Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This curious little story--unique in Fortean circles as far as I know--appeared in the “Cleveland Leader,” April 7, 1875:

The Schenectady Union of March 30th tells this extraordinary story:

A few days ago a phenomenon of a very singular nature occurred at the residence of a Mr. Veeder at No. 37 Albany street. Mrs. Veeder at the time was engaged at her household duties, and all of a sudden she was astonished and confounded, according to her statement, by what seemed to be a flash of light that filled the room for a moment with a brilliant illumination. She was so overcome by the strange occurrence that she screamed at first, but the light having disappeared, she regained her composure, and to her still greater astonishment, happening to cast her eyes toward the ceiling of the kitchen where she was at the time she saw the mark of a child’s foot on the wall overhead. She stood a moment contemplating the object on the ceiling when she saw another mark precisely like the first begin to develop itself on the ceiling, which soon appeared in full, being the print of a child’s foot corresponding exactly to the other one. 

She became alarmed and rushed from the room. Proceeding to a neighbor’s, she called in another woman, and both watched the curious affair. Soon other footprints developed themselves on the wall when another lady was called in, but the footprints continued to multiply. 

This curious development went on until the ceiling of the kitchen was almost covered with these tracks crossing the wall in different lines of direction, and soon after similar marks were seen in quite a number on the ceiling of an adjoining bedroom. The marks in both rooms were all of a child’s foot and were all of the same size and precisely alike in all respects. The ceiling, like all others at this time of the year, is more or less colored and the marks on the wall look like white spots of the foot shape. The marks are still on the wall although some of them have been rubbed off.