evil spirits often have their own unique characteristics that separate them from commonplace ghosts, or even typical non-human spirits.
The “chiang-shih” in China is just such a spirit. The chiang-shih loves to occupy and even animate corpses. It is said that this spirit will often inhabit those who have just been buried and is sometimes so powerful that it can cause the body to hop around! Another type of evil ghost (also seen in graveyards) is the Japanese “kubikajiri.” This entity is typically seen headless and is purported to wander the cemetery looking, not only for its own head, but for other heads to feast upon. But, perhaps, the scariest of these cemetery ghosts is the Indian “vetala.” Vetala are said to possess corpses and to even stalk the night looking for victims to kill.
Additional evil spirits include the “dybbuk” of Jewish folklore, which are known for returning to the living world in order to torment and afflict the living (and can even inhabit objects or living beings) and the “preta” of India that are depicted as emaciated ghosts who constantly crave the things that the living enjoy-and, subsequently, go to any lengths to get it!
But what makes examining “foreign ghosts” so interesting is the wide range of unique spirits that are found throughout the world.
The “acheri” are Native American spirits that are said to appear as a small girl-a girl that comes down from the hills to afflict the living with sickness and death. Then there’s the “buru buru” that appears in Japan as a one-eyed ghost in wooded areas and is known for attaching itself to a person’s spine causing them to constantly experience chills. Another Japanese entity is the “ikiryoh,” which is actually the ghost of a living person! Whether it’s an out-of-body experience, astral projection, or simply the living embodiment of a curse placed on someone else, the ikiryoh is said to haunt people who have wronged them-and to visit various maladies back upon them. Japan is also home to the tragic “konakjiji, which are the ghosts of poor babies who were once left in the woods to die.
In Ireland, the spirits of murdered people (and even animals) can often return from the otherworld as a “tash” to haunt those who did them in. Author Sheridan Le Fanu made a living from writing about such spirits. In his stories these ghosts have appeared as horses, insects, and even birds. It is because of tashes that folks in Eire are warned away from mourning too long, lest the dead return.
And, of course, there are just normal, everyday ghosts elsewhere in the world, too.
So, whether you are hunting ghosts here in North America, or you are pursuing “bhut” in India, “kere” in Greece, or “manes” in Italy, you should pick up a copy of my new book Ghost Hunting for Beginners (October 2011). It includes everything you need to know about chasing spirits wherever you go-as well as information on using technical equipment, setting up your own paranormal group, and even getting your first real case.
Happy hunting!
About the Author: Rich Newman (Tennessee) has been investigating the paranormal for over ten years and is the founder of the group Paranormal Inc. He is also a filmmaker whose first feature film, a documentary called Ghosts of War, will be released in 2011. His articles have appeared in Haunted Times and Paranormal Underground.
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