Strange Company

That's it for this week! See you on Monday, when we'll look at a cook's very peculiar death. In the meantime, this is for everyone who's wondered, "Why doesn't she ever post Romanian folk music?"

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

“You’ll never go in the water again,” 2.0. The Greensboro “News and Record,” August 24, 1955:

EVANSVILLE, Ind., Aug 23 (UP) —An Evansville mother has decided that a creature which grabbed her leg while she was swimming was “one of those little green men from a spaceship.”
Mrs. Darwin Johnson read a newspaper story that a Hopkinsville, Ky., family was visited by the odd-colored creatures. That to her satisfaction cleared up the mysterious underwater incident in the Ohio River last week.
Mrs. Johnson had told police a “hairy paw” grabbed her leg while she was swimming near Dogtown.
"I know it must have been one of those little green men” she said. “I knew as soon as I read the description from Hopkinsville.”
The Kentuckians described the green men as three feet tall “with eyes like saucers, hands like claws, and glowing all over.” They said these fellows roamed around their house Sunday night.
Mrs. Johnson said, “We saw something in the sky coming over from the Kentucky bank just a few minutes before I was grabbed.”

So.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Jeff and the Metal Man

Accounts of UFO encounters, like poltergeist reports, tend to all sound alike after a while, so I was pleased to come across one such story which has that little something special.

On the night of October 17, 1973, Jeff Greenhaw, the Police Chief of Falkville, Alabama, received an anonymous--and slightly hysterical--call informing him that a “spaceship” had just landed in a field outside of town.

Police officers tend to be skeptical about anything that smacks of The Weird, so Jeff’s instant assumption was that he was hearing from “an idiot.” However, he dutifully drove over to the field to investigate, and hopefully have himself a good laugh.

When he arrived, he found nothing to be humorous about. He was confronted by a tall--over six foot--figure wearing some reflective material, like aluminum foil. He later recalled, “It looked like his head and neck were kind of made together. He was real bright, something like rubbing mercury on nickel, but just as smooth as glass. Different angles give different lighting. I don’t believe it was aluminum foil” It moved in an odd, robotic manner that reminded Jeff of something out of “Lost in Space.”

He gave the stranger a polite greeting, but received no response. The bemused cop took out his Polaroid camera and snapped a few photos of the figure. As he did so, Metal Man began moving away from him. “It wasn’t moving like you or I would move. It’s like it had springs on its feet or something.” It was traveling faster than he believed any human could move. Jeff decided to “chase it down, and, if I have to, run over it.” However, his patrol car was unable to catch up to the being. Metal Man soon faded into the darkness.

Jeff kept the photos he had taken of the figure--one likes to keep mementos of interesting events--but almost exactly ten years later, someone (something?) broke into his house and stole them. The service revolver and shotgun he had had in his police car on that memorable night also disappeared.

Jeff told people about his encounter, only to find that he had turned himself into a public laughingstock. Within weeks of his meeting with the strange creature, the town council fired him, and he subsequently kept out of sight as much as possible. Years later, he mused, “I turned out to be a person I never dreamed I would be because of what happened…I came close to losing my sanity, but my wife and God kept me from losing my sanity…I am still a believer in life after death and at one point, I didn’t believe there was any other life source in the universe, but that really changed.”

The moral to our little tale is that if you should ever encounter tall, foil-covered robot aliens, it would probably be wisest to just ignore them. And, yes, I do think that “Jeff and the Metal Man” would be an excellent name for a rock band.

Friday, January 10, 2025

Weekend Link Dump

Welcome to this week's Link Dump! Our host is the handsome Butch, former Humane Society mascot.

Just more proof that the universe is probably weirder than we can even guess, which helps explain why scientists who play know-it-all so annoy me.

In related news, we really don't know jack about the Moon.

The Buzzell shooting.

Solving a 200-year-old volcanic mystery.

The world's deadliest sniper.

The work of the brothers Grimm.

A "lost world" in the Pacific Ocean.

Possible proof that Atlantis existed.

A mysterious secret tunnel.

The editor who annoyed Ernest Hemingway.

I now have the urge to write a short horror story titled, "Tomb of the Venom Magician."

The dogs of the Salem Witch Trials.

The oldest weapons ever found in Europe.

The rise and fall of an alchemist.

The people of the Naga Hills in the early 20th century.

Guys, stop releasing lynx into the Scottish Highlands, OK?

A champagne shipwreck.

The man who thought it would be a fine thing to circumnavigate the world in a canoe.

The wages of 18th century servants.

The original rhinestone cowboy.

A case of 16th century defamation.

The UK's "dinosaur highway."

The Flaming Hand of Doom.

Why we call high prices "highway robbery."

A "lost" chapter of the Bible has been discovered.

Tipping in Victorian times.

The Squibb family murders.

Family letters reveal a bank con from a century ago.

Why you would not want to be a German Army deserter during WWII.

An undertaker's Gothic tale.

A fascinating cave system in Israel.

A brief history of curiosity cabinets.

That time when people were panicking over teddy bears.

The unique gems of the Thames.

When Jean met Rose.

Scotland's Stone Age settlements.

Reflections on work and life in the Middle Ages.

A ghost in the London Underground.

That's all for this week! See you on Monday, when we'll have a metallic Close Encounter. In the meantime, here's some Beethoven.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

One often hears tales of ghosts returning to try to "solve" their own murder, but in this case the revenant appears to have been wasting his time. The “Logansport Reporter,” February 18, 1899:

Thornhope, a little village northwest of Logansport on the Chicago division of the Pan Handle, is all agog over a remarkable ghost story, the details of which were made public but yesterday. The most uncanny feature of the affair is the peculiar action of the ghost in binding to secrecy for a certain period the man who is the only person who has held converse with it. At last time has absolved the oath and the facts in the case have been related. In the fall of '65, John Baer, a stockbuyer, established headquarters at Thornhope and engaged extensively in the purchase and sale of stock. He was frequently known to have large sums of money in bis possession, but be scoffed at the idea of possible robbery, He lived with John Wildermuth and on Feb. 16, 1868, he prepared to go to Star City and arrange for the shipment of a carload of cattle.
He had $3,000 in cash on his person to pay for the stock, and before starting to Star City he started to walk to the residence of John Steele, a mile south of Thornhope, to procure a heavy overcoat he had left there a few days previously. That was the last ever seen of Baer. He failed to reach Steele's, and the only clew to the mysterious affair was advanced by Gabriel Fickle, a warm friend of Baer and a resident of Thornhope to this day. Fickle and others heard pistol shots shortly after Baer started for Steele's. When Baer failed to return to Wildermuth's, Fickle associated his disappearance with the shots, but a close search failed to disclose any trace of the missing man and in a few months it came to be generally believed that he was foully murdered for his money.
Two men were suspected but there was no evidence against them and no arrests were made. Near the water tank, midway between Thornhope and Steele's, was an abandoned well close to the banks of Indian Creek, and a few years after the disappearance of Baer, some school children who were fishing in the creek hooked shreds of clothing and an old boot out of the well. The circumstances of this find were given no consideration by the children's parents, but in the light of recent developments it suggests the truth of a weird and ghastly story of murder. Gabriel Fickle is responsible for the present disturbed condition of Thornhope people in his solemn avowal that he saw and talked with the ghost of John Baer on the night of February 16, 1898, the thirtieth anniversary of the disappearance of Baer.
Fickle explains his silence for the past year by declaring that he was bound to secrecy by an oath under conditions that would have driven many men stark mad. February 16, 1899 removed the seal from his lips and he unburdened himself of a strange account that cannot be disbelieved coming as it does from a man whose standing is unquestioned. His startling tale is substantially to the effect that on the night of February 16, '98, as he was returning from Royal Center to his home via the railroad he dimly descried a form approaching as he neared the old water tank. The figure was walking slowly and as Fickle approached it stopped in front of him.
Fickle crossed to the other side of the track and the figure did likewise at the same time extending a hand and exclaiming. "Why Gabe, don't you know me?" Fickle replied negatively, but put forth his hand to shake hands with the friendly stranger when to his horror he found himself grasping thin air, although in other respects the apparition was life like. Before Fickle could make an effort to speak, the spectre further frightened him by continuing, "I am the ghost of John Baer, murdered on this spot thirty years ago tonight." Fickle declares he was seized with the most abject fear. His hair stood on end, his throat was parched and strive as he would not a sound came from his lips. He tottered past the vision of the dead, but the latter followed, conjuring him not to be afraid and finally Fickle retained his courage sufficiently ask how Baer met his death. The ghost then told of the foul murder, naming as his assassins two men still living, binding Fickle to never reveal the names or tell of his meeting with the ghost until one year from that time. A request for another interview was also made but a compliance was not authoritatively imposed. The ghost detailed minutely the circumstances of the murder. The gruesome recital ended near the abandoned well, and "This is where they put me," said the ghost stepping into the opening and sinking into its black depths.
Quaking in mortal terror, Fickle ran homeward, and for days his peculiar actions occasioned comment. He was tempted to tell of his singular adventure, but the admonition to keep silent was not to be forgotten. For a year he kept the secret and then unable to longer forbear, he told of the turn he experienced in meeting Baer's ghost. On one thing only is he silent and that is in regard to the identity of the murderers. Some night soon he proposes to return to the old tank at night to find if the vision will again appear.
Every man in Thornhope believes every word of Fickle's experience. Not a man has the courage to seek an interview with the ghost and the haunted spot is shunned like the plague. Fickle is one of the most respected citizens in the village. He enjoys the confidence of everybody and is in no sense an idle talker. He is much averse to discussing the affair.
He does not believe in ghosts, is not at all superstitious but says the memory of that fateful night will haunt him to his dying day. He does not attempt to explain the occurrence, it is beyond his understanding. He is positive that the end is not yet and that he will sooner or later be impelled to visit the scene of the crime and submit to another clasp of that shadowy hand from another world.

Fickle saw the ghost at least once more, and several other Thornhope citizens also claimed to have seen Baer’s unhappy spirit, but it seems to have done exactly nothing to help avenge his death. I suppose the moral of our story is this: If you are ever murdered, don’t wait thirty years before telling anyone about it.

Monday, January 6, 2025

The Lorius/Heberer Mystery

This blog has featured several stories about people who disappear or run into some other sort of disaster while on long road trips. This week, we’ll look at yet another case that makes a strong argument for just staying at home.

Fifty-year-old George Lorius was president of a coal company in East St. Louis, Illinois. He and his wife Laura had been married for a number of years, but had no children. They were close friends with another childless middle-aged couple, Albert and Tillie Heberer. We know little else about the quartet, but they were evidently prosperous, pleasantly ordinary citizens.

A favorite pastime of the two couples was going on trips together. In May 1935, they set off in George’s 1929 Nash sedan with the goal of visiting the Boulder Dam, and then San Diego, California. Along the way, they made various side trips, which they chronicled in frequent postcards sent to family and friends.

One of these side trips was to Vaughn, New Mexico, in order to look up an old friend who had moved there. On May 21, they checked into the Vaughn Hotel. It is unclear if they were ever able to locate this person, but we do know that the following morning, they had breakfast at the hotel and checked out. George mentioned to the clerk that they planned to go to Santa Fe, and then Gallup. Later that day, Tillie sent home a postcard from Albuquerque saying, “Came through this place in the a.m. No trouble of any kind. Going to Boulder Dam, then to Los Angeles.” A clerk at an Albuquerque hotel later said that she spoke to the two couples. They asked about available rooms, but in the end decided to drive to Gallup instead. They later stopped at a gas station in Quemado, about 150 miles from Albuquerque.

This was the last confirmed sighting of the two couples. After this stop, they all appeared to vanish into oblivion. On June 5, family members, concerned about not hearing from them, notified police.

New Mexico authorities--concerned about the effect the mystery might have on local tourist trade--launched an exhaustive search for the two couples, even bringing the National Guard into the hunt. A week into the investigation, they made an extremely unsettling discovery: the burned remains of the missing quartet’s belongings had been dumped along a highway near El Paso, Texas. The following day, George’s sedan was found on a street in Dallas. The gas tank was full, and the keys were left in the ignition. Bloodstains and hair were found on the left door of the car. Also in the car was George’s notebook of odometer readings. The final entry was made in Socorro, New Mexico, on May 23.

In June, George’s traveler’s checks began turning up throughout New Mexico and Texas, but were clearly clumsy forgeries. Bertha Williamson, the owner of a boarding house, was the recipient of one of these checks, and she went to the police. She said it had come from a “nervous young man” with dark hair and a tattoo who had spent a night at her establishment. He was driving a Nash sedan. A Dallas gas station owner also reported getting a forged check from a dark young man with a tattooed arm. That same man had also taken the sedan in to be repaired at a garage in El Paso. He said he had been in an accident in New Mexico.

It was getting disturbingly obvious that the two couples had been robbed and probably murdered, most likely by the tattooed man. But who was he, and where were his victims?

"Albuquerque Journal," June 20, 2010, via Newspapers.com

Over the years, a number of dark-haired, tattooed men of questionable character were brought in for questioning, but it proved impossible to tie any of them to the mystery. Walter Duke, an Albuquerque real estate agent who had taken a deep interest in the case, came to believe that the two couples had been murdered during their brief stay in Vaughn. In 1963, he was contacted by a woman who claimed to have been a waitress in the Vaughn Hotel in 1935. She alleged that the couples had checked into the establishment, but--Hotel California style--never left. She believed they were taken down into the basement, murdered by unspecified robbers, and buried there. Was this true? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Although the case is still considered an active one, it seems highly unlikely that the mystery of the Lorius/Heberer disappearances will ever be solved. Curiously enough, the most solid clue we have to their fate comes from the supernatural realm. On the night of May 22, 1935--long before anyone had reason to suspect that this road trip had gone terribly wrong--Laura Lorius’ sister suddenly woke up in horror. She told her husband that she dreamed that Laura came to her saying, “I’ve been murdered and buried under the floor of an old building. You’ll have trouble finding me.”

That last sentence, at least, has proven to be only too accurate.