Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This brief cautionary teaches us what should be obvious: if you summon the Devil, be damn sure you want him to oblige.  The “Fort Lauderdale News,” October 9, 1965:

OKLAHOMA CITY. A teenage girl was determined to disappear with the devil last night, but she made it only as far as a hospital. 

Friends convinced Kathy Campbell, 14, that if she laid on a grave and called 10 times for "Lucifer," she would disappear, or "something would happen to her." So, police said, Miss Campbell and four companions went to a graveyard, where she carefully stretched out on a grave in the darkness and pleaded for Lucifer to appear. 

After 10 attempts, Lucifer did not show up. But when the girl got to her feet a large bird swooped down out of the darkness and struck her on the chest. 

She was taken to a hospital in a state of shock. She was released a few hours later.

The Cat and the Terrifying Blue Light: A Ghost Story of Sorts

The following creepy little story seemed appropriate for Halloween.  This--for lack of a better word--”haunting” is one I find particularly disturbing, because the…ghost? elemental? apparition? natural phenomena? whatzit? was one that seemed to target not people, but animals.  This account, written by one “G. Llewellyn” appeared in the “Occult Review” for November 1910:

I must inform all and sundry that I am not a spiritualist, and that I know nothing whatever about spiritualism. I have been informed by several people that I am what is termed a “sensitive.”

I have never attended a séance or any meeting or gathering of the kind, nor had I ever read any literature dealing with such subjects as spiritualism or mysticism or occultism or anything of kindred nature until quite recently, when my attention was called to the Occult Review, which I found intensely interesting and illuminating.

As a journalist, and a very busy one, I am, as a rule, so tired when I go to bed--invariably in the small hours--that I fall asleep almost immediately and sleep for hours without ever a break. On a never-to-be-forgotten night I was in my usual state of health, I was untroubled and without a vestige of care.

I had had my usual supper. I had been in bed a short time and was in that blissful condition of mind when one is just dozing off. The room was in total darkness, as I had switched off the electric light and drawn thick, heavy curtains over the holland blinds that covered the two large windows. My pet cat invariably sleeps on my bed, and was in its customary place, curled up on the quilt, fast asleep.

As I lay there, with half-shut eyes, there suddenly appeared at the top of the wall on the right (the side to which I had turned), a long shaft of light, of the most beautiful shade of light bright blue. It moved and quivered along in the direction of the right window, and I watched it with fascinated gaze.

“How extraordinary!” I thought, “I never saw the moonlight come in in this fashion when those thick curtains were drawn right across, and it is a different blue from moonlight blue, too, and moves about so oddly...what can it be?...but of course it must be moonlight, and perhaps there are clouds passing over the moon?”

The light--a heavenly forget-me-not sort of blue--the counterpart of which, however, I have never seen, either before or since, still wavered and drifted across the room in the same part, near the ceiling, and I stupidly looked at the top of the door (over which hung a heavy crimson plush portière) as if a light could have been cast through a solid brick wall!

At last I jumped out of bed, pulled curtains and blind aside and looked out of the window. Nothing but impenetrable darkness met my astonished gaze. No moon, not a star, not a ray of light to be seen! Intense blackness and gloom--nothing more. I could not distinguish the road, or the opposite trees, or, in short, anything at all. The street lights are put out early in the country, and the night was of inky blackness.

“Could it have been some one with a lantern, or a searchlight?” I pondered, still marvelling over the occurrence, as I returned to bed. I was not in the least alarmed, and it had not even occurred to me that there was anything at all supernatural in connexion with the affair.

As I went on puzzling, or rather, trying to puzzle it out, the cat suddenly jumped up on the bed, his fur bristling all over his body, his eyes glaring, and with one bound he leaped to the door; and as he tore frantically at the plush portière, he emitted the most awful howl or scream that I ever heard from an animal--in fact, I did not think such a horrid, blood-curdling sound could have been given. I think my hair stood on end then, but even after this I did not entertain the least idea of anything at all supernatural. My idea was that the cat had suddenly gone mad! As for the blue light, this new and startling development had quite driven it out of my mind.

Hydrophobia or no hydrophobia, I was so distressed at seeing the poor animal’s agony of fear that I took it up in my arms and tried to soothe it. Trembling all over as if with ague, it cowered against me, hiding its head, and giving evidence of the most fearful state of terror and distress. I soothed and petted it, and gradually it grew calmer; but to my astonishment it peered over the side of the bed, glaring fearfully, its eyes blazing as if on fire, and its fur bristling again as at first. I saw nothing, but that the cat saw something I am absolutely convinced, and nothing could shake that conviction.

Feeling safe in my arms, now that the first shock of the horrid sight--whatever it may have been--was over, poor Fluff craned his neck eagerly and looked down on the carpet, watching the movements of the (by me) unseen enemy, as it apparently travelled along the bedside and rounded the end of the bed in front of the dressing-table. The “thing”--whatever it may have been--was on the floor, and made no attempt to get on the bed. Had it approached us, I am certain that Fluff would have expired at once; but, from the safe shelter of my arms, he watched the nocturnal visitor, following it with his eyes along the side of the room, between the bed and a huge mahogany chest of drawers, and round the end of the bedstead to the left. It seemed so strange to see the cat craning its head and following with its gaze some object undiscoverable by myself that I got up, and, leaning over the brass rail at the end of the bedstead, looked anxiously and intently in the direction indicated by the cat. All I saw was the carpet!

But it must be remembered that I saw the blue light when the cat was asleep. It might be suggested that my fear of the light was communicated to the cat, but then I had no fear of it, for I deemed it an ordinary (though perhaps unusually beautiful) shaft of moonlight until I found that there was no moon, and the night was as dark as Erebus.

One friend suggested that perhaps it was all a dream! Well, I know, and am prepared to swear, that it was not. If I had been asleep, the mere fact of getting out of bed, going to the window, drawing the curtains, and switching on the electric light, would have been sufficient to rouse me; and, again, I am not, and never have been, subject to delusions of any sort. As the editor of the Occult Review knows, I am on the staff of a well- known London weekly paper, of large circulation, and my pen-name is known all over the world. I am practical, business-like, and logical--not a dreamer, or a visionary. I may say, too, that my house is a new one. There has never been the slightest suggestion that it was haunted. There have been no other manifestations in it either before or since.

Recent studies of the effects of light upon living things have brought many new and surprising theories to the front. It is said that we are bathed in light, visible and invisible, for there is a radiation which has been termed “black light” which cannot be seen by our eyes, but which may be visible to eyes differently organized. Professor Jerviss declares that it is possible that these ghostly sheaths of ours are perceived by certain animals possessing the power to see in the dark.

Some time after my own remarkable experience my attention was drawn by a friend (to whom I had confided the whole matter) to an almost identical experience related by Mr. Maurice Hewlett to Miss Constance Smedley. There was the same blue light, wavering and flickering; there was a pet animal--a dog, not a cat, in this particular instance--sleeping on the bed; there was the fearful terror of the animal, its whining and moaning and whimpering, and, finally, there were ghostly hands seen passing over the dog, as if stroking it. At length, the whimpers slackened, and, ere long, ceased. The dog was dead…In the event of any one scoffing at my own honestly set down experience, I would ask these questions: Whence came this mysterious light, and how could the cat’s extraordinary terror be accounted for? Suppose, for instance, that my mind might for once have been subject to such an extraordinary hallucination, or that my eyes might, for once, have played me false--for we know that there are such things as optical illusions--it is difficult to believe that the cat should at the same moment suddenly have experienced the same hallucination, delusion, or illusion--call it what you will. Then, too, the cat was obviously terrified to the farthest limit of its endurance--had I not soothed it, and covered its head, I think it would have died from its fright--but I was not alarmed in the least. Puzzled I was, most assuredly, but not alarmed.

Perhaps it was a “cat” phantom, or a “dog” phantom that my poor Fluff saw--the ghost of some former pet of mine that haunted its erstwhile owner, and was suddenly seized with an access of jealousy and rage. It must have been a horrid object, anyway, for Fluff is the quietest, gentlest cat I have ever known. For a long time we fancied he was dumb, for by day or by night no sound was ever heard from his “voice-box.” He was fearfully scalded on one occasion, but even then only gave two small piteous “mious.” On another occasion he was trapped in a door, in a gale of wind, and gave a small and almost human cry at the moment he was released, but the howl he emitted when he saw the ghost--or whatever it was that he did see--was so loud and so horrible that I shall never forget it, nor the sight he presented after I had got a light and I saw him tearing at the plush portière in frantic efforts to escape.

If any one can offer a solution, or even make an attempt at a solution, I should be both interested and gratified. I have no theories of my own on the subject, though I have exhausted every possible field of speculation.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

This week's Link Dump is hosted by the last of our Halloween Cats 2022!

An "illicit infatuation" that did not end at all well.

This week in Russian Weird: Want to be buried alive?  It'll cost you.

A famed "living skeleton."

Winston Churchill's secret voyage.

The last of the East Anglia walnut farmers.

The paranormal researcher and Shirley Jackson.

The Willington Mill haunting.

Letters to the East India Company.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel like cooking.

An ancient baby who might have died from lack of sunlight.

Grandma finds a way to greet mourners at her own funeral.

A chilly encounter with a UFO.

The time when London partied on the frozen Thames.

A "hotch-potch ministry."

Etienne Bottineau and the mystery of nauscopy.

A coven of witches in Yorkshire.

The world's earliest known named author.

Svalbard and the frozen coffins.

Chartism and the spirit of Wat Tyler.

Some old cat superstitions.

Katherine Swynford's influence on British royalty.

Some ancient Scottish Halloween customs.

The black cats of Poe Cottage.

Women on 18th century warships.

The eccentric old lady of Stamford Street.

Geomagnetic fields and Biblical narratives.

The UK's oldest known human DNA.  No, it's not called "King Charles III."  Stop that.

That time the rock band KISS had a line of coffins.  To be fair, hearing their music on the radio back in the day often made me wish that I were dead.

Bring on the Banshees!

Bobbie the Wonder Dog.

A rather silly myth about Vlad Dracula.

Some vanished American Halloween traditions.

Some odd little news items from the past.

Ireland's notorious "changeling murder."

Cats often don't care if you're talking to them.  Thanks so much for the info, Scientific Captain Obvious.

A new look at Tutankhamun.

Britain's 1919 race riots.

That's it for this week!  See you on Halloween Monday, when we'll look at a--for lack of a better word--"ghost" that you would definitely not want anywhere near your cat.  In the meantime, here's an unusual musical collaboration.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It's Mystery Blood time! From the "Ste. Genevieve Fair Play," November 16, 1876:

The village of Victory is situated not far from Rochester, New York. A very mysterious event lately happened there. It was a bloody business which seems to have been without a motive so far as facts have developed. A Mr. F.S. Esmond and his wife boarded at the Covil House, and Mr. Esmond, having business at Seneca Falls, went, one day, to attend to it, leaving his wife in her rooms in the hotel. That night Mrs. Esmond alarmed the house with cries of "murder." The other boarders hurried to her room and found her shrieking and covered with blood. The bed, furniture, her clothing and nearly everything in the room was smeared and bespattered with blood. After a thorough examination it was found that Mrs. Esmond was entirely unhurt. She was not even scratched. The blood was, therefore, not hers. Whose blood it was, and how it came there are questions which at present defy solution. Mrs. Esmond's account of her awakening leaves the whole affair in mystery. She states that she felt something cold on her hand, which awakened her. She found that her hands and clothing were covered with something wet and cold. She struck a light and found it was blood. Then she screamed. Her door was locked. There were blood marks on her door outside, and the bloody print of a man's hand was on the wall near. As soon as the gory exterior of Mrs. Esmond was discovered several doctors and the coroner were summoned, but there was no work for any of them, as the woman was well and whole. Mr. Esmond on returning, thought it was a conspiracy to frighten his wife away from him, and she did immediately leave the hotel and go to her uncle's.

Unfortunately, this is all I've found about the mystery, so I can't say if it was ever resolved. I would also like to know why Mr. Esmond so readily assumed there was a "conspiracy" to separate him from his wife.

The Mysterious Death of Annie Mooney

"San Francisco Chronicle," August 27, 1870, via Newspapers.com

One day in August 1870, 13-year-old Annie Mooney she left her home in Brooklyn, California to attend her high school in neighboring Oakland.  When she failed to return that evening, her parents were immediately alarmed, as this was the first time she had remained away from home without their consent.  When there was still no sign of her by the next night, they went to the police, and a search was instigated.

Two days after her disappearance, a young girl registered for a room at San Francisco's Cosmopolitan Hotel.  The clerk noted that she tried to avoid his gaze, and generally acted nervous and peculiar.  She gave her name as Emily Hewitt.  She said she had no money, but that her father, Henry Hewitt, would come by later to pay for the room.  In those more trusting days, this promise evidently sufficed for the moment, and she was shown to room 227.

A short time later, she came down to the dining room for lunch.  After the meal, she asked to see another guest at the hotel, George W. Woods, who was a conductor on the Central Pacific Railroad.  When Woods was told of this request, he was rather puzzled--he knew of no "Emily Hewitt"--but he obligingly went to her room anyway.  When he opened the door, he found her sitting in a chair, writing. 

Woods immediately realized that he did indeed know the young woman--and she was the missing Annie.  "What are you doing here?" he asked in amazement.  

She replied, "Well, I am stopping here: mother thought I had better stop here all the time than be coming over."  When he asked here again why she was at the hotel, she hesitated and avoided giving an answer, although she insisted that her parents knew she was there.  He asked why she had summoned him.  

She fell silent.

Puzzled, and not a little exasperated, Woods turned to go, saying that he would tell her parents she was there.  A short time after he left, she again rang the clerk, saying that she wished to see Woods again.  However, when he returned, Miss Mooney refused to let him into the room.  He told the clerk that the young lady was acting very strangely.  From behind her door, Mooney was heard to cry, "Are you a constable?  Don't let them take me away."

A policeman named Poolewas called in.  He found Mooney so weak that she was unable to stand.  He believed she had been drugged.  Poole later stated that there was a strong smell of gas in the room, but Woods testified that he noticed no such thing.  He and Woods managed to bring her home, where she "stared wildly" at everyone, seemingly too out of her wits to explain herself, and vomited frequently.  A doctor was summoned, but he was at a loss what to do for her.  It appears she may already have been beyond medical assistance, in any case.  By midnight, she was dead.  It was immediately assumed that she had been drugged, likely for a nefarious sexual purpose--by some "inhuman monster."

Curiously, the autopsy was vague about what killed Annie Mooney.  Aside from the medicines given her just before her death, no poison was found in her body, or any evidence that she had inhaled gas.  She had a tubercular right lung, along with "an apparent congestion of the brain," but the doctors who examined the body could not state the cause of death with any certainty.  They were, however, careful to note that the dead girl had been a virgin.

The inquest revealed some curious information.  James Mooney, the dead girl's father, stated that on the evening Annie disappeared, a girl came to the house saying she had a message for Annie.  When told she was not in, the girl left.  James subsequently learned that this girl was a Fanny Woods.  (No relation to George.)  When he went to her house and asked what message she had for his daughter, Fanny denied ever going to his house, claiming that someone must have impersonated her.  However, James later learned from one of his sons that the day Annie vanished, the boy had seen Annie and Fanny Woods on a streetcar headed for the ferry boat.  James Mooney also said that his daughter had been "intimately acquainted" with George Woods, and had often ridden in his train.  "He once invited her to go to Sacramento with him."

Fanny Woods' testimony was suspiciously shifty.  She stated that she saw Annie on the morning of her disappearance at the train station, presumably on her way to school.  Annie told her that George Woods had given her a writing desk.  Fanny went on to say that she had never been to the Mooney home; did not, in fact, even know where it was.  However, two of Annie's siblings contradicted her, saying that on the day Annie vanished, they had met her near their home, and that she had asked them if Annie was at home.  It was established that there was an "acquaintance and intimacy" between George Woods and both the girls.

Fanny Woods was recalled the following day, when she admitted that she had indeed called at Annie's home.  She claimed that the only purpose of her visit was to see her friend "about going a fishing."  Later, she saw Annie at the train station, when she heard of the "very pretty philopena present" from Mr. Woods.  This was, she said, the last time she ever saw her friend.

All of this information was considered sufficient reason to arrest Conductor Woods, that friend and generous benefactor of pretty underage girls, and he was taken into custody.  We are told that courtroom onlookers could be heard uttering "the most unwarrantable remarks" against Woods, but the inquest testimony suggests that they were very warrantable, indeed.

When the principal of her school testified at the inquest, he revealed that the day before Annie disappeared, she was "ill or in a very singular mood."  When the noon recess bell rang, instead of leaving with the other girls, she simply put her head on her desk and remained still until the reassembling bell rang an hour later.  When he asked her if she was ill, she made no intelligible reply. Instead, she walked out of the classroom, and never returned.  She did not appear in school the next day.

A stage driver testified that on the day Annie vanished, he saw a young girl he identified as the deceased walking along the road between Oakland and Pacheco.  He stopped and offered her a ride.  She gave her name as "Emily Hewitt," and told him that she had no money, but wanted to go to Martinez to see her uncle.  He good-naturedly gave her a lift as far as Pacheco, after which he brought her to the Martinez stage-driver.  He found out later that the girl had been making inquiries about how to get to Benecia.

From there, Annie somehow made her way to San Francisco.  She went to an employment office and applied for a job as a copyist.  The proprietor offered her a position as a nursemaid instead.  She rejected the suggestion, and left after a few minutes.  She then went to another agency, where this time she agreed to apply for a post as a nurse to the children of a Mr. and Mrs. Block.  She then went to the  Block home and asked to be hired.  She said she was an orphan.  She had been trying to find an uncle of hers, the girl explained,  but as she had been unable to locate him, she needed to find a job.  Mrs. Block thought she was rather too young for the position, but allowed her to remain overnight in her house.  Soon after that, Annie checked into the Cosmopolitan.

Annie's parents told the inquest jury that they had no idea why their daughter left home.  They described her as a mature, well-behaved girl who seemed happy with her life.

The coroner's jury returned what the "Alta California" justly described as a "most extraordinary verdict."  Even though the doctors all testified that they found no sign that Annie had been poisoned or drugged, they ruled that she came to her death "by narcotic poison, administered by the hand of some person to the jury unknown."  As the jury declined to name any particular person as being responsible for her death, George Woods was released from prison.

And that was that.  The multitude of questions surrounding the mystery--Why did Annie leave home? Why did she want to see George Woods?  What, exactly, was going on between the girl and the conductor?  Fanny Woods obviously knew far more than she revealed at the inquest.  What was she hiding?  What killed Annie?--were all quickly forgotten.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

This week's Link Dump is hosted by yet another of our Halloween Cats!

In 1672, an angry mob of Dutchman delivered the ultimate political vote of no confidence.

Alaska's Mystery of the Missing Crabs.

A friendly reminder that if you start messing with Ouija boards, things can get weird.

Fibonacci numbers turn up in the darndest places.

The "world's scariest painting."

Halloween in Victorian times.

A UFO incident over Lake Michigan.

An ancient Roman refrigerator.

Hilary Mantel's brush with The Weird.

Some remarkable ancient rock carvings have been discovered in Iraq.

In 1466, a Swiss nobleman made a pilgrimage to King David's tomb.  And, of course, had to go all "Kilroy was here" on it.  Because tourists gonna tourist.

Utah's creepy Kay's Cross.

The "Titanic" of India.

A Chinese writing system that was only used by women.

Some rainmaking customs.

Engravings of a long forgotten London.

The ancient "tiny people" of Taiwan.

Brownie and Flora of Brooklyn's Pier 12.

A phantom tombstone.

It seems appropriate that "Nosferatu" was the film they couldn't kill.

A visit to the crypt of St. Mary the Virgin.

Ann "No, thanks, I'm really not hungry" Moore.

The 19th century Watier's Club.

The Morant Bay Rebellion.

The tomb of Santa Claus has been found. In other words, no gifts for you this year, kids!

The Knox Mine Disaster.

"No."

The theory that Mars used to--and maybe still does--contain subterranean life.

An 18th century "lift-the-flap" book.

The Plaistow Ghost.

"Solving" a 1,300 year old murder.

The 19th century sisters who pioneered the historical novel.

A duel between a bicycle and an umbrella.

Detroit's fiery "Devil's Night."

The man who survived a firing squad.

A contrary Victorian journalist.   (I agree with her about "Jane Eyre," though, so she couldn't have been that contrary.)

Oh, nothing, just black holes burping up stars.

A mysterious Baltimore murder.

Ancient Rome's Gate to Hell.

Elizabethan England's Portal to Hell.

The Churston Bigfoot.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a young girl's puzzling death.  In the meantime, here's Steeleye Span:

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It occurred to me that this blog has been unaccountably light on “ghost ship” stories, so here’s a fine one from South Africa.  The “Lyttelton Times,” April 16, 1853:

Sir--Permit me to communicate to you the following account of a very singular phenomenon which was observed at Green Point on Tuesday last and which would seem to impart some degree of credibility to the popular legend of the "Flying Dutchman." 

About 2 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon as I was standing together with four other persons on the beach at Green Point, near the residence of Mr. Searight, our attention was attracted by the appearance of a large ship of an ancient shape with tall massive masts and snow white sails distinctly looming through a faint mist about half-a-mile from the shore. Her decks were crowded with people and so distinct and vivid was the appearance that one of us observing her through a telescope imagined he could recognise among those on board several familiar forms and faces.  She appeared to be tossing about much without making any great progress through the water and as with a strange mixture of curiosity and dread we stood looking at the singular apparition she suddenly vanished and was seen no more.

Upon subsequent inquiry we ascertained that three other persons besides ourselves witnessed the strange spectacle and were similarly struck with its singular appearance and unaccountable evanescence.  In the hope of eliciting some explanation of this mysterious phenomenon which I imagine--not being myself of a superstitious temperament--owes its origin to some property of light hitherto unexplained, although commonly referred to the effect of mirage, I have been induced to communicate to you the above particulars and trust you will not hesitate to give them publicity--OBSERVER.--Cape Town Mail.