Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

The following item was something the editors of the “London Times” did not expect to find advertised in their paper.  May 10, 1861:

Coblentz, April 25, 1861. In an almost impenetrable ravine in the declivity of Mount Rheineck, which is situate immediately on the banks of the Rhine, between Brohl and Nioderbrel (a district of the Tribunal of First Instance of Cobleutz, Rhenish-Prussia), on the 22d of last March, was found the body of some person, a female, from 20 to 30 years of age, or thereabout, concealed in a recess, covered with large stones. The period of decease cannot be precisely determined. Death was caused by a ball shot from a gun, which traversed the breast and back. Description --height 5ft. 2 or 3 inches hair, fair; teeth, sound, small, and somewhat irregularly set in the lower jaw. Chemise, cambric, 3 ft. 6 inches long, the upper hem forming a running string, with two eyelet-holes, two fine and even cords passing through in the centre of the round breast of the chemise, and below the eyelet-holes, the initials " A. E. 36" are embroidered in Gothic characters, in relief, half an inch long.

2. A nightgown of fine white dimity, collar turned down, 2 ft. 3 inches, with white mother-of-pearl buttons; some remains of a fine material, with brown and white stripes (jaconot muslin); in the white stripe is a small winding white line, with red spots. In the vicinity of the body have been found the remnants of a petticoat, 3 feet 2 inches long; it is composed of fine white dimity, striped, the same material as the nightgown. On the upper edge, which is an inch and half broad, with white riband strings, are embroidered in white letters, 2 1/2 lines, in relief, and in large characters of the German printed alphabet, the initials “M. R., 6.” The bottom hem is finished with cord in linen thread.

The fine quality of the materials and the elegant make of all these articles indicate that the victim belonged to a rich class. In consequence of the state of putrefaction and external destruction it is impossible to notice other marks of recognition. I request of any person who can give information concerning this unknown individual, and the circumstances of her death, to be so good as to furnish me with the particulars, else to communicate them to the nearest magistrates. The articles of dress above mentioned, together with the lower jaw, are deposited for inspection at my office. The Crown Prosecutor-General, DE RODENBERG.

I have been unable to find if the mystery of the woman’s identity--let alone who murdered her--was ever solved.

Murder by Toothbrush: The Strange Case of Tita Critescu

1930s Romania may not have been a paradise for most people, but for a young Bucharest actress named Tita Cristescu, life was pretty darned good.  She was well-connected (her father, Gheorghe Cristescu, was a prominent figure in Romanian politics,) she had a successful theatrical career, and was pretty enough to be named “Miss Romania” of 1933.  Tita was engaged to be married to Hotta Cuza, a young Romanian diplomat.  She seemed perfectly happy, and was full of hope for the future.

One January night in 1936, Tita’s parents came over to her apartment for dinner, leaving about 11:30 p.m.  After her parents left, Tita told her maid, Maria, to go to bed.  As she spoke, she took a capsule from a box and swallowed it.  Maria assumed it was one of the “reducing capsules” Tita took every night.  Maria went to bed, but was awakened half and hour later by Tita’s sister, Mrs. Mikai Gregorian.  Mrs. Gregorian, her voice shaking with fear, told the maid, “Get a doctor, at once.  Tita is very ill.”

Maria hurried from the apartment, but by the time she returned with a physician, Tita was dead.  Mrs. Gregorian told the doctor that, while passing by the apartment building, she noticed that her sister’s light was still on, so dropped by for a brief visit.  Tita was wearing a negligee, and was in her usual high spirits.  However, after chatting for a few minutes, Tita suddenly went silent and stared ahead blankly.  She fell onto a chair and said, “Get me a glass of water.  Something is going on inside me.  I am thirsty all of a sudden and I have a dreadful taste in my mouth which is queer because I have just brushed my teeth.”

She gulped down the water, but then dropped the glass.  She turned very pale and gasped, “I am going to be awfully sick.  Get a doctor.”  By the time Mrs. Gregorian awakened Maria, Tita had fallen unconscious.  Several minutes later, she died.

When the police heard all this, their assumption was that, despite Tita’s seemingly ideal life, the young woman had committed suicide.  Actresses, they nodded sagely, were notoriously unstable, and beauty queens were the worst of the lot.  Besides, who would want to kill her? When the autopsy revealed Tita had died from cyanide poisoning, the authorities believed it was “case closed.”  They were ready to label the death as a tragic self-poisoning, and move on.

Tita’s parents were outraged at this verdict.  They were convinced their daughter had been murdered, and they even had what they believed to be an obvious suspect: a wealthy engineer named Liviu Ciulley.  Ciulley, they declared, had been in love with Tita, and was maddened with jealousy over her plans to marry another man.  Police scoffed at this theory.  They pointed out that Ciulley had been married for ten years, and had shown no signs of wanting a divorce.  Gheorghe Cristescu was unpopular among many circles--a contemporary newspaper described him as “a socialist demagogue of the most radical and spectacular sort”--so few people took his claims seriously.  However, the sudden and mysterious death of a beautiful young actress was like catnip to the newspapers.  Tita’s demise became a genuine public scandal.

The publicity forced the authorities to reopen the case, which included questioning Liviu Ciulley.  Ciulley told police that for five years, he and Tita had a secret affair, but more than a year ago, he became tired of the her and broke off their relationship.  He added that in recent times, Tita had financial problems, and was always pestering him for loans.  As a result of this harassment, he was positively relieved to hear of her marriage plans.  Furthermore, he could prove that for more than a week before Tita’s death, he had been with his family in Sinaia, a considerable distance from Bucharest.

Ciulley seemed sincere, and police were able to confirm his alibi.  However, investigators also turned up something that seemed to contradict the suicide theory: The night Tita died, she had asked the daughter of her apartment building’s janitor to wake her very early the next morning, as she had a lot of shopping to do.  The police were not yet convinced of Ciulley’s innocence.

A search of Ciulley’s apartment found nothing incriminating.  When police visited the home and office of his brother, a doctor named Alexandra Ciulley, they initially saw nothing suspicious there, either.  Then, a particularly snoopy detective found a glass syringe hidden under a sheaf of bills.

The detective noted that when he found the syringe, a look of fear suddenly crossed Dr. Ciulley’s face.  “What did you hide that for?” the detective asked.  The doctor hesitated, but after a bit of pressing, said that a month before, he had loaned a syringe to his brother, because Liviu said he needed to give injections to his children, who were suffering from sore throats.  Alexandra continued, “When I heard that my brother was charged with having poisoned the actress, I got frightened.  I knew that he was madly in love with Tita Critescu, and I had a terrible suspicion that he might, in point of fact, have committed the murder.  I was afraid that if the police found the syringe in his flat, they might feel justified in their suspicion that my unfortunate brother had injected the poison into the girl’s reducing capsules and would consider the syringe as decisive proof.  I wanted to remove it before the police found it, and on Friday, January 10, I went to my brother’s flat to hide the syringe somehow.”

Alexandra said that when he went to Liviu’s flat, his brother was not there.  He found the syringe in the nursery, but he didn’t know what to do with it.  He finally threw some parts of the syringe down a narrow street, keeping only the glass cylinder.  Detectives went to the place where Alexandra said he had thrown the items, and sure enough, there they were.  When police confronted Liviu, he calmly replied, “My brother is a fool, trying to destroy evidence that is not evidence or I would have destroyed it myself.”  However, after further interrogation, he was forced to admit that he had lied when he said he no longer cared for Tita.  Things became even worse for Liviu when they found witnesses who asserted that the morning before Tita died, he had made a quick trip to Bucharest.  The following day, after the news of Tita’s death hit the papers, Liviu wanted to visit her apartment, but his wife, who knew of his affair with the actress, went into such hysterics at the idea that she threatened to shoot herself.  (I would have thought that her husband would have been the one she wanted to pump full of bullets, but I digress.)

Police assumed that Liviu had wanted to go to Tita’s flat in order to remove something incriminating, but what?  If the “reducing capsule” had been poisoned, Tita had taken the last one in the box.  Then, it occurred to them that right before she died, Tita mentioned that she had just brushed her teeth.  A second, more careful autopsy revealed that her gums were deeply impregnated with cyanide.  Traces of the poison were found on her toothbrush, and her half-empty tube of toothpaste contained a massive dose of it.

The question of how Tita died was finally answered.  Someone had taken off the cap of toothpaste, used a syringe to squirt a fatal dose of cyanide into the tube, and replaced the cap.  

Unfortunately, the question of who did this dreadful deed was not solved so easily.  Liviu Ciulley was put on trial for murder, but although his actions were certainly suspicious, prosecutors were unable to bring an airtight case against him.  Under oath, his servants denied that he had left his house before Tita’s death.  The jury brought in a verdict of “Not guilty.”

After Ciulley’s acquittal, the police half-heartedly continued their investigation for a time before admitting defeat and placing Tita’s poisoning into the cold case file.  The mystery is still discussed in Romanian true-crime circles--in recent years, rumors have emerged that Tita’s maid, Maria, poisoned her employer out of jealousy—but the young actress’s peculiar murder remains as murky as ever.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

The Strange Company staffers have decided this is Take Your Kittens To Work Day.

Five really weird books.

A murder in Madison County.

The author of William the Conqueror's "medieval big data project." 

You can now read online the oldest known book about cheese, which for my money is one of those times when you have to salute the internet.

17th century ship's doctors also had to be mental health therapists.

Indonesian monkeys are enough to make Bonnie & Clyde blush.

The Royal Navy's bombardment of Sidon, 1840.

The world's longest lightning strike.

2,500 years ago, a Siberian woman had some incredible tattoos.

In which we learn that Abbey Wood has an abbey.  And a wood.

Thomas Wolsey and the 1513 invasion of France.

When a B-25 hit the Empire State Building.

When undertakers bargain over ice.

An ancient message from Moses?

That time when the Golden Gate Bridge almost got a roller coaster.

The unique misery of headaches.

A man dies while a passenger on a plane...and then disappears.

An 18th century man's many careers.

Two connected tragedies.

An early Hollywood scandal.

The mysterious petroglyphs of Oahu Beach.

Archaeologists have just discovered a new language.

The body under the floorboards.

When New York was the City of Oysters.

A new theory about Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance.

The paintings that were designed to comfort those about to be executed.

What happens when psychiatric patients suddenly become sane?

A disappearance with possible ties to the CIA and Watergate.

A New Year's Day disappearance.

The people of 1925.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at an unusual murder method.  In the meantime, here's an instrument that's new to me.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This--for lack of a better word, let us say, “unusual”--lawsuit was described in the “Dayton Herald,” September 4, 1883:

A few days ago the infant daughter of Mrs. Sarah Kockert died of some ailment, probably marasmus, as the body of the child wasted away or "shriveled up," as its parents say when they claim it was bewitched. A so-called witch doctor was called in during its illness, and he recommended various strange and peculiar methods of treatment to discover who the witch was, in order to remove the cause of the illness. Finally the name of Mrs. Snyder was given as the witch. That lady instituted legal proceedings against Mrs. Kockert, the mother of the deceased infant, for calling her the witch.

The case was heard before Justice Lung, of the eleventh ward, to-day. All the parties are respectable, well-to-do people. Mrs. Snyder swore that she had been accused of bewitching the child and causing its death. Several women testified that Mrs. Kockert's child was sick, and it was charged that Mrs. Snyder had bewitched it. Mrs. Huntzinger testified that the infant died, and that Mrs. Kockert accused Mrs. Snyder of causing its death.

Mrs. Kockert, the defendant, testified that her child was sick, and she sent for a witch doctor, who told her that the child had been taken away by some one. She told the doctor that Mrs. Snyder had asked, "What is the witch doctor doing here?" and he replied, "When you tread on a dog's tail he howls."

Mrs. Kockert continued: "The doctor gave me bits of paper, and said I should put them in molasses and feed them to the child. He also gave me a strip of paper to place around the child's breast to drive the witch away, telling me I must be careful to tie a knot in the paper. I fed some of the molasses with the papers in it to the child, but it could not eat it all. Next the doctor told me, as the child was restless, to take a briar stick and whip the cradle in which the child lay until I was so tired that I could not strike any more. Before striking the cradle I was to take a leaf off the briar whip and dry it on the stove." Much more testimony was given of other curious methods adopted to drive off the witch and cure the child. The justice, after hearing it, decided to send the case into a higher court. -Reading (Pa.) Cor. N. Y. Herald.

I was unable to find how the dispute was finally resolved.

America and Lake Cow Bacon

Because I always enjoy sharing those moments when History speeds down the freeway, skids on some ice, and crashes into a ditch, let us look back on the time when America very nearly became a nation of hippo-eaters.

Our little misadventure had its opening act during the 1884 World’s Fair in New Orleans.  As a gift, the Japanese delegation presented the city with some water hyacinths.  The people of New Orleans were so delighted by the plant’s lush green leaves and beautiful purple flowers that they planted it in every available corner, from public parks and ponds to private backyards.  The water hyacinths took to their new homes very well.  The plants grew.  And grew.  And grew.  In an outstanding example of “unintended consequences,” by 1910, the hyacinths were so ubiquitous they had become a public menace.  They choked rivers, lakes, and bayous, and sucked so much oxygen out of the water that fish were dying in droves.   The plants even began blocking the Gulf of Mexico.  The federal government went to war on the hyacinths: they chopped at them, poisoned them, crushed them, but to no avail.  The innocent-looking plants proved to be like the horror movie monsters who refuse to die.

America was simultaneously facing another massive problem: a lack of food.  Over the previous half-century, the country’s population had quickly tripled, to the point where cattle ranchers could not keep up with the demand for meat.  The citizens began to seriously wonder where their next meal was coming from.

These twin crises led Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard to come up with a novel scheme to solve both problems simultaneously.  He recalled that four years earlier, a military scout named Frederick Russell Burnham, who had just spent some years in southern Africa, had made a proposal to bring African wild animals such as giraffes and antelopes to the U.S.  When Broussard and Burnham brought the idea to William Newton Irwin, head of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry, Irwin had one of those “Aha!” moments.  African hippos, he thought, would not only graze on water hyacinths, but provide a whole lot of steaks and burgers for his hungry nation.  America needed hippos!

Broussard enlisted another ally, Fritz Joubert Duquesne.  Duquesne was undoubtedly the liveliest member of our little band.  Like Burnham, he was an experienced scout and adventurer, but he also been at various times a con artist, a pimp, a photographer, a spy for the Germans, a botanist, and the star of a traveling show where he billed himself as “Captain Fritz Duquesne, adept and legendary hunter of African game.”  It was this last role that inspired Broussard to ask his help and advice.  (As a side note, during the Second Boer War, Duquesne and Burnham had been hired to assassinate each other, which gave the whole hippo project the pleasant feel of a family reunion.)

Broussard presented before Congress House Resolution 23261, which would allocate $250,000 to import hippos into Louisiana’s hyacinth-choked waterways.  He and his little team of experts testified about the joys of hippo breeding: they insisted that the creatures were naturally tame and born hyacinth-eaters.  Oh, and their meat was delicious--”a combination of pork and beef.”  Many members of Congress warmed to the whole scheme.  Newspapers around the country were delighted by the idea of a hippo in every pot.  The “New York Times” called the semi aquatic mammals “Lake Cow Bacon.”  Teddy Roosevelt publicly championed the plan.  As unlikely as Broussard’s proposal had initially seemed, it now looked like America really would become Hippo Nation.

Alas, Broussard had introduced the resolution too late for Congress to vote on it during the 1910 session.  At the same time, his band of hippo-enthusiasts quickly fell apart.  Irwin died suddenly, and Burnham was sent to Mexico to help protect copper mines endangered by the Mexican Revolution.  Broussard talked about reintroducing the bill, but, distracted by his ultimately successful campaign for the U.S. Senate--not to mention World War I--he never got around to reviving the plan before his death in 1918.  America’s brief infatuation with hippos soon died a natural death.

Louisiana has yet to find a really effective solution to the water hyacinth menace.  Although the state has spent tens of millions of dollars on herbicides, biological control agents, and simple brute force, the plants are as invasive and pesky as ever.

One doubts whether even an army of hippos could have conquered them.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Uh, sir, the sign over there says "No smo..." oh, never mind.

What the hell happened to Mercury's meteorites?

An influential Queen Consort.

Some striking-looking carousels.

If you want to please gorillas, give them truffles.

The battleship best known for promoting cigarettes.

The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403.

The diary of a lonely ship stewardess.

How supernatural beliefs vary across America.

So, how do you wear a gown made of glass?  Very carefully.

The pirate city that was swallowed by the sea.

The eccentric works of Lord Dunsany.

Watercolors depicting Old Spitalfields.

The royal "pyramids" of Scotland.

We're still talking about Agatha Christie's weird disappearance.

We're still talking about the Scopes Monkey Trial.

A brief history of gardening books.

The fine art of restoring mourning crepe.

The disappearance of Michael Alfinito.

The mysterious "dwarf" chambers of India.

The St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421.

The life of medieval knight Othon de Grandson.

William Burroughs and DMT.

The ever-popular mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau.

The sled from "Citizen Kane" just sold for a silly amount of money.

An assortment of youthful murderers.

"Weird space weather" from 41,000 years ago.

That time when the Nazis stole a fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll recall the time hippos nearly conquered America.  In the meantime, here's Rod.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This unusual story was reported in the “Millom Mail,” September 15, 1934:

Venice, Saturday. The "luminous woman of Pirano" who has puzzled scientists in Italy by emitting a glow of light from her chest as she sleeps, has been the subject of a report to the International Radiobiological Congress, which concludes here to-day. The woman is Anna Monaro, aged 42, who was in hospital at Pirano early this year suffering from asthma and under-nutrition. Night nurses insisted that on several occasions they saw a glow over her chest during the night.

The National Council of Research, of which Senator Marconi is president, requested Professor Fabio Vitali, a Venice doctor, to make an official investigation. After taking all steps to ensure that there was no imposture, Professor Vitali and several other doctors waited up one night in the ward. A cinematographic camera was rigged up beside the bed.

The professor's report says:-”At 10.35 p.m., without any sound, there suddenly appeared a glow of bluish-white light, which appeared to come from the patient's chest and lit up her neck and face in such a way as to show up her features. But the light threw no shadow on the pillow or the wall behind. At the same time, the woman stirred uneasily in her sleep and moaned, 'O Jesus help me.'” The phenomenon lasted for only a second, during which time a photograph was taken. But when the photograph was developed it showed nothing.

The patient was awakened, but apart from a quick pulse and a hot skin nothing abnormal was observed about her. All who saw the phenomenon were convinced that it was absolutely real. Anna Monaro was taken to Rome for further examination, but the phenomenon was not seen again. She is being kept under constant observation.

Although the case attracted international attention, as far as I can find, no logical explanation for the poor woman’s odd condition was ever found.

The Woo-Woo of Warren County

Naturalist and writer turned Fortean researcher Ivan T. Sanderson has found a home on this blog before, thanks to his personal brushes with The Weird.  One such occasion, which was also witnessed by two of his friends, took place at his home in New Jersey.  On April 13, 1968, a local newspaper, the “Blairstown Press,” published a letter from Sanderson giving details about the incident.  The letter begins with Sanderson describing his interest in local history and the stranger side of life, then segued into his desire “to speak of even more out-of-this-world things”:

There is one that has sort of popped back again recently through a chance remark that one of us happened to make when Raldo Mattioli, a most progressive staff writer for your opposite number over the river--the “Easton Express”--was visiting us.  Being a good reporter in the proper sense, he picked on this and made it his lead to a story he wrote on us.  This gave us rather a shock, but simply because we handle so many curiosa that any personally experienced one of this nature tends to get lost in the shuffle.  The “story” is as follows; and this is where we would like to ask your readers’ help.

In mid-June of 1965, three of us rolled into my place in Polkville at dawn.  We had driven all night from Washington, D.C., where we had been for several days on business.  This business was the news business.  Both my friends were longtime, professional newsmen.  Tom Allen, Senior Feature writer for the Sunday “New York News” for ten years, and Walter McGraw, audio (meaning using tape for interviewing) reporter for Westinghouse Radio and TV, the AMA (American Medical Association), and the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Federal Government, among other things.  Such boys are really hardboiled cookies and not to be fooled by any kind of “kookery.”

It was one of those almost mystically beautiful mornings, with the birds singing, the frogs froggin, and insects “insecting”--I suppose you would call it.  As we had an enormous load of equipment--tape recorders, film cameras, cases filled with office equipment, typewriters, and all the other assorted junk that working newsmen have to lug around--I drove up around the house to the back lawn.  Backing into the back door makes life so much easier when unloading such a load.  Also, it just so happened that all three of us have what I can only describe as “sensitive backs” due to “incidents” in what is now called WWII.  We put down the back flap of the station wagon and started to unload.  But the morning was so absolutely glorious, with its clean fresh Warren County air, and the rising sun, and the boids and the bees and the frogs and so on, that we just sat on the flap and breathed.  Tom Allen had just remarked upon this glory compared to the rat-race in the capital when….

Absolutely without warning of any kind that we could detect, every bird, frog, insect, and all else alive just simply, absolutely, and completely “dropped dead” as it seemed.  The resulting silence was so absolute it would have scared even an Eskimo on a still night on an arctic icecap, where the absence of sound is so profound that it almost hurts.

We all looked at each other for a few seconds.

Then it came.......WOOOOoooooo-WOOOoooo-WOOOooo…..three times in quick succession. Then a pause; then again three; and so on for about seven minutes.

I've searched for and collected animals all my life all over the world, and I'm not given to panic; nor am I either impressionable or much impressed by any "unexplained", but I can tell you that that vast, enormous, terrific noise which welled up from the Walnut Valley sent the proverbial cold shivers through my spine and, as we used to say in the old country, "with bloody knobs on". But the thing that impressed me most was that it apparently had the same effect on my two colleagues--hard boileder, hardnoseder, and more sceptical than whom I have never met. Besides, both are Vets and both happen to have quite some experience with wildlife as well.

This event had several aspects that I will elaborate upon, in a minute, but I must tell you what happened with us.  Here we had probably the best and most elaborate recording equipment then available and two real experts in its employment whose whole life depended upon “grabbing the mike” as they say when an unexpected event took place.  Yet the three of us just stood with our mouths open, gaping and turning our heads from side to side.  None of us so much as thought of flipping open the battery-recorder and throwing just one switch.  But how often does one fail to do the right thing in an emergency?  How many times have you kicked yourself, saying:  Why the heck didn’t I take a photo of that?  This seems to be a universal trait; but professional reporters have trained themselves to try and overcome this reaction--or lack of it.  Yet, here we were, three very longtime pros, just standing there with our mouths open!

This was a purely psychological reaction.  What might be called the intellectual one came later, but too late.  It probably hit me first because of my lifetime in the field studying animals.  In fact, so extraordinary were some aspects of this sound and its “behavior” that I completely forgot the tape recorders and just about everything else.  The reasons were as follows.

First, I had never heard any noise or sound like this before in my life.  Second, the only times when I have heard ALL noises made by all types of animals stop suddenly and at the same instant like that, has been before major earthquakes--and I have witnessed half a dozen of these all over the world.  Third, the sheer volume of sound was absolutely unbelievable; in decibels I would say that it equaled a four-jet plane taking off, as registered from about a quarter of a mile.  Fourth, it seemed to start somewhere up about the region of the Blairstown-Millbrook Rd., but in a couple of minutes if not less it was manifestly west of us, which put it over (or beyond) Hainesburg; and in another couple of minutes the calls were definitely coming from the direction of Columbia and the Gap.  This is about 12 miles in a maximum of four minutes--probably less, because even an experienced radio man’s timing goes all off in an emergency.  But most of all there was both an echo AND an answering call of exactly similar nature from, apparently about west of Bangor, across the river!

Our timing may, as I say, have been way off, because the whole thing was so shocking that none of us even pulled out our stop-watches, though all of us had one in our pocket on a chain.  (This is standard equipment for radio persons.)  It could have been of much shorter duration, but it certainly could not have been any longer.  The point I am trying to make is that 12 miles in even four minutes is 180 m.p.h.  What animal, I ask, can travel at that speed?....

I should point out that we don’t know, of course, if this “Thing” did travel that far in that time.  Nevertheless, it could not have been a land animal, and especially a Gray Fox which, as several experienced local hunters and woodsmen have pointed out, does make a “who whhooing” noise sometimes--at least so it is believed.  Of the angle of travel we are quite sure as all three of us cupped our hands behind our ears which is standard practice for pinning down direction.  This angle, from where we stood, was no less than, believe it or not, 180 degrees!

Then again, the echoes absolutely confirmed that the darned thing--the first and loudest one--was over our ridge and in, or beyond, Walnut Valley.  There would have been no ring-back if it had been close enough to be in our little valley; and you can get a pretty close estimate of distance by the time of an echo, as in thunder.  This time lag decreased until the thing was due west (i.e., the closest) to us and then increased again as it went south.  In other words, it was a noise so enormous that, at a minimum of five miles, it made our eardrums ring!

However, the most incredible aspect of this whole incident was that the birds, frogs, and insects stopped all their noise, and suddenly, all together, BEFORE the first call, or whatever it was. What is more, they remained absolutely silent until at least five minutes after the two callers appear to have met and gone on south together, their calls blending and then getting fainter and fainter! Thousands of animals don’t behave like this except in some very exceptional circumstances. And, what circumstances in this case but the forthcoming WOOOoooo-WOOOoooo?

So out-of-this-world was this experience that the three of us talked about it all day and finally decided that it was just too way-out even for me to mention.  However, I did make a lot of somewhat discreet inquiries of every and all the experienced naturalists that I knew, from Game Wardens to scientific collectors; but, apart from the Gray Fox belief, none had anything even near a suggestion after he had heard a playback of a recording we made immediately after the incident on which we gave an imitation of the sound.

Then came Raldo Mattioli with his story and, no sooner does it hit the stands, than the phone calls start coming in.  As it happened, I was talking to the combined Warren County PTAs (Parent-Teacher Associations) in Belvidere that evening and the matter came up there as a result.  About five minutes after I got home that evening the phone rang and a citizen of Belvidere was on the line.  (I’ll give you his name next week, if you want it, and if he gives me his permission.)  And this is what he had to tell us.

He pinned down the date pretty well because he was married seven years ago and was then still a-courting.  One fine summer night he was so courting on a lovers’ lane up the mountains west of Bangor.  The lane was in the woods and there was only star-shine, there being no moon that night.  Suddenly, as he tells it, just this same enormous, ghastly, hair-raising sound rang out right ahead of the car.  The gentleman tells me that, although an ex-Navy man and having seen much war-time action, he had never been so scared in his life, and he said that he still does not like to talk about it.  So scared was he at the time, he said, that he was sort of paralyzed and to the extent of simply being unable to switch on the car lights.  He estimated that whatever made the noise could not have been more than twenty paces ahead up the road.  It continued to “WOOOoooo-WOOOoooo” just as ours did at regular intervals and then took off and faded away.

But more followed.  This gentleman told me that a couple of years later he was helping as a volunteer to do some digging for a school project in his township and at a lunch-break got to talking of funny things hereabouts, and no less than three others finally admitted that they had heard, and even “encountered” at close range, the same thing.  One, whose name I have, and whom I happen also to have met personally, has been a very keen sportsman-hunter all his life in the area and is definitely not given either to tall tales or, more so, the jitters; but he also just does not like to talk about it.

So what do we make of all this?  I have my ideas, but then, my ideas tend to be taken with more than just one grain of salt, so I shall continue to keep my mouth shut for now!  What I want is your ideas; and, more so, any similar accounts that any of you might be prepared to give me.  Your names will not be published unless you give express written permission.  However, your names I would like, in confidence as I would be most grateful if I could meet you--also in confidence and ask some questions that you may not have thought of.  I am very sincere in this request as this is a purely scientific enquiry.

And I am not suggesting GHOSTS.  I will have no part of such.

It is still a mystery what created the noises that Sanderson and the others heard, but whatever it was, I for one hope that I never encounter it.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Meanwhile, the Strange Company HQ staffers are off on their summer camping trip.

The questions about how Neanderthals buried their dead.

I never thought I'd see "Ulysses S. Grant" and "erotic vampire novels" in the same headline, but I guess it's just that sort of world.

The Knights Templar and Jesus' bones.

An 18th century abduction "under color of law."

In praise of the Etch A Sketch.

Britain's first book-of-the-month club.

The classic movie that may have been responsible for several deaths.

A newly-decoded Babylonian hymn.

How Napoleon spent his years in exile.

An aristocrat who was "Good for nothing and lived like a hog."

Why weddings have flower girls.

The mysterious death of "the only midget ever to play baseball in the major leagues."

The war between an Empress and a Queen.

A murder victim haunts the site of his death.

A historic library battles hungry beetles.

In case you're wondering what scientists do with all that sweet grant money, they have now proved that sloths break wind.  You're welcome.

The couple who survived 118 days on a rubber raft.

Meet Pepper, the virus-hunting cat.

The last soldier killed in WWI.

A new study about Easter Island.

An East India Company laborer goes from rags to riches.

A visit to Chatham Royal Dockyard.

A "wicked little thermometer."

A hotel where stray cats find a home.

The American Revolution and the Beeline March.

The 19th century craze for stupid (and dangerous) hoaxes.

Decoding a mysterious medieval tale.

Tortoises have feelings, too!  So, show them a bit more courtesy.

A 1678 crop circle.

Murder by cuspidor.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll investigate a Weird Sound in the Woods.  In the meantime, here's another Blast From the Past.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I suppose all I can say is, some mighty weird things happen at funerals.  The “Democrat and Chronicle,” August 15, 1901:

Larned, Kan., Aug. 14.--A bolt of lightning saved a child from premature burial at Hanston, twenty miles from this city. The 5-year-old daughter of Samuel McPreaz, a rancher, apparently died on Saturday morning. Funeral services were arranged, the body prepared for burial, and no one noticed a sign of life remaining in the little body. Yesterday the funeral services were held and the procession started to the cemetery.

A storm was gathering at the time. On the way to the cemetery a bolt of lightning struck the hearse, burst open the metallic coffin in which the body was incased, knocked down both horses and stunned the driver. When the frightened mourners reached the hearse the little girl was sitting up crying for her mother. 

For a few moments the persons who witnessed the occurrence were too frightened to move, but finally the little girl was taken up and driven back to the house as fast as possible. Her parents believe the bolt was sent as a miracle and the people of the vicinity speak in whispers of it.

Physicians declare the little girl was in a cataleptic condition and the shock revived her, but many residents believe she was dead and came back to life. Telegrams from Hanston say she is recovered and feels no ill effects from being incased in the coffin for twenty-four hours. The lightning destroyed one side of the hearse and melted a portion of the coffin. Persons living in the vicinity of Hanston, who were in the funeral procession, tell many strange stories in connection with the occurrence. Some of them say that just the flash of lightning a peculiarly soft, mellow light appeared in the sky, which was so pronounced in its difference from sunlight as to attract attention and occasion comment, and that while the atmospheric conditions were being discussed the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning riveted their attention upon the strange scene which followed.

It is also said that the lightning, after passing through the metallic coffin, passed along the running of the hearse and burned the ends off the leather traces so that when the horses struggled to their feet they were unhitched from the vehicle that contained the broken coffin and the resuscitated child. What is thought to be one of the strangest features of the occurrence and which strengthens the belief of those who contend that it was a manifestation of the divine power, is that nobody was killed or even seriously hurt by the lightning. 

Mr. and Mrs. McPreaz are well-to-do ranch people, who live in the vicinity of Hanston. They have three other children, two girls, and a boy. They were raised in the Catholic faith, but have not been attendants at church for several years, as there is no Catholic congregation in that neighborhood. Mrs. McPreaz has been prostrated since the return from the cemetery, almost hysterical at times, and it is feared her mind is affected.

The Poltergeist of Cambridge Castle

Cambridge Castle, 1730

Simon Ockley was Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge from 1711 until his death in 1720.  In 1718, he was briefly imprisoned in Cambridge Castle for debt, where his enforced stay was enlivened by the company of what we would today call a poltergeist.   Our sole source for Ockley’s brush with The Weird are from a series of letters he wrote to a “Dr. Keith” about the experience:

CAMBRIDGE, MAY 6th, 1718.

Sir,

I do not remember myself to have been worse in my whole lifetime than I was on Sunday last when to mend the matter I was plagued all night with a Caccodæmon that infests our castle after a very strange manner. He did not suffer me to get one wink of rest till after broad daylight, and not much then, for he is verily as troublesome in the day as the night at certain times.

I know these things are exploded as mere Chimeras in this (si Dus placet) discerning age; but they must give me leave to trust to my own experience rather than to their Cui bonos.

I felt him moving under the bed and heaving it up. I waited the event, whilst he entertained me with variety of sounds and capricious troublesome motions in different parts of the room. At last he gave such an explosion under the bed as seem'd to sound in my ears as loud as the largest cannon, and rais'd both me and the bed with the force of it.

I soon after heard him tapping at the top of my bed's head. I asked him what we were to have next? Immediately he flew through the boards that separate my bed chamber from the next room, and returned again with such violence that you would have imagined that he had shivered them all to pieces. Then giving a slight tap in the midst of a great boarded wooden chair that stands close by my bed's head, he seem'd to make such a noise as when a great cat leaps down upon the boards, but withall so hollow as if all his body except his feet had been made of copper. I look'd for him instantly, the moon shining very bright, but there was no appearance; then moving a little while at a distance he returned to his old tricks again.

Once he was whisking about in the corner of the room and made such a noise suppose as a cat would do playing with a piece of paper. I snatched the curtain immediately to see him, which he took so ill that I thought my great wooden chair had been coming directly at me; such a suddain terrible jarring noise did he make with it.

So civil he is that tho' the parlour where I live all the daytime is a good bow's shot distance from the chamber where I lodge, yet he now and then makes me a visit here; and not long since I was talking to an honest man about him, who is not over credulous in such cases, he made a proselyte of him at once by giving such a bounce as seem’d to shake the whole room and almost to blow me and my chair quite away, tho’ I could never perceive anything stir.

Yesterday about one o'clock he entertain'd us with a multitude of hollow thumps exactly resembling the fire of cannon at a distance. In the afternoon it was more like thunder.

The last night I design'd to entertain him by candle light, but perceiving that some people in the street had got a notion that I was going to conjure down a spirit, and besides that he was not so active as in the dark; to humour him in his own way I put out my candle and put myself in a posture for his reception. The first I heard of him was a leap from the windows like a cat; then the noise of two able threshers upon a boarded floor. Afterwards he twisted a long line making the same noise that the ropemakers do. He whistles admirably well and drives a cart or a gang of packhorses. I have heard the sound of the bells as distinctly as ever I did in my life. After he had entertained me thus for a while, I having rebuked him after such a manner as I thought most proper, I was resolved to endeavour to compose myself to sleep in spite of him which I did, but he would not let me rest long.

I fancy there is a gang of them, or else he is like the Old Man in Scarron's comical Romance, that used to act three parts at once viz.: the King. the Queen and the ambasadour.

But, after all it is no laughing matter. I am sure I do not find it so. It is exceedingly troublesome and terrible. There is something in the nature of those separated beings so different from flesh and blood as make their too near approach almost insupportable. God preserve us all from the Malignant influences of infernal powers for the sake of our blessed Lord the Saviour Jesus Christ.

Yesterday my daughter was here, and having confess'd that there were unaccountable sounds, she wished they were louder. The spirit did not stay a great while before he gratified her request, and gave us a peal like thunder.

If anyone doubts the truth of this I am ready to resign my chamber to him with all my heart.

S. OCKLEY.

Ockley wrote to Keith again on May 23rd: 

Dear Sir,

I perceive you are under a mistake. You are not aware how much I converse in my thoughts with the invisible world. I never make any ostentation of it, for if I ever mention anything that goes any farther than Mathematical demonstration our people know just as much of it as I do about the situation of the cities in the moon. But you are a Gentleman to whom I have such obligations that it is not, nor ought to be, in my power to refuse you anything; but notwithstanding all those obligations were they ten times greater, they should not induce me to communicate anything of this kind, unless I had that same assurance that I have of your being thoroughly qualified to judge of things of this nature.

Whether or no the spirit haunts the castle I am not certain. I believ'd so at first, but this I am fully assured of, that his last visit was a particular Dispensation of Providence to me.

I have heard him make noises at a distance some months ago. I am not so acquainted with things of that nature as not to be able to distinguish those sounds from any other. I oftentimes said there was a spirit and was of course as often laughed at.

But once (I believe about 3 weeks ago) I had sent the keeper on an errand, it was about 9 o'clock at night, and my candle stood burning by my bedside, I heard upon the wall distinct rappings as if they had been upon wainscot; I anticipated your good advice. I recollected my spirits and resigned myself into the hands of the Father of Spirits under the protection of his blessed Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

I knew very well that that was but the beginning, and lived in constant expectation to hear more of it, which I did frequently; and the reason why I gave you a particular account of Sunday night was because it was the most remarkable.

I was indeed of your opinion first. I took it to be an uneasy departed spirit, and thought it an act of charity to assist it; but all my labour was lost; I had no remedy left but fervent prayer, in which I spent the greater part of the night.

Not that I was scared, for I defye anyone to convict me of anything that ever looked like cowardice,* if I have any fault with relation to such matters it lyes in the other extreme.

N. B. So far as the asterisk was written as soon as I received your letter, since which time I have been under such a feaverish indisposition as has made me incapable of anything and perfectly listless. I slept well for two or three nights and began to recover my strength and spirits but they must of necessity decay again unless my troublesome guest, as you very properly call him, either leave this habitation, or I be removed to another. He is come back again as it were with double force; for these two last nights he has exercised me incessantly from ten till after four in the morning. Last night he gave near I believe an hundred strokes in the next room to me as loud as men make when they are rendering timber or breaking down wainscot! besides variety of rappings, hideous, hollow, inarticulate voices, besides several other inimitable sounds. This morning between three and four a'clock he was very busy in rubbing down a long table that stands in my room, and as he was whisking about, he now and then stumpt like one that has a wooden leg. You seem, Sir, to think that he is a ludicrous spirit, and that therefore he is never to be entertain'd or subdued in that way. I never did entertain him in that way, nor did he ever give me any reason.

I cannot yet be persuaded that he is a ludicrous spirit, nor the Soul of any person deceased. At present I take him to be a malignant evil Genius, of the same sort that I met with in Hand Alley, for the sounds and his manner are very much the same.

Nobody heard him but myself last night, and let me have been in never so great distress, I could neither have awakened any of them, nor have been able to gone out of my room.

I believe he would speak but cannot. I have thought sometimes to lay hold of some of his hollow tones but never could to any certainty. Whatsoever he is I do not desire to be farther informed by such conversation. If he is in any distress, nobody more ready than myself to serve him; but I do not desire he should distress me, which he do's exceedingly by robbing me of my rest, and exercising and debilitating my spirits. I have spoken to him several times, but he never returned a syllable of answer--a week's more such exercise would reduce me to a very bad condition.

S. OCKLEY.

Soon after this letter was written, Ockley was released and returned to his home at Swavesey.  However his supernatural troubles were not over.  On July 6th, he wrote to Keith from Swavesey:

Dear Sir,

You ask me, Sir, whether my spirit has left me or not. I cannot say that he has. About an hour ago my second daughter and I sitting in the kitchen, I heard a very great noise above stairs. Now you are to understand that I am a man the most impatient of noise of any man breathing. I took it for granted that the maid had been cleaning the rooms or making a bed, and had flung something about by accident, but having occasion to go upstairs I found the coast clear, and upon enquiry was inform'd that the maid was sent on an errand; all the rooms were immediately search'd, no cat, no dog, nothing visible.

I cannot close my letter before I acquaint you with one memoir relating to the spirit in Cambridge Castle. One night when all the prisoners were lock'd up in their rooms except two or three innocents, I had occasion to go to the house of office. As soon as I sat down and placed my candle on my left hand, the spirit came down with such force as you would have imagined would have dashed the whole partition to pieces. Such things are so far from diminishing my courage that they encrease it, for immediately I summon up all my spirits, and make the most regular Christian opposition that I am able, but as I have told you before I am not able to bear the influence of their vehicles, and I owe my present indisposition to that malignant power (so much by way of parenthesis). I immediately snatch'd up my candle in one hand, and opened the door with the other, but nothing appeared.

I knew very well that there was none of the prisoners could or would impose on me, for tho' I do not design to make going to Jayl a habit, yet common sense taught me to secure the friendship of the most impudent fellow in the crew. I hate mortally to have a piss-pot emptied upon my head, and then be answered that nobody did it. He would not I'm sure play any tricks with me because I was his best friend; besides if he would he could not, for I defye all mortal powers to impose upon me in such a case.

The sounds that those spirits make are inimitable, and their accursed Influence is supportable. However, I went up and ask'd him why he made such a noise (tho' I knew it was not he, but I was resolved to be thoroughly satisfied). The poor man was asleep, but upon my awaking him he answered that he had made no noise but had been composing himself to rest ever since he came to bed. I then took more particular notice of the building and observed that it was impossible for any of the prisoners (considering the situation of their lodgings) to have made any such noise in that place. I wrapt myself up in my gown and went thither again on purpose to see whether he would return. As soon as I was sat down he came with the same force, and gave such a jar to the door as if a man had kick'd at it with the utmost force. I saw the door jarr, as I did the first time, and opened it as quick as I could, but finding nothing went to bed. S. OCKLEY.

Dr. Keith replied on July 12th:

Rev. and Dear Sir,

I received your very acceptable letter of the 6th and rejoyced to see it dated from Swavesey. I am sorry first of all to hear of your indisposition and listlessness and especially of the weakness and tremor of your nerves. I shall set down a prescription or two at the end of this, which I desire you would use for about ten days or a fortnight. You may send for the powders mentioned in the first in two little vials, and weigh out 15 grains of each in the morning and evening when you take them. They will be the more effectual if you will add 5 grains of the Sal Succini to them, and therefore you may get one dram of this in a vial too. When you have weighed out of the powders mix them in a little conserve of Rosemary flowers, and take it by way of Bolus, drinking a cupfull of sage or sassafras tea after it. Tho' you don't mention any disorder in your stomach yet I think it fit to order a general litter for you in order to help your digestion, which I reckon to be one-half of the cure. If you hav't an honest Apothecary that's your friend your daughter may get the ingredients and boil them at home, and also the two waters to add to the liquor when it is strained out and cold. I pray God to give his blessing that they may be a means of your recovery. When you are in any tolerable condition to use it, I would recommend to you gentle exercise, and especially riding on horse-back.

In the next place I cannot but lament the negligence and imprudence of your friends both at Oxford and Cambridge, and indeed am at a loss how to account for either. In the meantime, you must take a good heart and do the best you can. And I hope you will especially since now you will be easier at home than ever. For I reckon the noise and disturbance that may come from the other spirit will be in all respects less sensible. cribed the whole of your three letters on the subject of the spirit in Cambridge Castle, and have here enclos'd them to be communicated to his Lordship at your leisure. I have not heard the least syllable of that of Hand Alley a great while. I often pass by the house and see it is still inhabited.

I remain very heartily, 

 Rev. Sir, 

Your sincere humble servant, JAMES KEΙΤΗ. 

We know nothing more about Ockley’s spectral visitor.  The professor died at Swavesey on August 9th, 1720.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Enjoy this week's Link Dump!

While you read, please feel free to join us in the club for Strange Company staffers.

The surprising DNA of an ancient Egyptian.

A visit to Old Rotherhithe.

A quite awful new theory about why cats were first domesticated.

Why "Peggy" is a nickname for "Margaret."

The capture of a slaver, 1845.

The Girls Who Killed the Rats.

The latest research about the Carnac stones.

Boccaccio and his literary self-portraits.

The surprising secrets of da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man."

That time when something very weird landed in Ireland.

That time when something very weird was spotted in New Mexico.

The Founding Mothers of New France.

What our ancestors wore to the beach.

A particularly brutal murder in Montana.

A look at underwater archaeology.

The menace of Merry Widow Hats.

The latest news from the Great Pyramid.  It'll be interesting to see if any of this truly holds up.

How 18th century New Jersey women briefly gained the right to vote.

Marie Curie's radioactive fingerprints.

This is for all of you who've been wondering what ancient Rome smelled like.

That time when cats got married at the Plaza Hotel.

So, England has a guy prowling around in a panther costume.

When ancient Rome had a urine tax.

The town named after a jungle vampire.

Four cases where men disappeared after being last seen in their cars.

A Shaikh's assassination on the beach.

A child's deathbed, 1883.

The Bayeux Tapestry is (temporarily) returning to England.

England's last political duel.

A case of "love, bigamy, and murder."

Good news, Oscar Wilde!  You can visit the British Library again!

A man and his biblioburro.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when it'll be poltergeists a-go-go!  In the meantime, here's a brief visit to medieval Paris.