Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Now, that’s a snappy headline, eh?  From the “St. Louis Globe Democrat,” April 21, 1888:

Plainfield, Ind., April 14.  Taylor Reagan, a prominent business man of this place, is not a believer in ghosts. but one night recently, while returning from the town of Mooresville, six miles southeast of this place, in company with his wife, the two witnessed something that to this day remains a mystery to both. 

The strange tale, as related to the Journal Correspondent by Mr. Reagan himself, is as follows: 

“My wife and myself had been spending the day with friends at Mooresville, and it was after dark before we started to drive home. It was a very cloudy night, and the moon did not give the least bit of light. The horse, however, was gentle, and well acquainted with the road, and I let him pick his way along. We had reached a point about two miles south of here, just where the farm of the State Reform School begins, when I noticed, about 10 yards out in a field from the fence on the opposite side of the road, a white object of the exact size and shape of a 2-year-old calf. Had the night not been so very dark I should have thought it was a calf and not given the subject any thought, but I felt sure that no object could be seen at so great a distance as this calf apparently was. When I looked at the thing closely I saw that its legs were not moving, but that the creature was gliding along without moving a muscle, and kept on an even race with our horse. I thought the strange vision was certainly conjured out of my imagination, and for fear of being laughed at by my wile I did not mention seeing the thing until she called my attention to it by saying she had been observing the object tor some time and that it appeared to her like it got along without using its legs, as ordinary calves do. I thought it was now time for an investigation, so, stopping the horse, I got out of the buggy, and keeping the calf, which had now become stationary, in view, I proceeded toward it. As I reached the fence, and was on the point of climbing over, the object suddenly disappeared from my sight. I told my wife the thing had disappeared, and she replied that it was still to be seen plainly from the buggy, and she insisted that I return to the buggy and let her get out, and she would find out what it was.  But she succeeded no better than I, for although the creature went from her sight when the fence was reached, I could, from my post in the buggy, still see it plainly. We then drove on, and thought to outrun the mysterious animal, but whether the horse trotted, ran or galloped, it made no difference, the white calf over in the field kept the same pace. Over fences and ditches the thing moved with ease, and we only got rid of it just at the edge of town. where it disappeared as suddenly as It came. The next day, in order to satisfy myself, and if possible dispel from my mind the unwelcome idea that it was a ghost we had seen the previous night, I visited the owners of the farm through whose fields the object had passed, to discover if there were any cattle in any of them, and was Informed that there was not, nor had there been for several years. I do not desire to comment on the strange, and, what seems to be an unreasonable tale," concluded Mr. Reagan, but merely narrate what my wife and myself actually witnessed."